Sternpost We’re going to need a bigger shed Storing half-empry tins of stale varnish and other rubbish takes a big shed, says Dave Selby
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ailors are essentially collectors. At sea we collect anecdotes – mostly of the “there I was holed by a whale and taking on water fast and being driven on to a rocky lee-shore at the base of a 200ft cliff in a force 10 gale on Rutland Reservoir” variety. On land we collect things. And that’s why although psychologists may understand human nature, they’re out of their depth when it comes to understanding the mind set of the sailor. Take the average man in the street – and I’m afraid it is most usually a man – who upon seeing a skip in the road will satisfy one of four basic urges, all of which take place in pyjamas between 10pm and 3am. The first is to throw your own rubbish in the skip; the second is to take something out; the third category, of which I’m a prime example, is to take Based on the evidence of four men in a boat shed all staring at out some overlooked treasure, realise in the fullness of time that their own precious stores of date-expired rusty tins and it’s rubbish, then throw it in the next skip that comes along. And wondering if the contents have really gone off, there can be no the fourth and most primeval is to relieve yourself against the other explanation. You see, I know from personal experience side of the skip, because that’s what men are like when it’s dark that there’s nothing wrong with a Pot Noodle with a pre-decimal and no one’s looking. All of these behaviours, apart from the price sticker (although there’s not a lot right with it either), and last, lead to feelings of loss and regret. the four of us have the same healthy scepticism about the Sailors though, are both different and more so, for no matter so-called ‘use-by’ dates of marine products. This, of course, how many times I’ve measured my 18ft trailer-sailer, I’ve never presents more than one dilemma. If you open that old tin of once managed to park it in the 60ft by 20ft boat shed which I varnish and find the centimetre at the bottom has gone hard, rented and shared with chums for 13 years until the lease ran out you’ll be filled with those feelings of loss and regret. If, on the last month. It’s not that I’m particularly bad at reversing. The other hand, you open it and find it’s OK, you’ll be filled with real problem is that a shed that size is only really feelings of regret and loss, because you’ve let air in big enough to accommodate the paraphernalia of a and it may well go off when you re-seal it. “A 60ft by 20ft Mirror dinghy as long as you keep the spars, sails, As men, our views on counselling and talking sheets and anchor in your bedroom, and all your therapies are pretty much in line with our convictions shed is only nearly empty and nearly full cans, tubes and blister about expiry dates, but nevertheless we gave it a go big enough to packs of essential stuff in your kitchen cabinets. and went to the pub. We formed a support group, accommodate I’m no conspiracy theorist, but I blame the talked through our anxieties and came up with a marine industry, for why does everything to do with the paraphernalia strategy that involved hiring a skip and the three us sailing come in a can, tube or bottle that’s just a prising rusty cans from the fourth, and two of us of a Mirror little bit too small for the job? As to what’s in the holding him down while the third one tossed the can dinghy, if cans, bottles and tubes, I’m more than certain that in the skip. And thus we achieved closure. you keep half marine chemists in full biological warfare outfits By midnight on the eve of the expiry of the lease, of it in your and working in underground bunkers have secretly the boat shed was empty and the skip was full. By developed a nerve agent that short-circuits our house, that is ” the following morning the skip was empty, leaving neural pathways and rewires us as squirrels. us with those old familiar feelings of loss and regret.
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CLASSIC BOAT JUNE 2022
