Literary sailing quotes

Towards evening a breeze sprang up, the still waters began to heave and the ship began to lift to the long fetch of the Atlantic swell. At once the courses were sheeted home and in the gathering dusk the ship began to move out of the North Channel, leaving Rathlin Island behind. That night the wind freshened from the south-west. By midnight Moshulu was running thirteen knots and flinging a sixty-foot bow wave on either side of her. On deck it was a hard climb to windward and a wild slippery descent to the lee scuppers. At supper time we all banged our plates and sang with sheer joy, and at the change of the watch we took the upper topgallants off her as she was running heavily.
All through the night the south-west wind hurled us out into the Atlantic. From aloft came the great roaring sound that I heard for the first time and will perhaps never hear again, of strong winds in the rigging of a good ship.

Eric Newby
The Last Grain Race
 
". . .the Nona has spent her years , . . threading her way out of harbours, taking the mud, trying to make further harbours, failing to do so, getting in the way of more important vessels, giving way to them, taking the mud again, waiting to be floated off by the tide, anchoring in the fairway, getting cursed out of it, dragging anchor on shingle and slime, mistaking one light for another, rounding the wrong buoy, crashing into other people, and capsizing in dry harbours."

from The Cruise of the Nona by Hilaire Belloc
 
I don't know the origin of the quote but it always struck a chord with me

"Harbours rot ships and rot the men in them"

Somehow the less often I sail the the less prepared I get - and the more anxious when that day comes!!
 
...and let's no forget our friend Johnson... think you introduced me to this one Dylan (??).. makes me laugh every time I read it...

"No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned."
 
Chalker said:
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........?
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Just splash a lot of alcohol about and you'll be fine... :D
 
Brilliant thread. How about more Masefield, Cargoes:

"Quinquireme of Ninevah from distant Ophir
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine..."

"Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rail, pig-lead,
Firewood, ironware, and cheap tin trays..."

And:
"Tides is chust a mystery" (or something like that) from Para Handy

"There is nothing naffer than a plastic gaffer" attributed, I believe, to the brother of Libby Purves
 
There's also the the poem "The Inchcape Rock" by Robert Southey. I won't quote it, as it's too long, but this link works:

http://allpoetry.com/poem/8480941-Inchcape_Rock-by-Robert_Southey

As I sailed in those waters in my teens, the Inchcape Rock (now known as Bell Rock!) was a well known landmark, now with a substantial lighthouse! But I also recall one foggy trip from Arbroath to Dunbar (pre GPS) when that was the thing we were most worried about hitting.
 
Dylan, I do appreciate this thread. Its good to get inspiration on such a day. I am posting because I like the first lines of your original post: 'Twenty years from now...' This is going on the boat to replace the daft motto: Wise men make mistakes but only fools repeat them. Glad no-one got to hear my cursing as I hit the mud on a falling tide turning into the Butley Creek. Keep up the good work people.
 
Quoted in "The Art of Coarse Sailing" by Michael Green.

From the log of Jem Green (a fictional Brixham Skipper)

March 1: Weather v. stormy. Water v. low. Crew v. mutinous. Food bad. Two hands dead of French disease.

March 2: Weather worse. French disease rampant. Hanged two hands. MEM: Sextant is faulty or am sailing up Ludgate Hill.

March 3: Accidentally shot an albatross in morning. Hurricane immediately blew up.

Back in the early 1970's my Dad and I were stuck outside Rye, in our Debutante, waiting for the tide, as usual, and the weather was a bit unpleasant. I remember going below and reading this. It made us both laugh.
 
Seajet said:
On the other hand:

" here lie the bones of Mike O'Day, who died maintaining his Right Of Way;

He was right, dead right, as he sailed along,

but now he's as dead as if he'd been wrong ! "

I think that was down to Des Sleightholme.
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quoted in one of the mags many years ago,supposedly on a gravestone in a southampton graveyard.of a man who was a stickler for the rules.


Here lies the body of uncle Fred

he was in the right,but he,s still dead.
 
KenMcCulloch said:
By the storm-torn shoreline, a woman is standing
The spray strung like jewels in her hair
And the sea tore the rocks near that desolate landing
As though it had known she stood there

For she has come down to condemn that wild ocean
For the murderous loss of her man
His ship sailed out on Wednesday morning
And it's feared she's gone down with all hands

And it's white were the wave-caps and wild was their parting
So fierce is the warring of love
But she prayed to the gods, both of men and of sailors
Not to cast their cruel nets o'er her love

And she has come down to condemn that wild ocean
For the murderous loss of her man
His ship sailed out on Wednesday morning
And it's feared she's gone down with all hands

There's a school on the hill where the sons of dead fathers
Are led toward tempests and gales
Where their God-given wings are clipped close to their bodies
And their eyes are bound round with ships' sails

And she has come down to condemn that wild ocean
For the murderous loss of her man
His ship sailed out on Wednesday morning
And it's feared she's gone down with all hands

What force leads a man to a life filled with danger
High on seas or a mile underground
It's when need is his master and poverty's no stranger
And there's no other work to be found

And she has come down to condemn that wild ocean
For the murderous loss of her man
His ship sailed out on Wednesday morning
And it's feared she's gone down with all hands

The Fisherman's Song
Andy M. Stewart
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This ones new to me,Love it--says a lot.
 
