Newport sailor wants to build a virtual lifeboat

I promise Ken Barnes Jr. that we aren’t planning to chronicle his every move for the rest of his life. He seems pleased to hear that.

But when a local guy sets sail around the world, only to come up lame at Cape Horn and become the subject of worldwide media attention when he’s rescued, we can’t just let him drop off the face of the Earth.

Especially when the Newport Beach guy is now off on another adventure that has him jazzed all over again. But don’t worry, it doesn’t involve a boat.

It involves a computer.

After his brush with the fates in the Pacific onboard his 44-foot boat, Privateer, Barnes did a lot of reflecting. He realized the website that was reporting on his trip and its fateful end had played a role in his recovery. If only because people knew where he was and what he was doing.

But what about people who set off on lesser adventures and don’t tell anyone? A daytrip to climb rocks. A weekend whitewater rafting trip. A simple hike off the beaten path.

All that has led him and a couple friends to expand his kensolo.com into an online service that, as they envision it, wouldn’t leave anyone stranded for any length of time. In its simplest form, it would allow an adventurer to log on and tell selected friends or relatives where he or she was going. In addition, the person leaving the message would designate a specific time at which he would delete the message. If the message weren’t deleted, Barnes says, that would signal that the person may have encountered unexpected trouble.

He sees the site as potentially being useful both for big recreational outings as well as small local trips. Perhaps something as simple as a walk to the store or a car trip in bad weather.

“It’s just a starting spot to alert someone,” Barnes says. “Just a way to give someone a starting point to help them get out of a tough spot.”

He thinks the new feature will be operational within a couple weeks and likely evolve over a period of months to provide information or helpful hints on different types of adventures.

I’m not a website analyst, so I won’t pass judgment on the idea. I just was curious to know what Barnes’ next big thing would be, or whether the ill-fated trip had knocked the stuffing out of him.

No way, he says.

But can you get the same buzz from a website that you can from circumnavigating the globe?

“What is an adventure?” he asks. He then notes that we all define the word differently and that being adventurous isn’t restricted to solo sailing. “This, to me, is an adventure,” he says of the fledgling website. “I can’t imagine the high I’m going to get when the first guy’s ashes are hauled out of the fire because he logged on to this.”

He explains that his colorful language means the guy will be rescued, not charred to a crisp. “He’s going to get out of a tough spot he didn’t expect to get into,” Barnes says, “because he logged on.”

Fair enough. But what about, you know, you getting back in the saddle again?

Barnes laughs. “I absolutely will do things outdoorsy and I’m looking forward to it, thank you very much,” he says. The lure of the wilds and the open seas will call to him again, and he wants to return to Chile -- probably with a friend -- and then kayak through the Straits of Magellan.

I ask if he read or heard the critical remarks some people made after his recent trip. The common themes seemed to be that he selfishly put others at risk or expense to rescue him or that he could have found an easier way to deal with a midlife crisis.

Barnes, 47, hasn’t seen all of them but says he respects his critics’ opinions. He notes, however, that he spent two days with his rescuers on their fishing trawler, where they spend six months a year. They talked a lot about work and families, and Barnes believes that the opportunity to save someone’s life is something most people would relish.

In keeping with my pledge not to be his biographer, we wrap things up. But, of course, we all want to know whether our intrepid hero will set sail solo again.

For now, Barnes ain’t talking. He says only that he’s sailing with a friend to Catalina in a couple weeks and “as far as big adventures go, the next thing I’m talking about is in 2009.”

I can leave it there.

I ask, however, if he’s having fun looking for a job, which he’s said before he now needs.

“No,” he says, “but that’s a whole other story.”

Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.