The Greatest Sailor I Have Known

[JRacer]

Wow! A life well lived. Thanks for posting that Will. So sorry for your loss.

 

[markwbird]

Sounds like a really great guy and a great dad. I did the Outward Bound course on Hurricane Island in the summer of 1982. That photo of the boats brings it all back. Was your dad there then?

 

[DArcy]

Will, thanks for sharing the story of you father's life. It sound like he was a wonderful man, sailor and father.

 

[Bob S]

Very well said, I am so sorry for your loss. Somehow the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I am sure he was equally proud of you. What amazing and beautiful memories you will carry. thank you for sharing.

 

[RussC]

So sorry for your loss Will. having lost my own mother, father and wife, all in the past 4 years, I feel your pain. what a great tribute you wrote there, and it sounds like a life very well lived, and the love of it passed on to you and your family. he remains with you for sure.

 

[Will Gilmore]

Sounds like a really great guy and a great dad. I did the Outward Bound course on Hurricane Island in the summer of 1982. That photo of the boats brings it all back. Was your dad there then?

No, we were on Hurricane Island in the Summer of '76, when I was 13. I was under the age limit for their junior courses, but they let me enroll because of my father's assurance that I could handle it. I was the only one aboard who could navigate, of course, so instead of doing the "Captain" rotation as usual, I was the official captain for the entire trip. Kind of funny that the youngest aboard ended up leading the group of 14 to 16 year Olds.

-Will

 

[Head Sail]

Sorry to hear of your loss WiIll. A great tribute to a great Dad. You yourself are a testament to that.

 

[capta]

Your wonderful post made me wish I had met your dad. I'm sure I could have learned a lot from him. It sounds like he left without any regrets for the things he didn't do. My heart goes out to you and your family.

 

[smokey73]

Will, so sorry for your loss. It looks like your dad really knew how to "live his dash".

Quoted from one of many poems about "the dash"

"So when your eulogy is being read, with your life’s actions to rehash, would you be proud of the things they say about how you lived your dash?"

 

[dLj]

Will,

I've just seen your post about your dad. My sincerest condolences.

No matter how much you know it's coming, it's never easy when it arrives. I lost my dad a couple years ago and my mom this year. It's a life changing event.

Here's a poem I like:

Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep by Mary Elizabeth Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I do not die.

dj

 

[kappykaplan]

I lost my father in 2009 and my mother in 2013. Like the poem, @dLj . Tks for sharing.

 

[Will Gilmore]

Exactly, Dave.

Thanks so much.

-Will

 

[Captain W]

Great tribute Will. I feel like perhaps I do know him a little now….

May God bless your family during this time.

Chris Waaler

 

[Scott T-Bird]

I loved reading your tribute, Will! Think of how much joy there is in living. That is obviously what your dad taught you. He lives on, not here, but he still lives.

 

[Will Gilmore]

Think of how much joy there is in living. That is obviously what your dad taught you.

You got it. For sure.

-Will

 

[nightowle]

Thank you for sharing the tribute and story of your remarkable father. Those are such great memories to have of a man and a father who lived life well. You have my sincerest condolences.

 

[mermike]

Will, thank you for sharing your dad with us. My sincere condolences for your loss.

 

[jon hansen]

sorry to hear of your loss Will

 

[Will Gilmore]

My son had a great relationship with his grandfather. They would talk on the phone several times a week after my son went off to college and then law school. Their conversations would often turn to Philosophy.

My father had written an email letter to an old friend and passed a copy of it along to his grandson. When my son was sorting through passed emails, he came across it and passed it along to his mother, because I'm not big on emails.

So, I thought there might be a few sailors on this forum that would appreciate reading it.

