Gosh, I read that in "The Wind and The Willows" as a small boy!!
Long before facebook!
One of my favourite bits of the combination of sailing and literature popped up in the '70s, when some Irish yachtsmen named their world-class boats (designed by expat Kiwi Ron Holland) after parts of the Yeats poem "Song of the wandering aegus". The last two were 44' sisters; Golden Apple of The Moon and Silver Apple of The Sun. Silver Apple had the whole last stanza of the poem written on the transom;
One comment of the time was "try fitting THAT onto an entry form".
Ahhhh, you've got to love the colour schemes and graphics of the boats of the '70s and '80s. Too many all-white boats today.
