136 | Cruising Under Sail | Eric Hiscock | Part 1

Preface to the third edition.

Today, there is no hard dividing line between cruising and voyaging.

I have to preface this with the fact that at the bottom it says December 1980.

So let's just set context.

Okay, right, this is the author.

Preface to the third edition of this book.

And it's December, 1980.

Okay, today there is no hard dividing line between cruising and voyaging for even the smallest seaworthy cruisers can and often do make outstanding ocean crossings.

And the two branches of sailing are closely interwoven.

When, therefore, with wider experience and a sense of the changing scene, I came to revise and rewrite the greater part of this book for a third edition, it seemed best to combine it with its companion book, Voyaging Under Sail, which also needed revision.

This has the advantage that repetition is avoided and that the information on both types of sailing may be found in a single volume.

Yacht Wanderer 4, Bay of Islands, New Zealand, December 1980, Eric Hiscock.

Now, he died six years later.

Okay, right, so why bother? Well, why not? Because this is showing a man over time.

This is now the preface to the first edition, 1949.

35 years later of voyaging.

So that's what he said.

Oh, there's no dividing line now between cruising and voyaging.

Even the smallest seaworthy cruisers, think about the 70s fiberglass cruisers now when you get hold of one of those.

The 70s boats were so tough that it was...

It was right then to think of them as solid and capable of ocean crossings, and it's still the right way to think about them now, 50 years later.

So, okay, he's right there.

From the preface to the first edition.

I've got to make sure I'm talking into this microphone as well.

Poor people listening on the podcast will be like, audio, sort the audio out.