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Pirate Combat & Sailing Wisdom for Combat & Life by Mark Hatmaker

 


[Allow the Old Man a little preamble then I’ll get out of the way and turn it over to men of higher wisdom.]

Why Mark Learned to Sail

In the course of my Old School Rough ‘n’ Tumble studies I come across many landed iterations of violence but almost equally as many references to throwing hands and wielding weapon at sea, on keelboats, riverboat melees, canoe exploits, piratical tactics etc.

My idiosyncratic way states that one might better understand how and why something was done if one did not simply excise the targeted aspect [the combat portion in our case] of the old school life but experimented with as much of the milieu that the tactic arose in.

My tomahawk work is immeasurable informed by woodcraft skills and avid lumberjacking. My leg wrestling is subtly improved by Comanche bareback riding. Hell, even my outdoor cookery improves if I toss the gas-grill and go all cast iron and old school.

[For more on the vital importance of Combat Milieu You, the Explorer & the 5 Hurdles to Your Adventure.]

The largest hurdle to my understanding was my lack of nautical experience. Oh, I’ve kayaked, canoed, jet-skied, swam and been on many a powerboat, but as far as making a boat go with merely a tiller and sailcloth—not hardly.

Also, I could memorize all the nautical terms you’d find in every volume of Patrick O’Brien novels but that decontextualized knowledge does not stick in any endeavor.

How was I to make head or tails of obscure tactics in piratical combat accounts if I didn’t even understand the vessel these renegadoes lived, fought and died on.

[For a fun conversation with the delicious combination of Navy SEAL and pirate historian.]

There must be skin in the game before “rote trivia” reaches the marrowbone of understanding.

It is for that reason the Missus and I embarked in a crash-course sailing license school.

The bare bones were taught, it was fun, challenging, and since “graduation” just how paltry the education was has revealed itself.

We bought a boat, hit the water often—be it calm and challenging to make any headway, ripe for cruising and easy “bone in the teeth” sailing, and a handful of times “Run ‘er bare poles the wind will knock her down!” which is an ass-pucker, or race the storm front as lightning and masts in a 22-footer with maximum exposure is a Terrifying proposition with a capital T.

In short [“Too late, Mark”] I’ve learned more about water, wind, sails, lines [ropes], “combat on rollers” than I ever would have if I simply pretended that trying this or that bit of obscurity out in a box gym is the same experience. [It ain’t.]

I have also accrued many a nugget of wisdom from the lips and minds of others that seem to apply to not merely sailing with aplomb on the waters of the world, but sailing our vessel of body and mind on the ocean of life.



Wiser Lips Tell Us How to Sail Our Ships

“The sea finds out everything you did wrong.” —FRANCIS STOKES

·        Amen, poorly hanked headsail, uh-oh.

·        Didn’t center tiller before the jibe? Somebody’s getting hurt.

·        The key thought is rough water will shake out mistakes early. It tests for competence.

·        We are wise to take all of our tactics, creeds, assumptions into rough waters that will allow you to find out what’s true and what ain’t inside an hour.

·        No willingness to test? Well, that might reveal something about your relationship with truth.

“Calm waters don’t make a skillful sailor.” —An Old Sailor’s Proverb

·        See the preceding.

·        Waiting for perfect, you learn nothing.

·        Go average. Go often.

·        Perfect lives in the mind alone.

“The sea hates a coward.” —EUGENE O’NEILL Mourning Becomes Electra Highlight

·        Sometimes you gotta go when it’s rough.

·        There is no time for vacillation when an able and ready hand is needed.

·        Scared is OK.

·        Avoiding or delaying action because of fear ain’t.

·        Heel it past 20-degrees, we’re all scared but I need you to let her fly-NOW!

“A sailor is born, not made [a slight disagreement here, but…we continue]. And by “sailor” is meant, not the average efficient and hopeless creature who is found to-day in the forecastle of deepwater ships, but the man who will take a fabric compounded of wood and iron and rope and canvas and compel it to obey his will on the surface of the sea. Barring captains and mates of big ships, the small-boat sailor is the real sailor. He knows—he must know—how to make the wind carry his craft from one given point to another given point. He must know about tides and rips and eddies, bar and channel markings, and day and night signals; he must be wise in weather-lore; and he must be sympathetically familiar with the peculiar qualities of his boat which differentiate it from every other boat that was ever built and rigged. He must know how to gentle her about, as one instance of a myriad, and to fill her on the other tack without deadening her way or allowing her to fall off too far.” —JACK LONDON The Human Drift

·        Mr. London, as usual, warns us against too much comfort.

·        Gear that eases the way often removes one from the intended experience.

·        Example: When I powerboat with friends, I can mention things along the lines of, “Um, hey you do see the ‘cats-paws’ on the water there, that channel is going to go nasty with a crosswind just after that, you’ll pop the food off the grill back there if you don’t ease the throttle, also you may lose Sheila off the bow.”

·        Often the more bare-bones an activity is, the closer contact we get with truth and reality.

·        It is akin to the difference between car-camping and backwoods camping.

·        Comfort breeds remove—that’s what luxuries are for. To reduce effort [a good thing 99% of the time.]

·        But if our desire is understanding, we must strip ourselves of the training-wheels of whatever endeavor we wish to improve.

The free Newsletter will present 5 more nuggets from these nautical minds.

Coming soon to The Black Box Project, some piratical boarding ax tactics added to the tomahawk curriculum.

To learn more about The Black Box Project.

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