Voyagers, zealots, poets and populists

Culture is the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought. Other sailing sites cover racing, keep voyagers in touch, and discuss the latest nautical gear. This is a space to focus on all the myriad parts and pieces that make sailing what it is for the people who love and live it.

There are a million different ways to identify modern sailing culture...including types of music, drink, lifestyle, certain beliefs, articles of clothing, shared history, our collective dreams, communities, common stories, places, pastimes and personalities.

But nautical history, the "roots" of modern sailing, comes from people who used the power of the wind for eminently practical reasons...they were not motivated by sport or pleasure. Today there's no need to sail to conduct trade, defend ourselves, transport our families or discover new lands. Without these imperatives, what's the draw?

In part the answer can be found in the things we collectively value, the symbols that we choose to define ourselves, how we relate to one another - our identity as people who spend precious time and money trying to capture something as capricious as the wind.

"I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it - but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor."

- Oliver Wendel Holmes

Zephry - Sailing culture for voyagers, zealots, poets and populists.