Do what you can while you can

Only a few weeks into 2018 and an old uninvited 'friend' turned up unexpectedly, who I hadn't seen for almost 7 years, and was hoping I never would.

Thankfully their stay was relatively short and, while a little painful in the short term, they made me think of my longterm goals and needs.

They made me realize that I have spent more time planning the things I wanted to do and far less time actually doing them. I'm crashing through my forties now, and my twenty-year-old self would be horrified to see what little I have accomplished of my lifelong dreams and plans.

All ashore who's going ashore!

The best thing about having a little boat is how close you can get to the shore and up into those little estuaries to explore and come ashore.

So what do I have aboard and what do can you do on the coast?

Little boats and boom covers

Lets face it. A small boat is, well... a small boat. They weren't designed for individuals over 6 foot, never mind two of them. They sail more like a dinghy than a cruiser and so aren't always as forgiving (but this isn't always a bad thing.) So there are a few things to think about when you have a small boat...

Some people take little boats to the extreme, but I'm in it for the fun

Books aboard...

It's essential to have a book aboard so you can while away the hours waiting for the high tide or the pub to open. It's also important to have the right reference book to hand when handling those important details such as selecting the right anchorage technique, or the right medical process to stitching your thumb back on. So putting the Almanac and ships log to one side what do you have on board?

Roger Taylor - A Blog for our times

I found this Blog post from June 2009 on Roger Taylors (skipper of the amazing MingMing) web site (http://www.thesimplesailor.com/),  which made me laugh and think how 5 years later, nothing has changed...


"June 2009

CONFESSIONS OF A CREDIT CRUNCH CRUISER
(Warning: This article is not suitable for those of a nervous disposition)

The signs are omninous. The portents are not good. The outlook is bleak. The prospects for my particular sailing business look worse and worse. I'm worried. Very, very worried. I'm not sleeping well. My attention span, never great at the best at times, can now be measured in nanoseconds. I'm permanently irritable. My conversation has become monosyllabic. I now write very short sentences. Can't manage long ones. My world is falling apart.
I blame the credit crunch. It's ruining my business. I was on a roll. I was a high-flyer. Now, if you'll pardon my French, I'm foutu. Stuffed. I thought I had cornered the market. Got myself a nice little monopoly. Found my ideal niche. Worked up a unique selling point. I thought I had it made. Now I'm not so sure.

At first I didn't take them too seriously. The signs, the indications, that is. A yacht broker gone bust here. A superyacht builder closed down there. A boat show cancelled. A marina offering discounts. Yes, I'll say that again. A marina offering discounts. Maybe you'd like it a little bigger. A MARINA OFFERING DISCOUNTS. Something was in the air and I didn't spot it.

It's the old story. Complacency. Self-satisfaction. Or, if you want it in business-speak, a failure to critically re-examine, while successfully splitting infinitives, market forces in the light of ongoing changes to the econometric paradigm. Asleep on the job, that is.

My own behaviour should have alerted me. There's me stocking up for my next voyage. Do I buy, as usual, ten packets of Jordan's Super Luxury Specially Selected Exotic Fruit and Hand Picked Nut Muesli, at an eye-watering price? I do not. A strange magnetic force pulls my hand towards the Sainsburys Basic Muesli at 58p per packet. It is dry and dusty muck, with scarcely a shrivelled currant to be found therein, but I load my trolley with it. And feel good and virtuous into the bargain. It's the same story at the tinned vegetable shelves. Forget Hartleys Individually Polished Garden Peas in a Sumptuous Home Mixed Brine. Those cheapo tins of, yes, you guessed it, Sainsburys Basic Leftover Reject Damaged But Very Credit Crunch Friendly Pea Scrapings will do just fine. Yes, I'm stocking up for a voyage to the Arctic, and happily buying duff provisions in order to knock £3.57 off my food bill.

I just didn't get it. Now I do.

Every man and his dog is going Basic. No more superyachts. No more gin palaces. No more gin. No more conspicuous consumption. No more extrovert extravagance. No more chuckaway chequebook Charliedom. Forget your Fairlines. Forget your Oysters. Think more, well...yes...Corribee.

Yes, dammit, the world is coming my way, and I don't like it.

It's taken a lifetime of sacrifice and deprivation to become a Simple Sailor. It's not been easy, honing those skills of sailing frugality. I've suffered, let me tell you, to get where I am today. Don't think it's easy, being a contrarian. If only you knew what I've had to put up with. Those condescending smiles. That amused disbelief. You go to sea in THAT? How on earth do you manage without a satellite telephone and an inbuilt entertainment system? Have you had a sanity check recently?

