Tim Murphy on Sailing Engineless
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 12:14PM ;)
Tim Murphy, sailing Ave Marina past Rhode Island’s Mount Hope bridge. Photo credit: Marceline Dyer.
Insights on Artistry: This story tells us about the artistic involvement that leads to unity in a medium—in this case sailing. Tim enjoys what artists find when they take on enigmatic problems: the thrill that comes with uncertainty; the achievement of qualitative feel (in this case, of the interaction between rudder, sail, hull, water, and wind); and the unique effort that a particular medium’s constraint demand. Embracing the artistry of engineless sailing means turning away from certainty and control, and committing to the flexibly purposive approach demanded by the unpredictable, interacting forces of land, ocean, currents, and wind. Ultimately, absolute commitment to feel gives Tim what all artists seek… the vivid experience of being awake in the world.
I’ve been a sailor for as long as I’ve been anything. I’ve worked as a sailing instructor, yacht-delivery skipper, sailing-magazine editor. All my working life, I’ve worked around boats.
A dozen years ago I bought a gorgeous 29-foot auxiliary sailboat, a 1974 Vineyard Vixen, and one of the first things I did with that boat was pull the diesel engine out—for good. Today the old Yanmar sits in my kid’s red wagon, next to the house, with the 30-gallon monel fuel tank parked right next to it.
Removing the auxiliary engine is a decision that even my closest family and friends, especially the pro sailors, don’t really understand.
I get a thrill in my guts and in my heart every time I drop the mooring, every time I take Ave Marina for a sail. There’s some fear in it, yes, and plenty of other things, too. From the moment I drop the pendant, I’m never entirely sure whether I’ll be back to that same spot, or when. We drive our cars, and the mass and friction of rubber tires on asphalt give us the reassuring impression that where we point our wheels we’ll go. But a boat isn’t anything like that. A boat lives in two moving fluids at once: air and water, seldom in accord. In order to steer, to point the vessel anywhere with a will, a boat needs to be moving through the water it’s floating in; yet, the very water it’s floating in is moving too.
In ideal conditions, Ave Marina will sail at 6 knots. But those conditions are rare, and sometimes I’m lucky to sail at a fraction of a knot. At those slower speeds, steerage is seldom assured and sometimes nonexistent. For those cases where the current's taking me somewhere I don't want to go, I have two good anchors.
To the southeast of my mooring, about 200 yards, there’s a narrow passage called Tiverton Basin where the tidal current comes rushing in and out four times a day, sometimes at four knots or more. At the two ends where the channel constricts, a standing wave sets up if a good breeze is blowing, and the turbulent white frothing water makes you understand where the Greeks got their sea monsters from. Charybdis lives under the Tiverton railroad bridge.
Beyond the basin is magical Fogland and Cuttyhunk and Martha's Vineyard. But I don’t ever sail that way.
Instead, I’ll sail west, then up Mount Hope Bay and past Fall River’s Battleship Cove into the Taunton River. Or I might turn south and sail through the narrow gap at Bristol Ferry and under the Mount Hope suspension bridge and on to Bristol Harbor or Wickford Village or gilded Newport. Just a little further is Block Island and Portugal and the rest of the Atlantic Ocean.
I’ve voyaged across oceans. I’ve sailed to Bermuda and Hawaii, from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean Sea. I’ve sailed through Denmark and Tahiti—Alaska, New Zealand, Greece. I recognize the valuable tool that a diesel engine can be when your firm goal is to get to somewhere else. But here on little Narragansett Bay where every shoreline is visible from the cockpit (so long as the early-season fog hasn’t rolled in) that engine isn’t a tool I need or want. Here in the first decade of the second millennium of the common era, I know full well that transportation is by and large a problem we’ve solved. We can drive virtually anywhere—on the road, through the water, across the sky. But driving somewhere isn’t what I’m after. What I get when I drop my mooring pendant is the unimpeachable feeling of being… what is it?... awake. With a mainsheet in one hand and a tiller in the other, I’m living in and working around and frustrated by and satisfied with those two elemental forces that our modern life has all but neutered.
Wind and tide: who’d want to tangle with anything else?
Reader Comments (5)
Well said Mr. Murphy. I couldn't agree more. You've achieved freedom from 'time', a rare achievement today.
Like your article, I learned a lot from this, Handmade necklace really thank you for sharing. Have time I can watch more relevant knowledge
I read your article about restoring your boat and wondered how it all went. I did an article for Cruising World about my Vixen when it sank at the dock. I loved the little boat and my wife never forgave me for selling it to buy a larger boat.
I am now in search of one for my last boat. If you see a nice one, pass the information along to me.
Dennis
I can so completely relate to this, Tim. The way you capture being frustrated and satisfied by nature, yes. Thanks for taking part in the Language and Place Blog Carnival -- it's a cool take on the "edge" theme.
Wind and tide, water and air, journeying on the boundary, motion against differential motions. This is a pleasing and subtle meditation and manifesto for the visceral in an increasingly virtual world.
PS I came across this via the Language and Place blog carnival.