Philosophy and yachting

I have just re-read - and not for the first time, it IS a particularly good book - "Coasting" by Jonathan Raban.

Lots of interesting comment in those pages, as well as a bit of sailing.

He went to Hull Uni. His tutor was Phillip Larkin.

Raban theorises about Larkin's poetry. He says "If poems can teach one anything, Larkin's teach that there is no desolation so bleak that it cannot be made habitable by style. If we live inside a bad joke,it is up to us to learn, at best and worst, to tell it well."

I rather like that.

Better than the chalkboard in the gents lav at the Turf in Oxford early 70's. For some weeks it bore "Life is like a $H1t sandwich. The more bread you got, the less $H1t you eat".

This was replaced by "Life is like being a pube on a bog seat. Sometimes you get pissed off".

Yes, Raban says effectively the same thing, but with far more sensetivity.
 
Sir RKJ wrote a chunk of philosophy to encourage Pete Goss. You can read it at the start of Goss's book "Close to the Wind", which also contains a lot of his philosophical thoughts. I wrote it out for both my kids at the start of their independent lives.
 
One of my sisters did a bit of PR work for Pete Goss . After some lecture/meet n greet they came out to the car park and he quipped :” I can find my way around the world and back to rescue someone , so why can’t I find the car.?”

Or words to that effect 😊

You know you can sail with someone so self deprecating yet effortlessly capable.
 
Problem is most sailing books are terribly dull. Most are good for a nap after a page or so. An exception is Motessier's Sailing to the Reefs which is quite funny in some parts. Ought to be titled Sailing on to the Reefs, as he wrecks two boats.
 
Poignard said:
'Afloat' by Guy de Maupassant might appeal to the OP, and others.

It begins:

"This Diary contains no story and no very thrilling adventure. While cruising about on the coasts of the Mediterranean last Spring, I amused myself by writing down every day what I saw and what I thought.​
​
I saw but the water, the sun, clouds and rocks,—I can tell of nought else,—and my thoughts were mere nothings, such as are suggested by the rocking of the waves, lulling and bearing one along."​

Free of charge from: Afloat (Sur l'eau)


Is it a good read? I don't know, I haven't read it. But I'm going to..
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If he saw rocks, he had plenty to occupy his mind! I once wrote about 500 words describing the lithology and diagenesis of the stone floor tiles in my sister-in-law's apartment. It was quite fun! And they were quite straightforward granitic rock. Imagine the fun of considering a complex metamorphic terrain! If there are rocks, there's plenty to exercise your mind. And then we can consider the fascinating statistics of wave heights, the imponderables of weather systems, the biology of the sea and much more!
 
Wansworth said:
Yes the vast expanse of the sea at night……..but to convey that feeling in a book?
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I tried in the prologue to my book. You can read that page for free on Amazon
Amazon.co.uk

Blueboatman said:
One of my sisters did a bit of PR work for Pete Goss . After some lecture/meet n greet they came out to the car park and he quipped :” I can find my way around the world and back to rescue someone , so why can’t I find the car.?”

Or words to that effect 😊

You know you can sail with someone so self deprecating yet effortlessly capable.
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Not on such a grand scale I got lost on St Mary's, Scilly, after navigating a north Atlantic Circuit! 😄
But I am in no way effortlessly ca, ca ca thingy
 
rotrax said:
I have just re-read - and not for the first time, it IS a particularly good book - "Coasting" by Jonathan Raban.
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I am 2/3 of the way through. A truly impressive book. Obviously biassed by the fact that its about one's own back yard. But the interleaving of coastal reminiscences and the diaries of 1980's England are truly worthwhile.

(NB, I will forgive him the references to granite off Yealm)
 
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