disillusionment

[Guest]

Who hates sailing ?

Has anyone else experienced, after restoring an old boat, that they have become disillusioned and unable to cope with the idea of casting off and sailing the thing ?

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As a poor harbour, Littlehampton has had more than its fair share of the disillusioned legions that have started amateur boat-building projects.
It was the fourth summer that I had lived “entrenched” inside the shipbuilding shed opposite the café. I slept under a skirt of polythene nailed around Fortuna’s bare hull.
Bas’s boat SARAII was similar in size to mine, but by this time had her masts up. Many times, we enjoyed together one of his glorious curries, washed down with cheap duty-free grog retrieved from the back of his Vauxhall van before retiring to my shed.
One such night dining aboard SARAII, with a lull in the banter and a lonely eye passing through one of the open portholes, Bas complained “Soon I won’t have an excuse not to go sailing!”
I knew what he meant. He had sailed into retirement aboard SARAII, and here she had come to rest for fourteen happy years. Ill health had claimed two close friends since, the boat had been reborn under his stewardship; decision, a rare thing to be made in these surroundings, was bearing down upon him.
“I know it sounds stupid, but I think the time is truly coming when I won’t have any reason to be in the slip anymore, it’s been so long, SARA’s nearly done, and I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’m scared to leave the harbour now!”
He had been in the slip for five years himself, and had become used to hanging his washing over the boom without having to rope it on, used to being able to move stuff on and off without climbing a ladder or clambering into a dinghy.

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Has anyone else discovered that after a few years of working on a boat, the desire to take her out to sea has died ?



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[ccscott49]

Why did you feel it ness to post this on every forum? Just a question.

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[Guest]

I am in finding out about the less visible side of boating, I think it's one of the things that has great parallels all the way through peoples' experiences. I would like to start the ball rolling on this subject and maybe encourage people, once I have some research by some appropriately aimed articles - but somehow my postings which were there last night (thanks for reading it) have disappeared !

I am one of those people that actually feels all the magazines on offer at the moment are far too much just PR platforms for selling products - be that as it may - but I think there is room for a broader and more interesting approach to covering the hoby for those who are more interested in the human side of it. The worst magazines, I find really with their heads up their backsides now with their efete editorials typified by a column in YACHINTING MONTHLY Libby Purves used to write - have a good amount of information in them too. It's not that I'm totally one-sided, but I am upset that a decision has been taken to remove my contribution. Is there some rule about which site you can post things on ? You tell me ?

Kind Regards.

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[Skipjack]

Cheers to to you, Esther, for raising this all too recognisable condition. Let's get the other stuff out of the way first. A website nanny has probably read your posts as some newfangled spam, and has edited your posts down to this site, as the place most likely for, well, sufferers of the condition you acutely observe. I can speak with some authority, in that I got a little too near the knuckle criticising the execrable masthead change about a year back, and one of my carefully crafted invectives was disappeared. Still, they did junk that awful modernist font for a return to tradition, so all's well.

To try and push this a little further, I have been observing a new build over long slow years, and the builder has now made the leap into the water, but he remains firmly tied to the quay, where I suspect he will safely stay. I suspect you can divide the sufferers into two groups, divided by viability of vessel. The dreamer in the tore-out versus the pragmatist with a clearly defined achievable goal are probably the two poles of the boatyard dweller. Another dimension is drifting from your start point on that line, i.e. enjoying the means more than the end to the degree that the world cruise receeds to become safely impossible.

I would like to read more of your findings, so please do keep posting here, at least.

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[Peterduck]

It has been said many times before, that yachties can be divided in to the builders and the sailors. The builders [and I include myself in this group] enjoy the building/renovating process, and are less fussed about sailing round the world, or in some cases, even around their local bay. The completed boat becomes a weekend cottage whose views can be changed if desired. The sailor cannot understand how anyone can invest so much time in working on a boat without taking it our for a long sail, the longer the better.
A good friend of mine built a lovely Lyle Hess cutter, then went on to build two tenders for it, and would now love to find an old Dragon to restore. I am now into the eleventh year of a major refit of my old [1917] gaff ketch, and I am enjoying the doing of it. I take it out sailing from time to time when I can get a crew together, and this is fine too. However, I would not have been able to keep going on the project if I kept looking for a "finish" instead of enjoying the process.
I also find as I get older [now 63] that I get less confident of my own abilities. This is not helped by an increase in my arthritis, which makes me more cautious about setting out in dodgy weather conditions, or with a small or unfamiliar crew. On the other hand, this may just be the result of experience.
Peter.

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[banana]

anorak man ccscott

be quiet you tedious ccscott. an interesting thoughtful post at last and all you are concerned about is the fact that it appears on each forum. how incredibly anorakian of you.

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[mtb]

Disillusionment, is some thing you catch from the misses the bank manager and the lack of courage.
Courage to keep going is very hard to find when your skint knackered nagged at, and bewildered.
Bewildered is what you get after years of trying to get to the place you thought would be heaven, but turns out to be ten paces back, from where you' started.

The project once started so often becomes the devil, and yet we don't see this until it's to late. This is the reason in my opinion why some take solace from others in the same predicament and gain comfort, in the company of other's in the same boat.

I my self go through this self inflicted pain barrier constantly, and yet love and relish the challenge.

cheers
Mick

<hr width=100% size=1>Danbrit is for sale I'm spending all my time working on her with no time for play

 

[Guest]

thanks for your reply, am also following that stuff about the timber cracks in the Med - there are some real horrors out there being overcome. I suppose it's possibly quite important to set time aside, like my friend Bas used to, to laugh about the predicaments we get ourselves in.

Love, E

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