Sailing is by far the easiest part of sailing. For once you’ve allowed for deviation, variation, tide, leeway and innumerable other factors such as psychotic skippers like Captain Ahab and neurotic crew like Fletcher Christian, it is in theory possible that – by means of waggling the tiller to and fro and pulling in various ropes and letting them out again – you may, with a little luck, arrive at your destination or somewhere similar.
If on the other hand, and