Synopsis
There has long been recognized a special relationship between a skipper and his (or her) boat. In this book Alfred "Alfie" Sanford, with nearly three quarters of a century of sailing beneath his keel, broadens that bond of affection and understanding to include the land and the sea which washes it, in this tribute to the art of cruising in general and cruising the waters of Nantucket, his home port, in particular.
"Cruising is the art of exploring the interaction of land with the sea,"; he writes. Sometimes his book recounts that interplay in the broadest terms, describing how harbors open up the land to the sea, enabling sailors to connect places and cultures. But he also tells us in meticulous detail to tack over to starboard just past the green can marking the end of the second dry shoal entering Eel Point channel. Do it. He has been there, and knows.
It is an account of how the tides deposit sands in fanlike patterns and how to guide your boat through them, and how at the end of the day to drop your anchor in a small harbor that's been used hundreds of times over the years but is still quiet and nearly empty, protected from the ocean by a thin strip of land, hearing the "ceaseless sea seething against the sands of a resort of utter tranquility, decorated by stars emerging from a dying twilight."
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About the Author
Alfred "Alfie" Sanford, whose family came to Nantucket from Knoxville each summer, began sailing around Nantucket when he was two or three years old; he's not sure which. Nine years later he took a first overnight cruise in his 12-foot "Rainbow" catboat, anchoring and sleeping on the Horseshed shoal across the harbor from town. Then the avid young sailor began to sail and often race a dizzying succession of sailboats: Thistle, Yankee One-Design and Flying Dutchman, to name a few.
He went to Harvard, then MIT, where he studied architecture, and began longer trips and offshore races. When he was married he and his bride cruised inland south through France to Marseille in midwinter, freezing all the way. In recent decades he has sailed across the Atlantic four times. He has cruised around Ireland, Scotland, and Norway, then later the Eastern Mediterranean, in his beloved 57-foot yawl, Impala. Alfie sometimes worries that emphasis on racing is distracting from the simple pleasures of sailing. "It has broken the connection between the sailor and his boat," he says. This book should be a cure for that.
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