Tag: boats

Drama In The Yard

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There was a little drama and excitement in the boatyard today. While I was having a great time last night having a danger shower in the rain and lightning storm, a boat went and fell over. Exactly how this happened is unclear as I wasn’t a witness and whether it happened in the night during the storm is also unclear as they were only messing around early afternoon rectifying it, but I am going to create the link. There wasn’t the greatest deal of damage, only some chips in the gelcoat as you can see from the picture below and in another spot what appeared like a small hole in the fibreglass which will be easy to fix.

I remember a few years ago a friend of mine, the guy whose boat I sailed on that very first time actually, had a similar situation with his yacht. He was unfortunate enough that the boat next to his toppled along with a few others in a wild storm, smashing a big hole in the side of his. Purely by fortunate chance todays boat somehow managed to find itself leaning in an empty space between two other boats. While watching them lift it up I did what all boat people do and decided the people actually doing the work were doing it wrong. As you can see from the picture they appear to be using the keel for support which seems completely crazy and must be putting so much strain on it. I would not like to sail that boat without some kind of structural engineer giving it a thorough check.

Boats are stressful. They are worth so much money and I can see why people spend most of their time worrying about their own. The yard were very lucky the owners weren’t around, I can’t imagine the drama had they been. I hope it wasn’t anyone’s fault though and simply a result of the weather. Let’s hope they’re insured for an act of god though otherwise in the worst case scenario they may have just lost themselves a lot of money. Saying all of that I decided recently that I would like to have my own boat, probably to live in. The problem is that likely I’ll go for some cheap thing I think I can do up and it’ll all be great until some engineer tells me that the keel is structurally unsound because of a likely incident in a boatyard. That’s twice I now know of, perhaps these things are more common than first thought.

Well Blue Me

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I’ve found a new thing to class as possibly the worst job ever. I mentioned sanding the boat yesterday and discipline. Well I managed to discover a little more discipline today, not as much as I hoped but more than the day before. It’s a process so I’m not unhappy with that. I am unhappy about sanding a boat though. It is simply awful. The goggles steam up, the suit is hot in the sun and so on. What makes it worse is the blue sanded paint just gets everywhere and even when you cover yourself you still end up covered in it. Yesterday Smurf is back again. Throw in the fact you sweat and it opens pours but the stuff stings. It’s actually toxic too which is concerning but I doubt it’s so bad it’s going to do me a lot of long term damage. But it stings and I’m not happy. It’s such a shit job. Now I know why boat yards charge so much. Give me a door that needs sanding anytime. I will never complain about such a thing ever again. Thankfully it’s going to be raining tomorrow so I’ve no chance of feeling I should be doing any. I’m not even half way yet either. It’s certainly taking long enough. Fuck this. I need a drink.

Well tempting though it is I haven’t done my minimum four hundred bloody words yet. My face is still stinging and it’s now night time. This is nearly worse than toothache. I have one more hull to do and there will be no messing around next time. I’m not sure what the opposite of life affirming is but this feels like whatever I imagine it must be. I wonder if it’ll finally make me ‘do something with my life‘ if only so I don’t have to ever do this again. But I will, I know I will. I’ll get a boat myself one day and it will be in a condition that warrants this kind of work needing to be done on it. Fucking boats. This whole swanning around and drinking gin thing is such a fallacy. Maybe it’s time to buy some rum like a real pilot. It’s the pirates life for me then. I was thinking if I ever lost an eye and was still sailing would I be able to credibly wear an eye patch or would it just make me look like a twat. Probably both a twat and credible. Doubt that would stop me though.

To Become A True Disciple Of Discipline

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It can be hard finding the discipline to do things you don’t want to do. There has been some discipline involved in writing this every day. I am a little surprised, I am less than two months from the one year finishing line and still going. It’s not a stubbornness that has got me this far but certainly once you’ve put a certain amount of energy and emotion into something it can be easier just to carry on than stop. The public shame of stopping also plays a role and there’s no coincidence I published originally in this knowledge. Creating a habit of easier just to continue than stop is also easier said than done.

Currently a catamaran in a boat yard in Greece is my home. I am fixing a few things that need fixed and waiting around for a professional to fix the odd thing I can’t or am probably better off not trying. There have been moments in which I’m happy to get on with things but sometimes, these last few days have been a challenge. One job I have to do is antifoul the bottom of the two hulls. It turns out that the painting part is going to be impossible for now as it must go in the water shortly after being painted. It’s not going back in until probably April next year. I can prepare it in advance though. That means the dreaded sanding. I hate sanding. I have sanded plenty of things in my life and I hate it.

It turns out sanding a hull is even less enjoyable than normal. You need to be fully decked out in a protective suit, a mask and goggles. This is for my health which is important but the goggles don’t seem to do much judging by my facial resemblance to a smurf – the hull is blue – and it gets bloody hot at this time of year. Throw in the fact the previous layers are proving rather difficult to get off and I am aware I don’t want to sand too deep so in itself it is pretty challenging. The point is that requiring the discipline to get up and do the job has been an issue. I have struggled. Yesterday was good in a way, although frustrating as it rained and I had to stop, I at least had an excuse. Today though has been a lovely day and the only obstacle has been myself. This is discipline, or at least another type of discipline, one requiring a different type of effort to that needed for writing in here. You think you’ve taken steps learning something but it’s a case of then discovering the thing you think you are getting to grips with has an infinite amount of variety.

