Smokers on board.

Re: I don\'t want any

It must be great to be so perfect

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://practical-business.co.uk>Click for website!</A>
 
HUZZAH !! for Per, I say !

<The cosiest boats I've ever been to belong to people who smoke pipes below. Not so sure about cigarrettes though...>

I've smoked a pipe since 1974 (but never, I repeat never, cigarettes) when a girlfriend thought it would be rather smart to have a boyfriend who smoked a pipe (knitting pattern addiction I think) - I kept the pipe . . .

Since then, I've had two GPs and one Consultant who have said that moderate pipe smoking does me more good than harm but needless to say, would rather not be quoted by name. I'm not addicted to it, often leaving off for weeks and sometimes months at a time and the dangers are more from chewing the stem and rubbing one's tongue on the the rough bits (which I don't) than from lung cancer.

All this time my pipes (about 23 or 4 I think) have been thoroughly sound chums and certainly stopped me doing embarassing things with my hands, especially in the cockpit. I have always asked people around me whether they mind if I smoke and do not if anyone would rather I didn't. The smell is actually, as Per infers, rather pleasant and nothing like coming down stairs at home in the morning when cigarette smokers have been at their vile habit in the drawin-groom the night before!

Now to boats. Pipe smokng aids concentration whilst promoting a sense of calm and is the pefect adjunct to navigation and helmsmanship. Pipes generally look after their own waste problems and if fitted with a gauze guard, don't create rogue sparks or excess smoke during high winds or squalls. Down below, as Per says, they promote a sense of cosiness and bonhomie, unlike cigarettes, and when allied to a good Fray Bentos S&K pudding (with extra gravy), a bottle or three of decent Burgundy and a copy of Yachting Monthly (circa 1964 - you remember, the waterproof editions) picked at random, surely there can be nothing nearer to Poseidan's Mount Olympus?

On a practical note, however, I do not smoke my pipe below without proper ventilation and unless the gas has been switched off at the bottle. Neither do I fill gas lighters down below, both for obvious reasons. There are also two specially fitted pieces of teak on the transon for knocking the dottle out of finished pipes to ensure no waste material (which is minimal) falls into the cockpit.

I regularly sail with two other pipe smokers which once prompted a fellow competitor in a race at Seaview saying, "My God, look out chaps - it's the Queen Mary !"

Thank you again for your comment Per and I trust that marine pipe smoking doesn't become another object of socially derisive approbation like foxhunting.

Tally - Ahoy !
Puff - Puff !


<hr width=100% size=1>Khyber
 
Just out of curiosity, what is the pleasure you get from pipe smoking- genuine interested question?

Is it just the act of it, or do you get a nicotine hit as well. The way you write is a perfect advertisement for pipe smoking.

Hace you sent drawings or your custom transom pipe tappers into PBO. they could have a whole page dedicated to maritime smoking aids fashioned from teak and ply. /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

<hr width=100% size=1>Life's too short- do it now./forums/images/icons/wink.gif
 
Funny thing - thought I might get a post from you, Alex !

Hard to quantify the pleasure(s) really; there are many and depend on circumstances. Mother substitute is certainly one, the pleasure of having something in one's mouth; playing with the thing, keeping it alight and that indescribable sense of acheivement of smoking a whole pipe with one light and without it going out!

To me the main pleasure is the taste and that comes down to the blend of tobacco and that means experimenting with different types and blends. I have two or three favourite blends (which I generally get from Fox and Lewis of St. James's Street, London SW1 - visit: http://www.jjfox.co.uk ) and smoke them according to my mood. Stragely, I've noticed that I tend to smoke when I'm relaxed or eneavouring to be so and seldom, for example, smoke in the office or when I'm doing chores. As to nicotine hits, that's obviously an element but not as striking as one would think; not, again for example, like chewing tobacco or using those funny little tea bag type thingies beloved of the Swedish, Finns &c. (back to you Per!), nor even as I imagine cigarettes are. Of course, a point I failed to mention in my previous post, is that pipe smokers don't as a rule inhale the smoke which I'm sure makes a huge difference.

In reply to your question, the pleasure is essentially "the act of it" and not the "nicotine hit". In the words of a previous Prime Minister, "To be frank and honest" give it a try, you'll not regret it - and as you say at the bottom of your own posts - "Life's too short - do it now" !!!


<hr width=100% size=1>Khyber
 
Clive, you are unique, a smoker that enjoys it and ain't suffering. I'm an ex heavy smoker and the best think I ever did was give up .. nearly 12 years ago .. twas hard for a while but I have never regretted it. I live and let live but I feel annoyed when I'm having a drink or meal and the actions of the inconsiderate spoil that for me. FWIW secondary tobacco smoke now triggers migraines with me and that's a major reason for not visiting the pub now. Roll on a smoking ban in public places.. cos anyone polluting my air is NOT living and letting live!

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No, Jimi, I certainly am not unique and there are times when I feel I've been smoking a bit too much and lay off for a while - a bit like drinking, eating and dare I say it, sailing, I suppose.

Remember, too, that pipe smoke is not at all like cigarette smoke with its chemical additives &c. and I agree with you, it can get most unpleasant in some public places where a lot of cigarette smokers are congregated. Please reread my posts and notice that I generally ask whether people mind if I smoke and desist if they object - that's only fair and good-neighbourghly - even in my own home.

