Famous sailing quotes are inspiring. It never gets old as anyone who has done a few cruises will tell you. I started my sailing life racing around the buoys in various dinghy classes, and then somehow started crewing on some racing yachts. All that intensity and Type A behavior and autocratic Captain Bligh style skippers wasn’t for me Fortunately I had a more Jimmy Buffet attitude to sailing. I completed the conversion when following a very hard race in my Laser, a fellow competitor was beside me and looking at these people sat back in the cockpit relaxing over a late lunch and a wine. The cruising switch was thrown and three cruising yachts later still cruising.
I ended up altering my electrical career into the marine world and while I have spent a good many years on merchant vessels and offshore oil drilling rigs, I have also been heavily involved in cruising yacht electrical and electronic systems. Some of you will even have purchased one of my books. It is still in the blood and as things keep changing I also keep trying to keep up with technology. “I once gave up sailing, it was the worst morning of my life!”
These famous sailing quotes summed up my start of life at sea and
still inspire. I enjoy the excitement of making a new landfall but equally I
enjoy that first movement as you head out to sea and rise to the swell. DH Lawrence
captures that feeling perfectly.
“………There is something in the long, slow lift of the ship, and her long, slow slide forwards which makes my heart beat with joy. It is the motion of freedom"
D H Lawrence
“Land was created to provide a place for steamers to visit.”
Brooks Atkinson
Verdeans quote also sums up my own life at sea, it has been full of fun, enjoyment, occasional fear and terror and many emotions in between.
"I cannot hold a grudge against the sea, because all that I have the sea has given me."
C. Verdean
These are a curated selection of my favorite sailing quotes and excerpts about sailing and yachting, words from the sea. I have always had these quoted pasted into the front of my log books. Yes! I still maintain a log book! Some traditions die hard. The quotes serve to remind me why I chose a life afloat as a seafarer and why I liveaboard and go cruising. I was once asked what I did when I went ashore on leave and my reply was I spend my time off on my boat, which was greeted with total consternation.
When things get a bit fraught and challenging then simply referring to these enlightening words helps give some perspective. If it were easy everyone would do it.
“The sea
is dangerous and its storms terrible, but these obstacles have never been
sufficient reason to remain ashore….unlike the mediocre, intrepid spirits seek
victory over those things that seem impossible….it is with an iron will that
they embark on the most daring of all endeavours….to meet the shadowy future
without fear, and conquer the unknown.”
Ferdinand Magellan (c1520)
“As for me and the sea, she delighted me from the first.”
and
“The days pass happily with me wherever my ship sails.’
and
"I once knew a writer who, after saying beautiful things about the sea, passed through a Pacific hurricane, and he became a changed man."
Joshua Slocum. The first solo circumnavigator on Spray and his grave is the sea.
“That,
Captain Bligh, that is the thing, I am in hell! I am in hell!”
Fletcher Christian, lamenting life in Tahiti and the Bounty Mutiny
For many years Jimmy Buffet has been an icon with his cruising music and its always great to play his music on board. Many great songs including A Pirate Turns 40 and Margaritaville.
“Son of a Son of a Sailor,
The sea’s in my veins,
My tradition remains,
I’m just glad I don’t live in a trailer!”
Jimmy Buffet
The song Cool Change encapsulates sailing alone and the lyrics remain inspirational by Glenn Shorrock who truly understood it and the Little River Band who performed this classic sailing song.
If there's one thing in my life that's missing
It's the time that I spend alone
Sailing on the cool and bright clear water
It's kind of a special feeling
When you're out on the sea alone
Staring at the full moon like a lover
This favorite song lyric is always one to sing along with
"I'm going where the sun keeps shining, and where the weather suits my clothes, banking on a Northeast wind, sail on summer breeze, skipping across the ocean, like stone…."
Harry Nilson, "Everybody's Talkin at Me"
“..the sea is one of the last great
highways of freedom, and those that travel it enrich the dreams of the more
mundane folk.” Anonymous
"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." Richard Bode “First you have to row a little boat”
"Most of us abandoned the idea of adventure and travel somewhere between puberty and our first job. Our dreams died under the dark weight of responsibility. Occasionally the old urge surfaces, and we label it with names that suggest psychological aberrations, the big chill, a mid life crisis…..."from Jaguars Ripped my Flesh, Tim Cahill
"the rough sea becomes ferocious, and takes away at random sailors dreams, work, goodwill and courage, it's really unfair!" from Eric Dumont aboard Café Legal during the disastrous 1996 Vendee Globe Yacht Race
"I wanted freedom, open air and adventure. I found it on the sea." Alaine Gerbault, French solo circumnavigator
"Adventure is any activity with an unknown outcome" Don McIntyre, adventurer, single handed sailor, BOC competitor, founder and organizer of the Ocean Globe Race, Golden Globe Race, Mini Globe Race. Visit www.McIntyreAdventure.com
"…at sea there is no procrastination, there are no lies." Philippe Delamare, single handed race contender
"There is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats” Kenneth Grahame in The Wind in the Willows
“If you can’t repair it, maybe it shouldn’t be on board.” Lin and Larry Pardey, with very sound advice
“Anchor as though you plan to stay for weeks, even if you intend to leave in an hour.” Tommy Moran
“The planning stage of a cruise is often just as enjoyable as the voyage itself, letting one’s imagination loose on all kinds of possibilities. Yet translating dreams into reality means a lot of practical questions have to be answered. Jimmy Cornell (World Cruising Handbook)
“Sailors, with their built-in sense of order, service, and discipline, should really be running the world.” Nicholas Monsarrat. Author or my favorite books The Cruel Sea and The Master Mariner
“There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea." and “Any fool can carry on, but a wise man knows how to shorten sail in time” Joseph Conrad
“There are three sorts of people; those who are alive, those who are dead, and those who are at sea.” Capstan Shanty circa 6th Century
“It is not that life ashore is distasteful to me. But life at sea is better.” Sir Francis Drake
“Never in my life before have I experienced such beauty, and fear at the same time.” Ellen MacArthur
“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails” William Arthur Ward
“The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.” Vincent Van Gogh
“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than those you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the wind in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover”. Mark Twain
"The sea finds out everything you did wrong." and "Whenever your preparations for the sea are poor; the sea worms its way in and finds the problems." Francis Stokes
"I am a citizen of the most beautiful nation on earth, a nation whose laws are harsh yet simple, a nation that never cheats, which is immense and without borders, where life is lived in the present. In this limitless nation, this nation of wind, light, and peace, there is no other ruler besides the sea." Bernard Moitessier
"When a man comes to like a sea life, he is not fit to live on land." Dr. Samuel Johnson
"The only way to get a good crew is to marry one." Eric Hiscock
"And after two days in civilization we realized we could never stay for long and started to plan our next adventure." and "Attitude is the difference between ordeal and adventure” Bob Bitchin. Visit Latitudes and Attitudes.
"There’s no such thing as bad
weather, only bad clothes."
Norwegian Saying
"The cabin of a small yacht is truly a wonderful thing; not only will it shelter you from a tempest, but from the other troubles in life, it is a safe retreat." L. Francis Herreshoff
"Prevention is, as in other aspects of seamanship, better than cure." Sir Robin Knox-Johnston
"I must go
down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky. And all I ask is a
tall ship and a star to steer her by."
John Masefield
“Yet my heart hammers now, yearning anew
wanting the steep salt-water road
longing with lust to roam rough seas alone
to seek out some far foreign shore
The mood to wander mills within my mind”
The Seafarer (translated from the Saxon by Charles Harrison Wallace), a thousand year old English poem and one of my favorites. Living on a boat is great. Much more to living on board.