Dry Dock

Once at a meeting in Florida, I heard a man complain about not being able to remove the barnacles from his boat. It occurred to me that recovery is like removing barnacles from a ship. These insidious, clinging, malignant growths slowly attach themselves to every exposed part of the hull. Performance, not just appearance, begins to deteriorate. The ship slows down, has to struggle to stay on course, and worst of all, the barnacles have begun to eat away the hull. In dry dock, the ship dries out, and in a long, slow, difficult process, the barnacles are removed; finally, a new ship emerges, functioning properly for the first time in years.