ABSTRACT
The “sailor’s yarn” of lore is alive and well in the form of personal narrative, usually called a “sea story.” Sea stories typically describe accidents or near misses and serve to illustrate the disastrous consequences of ineptitude, the bravery or quick thinking of the teller, or the unpredictability of events at sea. They may be secondor thirdhand, relating cautionary tales of events that befell other vessels. A frequent theme in sea stories is the failure of electronic equipment, such as the loss of a Global Positioning System (GPS) after a lightning strike. Stories like these assert a continuing need for old-fashioned seamanship despite advances in technology.
