ABSTRACT
Maxims and proverbs figure in everyday practice and in the practice of science. Those associated with science can be used in instructing students in disciplines such as medicine. The “natural forces” that play upon a sailing yacht are accounted for by a range of science and engineering disciplines, but the fact that students of yachting come from many “walks of life” means that if instruction in sailing were done in scientific terms, it would very likely pass them by. Instead, instructors draw lessons for novices from unfolding experiences of sailing at sea. One tool they use for doing this is to provide for the actions of sailing a yacht safely and efficiently through everyday maxims and proverbs of experience. They are particularly powerful instructional tools because their use provides for undertaking action beyond the particular occasion in which the lesson is introduced. This chapter examines how instructors and students can fit generally available maxims and proverbs to sailing contexts, thereby providing instruction in sailing and engaging in learning how to sail as account-able (observable-reportable, in Garfinkel's sense) in terms of everyday common sense, rather than account-able through the theories and laws of relevant sciences.
