A brief history of everything ...on the water. P1.

I always loved being on the water. There is an atmosphere, a quality to the light and feeling, a set of smells all of which is very reaussuring. But what I love most is the different perspective you get on the land.

As a lad of maybe four or five I was rowed out in my oversized hyper orange lifejacket to my dads wooden boat right off the shore infront of our house. As soon as I looked over my shoulder onboard the Trojan Maid, there was a parallex shift in thinking and perspective. The boat was fast and close and hard now, where as the dry land was far away and a different set of happenings and angles. Sounds were both dampened and amplified depending on their source. Overall it was quieter on the water and the peace struck my soul as even a small nipper.

My dad would give me a fishing reel and let me get on with it. Usually it was dabs caught with those orange muscles, but once it was a rainbow trout who struck as a silver bullet when the bait was being hoisted in. Much to my fathers delight. I think the cat eat it, all one pound of flesh after it had been on display to visitors over the following week.

Sailing was usually a short tour and the most ambitious of those was outside the narrows and wind permitting "round the sugar boat". This was always a good goal but dad being a little over cautious kept a good distance in all but high springs. Many years later we would lie in lee of it's hulk with a line from a sigma 33s bow to one of the derrick masts while eating lunch.

Sailing was as much about coffee and pack lunches as it was getting anyware and despite Trojan Maid's fine lines and generous sail area, I never raced on her and doubt dad ever hoisted a spinnaker in anger. However there was plenty of 'ready about' lee-ho, and " gybe oh" calls. The boat never seemed to heel very much.

Once though I was getting quite big and my dad just gave me the helm while motoring out quickly thorugh the moorings. I took a very bad path with the hard torque steer from the high revs. Dad lost his much loved denim cap in rushing to grab the helm. He hadn't realised that he had never actually taken the time to teach me to helm. We tried to rescue his cap and he was in a bad mood thereafter. We must have been goign out to look at something or other.

Over night tours were few - Swines hole near carrick castle with the sulubrious bikini clad bearsden girl ( mandy? a different claire?) singing " leaving on a jet plane' and another seventies classic about not being the man for you..My dad if truth be told was a dirty old man! I maybe got a longer tour on Trojan Maid but the longest tour was on a 'plastic' and turned out to be the last.

My dad had been admiring the jaguar 27 of Hodges along the way off Blairvaddich. He took a tour over to it and I guess this maybe got him looking at other boats. Years later I sailed with old hodges and his eloquent narration of west coast sailing, while racing with his stammering son. So that year or couple of years 79-80 we started trailing up and down to the Ayrshire coast to look at boats around 10K. Contessas and diverse things. The engines got a good looking at. Diesel hydraulic on some contessa like craft ruled it out as "complex". Uncle bill and aunty ruth were often in toe and knew a bit about bored kids, keeping me entertained by just getting my attention and being, well, cosey types.


So eventually a nearly new Jag (catalina original US make) 27 was secured. I think it was a late seventies repo' boat. Euroyachts in glasgow had it for 12K I beleive and Bill and john went in on the deal.