My reason for writing this book is, that it is wanted; my excuse,
thirty years' experience. In those years I have handled many boats,
upon many waters.
You will find this book very different from other works on the same
subject. In the first place, I believe that all text-books should be
written in a manner to please, as well as to instruct; that they should
be agreeable reading; and, aside from their teaching value, have a
certain excellence as a writing. Again, there is nothing in literature
so interesting as the autobiography, real or fictional. Nearly all our
great works of fiction are of this class. Robinson Crusoe's history
from any other lips than those of the castaway would lose half its
interest; Gil Blas in the third person would lack warmth and be wholly
devoid of its peculiar zest. The flavor of the individual is lost
when you speak for, and not as him. The puppet talks like a puppet.
It is the difference between John Alden pleading the cause of Captain
Standish and John Alden pleading the cause of Master John. Let a man
talk to you and he will interest and amuse; let him write for you and
he will prove trite and dull. Therefore, when imparting information, I
like to talk, not write. I want to infuse into my words my person, to
endeavor to give my ideas an I-am-with-you tone, so that it will be me
and not the book that is present, and with whom you are in communion.
But this method of handling a subject is apt to breed dogmatism,
especially as the reader is unable to question or deny the statements
made until they have been chilled into ink. So you will find in many
of my chapters that I am exceedingly dogmatic. It is unintentional,
simply being a manifestation of the spirit peculiar to this style of
addressing an audience--one that must hear but cannot answer. Therefore
let me warn you to question all my statements, and to accept only those
that harmonize with your own conclusions, after you have carefully
thought them over. Those that you cannot reconcile to your own
knowledge and experience, lay on one side to be tried out at a future
day.
Never, no matter how high the authority, accept any man's coin by its
minted face. It is as easy to strike a base as a sterling piece, and
the king's head on the reverse and his arms on the obverse won't make
lead silver, or copper gold. This in regard to statements made by those
who set themselves up as authorities on a subject is particularly true,
when the subject is one like this under discussion; one in which no
fixed rules may be established, and where so much depends upon the
man, the place and the means. I make a statement of practice; it was
deduced from my personal experience, and in my case gave a perfect
result; you follow it, but owing to certain complicating circumstances,
in your case, it fails. For instance, I tell you, that when a vessel
gets sternway on in a seaway to keep your helm amidships, and cast her
with the headsails, and not to put your helm hard over. You accept my
method as being the correct one, try it, and fail to cast your boat so
as to fill away. This does not prove that I am wrong in making such a
statement, but it shows that I am wrong in not having qualified it.
It also shows that you are a lax thinker in not having questioned my
method before putting it in practice. My error is the too frequent
error of men who write on vessel handling; yours the too common error
of men who study their books.
The object of this book, of these talks, is not to fill you, parrot
fashion, full of rules of action or methods of practice, but to furnish
you with food for thought; to lay before you certain statements from
which you must, to a large extent, deduce your own conclusions. Take
what I say, mix it with your own knowledge and experience, and put into
action the result.
These talks are not intended for men who are what we may call seamen,
men who are thoroughly versed in the art, nor are they intended for
those who aspire to boats larger than forty feet over all. A boat
above that size is too valuable to be trusted in the hands of an
inexperienced or half-trained man. The owner of a large yacht, if he is
not perfectly capable of handling her under all conditions, should hire
some one who is. My sermons are addressed to the man who is learning to
handle a small vessel, who wants to be a seaman, and who, to be free of
all paid assistance, is willing to study the art thoroughly and make
himself master of all its branches.
_ON SEAMANSHIP_
"_The tar's a smart tar that can band, reef and steer,
That can nimbly cast off and belay;
Who in darkest nights finds each halyard and gear,
And dead reckoning knows well, and leeway;
But the tar to please me must more knowing be._"--
DIBDEN--(_Modernized_).