Fair Winds & Following Seas Blue Sapphire & Diamond Ring - Cross Jewelers
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Ring Details

Name: Fair Winds & Following Seas

Style#: CMT2388

Precious Metal: 14K Yellow Gold

Gem: Blue Sapphire = .57 carat (5mm round)

Gems: 2 Diamonds = .28 carat total weight

This ring has sold.

AU 25

 

Ring Sizing & Delivery Time – This ring is currently a size 7. If you would like this ring made to a specific size, we generally ship within one week of your order. Click here to see how long we are currently taking to size a ring.

When you checkout online, we provide a real-time expected delivery date. Because of the value, and that you must sign for the package, we will call or email you when we are ready to ship to ensure a smooth delivery.

If You Need the Ring Faster – simply select in the finger size selection box “No Sizing Yet,  Ship Right Away”. We will ship the ring in its present size. You will have your new ring in a few days, boxed, bowed and ready for presentation.

After receiving your ring, if you find it needs additional adjustment, give us a call and we will mail you a special free set of ring sizers and a prepaid return label to send the ring back to us for final sizing. Read more about ring sizing.


Fair Winds & Following Seas Blue Sapphire & Diamond Ring

Style #: CMT2388
From Cross’s Clipper Ship Trade Wind Collection

“Fair winds and following seas” is a nautical blessing for a safe journey and good fortune across the seas and on the voyage of life. This is a wave swept ring with a rich blue sapphire center and two brilliant diamond sides.

Blue sapphire oval center
with a diamond set within a swirl of a white-capped sea
on either side.

My First Boat Was a 7′ Sailboat
My Second Boat Was a 13′ Boston Whaler
My Third Boat Was a 9′ Row Boat
I Loved Them All

My finest moment on the sea was in my first boat, the sailboat, the day I launched it. It was a pram, with a square Viking-like sail (the boat pictured above is not my actual boat). I’d worked all summer fitting it with a centerboard, mast, and stays.

I launched my first boat on an August afternoon. The tide was high, the clouds were dark, thick gray. There was a storm coming. The wind was steady. I took the boat out on the bay. The boat was small, low, close to the water. I remember the push of the wind.

The moment I will always remember was a few minutes before It started to rain. A huge gust caught the sail. The boat surged ahead. I remember the sound of the water, the wake the boat created, the strain on the mast and stays, the dark sky, and the little waves racing on the bay. I remember the pull of the tiller. I remember the forces on the sail and the push on the boat.

I have felt the same thing in bigger sailboats. I have seen the wind whipping across the water, riffling the surface of the sea. I have felt the wind catch the sails (traditional sails). I have felt the boat lean and I have felt the force on the rudder, it’s all the same, a 7′ boat or 42′ boat. But, the first time alone in a sailboat with a serious wind, backed by a real storm was the absolute best.

Our ring called “Fair Winds and Following Seas” is about a day of blue sky and full sun. The thing that is common between my first day alone in that small sailboat and the name of this ring is the wind and that pure pivot point of pressure on the sail and a stronger gust and how that feels and how that moves the boat.

This ring is beautiful. It looks lovely on any woman that chooses to wear it. The woman that truly should have this ring, or one of its sister rings, is someone who knows sailboats and someone who really knows and understands the wind.

My Dad’s Sailboat

My father built his own sailboat, designed it creating half models one winter. He chose his favorite and he began in the spring. He set up forms in the barn, cut narrow strips of wood, screwed them in, polypropylened outside and inside, built the cabin. He was a carpenter by trade, ship building was a sideline. What he created was a solid, stable, reliable, good looking, handsome, unique, one-of-a-kind craft that we sailed for more than a dozen years. As a kid, his first boats were all sail. As a new dad, he transitioned into motor and had a dozen motorboats over a dozen years. He rode them hard. When Dad went back to sail, I learned the term, “Fair winds and following seas,” and came to understand that a boat doesn’t necessarily stand in opposition to the sea and that waves are not just for jumping, pounding and plowing through.

One of the things that surprised me that motor versus sail revealed, is that there are two very different oceans: one wet and often violent, one damp and frequently serene. As I think back to our years of sailing and fair winds and following seas, the sailing ocean I know and remember resembled more the family cat and dog versus the skunk and wild fox of the motor boat’s ocean. Sail boating was not all peace and tranquility. It was, however, closer to a state of transcendent calm and meditation than anything I’ve ever found on dry land.

“Fair winds and following seas” was about being together with the sea, at one with the sea, a generally gentle flow of boat with wind, with wave, where boat was in rhythm with waves. Where time and destination stood second to passage and experience of serenity and calm. “Fair winds and following seas” is a nautical blessing for safe journey and good fortune across the seas and on the voyage of life. A wave swept ring with a rich blue sapphire center and two brilliant diamond sides.

The Gems

Blue sapphire – Blue sapphire comes from Southeast Asia. It’s a color nature feels generous with in this part of the world. We love blue, particularly blue that shows well after the sun goes down. We tend toward a lighter brighter true blue color in all of our sapphire pieces.

Diamonds – world sourced, all natural diamonds cut in Belgium. Well-cut with a full complement of 58 facets, rating a 3 on our quality cut scale. Nice white color, beautifully matched. Hardness 10.

 

About the Trade Wind Collection:

Where does inspiration come from? Where do the creative sparks for design begin? For Cross’ new Trade Wind Jewelry Collection, we find ourselves drawn into the story of Captain John Henry Drew, from Gardiner, Maine. Born in 1834, he grew up the son of a Ship’s Carver, and went to sea at the age of 15, eventually becoming Captain of a series of clipper ships, and traveling from New York to China and back home, when that voyage took more than seventeen months.

