Nautical Wit 'n Wisdom.....

[El Pirata]

I hate it when that happens.

[the Royaliste]

All hands unmoor! proclaims a boisterous cry,

All hands unmoor! the cavern'd rocks reply:

Roused from repose aloft the sailors swarm,

And with their levers soon the windlass arm:

The order given, up springing with a bound,

They fix the bars, and heave the windlass round;

At every turn the clanging pawls resound;

Up-torn reluctant from its oozy cave

The ponderous anchor rises o'er the wave.

High on the slippery masts the yards ascend,

And far abroad the canvas wings extend.

-William Falconer

[Coastie04]

Entering port is, I think, the cream of the sport. A strange port, a yacht with no engine, a quiet summer's night and there one has all the makings of a pleasant and most interesting little bit of seamanship.

-Humphrey Barton

"To sail is the thing," wrote Arthur Ransome in his children's classic Swallows and Amazons. And just what is that thing? Every sailor knows. It's what the poets say and the pictures show, and everything else, too; it's the joy of casting off and the delight of returning home, and it's all the winds and waves in between. It's the beauty of a boat and the power of the currents, the sound of ratcheting winches and the strain on the wheel; it's the fair breezes and sunsets, the storms and luffing sails. It's the beer in the bar when the race is done, and that moment when you feel you'll never get there. It's what sailors mean when, safe and dry, standing on solid ground, they look at you and say "I'd rather be sailing."

-Anne Depue

Isn't that last one great?

[the Royaliste]

Aye,laddie buck!!..Great indeed!...'messin' about in boats.....RR!

[Daniel]

"SInce medieval days...no contrivance for fighting has matched in discomfort and inconvenience and use contrary to nature the floating castle called a ship of the line in the age of fighting sail. With its motor power dependent on the caprice of heaven and direction-finding on the distant stars, and its central piece of equipment - the mast - dependent on seasoned timber that was rarely obtainable, and control of locomotion dependent on rigging and ropes of a complexity to defy philosophers of the Sorbonne, much less the homeless untutored poor off the streets who made up the crews, and communication from commander to his squadron dependent on signal flags easily obscured by distance or smoke from the guns or by pitching of the ship, these cumbersome vehicles were as convenient as if dinosaurs had survived to be used by cowboys for driving cattle."

- - Barbara Tuchman, "The First Salute."

[the Royaliste]

We heard her a mile to west'ard- the liner that cut us through-

As crushing the fog at twenty-jog she drove with her double screw.

We heard her a mile to west'ard as she bellowed to clear her path,

The grum, grim grunt of her whistle, a leviathan's growl of wrath.

We could tell she was aimed to smash us, so we clashed at our little bell,

But the sound was shredded by screaming wind and we simply rung our knell.

And the feeble breath, that screamed at Death through our horn was beaten back,

And we knew that doom rode up the sea toward the shell of our tossing smack.

-Holman F. Day

[Zephyr]

There is no dilemma compared with that of the deep-sea diver who hears the message from the ship above, "Come up at once. We are sinking." -Robert Cooper

I be guess'n that's where the concept of "meet'n half" way developed....

[the Royaliste]

"To Gam".......is a substitute for the verbs "to visit", "to gossip." It expresses the garrulity of the sea, and is a pleasant break in the monotony of the life.

-Jack London

[the Royaliste]

By and by I ran away. I said I never would come home again till I was a pilot and could come home in glory. - Mark Twain

To heave the lead the seaman spring, and to the pilot cheerly sung,

"By the deep-nine!"

- Charles Dibdin

[the Royaliste]

The best noise in all the world is the rattle of the anchor chain when it comes into harbor at last and lets it go over the bows.

-Hiliare Belloc

After dinner one of our mess went aloft to look out, and presently announced the long-wished forsound, Land! Land! In less than an hour we could descry it from the deck, appearing like tufts of trees. I could not discern it so soon as the rest; my eyes were dimmed with the suffusion of two small drops of joy.

-Benjamin Franklin

[the Royaliste]

There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not:

The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid.

-Proverbs 30

[Coastie04]

They that go down to the sea in ships,

that do business in great waters;

These see the works of the Lord,

and his wonders in the deep.

-Psalm 107

[Coastie04]

That is what sailing is about. You sail and sail and sail, enjoying the lovely aspect of God's seas and then you wish for a little change, a bit of adverse weather, something to show off your expertise, perhaps just to prove to yourself you're good at playing the chess game of nature and survival.

