The right music can inspire landlocked landlubbers to take to the sea and become a smiling, horizon chasing sailor like this one.

We met a young cruising couple from a very land locked place last week . . . Utah. Now how does someone from Utah get the sailing bug and start devising how they can quit their jobs and head out to the high seas?

These guys are not the first cruisers Larry and I have met who hailed from such an unlikely land-locked area. The cruising crowd is anything but just those who live on the coast so it’s apparent that the "bug" can travel far inland and even over mountains to infect. But it made us wonder just how individual sailors are inspired.

We subjected this topic to a cockpit Happy Hour figure-out-the-ways-of-the-world session one night with a few friends. Before long we had unanimously decided that music was the culprit. Our primary piece of deciding evidence? The number of boats that are named with lyrics from a Jimmy Buffet song. Pretty rudimentary sleuthing, but we figured it probably holds more truth than most would imagine.

Songs such as "Son of a Son of a Sailor", "One Particular Harbour", and "A Pirate Looks at 40" paint such romantic images of life at sea, it’s not surprising that Buffett is the sailors most revered crooner of life on the water. One popular sailing magazine on the West Coast, Latitudes and Attitudes basically named themselves after Jimmy’s song "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes."

I remember one year back when I used to work at Boat Shows and was at the Atlantic City Sail Expo in the old convention center, a rumor got started that Jimmy Buffet would be making a surprise appearance and sing a few songs. The whole place was abuzz in anticipation, but he never did show up.

The maritime music topic inspired Larry to head below and line up some of our favorite sailing tunes collected over the years to further invigorate the conversation. It was agreed that great as Jimmy is, there are many other fabulous tunes that lure us to the waters. We soon began a game of calling out the names of every sailing song we could think of.

A rising moon and your own anchorage calls for the perfect soundtrack.

Some of my favorites are the Sea Shanties, born as a simple method to coordinate the work efforts of a ship’s crew. I recalled the time we were in Rockland, Maine anchored in the harbor right in the middle of a breathtaking Schooner Festival. As one magnificent old ship nearby got ready to set sail, the crew, decked out in vintage garb was chanting rhythmically "Away, Hey, and Up She Rises" as they worked together hauling the halyards. I can only imagine what the origin of the song "What Can You Do With a Drunken Sailor?" is. We all sang a few funny verses of that old beloved song, including "Shave his belly with a rusty razor" and "Put him in the scuppers with a hose pipe on him" before moving on to other sailing inspired tunes.

Larry reminisced the time we were at the Annapolis Boat Show and were on the boat taxi that takes you from the show across the harbor to Eastport. It was pouring with rain so everyone on the crowded taxi was standing up and huddled together under the bimini to try and stay dry. All you could see was a mass of brightly colored foul weather jackets. Visibility was almost nil and somebody made a joke about the ship going down. This prompted Larry’s always-ready sense of humor and he to start singing the theme song from Gilligan’s Island. Much to my surprise, within seconds everyone on the boat, including the captain, joined in and we all belted out, "The weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed. If not for the courage of the fearless crew – the Minnow would be lost." The singing continued until the last verse was complete.

In the Golden Age of Sail, music had a way of making hard work a bit more bearable, and the same holds true today.

Charlie from Salty Dog, a CSY 44, told us about an old cassette tape he has of a compilation of Pilot Verses. He said these were songs from the 1700’s that were actual navigational information. Sung to popular tunes, a navigator would use these memorized lyrics to avoid trouble at sea. Charlie went on, in a surprisingly good voice, to give us an example verse of one Newfoundland song sung to the tune of "I’ll Tell me Ma."

Can you imagine if you forgot a verse? Boy, I for one am sure glad they have charts these days.

As Rod Stewart’s raspy voice filled the air with "I am Sailing", Kathleen from Santenay, a Jeanneau 36, enlightened us of a Festival of Sailing Songs she had recently heard about. It’s called "Fete de Chant de Marin" and is held in Paimpol, France. Apparently it started in 1989 and is now the largest in Europe and possibly the world. Kathleen said she’s so intrigued by it that it is now one of her goals to sail across the ocean and attend the festival.

That festival immediately reminded me of the Stan Rogers Folk Festival that Larry and I want to sail to some time. Several years ago while we sailed the waters of Nova Scotia we were introduced to the incredible collection of maritime songs of Stan Rogers. It’s music we never seem to tire of. Apparently, Stan inspired a lot of other people in his lifetime also as now there is a StanFest held annually in Canso, Nova Scotia each July.

After awhile we could no longer think of another sailing inspired song to share the title of and everyone was getting hungry. Our friends from Salty Dog and Santenay said their good byes and stepped into their dinghies to return to their boats to eat dinner and ready things to pull anchor in the morning. Appropriately, the BeachBoys began wailing into the night air, "Sail on, sail on, sailor."

"Yep", I said to Larry. "It’s the music!"