Describe Sailing

[RookieHunter]

When I was initially reading about sailing, I had only been once on a cruiser (several times on a hobie). But the forward by Dennis Conner stated that "sailing is the anecdote of modern life". You know you want to go from A to B but you have a set speed and set method. You need to sit back and enjoy it.

During my sailing lessons we passed through a school of Spanish Mackerel. The school was playing on the surface and they didn''t dive deep because we don''t have a motor running. They simply split to allow the boat to pass and reconverge in the back to play. The pelicans fly to the mast and settle within feet because they feel no threat. With this I ask you...........


Where is the joy in a 300 HP Mercury?
Describe Sailing in your best memory.

[73mensailed]

A motorboat will take you to a destination, Sailing is the destination.

[DuaneIsing]

I don''t happen to agree with its sentiment, but I belly laughed when I first read the following definition of sailing in a humor book by Beard and (?):

Sailing: the act of getting wet and becoming ill while slowly going nowhere at great expense.

[JohnDrake]

When I raced sailboats, we would all use this quote to describe what it was like (I cannot remember who to attribute it to):

"Its like standing in a cold shower with your clothes on tearing up hundred dollar bills"

:O)))))

Having raced, sailing, cruised and owned several boats....it is SO true. :O))) But ya gotta love it.

Now that I livaboard on weekends and cruise...I simply say, "Sailing is life, everything else is everything else".

[c172guy]

We were camping on Douglas lake in East Tennessee with the Smokey Mountains in the background. My son and I were in a 18'' Chrysler Buccaneer and my wife and daugher were in a 17'' aluminum canoe. There was the perfect amount of wind that we could go faster than the canoe but not by much. We had a bucket and would throw a bucket of water on them as we passed. They would splash us with their paddles. We played this game of "pirates" for about an hour. My son was about 9 and really got into the "pirate talk". We did figure 8''s around the canoe to get into postion to give them a "broadside". They had better range with the paddles. All got soaked. All had a great time.
Ghosting along watching wild turkeys and ospreys on a lake. Watching Dolphins,turtles and sharks from my laser in the ocean off south carolina. Geysers of water shooting up on both sides as I hanked on the jib going out through the jetty near Corpus Christi,hanging by the boom on the windsurfer in high wind and chop are all great memorys. But that gentle play on that calm sunday morning stands out!!!
Tom

[pirateofcapeann]

Sailing. The “art” of cruising. To me, it is the exploration and the finding. It requires individual skills and whit above and beyond any other mode of transportation. It also has the least impact on another’s environment. When you arrive at a place, you can take a deeper sense of pride that you have worked with the earth in your passage and have left behind nothing more then a slight ripple on the water!

[kokopelli9]

There is a rhythm in life that we dance to everyday. Sometimes the steps are familiar and sometimes they are new and awkward to us...no matter how hard we try, sometimes we can''t feel the ease of the dance...and then the music changes again ever so slightly and a safe, new but comfortable beat finds it''s way to our dance floor.

This safe steady rhythm is like a sanctuary...a music we all shelter in us...a music that allows our hearts to dance with passion, wholeness, freedom and freshness. We find this music through different instruments and if we listen so carefully we learn to master our instrument and crave to play whenever our souls desire nurturing.

Sailing is my instrument of playing the music of my heart''s sanctuary. It is within this music that my soul feels free to trust my emotions...all of my emotions. I can allow myself to feel the power of the wind and the water and to be afraid of the strength they have. Yet, I can celebrate the will, the determination that my body harbors and know that my limits are always greater than I first believe.
I can give myself permission to feel afraid...the elements are greater than me...yet I can feel strong in my weakness...I can feel alone, in my own world on a body of water much larger than my eye views...I am small yet there is so very much to accompany me...so much in nature for me to connect with.
I am happy yet, solemn in both the beauty and pain of the world.
I am secure in who I am...including my faults and weaknesses. Passionate in my desires to give all the good that life offers to those I love including my own being.
I have an ambition like none other...I am content to sail where I am, but a desire calls me to take on adventures that play in my mind and tempt me with their images.
And I am confident that just as in sailing when the wind dies and then comes back, I know that if I lose my rhythm, if I falter in the steps of my dance, I can have hope that my stumbling will teach me a new direction...a new tune that will bring melodies for my spirit to dance around.
Sailing is always a forward trip...the wind and the sails only move us to a place ahead of where we came...when I am sailing I know that my being is going forward also.

[phunter]

You are moving slowly through the channel under the power of a noisey smelley (but needed)diesel. The boat begrudgeing goes where it is pointed but anyone at all in touch with their five senses knows that this is not what this boat was designed to do. As we near the end of the channel the skipper gives the command to unfurl the jib, raise the main, bear off in a direction only determined minutes before by reading wind conditions. About this time the engine is killed and the boat wallows for an instant. The sight of sails filling, the sound of rigging groaning, the smell of the air, the feel of the tiller or wheel as the driving force is transfered from a propeller to an imaginary point somewhere in front of the boat. It is as if a butterfly has been released from it''s cocoon as a mediocre powerboat becomes a sailboat....

Paul

[kmeeks]

Aye, to be sure - the wind filling the sails, the gentle swell of the ocean waves, the sound of gulls crying, the splash of a dolphin breaching nearby...all fill the soul with joy indescribable.

But sailing has also revealed another dimension to me - the simple joy of mending something that is broken so that it is is as good as new - or better. It allows a human being to participate in the dance of renewal.

As the giant SaltHeart Foamfollower said, "Stone and Sea are deep in Life - permanence at rest, permanence in motion. Participants in the Power that remains." - from The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, by Stephen R. Donaldson

[kokopelli9]

Yes, it is a dance....! The one I described above...renewal, life...etc.