Pearls of Wisdom: 20 of the Most Inspiring Sailing Quotes
We all need a little inspiration from time to time. We have prepared for you a selection of quotes from sailing legends and ordinary enthusiasts, which we are sure will inspire you too! “Any fool can get around the whole world sober. But only a very good sailor can do this while drunk! Sir Francis Chichester “Every day since I realized […]
We all need a little inspiration from time to time. We have prepared for you a selection of quotes from sailing legends and ordinary enthusiasts, which we are sure will inspire you too !
“Any fool can get around the whole world sober. But only a very good sailor can do this while drunk! Sir Francis Chichester _ _
“Every day since I realized that I survived, I told myself: I’m lucky to be alive. So why go back? I am a hound. I love the sea and I love competitions. You don’t give up on life just because you once had to walk on the edge of a knife.” Tony Bullimore _ _ _
“My mother, when asked her opinion about traveling before leaving, said she thought it was “totally irresponsible”, and this Christmas Day I began to think she was right. After all, I walked around the world simply because I damn well wanted to! And I realized that I enjoyed it to the fullest." Robin Knox- Johnston
“My day goes happily wherever my boat goes.” Joshua Slocum
“The art of a sailor is to leave nothing to chance.” Annie Van De Wiele
“I don't really know why we are all so devoted to the sea, except that I think it's because the sea changes and the light changes and the ships change, it's because we all came from the sea. And this is an interesting biological fact, because we all have in our veins exactly the same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and therefore salt is in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are connected to the ocean. And when we return to the sea - under sail or just looking at it - we return to where we came from." John F. Kennedy
“There were moments on this trip when I became convinced that the GPS was wrong.” Chris Robb _ _ _
“Smooth sailing does not come from calm waters, it comes from a good navigator, a good crew and a good ship.” Anthony T. Hincks _ _ _ _
Yachting in the works of famous artists: “Argenteuil Series” by Monet, Renoir and Caillebotte
"Out there in the sea, you are really 'yourself'." Vito Dumas _ _ _
“The cabin of a small yacht is truly a wonderful thing; it will not only shelter you from the storm, but also from other troubles in life, it is a safe place of solitude.” L. Francis Herreshoff
“The beauty of solo travel is not loneliness, but independence.” Claude Worth _ _ _
“When you get into a big storm and you put the boat out into the wind and the autopilot controls it, there's nothing you can do but stand there and watch the walls of water break around you; It's an amazing sight." Emma Richards _ _ _
“With practice you get better, learning more from what you do than from reading any ten books on the topic.” Hervey Garrett Smith _ _
“The only way to get a good team is to marry them.” Eric Hiscock
“To win, you have to believe you can do it. You have to be passionate about it. You have to really “want” the result – even if it means years of work. The hardest part of any big project is getting started.” Sir Peter Blake _ _ _
Alex Thomson: What kind of personality is behind the suit?
“When you spend so much time pushing, grooming, persuading and cajoling a beautiful race car like this, you become very close. She took good care of me, and I take good care of her. I wasn't alone at all." Ellen MacArthur
“The chances of error are approximately equal to the number of crew members squared.” Ted Turner _ _ _
“The desire to build a house is a person’s tedious desire to be content with one parking lot. The desire to build a boat is the desire of youth, not yet wanting to accept the idea of a final resting place.” Arthur Ransome _ _ _
“I want a boat that drinks six, eats four and sleeps two.” Ernest K. Gann
“A sailing ship is not a democracy; you won’t be assembling a crew, starting with the excuse of finding out where you’re going to asking when they’d like to cut the sail.” Sterling Hayden
5 reasons to go yachting
17.02.2020
Text of the book “Aphorisms of Russian sailors”
Kruzenshtern Ivan Fedorovich 1770–1846
Admiral (1828). Participant in the Russian-Swedish war of 1788–1790. Together with Yuri Lisyansky, on the ships Nadezhda and Neva, they made the first Russian round-the-world expedition (1803–1806). From 1827, for 16 years he was director of the naval cadet corps.
Gratitude is a virtue (although rare, but) almost always characteristic of sailors.
Cook, Bougainville, Nelson would never have become what they were in their fatherland if they had chosen people by birth alone.
I was advised to accept several foreign sailors, but I... Knowing the superior properties of Russian ones, which I even prefer to English ones, I do not agree to follow this advice.
