Dreams of Sailing

Many boaters never leave the dock, or if they do, it is only for an afternoon sail, a short trip to the fuel dock or pump-out station, or a nearby weekend anchorage. Their goal is simply living on a boat and experiencing dockside friendships and waterfront atmosphere.

For others, the boat is a means to an end. A magic carpet transforming sailing daydreams into the reality of cruising to far off places. The boat offers an adventurous life filled with the pleasures of like-minded companions, distant shores, and exciting passages.

Daydreaming of future adventures and reminiscing over past ones is a hobby all in itself. Beyond bay and coastal voyages, I ventured across the Atlantic and eventually circled the world imagining myself following the wakes of Columbus and the early explorers to make my own discoveries. Instead of unknown landmasses, discoveries included foreign cultures and feelings of self-reliance. Along the way, I picked up a few sailing skills, a penchant for boat maintenance, and an interest in the history of the great age of discovery. And most important, a fondness for keeping adventure logs for future reminiscing.

I am fortunate to have lived a small part of my daydreams. Following the advice of the famed Columbus chronicler, Samuel Eliot Morison, whose words are chiseled on a statue in Boston―Dream dreams. Then write about them. Aye, but live them first.

A legacy of memories for family and friends is another way of leaving a record of one’s wakes and footprints. As famed Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson put it in The Social Conquest of Earth, “When one dies, an entire library of both experiences and imaginings is extinguished.”

Voyages by small boat are not the most comfortable way to travel. Passages are often slow and uncomfortable. There is a real element of risk in facing hostile natural elements ranging from the tedium of being becalmed to the panic of storms and unfriendly shores. But surviving is an unparalleled experience. It is a return to basics with a few extras like exotic sail and hull materials, space-age communication and navigation equipment, and modern comforts of stereo and reading lights. For every gadget and convenience on board, making sailing comfortable and safe, there is an emergency plan in the captain’s mind of how to survive without it. Breaking down, getting lost, or learning to live without are acceptable risks taken in exchange for the rewards of a successful passage and the ensuing feeling of mastery and self-reliance.

In a less dramatic sense, sailing is a wonderfully healthy activity. There is physical exercise of living on a rocking small boat. There are moments of exertion such as handling heavy anchors, hauling oneself or someone else up the mast, winching in a large sail in a blow, launching or retrieving a dinghy, moving supplies on or off the boat, fending off pilings. . . . In between is the flexing of muscles to simply stay upright in a rolling boat, or the stretching of tendons to grab a handhold. These small exercises often go unnoticed compared to the strain of pushing, pulling, or lifting, but their constancy makes them just as important.

Then there is the mental exercise of recording observations and staying on top of a myriad of boat systems even the simplest of passages, including such varied subjects as diesel mechanics, meteorology, navigation, electrical circuitry, fresh-water plumbing. . . . Conscientious captains and crews take pleasure in mastering their small domain and learning to live comfortably by their wits.

Slow passages offer endless opportunities to observe, study, and contemplate one’s surroundings. This leads to further mental exercise, maybe not as pressing as navigation, reading weather signs, or repairing something, but equally challenging for the curious. My readings of Columbus’s voyages became as much a part of my Atlantic crossings as being up-to-date on navigational charts and first aid treatments.

In provisioning a boat for a voyage, there is a heightened awareness of healthy foods. It goes beyond joking about scurvy — a problem besetting all long voyages until its cure was discovered in the 18th century. Today provisioning focuses on a balanced diet, sufficient fluids, variety, and spoilage. These concerns are no different from weekly food shopping at a supermarket, but not being able to shop at sea, focuses attention on adequate stocks, storage space, and quality foods.

There are other, less tangible, rewards to the adventurous boating life. Some years ago several scientific reports looked into willful risk taking — climbing mountains, motorcycle racing, cave-diving . . . . They concluded that men and women needed this form of risk-taking exercise, ever since we stopped foraging for food and defending our caves. In today’s safe and soft environment, we lack risk taking thrills. Some get it from stock trading or betting it all on a horse. Others get their thrills from adventure travel. In a New York Times article on risk takers, correspondent Bruce Weber wrote, “This is, of course, the thrill of risk, the thing adventurers talk about, the answer to the question, Why? This is perennially posed to mountain climbers, around-the-world-solo sailors, transpacific balloonists and their ilk. It’s the only reason bungee jumping exists. It’s a great subject. Writers love it, but it’s like sex to a virgin or heartbreak to one who has not loved and lost; to the uninitiated, reading about it doesn’t really give you an idea.”

Researcher, Baruch Fischoff, of Carnegie-Mellon University, said, “More is known about why people don’t take risks than why they do. . . . We have a health establishment whose job it is to keep us from hurting ourselves. We don’t have a department of pleasure maximization.”

The most rewarding part of boat living and cruising for me is the intimate opportunity to learn about new cultures. Entering many ports is to experience the history of waterfront trading centers like Georgetown in Washington, DC or of Bergen, Norway, part of the ancient Hanseatic League. Once tied up at a marina or town wall, there are the more mundane cultural experiences in searching for provisions, repairs, laundromats, public transport, and barbers for overdue haircuts. It is all part of a great life experience.