-William F. Buckly, Jr.

[the Royaliste]

Attaboy, Coastie!......(doin' handsprings 'cross the deck ).......

[the Royaliste]

"And, from the designer of my 1959 Ketch",

You should try not to lug along what you are trying to leave behind.

-L. Francis Herreshoff

[the Royaliste]

I have met poor grammarians who were good navigators, but I have never met a good navigator who was not an exceptionally intellegent man.

-Felix Riesenberg

[Coastie04]

No aspect of the sailor's world is more mysterious to the landsman than the practice of navigation. To find a precise point in a trackless waste seems neither art nor science, but magic. Yet, in no other sphere of progress has the continuity of development been so clearly based on the heritage of the past, nor has the accumulated knowledge been so universally shared by men of all races, creeds and nations.

-Carleton Mitchell

The first feeling the shipwreck gave me was one of incredulity. "It can't happen to me," I muttered as I bit my lip. "Wrecks only happen to other people, because my preparations and my seamanship are too perfect."

-Hal Roth

[Zephyr]

That is what sailing is about. You sail and sail and sail, enjoying the lovely aspect of God's seas and then you wish for a little change, a bit of adverse weather, something to show off your expertise, perhaps just to prove to yourself you're good at playing the chess game of nature and survival.

-William F. Buckly, Jr.

I imagined it being a bit like riding a horse well....learning what and why...practicing so it becomes natural.....and then......it becomes seamless....part of you...inclusive....not so much a challenge but an integration................like dance....when you're not thinking about what to do next/calculating.......more like.......just knowing.......

or do you have to stay in your thoughts more? controling the ship? awareness of the the wind and sea?

[the Royaliste]

It becomes as one with you, all-feeling:

'The romance of the sea is a strange thing.

It manages to cling to some extent to everything that floats, save and except possibly bucket dredgers and mud hoppers.'

-C. Fox Smith

A small sailing craft is not only beautiful,

it is seductive and full of strange promise and a hint of trouble.

-E.B. White

[Coastie04]

There is little man has made that approaches anything in nature, but a sailing ship does. There is not much man has made that calls to all the best in him, but a sailing ship does.

-Alan Villiers

Most everyone who has inherited a love of the sea feels that the clipper bow is a bifitting finial to a sailing vessel, as a beautiful head of hair is to a woman. Perhaps neither the long hair nor the bowsprit is necessary, but when either is removed there is a loss of character that is hard to replace.

-L. Francis Herreshoff

The perfection of a yacht's bearty is that nothing should be there for only beauty's sake.

-John MacGregor

If a man must be obsessed by something, I suppose a boat is as good as anything, perhaps a bit better than most.

-E. B. White

[the Royaliste]

Until you do it all yourself you cannot have any idea of the innumerable minutiae to be attended to in the proper care of a yacht

-John 'Rob Roy' MacGregor

I think the modern desire to go to sea for fun must be all to the common good,

The world has to be explored anew.

H.M. Tomlinson

[the Royaliste]

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat.

-Edward Lear

He who goes to sea for pleasure will go to Hell for a pastime.

-Samuel Johnson

[Cap'n Coyote]

Alright...this lyric has been stuck in my head for a week now, so I'm exorcising it here:

You treat me like I was your ocean

You swim in my blood when it's warm

My cycles of circular motion

Protect you and keep you from harm

You live in a world of illusion

Where everything's peaches and cream

We all face a scarlet conclusion

But we spend our time in a dream

Steve Miller, Jungle Love

May be slightly off-topic...cope. I needed it out.

[the Royaliste]

Well, then, the instrumental from his very first album,'Sailor', mentioned somewhere before in the Pub, "A Song For Our Ancestors", is about as nautical as they come, Maytee!..(If ye find a copy, I'd be obligin', eh?)

[Blind Rhoid Pyle]

He had bought a large map representing the sea,

Without the least vestige of land:

And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be

A map they could all understand.

"What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,

Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?"

So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply

"They are merely conventional signs!

"Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!

But we've got our brave Captain to thank:

(So the crew would protest) "that he's bought us the best--

A perfect and absolute blank!"

~Lewis Carroll

from The Hunting of the Snark

Lots of fun nautical nonsense in that poem!