I have discovered though that like everything we just need to look at it all one step, or one day, at a time. If I look at the entire two hulls it becomes a huge task and a hugely off-putting one at that. If I just say today I will sand for the morning or until X o’clock then suddenly I am more inclined to crack on and see the morning through. Like everything, if we ignore the enormity of any task or issue and take it one day at a time it all seems much more manageable. I say that, the theory sounds nice, I’ll let you know how I get on and whether I’m simply talking out of my arse once more.

The Storm Of The Mind

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The first time I came to Greece, perhaps it was about four years ago now. Time is strange, it decides itself how fast it moves. It may have even been five years. The destination was Lesvos and it was with the intention of being some kind of hero, there to save the refugees. Actually I’m not entirely sure what the intention was, it was just suggested to me by a friend as something to do and I thought why not. We arrived in a storm. For about four days the island was battered as people slept rough, they slept wet, they slept on hillsides that resembled rivers. The scene was destruction and devastation. It was post-apocalyptic in everyway except that I was able to return to my little hotel room once all the heroism was done for the day.

There is a lot that could be said about that time, little of it positive in a way but there are always things which shine through the clouds. I made friends who will be friends for a lifetime. That isn’t always something you can say. I also saw the world in a way I hadn’t previously, and I understood seeing truth in another form, despite being hard to take, was a good thing for the mind. These things are all about me though because to view it from any other perspective is too much of a challenge. Thousands of people passed through everyday. The fate of nearly all of them unknown to me. Many survived but I don’t doubt many didn’t, their fates too horrific for these words here.

I’m not sure why I’m going into this. I always feel so self-indulgent. The knowledge I’ll likely always have a hotel room to go to if I need devalues something of any assistance I could give. The words become hollow, if they ever weren’t. That and the knowledge I could also jump on a plane with relative ease and go to any of those countries people were dying just to reach. There is probably a sense of guilt in a way but we shouldn’t feel guilty when ultimately we’re powerless. It is also a completely pointless emotion as we can’t help the lives we were born into. We can help what we do with them but even then we’re limited in anything genuine. It does make you grateful for a bit but that slowly passes as you start casting envious eyes around once more. I can understand how people become detached when they exist in that world for so long. Or maybe they’re detached when they begin and that is how they last. That is unfair. People do what they can. What they have to.

I know why I’m going into this. I’m in day three back in Greece and it’s currently day two of Storm Ioannis. Apparently there will be a day three and day four will be the day the world comes back to life. The scenario couldn’t be further from the last and I am as much a different person as those people I now meet but arriving in a storm seems familiar enough that it has made me reminisce. Reminisce in the most miserable and sad of ways but then weather can do that to you. Our moods are so very defined by the nature of our environment. What is important though is to remember to come out with the sunshine once it returns. It’s best not to leave yourself in the storm.

The Gibraltar Orca

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With Extinction Rebellion (ER) finally drawing real ire from the Government with their blockade of the propaganda master Rupert Murdoch, another species has seemingly hit the headlines for raising awareness of it’s own plight this week. The Straits of Gibraltar Orcas have been playing with sailing boats. Apparently unsuspecting sailors have found themselves suddenly turning half circle in response to orca whales ramming their vessels. They have been reported too as taking chunks out of the rudders of these same boats, leaving them to float uncontrolled in what is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. What precisely is leading the orca to do this is currently unknown to us.

Naturally there are plenty of hypothesis. Orca have been known to play with boats in the past. They are of the dolphin family and anyone who has sailed as a pod of dolphin join you, will know they are inquisitive and from our human perspective having fun. Having watched a dog lead me through it’s territory in Nepal once I have been curious whether dolphin are simply doing the same but really I have no idea. When playing with boats apparently orca have gently bitten on to the rudders and been pulled along like skateboarders in movies. This is the nice idea, their playing has simply got out of control.

Likely the reasoning is far more sinister. Orca are highly intelligent creatures and have found themselves in the Straits of Gibraltar struggling to survive. Their numbers are depleting with young calves invariably not living to adulthood. There are numerous potential reasons for this but it is a safe bet to suggest the depleted numbers of bluefin tuna, which form the orcas diet, will be having an enormous affect. This is a story we’re seeing repeated world wide with different animals in the sea and on land. With their natural habitat changing, or simply being destroyed, their movements and behaviour are evolving too. In the case of the orca their numbers are decreasing dramatically. In this stretch of water too, as happens across the world in similar situations, the local fishermen who catch the tuna see the orca as competition. While the sailing boats may traditionally be excited to see the whales, the fishermen see a challenge. There are reports of various whales having large cuts on their dorsal fins and across their bodies, it is argued these are the result of clashes.

The large volume of marine traffic in this area has been argued as a factor too. The relative silence in this area during Covid-19 restrictions has now ceased and it coincided with an increase in these ‘attacks’ in the months of July and August. At no point have they been seen as a threat to people but more that they have been after the boats. It is also unclear how much of a new thing this is, if they have been fighting fishing vessels it would likely be unreported and larger ships unknown. Perhaps though like ER they realised they need to make their presence known to those who might actually report and raise awareness of the situation. Not that these sailors can be accused of being the Rupert Murdoch’s of the sea but more they have evidently begun actions which have brought their plight to the worlds attention with an immediacy ER would be proud of. It is just one more example of the damage being done to an earth we’re dangerous incapable of living in with the kind of harmony our dominant position must demand. We seem happy to ignore the destruction we can see on land, it appears that now the orca have had enough of our ignorance of what goes on below too.