In general I am the type of person who wants to gather as much data as possible before making a decision. My feeling is that most of the time there is a superior option, and if none appears obvious it's because you don't understand the complete picture yet. I'd prefer to defer a decision than make one without feeling entirely comfortable with it. (By the way, this drives Julia absolutely crazy, as she takes the polar opposite approach to making decisions).

The data-driven approach works well a good deal of the time, but there is a certain category of choices where it really falls short. These are the decisions where a major piece of the possible competing outcomes is simply unknowable. A certain sign that you are facing one of these is when you start saying things like "it will probably be fine...but...if it's not it could be a catastrophe."

So now for some nautical detail. The standing rigging (all the wires and fittings that hold the mast upright) has a lifespan somewhere between 10-15 years, depending on use, quality of the original materials, weather, and luck. If you are very diligent (and of course lucky) you might manage to find the signs of impending failure before it actually becomes failure ('TIMBER!').

Our standing rigging is about 8 years old, and we've always planned to replace it as a precautionary measure before leaving. However, after some serious sticker shock after getting a re-rigging quote, we've started wondering whether we really need a new rig...and right there you end up in one hell of a 'who knows' decision making process.

After an evening or two of running in circles on the issue, we decided that we needed expert advice. The problem is, no one really wants to give you an answer one way or the other (which is understandable, because essentially they are saying 'who knows? and I don't want to be the one who said things will be fine if they turn out not to be'). A typical conversation goes like this:

Us: 'So, having looked at the rigging, and given our plans what are your thoughts?'
Rigging Expert: 'Well, everything looks good, there are a few things here and there that should be remedied, but generally everything is good. The materials quality is high, and appears to have been put together well.'
Us: 'Whew, well that's a big relief because...'
Rigging Expert: 'Uh yeah, so like I was saying everything looks okay, but you can't really know, and you wouldn't want to have something happen when you were far from land or access to repairs.'
Us: 'Uh, yeah that's pretty much the reason we came to get your opinion.'
Rigging Expert: 'I'll send you my bill.'