The sailor must make it a law not to approach the routes of his predecessors as much as possible and to explore with strict accuracy the places in which the newest navigators saw signs of a nearby land. I tried to follow this rule as much as circumstances permitted.
A sailor needs imagination as much as skill.
I hope to go to the sea. (Motto of I. Kruzenshtern).
It is not only philanthropy that imposes caring attention to the needs of sailors, but the duty of service itself requires this.
The captain and officers who, visiting him (“visiting his painful bed”), console and care - to help him.
Discipline will never be broken by lenient treatment. This applies especially to Russian sailors, who have all the qualities that distinguish good sailors.
Knowledge of the current of the sea is so important for navigation that the sailor must make it his duty to make observations of them at all times with all possible accuracy.
The zeal and love for science is so great and so universal that there will be no shortage of those willing, that there will be people who will willingly give up hope of a large salary or pension, if only they have the good fortune of being used on an expedition.
The sailors write poorly, but they write sincerely. (I.F. Kruzenshtern’s epigraph to his book “A Voyage Around the World in 1803–1806” on the ships “Nadezhda” and “Neva”. It was on the title page of the first edition of the book.)
Golovnin Vasily Mikhailovich 1776–1831
Captain-Commander (1821). Participant in the Russian-Swedish war (1788–1790). Leader of two round-the-world expeditions. He wrote 205 volumes of books on geography and maritime affairs, corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1818).
Youth cannot excuse gross mistakes in service: there are books for inexperienced officers; you just need to have the desire to use them.
Even for merchant ships, officials consider it shameful and disgraceful to leave their ships in the event of shipwrecks, until they are forced to do so by the complete impossibility of remaining on them... and military officers should value their honor even more: they never need to forget that in dangerous cases at sea the elements represent the enemy, and the fortress ship is under siege.
When acting, one cannot proceed only from the current state of affairs, just as one cannot in the evening not think that the morning will inevitably come.
If a sailor, while on duty, suffers a shipwreck and dies, then he dies for the Fatherland, defending himself to the end against the elements, and has every right, along with slain soldiers, to condolences and respect for his memory from his compatriots...
If a perfect navigator had managed to make the discovery that Bering and Chirikov made, then he would have seated all the ministers and all the nobility on all the islands and even on the rocks and would have made his compliments known to the whole world.
If the cunning and treacherous authorities, taking advantage of the inattention to the good of the Fatherland and the weakness of the government, wanted, through the suggestions and harassment of Russia’s external enemies, for their own self-interest, to bring our fleet to possible insignificance by various ways and means, then even then they could not have brought it into a position more contemptuous and more powerless, in which he now finds himself.
Common sense, justice and the usefulness of geography require that the inhabited parts of the globe be called as they are called by their inhabitants.
Of all the occupations to which a person devotes himself for the public good, naval service is the most painful, the most intolerable and the most dangerous occupation.
Which sailor can say that he owes the successes that crowned his measures and enterprises solely to his art and prudence, and that happiness had no share in them?
Better no fleet than a bad fleet.
Sailors write poorly, but sincerely, they live alone, but they feel keenly, they are spoiled and therefore more shy than others about women!
Sailors are created by long voyages.
There was not a single shipwreck, no matter how terrible the circumstances, which did not indicate that the surest means of salvation is order and subordination to the captain.
Not knowing languages, the traveler is deaf and almost blind.
There is no sailing more successful and calm than with trade winds, but there is nothing more boring. Man hates uniformity; he needs change; nature demands it. Although the always moderate wind, clear pagoda and calm sea make sailing safe and pleasant, the constant repetition of the same thing for many weeks will become boring. One good clear day after several cloudy ones and a calm wind after a storm are a hundred times more enjoyable than several days of continuous good weather.
A naval officer in a foreign port needs nothing more than knowledge of foreign languages.
You will not be judged by your benefits and other trifles, but by what we do on the other side of the world, good or bad.
A vast mind and extraordinary talents are the inheritance of all mortals, no matter where they are born, and if it were possible to bring together several hundred children from different parts of the globe and raise them according to our rules, then perhaps one of them with curly hair and Black faces would make more great people than those born of Europeans.
One spends his entire life among the dangers of the sea and, in old age, dies peacefully on the shore; another is afraid of a puddle, but comes to the ship to feast and dies on it.
