Of Salty Sailors And Flying Boats
I’m a longtime fan of old-time music. I cycle through Appalachian, Irish, Civil War and anything else that tells a story that captures a moment in simpler times. Recently, I recharged my collection of sea chanteys, which generally chronicle the lonely, longing, hungry, hardbitten lives of men who set off on sailing ships. Listening to the musical tales of life aboard commercial and exploration ships in the 18th and 19th centuries made me think of the many books and rare films I consumed as a younger man, indulging my nascent passion for sailing. I’m a novice in the historical naval fiction of Patrick O’Brian and C.S. Forester, preferring instead the raw accounts of historians or those who actually lived the lives about which they wrote, most notably, the great Alan Villiers.…