Subject:Fwd: I answer as best I can

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: William Gilmore <>
Date: Wed, Sep 13, 2017, 10:34 AM
Subject: I answer as best I can
To: Kyllan Gilmore <>

This is an email to an acquaintance who asked what I do, if…. Thought you might be amused.
I’d never intentionally be rude, crude or evasive—at least not in my old age, but I am unfortunately somewhat inarticulate and socially inept. It would be terrific if our local golf club membership provided lessons in cocktail party conversation and social grace as well as bridge and golf, but they don’t. So lately I’ve been rehearsing the lame responses I often give to personal questions like: “If you don’t play tennis, golf, or bridge, what do you do?” I have so far devised no adequate answer, at least none that is satisfying. It is difficult.
A case in point:
We sailed Zafu into Richard’s Bay, SA several years ago. The marina, Tuzy Gazy, was small and new arrivals were a curiosity. One couple, I assumed to also be visitors, asked where we had come from.
I told them, we’d taken our departure from New England in the US.
“That’s a long way,” the husband mused, “how far have you sailed?”
“Altogether on this voyage about 26,000 miles.”
He followed up with the usual questions people ask when they have no idea what it is like to sail a small boat across an ocean: How long is she, how many does she sleep, do you anchor at night, etc. I answered that Zafu was 53 feet long, comfortably sleeps eight, and no, we don’t anchor at night.
His wife asked, “What do you do?”
“Do you mean what do I do for a livelihood?”
“I guess that’s what I mean.”
“I’m retired. I draw social security.”
“No. What do you do every day? I mean on the boat.”
“I wait.”
“You wait?”
“Yes. I wait. I wait for engine parts. I wait for boat parts. I wait for people to arrive. I wait for weather, ... and I’m not good at waiting. But I am good at Free Cell. At sea I once won 60 games in a row before I had to restart.”
“No,” said the lady. “What is your routine? What is it that you do on board?”
“It changes everyday."
The lady seemed unsatisfied. “Do you read a lot?”
“I try, but I’m not very good at reading. When I read I fall asleep. And novels usually don’t hold my interest. Everything has to be quite short or I’ll never finish it. We have some videos on board.
“Oh! Then do you watch a lot of TV?”
“No. We do have a TV set, but we don’t have access to television on the boat.”
“Well, do you watch videos and movies?”
“Not really, but I spend a lot of time downloading photographs from a digital camera. When my wife is on board, our voyages are well documented.”


I do, in fact, read books on passage, and then I generally read two books at a time--one fiction, one nonfiction. I always carry Jane Austin and Sherlock Holmes with me. Jane Austin is easy to read, and If I fall asleep it doesn't seem to matter.
I have presently restarted, for the third time, Lionel Trilling’s The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent only to find my disputatious nature has carried me off on an intellectual tangent. This time it was Trilling’s reference to Freud’s notion that artistic creativity is a consequence of a neurotic predisposition. That is to say, Freud suggested that artistic creativity is an attempt to avoid reality with substitute gratification. If that is true, it must be true of reading fiction as well.
My difficulty began with the words “avoid reality.” It compelled me to stop and ask what Freud thinks ‘reality’ is such that someone could hope to avoid it? And if someone were to escape, where might he find himself? Is not madness, along with all of Freud’s other possible alternatives states, identifiable as a subset of reality?
I understand, of course, that reality is a word that lends itself to equivocation. When Freud uses the term, it is most often in reference to the domain of cognition. When Richard Feynman uses the term, he’s probably referring to the universe of matter, energy and thermal dynamics, when Georg Riemann uses the word it most likely includes the idea of geometric abstractions, and when I think of reality … I just don’t know.
Even if one were to consider himself a reductive materialist and argue that his mind is identical to the neurological state of his brain--a facile argument commonly advanced in discussions in philosophy of mind, he could only make modest ontological headway. Reductive materialism fails to make a convincing case in explaining the phenomenological status of an idea. How much does an idea weight? How much space does an idea contain?
In The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins coined the word ‘meme’ as a virus-like idea in which culture becomes its vector of contagion. But it is an inferential entity; it can’t be seen under a microscope, and yet it reproduces itself like a virus, inclusive of mutations and adherent to the expectations of natural selection.
William James in The Will to Believe argues that positive delusions are psychologically constructive and negative delusions are psychologically destructive. James said nothing about reality. More recently I read a study that concluded positive delusions could be more psychologically beneficial than reality. I was disappointed. It left me hanging in as much as it failed to explain what reality is.
Is reality vast? Has it any size at all? It's hard to imagine anything that could exist yet not be measured by some calculus.
As Wittgenstein wrote in the Tractatus: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent."

Thank you for your indulgence.

-Will

 

[dLj]

Will,

Great write up!

I do have to say, your fathers statement of a small boat at 53 feet rather exceeds my small boat reality... But as I think about it, this may just fall within his original inquiry....

dj