Dave Selby is the proud owner of a 5.48m (18ft)
Sailfish, which he keeps on a swinging mooring
on the picturesque Blackwater estuary in Essex
Mad about the boatDave Selby
I
f you learned anything at all about
how to sell a boat from my ‘how to
sell a boat’ article last month please
write to me care of PBO. I’d like to
know what it was. So would the
editor. It’s been a while since I’ve had a
disciplinary, and that’s making both of
us feel rather anxious.
And if, by chance, you still have a boat
you’re trying to sell, there is one more
avenue you should pursue before
resorting to insurance fraud which might,
just by way of example, quite possibly
involve acquiring an out-of-certificate gas
stove with perished hose attached to full
gas cylinder (valve open). It might be
placed beside an oil lamp, kindling, a pile
of dry newspapers, a box of safety
matches, oxyacetylene welder (don’t
forget the safety goggles) and some
improvised wiring to the time switch on a
greenhouse heater – this propped against
a rusty can of petrol (if cost is an issue
some old 2-stroke mix will do). This will be
covered fully in a later article which will
form the basis of my next disciplinary,
successful prosecution and imprisonment.
However, there is a slightly less drastic
last-but-one resort, which will lead you
down the well-trodden path of pilgrimageto The Queen’s Head in Maldon, a
world-renowned centre of learning for
everything to do with boats, and a lot less
besides, and some of it even legal.
In this respect, the back bar at the
Queen’s, which is also known as the front
bar to avoid confusion, is much like any
waterside pub the world over, apart from
those in the ’Amble which, as you can tell
by the personalised number plates with
permutations of the letters T-A-X and
S-C-A-M on the
Bentleys parked
outside, are better
for financial advice,
all of it entirely legal
on several
Caribbean islands.
Of course, wisdom worth knowing is not
easily won, and the first obstacle to
gaining a degree of boat knowledge at the
Queen’s is landlady Viv, who’s known for
being firm but frightening. Her day off is
Monday. That is a PBO tip-top top tip if
ever there was one.
Next you have to figure out which is the
front bar and which is the back bar. If
you’re in a room full of laughter, merry
families and rosy-cheeked toddlers in high
chairs throwing food it’s a Monday:Silent communion
There is always a hidden price for the truth
about boating – it’s a conspiracy of silence
correct day, wrong bar.
If you’re in the bar with a cosy pall of
gloom, faint aroma of diesel with
eye-watering overtones of wet dog, the
atmosphere of a closed library without any
books and a distinct lack of needless
small-talk, or conversation of any kind,
you’ve found the spot. This is where boat
owners, also known as ‘sellers’, gather in
a silent communion of shared grief along
with the kindly souls of the honest
waterfront trades.
They don’t need to talk because they
all know the eternal self-evident truth of
boating: ‘no-one wants to spend money
on anything these days’.
Opposite, in the far corner, there’s
usually a gaggle of timid individuals,
sometimes as many as one, or even none,
who are desperate to buy boats but can’t
find anyone who wants to sell one for a
realistic price.
And, one day, into this environment
shuffled young Jack Mills who slumped
at the bar. Jack and father Tommy are part
of a famed racing dynasty who wear
jackets made out of new racing sails;
theirs still have battens in them which is
a small sacrifice to make for style and
windward performance.
Jack, usually so full of beans, was not
himself, but disconsolate, bordering on
inconsolable. Then a kindly boatyard
owner put his hands round Jack’s
shoulder and said sensitively: “I don’t like
to see you drink alone. Buy yourself a pint,
mate. I’ll have one too. Cheers chum.”
What unfolded, apart from the battened
jacket which couldn’t, was a tale of woe,
as Jack sighed:
“I’ve just sold my
boat.” Then,
shaking his head
mournfully, added:
“And I made
money on it.”
The shock of this revelation very nearly
stunned the locals into speech. Turns out
Jack has a girlfriend, more properly a
fiancée, a legal term which involves a ring
and implies marriage and a house. And
Lucy had made a ‘suggestion’, the
fiancée’s legal term for ‘ultimatum’: put the
boat up for sale.
Jack, being honourable, complied, to
the letter of the law, as he bemoaned:
“I priced it way over the market and
someone’s only gone and bought it.”“I don’t like to see you drink
alone. Buy yourself a pint,
mate. I’ll have one too”
14 Practical Boat Owner t http://www.pbo.co.uk“I priced it way over the market and
someone’s only gone and bought it!”