G
Guest
Guest
Well, the illness is called Harbouritis. However it can be cured with the
following:
1. Read books about sailing (NOT MAINTENANCE) and learn how people have managed
and enjoyed sailing on boats fitted with half of the equipment you have
installed and also half the boat size, half the number of sails and no or a bad
engine.
2. Stay away from literature covering Fastnet, Sydney Hobart or Vendee Globe.
(I am now ducking form the incoming RPG's) those who come to grief there are
mostly asking for it by pushing them, crew and boats too hard, are ill prepared,
disregard warnings, need to win or any combination of the before mentioened.
NOTE: More cruising boats come to grief in harbours and close to shore than in
the open sea. So you are in higher danger where you are know!!!
3. Drop the chisel, hammer, rivet gun and brush and go crewing on other boats on
the weekends.
4. After taking a step back divide YOUR maintenance task list as follows:
a, Needs to be done to keep her floating (surprisingly little) Do this before
launch.
b, What you thought previously necessary to keep her afloat (i.e. Radar, backup
GPS, second alternator, fourth battery bank, tripple backstays etc.)
Sure a long list but not really really necessary
c, Things you want to do or have
Get a, done within a reasonable time frame (no more than 2 month) you are lucky
if you are in the UK since you can defer it until next season
((((
b, and c, gets low priority and can be done anytime later whilst the boat is
launched and whenever you have time between going sailing.
MOST of them will never get done since you will find that they are either not
necessary or you do not have the time or both.
SEE YOU OUT THERE.
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 ?
---------------------------------------------------------
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 ?
<hr width=100% size=1>
following:
1. Read books about sailing (NOT MAINTENANCE) and learn how people have managed
and enjoyed sailing on boats fitted with half of the equipment you have
installed and also half the boat size, half the number of sails and no or a bad
engine.
2. Stay away from literature covering Fastnet, Sydney Hobart or Vendee Globe.
(I am now ducking form the incoming RPG's) those who come to grief there are
mostly asking for it by pushing them, crew and boats too hard, are ill prepared,
disregard warnings, need to win or any combination of the before mentioened.
NOTE: More cruising boats come to grief in harbours and close to shore than in
the open sea. So you are in higher danger where you are know!!!
3. Drop the chisel, hammer, rivet gun and brush and go crewing on other boats on
the weekends.
4. After taking a step back divide YOUR maintenance task list as follows:
a, Needs to be done to keep her floating (surprisingly little) Do this before
launch.
b, What you thought previously necessary to keep her afloat (i.e. Radar, backup
GPS, second alternator, fourth battery bank, tripple backstays etc.)
Sure a long list but not really really necessary
c, Things you want to do or have
Get a, done within a reasonable time frame (no more than 2 month) you are lucky
if you are in the UK since you can defer it until next season
((((b, and c, gets low priority and can be done anytime later whilst the boat is
launched and whenever you have time between going sailing.
MOST of them will never get done since you will find that they are either not
necessary or you do not have the time or both.
SEE YOU OUT THERE.
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 ?
---------------------------------------------------------
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 ?
<hr width=100% size=1>
