Voyage Boredom

Abstract

Previous chapters have focused on the relationship between boredom and war in different contexts. We have revisited the American prairie during the Civil War, the European trenches and battlefields in the First and Second World Wars, the jungles of Korea and Vietnam, and, more recently, operations in the deserts of Sinai and Iraq and the isolated mountain areas of Northern Afghanistan. This chapter will focus on the issue of boredom in a maritime environment: the desert of water with its inherent danger of boredom. The focus is on 89 young cadets on board an old sailing ship crossing the North Atlantic Ocean during the stormy autumn of 2005. What kind of boredom do we find among these young officer cadets and how do they cope with and endure the boredom they encounter on this demanding, three-month-long sea voyage?