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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 11, Issue 10 (January 1, 1937)

A'leap on the Deep

A'leap on the Deep.

And what is your brand of agitated alleviation? Perhaps it's a'yachting you would go. Let's say that you've never yachted before. You are invited by a bunch of sea-dogs to brave the bounding billows in twenty feet of bucking kauri. So you buy yourself a captain's hat, stick a Popeye transfer on your chest, sink a couple of rums, learn to growl “luff ‘er” or “aye aye, skip” like a real dare-devil of the deep, and proceed to board the hooker. You make your approach with a rolling gait, you trip on a rope and fall into a dinghy as big as a saucepan lid. When climbing aboard the yacht you put your foot through the glass of a porthole and go for a skate on your chin in the stab'rd scuppers. Beyond having the anchor dropped on your toe and a halliard or two wound round your neck you keep your end up until the yacht gets all yachty. You sit in the stern and feel Captain Bloodish and yo-ho-ho-ish; at least, that's how you feel until the boom swings over and catches you a wallop on the off ear; while you try to look as if you are used to this sort of thing it swings back and slams you one in the other ear. You are still a bit under the weather when a following sea poops you and washes you through the skylight. But you are not discouraged. This is the kind of thing Columbus and Magellan would have laughed at, thinks you; you try to laugh; but something seems to have happened in the laughing department and you make a noise like an oyster-dredger moaning in a fog. But you manage to crawl on deck. The skipper tells you that the breeze is freshening and that there is likely to be a bit of a joggle. You ask if there isn't a jogglishness about everything already.

“Your mind is not on yachting.”

“Your mind is not on yachting.”