Yantlet
Well-Known Member
Everything can be found at sea,
According to the spirit of your quest.
Joseph Conrad
According to the spirit of your quest.
Joseph Conrad
Literary sailing quotes
- Thread starter dylanwinter
- Start date
Yantlet
Well-Known Member
Hard to top Conrad?
I came upon it from a tussle with the sea - and
I was young - and I saw it looking at me ....
A flick of sunshine upon a strange shore....
I came upon it from a tussle with the sea - and
I was young - and I saw it looking at me ....
A flick of sunshine upon a strange shore....
Frankie-H
Well-Known Member
I start from the premise that no object created by man is as satisfying to his body and soul as a proper sailing yacht."
Arthur Beiser 1978
The Proper Yacht
Arthur Beiser 1978
The Proper Yacht
Yantlet
Well-Known Member
'A man who is not afraid of the sea will soon be drowned, for he'll be
going out on a day when he shouldn't. But we do be afraid of the sea, and
we do only be drownded now and again.'
from 'The Arran Islands' by J M Synge.
There are good ships and there are wood ships,
The ships that sail the sea, but the best ships are friendships,
and may they always be!
going out on a day when he shouldn't. But we do be afraid of the sea, and
we do only be drownded now and again.'
from 'The Arran Islands' by J M Synge.
There are good ships and there are wood ships,
The ships that sail the sea, but the best ships are friendships,
and may they always be!
Chalker
Well-Known Member
We are off sailing for 4 years and I've been looking out for a website and email tag. So thanks for the collection.
I'm going with #15 - Jack Sparrow. Altough I'll be changing the boat name to make it more relevant.
Since I'm changing the boat name (in the quote), do I need to appease Neptune with a ceremony........?
I'm going with #15 - Jack Sparrow. Altough I'll be changing the boat name to make it more relevant.
Since I'm changing the boat name (in the quote), do I need to appease Neptune with a ceremony........?
Greenheart
Well-Known Member
Has anybody yet said:
"Call me Ishmael"
I would hardly have thought I knew any - I'm no trekkie - but I remember in one of the films, actor Ricardo Montalban, quoting Melville's Captain Ahab:
I'll follow him around the Horn, and around the Norway maelstrom, and around perdition's flames, before I give him up!
This is a wonderful, inspiring thread.
"Call me Ishmael"
I would hardly have thought I knew any - I'm no trekkie - but I remember in one of the films, actor Ricardo Montalban, quoting Melville's Captain Ahab:
I'll follow him around the Horn, and around the Norway maelstrom, and around perdition's flames, before I give him up!
This is a wonderful, inspiring thread.
Skysail
Well-Known Member
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth.
St John 3:8
“I am told there are people who do not care for maps, and I find it hard to believe.”
Robert Louis Stevenson
“An incorrectly identified mark is a hazard, not an aid, to navigation.” Alton B. Moody
“Even with the best charts, we are cautious about fixing our position, for it is so easy to goof. And the easiest way of all is by taking a mark, assuming it is the right one, and ignoring any others that may be in sight.
Patrick Ellam (who crossed the Atlantic with Colin Mudie in the 20ft Sopranino)
“The sound navigator never trusts entirely to the obvious. The price of good navigation is constant vigilance. The unusual is always to be guarded against and when the expected has not eventualised, a doubtful situation always arises which must be guarded against by every precaution known to navigators….It is always the captain who is sure in his own mind, without the tangible evidence of safety in his possession, who loses his ship.”
