Waiting for the tide
Ido like a nice collection of components. The selection of grabrails, handles, window frames, sheaves, brackets and ‘other’ pictured below were all removed from a 50-year-old boat and refurbished with chemicals, power tools and elbow grease. But the main ingredient is dedication. Or should that be devotion? Duty perhaps? I don’t know, but I know it when I see it.
There’s another good example in Practical Projects (page 80) where a reader has rearranged his fuel filtration on a twin engine powerboat that also sports a generator and diesel heating system. Colour coding came to the rescue of a snake’s honeymoon of black tubing and multiple taps. Deliberation and diligence were the traits required to get the system ‘just so’ and foolproof.
And then there are the two Nicholson 32s in this issue. Rupert Holmes test sails a boat that has 26,000 miles under her keel with her current owner and still has so much to give, while Ali Wood interviews Tony Curphey whose
has sailed 77,500 miles in just the last six years: both show determination, dogged persistence and a deep connection between sailor and boat.
All boat owners have to find a way to balance the needs of the boat and their own desire to just set sail. And typically these decisions get made alone, with incomplete information, in the hope that diligence, devotion and all the other ‘d’ words will be enough to get through to the other side and re-emerge into the light.