Pipe smoking is a leisurely and organic past-time and predates cigarettes by hundreds of years - one only has to look at countless paintings and prints of hunting and country inn scenes to see that. And that's not counting the ones of jolly fisherfolk sitting on bollards or up-turned buckets!

To me it's a great shame that a highly advertised, promoted, addictive, harmful and unpleasnant occupation such as cigarette smoking has rubbed its grubbiness off onto pipe smokers and is in danger of ruining an otherwise inocent, relitively harmless and pleasant past-time which has been enjoyed by men and women for generations.

Hurrumph !


<hr width=100% size=1>Khyber
 
Re: I don\'t allow it on board

I have no problem with it .....

I am a non-smoker that used to smoke very heavily. I made a vow that I would not go all anti like some converted do ..... they quit smoking and then dictate to others.

My wife smokes ... so I of course give a prod now and again to get her to think about stopping .... she HERSELF without my prompting trues to keep smoke outdoors ...... either by smoking next to window, in boat its in cockpit etc. ............

A holier than thou attitude is not a good one I think.


<hr width=100% size=1>Cheers Nigel http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gps-navigator/ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/searider/
 
Alex,

With reference to your bit about the transom pipe tapping-blocks, that's not a bad idea and I shall put some winter thought into it. I also have a couple of clever rubberized plastic pipe-holders which stick to a surface, such as cockpit coming, chart table surfaces, motor car dash-boards &c. and prevent one's pipe sliding about, spilling out or otherwise causing unecessary and unneighbourly mayhem.

"Rigden's patented Marinized Pipe-tapping Blocks - Corinthian, Channel, Ocean and Lake versions available in a choce of natural teak, varnished mahogany or racing carbon-fibre - Contact selected chandlers or www.rmptb.net for a free quotation or home-fitting kits".

Hmmm - on the other hand, I may just stick to essaitchonetee processing . . .
(God - it feels like Friday !)



<hr width=100% size=1>Khyber
 
Sorry Clive, perhaps I should have prefixed my post with "In my extensive experience" .. we certainly must move in different circles and have vastly different perspectives .. to you pipe smoke is obviously nice, to me its vile and horrible.. I'm not judging you just stating facts from my perspective. Presumably if you light up in a pub you do'nt wander round and ask every person if they object or if your puffing away at night you may not observe that the boat down wind of you has just donned the repirators?

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Look, I don't mind being called an idiot, I'm used to it.

But - have you ever heard of Walt Raleigh - yachtsman and tobacco merchant? You calling him one too?

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eedjeet lost his head over a wummin as weel And the bluidy Irish and Ities whit would they have done without him?

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Re: I don\'t allow it on board

I admire your live and let live philosophy. Try getting your wife to smoke a pipe. Some time ago I had a girlfriend who asked me to encourage her not to smoke. When I did I got so much abuse I told her to take up a pipe and bought her all the paraphinalia including a very pretty and elegant little pipe. She took to it like a duck to water, didn't inhale, felt better and strangely, received very few odd looks when in public.

SWMBO is also an ex-smoker who often craves a surupticious snout, so I let have a puff of my pipe and that generally does the trick.


<hr width=100% size=1>Khyber
 
Teabags

Hey! Don't slander our "funny little teabag type thingies"! They're actually great, especially when we get foreigners to try them out... Although I don't want to promote anything containing nicotine, they are the primary reason why so many people up here have been able to quit smoking. The mini-"funny little teabag type thingies" are also very discreet.

Although addictive (because of nicotine content) any other dangers to health have yet to be discovered, prompting our somewhat soviet minded health administration to replace compulsory stickers saying "you will surely die a slow and painful death" on these packets with the slightly more moderate "we think you will die a slow and painful death but are not really sure why". Free translation of course. The EU - bless them - took the safe route and banned the whole concept on the grounds that it contains nicotine and may be bad for ones health, or at least for the french cigarrette industry.



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Just shows you smoking's bad for you. What I wonder is how the Ities made pizzas, chips and spag bols afore Wallie invented tomatoes & potatoes?

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No sweat Jimi.

In a pub or similar, if there are lots of people around who are not smoking I simply don't light up and if someone is obviously affected by my pipe smoke but doesn't say anything, I put it away.

I don't like cigarette smoke and get similar feelings of nausea from cooking with olive oil when it gets too hot and indeed, barbeques. You have also IMHO been very unlucky in the pipe smoke you've had to endure.

Incidentally, rather like a steam locamotive, a properly smoked pipe shouldn't make very much smoke except when being lit.

LoL :)



<hr width=100% size=1>Khyber
 
Have to agree re pipe smoking, its my smoke of choice on board. I like the idea of a dottle board, must make one to set on the dash. I don't allow smoking below decks but in the cockpit is OK, 'cos that lets me do it too. But preferably not in front of the children.

I'll admit that the radar reflector has a secondary function as an ash tray:-)

<hr width=100% size=1>Two beers please, my friend is paying.
 
Re: Teabags

Sorry Per, no slander intended! I was merely trying to describe them to a largely British audience which probably has little or no knowledge of what they look like.
Last November I was at a sewage & sludge conference and hadn't been smoking my pipe for a couple of months when a Swedish delegate offered me one. Wow - it nearly blew my head off! The nicotine rush was quite extraordinary and lasted till the next morning. Too much for me, I have to admit!

Quite right what you say about the French fag industry though . . .


<hr width=100% size=1>Khyber
 
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