Kilter
New member
Absolutely agree with you! My promise to our girl is to treat her better and more often this year! We are even buying her a new place to live!
Do boats have feelings...
- Thread starter NUTMEG
- Start date
Absolutely agree with you! My promise to our girl is to treat her better and more often this year! We are even buying her a new place to live!
NealB
Well-known member
Now I think that might give some very interesting results!
Seajet
...
I was once asked to choose between my then fiance and my Anderson 22; I replied ' the boat as she'll never let me down' - and so it proved !
I'd like to think I treat my girlfriend of 10 years with love & affection, though she doesn't get new aerials, rubbing strakes, keel treatment, anodes, antifouling etc every winter; maybe I'm pushing my luck with the odd card, pot plant ( never flowers as they don't last ) and box of chocolates !
I'd like to think I treat my girlfriend of 10 years with love & affection, though she doesn't get new aerials, rubbing strakes, keel treatment, anodes, antifouling etc every winter; maybe I'm pushing my luck with the odd card, pot plant ( never flowers as they don't last ) and box of chocolates !
LittleSister
Well-known member
Cardo
Active member
I always say hello and goodbye to our boat.
And I talk to her whilst carrying out the various jobs I have to do. No doubt I'll talk to her when we're sailing.
What does that mean?
And I talk to her whilst carrying out the various jobs I have to do. No doubt I'll talk to her when we're sailing.
What does that mean?
aquaplane
Active member
I always sigh when I get onto the boat......
Greenheart
Well-known member
Seajet
...
I quite often sigh when I climb onto SWMBO...
Dan,
I was going to say that but bottled out !
oldharry
Well-known member
Like I said earlier - feelings? Don't know, but they surely have personality. As Monsarrat said "I know ships: they are steel and rivets. But...." So in our case GRP, timber or ply. Nobody would look at a sheet of ply, or bottle of styrene monomer and roll of glass fibre and suggest it has any sort of 'soul'.
So put it all together, and somewhere along the line it acquires 'personality'. Don't ask me how, it just does. I have had upward of a dozen boats, and have sailed on many more. Each had its own distinct personality. Dumpy old Pippin was a real 'home' doing her level best to make me as comfortable as she could. She never pretended she could sail, and got cross with me, sagging off to leeward if I pushed her too hard, and she relied on her (none too reliable) Stuart to get her out of trouble. But she did her level best to keep me comfortable aboard, and always welcomed me after several weeks break from sailing with a lovely comfy 'warm' feeling about her. She was definitely pleased to see me, and selling her was a wrench. But i wanted to sail as well as be comfy!
A later successor 'Platypus' was a different kettle of fish. She was hard work. She never let me get comfortable aboard, she had a definite chip on her shoulder. She hurt. She produced sharp corners where there were none, and made sure I found them the hard way. If she could knock me off my feet, she did. I always came ashore with a new collection of bruises! Give her her head under sail, and she would give me a ride to write home about - but the rest of the time she was just mean and bad-tempered. Try pushing her through a Solent chop under power and she would shake your fillings out with annoyance at such treatment! A lady with a real temper, and couldn't she show it! There was no appeasing her even when I let her have her way in all things, and fed her expensive titbits every visit. A true b**ch.
Huff was like a little terrier, straining to be let off the leash on a good breeze, leaping away, and bridling with impatience if i held her back, shaking her sails at me and throwing lumps of water into the cockpit until I let her go again.
Tilly was the opposite. No matter what you did, how many expensive new offerings, every effort to appease - it just wasnt enough. She was a 'lazy' boat. You always felt she 'could do better', and just occasionally she would for ten minutes prove that this was true. Then she would spoil it by breaking something, jamming something, or blowing a fuse. Sailing without a full toolkit and set of spares aboard was simply asking for it. I reckoned in the first half hour of a trip she would inventory my tool and spares kit to see what i had left ashore. Sure enough within the hour I would need it! But she rose to the challenge of the sea, and when the going got really tough, she would look after me, get us back to shelter and without fail, would promptly break something essential - but never life threatening - just to remind me who was boss. The local chandlery suggested I ran a monthly account with them! She also hated having SWMBO aboard - talk about jealous! Jean had only to set foot aboard for the boat to throw a total wobbly. The last time, we came back from a trip down harbour with a foot of water in the cabin, and a jammed bilge pump. After that Jean refused to come aboard again, and insisted on a change of boat.
