Page:Yachting wrinkles; a practical and historical handbook of valuable information for the racing and cruising yachtsman (IA yachtingwrinkles00keneiala).pdf/28

 success in life. Where can all these desirable characteristics be acquired with more ease and greater satisfaction than on a racing vessel, preferably one of moderate size manned exclusively by amateurs or with the aid of one paid hand?

It may properly be remarked that the love of boating is innate and can never be acquired. The mere sight of the sea has an attraction to the true son of Neptune as cogent as that of the magnet to the pole. He eagerly desires to be afloat on it, and can sympathize with Charles Lever, who once said he would rather have a plank for a boat and a handkerchief for a sail than resign himself to give up boating altogether. The man who has not the nautical instinct can never come to regard a boat with more affection than he does a horse-car. When you rave ecstatically of the virtues of your little ship he feels inclined to think that you must be half crazy. You can never make a yachtsman out of material such as this. We cannot all be sailors, so therefore let the cobbler stick to his last and the cook to the fore-*sheet, where he belongs!

The deduction from the above is that you should be careful as to the choice of your seagoing chum. The most congenial companion ashore may prove an insufferable bore afloat. And to tell the truth, you ought not to blame him for the lack of the nautical instinct, but rather yourself for inviting a person