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Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea
Loves t' have his sails fill'd with a lusty wind,
Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack,
And his rapt ship run on her side so low
That she drinks water, and her keel plows air.
--
Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron, Act iii, scene 1; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 

George Chapman

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If you look at the bottom of a Zodiac, it's not just flat. It's got a hint of a keel on it for maneuverability. Not a proper hull though.
Hull design is an advanced science. In the days of sail it was as important to national security as aerodynamics are today. A hull was a necessary evil: all that ship down under the water gave you lots of drag, but without it the rest of the ship wouldn't float.
Then we invented outboard motors and all that science was made irrelevant by raw power. You could turn a bathtub into a high performance speedboat by bolting a big enough motor on it. When the throttle is high, the impact of the water against the bottom of the hull lifts it right up out of the water. It skims like a skipping rock and who gives a f**k about hydrodynamics. When you throttle it down, the vessel sinks into the water again and wallows like a hog.

 

Neal Stephenson

 

Melancholy and remorse form the deep leaden keel which enables us to sail into the wind of reality; we run aground sooner than the flat-bottomed pleasure-lovers but we venture out in weather that would sink them and we choose our direction.

 

Cyril Connolly

 

Somebody said [to Condell] recently, "Clearly you just don't understand what a person's faith actually means to them. For me," she said, "it's like the water of life." And I thought, what a great phrase - "the water of life", without which, of course, there can be no life. But even the water of life needs to be contained and properly managed, or it can run out of control, get into places where it doesn't belong and cause real damage. For example, if the water of your life gets together with the water of other people's lives, and they form a deluge, a rushing torrent of righteous certainty that sweeps all before it, including reason, well then it's not so much the water of life anymore, is it? It's rapidly turning into the water of death, as everything in its path is crushed - original thought, rational inquiry, free speech and their tattered remnants are strewn upon the rocks of scripture and blind dogma. What's needed here, obviously, is a dam to contain this water of death, convert it back into the water of life, and give us all a chance to switch on a lightbulb in our minds. And that's where secularism comes in. It's everybody's friend, believer and non-believer alike, which I think makes it the real water of life. At least almost as much as this stuff here - beer. Cheers. (Picks up a glass of beer and drinks from it) Mmmm! Now that's what I call the water of life. A merry Christmas to everyone, especially to all you Islamist crackpots who think celebrating Christmas is a sin. Of course it is - that's why it's fun! Peace.

 

Pat Condell

 

The month of May was come, when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom, and to bring forth fruit; for like as herbs and trees bring forth fruit and flourish in May, in likewise every lusty heart that is in any manner a lover, springeth and flourisheth in lusty deeds. For it giveth unto all lovers courage, that lusty month of May.

 

Thomas Malory

 

Thus I steer my bark, and sail
On even keel, with gentle gale.

 

Matthew Green