What should we do about……?

Question – what should we (boat owners) do about all of the abandoned and rotting boats that litter our rivers, creeks and harbor foreshores everywhere ?

In 2029 I spent three months living aboard my little Hunter Liberty – all 22 feet of it – while cruising around western and southern Brittany. I poked my way up many of the small tidal rivers and creeks from L.Aber-Wrach in the north to Quimper in the south and during my travels I came across countless abandoned sailing boats seemingly just left to degrade on the banks of those creeks.

In England too – a couple of my favorite places to go and anchor are the upper tidal reaches of the Fowey river near Golant and my all time favorite spot is Ruan creek above Falmouth – the actual Fal river. One time I was at anchor high up Ruan creek, sheltering from autumn gales, when I went for a wade as far as I could up the sand & mud creek bed. There was, at that time, an abandoned Westerly (a Centaur I think) aground almost at the head of the creek : last time I went there with my Pathfinder expedition boat the Westerly had gone walkabout again and was once again aground near my anchoring spot.

I suspect that many of the small production boats, built cheaply and on an industrial scale, are now nearing the end of their working life – that or already beyond it. I only came to leisure sailing after the boom days of the British boatbuilding industry were already over : most serial production of boats was now done in large factories in Europe – in those days mostly France. The marketing drive for the kind of boats that i’m thinking about was to sell boats with high volume and lots of bunk space – many of them though were built to minimal specifications for essential things such as GRP layup.

If you need an ultimate kind of accidental test report then go check out the Pardey’s account of what happened during a brief storm during which many of that kind of boat were driven onto a hard sand at Cabo San Lucas beach – many of them, typical for that kind of boat at that time had woefully inadequate anchors. Many of them quickly delaminated or poorly constructed hull to deck joints peeled apart.

The other side to this is that many sailors are, or were, from the same kind of generation as me and many of us are inching towards the end of our sailing lives – like it or not it’s a reality. I found out at the end of last year that 2 skippers that i’d crewed for in my racing years had now passed over the bar : what happened to their boats I have no idea.

Iv’e owned just two GRP yachts and one very old and very knackered wooden one – the wooden one being at least twice the age of the other two. Neither of them were new boats : iv’e never wanted to or been able to afford a new boat and, a bit like the argument against new cars, have never felt the urge for one – with both of the GRP yachts I was the second or third owner and both of them received long and expensive refits and both of them I passed on in seaworthy condition – even so they will one day become unwanted luxuries and someone somewhere will have to dispose of what’s left of them.

While I was in France I heard about an outfit over there that recovered and disposed of old GRP yachts – recently I saw a video of someone whom tries to deal with them in the south west UK. Just down the road I have a friend who breaks old GRP boats although highly worthy in both cases I don’t think it goes anywhere near meeting the need – it seems a bit like everyone in the UK owning a car and there only being one or two breakers yards that will deal with them.

My generation.

My generation (the boomers ) are now the generation that is either dying, retiring or leaving the country and the problem of rotten boats has largely been caused by us : it isn’t an SEP (someone else’s problem) but one of ours. Iv’e said it before but i’ll say it again, that in my opinion leisure activities such as sailing and with it the membership of yacht clubs, is all on a sharp decline. I once said that yachting is dying although I think now that that isn’t the case – it’s just that it’s become a lot more corporate, wealthy and exclusive. Where once it might have been thought of as a hobby in which everyone could take part at some level it’s now almost entirely an upper middle class pursuit or one only accessible to professionals or those aspiring to that kind of status.

I dislike the grouping and the appellation boomer although in my case the marxists and wokists would immediately classify me as ‘white middle aged and male’ therefore a class problem to be eradicated – the problem being that not only am I all of that but i’m also a ginga and somewhat volatile so if you have something to say then come at me bro !

Joking aside I really do think that abandoned and rotting boats really are my generation’s problem and I can’t see a solution other than mandatory registration – as with cars – and some kind of superfund set up on the basis of boat registration to pay towards the eventual cost of boat breaking : unlike having a car broken and compacted a boat has little or no value once all the parts have been stripped off and I don’t know of a use for broken up and maybe even ground up fiberglass waste. Environmentally (i’m not a ranting greenie a la Ste Greta) but I am when it comes to a problem that we have created and I happen to think that the solutions could and should be solved on a local basis rather than at the stinking bottom end of a gooberment beurocracy.

Meanwhile, here’s one bloke doing it for real.

Steve on Environmentalism.

I get a bit salty about environmentalism, seeing it as the poor and modern version of religion – a quasi religion if you will and in a way much like it’s closely adhered to twin which is veganism : funny how people whom are into one will mostly be into the other. Nowadays, both seem to ride along with a support for a known terrorist organization – Palestine and Hamas along with a total and wilfull blindness for what actually happened that day in Israel when Hamas ‘Freedom Fighters’ raped, murdered and/or took hostage many dozens of Israeli citizens. If you want or need an example then go listen to Saint Greta or any of her faithful congregation or perhaps go and listen to those two idiot journalists : Owen Jones and Yvonne Ridley.

For what I think is. I think, a more genuine Religious view then lets take a look at what the Catholics among us call subsidiarity – sounds a bit posh but mostly what it means is doing things at a local level rather than leaving it to the state. That’s it in a nutshell but if you really fancy a dive down the rabbit hole of Catholic thought then go take a read of this Papal encyclical written in the 1930’s and still relevant today, Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadragesimo_anno

How then to apply a real religious principle to a modern day problem ? and at the same time persuade boat owners that boat ownership should be thought of more like car ownership in that it maybe should come with personal responsibility, registration and a yearly fee that pays towards a local superfund , perhaps managed by local harbormasters who are given both the responsibility and the authority to recover and dispose of abandoned boats.

Boat ownership has been like a long party : well bucko’s you’ve had your time in the sun, the party is over and it’s time for the clear up.