Mia Tamme: sailing from Simrishamn in the south of Sweden to Skovshoved Havn on the outskirts of Copenhagen
Merja is hands down the best storyteller I have met. The rest of us go through a lot of theoretical training and emotional work to be able to spill remarks like: “I am quite envious of your bush, mine is already grey and shabby.” Merja’s words after Tonya’s, my fellow mate on the boat, beautiful naked performance in probably the most expensive neighbourhood of Denmark. I hope, one day I’ll be as bold in my writing as Tonya with their body, and Merja with her words. I guess I also desire to impress Merja with this blog post. She asked me what sort of work I do, and I said I write funny stories. Actually, I am not even a writer, let alone a funny one, but I wish I were. Now I probably should pull something out of my sleeve…
I also dream of being a badass sailor who circumnavigates the world on a 50-feet boat. I would have a big dog on the vessel, and hopefully fall desperately in love on one of the small Polynesian islands, only to realise that I am not into men, and then end up surfing a lot. In reality, I’m a pretty land-bound artist who chases their watery dreams by digging in the archives, coming up with stories about fisherwomen, and reading hydrofeminist theory. I think a lot, I tell myself that I am good at it. I say I need to think to be a better writer. Currently, I am obsessed with trying to find material on queers who sail, or women who live with the sea, but not in that essentialist type of way. Not that the lactating-body-and-period-blood-match-with-the-eternal-oceanic-osculation. No, not in that type of way. More in the pirates and badass femmes on the sea type of way! Eagerly, I volunteer to mend Godzilla’s pride flag, hoping this might make a change. In the end, I know that flags are just a representative fabric, and the queerest thing to do is chase cute harbour minks, get ice creams, and giggle while doing diving tricks with Iida, the boat’s photographer. Who I suspect is pretty queer, but I don’t dare to ask.
When Aga, another artist-sailor-resident, asks me if I am doing any art on the boat. I answer that I’m actually more into sailing than art-making. She laughs. I go on to a rant about how I want to bring the silly-excited-emergent-energy I get when I sail into to my artistic work. I tell her that I think it’s time to do more sailing and let the art just happen on the side. I am gutted that over the years, my artistic practice has been infiltrated by an increasing amount of housekeeping, bureaucratic tasks, grants, and applications. That’s not what life is about! Sailing represents the way out of that. When I talk to Merja and Andy, it seems like they too are caught up with all of that infrastructural work, even while touring with Godzilla. I am grateful for the space they hold on the boat. I can just hang out on the boat and live a life with no worries about money or emails, at least for the next couple of days. Just sail and stop thinking about how, why and … !
I’m always a bit of a sucker for people who manage to stop talking and start doing, and people who braid their lives into a continues practice where lines between personal and professional, artistic and mundane fade away. I find myself amid Andy’s and Merja’s couple dynamic. I wonder which one of them is actually a captain, and does that matter? I have been told that every boat needs to have a captain with a strong hand and sharp words, but maybe that is just something I have been told? Andy and Merja don’t shy away from having what seems to be a personal argument in the middle of waves that give me a bit of scaries, and why should they? Professional-personal, human-sea boundaries kind of blur on the boat, and they should. That’s what makes sailing so much fun. Life is messy and cannot be pulled apart, especially when the winds peaks at 15 m/s. It’s hard to tell if the boat is an artwork or a vessel for transportation. Or Andy’s fibreglass experiment, or an extension of my body when I hold the wheel.
About the boat—Godzilla is a cutie! On my desperate googling in the v-berth to find out more about its origins. I get soaked! I carefully question Andy, who, by the way, has worked for the boats deginer James Wharram in his youth. Cool! I stumbled upon the story: James was openly in non-monogamous relationships throughout his life. The boat is a copy of the canoes they used on Polynesian islands. I try to imagine how he built his first catamaran together with one of my favourite authors Bernard Moitessier, and how he sailed it over the ocean. I wonder if seeing people dwell less modernised lives on tiny islands gave him encouragement for less monogamous love, a less monogamous way of thinking about boat design? Was he queer? I cannot help to wonder if the multihull concept and the polyamorous relationships have something to do with one another? I think of the ties that develop on a boat, how roles get distributed, and how in the tight space, personal boundaries disappear. I feel like I know the crew for years, but I arrived just yesterday, people cook food 10 cm away from my toes, you get to know the odour of people’s piss And who likes to drink tea with regular milk and who with soya?
There is something about boat life and I am not talking about sailing, but the whole shebang, the harbour showers, doing dishes, and chatting with fellow boaters. It’s its own microcosm. I grew up like that, spending endlessly stretching hours in boatyards waiting for the antifoul to dry, figuring out how to improve the outhaul system for the season ahead. Both of my parents are sailors. So I spent my childhood in ports waiting for the weather, and then for my mom and dad. I was taken along if the wind were fair and leant a couple of tricks: how to silently follow orders, smoothly slide on the boat without getting hit with a boom. I leant how not to drop myself into the water, how to set sails, hang fenders, splice ropes, and tidy up the boat once we reached the port in early morning hours, how to let my parents sleep next morning, and wonder on the pier looking at fish, imagining to be a fish, making friends with tiny black animals who I did not know were called minks. Words did not matter; it was more about the feeling, the feeling of belonging. The thing about childhood is that you do not really question it. I thought all kids knew how to sail, knew how to move like a fish, how to pee overboard, and make a bed in between sails, taking care not to sleep on the competition set. Those sails are more holy than my comfort!
After being done with my bachelor’s, I got myself a boat with Erasmus money, only to realise that I had never been a captain. I had always just followed orders. I sold it some years later, thinking I was not cut out to be the dominating one, not cut out to be the badass sailor I was always expected to become. The leg from Simrishamn to Skovshoved Havn was my first sail after a two-year break. I think I kind of forgot how much sailing matters to me, how calm it makes me. I love the sea and the port life. I was definitely flattered by being called an excellent sailor by Andy and Merja, maybe I am actually quite good at it? I was reminded that even though I have not been sailing, I have grown to be a more confident girl boss captain. Probably through all that thinking about gender, probably by taking more dominant positions in sex, and probably also through my writing, performing and artistic pursuits. As I empty the canisters of piss, I find myself questioning the sailing etiquette and roles on the boat the same way I ponder about the roles expected of me on land. Soooooo maybe it’s time to get cracking, do some more sailing, but not in that conventional way, in the queer-artist-on-a-boat-giggly-girl-boss type of way?
Ps. I never got to mend that pride flag, so some dear artist after me, please give it some care!
2nd of July 2025,
Mia Tamme
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