“Sailing is a lot of boredom interrupted by panic.”—Heather Tomlinson

Dennis L. McKiernan recommended an out of print book called The Lore of Sail^•, probably driving the price up even further. Devin Poore recommended Sea of Words, about Patrick O’Brian’s seafaring novels.

“God bless the person that invented Goretex.”—Shelly Rae Clift

Like many technological innovations, the great advantage of steam over sail is that steamships require smaller crews, so they are cheaper to operate even if in some cases they might be slower or otherwise inferior.

“Before there were guns, you can’t have a gunwale.”—Dennis McKiernan

Dennis also said that the term “knots” comes from throwing a weighted and knotted line into the water and watching how many knots become visible, to know how fast the ship was going.

From the sea monster panel:

“By the way, the term ‘octopi’ is a misnomer. Use it if you wish, but you’re an idiot.”—David Drake

“You’re an idiot.”