Fun Thread - Best Sailing Quotes

[td0tz]

“ The problem with sailing is that its easy with a beam force 3/4 and sunshine. The reality is that this is the weather you get when you leave, but when you want/need to go home it's raining, the wind is on the nose F6/7 or right up the bum, and your fin keeler is screwing its way down wind whilst you struggle with an overcanvassed boat and a bloody huge wheel that takes forever lock to lock.......Its fun for a couple of hours and then you get cold and dehydrated and by now you are the only one strong enough/keen enough to put the reef in.

Ah sailing.....it always feels great when its over.”

[Montanan]

Bernard

[GordMay]

"You wouldn't like me when I'm angry; because I always back up my rage, with facts, and well documented sources" ~ The Credible Hulk

[Tupaia]

I might have got the order wrong


Water torture, Sleep deprivation, Solitary confinement, Dunking, Cold torture, Heat torture and we call it recreational sailing.

[MicHughV]

Any screw, nut or bolt, dropped onto the cabin sole will roll into the most least accessible part of the bilge....never to be seen again.

Finding a replacement screw, nut or bolt, will require a journey of at least 100 miles, a dozen stores and success is not guarantied.

[derfy]

"Isn't it odd that the hardest thing to remember is what we are trying to do?"

I would love to know who said this. I am pretty sure I didn't make it up, and I use it often when sailing. I thought maybe it was Stephen Hawking, but cannot find it anywhere.

Maybe somebody knows?

Great thread, BTW

[Enfant Du Vent]

"He who would go to sea for pleasure, would go to Hell for a pastime".

Lord Chesterton

[5BTM]

"Honey, the doctor said you need a penicillin shot for my kidney infection"

[massnspace]

“The beatings will continue until morale improves….”

[leecea]

"Everything on your boat is broken, you just don’t know it yet!"

[Windpilot]

More like a poem.

I don't know where im going,
The ocean will decide.
It's not the destination,
It's the glory if the ride.

[rls8r]

I have a few (with credits when I could find them). In passage I sometimes while away the hours doing needlepoint, and these are some of the things that I've found while looking for things to put on pillows, etc.

"A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for."

"Cruisers don't have plans, just intentions."

"The cabin of a small yacht is truly a wonderful thing; not only will it shelter you from a tempest, but from the other troubles in life, it is a safe retreat." - L(ewis) Francis Herreshoff

"Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not." - Spoken by Ratty to Mole in Wind in the Willows a children's book by Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932).

"I start from the premise that no object created by man is as satisfying to his body and soul as a proper sailing yacht." - Arthur Beiser 1978

"A tourist remains an outsider throughout his visit; but a sailor is part of the local scene from the moment he arrives." - Anne Davison

"If a man is to be obsessed by something, I suppose a boat is as good as anything, perhaps a bit better than most." - E. B. White

"There s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes." - Old Norwegian Adage

"Any fool can carry on, but a wise man knows how to shorten sail in time." - Joseph Conrad

"The goal is not to sail the boat, but rather to help the boat sail herself." - John Rousmaniere

"There is nothing like lying flat on your back on the deck, alone except for the helmsman aft at the wheel, silence except for the lapping of the sea against the side of the ship. At that time you can be equal to Ulysses and brother to him." - Errol Flynn

"Out of sight of land the sailor feels safe. It is the beach that worries him." - Charles C. Davis

"Ships are the nearest things to dreams that hands have ever made." - Robert N. Rose

"When a man comes to like a sea life, he is not fit to live on land." - Dr. Samuel Johnson

"Houses are but badly built boats so firmly aground that you cannot think of moving them. They are definitely inferior things, belonging to the vegetable not the animal world, rooted and stationary, incapable of gay transition. I admit, doubtfully, as exceptions, snailshells and caravans. The desire to build a house is the tired wish of a man content thenceforward 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

[rls8r]

I found this to be funny. Dave Barry used to write a humor column for the Miami Herald.

[ChrisJHC]

On my boat; “Never be the first one in the cabin when you’re packing the boat away”.

For the next ten minutes, every sentence starts with “While you’re down there…”

[chrisr]

for any job on a boat, you can either reach it or see it, but never both at the same time

the main function of having spare parts is to ensure that the part never breaks. its guaranteed that only items for which you have no spare will fail

cheers,