>
>I grew up around sailboats. Sailing and fly fishing have a lot in
>common. You never reach a point of total success or knowledge. You are
>learning and tweaking your entire life. For a person who is always
>restless and needing to adjust things, sailing is simply wonderful.
>There is nothing worse to me than pointing a boat in a certain
>direction, plunging the throttle forward and pretending that you are
>important. I want to keep engineering a better way or a better trim.
>
Aha! Now I have a better understanding of who's on the other end of these
conversations. I knew that there was something beyond just an engineering
background.
I've never been under sail, but before I went to high school I had ridden
all of the Cunnard liners, the United States, and two troop ships, and the last
of those went through the tail end of a hurricane between Greenland and Bermuda
for two days. Plus I got to witness the Stockholm limping into New York harbor
after it had rammed and sunk the Andrea Doria.
The result is that I still cannot read anough about being under sail,
fiction or history, the last being "Rounding the Horn" by Dallas Murphy. A
recent favourite was "The Way of a Ship: A Square-Rigger in te Last Days of
Sail" by Derek Lundy.
Have you ever read "Tuning the Rig: A Journey to the Arctic" by Harvey
Oxenhorn? It's a wonderful true-life account of growing up and rising beyond
your limitations. Great reading for anyone who thinks there are no remaining
frontiers.
Chris
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro
- Hunter S. Thompson
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