Obsession??

[barryjl]

I'm like you..really love life at the marina and yes we have loads of expensive boats there that never seem to be used - what a waste!

<hr width=100% size=1>There's no problems..just opportunities

 

[Bejasus]

Never had a boat before, never really thought about it, then one sunny summer Sunday 2 years ago, we went out on the river aboard a friends boat with another couple from our village who had just bought a cruiser also. Anyhow after a few bottles of wine, SWMBO says 'I would love to do this'. Less than 3 months later, I went out and paid £4k for a 40 year old Seamaster 25ft cruiser. No brilliant and needed some work, but inside was classically immaculate. Joined this forum looking for advice etc and haven't looked back. Boat now looks great and is currently being re-engined with a diesel by myself, and is reckoned to be worth a bout 8k when finished. Having ejoyed some good visits with other forumites and the upshot is, that we are seriously considering selling up in a couple of years and going livaboard in the Med or somewhere for a while. Kids are all teenagers now and freedom looms. SWMBO is up for this and I think the fact that I haven't tried to push her is great. However, I have slowed my life from 160mph(stupid) to a current figure of 6mph on the Broads and I am loving it. Such stress relief. She was right all along. I also have decided I don't need 30 knots either. Displacement or semi-displacement speeds are good enough for me. Not a wimp as I will still bungee jump & shit with the best, just not every day.

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[tico]

See Kimatollahs comments on Milltech's demise thread

See also some other threads that conclude to a great extent that use& enjoyment is inversley proportional to boat size.

(Not all the time tho before tcm fires a broadside)

<hr width=100% size=1>Been there, done that, got the oily T shirt

 

[cool_running]

Move Lancashire no one would miss it! .......


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[Greg2]

Yep - displacement or semi-displacement speeds are all I need on the Broads and for the occaisional foray offshore. Like you the stress relief I get form the boat is immeasurable. Like the sound of livaboard - our plans are to take to the French canals and wend our way to the med in retirement.

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[Bejasus]

Where are you berthed Greg. We are at Hippersons in Beccles.

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[itsonlymoney]

What a refreshing thread this is. I agree with virtually everything said. I too work in order to live my life the way I want, that mainly is the boat. I too have had loads of fun on smaller boats and worked my way up the ladder to my current 2655. It does not matter how much yours is worth as long as you enjoy it, and someone will allways have a "better" one than you no matter what it is. Bollocks to houses and cars I would live on board tommorow if I could run my Bussines from there.

Ian



<hr width=100% size=1>Play the best game you can with the cards you've been dealt ! ! !

 

[taquila]

I have to agree with everything said. Sold our boat just three weeks ago after a relationship lasting 7 lovely years - not much sailing but then not much stress either! Already we are missing it and looking at the boat sales - what do you do with life if there isn't a boat to look forward to. Life's weekends were designed for messing about in boats. Odd to say, but we really envy all you boat owners who can spend the Christmas hols freezing your b**** off in a boatyard instead of doing the boring relative-rounds - 'going to the boat' used to be the best excuse ever to cry off! Anyway, now we're seriously considering getting rid of 'the mansion' and buying a boat to liveaboard, preferably somewhere sunny enough to need air-conditioning! Yes, boats are an obsession but a very healthy one!!

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[BarryH]

Reading betwixt the lines, is this not about quality of life. Getting away from the riguors of everyday humdrum. I enjoy the boat a lot, but its not the be all and end all. Getting out and about meeting people chatting about common interests etc etc.

Boating is not my only hooby. Main one yes but not my only. I go shooting a lot, clays, target, rough. There seems to be a similarity between the outlook of both groups of friends. Some crossover and a few even take up one or other pastimes. I don't own a big flash car, live in a mansion set in its own grounds or earn loadsa money, but I enjoy life and what I do with ny time.

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[barryjl]

It has made me really happy that my initial 'Obsession' post has generated so much positive response - also proves that I'm not a nut case out there on my own!!

<hr width=100% size=1>There's no problems..just opportunities

 

[taquila]

I do agree with you on the quality of life thing. I have to admit that most of our good friends are those we have met in and around the harbour and yacht club, but between us there are many other interests shared. It seems to me that people who have a boat (not the social-climbing sort!!!) share a very laid-back love of life generally, so there is always going to be a rapour between them even when their other hobbies and their lifestyles differ drastically.

Like you, we have neither well paid jobs, large house or fancy cars, but we have a longing to just say 'to hell with it all' and just potter off and enjoy the rest of our lives to the full. Maybe we are lucky in that our interests and other hobbies could be assimilated easily into living aboard a boat full-time, and not being very attached to 'stuff' we could cut the strings to our present life quite easily.

There's a lot of people in that big world out there that I would like to meet before I'm through!

Jacqui

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[ccscott49]

Most of the people I meet are boat oriented, I too have other interests, but liveaboard. Most of my other interests are compatible with the boating life. I have met lots of nice people, living aboard, a few assholes but not that many. I love the life and I love life! I will enjoy it until they nail down the coffin, that I can guarantee!

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[Guest]

Post deleted by danfoley

 

[ccscott49]

Clogs, well and truly superglued on Brian! No chance of them popping for many years yet! I`m just a pup! /forums/images/icons/wink.gif

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[hlb]

Theres Twp types of folk I come across. Them with boats, that have become life long friends. The others are locals in the the pub. They know all about other folk playing football and can name every one. But seem to do nothing themselves. I prefere to do it rather than watch. Even if I do get a bit scared some times!!.../forums/images/icons/laugh.gif

<hr width=100% size=1> <font color=blue>No one can force me to come here.<font color=red> I'm a volunteer!!.<font color=blue>

Haydn

 

[simongoldthorpe]

Is it a coincidence that there are a high proportion of us that have had bust businesses AND an obsession with boats?

