Sailing

This evening I'm ruminating on the concept of sailing in the 21st century. Rewind a few hundred years and it was all fairly straightforward: body of water plus boat plus mast with sail plus a fair wind equalled sailing. But then along came fossil fuels and the wind was no longer requisite, nor the mast or sail - yet we still refer generically to boats or ships as "sailing" even if they are propelled by steam, coal, oil, diesel, electricity or nuclear power, and we call the people who man them "sailors". 

Wouldn't it be something to reclaim the terms sailing and sailors specifically for those who do things in the old-fashioned way, on craft with masts and sails which require wind to move them along? (You'll note that definition cleverly doesn't exclude sailboards, wind-surfers or even land-based vehicles.)

I imagine you thinking 'That's all well and good, but how then to describe all the rest and how they get about? The motorboats, ferries, cargo carriers, luxury liners, naval ships and submarines, cruise ships, oil tankers, and those giant container vessels?' 

Well, let me throw that back at you in the form of a competition. Have yourselves a little creative brainstorm. What words might serve as modern alternatives to sail, sailing and sailors for vessels that don't have sails? Post your suggestions in the comments below.

I've never sailed in the strict mast-sailcloth-wind sense. I've canoed in English and French rivers, punted countless times on the River Cam, rowed little boats on various rivers and lakes, voyaged as a passenger on proper big liners between this country and West Africa (where I grew up) but the closest I have come to sailing is reading about it in the novels of Arthur Ransome, Joseph Conrad or Erskine Childers - whose 'The Riddle Of The Sands', is my current engrossing bedtime reading.

At a time when spies and spying are making news headlines in the UK (and concerns over Chinese, Iranian and Russian attempts to steal state secrets), it's quite instructive to read 'The Riddle Of The Sands', one of the earliest espionage thrillers in a tradition that has given us John Buchan, Geoffrey Household, Eric Ambler, Graham Greene, Ian Fleming, John le Carré', Len Deighton and Stella Rimington.

I won't spoil the story for you. Suffice to say it involves two Englishmen in a small yacht sailing secretly off the Baltic coast of Germany to uncover infrastructure being prepared for a naval build-up in readiness for a sea invasion of Britain. Published in 1903, the novel was a sensation and did much to persuade the Admiralty to take seriously the possibility of the Germans readying for war, so that when hostilities began a decade later, the British Navy was in a much better state of preparedness.

For a poem on theme, I've chosen something quite famous by John Masefield. I've selected it for this reason: Arthur Ransome loved sailing and when he became literary editor of the periodical Temple Bar in 1905, he commissioned Masefield, who had some experience of sailing before the mast, to write a piece about sailing, shanties and sea songs. Masefield was happy to oblige, and Ransome was so taken with Masefield's article that years later he incorporated nine of the shanties referenced into various of his wonderful adventure stories, the likes of 'Swallows and Amazons', 'We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea', 'Peter Duck', 'Pigeon Post' and 'Secret Water'. 

Sea Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.
                                                   

                                                                                         John Masefield, 1902

                                

Thanks for reading, S;-)