Some Thoughts about Boating and Sailing

The exploration of new places, establishment of trade relations with these places and their conquest have almost been synonymous with people’s fascination with boating and sailing. The Phoenicians, the Vikings, the Micronesians, the English and even the Americans with their fast clippers have all harnessed the winds to promote their respective objectives, and gloried in the resultant negative and positive consequences.

More are Sailing Today

With the advent of engines, you would think that boating and sailing will fade from people’s list of enjoyable pastimes. Paradoxically, people are sailing today more and more than ever. In two-man dinghies to Cup boats; in outrigger canoes to twin-hull catamarans; in kayaks and party barges; in home-built prams of a few dollars to multi-million-dollar sailing yachts, people are boating and sailing solo, in tandem, in crews, in groups. Across lakes and up rivers, against the waves and with the winds, more and more people are boating and sailing for adventure, relaxation, recreation and livelihood.

The Mystique of Sailing

But what is so beautiful about boating and sailing? Perhaps the psychic lure of the sea, for one. Scientists propose that man came from the sea through evolution, so maybe we still have that primeval instinct to return to the sea, and we express it in boating and sailing.

Then there is that challenge to pit our skills against nature’s two elements: water and wind. Just to prove our humanity: human weakness if we lose, human superiority if we win.

But most probably we sail because we enjoy it, and immensely. Boating and sailing affords us freedom from the ties of everyday living by being in a new element ---water-- while utilizing another element-- wind. Being detached from land gives us the feeling that we are in a new world, where new rules, new laws apply. We have closed off the other world of mortgages and bills and routine and drudgery, so that for a while, we live in a world all our own. And if that is only an illusion, it is also an experience.

Go Boating and Sailing

So go boating and sailing with friends in a yacht, for a dreamy afternoon of doing nothing. Or on your own daysailer exploring your area’s coves and bays, sleeping at dusk and waking at sunrise, wishing everyday will be just like this day of calm and quiet. Maybe in a small pram creeping into every cove and creek and inlet of the lake, finding something new to see each time you enter one. Whatever is your fancy, boating and sailing will give you a hundred and one pleasures, each one different from before. Because the simple act of sailing is enough a thrill of its own, each time a total experience, no matter how many time you’ve done it, or how long you’ve been doing it..