Setting Sail
From the editor
When you lead a deadline-driven work life, it’s easy—at least it is for me—to let the pressure spill over into leisure time. My last two long cruises, squeezed between work commitments, both involved sailing too long a distance in too short a time span, and hence were in some ways as stressful as they were pleasurable. When your summer cruise turns into a marathon delivery you know you’ve gone off the rails. You should be exhilarated and relaxed at the end of it, not exhausted.
All of which is why I enjoyed David Buckman’s feature Into the Quiet (p44) so much. Buckman learned long ago that it’s not about the miles you make in a day, it’s the days in between the miles that count. This is an important philosophical point for cruisers
and one that I have been slow to grasp. My instinct when presented with a fair breeze is to give the boat its head and just keep going, past those intriguing-looking anchorages I’m sure I’ll visit one day. Unless I’m set on a particular destination, or the crew starts hinting they’d like to anchor before dark, I’ll take any opportunity to make a few more miles, thank you very much. People like me take the clichŽ “Sailing is about the journey, not the destination” a little too literally.
Sailors of Buckman’s mindset point their bows right into those anchorages just to see what they’re like. They couldn’t care less about making a harbor 50 miles away when a half-dozen others along the way are all begging to be explored. Embracing the “glow of slow,” as Buckman puts it, is balm for the soul. What difference does it make if you sail 10 miles in a day, or 50?
Perhaps I’ll compromise during this summer’s cruise and aim for 25. Hey, it’s a start… s