Quote Originally Posted by Marius Dynamite View Post
I wonder why so few sailors could swim in those days. I understand swimming in the middle of the Atlantic is near impossible, but surely they could swim in normal waters?

If you were going to be a sailor, it must be fair to assume you lived rural or near the coast. Surely when you were young you would have went to swim once in a while? It doesn't really take that long to learn does it?
To a highly superstitious sailor learning to swim was sometimes considered to be tempting the fates. If you were good at your job there should never be a reason that you should ever have to swim. To learn to swim was to say you don't think your good enough to win.