Report of Court of Inquiry investigating the Point Honda disaster in 1923. (7 US Navy warships lost by running aground in poor visibility)
"It would appear that on some of the Marshal Islands these charts were considered so precious that they might not be taken to sea. This was partly because they might be damaged in the canoes and partly, perhaps, because the people might never come back, in which case the tribe's precious property would be lost for ever." Collinder
“What can be more difficult than to guyde a ship engulfed, when only water and heaven may be seen?” Martin Cortes, 1551
“The position and extent of any shoal or danger discovered, especially of one upon which a vessel has struck or grounded, should be determined, if practicable, by five horizontal sextant angles between well selected objects.” Admiralty Manual of Navigation
“It is established for a custom of the sea that if a ship is lost by default of the lodesman, the mariners may if they please, bring the lodesman to the windlass and cut off his head without the mariners being bound to answer before any judge, because the lodesman had committed high treason against undertaking of the pilotage, and this is the judgment.” 23rd Article of the Laws of Oléron 12th C
“Sight is a faculty, but seeing is an art.” Anonymous
“The consequences of poor cartography could be dire. During the Napoleonic Wars, British losses by shipwreck, caused by bad charts as well as bad weather, were eight times as great as those inflicted by the enemy. Wilford
Exhortation to Apprentices in the Art of Navigation:
“When so ever any Shipmaster or mariner shall set forth from land out of any river or haven, diligently to mark what buildings, castles, towers, churches, hills, downes, windmills and other marks are standing upon the land…..all of which, or many of them, let him portray with his pen, how they bear and how far distant. A. Ashley, 1583
St John 3:8
“I am told there are people who do not care for maps, and I find it hard to believe.”
Robert Louis Stevenson
“An incorrectly identified mark is a hazard, not an aid, to navigation.” Alton B. Moody
“Even with the best charts, we are cautious about fixing our position, for it is so easy to goof. And the easiest way of all is by taking a mark, assuming it is the right one, and ignoring any others that may be in sight.
Patrick Ellam (who crossed the Atlantic with Colin Mudie in the 20ft Sopranino)
“The sound navigator never trusts entirely to the obvious. The price of good navigation is constant vigilance. The unusual is always to be guarded against and when the expected has not eventualised, a doubtful situation always arises which must be guarded against by every precaution known to navigators….It is always the captain who is sure in his own mind, without the tangible evidence of safety in his possession, who loses his ship.”
Report of Court of Inquiry investigating the Point Honda disaster in 1923. (7 US Navy warships lost by running aground in poor visibility)
"It would appear that on some of the Marshal Islands these charts were considered so precious that they might not be taken to sea. This was partly because they might be damaged in the canoes and partly, perhaps, because the people might never come back, in which case the tribe's precious property would be lost for ever." Collinder
“What can be more difficult than to guyde a ship engulfed, when only water and heaven may be seen?” Martin Cortes, 1551
“The position and extent of any shoal or danger discovered, especially of one upon which a vessel has struck or grounded, should be determined, if practicable, by five horizontal sextant angles between well selected objects.” Admiralty Manual of Navigation
“It is established for a custom of the sea that if a ship is lost by default of the lodesman, the mariners may if they please, bring the lodesman to the windlass and cut off his head without the mariners being bound to answer before any judge, because the lodesman had committed high treason against undertaking of the pilotage, and this is the judgment.” 23rd Article of the Laws of Oléron 12th C
“Sight is a faculty, but seeing is an art.” Anonymous
“The consequences of poor cartography could be dire. During the Napoleonic Wars, British losses by shipwreck, caused by bad charts as well as bad weather, were eight times as great as those inflicted by the enemy. Wilford
Exhortation to Apprentices in the Art of Navigation:
“When so ever any Shipmaster or mariner shall set forth from land out of any river or haven, diligently to mark what buildings, castles, towers, churches, hills, downes, windmills and other marks are standing upon the land…..all of which, or many of them, let him portray with his pen, how they bear and how far distant. A. Ashley, 1583
glashen
Well-Known Member
It would be "The Wrath of Khan" and according to IMDB the phrase in the film was,
"He tasks me. He tasks me and I shall have him! I'll chase him 'round the moons of Nibia and 'round the Antares Maelstrom and 'round Perdition's flames before I give him up! "
Brilliant thread by the way, only found it this evening.
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Greenheart
Well-Known Member
No list of good sea stories ought to omit The Riddle of the Sands.
I think Carruthers' nocturnal arrival aboard the Dulcibella probably reflects many people's disappointment with sailing trips...
