G
Guest
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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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 ?
---------------------------------------------------------
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.
---------------------------------------------------------
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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