The emotional pull of sailing leads to all kinds of analogies and metaphors about life. The very Zen of the experience has inspired numerous posters and bumper stickers.

Here’s a unique twist in a video with Oprah Winfrey by Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor,  a professor of religion at Piedmont College in north Georgia.

“I think we’d like life to be a train… You get on, pick your destination and get off,” Rev. Taylor says. Life doesn’t work this, she explains. It’s more like a sailboat ride.

20151017_151655_resized“Every day, you have to see where the wind is and check the currents and see if there’s anybody else on the boat with you who can help out. It’s a sailboat ride — the weather changes and the currents change and the wind changes. It’s not a train ride.”

This video came to me from my daughter Wendy, in Denver. She wrote: “Right, but my Dad already taught me that.”

Let’s go sail. To see the rates and reserve a date for a sailboat charter, click here. To check out reviews from sailors, click here. To become a crew member on a charter sail or to tell us your sailing story,  click here.

More from the Captain...

Season Opener

Season Opener

After a shakedown cruise with a delightful couple from Fredericksburg, we launched the season opener with a fellow who brought his wife and sisters-in-law along for his third time at Let’s Go Sail. Since it was a Monday, we were on the lookout for two Moran tugs that would signal

Full Story >

Good Riddance

As many as 20 derelict sailboats and motorboats on the Hards at York River Yacht Haven are in the process of being crushed and trucked away. A few wooden boats date to the 1940s. Once the hill is cleared and graded, more current boats will move here from down the

Full Story >
Danger Sails

Danger Sails

A couple from metro Richmond returned for another sail and brought friends with them. Donna Ludwig recalled the last time she and Buddy went sailing. “It was with my brother-in-law on his sailboat, slightly smaller than this, say 27 feet. It was a day like today and we had a

Full Story >