Posted by Laurence Monkhouse on September 28, 2007 at 19:26:32 from 82.27.25.135 user Laurence_.
In Reply to: Re: Swallow & Scarab - whose responsibility? posted by Peter H on September 28, 2007 at 18:11:47:
Why won't they have Swallow? This must have been because the Jacksons couldn't be expected to take full responsibility for the Swallows being afloat on the lake in a small craft belonging to the farm
I would understand this as saying that the use of Swallow was conditional on being a paying guest at Holly Howe at the time of use.
As for the rest, I really don't think that anybody even thought about liability in those happy times and that AR's writings are simply based on this. Even when I got my first boat in my early teens in the 1950s, 30 years later, we just got into the thing and sailed. No insurance, no lifejackets, no buoyancy, no licences, no boat safety certificates, no grown ups (except to race against and defeat). We enjoyed ourselves, learned a lot which came in useful later on in bigger boats and longer voyages, got into one or two quite perilous scrapes, got ourselves out of them without outside help, and all of us survived.
Personally I feel really sorry for today's children, taught to believe that sailing is inherently dangerous, that boats must be feared rather than respected (Respect IS essential), and so missing so much of one of the greatest joys that life can offer.
And I think that it was reading AR that originally got me into this frame of thinking, which I have never regretted.
Navigare necesse est - vivere non est necesse.