This year’s family vacation finds us in Norway, where my wife Theresa and I are quickly mortgaging our childrens future in small bites (one pizza and two beers = $45), but Im hoping the experience may leave the boys with memories that will someday prove meaningful.
It has already been so for me. One of our first stops was The Fram Museum, home of Roald Amundsens famous polar exploring ship, Fram. Fram is perhaps one of the most famous ships designed by Colin Archer, whose renowned rescue ships engendered our own Tosca (a William Atkin Thistle design). But it was the museum across the road that I found most moving: the Kon-Tiki Museum. In terms of human achievement, Thor Heyerdahls drift across the Pacific in a sturdy balsa raft doesn’t compare to Amundsens. Personally, Im more impressed by Argentine adventurer Alberto Torrobas reckless crossing of the Pacific in a dugout, but the Kon-Tikiholds a special place in my heart because it was Heyerdahls written account of the voyage, first published in 1948, that first captured my imagination as a boy, and no doubt eventually drew me to the Pacific.
The Heyerdahl Museum has recently reconstructed the actual raft that the Norwegian adventurer and his six-man crew sailed across the Pacific. Although Heyerdahls theory regarding human migration across the Pacific has been discounted, Kon-Tiki and his Oscar-award winning documentary (1951) is responsible for inspiring more than a few dreams of cruising the Pacific. I find it interesting that when American sailors followed Heyerdahls path across the Pacific in the 1960s and 1970s, they often did so in Colin Archer type boats like John G. Hannas Tahiti ketch-and later, the Westsail 32, itself a variation on Atkins Thistle. It is as if all roads to Tahiti first passed through Oslo.
All of this got me thinking about what other stories may have drawn our readers to sailing, for I do not think I am the only one. Herman Melville and Joseph Conrad, of course come to mind, but what about Jack London, E.B. White, or Langston Hughes, or more recently, Jonathan Raban? I imagine more than a few readers have found inspiration in Joshua Slocums Sailing Alone Around the World or Francis Chichesters amazing stories of Gypsy Moth IV. What book might I want to add to my shelf to inspire the next voyage?
