All Sail Week

Tough as old boots, brave as lions, has our ancestors' innate skilfulness become extinct?

- Sam Llewellyn

Sam Llewellyn

Flotsam and jetsam

Sam Llewellyn writes nautical thrillers, edits The Marine Quarterly, and is perpetually patching up a 30ft ketch: samllewellyn.com

Poring over the 1871 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica the other day, we came to the entries that describe the close-quarters handling of large sailing ships. There is nothing like a description of weighing anchor in an engineless four-master off a lee shore to fill the soul with admiration for the ancestors. Tough as old boots, brave as lions, and skillful in a way that has become extinct.

Or has it? The Britannica stuff reminded us that we have not recently had a go at All Sail Week. I may have mentioned this before. It is a week of the summer, randomly chosen and characterised, with luck, by small breezes from suitable directions, during which nobody is allowed to turn on the engine. All other means of propulsion – rowing, warping, sculling, yulohs, and of course sailing – are fine. It is excellent practice for moments when the engine might not work or, as has happened, the propeller falls off 200 miles from the nearest marine engineer. It breaks down into various sections.