Instead of carving or knotting or other hobbies that were characteristic of sailors, this mostly self-educated man read books, memorized details from newspapers, and wrote about his journey—his literal and his inner journey. His hand-written and personally illustrated journals tell us of his longing for Maine, for his family, and for “making something of himself”. He is very much like you and me, and it makes his story that much more compelling. He savors apples from home, as tasting better than apples from anywhere else. He imagines the scene he might see looking in the window at home, where his family sits, and he chastises himself for not getting more done at home when he was there.

The jewelry in our Trade Wind Collection is made by his great-great-great grandson, Keith. This young man went to sea as well, at age 18. As part of his service to the US Navy, his travels took him to many of the same places his great-great-great grandfather’s clipper ships visited. Keith also had a hobby unconventional for sailors— he had a fascination for gems and he studied gemology. He studied so that when his service was completed, he could become a jeweler. As Keith traveled the world, he collected exquisite gems, and after leaving the service and returning home, he mastered the art of fine jewelry making.

It is now decades later. We met Keith for the first time in March, 2014. We were impressed with his jewelry, and as we talked further, discovered he had a clipper ship sea captain ancestor and became intrigued with the parallels of his journey in life with that of his sea captain forebear.

The parallels in the two stories are expressed in the jewelry itself—the exotic colors, the flow of the designs, the attention to detail which is something passed down in this family—whether it is to protect the ship, its cargo and its crew, or to create a design that will last and protect its valuable gems, giving the wearer the same pleasure we experience when a ship at full sail goes by. You can’t help but stop and exclaim, “Isn’t that beautiful?”

We were hooked by this story, and by the jewelry. We think you will be too. In fact, we’re posting pages from Captain Drew’s journals from the Voyage of the Franklin in 1868. Take a few minutes to join in the journey, and think of those you love most, and rejoice if they are right there with you.

 

Read the Captain’s
Clipper Ship Journal Entries

 

Read Keith’s Gem Expedition Dispatches

READ MORE

Ring Details

Name: Fair Winds & Following Seas

Style#: CMT2388

Precious Metal: 14K Yellow Gold

Gem: Blue Sapphire = .57 carat (5mm round)

Gems: 2 Diamonds = .28 carat total weight

This ring has sold.

AU 25

 

Ring Sizing & Delivery Time – This ring is currently a size 7. If you would like this ring made to a specific size, we generally ship within one week of your order. Click here to see how long we are currently taking to size a ring.

When you checkout online, we provide a real-time expected delivery date. Because of the value, and that you must sign for the package, we will call or email you when we are ready to ship to ensure a smooth delivery.

If You Need the Ring Faster – simply select in the finger size selection box “No Sizing Yet,  Ship Right Away”. We will ship the ring in its present size. You will have your new ring in a few days, boxed, bowed and ready for presentation.

After receiving your ring, if you find it needs additional adjustment, give us a call and we will mail you a special free set of ring sizers and a prepaid return label to send the ring back to us for final sizing. Read more about ring sizing.

  1-800-433-2988  |  Monday - Friday 9:30 am to 5:00 pm, EST

When I went to Thailand, I ascended a long staircase that rose to a temple at the top of a mountain. It was breathtaking.

Terracing for rice puts land to its very best use, plus it’s beautiful too.

Buddhist Monks with a bowl, a prayer, and a blessing are in the streets and in the country.

Try to imagine a five story golden Buddha at the edge of your field, next to your farm.

The symbols of Buddhism are everywhere.

Considering how complicated housing and building is in America, try to imagine how one might go about constructing something this elaborate.

Lotus blossoms are everywhere in Thailand. Even on city streets outside of businesses, small ponds, vases, and bowls hold lotus plants floating in water.

Keith has fallen in love with Thailand. He adores the land, the people, the customs, the weather. He particularly enjoys searching for gems and treasures he accumulates while he is there.

This is Keith (of Clipper Ship jewelry fame) in Thailand, after hours, at a riverside restaurant, following a day of hunting down gems.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Orders Over $1,000 require a signature on delivery. You may choose free FedEx Overnight or US Post Office Express Mail.

Orders Under $1,000 no signature is required. You may choose FedEx 2-Day Service or US Post Office Priority Mail.

Rings that need to be sized take extra time (See our current sizing time). If ordering a ring, you may select, “No Sizing Yet, Ship Right Away”.

Curbside Pickup is also Available – please give us a call to place your order.

Free Shipping Details

Shipping Details

Orders Over $1,000 – Ship Free by your choice of FedEx Overnight or US Post Office Express. A signature is required on delivery.

Orders Under $1,000– Ship Free by your choice of 2-Day FedEx or US Post Office Priority Mail. No signature required.

Cross’s 2024 Christmas Extension

You have a full 30 days after Christmas for returns and exchanges

Anything you purchase November 1 – December 25, 2024 comes with full return/exchange privileges through January 25, 2025.

Our goal is to make gift giving easy with a full 30 days for exchanges or returns following Christmas.

Your gift comes beautifully gift-wrapped Absolute satisfaction guaranteed on all your Cross purchases.

Jewelry must be returned to us in original condition, unused and unworn. Special orders made to a customer’s specifications are not returnable.

Returns are credited in the form of the original payment– credit card to credit card, check to check. You may also choose to have the refund put on a Cross gift card for future jewelry shopping.

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