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Comment by qrush | Hacker News Reader

Oh no, my recent obsession has made its way to HN... oh, no....

If you're into reading/watching fiction about the Age of Sail (more so late 18th/early 19th century, so later than this video), I can't recommend Master and Commander (also known as the Aubrey/Maturin Series) enough. It's a lot of fun, witty, and full of all the jargon you just watched.

Of course you can also learn to sail - if you're lucky like we are here in Boston, there's affordable options for this that also do great things for the community, such as a sliding scale membership for adults + kids, accessible races, and more: https://www.community-boating.org/

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Just in case you weren’t aware, these guys have been doing deep dives on the series with a chapter by chapter breakdown, digging into every single reference and historical mention in the books. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lubbers-hole-a-pat...

After reading Aubrey-Maturin 5 times through I didn’t think I could appreciate it even more but this podcast revealed a whole new depth of awe for the author. Like Steve Jobs insisting the inside of the Apple II looked beautiful even if no one would see it level of craftsmanship.

Thanks for the zipp. Added it to my list of podcasts.

Can I also recommend getting hold of a copy of "seamanship in the age of sail". I've always had a latent fascination for just how they managed to manoeuvre relatively massive ships around well before the steam engine came of age. It's the only source I've ever came across which really goes into enough information to explain it to the limit of my curiosity. The page showing how a sailing ship was worked up and down a tidal river using various methods blew my mind.

And a copy of "The Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor: Or a Key to the Leading of Rigging and to Practical Seamanship" (Dover has a cheap paperback reprint). This is fun because it, having been originally published in 1808, is a textbook actually used in the Age of Sail.

There was a line from the philosophy book “Zorba” that went something like “happy is the man who before dying sails the Aegean sea”.

When I first read it I was like - yeah right, another exasperation l. But a few years later I happened to go to a sailing coarse in Greece (Thessaloniki) and OMG was the author right. There are a lot of seas / oceans about, but very few places with so many small islands to scoot about. And honestly going on a boat as a tourist does not really prepare you for the experience of sailing yourself. When the wind powers the boat there is no noise, you’re just gliding through with the power of your wit and ages of engineering.

Dolphins swim around you, cause its fun for them and no smelly propellers, and the camaraderie you form with your fellow sailers is intense, cause you depend on each other for survival.

And at the end of the day you anchor in some cosy beach, swim around and go to the local taverna for cheap drinks and amazing food.

Sailing the aegean sea is definitely something you should do at least once before you die.

How’d you find the sailing course? I’ve been planning to take a course on sailing and this sounds great.

A colleague of mine had gone through it so I had a direct reference.

Have no idea how one would search for such a thing…

I also recommend people check out the Horatio Hornblower books, which not only inspired the Aubrey/Maturin books but also the Sharpe books, Hemingway, and even Star Trek.

They are a little less contemplative than the O'Brien's works but no less excellent.

They also inspired the Honor Harrington series by David Weber, which is basically Hornblower in space. I enjoyed the first few, though the author inserting his monarchist politics was mildly annoying. I got bored with the later books because it felt like he wrote himself into a corner with a character that had to keep coming up with increasingly implausible dramatic victories. Kind of the Mary Sue thing.

I also recommend novels about fictional British captain Horatio Hornblower [1] for those who like sailing and Napoleonic Wars.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Hornblower

There is also this fun novel series I read some of as a teenager:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_Midshipman_Easy

Look up the Swedish ship Gotheborg. It sailed from Sweden to China and back. They take volunteer sailors (who know nothing) for sailing legs of varying degree. Best adventure of my life so far. Hopefully it will sail again.

I've found that the Thomas Kydd and Alan Lewrie novels covering the Napoleonic era also scratch this itch.

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