Yachting in 1967

[RunAgroundHard]

Well, I have no data to back it up but it seems to me there are a lot fewer 'men supporting young families on a modest income' owning yachts these days. ...

The data is there, it does stray into current affairs, but your observation is not limited to yachting. A "modest income" gets consumed on what could be considered basics. There is an argument about what are basics a few decades ago compared to today. That argument is for another forum.

The argument about basic boating a few decades ago, compared to basic boating perception these days, I would suggest is valid and within the rules of YBW, in the context of needs and wants.

 

[LittleSister]

I would have been in 1967 or thereabouts I sailed, and also motor cruised, for the very first time, with the Sea Cadets.

We'd more usually be pulling (rowing) 27' Montague Whalers and 32' Cutters, from the Navy's Royal Clarence Yard in Portsmouth (having come down from London for the weekend on the train, paid for by the Navy) but one day an older cadet invited me to crew on a Bosun dinghy, and we whizzed hither and thither around Portsmouth Harbour, a huge grin on my face - I was instantly addicted!

On another occasion a whole gang of us raced (very sedately!) a 32' Cutter in the Southsea Regatta, with one of our Officers (ex-Navy, still a Reservist and wondering if he'd be called up due to mayhem in the Middle East (them were the days!) consequent on the 6 Day War) as skipper. I doubt it was wholly due to our inability to get the Dipping Lug rig to actually dip for some reason, but we came last! Our placing added to the amusement, rather than detracted from what was for me was a very enjoyable and interesting day.

Heavy wooden boats, and heavy hemp(?) ropes (and usually freezing hands) were the order of the day.

The motor cruising was a short week beetling about the Solent in MFV 1060 (a Motor Fishing Vessel, about 60' or so?) presumably owned by the Navy or Sea Cadets. We had fair weather and foul. I can remember a window glinting in the sun from the Isle of Wight as we trundled slowly across the calm water, and a few days later, unlike a few more brave/foolhardy, being too scared to attempt to jump onto a ladder to get ashore when the MFV was wildly pitching up and down against a pier at, I think, Yarmouth. One day being posted on look-out in the bow, standing for what seemed like hours in the wind and rain, nothing much at all happening, and when I did finally see something - a log ahead in the water or some such - screaming at the top of my voice trying, and failing, to alert the officers on the fly bridge (if that's the correct term) conning the boat. I had my turn steering from the bridge (under the watchful eye of someone who knew what they were doing), which mainly involved trying to keep the number on the compass aligned with the course called down (by speaking tube?) from the flybridge, rather than actually looking where we were going. Worst job for me was pumping the bilges, which had to be done often, with stirrup type pumps with handles that lifted from under plates in the deck - I didn't really have the strength and stamina for it. Interesting to watch, but too scary to want to do myself, was older boys 'buoy jumping'(?) onto those huge cylindrical metal ships' mooring buoys to secure us to them. Peeling rather a lot of spuds came into it, too. And at the end of it all, waiting for a train home, having to hang on to a lamppost to stay upright as the platform pitched and lurched about beneath my feet!

All very character forming! Sadly, my family moved and I had to leave the Sea Cadets, and it was many years before I ever got to go sailing or cruising again. I'm still trying to catch up with the time I missed.

I am so glad that I had my little taste of the various craft, materials, boating practices and attitudes of those days.

 

[tillergirl]

A Seaking, built by Jago from Leigh. There are still a number of them around.

This is a Sea King

Sea King 65 by Roger Gaspar, on Flickr

I think the cover image is a Dauntless. The shape of the bow between the two is quite different.

Here's Mobo'ing in the 1960's

DSC00171 by Roger Gaspar, on Flickr

I learnt to sail on the Gremlin

 

[jbweston]

That was then this is now

Dixon 65, LIARA - Berthon International

I see Liara has an 'entertaining cockpit'. That should keep you amused on those long solitary night watches.

It reminds me of a Swedish guy I knew who said the cockpit of my Malö 37 was 'a comfortable area for intercourse'. I explained that was entirely proper English that would have been correctly understood in the days of Dickens or Jane Austen but nowadays he might be better to say 'comfortable for socialising'.

 

[Buck Turgidson]

I see Liara has an 'entertaining cockpit'. That should keep you amused on those long solitary night watches.

It reminds me of a Swedish guy I knew who said the cockpit of my Malö 37 was 'a comfortable area for intercourse'. I explained that was entirely proper English that would have been correctly understood in the days of Dickens or Jane Austen but nowadays he might be better to say 'comfortable for socialising'.

God she doesn't half wind me up. I note that the cockpit table is fully refrigerated which should keep it fresh!

 

[newtothis]

It's not what it was.

I’m not nostalgic but I used to be. Those were the days.

 

[Daedelus]

It reminds me of a Swedish guy I knew who said the cockpit of my Malö 37 was 'a comfortable area for intercourse'. I explained that was entirely proper English that would have been correctly understood in the days of Dickens or Jane Austen but nowadays he might be better to say 'comfortable for socialising'.

If you had included having the lift up seats by the wheel and the seat cushions he wasn't wrong.