And my present boat? A real lady - with teeth to show if I dont treat her just right! Given a new mainsail last year, she showed her thanks and showed me her very best! But she has to be pampered and cosseted - regular offerings of new bits and pieces. If i dont, she very quickly goes 'off', sulks and shakes her sails at me. I have known her throw me off my feet because I failed to give her my full attention or gave another boat a 'look' she didn't quite like. But treat her right, and she is the best yet.
So 'feelings'? No, can't be. its just an assembly of resins, glass fibre, wood and metal. Personality? Yes very definitely. And can you really have personality without feelings? I doubt it. No wonder we call them 'she'.
SWMBO calls her my 'other wife', and She knows better than to come between a man and his boat. I know which is the easier to live with!
So put it all together, and somewhere along the line it acquires 'personality'. Don't ask me how, it just does. I have had upward of a dozen boats, and have sailed on many more. Each had its own distinct personality. Dumpy old Pippin was a real 'home' doing her level best to make me as comfortable as she could. She never pretended she could sail, and got cross with me, sagging off to leeward if I pushed her too hard, and she relied on her (none too reliable) Stuart to get her out of trouble. But she did her level best to keep me comfortable aboard, and always welcomed me after several weeks break from sailing with a lovely comfy 'warm' feeling about her. She was definitely pleased to see me, and selling her was a wrench. But i wanted to sail as well as be comfy!
A later successor 'Platypus' was a different kettle of fish. She was hard work. She never let me get comfortable aboard, she had a definite chip on her shoulder. She hurt. She produced sharp corners where there were none, and made sure I found them the hard way. If she could knock me off my feet, she did. I always came ashore with a new collection of bruises! Give her her head under sail, and she would give me a ride to write home about - but the rest of the time she was just mean and bad-tempered. Try pushing her through a Solent chop under power and she would shake your fillings out with annoyance at such treatment! A lady with a real temper, and couldn't she show it! There was no appeasing her even when I let her have her way in all things, and fed her expensive titbits every visit. A true b**ch.
Huff was like a little terrier, straining to be let off the leash on a good breeze, leaping away, and bridling with impatience if i held her back, shaking her sails at me and throwing lumps of water into the cockpit until I let her go again.
Tilly was the opposite. No matter what you did, how many expensive new offerings, every effort to appease - it just wasnt enough. She was a 'lazy' boat. You always felt she 'could do better', and just occasionally she would for ten minutes prove that this was true. Then she would spoil it by breaking something, jamming something, or blowing a fuse. Sailing without a full toolkit and set of spares aboard was simply asking for it. I reckoned in the first half hour of a trip she would inventory my tool and spares kit to see what i had left ashore. Sure enough within the hour I would need it! But she rose to the challenge of the sea, and when the going got really tough, she would look after me, get us back to shelter and without fail, would promptly break something essential - but never life threatening - just to remind me who was boss. The local chandlery suggested I ran a monthly account with them! She also hated having SWMBO aboard - talk about jealous! Jean had only to set foot aboard for the boat to throw a total wobbly. The last time, we came back from a trip down harbour with a foot of water in the cabin, and a jammed bilge pump. After that Jean refused to come aboard again, and insisted on a change of boat.
And my present boat? A real lady - with teeth to show if I dont treat her just right! Given a new mainsail last year, she showed her thanks and showed me her very best! But she has to be pampered and cosseted - regular offerings of new bits and pieces. If i dont, she very quickly goes 'off', sulks and shakes her sails at me. I have known her throw me off my feet because I failed to give her my full attention or gave another boat a 'look' she didn't quite like. But treat her right, and she is the best yet.
So 'feelings'? No, can't be. its just an assembly of resins, glass fibre, wood and metal. Personality? Yes very definitely. And can you really have personality without feelings? I doubt it. No wonder we call them 'she'.
SWMBO calls her my 'other wife', and She knows better than to come between a man and his boat. I know which is the easier to live with!
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Seajet
...
SWMBO calls her my 'other wife', and She knows better than to come between a man and his boat.
Wise words from Old Harry; my ex didn't cotton on, and made the mistake of suggesting I should bin my boat to make money - guess which got binned instead ?!
