Sail Boats

I’ve been sailing exactly twice.

I feel like this is infinitely better than never having been sailing at all, but also sort of sad, because only twice.

Friends of ours had a boat, and invited us out a couple times to some little lake. I remember basically nothing about the surroundings, I was enthralled with the feel of floating on the lake, pushed by the breeze, and how you watched the water. They let me bask on the prow, and I learned important things like how to duck the boom.

I was probably twelve. It was pretty awesome.

That does, however sum up pretty much everything I know about sailing. Except for the things learned from movies, and we all know how reliable those are.

I love the idea of sailing, though, even though I know that sailing in a big open space like the ocean would probably scare the snot out of me. I know about the horse latitudes and I’ve seen one too many Big Storm movies, being swept out to sea means you die! And if you don’t know what you’re doing, you get swept out to sea.

I’ve been practicing smaller sail boats this year—just a few, and they look radically different when I don’t have a picture of a sailboat in front of me.

When I was a teen, I went straight to more complex ships (though, still nothing like a brigandine, think Dawn Treader), and I guess they looked alright? I mean. I was mostly interested in the decorative prow (which was shaped like a horse, obviously). The novel I was working on in high school involved the Prince of the Horse-lords becoming a seafarer. He was a side character, and I think the plot significance of his ship was that he was well traveled—and I think he used it to make alliances with countries to the south. I’m realizing now that was a bit of a wasted opportunity if he didn’t use it that way, and I can’t remember for sure if that’s what he did or not. Wow. Never thought I’d forget anything about that novel.

I love it when tall ships are living museums and you area allowed to board and explore these shockingly small wood vessels that crazy people used to cross the Atlantic.

One of my friends passionately loves tall ships, and he can free sketch gorgeous ones when he’s bored in meetings. I know where to go when I need a ship for my Zare Caspian stories.

What about you? How do you feel about ships? Have you been sailing? Did you like it?