Pelican
New member
A happy New Year to all you sailors out there!
I have been reading this Forum for over a year now and althou I don't post very much myself I enjoy reading all the posts. The first thing I do on arrival in office is to log on to the PBO Forum and scroll thru the lot. I enjoy it very much, and thank all you guys (and girls!) who make it so interesting and funny!
So I would like to start off the New Year with a new tread, which I hope you boys and girls might find of interest seeing as it happened almost 50 years ago - when boating was a different scene from today (and I would be interested to read similar starter boat stories).
I am presently on my 20th boat - a motor sailor - my first boat with a sail (which I bought whilst under the influences - but thats another story!). I don't really like sailing and only pull up the sails about twice a year to let the spyders out!
So I would like to tell you about my first boat - so get yourselves cosy and read on!
I started boating in the late fifties in a small harbour called Bulloch harbour about 10 miles south of Dublin in the Irish Republic. I was about 12 and made pocket money rowing people out to their boats as a ferry boy in this tidal harbour. There were about 100 boats in the harbour all made of wood, some clinker some carvel and a few plywood. Fibreglass did not exist then, at least not in boat form.
On day a man came to the harbour with an 8ft x 3 x 1 flat bottomed punt which he wanted to sell for the princely sum of one pound. One pound was a fortune in 1958 to a school boy and I did not have in pocket. So hopped on bike and went home - no one there so "borrowed" a pound from my mother's purse (for which I got a spanking from my father but was worth it for I was a boat owner!). This punt I rowed around the local area for one season. From age eight onwards I used to build model boats - to my own design - out of balsa wood and always had a hankering for a real, what we called then "Cabin cruiser". So the following winter, the punt was taken up to my dad's garage and the topsides were built up a foot, a fore and after cabin with centre wheelhouse was built in plywood, (no room for a cockpit - completely closed in) all to scale, a mast and handrails were added as well as three keels - the two outer ones in steel - our biggest financial outlay - all of £3.10 shillings! The whole boat was painted in blue and white. Access was by folding back the roof of the wheel house onto the after cabin top and climb in.
We had a problem finding a steering wheel that was to scale. One day my chum was walking down the local village and spotted a pram outside a butcher's shop. Now those of u who will remember prams were big comfy things in those days (with nice big wheels) - well Martin had a spanner in his pocket so off with the wheel, baby starts to scream, mother followed by butcher with clever in hand rush out of the shop but Martin was fleet of foot and after the spokes were knocked out and one spoke added and a lick of white paint, we had a steering wheel (a la Citroen 2CV!) and the boat was ready for sea trials.
We launched her at 4am one spring morning - so we wud not be the laughing stock of the locals at the harbour in case of trouble! She was fitted with a (then aged) 2hp Seagull outboard. She was a bit tender but a night visit to one of the many old houses which were been knocked down at the time to make way for suberbia, and a lovely sash window counter balance in lead found itself strapped to our centre keel which made the boat much more stable. One day a guy came along and said to us what sort of a mickey mouse floating coffin have u there, so we decided to call the boat Mickey Miss!
So there we are two boys out in our MM, a good few miles off the Irish coast, cruising along one day in a force 2/3 with big waves (no life jackets - cud not afford them - no compass - ditto - no safety equip - ditto) when this big (to our eyes) trawler came up astern of us, fishermen lining the bulwarks eyes a goggle, one of them shouted "what the "f...ing hell are u boys doing out here - do your parents know where u are" - we replied "we are cruising in our cabin cruiser so leave us alone"! On looking back all those years ago we were lucky that we had no trouble - just faith in our craft!
In the early 1960's the Inland Waterways of Ireland wishing to promote boating on the river Shannon and so they held annual boat rallies (and still do as far as I know). In those early days SHELL kindly offered all fuel to all the participants boats. What a riot! It was not unusual to see a 14ft rowboat with a 40 gallon drum top up the barrel, disappear around the corner of the river and load the barrel into a Landrover and repeat the process all over again!
We decided to take MM down to the ralley - she was trucked down by a friend and we launched her up river of Carrick-on-Shannon one bright day. Unknown to us the commadore of the ralley was giving a demonstration of his radio controlled model boat (which was 2 feet longer than MM) and so imagine the scene - a mottley collection of boats all shapes, colours and sizes from ex Guinness barges to very old cabin cruisers, rowing boats, canoes, every body sitting on deck in the sunshine, nursing pints/drinks watching the model boat do certain manouveres, when around the corner of the river sweeps MM at full trottle which caused some consternation and surprise. TV had just come to Ireland around that time and had a camera on the bridge - so our antics were recorded for prosperity!
I left Ireland a few years later and gave MM to a friend who let her go on the rocks one day...
It was great fun...and still is today!
Hope I haven't bored you!
Fair winds and Happy cruising!