As for feelings, well should I win the lottery I may well have a little fleet of fanciable boats ranging from schooners through Falmouth Working Boats to Salcombe Yawls and Ospreys; but my Anderson will always be the flagship, she has looked after me so well and proved so able, contesting and dealing with the elements as well as other supposedly faster boats.
Wise words from Old Harry; my ex didn't cotton on, and made the mistake of suggesting I should bin my boat to make money - guess which got binned instead ?!
As for feelings, well should I win the lottery I may well have a little fleet of fanciable boats ranging from schooners through Falmouth Working Boats to Salcombe Yawls and Ospreys; but my Anderson will always be the flagship, she has looked after me so well and proved so able, contesting and dealing with the elements as well as other supposedly faster boats.
mcframe
New member
Sometimes I think surfers have more romantic imagination than sailors:
http://vimeo.com/32592977
Found via the RSS feed from: http://toolmonger.com/
Seajet
...
mcframe,
I doubt that - I'm not the only sailor to kiss my boat, I suspect most surfers only do that when a wave flips the board into their face !
tonybannister
New member
So where would you keep them a "marina" or a "Harem"
Nostrodamus
New member
Of course boats have feelings.
Ours is a living breathing member of the family and can be hurt just like anyone else.
If we do not talk to her or have regards for her feelings she will have scant regards for ours.
She has birthdays when we buy her presents and at Christmas she gets something as well.
All you heathens who say boats do not have feeling know deep down that they do.
Get caught out in a good blow and you will be giving her oral sex if she gets you home in one piece.
You take photos of her just like any other member of the family and if you look closely you will see her smile and pose for you.
Next you will be telling me that our “Billy the boat hook” doesn’t have feelings.
Ours is a living breathing member of the family and can be hurt just like anyone else.
If we do not talk to her or have regards for her feelings she will have scant regards for ours.
She has birthdays when we buy her presents and at Christmas she gets something as well.
All you heathens who say boats do not have feeling know deep down that they do.
Get caught out in a good blow and you will be giving her oral sex if she gets you home in one piece.
You take photos of her just like any other member of the family and if you look closely you will see her smile and pose for you.
Next you will be telling me that our “Billy the boat hook” doesn’t have feelings.
PhillM
Well-known member
Of course she has feelings!
A boat is something more than an ingenious arrangement of wood, copper and iron. It has a soul, a personality and eccentricities of behavior that are enduring. It becomes part of a person, coloring his whole life with a romance that is unknown to those not connected with the way of boats. The older the boat becomes, the stronger the power.
Frank Mulville.
A boat is something more than an ingenious arrangement of wood, copper and iron. It has a soul, a personality and eccentricities of behavior that are enduring. It becomes part of a person, coloring his whole life with a romance that is unknown to those not connected with the way of boats. The older the boat becomes, the stronger the power.
Frank Mulville.
oldharry
Well-known member
Seajet
...
Well, mines a 'swinger'.
Old Harry,
you beat me to it !
My boat has a jolly time swinging around her mooring, it seems more 'salty' than being tied up to a few planks and - gasp - having to share space with mobo gin palaces - though it could just possibly be my Aberdonian side thinking of the prices...
oldharry
Well-known member
Old Harry,
you beat me to it !
My boat has a jolly time swinging around her mooring, it seems more 'salty' than being tied up to a few planks and - gasp - having to share space with mobo gin palaces - though it could just possibly be my Aberdonian side thinking of the prices...
Certainly muddier though, Seajet!
Was just thinking the advantages of wives over boats: We dont (well I dont, anyway!) have to spend hours scrubbing her bottom, and re-applying her make-up. She looks after her own bright work very well, and has never in 40 years thrown a bucket full of cold seawater at me....
Seajet
...
Old Harry,
you're obviously very lucky; my other half Anne was known as 'Spitfire' at school, and once held off / went for 3 pikey burglars with a ceremonial sword - I have to be rather careful lest I wake up as a eunoch...
onesea
Well-known member
Hmm true but with a boat you do not need to be-careful when talking about her bottom.
You do not need to wait hours whilst she re applies her make up and maintains her bright work before you go out. Tides are predictable and can be worked out in advance.
Cold sea water, not yet (I hope she is not reading this...
).
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