The way of a ship in the midst of a sea is a way of life. When you put to sea your world quickly shrinks to the distance between stem and stern, port and starboard. Shipmates become your link to survival. It may only be the skill and cunning of the crew on watch that separates the sailor from eternity. From the earliest times until present day, mariners agree that the best way to learn about the sea is to be on it, in a ship propelled by the wind - a sailing ship.
Nobody can tame it, few people understand it.
No one who lives with the sea can ever be sure what it will do to him or her. Like a lover with a tiger heart, it can rise up from sleep to swallow the largest ship. Sir Lawrence Holt, co-founder of Outward Bound, explained that sail training takes people beyond the technical and recreational aspects of pure sailing and seamanship. The origin of all life, the taker of many, often warm and placid, other times cold hearted and foreboding, the sea is the toughest teacher one can ever know. He that will learn to pray, let him go to sea.