LIBBY
PURVES
Another alternative
to fi tting out
T
ime for fi tting out. Or, in the immortal
words of JD Sleightholme of this parish,
staring miserably at a furry frying pan and
‘trying to disguise from yourself in fi tting
out, the fact that you never properly laid
up.’ It’s a bracing time, especially when
the weather begins to smile and the fi rst
warm days cause countless boat owners
to infuriate the yard staff with a request to ignore their earlier
instructions for mid-April and ‘get her in for the weekend.’
But there may come a time in any life when there’s no gallant
craft to fi t out; when age,
invalidity, a dodgy pension or
heavier home duties mean that the
last boat gets sold. A solemn
thought. But it doesn’t mean
condemning yourself to golf and
knitting. The other week I met a
marvellous woman of mature
years, an adventurous sailor all her
life. She had decided that she is not any longer feeling fi t enough
to put to sea as intrepidly as before and she hit on a solution
to the end of the independent seafaring years. No, not a series
of Saga cruises. Something more intrepid.
She bought herself the smallest size of motorhome –
a minicamper, just for one – and kitted it out with a bunk, and all
the neat retractable devices a small boat would have for cooking
and basic washing and the rest. It has her old boat’s brass clock
and cushions, to make it feel shippy. You have to be, she said,
careful about how much water you carry because of weight
and fuel use, but long-distance voyagers are used to that.
Altogether, it sounds like a handy enough craft. And cleverly,
she is contemplating a club burgee, possibly from an aerial
or just neatly painted on the side.
The point is that belonging to an adventurous club, she
now plans to cruise around the coast by road revisiting all the
harbours she has known for years. And, of course, if any fellow
club members or friends from elsewhere happen to be in the
harbour, they will be delighted to see her again and willing
to provide a trip round the bay or a longer cruise round the
headland to some other anchorage with a taxi back to the car park.
If there’s nobody there she knows, or can strike up a friendship
with, there are always tripper boats, local sailing schools, dinghies
and dayboats to hire on a fi ne day, and the familiar sea in sight.
She also points out that in return for any jaunts on other
people’s boats, there will be the advantage that she can offer
crews a lift to the nearest Lidl to re-provision their boat more
cheaply. Or she could sometimes, when the crew contains some
more slightly whiny offspring suffering from cabin fever, whisk
them to the Eden Project, Flambards or the nearest funfair
without their having to look
up bus timetables or spend
a fortune on taxis.
I suppose it could be heretical
to mention this motoring
alternative here, and even more
so if I dare to murmur that on
some bitter stormy nights, a few
of us may envy the cheerful
roaming octogenarian in the minicamper. Notably, she retires
to a snug billet and dry duvet near the chip shop instead of getting
a soaked backside in a soggy dinghy as you go out across the
howling black water to a rolling boat and an unwelcome dawn
visit from the harbourmaster.
But even as we hold the faith and propose to carry on cruising
at all costs, there is something inspiring about this lady’s project.
It is a tribute to the spirit of inquisitive, individualistic adventure
that we on YM respect. It is about staying on the move, being
willing to give up spacious home comforts and endure make-do
sanitation and iffy weather and two-burner stoves, just for the
sake of something bracing and venturesome and independent.
I rather hope we meet her in some harbour and spot the fl ag.
Maybe it’ll go foreign, and we’ll fi nd her fresh off the Channel
ferry, or even the Santander boat. Or maybe it will be spotted
on a stony track down to Loch Hourn, parked up cosily between
the fi sh lorries in Aberdeen, or outside a pub in Bantry. I hope
we, and others, see the neatly painted burgee on the smart little
vehicle, and pipe her aboard with honour.‘A FEW OF US EN V Y
THE OCTOGENARIAN
IN THE MINICAMPER’
COLUMN