Abstract

In this essay I want to focus on a quality inherent in that range of feelings we associate with an experience described as ‘flow’. Csíkszentmihályi describes it as a state that arises in people involved in some skilled activity who become fully immersed in it; they reach a state of ‘intrinsic motivation’ and loss of self-awareness; their actions seem to occur spontaneously so that they seem to become simultaneously a passive witness to their own highly skilled agency. There are skilled movements and manoeuvres in sailing in which the equipment becomes, as we say, “an extension of oneself”. Under these conditions the sailor has usually reached such a level of proficiency that the state of flow just described may obtain. Moments of flow are relatively rare, and are highly prized by those who know what to look for. Losing oneself in the activity in this way is one of its highpoints, a point which makes it thereby significant and meaningful. Excellence in sailing confers a kind of fulfilment we rarely attain. It is, for this reason, an ideal worth striving for.