Life Aboard: The Power of Words
Bob Arrington reflects on how his love for the water and writing collided as he embarks on his next column.
Words matter. Easy, you may say, for a writer to proclaim. But what do they matter to a poor student failing a junior high English class? More than you could ever imagine.
We lived near a river, a Grand River actually, a meandering stretch of water doing its best to drain half of Michigan’s lower peninsula into the Great Lake bearing its name. At less than a thousand feet to the riverbank from my childhood home, that river might as well have been coursing through my veins, for what it meant to my life.
I didn’t want to be in Mr. Nelson’s English class, I wanted to be in our boat, out on the river. I was fortunate that my father loved to fish. My most treasured childhood memories are of being in the boat, fishing with my dad—unless of course it was winter, then he and I would be on one of the river’s lagoons, hovering over a hole in the ice, trying to coax bluegill or perch from that cold water.
Fishing was important to dad, but this isn’t just about a father teaching his son to fish, this is about a baptism; it’s about a father immersing his son’s soul in the water that would come to define him more than any other aspect of his life.
Yet, words still matter, so Mr. Nelson did his best to help me appreciate the power they could hold when arranged in just the right order. Knowing I loved boats and water more than I loved his English class, he walked me to the school library one day, and checked out a book for me. He said it was the story of another young man who loved boats. In the following weeks I was drawn inextricably into the words Robin Graham used in his memoir “The Dove,” the story of a 16-year-old boy sailing alone around the world in a 24-foot sloop. It was the first book I ever read and one whose images have stayed with me 50 years later.
I’m sure somewhere in a geography or science class I slept through, I learned the water in the Grand River eventually made its way to the ocean Robin Graham sailed upon, but it wasn’t until I read his story, did I realize that not only could someone do such a thing, but they could take me along with them just through their words.
It would be years before I realized the impact Mr. Nelson had on me; he didn’t get me to like school any more than I had before, but he instilled in me an appreciation for words and the power of a story well told. A few years after high school, a poorly thought out but fortuitous decision took me from Michigan to the East Coast, in close proximity to the Chesapeake Bay. While considerably smaller than my Lake Michigan, boating on the Chesapeake Bay felt a lot closer to the ocean and the life I wanted to live.
Starting a successful business in Baltimore funded a series of boats, and simultaneously introduced me to people lucky enough to be working in the boating world. It was one of these people who asked me to recount a summer cruise we did from Baltimore to Newport, Rhode Island and back, for a new magazine she was starting. My initial answer was, “No, I’m not a writer.” She responded, “But you’re a good storyteller; just put the story in words on paper and let me see it.”
That was many years and hundreds of articles ago. Today I spend most of my days aboard our Ocean Alexander trawler Liberdade with my wife Dori and our Portuguese Water Dog, Cali. In those years between my boyhood adventures and today, I’ve learned to never underestimate the power of words or water. Each has the power to move mountains. Combined, they had the power to change a young boy’s life.
As I shift from my regular Waypoint column to a more personal one that delves into our life aboard, I can’t help but wonder, what would Mr. Nelson think?
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This article originally appeared in the May 2023 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.
Source: https://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/column/life-aboard-the-power-of-words
