Sailing:
Philosophy for Everyone: Catching the Drift of Why We Sail
Edited
by Patrick Goold; Forward by John Rousmaniere ISBN 978-0-470-67185-6
A
Review by John Edward Harris
I
am both an amateur philosopher, having taught Introduction to Philosophy as
Adjunct Faculty based on my M.Div., and an amateur cruiser, having completed
ASA 101, 103 and owning and sailing a C&C 24 on New York’s Jamaica
Bay. As a sailor and a philosopher, I
loved most of this book.
The fifteen chapters, divided into four parts, are
written by either philosophers who sail or sailors who have critically
reflected on sailing. In Part 1, PASSING THROUGH PAIN AND FEAR IN THE PLACE OF
PERPETUAL UNDULATION, Jack Stillwaggon considers the Certo ergo sum dimension of sailing. Gary Jobson provides a racer’s point of view.
Crista Lebens draws primarily on Aristotle’s “eudaimonia” and phronesis to reflect on a typical day
sailing. In my favorite chapter, Richard
Hutch applies Rudolf Otto’s idea of mysterium
tremendum to ponder the spiritual dimension of sailing.
In Part 2, THE MEANING OF THE BOAT - THREE SCHOOLS
OF THOUGHT, James Whitehill offers a reflection from a Zen point of view. Gregory and Tod Basham’s chapter on The Stoic
Sailor was my fourth favorite chapter. I
highlighted more text in it than any other chapter except one. Steve Horrobin’s “Sailors of the Third Kind”
was my third favorite chapter and the one in which I highlighted the most text. In case there was any doubt, Horrobin
convinced me that of the three types of sailors, I am the third kind.
In Part 3, BEAUTY AND OTHER AESTHETIC ASPECTS OF THE
BEAUTY OF THE SAILING EXPERIENCE, Nicholas Hayes’ reflection on the Race to
Mackinac left me a little cold because I am not a racer. Steve Matthew’s chapter on Sailing, Flow, and
Fulfillment, however, invited me to reflect on the “flow” I sometimes
experience sailing as well as sea kayaking, even though he writes from the
perspective of a sail boarder. My second favorite was Chapter 10, “On the Crest
of the Wave: The Sublime, Tempestuous, Graceful, and Existential Facets of
Sailing.” In it, Jesus
Ilundain-Agurruza, Luisa Gagliardini Graca, and Jode Angel Jauregui-Olaiz
helped me understand why, for me, navigare
necesse est. Their chapter 10, along
with Hutch’s Chapter 4, would have justified my purchasing this collection of
essays. In Chapter 11, Jesse Steinberg
and Michael Stuckart consider what is “instrumentally valuable” and
“intrinsically valuable” about sailing.
In Part 4, PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS FOR THE
PHILOSOPHICAL SAILOR, Sebastian Kuhn’s chapter 12 considers the relativity of
sailing. John D. Norton considers wind, apparent wind, and created wind in
Chapter 13, a chapter that forced me to remember what I learned in high school
about vectors, and in the Appendix contained more math than most would be
comfortable with. In Chapter 14, Tamar
M. Rudavsky and Nathaniel Rudavsky-Brody consider the gods, fate and the
sea. Hilaire Belloc’s Chapter 15
transforms a crossing of the English Channel into an archetype sail.
Because Sailing:
Philosophy for Everyone: Catching the Drift of Why We Sail is a collection
of essays rather than the work of one author, it can seem uneven. While for some, its choppiness can be a
challenge, it can also provide some excitement.
Sailors, from racers to cruisers, and sailboarders to blue water
circumnavigators, will most likely find some wind for their sails in these
pages and lead them to wonder if indeed the unexamined sail is not worth
sailing.
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