Pelican
P.S. Must do a bit of work now!
I have been reading this Forum for over a year now and althou I don't post very much myself I enjoy reading all the posts. The first thing I do on arrival in office is to log on to the PBO Forum and scroll thru the lot. I enjoy it very much, and thank all you guys (and girls!) who make it so interesting and funny!
So I would like to start off the New Year with a new tread, which I hope you boys and girls might find of interest seeing as it happened almost 50 years ago - when boating was a different scene from today (and I would be interested to read similar starter boat stories).
I am presently on my 20th boat - a motor sailor - my first boat with a sail (which I bought whilst under the influences - but thats another story!). I don't really like sailing and only pull up the sails about twice a year to let the spyders out!
So I would like to tell you about my first boat - so get yourselves cosy and read on!
I started boating in the late fifties in a small harbour called Bulloch harbour about 10 miles south of Dublin in the Irish Republic. I was about 12 and made pocket money rowing people out to their boats as a ferry boy in this tidal harbour. There were about 100 boats in the harbour all made of wood, some clinker some carvel and a few plywood. Fibreglass did not exist then, at least not in boat form.
On day a man came to the harbour with an 8ft x 3 x 1 flat bottomed punt which he wanted to sell for the princely sum of one pound. One pound was a fortune in 1958 to a school boy and I did not have in pocket. So hopped on bike and went home - no one there so "borrowed" a pound from my mother's purse (for which I got a spanking from my father but was worth it for I was a boat owner!). This punt I rowed around the local area for one season. From age eight onwards I used to build model boats - to my own design - out of balsa wood and always had a hankering for a real, what we called then "Cabin cruiser". So the following winter, the punt was taken up to my dad's garage and the topsides were built up a foot, a fore and after cabin with centre wheelhouse was built in plywood, (no room for a cockpit - completely closed in) all to scale, a mast and handrails were added as well as three keels - the two outer ones in steel - our biggest financial outlay - all of £3.10 shillings! The whole boat was painted in blue and white. Access was by folding back the roof of the wheel house onto the after cabin top and climb in.
We had a problem finding a steering wheel that was to scale. One day my chum was walking down the local village and spotted a pram outside a butcher's shop. Now those of u who will remember prams were big comfy things in those days (with nice big wheels) - well Martin had a spanner in his pocket so off with the wheel, baby starts to scream, mother followed by butcher with clever in hand rush out of the shop but Martin was fleet of foot and after the spokes were knocked out and one spoke added and a lick of white paint, we had a steering wheel (a la Citroen 2CV!) and the boat was ready for sea trials.
We launched her at 4am one spring morning - so we wud not be the laughing stock of the locals at the harbour in case of trouble! She was fitted with a (then aged) 2hp Seagull outboard. She was a bit tender but a night visit to one of the many old houses which were been knocked down at the time to make way for suberbia, and a lovely sash window counter balance in lead found itself strapped to our centre keel which made the boat much more stable. One day a guy came along and said to us what sort of a mickey mouse floating coffin have u there, so we decided to call the boat Mickey Miss!
So there we are two boys out in our MM, a good few miles off the Irish coast, cruising along one day in a force 2/3 with big waves (no life jackets - cud not afford them - no compass - ditto - no safety equip - ditto) when this big (to our eyes) trawler came up astern of us, fishermen lining the bulwarks eyes a goggle, one of them shouted "what the "f...ing hell are u boys doing out here - do your parents know where u are" - we replied "we are cruising in our cabin cruiser so leave us alone"! On looking back all those years ago we were lucky that we had no trouble - just faith in our craft!
In the early 1960's the Inland Waterways of Ireland wishing to promote boating on the river Shannon and so they held annual boat rallies (and still do as far as I know). In those early days SHELL kindly offered all fuel to all the participants boats. What a riot! It was not unusual to see a 14ft rowboat with a 40 gallon drum top up the barrel, disappear around the corner of the river and load the barrel into a Landrover and repeat the process all over again!
We decided to take MM down to the ralley - she was trucked down by a friend and we launched her up river of Carrick-on-Shannon one bright day. Unknown to us the commadore of the ralley was giving a demonstration of his radio controlled model boat (which was 2 feet longer than MM) and so imagine the scene - a mottley collection of boats all shapes, colours and sizes from ex Guinness barges to very old cabin cruisers, rowing boats, canoes, every body sitting on deck in the sunshine, nursing pints/drinks watching the model boat do certain manouveres, when around the corner of the river sweeps MM at full trottle which caused some consternation and surprise. TV had just come to Ireland around that time and had a camera on the bridge - so our antics were recorded for prosperity!
I left Ireland a few years later and gave MM to a friend who let her go on the rocks one day...
It was great fun...and still is today!
Hope I haven't bored you!
Fair winds and Happy cruising!
Pelican
P.S. Must do a bit of work now!
