Sea Fever: Was Masefield ahead of his time&;#063;

"I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the
sky,"

Thus opens one of the most evocative poems about the sea that I know.
We are, it is said, a seafaring nation, the blood of the Vikings,
Drake, Raleigh and Nelson is in the hearts and history of this small
and stubborn island race.

There are many other such poems and tunes, such as "Hearts of Oak", "A
life on the ocean wave" which, although we may not know the words, we
can all hum in the bath.

There is a magnetic attraction in the sea which compels us all to go to
the coast to stand and gaze out on what is basically a hostile
wilderness, capable of snuffing out a human life with less effort than
we would use to swat a fly.

There is a popular image of life at sea which has a whole series of
sounds and smells associated with it.

The sounds include the creaking of ropes and the mild groan of timbers,
the smells are of tar, brine and canvas.

The truth could not be more remote. The modern ship has no timber in
it, except for some very fetching teak effect veneer on the cabin
table, the ropes are all synthetic fibre and those heavy comforting
spars are now nasty looking shiny aluminium poles which ping in a most
irritating fashion when halyards and shackles tap against them in a
wind.

Even from this though you would think that you could still recover some
of the romance of the sea.

What about the next line of the poem:

"And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by..."

What balderdash! The modern sailing boat has so much electronic
hardware aboard her that the cockpit looks like the flight deck of a
jumbo jet. Most modern sailors would not even be able to see the Pole
star over the glow of the instrument panel, let alone know how to use
it. In theory the equipment available to today's Nelson could take the
ship out to sea, steer her around a bit and bring her home again whilst
her lucky owner was safely at home in the warm watching
Neighbours.

"And the wheels kick and the wind's song and the white sail's
shaking,"

Well, this bit could still be true, the wind still blows, the air is
more polluted than when the poem was written, but the sails are very
often white to start with, although it has to be said that they are not
canvas any more. This is a huge boon to the handlers of sails who no
longer have to have muscles like Garth to set and strike sails. No one
who has had to deal with it will mourn the passing of wet canvas.

Just as long as they don't rig old ships with it.

"And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking."

This line will only mean something to the real sailor, the sort who
sleeps on his craft and gets up early to make the most of the day and
the tides. Many sailors do, alas, do most of their cruising in their
imagination, they buy the right gear from expensive chandlers shops and
wear it to quay side pubs where they tell taller stories than
anglers.

I visited a chandlers shop in Cornwall a couple of years back only to
discover that the definition of the word "chandler" has been rewritten.
Originally it was a place where you could go to buy essential supplies
for your ship, including candles, from which they took their name. This
shop had a few pseudo-nautical souvenirs for sale but was mostly
devoted to very over priced fashion clothing for people to be seen in
whilst hanging around yacht marinas.

It was at the London Boat Show, where I saw a father and son gazing
wistfully at a rather expensive yacht that was displayed in gleaming
glory alongside the pool.

Son was just in awe of the size and splendour of the craft. Father's
eyes were on the deck, his mind's eye had decorated it with some bikini
clad beauties who would be wooed by the rugged skill of his seafaring
prowess.

Father turned to son and with the inbred knowledge of a thousand years
of naval supremacy remarked on the clever way the "Barnacle" that
housed the compass was moulded into the cabin.