Following our exploits of a couple of weeks ago sailing Paschall's junk rigged Kingfisher 26, I became interested in junk rigs, and the people who sail them. A bit of reading soon brought me to Roger D Taylor, and his junk rigged coribee MingMing. I ordered both of Roger's books, 'The Simple Sailor' and 'MingMing and the art of minimal ocean sailing'.
MingMing
Here was a chap who sets off every year on an Ocean voyage, typically to the frozen North, Iceland, Greenland and so on, in a tiny boat, single handed, with no GPS, radar etc and expounds the idea of minimalist sailing.
How refreshing! Pure sailing. In these days of high performance sailing gear and gadgets, and even higher performance selling of such items, it really is good to read page after page of descriptions by someone who clearly loves the sea, all of its moods and the creatures, whales, dolphins, birds, that share it with him.
"Ah yes, the sea! What can you say? It rolls on and on and the wind blows. What impels a man to ride those billows, day after day after day? Why this yearning? What madness is it, that finds solace in an indifferent wilderness? Is it return or escape? Is it to touch the heart of life or to caress the cool cheek of death, distantly? What is this thing that hovers, never seen but always there, and draws a man on? What is this lodestone? Why the sea, always the sea?" *
*from Mingming and the art of minimal ocean sailing.
"Why the sea, always the sea" - it's a question I've been asking myself for years now. Whatever I do, wherever I go, I find myself looking at, floating on or swiming under it.
Roger's descriptions of calms, of storms, of solitude, the beauty and terrible power of the sea captured me totally for the couple of days I spent reading his words.
I thoroughly enjoyed the books.
