Practical Boat Owner – May 2018

Sam Llewellyn writes nautical thrillers and

edits The Marine Quarterly. He is currently

patching up a 30ft ketch

Flotsam and jetsam

Sam Llewellyn

Making a quid

or two at sea

Taking tourists on a trip around the bay might

have been good enough for the resourceful

Joshua Slocum, but it just won’t do today...

I

t is about now, with the refi t

approaching completion and the

mooring fees for the year looming,

that the owner of a boat may feel

inclined to bury the face in the

hands and wonder where the money is

going to come from.

It was a surprise when the slight rainbow

of oil in the bilge turned into a

replacement gearbox, and that weird

smell of burning meant not only rewiring

but buying a new cooker. In addition to

which, the halyards were shot, the

electronics showed room for

improvement, there were complaints

about the curtains, and the marina

management felt it owed it to itself to jack

up prices by eight times the rate of

infl ation. All in all, it was an expensive refi t

period. How, short of discovering buried

treasure, to relieve the suffering?

There are traditional methods of making

a quid or two at sea, many of them

popularised by Sir Francis Drake. The

looting of Caribbean countries and the

capture of Spanish ships do, however,

involve levels of mayhem not tolerated by

today’s international order. Here, then, are

some suggestions on how to monetise the

yachting experience.

1. Airbnb. Apparently there are some
   people who enjoy being on boats as long
   as the boats are not actually going
   anywhere. Marina berths are favourite.
   Honestly. Good opinions are gained by
   boats with matching cups and saucers
   and charmingly decorated heads. Motor
   boats may be preferred, because it is
   easier not to bump your head on that big
   silver pipe that on a sailing boat hangs
   over the staircase down into the living
   room. Furthermore, they may have a
   fl ybridge, and whether they know it or not,
   everyone wants a fl ybridge to pose on.


2. Charge for trips around the bay.
   Tempting to propose at a tenner a go, and
   a method used by Joshua Slocum to keep
   body and soul together after he had

returned from his world-girdlings on Spray.

But the safety-conscious Maritime and

Coastguard Agency has plenty to say

about taking cash customers for rides on

your boat, so probably best avoided.

3. Charter your boat to a sea school or
   charterer. A popular method of amortising
   costs, which will result in someone else
   paying your insurance but which may
   cause wear and tear on the vessel in the
   form of fender scuffs from people
   practising going alongside, and gearbox
   problems from people practising ditto.


4. Carrying freight. This is increasingly
   popular, but the average yacht fi nds it
   diffi cult to cram in enough cargo to make
   it meaningful. Unless, that is, the cargo is
   low volume and high value, which brings
   in its train problems of a different kind, ie
   there is no percentage in owning a boat if
   you are doing 20 years in Belmarsh. A ray
   of light here is Britain’s mooted exit from
   the European Customs Union, which will
   reintroduce the infi nitely more sporting
   transport of legal but undutied stuff over
   from the Continent, as in brandy for the
   parson, baccy for the clerk, and a drop of
   vodka plus 4cwt of Golden Virginia for
   Ernie down the Lord Nelson.


5. An extreme measure is the insurance
   job. Here, the boat is taken out to sea and
   scuttled, and the owner claims on the

insurance. A more advanced version of

this is for the owner to take the boat out to

sea, hop into a liferaft and fl oat hither and

yon, EPIRB bleating piteously, while a

friend of the owner removes the boat to

some safe haven in a friendly country

such as North Korea. The proceeds are

then split according to a prior agreement.

6. Sail away. This is my own preferred

option, and while some 90% of boats do

not leave their home marinas more than

once a year, it may even be gaining

popularity. Roald Amundsen, winner of the

race to the South Pole, announced that he

was sailing on (I think) a Thursday. On the

Thursday his creditors turned up at the

quayside, waving writs, only to discover

that the great explorer, as enterprising

as he was intrepid, had in fact sailed on

the Wednesday.

I am not, of course, advocating any of

the above. But if anyone wants me, I

shall be at sea.

Making ends meet: a Spanish galleon encounters

Sir Francis Drake ‘just doing his job’

There is no percentage in

owning a boat if you are

doing 20 years in

Belmarsh Prison

18 Practical Boat Owner • http://www.pbo.co.uk

Alan King engraving / Alamy Stock Photo