Black and grey tattoo of an anchor with the words 'a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor' on a forearm, in a black and white photo.

Anchor and sailor quote on a forearm

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black anchor sits at the centre of the design, with script reading 'a smooth sea' above it and block capitals reading 'never made a skilled sailor' below. The linework is solid and bold with no shading, and the lettering mixes a handwritten script with a plainer sans serif. The image is black and white, with the arm filling the left side of the frame and a grey sleeve on the right.

Lettering Forearm Anchor Quote Script Sea Sailor

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The Marguerite Hale had been wallowing off the Azores for four days when Tomasz Brandt finally admitted to the second mate that the glass was falling. Nobody on board had wanted the calm to end, not with the water lying flat as pewter and the sails hanging like wet washing. Now the sky to the west had gone the colour of a bruise, and the swell was lifting under the hull with a patience that made the men uneasy.

Keep reading

My grandfather taught me the saying before I could tie a bowline: a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor. He said it the way other men said grace, quietly and without expecting an answer. I thought of it that afternoon with my palms raw from the halyard and salt crusting the corners of my mouth, and I thought he would have liked the look of us, sweating and swearing as we reefed the main in the failing light.

The squall hit a little after six. It took the fore staysail clean off its hanks and sent a sheet of spray over the rail that filled the scuppers to my knees. Brandt was at the wheel, shouting numbers at nobody. We held her head to the wind until the cloud broke open and the rain came sideways, and then, all at once, it was over, the sky scraped clean and the sea ragged and grey but ours again.

We limped into Ponta Delgada two days later with a torn sail and no fresh water. Brandt bought a round for the crew in a bar with a broken jukebox and told the story to anyone who would listen, always getting my part wrong. I never corrected him. I had learned what the old man meant, and the lesson was mine to keep.