To Mrs. Katherine Sanderson whose warm welcome and gracious hospitality extended to the friend of her son cheered the first dark days of my parting with the sea these pages are affectionately inscribe...

Less perhaps than any other book written by me, or anybody else, does this volume require a preface. Yet since all the others including even the Personal Record, which is but a fragment of biography, ...

“… for this miracle or this wonder troubleth me right gretly.” Boethius, De Con. Phil., B. IV, Prose VI...

And shippes by the brinke comen and gon, And in swich forme endure a day or two. The Frankeleyn’s Tale...

Landfall and Departure mark the rhythmical swing of a seaman’s life and of a ship’s career. From land to land is the most concise definition of a ship’s earthly fate. A “Departure” is not what a vain ...

Landfall and Departure mark the rhythmical swing of a seaman’s life and of a ship’s career. From land to land is the most concise definition of a ship’s earthly fate. A “Departure” is not what a vain ...

Some commanders of ships take their Departure from the home coast sadly, in a spirit of grief and discontent. They have a wife, children perhaps, some affection at any rate, or perhaps only some pet v...

Quite another case, and having nothing to do with drink, was that of poor Captain B⁠⸺. He used to suffer from sick headaches, in his young days, every time he was approaching a coast. Well over fifty ...

Before an anchor can ever be raised, it must be let go; and this perfectly obvious truism brings me at once to the subject of the degradation of the sea language in the daily press of this country. Yo...

Before an anchor can ever be raised, it must be let go; and this perfectly obvious truism brings me at once to the subject of the degradation of the sea language in the daily press of this country. Yo...

From first to last the seaman’s thoughts are very much concerned with his anchors. It is not so much that the anchor is a symbol of hope as that it is the heaviest object that he has to handle on boar...

It is difficult to disconnect the idea of ships’ anchors from the idea of the ship’s chief mate⁠—the man who sees them go down clear and come up sometimes foul; because not even the most unremitting c...

The other year, looking through a newspaper of sound principles, but whose staff will persist in “casting” anchors and going to sea “on” a ship (ough!), I came across an article upon the season’s yach...

The other year, looking through a newspaper of sound principles, but whose staff will persist in “casting” anchors and going to sea “on” a ship (ough!), I came across an article upon the season’s yach...

The sailing and racing of yachts has developed a class of fore-and-aft sailors, men born and bred to the sea, fishing in winter and yachting in summer; men to whom the handling of that particular rig ...

Every passage of a ship of yesterday, whose yards were braced round eagerly the very moment the pilot, with his pockets full of letters, had got over the side, was like a race⁠—a race against time, ag...

From the main truck of the average tall ship the horizon describes a circle of many miles, in which you can see another ship right down to her waterline; and these very eyes which follow this writing ...

From the main truck of the average tall ship the horizon describes a circle of many miles, in which you can see another ship right down to her waterline; and these very eyes which follow this writing ...

Indeed, it is less than nothing, and I have seen, when the great soul of the world turned over with a heavy sigh, a perfectly new, extra-stout foresail vanish like a bit of some airy stuff much lighte...

So sail did get shortened more or less in time even in that ship, and her tall spars never went overboard while I served in her. However, all the time I was with them, Captain S⁠⸺ and Mr. P⁠⸺ did not ...

There has been a time when a ship’s chief mate, pocketbook in hand and pencil behind his ear, kept one eye aloft upon his riggers and the other down the hatchway on the stevedores, and watched the dis...

There has been a time when a ship’s chief mate, pocketbook in hand and pencil behind his ear, kept one eye aloft upon his riggers and the other down the hatchway on the stevedores, and watched the dis...

The sailing-ship, when I knew her in her days of perfection, was a sensible creature. When I say her days of perfection, I mean perfection of build, gear, seaworthy qualities and ease of handling, not...

So seemed to think the new captain, who arrived the day after we had finished loading, on the very eve of the day of sailing. I first beheld him on the quay, a complete stranger to me, obviously not a...

Often I turn with melancholy eagerness to the space reserved in the newspapers under the general heading of “Shipping Intelligence.” I meet there the names of ships I have known. Every year some of th...

Often I turn with melancholy eagerness to the space reserved in the newspapers under the general heading of “Shipping Intelligence.” I meet there the names of ships I have known. Every year some of th...

The unholy fascination of dread dwells in the thought of the last moments of a ship reported as “missing” in the columns of the Shipping Gazette. Nothing of her ever comes to light⁠—no grating, no lif...

But if the word “missing” brings all hope to an end and settles the loss of the underwriters, the word “overdue” confirms the fears already born in many homes ashore, and opens the door of speculation...

The efficiency of a steamship consists not so much in her courage as in the power she carries within herself. It beats and throbs like a pulsating heart within her iron ribs, and when it stops, the st...

It is difficult for a seaman to believe that his stranded ship does not feel as unhappy at the unnatural predicament of having no water under her keel as he is himself at feeling her stranded. Strandi...

It is difficult for a seaman to believe that his stranded ship does not feel as unhappy at the unnatural predicament of having no water under her keel as he is himself at feeling her stranded. Strandi...

That is why your “strandings” are for the most part so unexpected. In fact, they are all unexpected, except those heralded by some short glimpse of the danger, full of agitation and excitement, like a...

It seems to me that no man born and truthful to himself could declare that he ever saw the sea looking young as the earth looks young in spring. But some of us, regarding the ocean with understanding ...

It seems to me that no man born and truthful to himself could declare that he ever saw the sea looking young as the earth looks young in spring. But some of us, regarding the ocean with understanding ...

And so much depends upon the craft which, made by man, is one with man, that the sea shall wear for him another aspect. I remember once seeing the commander⁠—officially the master, by courtesy the cap...

