Half & Half

For a good proportion of my life I have had access to the water, work and leisure, for a short time owning a Mirror sailing dinghy. For a while I was in a ‘sharing group’ with part shared in something a little larger.
I fondly remember a great stag weekend which involved sailing from Torpoint to Fowey, overnight stop, Fowey to Plymouth, overnight stop then out and around Eddystone before an evening in an Indian curry house, finally sailing back, hungover, to Torpoint.
What I also remember is the heavy maintenance load and that each year was equally split. For about six months of the year boats are either out of the water or careened for maintenance and storage, bad weather and work commitments further reduced the time on the water.
Now I look at the boats coming out of the water for the winter lay up, out September, back in March and think to myself; “let’s stick with the gig”.

RBL meeting in the evening; whilst some branches may be bucking the trend it’s not difficult to see why the RBL is losing members nationally. There needs to be a move to counter the “it’s just a November organisation” and the appearance that the salaries and a plethora of self congratulatory awards are earned.

By the way no boats in this picture belong to me or are crewed by me!