The most skilled sailor in the world will be useless on a ship whose crew does not understand him.
It is shameful and unforgivable to endanger the ship and crew for the sake of saving a few chervonets.
In order to induce free people to renounce many of the best pleasures of life and instead force them to expose themselves to great worries, labors and dangers, it is necessary to provide them with important substantial benefits. These benefits can consist either in money, or in fame and honors; but the first to seduce the selfish bastard, from whom no great feats can be expected; Ambition alone can motivate people capable of glorious deeds to sacrifice everything and enter such a dangerous field.
I always think that our fatherland is not short of people of will, intelligence and a sense of public duty... Naval service - I’ll tell you straight - is a painful, unbearable, dangerous occupation.
The anchor then holds when it is laid cleanly and not tangled by the rope; however, it is useless and nothing more than a deceptive hope, always ready to change.
Bellingshausen Thaddeus Faddeevich 1778–1852
Admiral (1843). Participant of the first circumnavigation of Russian ships on the sloop “Nadezhda” under the command of Ivan Kruzenshtern. In 1819–1821 he was the head of a round-the-world Antarctic expedition. Discoverer of the continent of Antarctica and 29 islands. Participated in the Russian-Turkish War of 1828–1829. From 1839 until his death, he was the military governor-general of Kronstadt.
You will pass vast seas, many islands, various lands; The diversity of nature in different places will naturally attract your curiosity. Try to write everything down to let future readers know about your journey. (From the instructions of the Minister of Marine for the first Russian Antarctic expedition of I8I9-I82I, led by Bellingshausen and Lazarev).
You can compose a map in the Department, but it can only be approved and proven correct by experiments.
I was born among the sea; just as a fish cannot live without water, so I cannot live without the sea.
Sarychev Gabriel Andreevich 1783–1831
Admiral (1829). Polar explorer, hydrographer, statesman. He took part in the Russian-Turkish War of 1806–1812, taking command of the squadron. The first Russian prose writer and marine painter. Founder of polar archeology.
...Do not leave unnoticed anything that you happen to see somewhere new, useful or curious, not only related to maritime art, but generally serving to spread human knowledge in all parts.
Kotzebue Otto Evstafievich 1787–1846
Captain 1st rank (1829). He made the first circumnavigation of the world (1803–1806) on the sailing sloop “Nadezhda” under the command of I. F. Kruzenshtern. The second time (1815–1818) on the brig Rurik, he discovered 399 islands in the Pacific Ocean, Kotzebue Bay and the Rumyantsev Archipelago. In 1823–1826, he made his third trip around the world on it.
Having a good ship and a never-discouraging crew, one can consider the success of the voyage almost guaranteed.
The vicissitudes of fate are nowhere manifested with such force as at sea. Quite recently we experienced its sailing fury, but now it has become too calm.
...The most difficult undertaking carried out with Russian sailors turns into pleasure.
Lazarev Mikhail Petrovich 1788–1851
Admiral (1843). Participant in the Russian-Swedish War of 1808–1809 and the Patriotic War of 1812. The naval battle of Navarino in 1827. Discoverer of Antarctica and 29 islands. Commander of the Black Sea Fleet since 1833.
More sweat in study - less blood in war!
In a service such as the maritime one, there are no trifles. The slightest oversight, on occasion, can lead to the loss of the ship and the death of hundreds of comrades and colleagues.
This chest made three voyages around the world, but remained a chest.
Any position of a person first of all places responsibilities on him: not only official, but also personal honor is associated with precise, impeccable fulfillment.
...It is much more pleasant to see agile and active officers, full of courage and energy, than Sydney philosophers who just smoke pipes from morning to evening and talk about trifles, but are not capable of doing anything in their service.
...Their (officers') honorable service and appointment as commanders will depend on the performance of their duties that ... are assigned to them.
Navigators will not miss the opportunity at all times to do research on everything that can contribute to the success of science in general and in particular to each part.
Our maritime business requires constant training in it.
A naval officer who does not know his business in every detail is no good.
To acquaint young people with the importance of subordination, which is the soul of military service and of which the slightest violation should not be left unnoticed.
Surround a person with integrity and he will become a decent person.
Make it an indispensable duty for every naval officer to carry with him a copy of such instructions (to the lieutenants of the watch), so that subsequently no one can refuse through ignorance.
