Re: Death and Glory - can young people buy cheap boats?


[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ Previous # Next ] [ Start New Thread ] [ TarBoard ]

Posted by Laurence Monkhouse on May 21, 2003 at 22:15:06 from 62.252.128.7 user Laurence_.

In Reply to: Re: Dulcibella and lifeboat conversions generally (was: Death & Glory DESIGN) posted by Jonathan Labaree on May 20, 2003 at 13:52:22:

When I was a teenager in Southampton in the 1950s there was a group of us who not only wanted boats but were mad about them, and yes, almost all of us quite quickly got them. We included people who were certainly not middle class as defined by so many friends here, some who came from quite poor families, but by dint of paper rounds and holiday jobs and the like boats were bought. They were a pretty rough lot of boats(so probably were we) but we lived and dreamed sailing, and later racing, tuning the boats and debating intricacies of the racing rules when we should have been studying, so that we came to dominate the handicap class at the local sailing club by cut-throat tactics and gamesmanship(but never of course actually breaking the Racing Rules)

Looking back on it I wonder how the grown up members of the Club tolerated us.

But Jonathan is right - at least in those days, let alone in the 1930s, if you weren't too fussy you could get something that floated almost as a gift - as evidently did the D + Gs. Now there is such a level of rip off for moorings and gear of all sorts and so many petty rules and regulations that keeping a boat for virtually nothing has become pretty well impossible. And I think that young people, well off as well as poor, are sadly disadvantaged by it.

Today it is probably impossible for young people to get a clapped out hulk and take it afloat, often scaring but rarely harming themselves and finishing up as skilful sailors with an understanding of what the sea can do for better or for worse. Now they have to take courses before they even get their feet wet, and are taught at such lengths about how dangerous sailing is that many of them quite clearly never realise that the whole thing is glorious fun and a lot less dangerous than riding a bicycle. How often do you see people on the hard in a strong wind holding the bows of a dinghy looking as though they are holding a hand grenade with the pin out rather than being about to experience one of the greatest joys that life can offer, that of a sailing boat pushed to her limits and revelling in it?





Follow Ups:



Post a Followup

Name:
Eel-Mail:

Existing subject (please edit appropriately) :

Comments:

Optional Link URL:
Link Title:
Optional Image URL:

post direct to TarBoard test post first

Before posting it is necessary to be a registered user.


[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ TarBoard ]

Courtesy of Environmental Science, Lancaster

space