Skipper’s View
HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL WHEN IT COMES TO PREPARING YOUR BOAT FOR THE SEASON AHEAD
WELCOME TO THE April issue of Sailing Today with Yachts and Yachting which is also our Dinghy Show issue. April sounds truly spring like but, due to the vagaries of publishing, this edition of the magazine is actually put together in late January and published late February, so it's considerably less spring like. Nevertheless, I have always viewed the opening of the RYA Dinghy Show as the starting gun for the season ahead, bringing with it the promise of better things to come.
It also reminds anyone who owns a boat that perhaps they really should think about doing some work on said boat if they have any hope of getting an early season sail in. For me, every year is a story of good intentions gone to waste. In October when I put the boat in a winter berth, I imagine heading down to it every weekend and pottering about on various jobs required in order to be in the water for, perhaps, April. Who knows, perhaps I'd go for a couple of winter sails? Then winter hits and suddenly you find other diverting tasks to do - like sitting by a warm fire, for example. By February though, you're starting to feel a little restless. You want to get things done ahead of the inevitable rush. I vividly remember heading down to my boat one raw January day with every intention of getting a few chores done. A chilly rime seemed to envelop the boat as I contemplated things from the pontoon. As I pulled back the dripping covers and opened up the companionway hatch, a damp odour fairly smacked me around the chops. I plonked myself in the saloon berth dispiritedly and thought I'd make a cup of tea. By the time the kettle had boiled, my trousers were soaked from sitting on the damp berth and the tea tasted of damp boat. My feet were freezing. Hastily, I grabbed a tube of Sikaflex and artlessly daubed it into wherever I imagined a leak might be coming from. Then I fled the scene of this act of vandalism. Two months later on a fine March day, doubtless awoken from my winter hibernation by the arrival of the Dinghy Show, I returned to my work; painstakingly removing the Sikaflex and promising that next season I would be ahead of the curve.