What sailing can teach you

Published: 10. September 2024

Almost ten years ago I had my first sailing experience, I got in touch with a guy on a circumnavigation who was looking for a crew to join him around South America. This two-month experience took me from Montevideo, around the Cape Horn and all the way up to Puerto Montt had a huge impact on my life. A couple of years later my partner and I bought an old, rusty, moldy sailboat from the 70s and moved into it. We lived in it for 18 months, through two cold Norwegian winters and one pandemic. I finished my master’s thesis and started a PhD while my partner switched careers and started studying architecture. We sailed several thousand nautical miles those years, from Oslo in the south all the way to Senja in the north.

Getting into sailing has been a tremendous learning experience, especially since I did not grow up around boats. It has impacted my outlook on life in several ways.

1. The Tao of Sailing

At its core, sailing is about traveling. It is about covering great distances and arriving in new and exciting places. However, unlike the most common means of traveling, in sailing you are at the mercy of Nature. A sailboat, unlike an airplane, automobile, or motor boat, lacks the means to just power through and ignore the wind and weather. When sailing you have to work with Nature, not against it. Admittedly, most sailboats have diesel engines which gives you some opportunity to power through against wind and waves. However, every sailor knows that the worst days at sea are those spent battling against the elements.

This naked dependency on Nature immediately conflicts with our obsession with making plans. Having too many and too rigid plans is a guaranteed way to ruin a sailing.

I once heard a recording of Alan Watts comparing Taoist practice and sailing. Taoism is all about letting things unfold effortlessly and naturally and not force anything. It is about cutting wood with, not against, the grains. The Taoist sailor doesn’t make rigid plans, he goes where the wind is blowing. He doesn’t waste time looking at the ten-day wind forecast, it is going to change anyways.

2. Slow travel

With our modestly sized boat, we usually hoped for an average speed of 5kn, which is less than 10 km/h. Traveling at such a slow speed (basically jogging speed) changes the perspective. You actually see how the landscape and geology changes. How mountainous regions morph into rocky cliffs, fjords, and flatlands. You can get a real appreciation for the distances between places before the advent of railroads, cars, and airplanes.

This summer we sailed to the Lofoten islands in northern Norway a route taken every winter by countless coastal farmers going back as far as the Viking era around the year 1000. Traveling the same distance, albeit in a modern iron-keel sailboat with GPS, autopilot, reliable weather forecasts and digital maps, has given me a tiny glimpse of the the kind of reality these fishermen were inhabiting.

3. Limits of consumption

Living in the sailboat taught me some serious lessons about resources and consumption. On a sailboat, you are confronted with limitations on several resources such as freshwater for drinking, cooking, and cleaning and electricity for fridge, lighting, navigation, etc. Our boat had a 100-litre freshwater tank and a 12V pump for maintaining water pressure. This tank had to be refilled for every 100 liters used. During winter the water outlets on the floating dock and the water hoses would freeze and several times I was forced to carry the water several hundred meters to our boat. This completely transformed our relationship to, and use of, fresh water. We got good at doing the dishes with minimal water usage and creative reuse of water. It is still unthinkable for me to brush my teeth in running water.

Most boat has a 12V electric system fed by one or more batteries. The batteries can be charged from several sources such as the alternator on the diesel engine, solar panels, or 240V shore power. When traveling and living on the boat you must always consider the state of charge of your batteries and adjust consumption or production based on it. Acid-lead batteries, which are still the most commonly used, can get ruined if they are depleted of energy. Again, this fundamentally shifts your perspective on usage of electricity.

Common for these resources is that if you are a normal person living in an apartment in Norway you will tend to consider them limitless. When you open a faucet you dont think about where that water is coming from. When you flush your toilet you do not ponder where it is going. When you plug in your laptop charger, you don’t consider that there might not be power available at this moment. A lot of engineering effort goes into presenting consumers living in apartments with the illusion of a limitless supply of these resources. At the same time, we know that we are overconsuming the very same resources.

This line of thinking is inspired by Hundred Rabbits

4. Collectivism arises out of a need

Perhaps the single most important experience from my sailing years is the experience of community and collectivism among fellow sailors. Living those two winters in Trondheim fundamentally changed my view of what a neighborhood could and should be. There was a strong sense that everyone helped each other out. What if one of us had issues, either with sails, engine, electricity, or plumbing, and others would lend tools, advice, or a hand?

I have spent quite some time trying to understand why this particular neighborhood was so great. I do not believe it was only a coincidence and that we were just lucky to live next to exceptional people. Rather, I think that the collectivism arose out of need. For instance, to fill freshwater mid-winter we needed a water hose that was ice-free. The solution was to store a long freshwater hose in one of the larger motor boats. Once we had this out, we might as well fill up all the boats while we’re at it. When hoisting my partner up in the mast to inspect the rigging we needed some additional pair of hands for safety.

For the first time in my life, I felt dependent on my neighbors, this dependency led to strong connections and what I hope to be life-long friendships. It also spawned our interest in more communal living and our current search for an eco-village to settle down in. More on that later.