The Infamous, Invisible, Non Occuring Year Out from Sailing Finally Happens

Things have all kind of pettered out and the invitations to sail are just not pratical. Finally facing the inevitable personal Waterloo - having to buy my own boat and build up my own crew.

Having had three seasons in the Melges 24, i feel also that i am no longer going forward on my learning curve and what I want to achieve.

Not that I didn't learn - the boat was a revelation, much easier to sail than I had supposed but also a real challenge to sail correctly. Apart from the new price, the M24 is an ideal regatta machine- a trailerable oversized dinghy for four grown ups who despute their maturity and sobriety.

To some extent I am walking away from several opportunities, but as I have said for over a decade now, taking a year out to come back fresh and rearing to go. And thats what it must be! Maybe not my own boat, and maybe not next year, but "soon and for the rest of my life"

I can of course swing into the local club with their slow wee one designs or could have taught kids again, but it just seems a tie and also I am just not up for it all again.

My sights are set then on a used SB3-SB20 which will make a toddle around boat as well as a training machine, prior to any class racing breaking out in the region!

I have been loan-a-phobic most of my life, cursing the five grand i borrowed for a Golf Mark II which I sold two years later for under 2G. So no boat, and an uneasy risk attraction which has lead me into some sketchy job contracts. Now I am getting towards a decent down payment !

Middle age has swept the legs from under me, crept up and then woosh the years have gone by and my own ambitions for sailing have ebbed away or are on a far back burner.

Really it is about running a boat now. Moving from being Peter Pan in my own head, dodging the inevitable of both growing up and taking responsibility which are all part of lifes rich pageant while being an eternal teenager is not.

Also there is an air of confidence which has replaced self doubt or avoiding taking responsibility, which has built up in me at the same time my new career has solidified. I have reached some limits, gone beyond some while also I have set my horizons a new.

Finally I conclude, there is no point in OPB - other people's boats and being on the rail