But on this one could write a whole volume, with digressions upon the general evils and corruptions of these our latter times when the Beast has most certainly been let loose out of the Pit, and is going about the world breathing smoke out of seven mouths, and stamping 666, with his hoof, on the foreheads of all his elect.
For no one can doubt that the practice of sailing, which renews in us all the past of our blood, has been abominably corrupted by racing. I do not know whence the evil came, but I suppose it came like most evils, from a love of money. The love of money made men admire the possessors of it, and so they came to think of sailing as they do of riding horses, or of any other sport—as something to be tested by what the rich man could do. And clearly, when it came to making machines for going fast through the water by the aid of the wind alone, the rich man had his advantage. Then I suppose there came in also that craze for measurable things which has done us all so much harm in the last lifetime and a half. When I say of the Nona, “She is a good boat,” when I stroke her and she purrs, there is nothing here measurable. When I say of that really abominable boat [name censored] (well worthy of her name)—that I had rather she had been sunk at birth than continue to sail the seas, you cannot apply a single measurable test to prove that the solid, noble Nona is good and the flimsy, whimsy [name censored] is bad; but in racing you can. Boat A gets in front of Boat B. Any fool can test that, and today was made for fools.
Well, then, whatever the root of the evil, evil it is, and it has corrupted our way of living in happy little boats. Remember, and write it down: “Cruising is not racing.” If your boat is a home and a companion, and at the same time a genius that takes you from place to place and, what is much more, a good angel, revealing unexpected things, and a comforter and an introducer to the Infinite Verities—and my boat is all these things—then you must put away from yourself altogether the idea of racing, as much as, when you consider a wife, you must put away the intellectual woman and the waxwork girl—both of whom may have their place for all I know. The cruiser, the strong little, deep little boat, is all I have called it. It is a complete satisfaction for man; but if you let in racing you are letting in the serpent.
Here you will say, “Have you then never raced?” Never, sweetheart, except to get away from danger, which I loathe. I have never raced another boat in my life, although I have been on other men’s boats when they were racing, and admired their special talent, just as I would admire the talent of a man who successfully climbed the greasy pole. You must expect of your boat—your companion boat—a rational behaviour. You must say to yourself that when she is doing seven knots, she is doing well, and when she is doing nine, she is excited, and will be the better for a night’s rest.
When you are on a long passage, even with steady weather, you had better bank on three to four knots and no more. For what with beating, fishing perhaps, the falling of wind, over-reefing in terror, and the rest of it, you will not do more. I have always thought to myself, knocking up and down the coasts of dear England, that if I did a hundred miles in my twenty-four hours, I was doing very well indeed.
Once I spent a whole day drifting with the tide from the two Etaples Lights to the Dune, and very nearly all the way back, but even that did not persuade me to a motor, for, of all things abominable to God and His Saints, I know of nothing more abominable than machinery and petrol and the rest on board a little cruising boat.
I would rather die of thirst, ten miles off the headlands in a brazen calm, having lost my dinghy in the previous storm, than have on board what is monstrously called today an “auxiliary.” The name is worthy of the thing. By auxiliaries the Roman army perished. Further, it is a nasty foreign sort of term. Call it the machine and tell the truth. I am told by those who use the abomination that it is ashamed of itself, and often will not start, as though to say, “You came out to sail the seas, and I am reluctant to cheat wind, weather, and tide in your favour.” I will not deny that mechanism is valuable to those who conduct huge hordes, the rich and the poor, from Europe to the New World, but in a little cruising boat I will have none of it. It would be foolish to be rid of it in armament, for there it does give one’s country a great advantage, but in a little cruising boat it is as much out of place as is electric light where one should use candles, or as are motorcars in the hunting of wild beasts. But I must return to things more practical.
My next rule would be: Get everything shipshape and, so far as you can, keep it shipshape.
That is, see that the falls are clear, that everything is properly stowed away; that you know where everything is to be got at in any emergency; that you have to look for nothing; that you make the most of every space—and the rest of it.
All this I say knowing full well that I myself am incapable of it; but I am giving advice, I am
