whysail

Why Do They "Just Do It"?

What is the purpose of voyaging? Why does one put up with all the inconveniences of small sailboat living? Are we seeking adventure or are we all masochist? Escaping from someone or something? I discovered that there are many fine sailor/authors who gave some very compelling and varied reasons why they do it. Each of us I assume must also share at least part of some of those feelings. So on this page I would like to thank the writers for their inspiring thoughts and to share some of their writings with you.

I hope you will also share some of those that you have discovered too. Just e-mail them to me.

Money is not the only thing one has to spend; the other thing is life. The difference is that you never know how much is in the bank, or what your balance is. Your life is your inheritance. As soon as you realize this, you start trying to spend your life wisely.
Herb Payson, from book"Advice to the Sealorn".Skipper
In an age when mass society has rendered obsolete the qualities of individual courage and independent thought, the oceans of the world still remain, vast and uncluttered, beautiful but unforgiving, awaiting those who will not submit. Their voyages are not an escape, but a fulfillment.
The Slocum Society
Sailing without an engine requires a philosophy of acceptance and then it becomes very enjoyable. At some point you must stop lamenting what you don't have and enjoy what you do have, wind and sail.
John Kretschmer, Yacht Delivery Skipper
Some people look upon cruising as a life of idleness or a life of 'nots'; not shoveling snow, not participating in the rat race, not paying taxes or voting, not conforming to schedules. But for other sailors, such as Helmut and Irene cruising is doing something meaningful, generous, creative and compassionate. It's bringing something to those they visit instead of taking away the little that they may have.
Pat McGehee refering to Helmut Mayr and Irene von Richthofen of 'Edelweiss' (a Gold Coast 44 catamaran) in the San Blas Islands of Panama.
Why attempt to drag five other misguided men halfway across the world when it is obvious that most of our present-day troubles come from men not staying quietly in their room at home? But upon visiting Mischief to see how things are going, such weak thoughts are speedily banished. She and her kind were never built so that men should stay quietly at home. She breathes sturdy eager confidence, a living embodiment of the truth that the sea is for sailing, that strenuousness is the immortal path and sloth the way of death!
W.H.Tillman :From his Sailing/Mountain Exploration Books.
I decided to go back on the water. It was the only place I knew for certain I would have to deal with things as they arose, without evasion or quibbling or self-hypnosis. Life on the water is not easy, but it is rarely ambiguous.
The water life permits us the luxury of certain illusions, and denies others. There is no deceiving of the waves, there is no persuading the winds. Deviousness, on the water, is unthought of, because it is non-survival. On the water you either know, or you do not know, and the difference is plain to everyone. I think this is why we tend to be rather simple in our outlook; with the water rats, what you see is pretty much what you get.
By and large, those who have chosen to live this life seem to have adopted as their banner the wisdom of America's greatest sailor, Popeye. It may even be specially appropriate that he, himself, is merely a cartoon, an imagination, a figment.
Popeye's wisdom is, "I yam what I yam."

That's the way it is with most of us. That's why we're here. And -- of course -- every day the tide comes in, the tide goes out. Don't forget.

Don Berry: " Magic Harbor" (published on the WWW)
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"
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed in the things that you didn't do than in the ones you did do. So throw off the bow lines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain
My competition is with myself and the water planet: Sailing a Laser, you hang suspended with one hand in the ocean (tiller) and the other hand connected to the sky (mainsheet). You are the pivot point between these two great fluids, the two worlds, and you get to go along for the ride.
Dennis Olson, Tomales Bay
A whim, once watered with imagination, becomes a dream and the best time to take your first step toward a dream is always yesterday; the worst time: tomorrow. Our best compromise is today.
Alvah Simon
It's paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone.
Andy Rooney
Time is the ultimate currency. We may talk in terms of dollars but ultimately we trade in hours. By that measure, life is better. Much better.
Anonymous
There are two options in a person's life. Reflections and Actions. One is an opportunity to think about it, the other opportunity to live it.
John McGrady
The greatest 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.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
It is important to measure ones' own courage and master one's fear....to do something more in this life than that which is wise, prudent or necessary.
Jean-Louise Etiene
If I must sit down at nature's table, I first must accept that seafaring is a hearty menu offering high adventure, great sport, aesthetic delights and achievements. It is a sailor's banquet spiced by pinches of uncertainty and flavored with dashes of hazard. Those who would be gourmets of adventures are tasters of the sauce of life. They agreed that without the ingredients of uncertainty and hazard, living would be mush, crackers and water.
Rudy Choy: "Catamaran Offshore"
To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsman, who play with their boats at sea -- "cruising", it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and have the means, abandon the venture until your fortune change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.
"I've always wanted to sail to the South Seas, but I can't afford it". What these men can't afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of "security". And in the worship of security. We fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine -- and some form of working activity that yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all -- in a material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, and playthings that divert our attention from the sheer idiocy of the charade.

