Presumptive Lecture

It may be thought that I am in favour of people making long passages in small boats. In fact this is not quite so.

When I hear of a successful crossing of the Atlantic in a very small boat I am delighted (Paul Johnson, Venus; John Riding, SJO AG; Robert Manry, Tinkerbelle). It pleases me that they usually receive an enthusiastic welcome ashore. But at the same time I think there may be a tendency on the part of some people to say, "If tiny boats like these can cross oceans, what's all this time-worn stuff about the terrors of the deep?".

The sea can indeed be terrible. It has terrified me, at any rate, on numerous occasions in my life.

It is a fallacy to imagine that, because the safety of the land is near when out for an afternoon's sail, this nearby security will be quickly attained should things begin to go wrong. It may be a dangerous, and sometimes fatal, false comfort, to compare the situation of a tiny boat in a howling gale a thousand miles from the nearest lee shore, to that of oneself in a much larger boat one mile from your own harbour entrance.

The off-shore man may well be blissfully asleep. You'd better not sleep!

It is a fact that the sea claims almost all her victims because the shore is there to trap them.

I believe many "big-ship" men have a painfully ingrown impatience of the very small boats which put out to sea in ever increasing numbers. I think they feel these boats (and the people in them) are insulting the sea their own hard-won experience has taught them to respect.

This lack of "respect" probably hurts the " big-ship " man, more particularly if he is unaware that many of the small boats are the result of long years of hard-won knowledge and development. I sympathize with his views, but I would hate to have to admit they are invariably justified.

My enthusiasm fails me when I hear of some ambitious voyage to be undertaken by people, hair-raisingly flaunting their inexperience. I sincerely hope that they will not come to grief, but I also hope they will not succeed. Their success might tempt more people to "dare the sea".

Definitely a short term hobby!

Long passages in small boats should be made only after long consideration.

The boat must be trustworthy, the equipment well chosen, the confidence of the crew well founded.