"Hazily there floated through my mind my last embarkation on a yacht; my faultless attire, the trim gig and obsequious sailors, the accommodation ladder flashing with varnish and brass in the August sun; the orderly, snowy decks and basket chairs under the awning aft. What a contrast with this sordid midnight scramble, over damp meat and littered packing-cases! The bitterest touch of all was a growing sense of inferiority and ignorance which I had never before been allowed to feel in my experience of yachts."
I think Carruthers' nocturnal arrival aboard the Dulcibella probably reflects many people's disappointment with sailing trips...
"Hazily there floated through my mind my last embarkation on a yacht; my faultless attire, the trim gig and obsequious sailors, the accommodation ladder flashing with varnish and brass in the August sun; the orderly, snowy decks and basket chairs under the awning aft. What a contrast with this sordid midnight scramble, over damp meat and littered packing-cases! The bitterest touch of all was a growing sense of inferiority and ignorance which I had never before been allowed to feel in my experience of yachts."
interloper
Well-Known Member
When the cabin port-holes are dark and green
Because of the seas outside;
When the ship goes *** (with a wiggle between)
And the steward falls into the soup-tureen,
And the trunks begin to slide;
When Nursey lies on the floor in a heap,
And Mummy tells you to let her sleep,
And you aren't waked or washed or dressed,
Why, then you will know (if you haven't guessed)
You're "Fifty North and Forty West!"
- Rudyard Kipling
Okay, it's not exactly about sailing.
Because of the seas outside;
When the ship goes *** (with a wiggle between)
And the steward falls into the soup-tureen,
And the trunks begin to slide;
When Nursey lies on the floor in a heap,
And Mummy tells you to let her sleep,
And you aren't waked or washed or dressed,
Why, then you will know (if you haven't guessed)
You're "Fifty North and Forty West!"
- Rudyard Kipling
Okay, it's not exactly about sailing.
interloper
Well-Known Member
^^ This is interesting. The forum software automatically filtered Kipling's word w-o-p.
Greenheart
Well-Known Member
Thanks Interloper, I shall mention that degraded techno-paranoia, on my anti-new-format thread.
Yantlet
Well-Known Member
Could go on for ever........ But last two from me!
The water is the same on both sides of the boat.
-Finnish Proverb
And lastly but not leastly?
"Only two sailors, in my experience, never ran aground.
One never left port and the other was an atrocious liar."
- Don Bamford
The water is the same on both sides of the boat.
-Finnish Proverb
And lastly but not leastly?
"Only two sailors, in my experience, never ran aground.
One never left port and the other was an atrocious liar."
- Don Bamford
onesea
Well-Known Member
I love some of the quotes from the Pirates of Caribbean movies...
TO long to quote: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0325980/quotes
"I'm not that kind of girl!"
"All evidence to the contrary."
"Out of rum. Why? Why are we out of rum?"
"I wonder."
I also like his now bear with me googles let me down from memory "If you cannot find the solution change the facts", often true on boats...
Some kid had a rough passage... Must pass that to daughter...
phanakapan
Well-Known Member
Book XIX: Sea-Drift: After the Sea-Ship
After the sea-ship, after the whistling winds,
After the white-gray sails taut to their spars and ropes,
Below, a myriad, myriad waves hastening, lifting up their necks,
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship,
Waves of the ocean bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,
Waves, undulating waves, liquid, uneven, emulous waves,
Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,
Where the great vessel sailing and tacking displaced the surface,
Larger and smaller waves in the spread of the ocean yearnfully flowing,
The wake of the sea-ship after she passes, flashing and frolicsome under the sun,
A motley procession with many a fleck of foam and many fragments,
Following the stately and rapid ship, in the wake following.
Walt Whitman
just part of the Whitman poems Ralph Vaughn Williams chose to use as lyrics in his 'Sea Symphony'.
