Alan John Villiers – By Way of Cape Horn, 1929
“There is something strangely attractive, some glimmer, maybe, of the elusive and indefinable thing called romance, something of adventure and of life as all men would have it lived, if they knew how, about the setting out of a big sailing ship for the sea. The mere fact that for weeks and weeks to come – months and months often – over perhaps 14,000 miles at sea, she will be dependent upon the wind to blow her to her destination, gives to the sailor an air of the sea that can never be the steamer’s. The steamer is a machine which uses the sea as a handy means for the conveyance of goods; the sailing ship is the culmination of centuries of progress towards the evolution of the perfect vessel which may progress with the wind at sea.”