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The sea drives truth into a man like salt.
Oct 2, 2025
Headwinds are sore vexations and the more passengers the sorer.
The best that science can devise and that naval organization can provide must be regarded only as an aid, and never as a substitute for good seamanship.
It is the weather, not work, that wears out sails.
Only fools and passengers drink at sea.
The ocean is an object of no small terror.
The wonder is always new that any sane man can be a sailor.
How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean.
The thing I realized this last few days is that the earth is a big place.
Spirits rise as the sails fill... Gone is the sea's glassy surface, and with it the terrible glare. Close the hatches and ports! We're sailing again!
It's remarkable how quickly a good and favorable wind can sweep away the maddening frustrations of shore living.
Waves are not measured in feet or inches, they are measured in increments of fear.
I can't wait for the oil wells to run dry, for the last gob of black, sticky muck to come oozing out of some remote well. Then the glory of sail will return.
No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.
The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.
A sailing ship is no democracy; you don't caucus a crew as to where you'll go anymore than you inquire when they'd like to shorten sail.
Success soon palls. The joyous time is when the breeze first strikes your sails, and the waters rustle under your bows.
The only way to get a good crew is to marry one.
To reach a port we must set sail
For the truth is that I already know as much about my fate as I need to know. The day will come when I will die. So the only matter of consequence before me is what I will do with my allotted time. I can remain on shore, paralyzed with fear, or I can raise my sails and dip and soar in the breeze.
Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.
The chance for mistakes is about equal to the number of crew squared.
The ocean has always been a salve to my soul.
I don't know who named them swells. There's nothing swell about them. They should have named them awfuls.
I can remain on shore, paralyzed with fear, or I can raise my sails and dip and soar in the breeze.
If a man is to be obsessed by something, I suppose a boat is as good as anything, perhaps a bit better than most.
The desire to build a house is the tired wish of a man content thenceforward with a single anchorage. The desire to build a boat is the desire of youth, unwilling yet to accept the idea of a final resting place.
The sail, the play of its pulse so like our own lives: so thin and yet so full of life, so noiseless when it labors hardest, so noisy and impatient when least effective.
It takes a minimum of six people, working in close harmony, to successfully flush a nautical toilet. That's why those old ships carried such large crews.
Even now; with a thousand little voyages notched in my belt. I still feel a memorial chill on casting off.
Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Give him a fishing lesson and he'll sit in a boat drinking beer every weekend.
I once knew a writer who, after saying beautiful things about the sea, passed through a Pacific hurricane, and he became a changed man.
Man marks the earth with ruin - his control stops with the shore.
The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.
The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.
Any damn fool can navigate the world sober. It takes a really good sailor to do it drunk.
I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.
To reach a port, we must sail - sail, not tie at anchor - sail, not drift.
Right," I scoffed, "Alpha Yam Ergo." Adrian nodded solemnly. "A very old and prestigious society." "I've never heard of them," said the girl who'd claimed the first shirt. "They don't let many people in," he said. In white paint, he wrote his fake fraternity's initials: AYE. "Isn't that what pirates say?" asked one of the girls. "Well, the Alpha Yams have nautical origins," he explained. To my horror he began painting a pirate skeleton riding a motorcycle. "Oh, no," I groaned. "Not the tattoo." "It's our logo," he said.
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.
To young men contemplating a voyage I would say go.
The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.
I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship.
It isn't that life ashore is distasteful to me. But life at sea is better.
A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.
later down the road of life, i made the discovery that salt water was also good for the mental abrasions one inevitably acquires on land.
When you can’t change the direction of the wind — adjust your sails
He is the best sailor who can steer within fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the greatest obstacles.
And the winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.