Boat ! What Boat ?

I had a bit of a phani (epiphany) moment when I was out for my morning walk today in that I came to the realization that I want a boat in my life again. My problem this morning, when I finally understood what my mind has been doing for weeks now, is that my mind went into overdrive as it often did in the days when I owned one boat or another. In a weird kind of way the question becomes it’s own answer as having immediately gone into brainfizz mode at the mere thought of maybe having another, or final, boat merely demonstrates that the thinking about boats has made my mind wake up and sniff the coffee again.

I have to admit that brain-fizz mode was often my ground state in my career jobs and was my usual state when I owned boats, or a boat, at the same time. One particular boat always comes to mind because it was the nearest iv’e ever come to a boat being the perfect fit for my sailing needs and my temperament : that of course was my 22′ Hunter Liberty cat ketch centerboard cruising boat in which I had the best sailing season bar none – and none includes my racing miles, certainly my time in the industry and even my circumnavigation.

My partner (Jackie) said to me this week that it’s typical of me to overdo things when I do them : she was talking about the fact that iv’e got something like tendonitis in my wrist from having used a pruning shear way beyond it’s capacity and the strength of my wrist. In doing so though she immediately mentioned the Liberty, which is the only boat that she really seemed to enjoy being aboard : in that way it worked for both of us which no previous boat aside from my old Frances 26 which was a very expensive boat to own and refit.

The little Liberty was officially a boat only designated (under the EU system of classification) for sheltered and inshore waters and certainly not regarded as an ‘offshore’ capable yacht. I agree that it wasn’t an offshore rated yacht as it didn’t have the stability or sail power to punch it’s way upwind in a wind against tide in the English channel. However, and it’s a very big however, I sailed my Liberty in gale and blizzard conditions in Lyme bay one time and made 4 channel crossings in mixed conditions – one time being a fresh breeze blowing against a very big spring tide – and I was as cold and sick as iv’e been in an offshore rated yacht.

The Liberty was a truly great little sailing boat in light downwind conditions and it really came into it’s own with it’s ability to float as soon as the water was over my ankles and dry out level on any bottom with it’s boards and drive leg drawn up.

Waiting for the tide at the Exe bar : there was about 6″ under the keel runners at this point.

Jackie asked me the difficult and pertinent question : “haven’t you given all of that up ?”. And yes : I did, in fact iv’e given up boats and sailing before now but always ended up being drawn back to boats, sailing and the sea. What i’d like to say this time is that I was obviously depressed following my strokes at the same time finding the big Pathfinder too difficult to manage on and off of it’s trailer. Giving up then seemed to be the obvious thing to do and I even said at the time that I felt that i’d given up several years too late.

For a while I was wondering about what major project to use my new workshop for and one early answer was to build a different John Welsford design – a SCAMP cruising dinghy – which I could then have built inside the workshop thus allowing me to work all year round. Iv’e hardly even bothered to look at the plans though and the thought of spending that much more time, effort and hard cash building what would be only a compromise at best was never going to happen. It especially isn’t going to happen now as iv’e just hung the doors and a boat of even SCAMP’s size would never get in or out and anyway my attitude to building boats is been there, done that.

A better question might be ; ‘why now’, my answer is quite long.

Firstly, I always kinda/sorta denied that I had a very angry and depressive episode after my strokes and that I probably made it worse by giving up many things that I used to do that were positive in my life. Some 8 months ago I tried to turn myself around by taking my health a lot more seriously and tried to do something about it. Thus for 8 months iv’e been disciplined about my eating habits and a regular exerciser : one of the results of which is that I seem to have crawled out from whatever cloud I was under and am feeling oddly positive about life. Iv’e also just finished a long project which at times has been hard physical work – a boat would be as much a project as anything else.

I promised myself that if I got to a certain point with my weight loss then I would treat myself to a present of some kind : I had in mind to own one last motorcycle and had that in mind as a final bookstop to my life as a biker. As I started my biking life with a very secondhand Royal Enfield I thought it neat to maybe end my biking days with one of the more modern ones. The link between the SCAMP dinghy, a final motorcycle and the kind of boat project that i’m contemplating is that the budget is about the same. As things stand i’m about halfway to the cash stash I would commit so it’s not going to happen tomorrow and I absolutely have to come through surgery without any additional medical problems before I even start a potential boat search.

The more obvious recent answer is that most days I watch an old video from one time Youtube sailor and film maker Dylan Winter. Once again i’m back on the east coast somewhere with Dylan, either in The Slug or his much nicer Hunter Minstrel – everyone says aha !. It was due to Dylan’s videos many years ago that I bought my Liberty with the intention of doing the same kind of round Britain slowly while visiting as many rivers, creeks and small harbors as I could. What actually happened was that within a few months of buying the Liberty I made my first channel crossing in her and cruised around Brittany and it’s rivers rather than Essex and the Thames estuary.

If I have a problem to solve in my late 60’s it is the same problem that many blokes face ; what to do and how to stay mentally engaged. Dealing with the small problems that always come with owning and sailing boats is one of the best ways I know to do that plus it gives me that engagement with the sea which has such great appeal. I’m not about to run out and start looking for another boat, in fact iv’e set myself the same list of preconditions that I did for starting the SCAMP project or buying a Royal Enfield. First though I have to be the other side of surgery in one piece and be at least another 5 -10 Kg lighter – at the moment I seem to be on some kind of plateau despite doing the right things most of the time. After that there’s the small matter of saving up the budget which in itself I reckon taking 6 months or so. Nothing is going to happen fast but maybe watch this space as I might be writing about boats again next year.

Have fun and take care Y’awl.