JayBee said:
Towards evening a breeze sprang up, the still waters began to heave and the ship began to lift to the long fetch of the Atlantic swell. At once the courses were sheeted home and in the gathering dusk the ship began to move out of the North Channel, leaving Rathlin Island behind. That night the wind freshened from the south-west. By midnight Moshulu was running thirteen knots and flinging a sixty-foot bow wave on either side of her. On deck it was a hard climb to windward and a wild slippery descent to the lee scuppers. At supper time we all banged our plates and sang with sheer joy, and at the change of the watch we took the upper topgallants off her as she was running heavily.
All through the night the south-west wind hurled us out into the Atlantic. From aloft came the great roaring sound that I heard for the first time and will perhaps never hear again, of strong winds in the rigging of a good ship.

Eric Newby
The Last Grain Race
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That's a fantastic book with perhaps the most credible depiction in print of life aboard a square-rigger, especially the brotherly love between members of an international crew:

***

… I was quite cheerful when I descended at eight o’clock for breakfast.
“We’re very lucky to have fried herring,” I remarked brightly to Sedelquist.
“Ees not feesh,” replied Sedelquist, “ees bacon, smelly like English girl.”
When I looked again I saw that it was bacon. Ghastly and apparently putrefying, it gave off a very un-English smell. I tried it but it was so salt that my gums ached. I threw it overboard and a seagull picked it up but dropped it hastily. …

***

... On that ignominious night in the Irish Sea when he had supplanted me at the helm, he had whispered the most hair-raising anecdotes in my ear. There was one I liked.
“oh, you noh Donegall Square?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, you noh schoolgirl, beeg schoolgirl?” Here he rambled off into a description of the hideous uniform worn by schoolgirls of the better sort and at the same time managed to give the impression that this particular schoolgirl had altogether outgrown this kind of dress.
“I was sitting on the tram behind heem,” he continued, “and then he got off. I followed heem, I spoke with heem.”
“And then what happened?” I asked.
“He scrimmed,” he replied simply.

***

This was no new colony; perhaps it had lain dormant for eight years on the West coast at Seattle; possibly its ancestor had boarded the ship at Port Glasgow in 1904 before she was launched. In a week they were back in force. I threw my bedboards into the sea, drilled some holes in the side of the bunk and made a crisscross netting of wire to support the mattress. Then I found that they were inside the straw, so I threw that into the sea too and slept on the wire alone. I spent long happy hours disinfesting my sleeping-bag by hand and thinking how lucky it was that I had been unable to buy a caribou skin.
The bugs grew bolder as the weather grew warmer. At the breakfast-table they crawled up our legs. Then they started climbing up the table legs. When we built a chevaux de fries of tin round the bottom to prevent them, one of their number, a born leader, swarmed up the wall, traversed the ceiling and dropped on to the table. It then set off over the rim and down to the deck, easily negotiating the barrier which it had taken in the rear. Fixed defences were useless against such an enemy. We began to cast round for the materials to make hammocks.

***

Besides being my birthday, the 6th of December was a Finnish national holiday.
“Noh work,” said Sedelquist.
“Why?”
“Sjalfstandighetsdagen – Freedom from Russia.”
“Noh work,” said Taanila. “Itsenaisyyspaiva.”
“Say that again.”
Taanila mouthed it happily several times.
“What’s that in aid of?”
“Freedom from Russia too, but Finnish word,” said Sedelquist.
“If I was a Russian I’d be celebrating too,” said Kroner who was passing.
“You are a focking Bolscheviki,” said Taanila, heatedly.
“I’m not a focking Bolscheviki,” Kroner replied with good humour, “I’m a focking Fascist. But if I was, and you and Karma were living next door, I’d help you to liberate yourselves.”

***
…
“And you,” he said in front of an appreciative audience, turning to me as he spoke, “go clean dose brodders of yours.”
“Dos brodders” were four large pigs. …
 
MrB said:
I wish I was a fisherman
Tumblin' on the seas
Far away from dry land
And it's bitter memories
Casting out my sweet line
With abandonment and love
No ceiling bearin' down on me
'Cept the starry sky above
With light in my head
You in my arms
Woohoo!

Mike Scott 1983:)
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Mike Scott met a Galway fisherman while he was hanging out in these parts who said to him "Well, I wish I was a rock star..."
 
♫ ♪ You never wanna fight against the river law...
Nobody rules the waves...
...And on a night when the lazy wind is a-wailing
Around the Cutty Sark
The single handed sailor goes sailing
Sailing away in the dark.

Not very literary, but great if you like the music: the last couple of tracks on Dire Straits' 1979 album, Communique...

...I suspect Singlehanded Sailor was meant to be the final song, but Knopfler's lovely guitar coda fades into the sounds of the Bahamas beach where the album was recorded, and becomes another nice track - reminiscent of tropical sunsets and West Indian beach-bonfire dinners...:)
 
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats.
....
Come away, O, human child!
To the woods and waters wild
 
Oh alright then just one more!

“There comes a time in a man's life when he hears the call of the sea. If the man has a brain in his head, he will hang up the phone immediately.”
― Dave Barry
 
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