Yes, I've suffered every kind of insult and innuendo and not-so-subtle put-down. But that's the lot of the contrarian and, of course, I enjoy it. There's nothing better than getting up people's noses. Challenging their assumptions. Cocking a snoop at convention. Presenting two fingers to the established mind-set. A spot of iconoclasm is good for the soul.

It's become my business, this advocacy of plain sailing. And now it's under threat. Every Tom, Dick and Hooray Henry wants to get in on the act. If we end up with a world full of Simple Sailors there'll be nothing left for me to do. It's pretty clear the way things are going. The Chief Executive Officers of FTSE 100 companies will soon be hosting corporate bashes aboard Hurley 18's and Westerly 22's. Ageing billionaire playboys will lure nubile arm candy aboard their Pandoras, anchored enticingly in pristine sun-drenched waters off Southend-on-Sea. The Vivacity will be the must-have status symbol for A-list celebs. Offshore powerboat racing will be sponsored by Seagull. I have it on good authority that the next America's Cup will be contested in Halcyon 23's. Well hotted-up, of course. Team Alinghi is already scouring the mudberths of the East Coast for a nice little hull to renovate. I've gone very long on the designs of Maurice Griffiths. Even as I write, Camper and Nicholson are securing the rights to a production run of luxury Eventides, with an eye to the Mediterranean Classics Circuit. No expense will be spared, with the top of the range model featuring a Portapotti with varnished MDF seat. And, joy of joys, the OSTAR, which, by the way, should really be the NOOSTAR - the Not the Original Observer Singlehanded Trans Atlantic Race - will have a maximum overall length limit of 25'.

Yes, the world is going Simple and I, dammit, am almost out of a job. Redundant. On the scrap heap. Yesterday's man. As relevant to the New Order as Gordon 'My MP's Kept Strictly Within the Rules While Diddling the Taxpayer' Brown. Let's face it, there's not much mileage in preaching to the converted.

So I'm considering my options. Thinking outside the box.

Keep this to yourself, but I just might abandon the Simple Sailor monicker. Go for some corporate re-branding. Get myself back on the other side of the fence with something brazen and consumerist and nicely at odds with the zeitgeist. I've been rolling a few possibilities around my head. The Buy-it-Quick Boater. The High-Spend Helmsman. Hmmm. How about the Chandlers' Chum? Or the Size-Is-All Seaman? You get my drift.

Mingming, of course, will have to go. From here on I wouldn't be seen dead in a thirty-year-old ridiculous-sized junk-rigged Corribee. Junk-rigged? Yu-uck! How sad can you get? What I want now is size, shiny brute power, gizmos galore, fifty or sixty feet of thrusting phallic aggression. What I need now is a montrous throbbing engine, an illegal decibel count of good old-fashioned pollutive noise, infinite excess, whale-loads of wastefulness. Henceforth I'm not going anywhere at less than twenty-five knots. Watch out for the Great White Monster! Mobility Dick's a-comin'! Hold on to your hats! Yee-haa! "

Build it yourself... if you have the time

Interesting article here about a 20ft self build...

http://www.amateurboatbuilding.com/justright/index.htm

Hunter 19, I wish!!

Hunter 19

Looks like the Hunter 19 is trying to push itself into my mind this week. After seeing a link on Dylan Winters Site (KTL) to a YouTube video of a Shetland - Norway trip, I was inspired by the owners Hunter 19 and how effective she was and also how well maintained!

The genius that I liked was the way the boat had been kitted out with affordable items but offered fantastic functionality. A small wooden plinth has been cut to size to sit in the companion way and then crafted to take a GPS, Plastimo 100 and a Garmin fish finder. The hand held VHF completes the set at the end.

GPS / Compass / Depth / VHF - £350 all in. Genius!

This if definitely on the plans for my boat now!

Blow me down if theirs not a Hunter 19 for sale in NZ on the TradeMe site inviting offers of around NZ$2500, that's about £1250!

If only we were there already I'd have snapped it up!!

Television... some inspiration to get you going?

So... Its been some time since my last update and sadly there's not a lot of movement on the boat front as most of my funds are being ploughed into the family house at the moment and a much needed 2 week break in the South of France for us all!

That said I have been turning to a few TV programmes to help keep me happy in the Spring evenings. Once the kids are to bed and the PBO is read from cover to cover then Monday now finds me watching Channel 5s New Lives in the Wild http://www.channel5.com/shows/ben-fogle-new-lives-in-the-wild 



Ben Fogle -New Lives in the Wild

The 2 shows I've seen so far have made me even keener to get the boat project on the go and a reality!
Nothing much else to add other than its been an inspiration and I really want one of the little inflatable boats that the family and Ben were on! EBay calls!

Till next time, and fingers crossed for the lottery, as at this rate, it'll be the only way I can afford the boat!!