Across the Editor's Desk

BACK FROM THE BOUNDING MAIN and the long slow swells of the Atlantic after a leisurely sojourney on what my colleague chose to call my "toy boat." At first I didn't like that "toy boat" appellation. She's twenty-seven feet long and soft in a seaway and takes the chop in a leisurely, competent fashion. Besides she sleeps four and is every inch a lady, proud in a quiet kind of a way and never arrogant. She even corrects my bad seamanship in a firm way, naturally persuasive. She reminds me, on squally days in a smoky sou'easter, of a good sponsor I have known. Sure of her course with never a sudden motion. And she leads me to see the lightness of the way she knows how best to go when the waves are high and the wind out of a quarter I don't like. . .after her nature and the dream of her old builder.