This is the rallying cry when the sh*t hits the fan during an afternoon sail. Sailing the Chesapeake, screaming thunderstorms would often appear quickly almost out of nowhere. The boat would heel over, sometimes knocked down or nearly so, and beer would fly everywhere.
“Spilling beer is a flogging offense!” the captain would shout.
Ignore the sails shredding in howling wind, forget the hail smashing the hatches, don’t worry about that guy overboard, SAVE THE BEER, and we’ll toss him a couple to hold onto until we can come back for him.
A friend who had been sailing a particular bay in New England for well over 20 years, once encountered a rock while sailing merrily along at five knots. His comment on the collision: “We spilled beer!”
“Spilling beer is a flogging offense!” the captain would shout.
Ignore the sails shredding in howling wind, forget the hail smashing the hatches, don’t worry about that guy overboard, SAVE THE BEER, and we’ll toss him a couple to hold onto until we can come back for him.
A friend who had been sailing a particular bay in New England for well over 20 years, once encountered a rock while sailing merrily along at five knots. His comment on the collision: “We spilled beer!”
Where am I going with this? Absolutely nowhere, just like I’m not going ‘out there’, where my yard is an interesting blend of mud and ice, hard to balance upon in the 40 knot winds. Which makes me miss those lovely summer squalls that only lasted minutes, instead of days and weeks and months like this crappy weather. And if there was beer on deck right now, it would freeze solid!
