Why steamship captains studied sailing

"Landsmen are inclined to smile, as at a piece of foolish conservatism as if London bus-drivers were required to serve for seven years as stable boys and grooms, before they were allowed to handle motor-buses. With so much technical knowledge to acquire anyhow, why waste the man's time in learning a useless and outmoded technique as well? The answer is a matter of Virtue, really ... Every common action in the working of a sailing-vessel, all the time, partakes of something of a nature of an emergency." — Richard Hughes, in his 1938 novel, "In Hazard."

Perhaps anesthesiologists-in-training should rotate through sailing for a month or two during residency.