NickTrevethan
Well-Known Member
Maybe I am getting rather too middle class as well as middle aged and my hitherto unknown Daily Mail reader is emerging, but there are some damned ugly, and untidy boats out there these days.
First off I think people who choose to live on our waterways and are passionate about that lifestyle deserve credit. (I live aboard myself so this isn’t an attack the lifestyle)
Those boats, and I hope mine is amongst them, tend to be well cared for, not necessarily new and shiny with lots of toys, but clean, tidy, organised and appear loved – shipshape if you know what I mean.
However, I see more and more (barely) floating scrapheaps on the Lee and elsewhere.
I understand why some people have felt forced to take to a life on the water in an older boat –superficially it seems like a great way to avoid high accommodation costs – not sure that is strictly true, but that’s another debate.
The problem is that there does not seem to any pride in many of these vessels. I saw one the other day that comprised a pair of sailboat hulls, one was a Seal 22, not sure the other, lashed together to form a Waterworld-esque catamaran. I half expected Kevin Costner to poke his head out the water.
I understand that the guy may not be able to afford anything else, and credit to him for his imagination and ingenuity. But that isn’t the problem – it’s the mess on the bats and hat spills onto the towpath with it.
My previous boat, a Solebay ketch was no beauty queen, but I did what I could on a limited budget to keep her looking as good as I could – washing regularly, painting etc.
From time to time our aft deck had a new calorifier or other part sit on it for a week while I sorted out some additional bits to fit it, but I tried and continue to try to keep our Sealine 365 in good shape, and at the very least clean and tidy.
Is this just incipient grumpy old men disease setting in? I am sure a few years ago, the boats on inland waterways, though not to my taste, were generally better kept. I do remember tutting over a boat with three bags of coal on a pallet on the roof, but these days, it’s broken bicycles, shopping carts, bits of pipe, a dead tortoise and god only knows what else, littering up these things.
First off I think people who choose to live on our waterways and are passionate about that lifestyle deserve credit. (I live aboard myself so this isn’t an attack the lifestyle)
Those boats, and I hope mine is amongst them, tend to be well cared for, not necessarily new and shiny with lots of toys, but clean, tidy, organised and appear loved – shipshape if you know what I mean.
However, I see more and more (barely) floating scrapheaps on the Lee and elsewhere.
I understand why some people have felt forced to take to a life on the water in an older boat –superficially it seems like a great way to avoid high accommodation costs – not sure that is strictly true, but that’s another debate.
The problem is that there does not seem to any pride in many of these vessels. I saw one the other day that comprised a pair of sailboat hulls, one was a Seal 22, not sure the other, lashed together to form a Waterworld-esque catamaran. I half expected Kevin Costner to poke his head out the water.
I understand that the guy may not be able to afford anything else, and credit to him for his imagination and ingenuity. But that isn’t the problem – it’s the mess on the bats and hat spills onto the towpath with it.
My previous boat, a Solebay ketch was no beauty queen, but I did what I could on a limited budget to keep her looking as good as I could – washing regularly, painting etc.
From time to time our aft deck had a new calorifier or other part sit on it for a week while I sorted out some additional bits to fit it, but I tried and continue to try to keep our Sealine 365 in good shape, and at the very least clean and tidy.
Is this just incipient grumpy old men disease setting in? I am sure a few years ago, the boats on inland waterways, though not to my taste, were generally better kept. I do remember tutting over a boat with three bags of coal on a pallet on the roof, but these days, it’s broken bicycles, shopping carts, bits of pipe, a dead tortoise and god only knows what else, littering up these things.