Service is an ordinary matter, and there is nothing to reward a person who performs only his duty.
Service on good ships, where there is strict discipline and order, is a sure way to make a young officer keen on his duties.
First for the service, then for yourself.
It’s bad how the watch officer orders something, but he himself doesn’t know how it’s done.
To prepare an officer well, you must first “accustom him to the best taste, to strict discipline and active service.”
Some people’s egoism is so strong that no proposal, whether it’s something they themselves have invented, is accepted, no matter how useful it may be...
I have never asked anyone for anything in my life, and now I will not ask before I die.
Bestuzhev Nikolai Alexandrovich 1791–1855
Lieutenant Captain (1824). He took part in a sea voyage to Holland in 1815, and to France in 1817. Decembrist, naval historiographer, writer, critic, inventor, artist.
Youth cannot excuse gross mistakes in service: there are books for inexperienced officers; you just need to have the desire to use them.
Water, an element that man has managed to subordinate to his power, bearing the greatest burdens, represents the most convenient means for communicating the works of peoples and parts of the world with each other. The rivers and seas possessed by states constitute their strength and wealth, giving life and movement to trade through navigation.
Brought up in one place, as if children of the same mother, with the same habits, the same way of thinking, the society of naval officers is distinguished by that friendly connection, that sincere straightforwardness, which other societies made up of people who came from different directions cannot imagine.
...Every noble deed, every lofty thought, every tender sensation and everything that comes out of the ordinary series of our ordinary actions is poetry. Everything that can touch the heart, fill and elevate the soul is poetry. Love, anger, hatred are passions, and if poems make the string of our heart tremble that the writer intends to touch, then, no matter what the outer appearance of the poems, they are poetry.
Friendships are stronger between sailors because they acquire friendship in their youth. Those who think of finding friends in adulthood are deceived. Young men, like wax, comfortably accept impressions, and the inclinations of one cut into the other; time confirms the soft composition of the soul, and the form formed by long-standing friendship will not have to be new.
The human soul always longs for the unknown, our thought always strives into the distance; insatiable, the imagination flies to distant lands, and what could be more pleasant when a sailor, satisfying the needs of his soul, rushes across the boundless seas... Whether storms come, whether contrary winds arise, his pleasure is increased by the pride of victory over the elements. Isn't it true that the possession of a favorite object becomes more expensive due to obstacles?
There is some kind of secret sympathy between nature and the human heart: what he is not afraid of, he already likes; There are strings in the soul that, out of willfulness or need, like an Aeolian harp, reverberate pleasantly with the roar of storms and winds - and no matter how much a person is threatened with death by the abyss of the seas - he only acquires new Determination, new strength to despise danger...
Human life is full of dangers in itself; military service multiplies them; but the dangers of land service are limited to the horrors of war; in the sea, on the contrary, in addition to military cases, a person is often exposed to greater death from the elements, arranged by nature for his benefit and benefit, than in the most brutal battles.
What a renewed feeling each of us brings after a long voyage to our homeland!
The sciences do honor to the scientist, and the enlightened one does honor to the sciences.
Through navigation, a wide bridge to beneficent enlightenment has been laid everywhere; there are no longer obstacles to messages for the benefit of man.
Nature itself implants in us the concept of freedom, and this concept, this hearing of the heart is so true that no matter how much it is drowned out, it will respond at the first appeal. What else does poetry consist of, if not in awakening an echo of its songs in our hearts?
From his very youth, the sailor regards the horrors of nature as nothing, and by force of habit he sets off into the sea as selflessly as you lie down in your bed.
Sevastopol fell, but it fell with such glory that every Russian, and especially every sailor, should be proud of such a fall, which is worth the brilliant victories.
The human heart is a repository of memories - sorting through them means dissecting the heart and revising the living ones, but alive in a sick body and inciting suffering that is all the more severe, the more sensitive and the more tender the heart, aching from misfortunes.
How many new truths are being revealed, what observations are being added to our knowledge of man and nature with the discovery of the lands and people of the New World! Isn’t it a high degree of purpose for the sailor who connects the links of the chain of humanity scattered throughout the world!
Our service has as many changes as the sea is fickle with its accidents; That’s why sailors, separated from the light, with its seductions and gaiety, on the edge of death every minute, one board away from death, know how to find in themselves a source of joy and become attached to a life in which others see only boredom.
