"Eternal Father, strong to save, whose arm has bound the restless wave...

O hear us when we cry to thee, for those in peril on the sea."

 William Whiting

 

"Every small vessel venturing offshore is a lonely entity, face to face with the most elemental force on the planet earth."

    Carleton Mitchell

 

"The sea drives truth into a man like salt."

 Hilaire Belloc

 

"The time to take measures for a ship's safety is while still able to do so. Nothing is more dangerous than for a seaman to be grudging in taking precautions, lest they turn out to have been unnecessary. Safety at sea, for a thousand years, has depended on exactly the opposite philosophy."

  Chester W. Nimitz,
Admiral, U.S. Navy

 

"At sea, man is always at war with the elements."

 Anonymous

 

"When the wind rises to Force 10 or more, and the gray beards ride over the ocean, we arrive at totally different conditions, and for yachts it is battle for survival, as indeed it sometimes may be for big ships."

     K. Adlard Coles

 

"The fallacy lies in expecting anything at sea to be as it `should be'."

     Webb Chiles

 

"In the 1979 race, the sea showed that it can be a deadly enemy, and that those who go to sea for pleasure must do so in the full knowledge that they may encounter dangers of the highest order."

Official Inquiry,  Fastnet tragedy of 1979