"It is a drive - a power which drags me, sometimes even against my will back to the seas. [I] am unable to deny her call. It is as if my body - not me but my body- remembers a time when humanity belonged in the sea, as if she, like a mother I have abandoned, is drawing me with her arms strong and implacable. "Tristan Jones "Encounters of a Wayward Sailor"
Can I afford it?
Mid-Atlantic on a Nordic Folkboat singlehander Valerie Howells revealed his sensitivity to his in-laws making negative judgements about his preoccupation with sailing small boats instead of remaining a wage-slave. I hear you Val.
In my case, I don't really have a paid job, just a series of unpaid roles; homeschool parent, dad, hobby farmer, carer and trailer sailer owner. Even I baulked seriously at the thought of buying another boat. But, that pull Tristan wrote of had me in its grip. I wanted (had to) to sail an ocean.
Captain Fatty Goodlander gave me some tips for haggling. Think caveman like, bludgeon the previous owner over the head, and as you turn, cast them a few shackles. I went against all the sound advice and bought the first boat I saw for little more than four grand. Assurances that the diesel, the boat's strongest selling point, had been refurbished, proved no use. In the end, every system onboard was in meltdown; running rigging rotting, fittings seized, flaking varnish and paint, mould, holes in sails... But at least there was no rot or missing caulking, being fibreglass at least she floated.
But I saw beyond her human-imposed frailties and was taken by the design; not the headroom, but the stability.
No comments:
Post a Comment