On the Strange Appeal of Sailing in Ships at Sea

Russel Crowe as Captain "Lucky" Jack Aubrey

I have had the great good fortune of sailing on many days and over many nautical miles this year. Adding to my past recreational and racing experience primarily on the Potomac, I have been able to crew for the Skipper of s/v Revolution in 6 races on the Chesapeake Bay. Additionally, I served as an able crewman aboard s/v Nelson's Wake for her circumnavigation of the Delmarva (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia) peninsula. I was honored to take the helm for the 8th and final day of that voyage--an experience I'll never forget.

Comparisons between myself and the likes of Captain Jack Aubrey aboard HMS Sophie, as told by Patrick O’Brian, are premature. War in the age of sail, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries, produced some of the most dramatic leadership challenges in the history of humanity.

For my part, I just want to comment on the strange appeal of sailing in ships at sea. What compels people to get in a boat in the first place? How can one explain the thrill of harnessing the wind? How does it feel to be more than 12 miles from shore--that is, in international waters, out of sight of land, and at the mercy of wind and sea?

HMS Sophie

This passage from Master and Commander (O’Brian, p. 69) hits the nail on the head for me.

“Jack took the wheel, and as he did so a last gust from the island staggered the sloop, sending white water along her lee rail, plucking Jack’s hat from his head and streaming his bright yellow hair away to the south-south-west...

“Jack let her pay off until the flurry was over, and then, as he began to bring her back, his hands strong on the spokes, so he came into direct contact with the living essence of the sloop: the vibration beneath his palm, something between a sound and a flow, came straight up from her rudder, and it joined with the innumerable rhythms, the creak and humming of her hull and rigging. The keen clear wind swept in on his left cheek, and as he bore on the helm, so the Sophie answered, quicker and more nervous than he had expected. Closer and closer to the wind....”

O’Brian, P. (1970). Master and Commander. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Courtesy of the Library of Robert L. Bateman, III, LTC (Ret), US Army, and Skipper of s/v Nelson's Wake.

Mariae lembi nostri duci et magistrae do dedico