Jack London was born on this date in 1876.
A sailor is born, not made. 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.
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