[lit-ideas] Re: "Vivere Non Necesse, Navigare Necesse": Loeb To Sale
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 16:14:28 -0800
“The only thing that caught my interest was the ISLE OF WIGHT, and the details
of the Cowes Regatta, and the fact that it's the oldest sailing club of them
all (The Squadron), and the fact that the Isle was once part of Hampshire
(pre-1974).”
My first boat was a West Wight Potter. It was a little gunter-rigged 14-foot
boat built for pottering about in the heavy winds in the heavy North Sea. I
thought it would be ideal as a diving platform and it was okay – as long as I
didn’t want to go too far in a day. It tended to spend a lot of time hanging
in irons in the light winds off Southern California. So I’d have to fire up
the old Seagull if I wanted to get any place.
Several years later I replaced the Potter with a Catalina 22, but shortly after
that my wife became too ill to sail and so I never got the use out of it I
expected. In retrospect I should have kept the Potter. When I bought the
house I retired to I had the option of paving a drive-way and making space for
an RV. I could easily have had my Potter there – and even though there is no
decent sailing or diving seas nearby, I could have gone down there from time to
time and climbed up inside and read some of those books you are talking about.
I knew people in the Marinas who never went out to sea. They loved cleaning
and polishing their boats and didn’t need to use them. There is something to
be said for that.
Lawrence
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 3:55 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] "Vivere Non Necesse, Navigare Necesse": Loeb To Sale
Read that: as "I love to SAIL".
Helm writes:
"finally last year I read a few – among them was Vito Dumas’
Alone through the Roaring Forties."
Interesting. His ship is at the naval museum in Tigre, a northern suburb of
Buenos Aires, where the River Plate merges into the 'delta'.
I'm not TOO familiar with sailing THESE waters of the River Plate. If you ask
me, they can pretty boring, and no wonder Dumas found the CAPES worth sailing
rather than staying in the basin.
I'm not too familiar with sailing routes in the Mediterranean, but my family
being from Villa Bordighera, I guess I would describe that bit of the coast
from Genoa (or Celle Ligure) westward (the empire takes its way) to Saint
Tropez as the most delightful bits of coast the world over -- and must leave
Portofino behind!
But back to the LOEB, I wonder if we have a classic author who describes
sailing (I mean in the Loeb collection).
I see that PAUSANIAS has a long description of Greece, and I have two volumes
of them, but haven't read them much. I don't think the man covers the coast
itself, which can be a fascinating thing to do.
I got familiar with the coast of Greece by reading this EXPENSIVE biography of
the painter WIlliam Blake -- RICHMOND. He was a Graeco-phile, if that's the
word, and spent a year or two JUST in the Peloponnese, which got me interested
in the various ports in that peninsula. Apparently there are not that many --
and Sparta is a WAY inland. Elis I would think would be the most picturesque.
I own three volumes in the same series, ROUND ITALY, FRENCH MEDITERRANEAN
HARBOURS, and SPANISH MEDITERRANEAN -- red hardcover volumes. I suppose there
must be one covering JUST GREECE, but haven't found it.
When you think of the MILLIONS of islands in Greece, you start HATING islands
and want to stay (as far as my armchair sailing is concerned anyway) on the
mainland. Thus I see Athens is next to PELEUS, and then of course it's the
Strait of Corinth, and the rest of it.
North of Attica I consider Barbarous. And the IONIC side of it I'm not too
interested seeing that it is now part of countries other than Greece -- so who
cares.
Reading about things Greek, I idolise Sparta because it had the worst publicity
(or Peloponessian, Lacedaemonian, in general) and people are always saying,
"Ah, the glory of ATHENS!", when I think the main Greek values sprang from
Sparta, not Athens.
Then there's the GLORY of Arcadia, which is in the Pelopponese too, and I
believe with a bit of coast.
-----
When it comes to sailing literature re: USA, I'm familiar with what, I think
Scott Fitzerald called the "most domesticated piece of water ever" by which he
means the Long Island Sound -- and own this book "The inner sea", which is a
sailing expedition, Stamford to Stamford.
When it comes to sailing in England, my BOOKS (Swimming-Pool Librarian) include
the boring series, "The coast of England" in various volumes, and a few on "The
English Channel".
The only thing that caught my interest was the ISLE OF WIGHT, and the details
of the Cowes Regatta, and the fact that it's the oldest sailing club of them
all (The Squadron), and the fact that the Isle was once part of Hampshire
(pre-1974).
Studying charts of Cowes, I find it very boring though, and can only see the
point of the regatta as sailing into the muddy waters of Portsmouth. I can see
the point as a social occasion, but sailing-wise, it's rather stupid.
There must have been a Greek (I hope) writer who WROTE about harbours and
things. Romans I don't think because they were boring.
Today, I got the Loeb Euripides with Medea, so that will make interesting Greek
reading, if only to revise the route of JASON who apparently was such a good
sailor. Just seeing the harbours he visited makes for history. ODYSSEOS on the
other hand I find overrated and I never identified with his 'sophrosyne'.
There's this beautiful motto I once read: "To live is not necessary, to sail
is" (Latin). What a wise aphorism.
Cheers,
JL
---
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