Actually that's exactly right! Guess it's still the stbd cross-trees for me thenThat's "house" to rhyme with "mice", surely?Pete
That's "house" to rhyme with "mice", surely?
Pete
Absolutely true. My early dinghy sailing involved going out without a lifejacket unless there was an R in the month in ordinary trousers and a woollen shirt, and after struggling round our reservoir carefully putting the cotton sails in the sail shed to dry off. The Broads were not much better, especially in April, our usual time. Gaberdine coats provided some protection but were could be driven to stuffing tea-towels into the cracks in the cabin to keep the wind out. Even in the '70s almost nothing on the boat worked properly, sleeping bags were basic and you needed to wear a towelling scarf to keep the spray out as neck closures and proper hoods didn't exist. As for heating and sprayhoods, tha was for cissies and plutocrats.
Speaking as a manifestation of that (relative) rarity, the youthful yachtsman, I must protest...
Circa 800nm covered this summer incl 4 channel crossings in wind up to F6 and sea state up to rough, F7 upwind on a coastal passage, outboard in a well in the cockpit (so ear defenders necessary for long windless trips) and lifted out for sail passage making. Reefing is at the mast, proper symmetric spinnaker with pole, etc. Must confess the boat still has roller furling (as when we bought her), and indeed I recently upgraded this. We have three heads (!) on board: there is a chemical lavatory (as yet unchristened in our ownership) under a cushion in the forepeak bunk, and two buckets in the lazarette locker. The boat came with spray hood and lazyjacks, but I consider the former a bit of an eyesore and the latter a bit of a nuisance with a relatively easily handled sail, so now the mainsail is flaked down and the spray hood stays in the shed.
My crews tend to be similarly aged and of an adventurous nature; most also have little other sailing experience, and they have kept coming back so far...
Having said all that... I went round some of the Discovery/Southerly yachts at SIBS, and must say I feel the appeal; I also sail occasionally on an HR36, which is gorgeous in many ways. I suspect by the time (if ever) that I could even consider affording one, and given time to cross oceans or venture into high latitudes, I might be very happy to sit at the chart table in a deck saloon and keep a lookout from the warm and dry. It's very much still sailing, and retains most of the magic—but I find bigger boats I've sailed to date feel more like a machine to take you through the water than the dinghy-like feeling of a tiller-steered small boat with an open cockpit and low deck?
[cut to sofa]
"And then when we used to go upwind, our boats would sink, blow up, burn us to death, then we'd drown, and when we'd got home our father would thrash us to sleep." "Upwind? Lucky."
[...]
And you know, you tell the young people of today that, and they won't believe you?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue7wM0QC5LE]
(all the above meant largely in jest, hopefully to be taken that way...)
+1
With you all the way, except I don't have a spray hood.
My standards have slipped - I no longer own a wooden gaff cutter. But when I did, she looked like this:
(that's not the Beaulieu River...)