For, after all, a gale of wind, the thing of mighty sound, is inarticulate. It is a man who, in a chance phrase, interprets the elemental passion of his enemy. Thus there is another gale in my memory,...

There is no part of the world of coasts, continents, oceans, seas, straits, capes, and islands which is not under the sway of a reigning wind, the sovereign of its typical weather. The wind rules the ...

There is no part of the world of coasts, continents, oceans, seas, straits, capes, and islands which is not under the sway of a reigning wind, the sovereign of its typical weather. The wind rules the ...

The West Wind reigns over the seas surrounding the coasts of these kingdoms; and from the gateways of the channels, from promontories as if from watchtowers, from estuaries of rivers as if from poster...

Heralded by the increasing fierceness of the squalls, sometimes by a faint flash of lightning like the signal of a lighted torch waved far away behind the clouds, the shift of wind comes at last, the ...

The winds of North and South are, as I have said, but small princes amongst the powers of the sea. They have no territory of their own; they are not reigning winds anywhere. Yet it is from their house...

In the atmosphere of the Easterly Weather, as pellucid as a piece of crystal and refracting like a prism, we could see the appalling numbers of our helpless company, even to those who in more normal c...

The estuaries of rivers appeal strongly to an adventurous imagination. This appeal is not always a charm, for there are estuaries of a particularly dispiriting ugliness: lowlands, mudflats, or perhaps...

The estuaries of rivers appeal strongly to an adventurous imagination. This appeal is not always a charm, for there are estuaries of a particularly dispiriting ugliness: lowlands, mudflats, or perhaps...

The Nore sand remains covered at low-water, and never seen by human eye; but the Nore is a name to conjure with visions of historical events, of battles, of fleets, of mutinies, of watch and ward kept...

The view of ships lying moored in some of the older docks of London has always suggested to my mind the image of a flock of swans kept in the flooded backyard of grim tenement houses. The flatness of ...

A ship in dock, surrounded by quays and the walls of warehouses, has the appearance of a prisoner meditating upon freedom in the sadness of a free spirit put under restraint. Chain cables and stout ro...

A ship in dock, surrounded by quays and the walls of warehouses, has the appearance of a prisoner meditating upon freedom in the sadness of a free spirit put under restraint. Chain cables and stout ro...

These towns of the Antipodes, not so great then as they are now, took an interest in the shipping, the running links with “home,” whose numbers confirmed the sense of their growing importance. They ma...

“Ships!” exclaimed an elderly seaman in clean shore togs. “Ships”⁠—and his keen glance, turning away from my face, ran along the vista of magnificent figureheads that in the late seventies used to ove...

“Ships!” exclaimed an elderly seaman in clean shore togs. “Ships”⁠—and his keen glance, turning away from my face, ran along the vista of magnificent figureheads that in the late seventies used to ove...

The love that is given to ships is profoundly different from the love men feel for every other work of their hands⁠—the love they bear to their houses, for instance⁠—because it is untainted by the pri...

The cradle of oversea traffic and of the art of naval combats, the Mediterranean, apart from all the associations of adventure and glory, the common heritage of all mankind, makes a tender appeal to a...

The cradle of oversea traffic and of the art of naval combats, the Mediterranean, apart from all the associations of adventure and glory, the common heritage of all mankind, makes a tender appeal to a...

Happy he who, like Ulysses, has made an adventurous voyage; and there is no such sea for adventurous voyages as the Mediterranean⁠—the inland sea which the ancients looked upon as so vast and so full ...

The charm of the Mediterranean dwells in the unforgettable flavour of my early days, and to this hour this sea, upon which the Romans alone ruled without dispute, has kept for me the fascination of yo...

It was written that there, in the nursery of our navigating ancestors, I should learn to walk in the ways of my craft and grow in the love of the sea, blind as young love often is, but absorbing and d...

It was written that there, in the nursery of our navigating ancestors, I should learn to walk in the ways of my craft and grow in the love of the sea, blind as young love often is, but absorbing and d...

We four formed (to use a term well understood nowadays in every social sphere) a “syndicate” owning the Tremolino: an international and astonishing syndicate. And we were all ardent Royalists of the s...

It was not Tremolino’s fault that the syndicate depended so much on the wit and wisdom and the information of Doña Rita. She had taken a little furnished house on the Prado for the good of the cause⁠—...

Anyway, he was perfect, as Doña Rita had declared. The only thing unsatisfactory (and even inexplicable) about our Dominic was his nephew, Cesar. It was startling to see a desolate expression of shame...

We slipped out to sea quietly at dusk, and all through the night everything went well. The breeze was gusty; a southerly blow was making up. It was fair wind for our course. Now and then Dominic slowl...

It was settled. I had now the courage to turn about. Our men crouched about the decks here and there with anxious, crestfallen faces, all turned one way to watch the chaser. For the first time that mo...

“A fellow has now no chance of promotion unless he jumps into the muzzle of a gun and crawls out of the touchhole.” He who, a hundred years ago, more or less, pronounced the above words in the uneasin...

“A fellow has now no chance of promotion unless he jumps into the muzzle of a gun and crawls out of the touchhole.” He who, a hundred years ago, more or less, pronounced the above words in the uneasin...

The British navy may well have ceased to count its victories. It is rich beyond the wildest dreams of success and fame. It may well, rather, on a culminating day of its history, cast about for the mem...

And yet the fact remains that, had the wind failed and the fleet lost steerage way, or, worse still, had it been taken aback from the eastward, with its leaders within short range of the enemy’s guns,...

This the navy of the Twenty Years’ War knew well how to do, and never better than when Lord Nelson had breathed into its soul his own passion of honour and fame. It was a fortunate navy. Its victories...