The years thunder by. The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.

Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?

Sterling Hayden: "Wanderer"
Seek not the meaning of life as life does not have meaning but a purpose. Life in every form has a purpose, the bird, plant, worm, sun, human etc. Each in its own way. Finding and realising the true purpose and fulfilling it will lead us to our greatest contentment in life. To just seek for the meaning or the little pleasures of life leads us to the merry-go-round of life itself and into the cycle of life and death.
Anonymous
Travel's greatest purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
William Hazlitt
I have come to believe the key to traveling is not in taking in the countryside like we take in a movie -- as a higher form of entertainment or even self-improvement. It lies instead in releasing yourself fully to inhabit the space you're in to the best of your ability --- in opening your heart to loving everything you see, so the more you see, then you are expanded.....for we voyage to see and then remember not just the ocean things but the land also, and the people we encounter along the way. For we see both the land and the people through a fresh lens when we meet them sailing. That experience, more than miles covered, makes us travelers.
Larry Brown: "Sailing America"
A sailboat cruise is a singularly impractical means of getting somewhere. The "rooms" are small, the "ceilings" low, the "yard" is an obstacle course of rigging, winches.....Even on the best of days, the time is always slow, the way always long.....But the essence of sailing is not the adoration of an inanimate object but the spiritual awakening of the man or woman who steers it.....The sailor is alone.....the sailor trespasses in an environment for which he is poorly equipped: He swims not much better than a dog......Living on a boat for an extended period is an ascetic exercise in which the comforts of hot showers, three-course meals and twenty-four-hour contact with the world is forsaken.....the acquisition of material goods -- man's first addiction -- is a credo rejected. Convention is a God forsworn. It is a good way to do penance for one's excesses.
Daniel Spurr: "Steered By The Falling Star"
Why would anybody in their right mind want to do this, this cruising? Why risk life and limb to see the world from the deck of a small boat? A sailboat is a high risk and extremely slow conveyence at best. There is a simple answer to this. . .because. Because we can and because we must. Cruisers are not content to simply stay in one place, ... As pelagic nomads, cruisers choose to go through the everyday motions of existence in different places. Why awake to the same dawn every day in New York, Atlanta, Newport, or Peoria when we have the opportunity to see the sun rise from Istanbul, Sydney, Mazatlan, or Tahiti? ...We endeavour to savor each and every nuance of the local culture, good or bad, we seek the total experience. It enriches us, it gladdens our hearts and gives us worthy memories.
Stephen J. Pavlidis: " Bahama Blues" (soon to be published)
While I'm on this soap box one final thought: Anyone who choses the cruising lifestyle is leading a much more environmentally friendly existence than those bound by the land. In terms of energy consumed, water used, sewage created, space taken - any standard you can think of, those individuals that live aboard have a minuscule impact on our biosphere as compared to the folks who live on land. So, if you are concerned with the future of the planet, sell your cars, get rid of the house, and...go cruising!
Steve Dashew
If things in general weren't going the way I wanted, I questioned my motives - not the situation.... The most simple and straightforward decisions in life are sometimes the toughest to initiate. And anything is possible if you want it bad enough.
Dave Martin
...Travel is not a vacation, and it is often the opposite of a rest...I craved a little risk, some danger, an toward event, a vivid discomfort, an experience of my own company, and in a modest way the romance of solitude.
Paul Theroux: "The Old patagonia Express"
Once a journey is designed, equiped, and put in process, a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.

John Steinbeck: "Travels with Charley"

Houses are but badly built boats. So firmly aground that you can not think of moving them. They are definitely inferior things, belonging to the vegetable - not animal world, rooted and stationary incapable of transition. The desire to build a house is the tired wish of a man content hence forward 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.
It is for that reason, perhaps, that, when it comes, the desire to build a boat is one of those that cannot be resisted. It begins as a little cloud on a serene horizon. It ends by covering the whole sky, so that you can think of nothing else. You must build to regain your freedom. And always you comfort yourself with the thought that yours will be the perfect boat, the boat that you may search the harbors of the world for and not find.

Arthur Ransome: "Racundra's First Cruise"
I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

Jack London

It cost so much to be a full human being....One has to abandon altogether the search for security, and reach out to the risk of living with both arms. One has to embrace the world like a lover, and yet demand no easy return of love. One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying.

Morris West: "The Shoe of the Fisherman"