Newbie - am I being too unrealistic?

[Obi]

Anyway - I just found a 1982 RYA Navigation Manual in amongst my old books, and The Complete Sailing Handbook by Jeremy Evans. This is not the first time I've heard the call of the water. I have my reading material for a while then.

Some topics translate to books well, some do not. If you find the book is not clear, don't fret, nav is pretty easy really. Find someone to show you, preferably a RYA C.I. or Y.M.I.

I've a book on astral nav and to be honest i feel someone could show me in less than an hour what it has taken me years to understand from the book. Similarly I have a golf book - how to swing like a pro, it's excellent but 90% of it is waffle and noise and just obfuscates the salient points in 'trying to sound clever' - or trying to communicate all the science and facts, when some of us just need the cheat-sheets

My view on sailing - there is nothing really that complex in what we do, but there are a lot of skills and knowledge to pick up but most of it is fairly common sense and straight forward.

 

[ylop]

A point to ponder...

If i was travelling the length of the country living on a boat, whether on the canals or coastal I would want a bike, probably an ebike these days, to give my the option to leave the boat where it is and travel to a shop, postoffice, cafe, pub or just explore a little bit further than by foot or get to a train station / bus stop. So storing a bike, charging an e-bike and easily being able to get it on/off a dinghy (if coastal rather than canal) would be key considerations.

 

[Sea Change]

A point to ponder...

If i was travelling the length of the country living on a boat, whether on the canals or coastal I would want a bike, probably an ebike these days, to give my the option to leave the boat where it is and travel to a shop, postoffice, cafe, pub or just explore a little bit further than by foot or get to a train station / bus stop. So storing a bike, charging an e-bike and easily being able to get it on/off a dinghy (if coastal rather than canal) would be key considerations.

Yup. We use our folding bikes extensively. It adds hugely to the range you can explore, you can get to better shops, and you're not tied to public transport or Uber fares. We generally leave them locked up at the dinghy dock unless we think that would be unsafe.

Doesn't have to anything fancy, it'll just start rusting anyway. I bought a very basic Apollo single speed with 16" wheels, as new, for £40, and it's still just about going, 5yrs later. My son uses it now as he outgrew his kiddie sized bike, and I've picked up an aluminium framed bike with 20" wheels and six gears. Quite a useful upgrade. But I wouldn't want to spend too much on it, because then I'd not want to leave it ashore. They are certainly a bit of a faff in the dinghy. We put ours in old sail bags to stop chain grease getting everywhere.