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[tcm]

Are people with big boats unhappy, really? (long)

This a great myth. It's a "be happy with your lot" myth. It dates from times when a very small number of people ruled over the masses. The masses had no means of educating themselves, of earning more money, nor did they have much freedom of movement. They couldn't get on their bike, nor even ride a bike, because they no money, no bikes and no roads.

Yet popular stories make belive that all the rich are very miserable. Sleeping Beauty, the rich king with three (or seven) daughters, and so on and so on. Even today, the billionaire Mr Burns in "the Simpsons" is single and lonely, and only fleetingly and masochistically amuses himself by being horrible to others. It makes us all feel happy with our lot.

First, let's get one thing clear: if you're into boats, then bigger, or newer, or faster or more "classcally wooden" or lighter boats... are better than otherwise. I suppose if the goal was to cross the atlantic in the smallest boat, then a three-foot ocean capable boat would be better than a four footer. If your goal is "bigger" then it will make you happy. Mine makes me happy. Sometimes I think it's rather a huge pile of loot just sitting there, and then I go down and it's absolutely great. I love it.

Now, of course, it is not the case that a large boat is necessary to be happy. Far from it. Indeed, if "value for money happiness" were quantifiable, it's fair to say that larger boats aren't as good value as smaller ones, otheriwse one might have some some sort of sensory overload and your brain would explode the moment you stepped on a boat twice as big as your current boat. But that's the same with everything. In terms of the value for money (or happinness for money) , an origami boat or poohsticks are almost impossible to beat. You all know this.

It is probably the case that those people without a boat are comfortingly telling themselves that those people with a great big Sunfury, you know, they aren't as happy as us over here with our dinghy. I bet they hate it. Deep down, they're unhappy.

But there isn't a point at which you say "oh heck, this boat, yerknow, well, the saloon is so big that it is making me unhappy. Having a fridge was great, but with two fridges PLus an icemaker, it's bugging me. I can't stand the comfiness of the sofa, and the excellent craftmanship is somehow depressing. People admire the boat on numerous occassions, and i cry myself to sleep as a result." I'm sorry to say that, for me, this never ever happens.

Even worse, you know those people you see in a Ferrari? They're often happy as well! Damn! I had one, and it was fab. Okay, bit's of it didn't work as well as other cars, and some of it didn't work as well as a Mondeo or even a small Renault, especially if you left it alone for a week without disconnecting the battery, and it was a bit steamy when it rained as the ventilation was crap. If you opened a window, rain from the roof fell on your leg. But the chassis and engine and brakes were incredible, and the joy of ownership was measurably much greater than owning lots of other cars, perhaps every other car I've had, really. Even though i actually lost £60k when i sold it. It was still totally and utterly great, and i still hmm, maybe have a gawk at the adverts for them the sunday times, quite often.

Of course, in the short term it is manageable and healthy for everyone to be happy with their lot. They can be ambitious, but being too ambitious - perhaps trying to emulate a famous or billionaire father - can be depressing, or even very depressing. There are lots of famous examples.

Notwithstanding this, we need people who chase the superlative. They might stomp out of their employer's company and try and set up their own enterprise to do things better. They might deisgn or make a better boat. And those people other people to be customers, who lust after the better/bigger/faster boat. We won't get very far if we all eat rubbishy 60's food, are perfectly happy with an old black and white telly, and can't be bothered with owning a house - we'll just stay in this council block and go to work on the bus. i mean, we don't really NEED anything better. And look at those show-offs with cars. Cars! Who on earth needs one of those! They aren't happier you know, and they might die in a car crash. they are no new mates to find in a car, as there are on a bus every morning, you know. Just the same lonely seat and the radio. They're all so sad they all need a mobile phone to cheer themselves up. And so on.

Communism and even mild socialism works hard to believe and spread the word that bigger isn't better. But it fails to recognise that if you are happy in a house or a car, you might be happier with a better house or a better car. Not a truism, but it's often the truth. And any, why on earth would the slope of a graph which plots "happiness against boatsize" suddenly turn downwards *just* beyond the size of a Sunfury?

Here's another thought. For fairly modest amounts of money, you can visit and lounge around in a really big posh house, which might be hotel or a chateau in the Loire. You can rent a big house and, really, you're the boss for a week or whatever. Likewise, you can rent a large or fast car for a blast around for a weekend. BUT unless you buy a large boat yourself you can't skipper a powerboat larger than about 50 feet long - you're a passenger or a hired help on a big powerboat unless you've bought it. Yes, buying and running the thing will cost perhaps thirty, fifty or a hundred times more than a Sunfury. And sometimes, it really is that many times better. Please do not be in any doubt at all that the experience is utterly, utterly fantastic.

 

[tcm]

Re: Colin\'s coffin

Have they set a date for the ccscott's coffin be nailed down then? Probably quite way off yet, wrong nails, i expect, then the wrong wood, then a different sodding varnish, and oh flippinek look at the spec it says 97 coats of varnish....

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[Artie]

What a lot of interesting posts!
I have had a mortguage, been divorced, Brought up my two girls and got them married off my hands, remarried, run a business and yet throughout it all there was my 23 foot of sanity always faithfully waiting for me in the marina. When retirement came and my endowment insurance matured SWIMBO suggested that I treat us to a 35 footer (What a SUPER WIFE I have) So now we have plenty of time and the boat to use it in.


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[ccscott49]

Re: Colin\'s coffin

Well.....I mean.....nails.....go wash yer mouth out! Bronze screws only! I dont want it to rot, now do I, not before they burn it up anyway!

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