Showing results for "Sails" in Military

It is against a remarkable backdrop of complicated wooden sailing ships and their overwhelmingly complex management and warfare that we may see true leadership displayed in ways most interesting and instructive. Given the challenges of these massive sailing cities from operational, tactical, and strategic considerations, the need for leadership in this historic era was monumental. It is when challenges are the greatest, when pressures are the highest, when risk is at its maximum, that the real mettle of leaders is revealed.

In the late 18th century, it was widely thought that to be a sailor was little better than to be a slave. "No man will be a sailor," wrote Samuel Johnson, "who has contrivance enough to get himself into jail. A man in jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company." If that were true, historian Nathan Miller suggests, then the record of sailing in the age of tall ships would likely be distinguished by few heroes and fewer grand narratives.