After the sea-ship, after the whistling winds,
After the white-gray sails taut to their spars and ropes,
Below, a myriad, myriad waves hastening, lifting up their necks,
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship,
Waves of the ocean bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,
Waves, undulating waves, liquid, uneven, emulous waves,
Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,
Where the great vessel sailing and tacking displaced the surface,
Larger and smaller waves in the spread of the ocean yearnfully flowing,
The wake of the sea-ship after she passes, flashing and frolicsome under the sun,
A motley procession with many a fleck of foam and many fragments,
Following the stately and rapid ship, in the wake following.
Walt Whitman
just part of the Whitman poems Ralph Vaughn Williams chose to use as lyrics in his 'Sea Symphony'.
sailorgirl
Well-Known Member
He had bought a large map representing the sea,
Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
A map they could all understand.
The Hunting of the Snark - Lewis Carroll
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl & the Pussy Cat - Edward Lear
And slightly off topic as its really about Abraham Lincoln but its one I love:
O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
Walt Whitman
Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
A map they could all understand.
The Hunting of the Snark - Lewis Carroll
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl & the Pussy Cat - Edward Lear
And slightly off topic as its really about Abraham Lincoln but its one I love:
O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
Walt Whitman
Greenwichman
Well-Known Member
Hilaire Belloc - "Never trust any man unless he has gone round Portland Bill in something under ten tons .... "
http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=Vc4EAQAAIAAJ&q=Portland+Bill&source=gbs_word_cloud_r&cad=6
http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=Vc4EAQAAIAAJ&q=Portland+Bill&source=gbs_word_cloud_r&cad=6
DaveRo
Well-Known Member
There's also The Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence's Idiot Son:
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/uk.music.folk/jqxEJ3EfVsA
DaveRo
Well-Known Member
There are some fine Kipling poems about the sea, many set to music by Peter Bellamy. Several of the best-known are about steamships - Rolling down to Rio, and Big Steamers. Others about sailing ships - and a Viking longship! Here are extracts from a couple of my favourites:
Twix' the Forties and Fifties,
South-eastward the drift is,
And so, when we think that we are making Land's End,
Alas, it is Ushant
With half the King's Navy,
Blockading French ports against poor honest men!
But they may not quit station
(Which is our salvation),
So swiftly we stand up to the Nor'ard again;
And finding the tail of
A homeward-bound convoy,
We slip past the Scillies like poor honest men.
From Poor Honest Men
http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~zierke/peter.bellamy/songs/poorhonestmen.html
Sodden, and chafed and aching,
Gone in the loins and the knees—
No matter—for the day is breaking,
And there's far less weight to the seas!
Up mast, and finish baling—
In oars, and out with the mead—
The rest will be two-reef sailing…
That was a night indeed!
From the Song of the Red War-Boat
http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~zierke/peter.bellamy/songs/songoftheredwarboat.html
Set to music and sung by Peter Bellamy these make superb songs. Some are available on CD again having been unavailable for years.
Twix' the Forties and Fifties,
South-eastward the drift is,
And so, when we think that we are making Land's End,
Alas, it is Ushant
With half the King's Navy,
Blockading French ports against poor honest men!
But they may not quit station
(Which is our salvation),
So swiftly we stand up to the Nor'ard again;
And finding the tail of
A homeward-bound convoy,
We slip past the Scillies like poor honest men.
From Poor Honest Men
http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~zierke/peter.bellamy/songs/poorhonestmen.html
Sodden, and chafed and aching,
Gone in the loins and the knees—
No matter—for the day is breaking,
And there's far less weight to the seas!
Up mast, and finish baling—
In oars, and out with the mead—
The rest will be two-reef sailing…
That was a night indeed!
From the Song of the Red War-Boat
http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~zierke/peter.bellamy/songs/songoftheredwarboat.html
Set to music and sung by Peter Bellamy these make superb songs. Some are available on CD again having been unavailable for years.
stephenh
Well-Known Member
and one, especially for Dylan 
rolleyes from Conrad and not exactly quoted - long remembered but I don't know which book -
".... you are never really at sea until you are at least a thousand miles from land..."
rolleyes from Conrad and not exactly quoted - long remembered but I don't know which book - ".... you are never really at sea until you are at least a thousand miles from land..."
