013 Christmas Sailing Stories

It’s the Christmas Special of The Sailing Rode Podcast and our gift to you is a collection of Christmas sailing stories.

Listen to the podcast here or at the smartphone apps below:

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Intro Chat

• Check out our Facebook page for pictures of us and the boat in the holiday boat parade
• Here is the Dude Ranch we are taking the boat to for our New Year Celebration
• Another great last minute Christmas Gift is the Audio Sailing Lessons from our friend Franz at The Sailing the Mediterranean Podcast.  Franz also created ASA101, ASA103 & ASA104 lessons, that can be downloaded instantly.  Click here to see all of the ASA lesson packages
• Send us your sailing Christmas stories and we can start preparing for next year!  Also send us pictures of your boat decorated up for Christmas.  Crew@TheSailingRode.com

Christmas Sailing Stories

Saint Nicholas

• Santa / St. Nicolas Sailing Story
• I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In  Thank you to  Matt Norris & The Moon for allowing us to play their version on the show.  Check out and buy their music.

Matt Norris & The Moon

• Christmas at Sea by Robert Louis Stevenson

Thank you to Tom Lewis for allowing us to play his song of the poem on the show.  Check out and buy his music here.

Tom Lewis

Christmas at Sea

The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;
The decks were like a slide, where a seaman scarce could stand;
The wind was a nor’wester, blowing squally off the sea;
And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.

They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;
But ’twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.
We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,
And we gave her the maintops’l, and stood by to go about.
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All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;
All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;
All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,
For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.

We gave the South a wider berth, for there the tide race roared;
But every tack we made we brought the North Head close aboard:
So’s we saw the cliffs and houses, and the breakers running high,
And the coastguard in his garden, with his glass against his eye.

The frost was on the village roofs as white as ocean foam;
The good red fires were burning bright in every ‘long-shore home;
The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out;
And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went about.

The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer;
For it’s just that I should tell you how (of all days in the year)
This day of our adversity was blessèd Christmas morn,
And the house above the coastguard’s was the house where I was born.

O well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there,
My mother’s silver spectacles, my father’s silver hair;
And well I saw the firelight, like a flight of homely elves,
Go dancing round the china plates that stand upon the shelves.

And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me,
Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;
And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,
To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessèd Christmas Day.

They lit the high sea-light, and the dark began to fall.
‘All hands to loose top gallant sails,’ I heard the captain call.
‘By the Lord, she’ll never stand it,’ our first mate, Jackson, cried.
… ‘It’s the one way or the other, Mr. Jackson,’ he replied.

She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were new and good,
And the ship smelt up to windward just as though she understood.
As the winter’s day was ending, in the entry of the night,
We cleared the weary headland, and passed below the light.

And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me,
As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea;
But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold,
Was just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing old.

Jeremy Brown and Jeannie Teal by Gordon Bok- Buy it on Amazon

Gordon Bok

The Zieger Family Homestead Blog where I learned about the story of Jeremy Brown and Jeannie Teal

Thank you to Gordon Bok for allowing us to play an excerpt of the story on the show.  Check out and buy his music here.

Buy the Jeremy Brown and Jeannie Teal alblum here

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O Christmas Tree (O Tannembaum) by Juan Pablo Bello is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.