Sailing Snobbery

The clothes you wear?

This is 100% true.

I was an articled clerk with a firm of shipping lawyers in the City in the 1970's. A chap walked into our reception to say that his yacht had been salvaged and he needed legal advice.

He was wearing jeans, sandals and a grubby T shirt, with hair well over his shoulders. A partner asked me to help the receptionist to get rid of him. I asked him what sort of boat it was; he replied "an 87ft Alden schooner"! At this, I slid out, saw the partner concerned, explained that the boat was worth more than the average coaster, and we took the case.

I actually got JD Sleightholme along as an expeert witness on handling large schooners at the hearing!
 
Cannot remember what it was called, it was bought about 15 years ago taken down to the Med and sailed around in semi retirement.

I remember them showing us their new boat, it was used at the LIBS, when open to the public, someone had put a key across the saloon table and there was a cigarette burn in one of the cushions, of course it was all sorted before they took the boat over.
 
Just spending time going through your photographs.

Absolutely stunning, makes me want to sell my camera and find another hobby.

Especially like the study of the compass and the telephone box in the palm trees.

Edit>> Just found my new favourite, No. 03 in the people section, amazing work.


Which software are you using to generate the gallery, I have never seen anything like it, it works very well.
 
Re: Give us a clue

Wow, thanks for all your positive comments guys! It's encouraging to know that my spare time has not been wasted. Please do feel free to pass on the link to whoever you think may appreciate it.

ShipsWoofy - you have stumbled across my favourite photo too! The flash photogallery is called slideshowpro (I cant remember the url for it but it's something like slideshowpro.com). It's a plug-in that's controlled by an XML file, which sounds scary but it's pretty straightforward to control.
 
BTW - worth mentioning that I update the site all the time, and that includes the photos. The best section is yet to come - Sunrises and Sunsets. Email me if you want me to let you know when this goes live. Email address is: info(at)spannerheadz.com. Should be updated in a couple of months /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
Thanks

My non-picture loading settings obviously extend to footnotes, too. By the way I hope the innit isn't a reference to my accent. I live in Essex, I wasn't born here!
 
Seems straightforward to me. dress like a policeman and people will assume you are one. Ditto if you dress like a tramp.

The salesman is plagued by tyre kickers and has to make a snap judgement as to whether you are a serious prospect or one of the much larger number simply wasting his time. You sent the wrong signals, so he guessed wrong.

Had it been a matter of snobbery the rep would still have ignored you dressed like that even if you had the money. Or - as would be the case with one of our scruffy but frightfully well spoken / well connected members - you would have got in despite the dress.

Maybe they saw the chip?
 
Hey Birdseye! Sorry, but you're wrong. Any sales person with any basic understanding of sales knows that you just cannot judge a book by its cover (or a policeman by his uniform - he could be a stripogram...).
Every potential punter must be approached with charm and enthusiasm and only after asking a few probing questions is it safe to know there's no sales opportunity. Anyway, you never know who's watching - a potential customer might well be put off by rudeness, even if it is to someone else.
I agree with Mirelle - it's the "I've sailed round the North Pole, on my own, in a hurricane, so what do you know?" brigade who are the real snobs!
 
Re: I would rather say - Snobbery and Sailing

Hmm interesting. I once made an appointment to see an Oyster at Earls Court. It was the smallest in the range at the time, an Oyster 42. I'm by no means a snappy dresser, if you ask my wife she thinks I'm a ragbag, but I got very courteous and thorough tour of the boat. I said to the saleaman that I wasn't in a position to buy a new one ( that was putting it very mildly), but he said you never know, one day you might. As if !! Anyways I was very impressed by them and, of course, the boat. I did have a similar experience to you once but it was with Westerly. What they had to be so high and mighty about I'll never know.
 
Snobbery is an ugly thing. Years ago I was sailing our (homemade) Optimist Dinghy with daughter (age 6). We were on the estuary at Rock. We were in the market for a big boat and were quite tempted by trailor sailors. Shrimpers were everywhere and when we sailed past one, the owner looked down at me eying his boat up and down. I said - 'Hello - how's the shrimper? - We are thinking of buying one'. He just sniffed and said, 'A cat can look at a queen'. Never did find out what they were like...
 
Sounds a bit like the classical snobbish waiter syndrome (never seems to be waitresses does it?). I've got a friend who is superb at handling awkward restaurant staff and the wind was totally taken out the sails of one particulalry obtuse waiter when my friend said to him towards the end of the meal "I am so sorry if we have upset you. You are obviously extremely unhappy with us." Of course the opposite was true and the waiter didn't know what to say! Only once lost my own cool and was reduced to the same level when I couldn't help myself quip "Well if you are really so superior then how come YOU are serving US today?". Oops!
 
[ QUOTE ]
I made the mistake of showing my dearest around a ******, now she wants one. Has to be sloop or cutter though.

[/ QUOTE ]
Now I'm a bit confused - I thought you already had a ******* /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
 
John. I probably misled you there. When I said we have a shrimper, I meant "there is a Shrimper on Windermere" . I was pointing out that the owner and his wife are very pleasant.
There are actually quite a few Shrimpers on the lake and I covert them. I think you can get them used for about £10,000. They do seem a bit pricy but we only day sail so they are just the job.
 
Had similar pleasant experience on Wauquiez stands at the Southampton and London boat shows. I like to think of it as examining the potential future entries to the second hand market .. for surely its the only way I'll ever get a bigger boat.

Regards, Jeff.
 
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