Lazarev Alexey Petrovich 1793–1851
Rear Admiral (1839). Participant in the Russian-Turkish wars of 1806–1812 and 1828–1829. In 1819-23. As a lieutenant on the sloop "Blagomarnenny" he circumnavigated the world and twice passed through the Bering Strait to the Chukchi Sea.
Navigators will not miss the opportunity at all times to do research on everything that can contribute to the success of science in general and in particular to each part.
Our service, associated with such labors and dangers, has pleasant things in front of it... People who see before them only vast expanses of water and sky, separated by many thousands of miles from their dear Fatherland and only one board from the abyss, know how to find pleasure in this boring existence. These pleasures are all the more precious for them because they are not encountered as often as on a dry path in the midst of the ever-present noise, and they are completely unknown to anyone who has not been a sailor... It is difficult to express the pleasure that we feel on this occasion (meaning the tradition of a sea holiday when crossing equator), to be removed from the Fatherland for a long time, sailing to wondrous countries, without seeing for two months. shore and being located five hundred miles from the nearest islands.
Without bearing on our conscience the reproach for any oppression and bloodshed in the countries of the New World, we are received everywhere with a special affection that no other nation enjoys.
Wrangel Ferdinand Petrovich 1797–1870
Admiral (1856). Made three circumnavigations of the world. Polar explorer. In 1855–1857 he was the manager of the Maritime Ministry.
Fighting the elements, overcoming obstacles, making friends with difficulties - all this is so characteristic of a sailor that he is sometimes bored without them. He meets a squall with joy, welcomes a storm in the tropical seas not without some pleasure and, confident in his art, in the dexterity of his tireless experienced sailors, in the strength of the ship and the reliability of all weapons, he is not afraid of the formidable forces that so often test his patience and composure.
Litke Fedor Petrovich 1797–1882
Admiral (1855). Participant in two voyages around the world, geographer, Arctic explorer, president of the Academy of Sciences in 1864–1882.
In maritime affairs, one should not sacrifice convenience, even the slightest, for beauty.
Friends, the universe is red; but, if we judge strictly, we will find that there is not enough wine in it, but too much!
There are sailors who, due to extraordinary taste or the desire to distinguish themselves in something unusual, place sea life incomparably higher than coastal life in all respects, who, leaving their ship, suffer from shore sickness. I have walked the sea enough to have the right, in spite of these brothers of mine, to say that the ever-present monotony of ship life is terrible, and is finally getting boring...
...Every bearing is beneficial to science. Each time, little by little, a true mass of information will accumulate.
Sailors often speak very differently about the countries they visit. One describes the same land as fertile, another as barren, one as rich, another as poor, this depends both on the circumstances in which sailors land on any land... as well as on the fact that their sailors move from country to country, climate to climate are extremely fast...
Naval service does not allow you to forget about your duty for a moment - otherwise retribution will immediately follow.
Spending his whole life as if under tutelage, the sailor remains like a child even in old age, maintaining all the frivolity, all the carefreeness of this (childhood) age, thinking about tomorrow, becoming attached to his captain as if he were his own father and completely trusting him if he takes care of his needs in a fatherly way.
The work of a hodograph is generally a thankless job. Looking at a sheet of paper covered with winding lines depicting the shores, dotted with dots that represent shallows and stones, anyone would guess that the application of these lines and crosses in one way or another cost the writer several weeks, maybe months, the most tedious research and considerations.
The Russian sailor is a treasure, a miracle. You just need to treat him like a human being and be sure to teach him.
Comparison of many opposing testimonies, both among themselves and with the circumstances under the influence of which they were written down, is necessary in order to substantiate thoughts and obtain a somewhat fair concept of distant countries and peoples.
The mere sight of land has a truly magical effect on a sailor, and the opportunity to set foot on it after a long voyage surpasses in his eyes all the pleasures in the world.
Man is not an amphibious creature... There are sailors who claim that they feel good only on board (their) ship, who claim that no bed can compare with the suspension of a ship's bunk, that the best cooks in the world are sea cooks, that only sea air fit for breathing, and that they suffer on land from an “earthly disease,” just as many other people suffer at sea from a sea one... I don’t believe these sailors, because all these feelings are unnatural.
I know only one way to get rid of seasickness - to ask (force) to disembark yourself.
