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Frank responded to Dan Regarding Slocum:

> Sounds about right for a prudent mariner with cargo or lives at risk. Then
> again, a prudent man would have gotten his chronometer repaired. Was Joshua
> Slocum a prudent man? Did he have anything to lose besides self-esteem? He was
> a man setting out to prove himself and make a little fame and money off it if
> possible. He succeeded more or less, but I wouldn't call him prudent. Do you
> remember reading in the book that he didn't know how to swim?

If memory serves me, most  sailors of old did not know how to swim. I cannot
recall the source of the quip, but I think is was Alex.  Something to the
effect that, "Crew tended to worry about a captain that had learned to swim.
Perhaps he had doubts in his navigating abilities."

Bill

   

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