Another Year Older

[whiskerstay]

Happy New Year, to all those with ageing watercraft. Crystal is now only three years away from being 80. I'm looking forward to spending lots of time this year with the mistress who is thrice my age.

/<

PS: Watched Pirates Of The Carribean last night. Awful film, but have decided to sacrifice two berths and fit the old girl with a row of cannon either side. Should assist somewhat in the East Coast Classics. Anyone know where you can get this done? And can you get powder from Classic Marine?

<hr width=100% size=1>"Stop mucking about, darling, and get the bloody mud weight over."

 

[Spuddy]

I enjoyed some bits of Pirates of the Caribbean. The memsahib tells me that Johnny Depp based his pirate characterisation on Keef Richards.

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[Mirelle]

\"Look, Mummy, it\'s a Pirate Ship!\"

Remark by small girl on pontoon on the only occasion when I took Mirelle into Fox's Marina.

Wonderful what deadeyes and ratlines can do for your image!

<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?

 

[whiskerstay]

Avast! My mizzen is most un-Piratical...

I would probably kill for a reaction like that, although somehow I doubt I'd get it in Crystal - something more akin to "Look, Mummy, that rig is far too modern for that hull" is perhaps a little more probable, but what the hell - it's the thought that counts. Her Bill of Sale from 1953 states that her owner's occupation is a "Gentleman", and though I yearn to return to the days when being "rich enough to do arse all" could be a profession, and thus you were entitled to own a vessel that was clearly only a small and pointless pleasure craft, I do think that she may be just a bit girly for my privateer ambitions.... much as I love her...

On the subject of Piracy: sailing on Nancy Blackett, with the Jolly Roger regularly, and proudly, hoisted at the crosstrees, I do sometimes wonder what would happen should we come across a vessel of the Fleet of Her Majesty. They are entirely within their rights to send us to the bottom, are they not?

And further...

A thought occurred to me, whilst, admittedly, very drunk - I believe that there are few offences in the international waters of Sealand (Rough's Tower) short of Child Pornography... therefore, can I get away with a small amount of piracy in their national waters? (The fact that their national waters conflict with those of the United Kingdom of Great Britain by about three miles could possibly be a factor in the legality of the matter, and, in all honesty, I think that as piracy is one of only three ways to get thyself strung up under mainland British law, I could probably find ways that are better to spend one's time...)

So where do you get these cannons, then?

Yours drunkenly,

/<

<hr width=100% size=1>"Stop mucking about, darling, and get the bloody mud weight over."