Paul Heiney

The character of the cabin of your yacht can change with circumstance much like the wind. Yet nothing beats the cosiness of being hunkered down below in a snug anchorage

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The routine for opening up the boat after the winter has been the same for years now. I keep her afloat, so shelter can be found, where spirits can be restored and where, at anchor, good times can be had. There is much thought given to the mechanics of sailing, but less to getting the best out of it can be a heart-in-the-mouth cruising in those golden moments moment. Did the lines hold, the when the sun is going down, the fenders float away, was the cover lines are secure ashore, and the ripped off the mainsail by that anchor has extended its grip to storm strong enough to blow the sea bed. We each have our the froth off a cappuccino? As own preferences; I like to see a it happens, I’ve always found little woodwork glistening in the her to be fine, if grubby, and a glow of an oil lamp and, as I have bit hairy around the waterline, already written before, the glow as if she’d grown one of those of my wood stove lifts the spirits whispy little beards so loved to the heavens. I like my cabins by young men these days. to look created and not moulded.

I clamber aboard, rummage Fashion is against me, though. through my pockets for the Modern designers have embraced key, which turns the lock but designs seemingly inspired by a with a little difficulty, so I make a note to apply oil, which I never ‘I am suddenly a stranger in dentists’ waiting room, or a bland hotel chain. But if that’s what you get round to. Then the difficulties arise: I can’t remember where my own boat; it was once as like, what’s it to do with me? Cabins can change their anything is. I am suddenly a much a part of me as a limb, character as easily as the wind stranger in my own boat; it was once as much a part of me as a but now I’m adrift’ can shift, it doesn’t take much. At times, my cabin has felt more like limb, but now I’m adrift. Where a home than any I have ever lived do the lights switch on, did I disconnect the in, but when hove-to in a strong gale, the growing seas batteries? Where are the batteries anyway? slapping against the bow before falling with the thump

There is a small dance I must do on the top cabin of the cabin roof, then it can feel like a coffin. I found step otherwise I bang my head on the hatch (poor myself in this position for two days mid-Atlantic, design) and I must have done it a million times, but thinking that every crack of ocean as it hit the boat now I’m like a new entrant on Strictly who can’t put was going to split us apart, like a nut at Christmas. It one foot in front of the other. The footwork will soon was so rough that I had to crawl to the stove to make come back to me, but in the meantime the not so something hot, stealthily returning to the bunk certain gentle caress of teak on forehead must be endured. I would never make it with any tea remaining in the

And then the magic moment arrives when mug. I lay down, unable to read or listen to music, you finally realise you are back home. You are a prisoner of that bunk, captive in my own cabin. no longer a stranger here; this is your boat, this But storms pass and the character of the cabin is your place, and you reach for your kettle to changes. All it takes is a gleam of sun, a smoothing of make that first celebratory cuppa of the year. the sea, and so relieved are you that the cabin becomes

We underestimate the importance of cabins. They like a child’s nursery where you are free to play once are not merely to keep us out of the rain, or provide again, do what you wish, make a bacon sandwich and somewhere for us to lie down, or somewhere to stow love your cabin once again. It has seen me through the tons of junk we haul around the seas because we the worst and again allows you to sigh with relief. never throw anything away, just in case. A proper I try to remember all this as I stumble around cabin is what turns a boat into a home. While a racing on the first day back on the boat after the winter. crew might consider them to be nothing more than I remember all the good times, and the bad. But a space which keep the shrouds apart, to a cruising it’s the memory of the good times that keeps sailor they are places of refuge where warmth and drawing you back. Just like home, really.

ILLUSTRATION CLAIRE WOOD