Blighty

For those of you who know me or follow my ex-pat blog then you will know that I have indeed left Brittania's fair shores for pastures of bladderwrack a new o'er the North Sea.

indeed you can say that I have seen my greatest successes here, in Norway, a country with of course a long tradition for sailing prowess, being once the masters of voyaging and commanders of navigation to unknown horizons,..and back!

However what of me if I had remained in the UK and Caledon?

To be honest this rarely crosses my mind. For some years I felt a pang og homesickness and nostalgia when I followed Scottish Series, or the JOG or the ISORA on the electric internet cables. That was a predictable emotional yen. As years went on and my successes in Aqua Nordae out shone most of my exploits in the UK, then this became part of my own, self written folklore of me and myself and I...and a whole bunch of people I sailed with and still stay in touch with.

I do keep though abreast of things Caledon at least. Kind of a toe in the water, or holding a candle for a former mistress and lover forlorne.

So what would I be up to these days?

Well apart from sailing I do like the Scottish hills and I do like the Scottish pubs, so an extended period on the Solent would be unlikely unless I had gotten my little old self into the business or trained up and become a pro sailor. I am a big, useful guy who knows a fair bit about metereology, so I get asked back on very good amateur boats. So not completely pie in the sky, especially not when I was training 8 hours a week in the gym plus sailing, meeting Emma Richards of round the world fame down the sweaty hole quite often.

For me the most fun to be had in Scottish sailing and biggest bang for buck for a long time is Hunter 707 sailing. I was lucky to sail in the Forth fleet in the earlier days of 1999-2001 which meant planing at 14 knots often in spectacular fashion under the Forth bridges. In truth back then, the fleet wasnt on the pace of the Solent folks, but now time and evolution has made this boat a northern UK phenomenom, and one which is established now on both sides of the auld ditch (forth and clyde canal)

In the 1990s on the clyde there was a really big move back to one design. We had a strong Sonata fleet, the local classic ODs, the IODs, the sigma 33s and then enter stage right, the Cork 1720s. There were Etchells too once in a while,.We almost got a sigma 38 fleet too, and there were discussions over beers at least of a 31.7 or X332 fleet modernising the smeg scene. Many very serious cheque book CHS sailors dropped the quest for handicap loopholes and came and raced OD, especially sig33 and 1720.

It was a jolly old time, with OD stealing the limelight for a short time from the usual industry bitching about who did the best HC cheater as a Nav Arc' and who made the best sails. Some blame this for the demise of OD on the clyde. However the facts are pretty plain and not nice reading for many - the rich got richer and the gentleman sailor was priced out of the market for boats with more than 3 crew. OD began to be a costly season because crew, skint student and mortgaged to fuck new parents, could not afford the extortionate B&B rates at Tarbert, Bangor and Cork and owner had to fork out in order to attract said street urchins to pull strings for them. This is what definitively killed off the 1720, which was a daft boat to sail with six in the first place. In fact 'in a degree of comfort' all of the ODs which had their own starts did not really sleep their crew. The Impala did, but did not regain OD status, missing it by a whisker and by some idjiits cutting cloth out of class,

It is no surprise that the clyde as some would call it, descended into smaller day boats from this high point of performance sailing in the mid nineties. The middle class had small beer left over from their mortgage payments, and went flying fifteen, Loch Long, Garelock and god help us, Sonar sailing. Sonatas kept their rolly polly down wind processions going, now a kind of trad' nostalgia class, and a god awful boat for racing IMHO because Thomas tamed the bloody dead rise and made it granny freindly, but hardly bowman kind.

Snotty sailors are noh chuffed wi 707s arriving on the clyde. They showed face as brand new boats bback in the 1990s,. two at kip and one or two elsewhere, but as I remember of those Clyde boats and the Forth fleet, they didnt really attract the type of sailor who understood planing. On the Forth, my skipper was a maverick hotellier who often sailed three up, which suited getting up on the plane and scooting off while the five up boats were wallowing around with slow and over manned spinnaker hoists. Some say now there isnt space for the 707s on the clyde, and I say the opposite- they will make their own space and attract dinghy sailors back to the sport. At around five to seven grand with reasonable sails and even a trailer they are about the same as a new mid perfomance dinghy, and they do actually sleep two cadavres, believe me., in their meagre cabin.

There is no money in Sottish sailing bacisally, it is not the Solent.  So I would not have worked in sailing. Internationally maybe yes, with deliveries and so on.

My fantasy sailing now would really be about winning all the big titles on Sottish keel boat waters and/or winning a national OD title in somethign or other, Impala or 707 perhaps. Also things like the St Kilda and also all that crusing of the nooks and McCrannies which my fathr so enjoyed in the 1950s to the 70s.

I think I would probably be using dinghy sailing as I always have - as a work out at the gym mentally and physically for sailing bigger boats. I dont know, perhaps the Tasars or another class I could squeeze out sailing a season or two seriously. It seems that foilers and retro classes have captured the limelight and from a distance it looks like it has gone a bit HC and more than a bit anorak. I am perhaps being cruel.

As for becoming a 'transom consultant'? One of those who gets invited by skippers and doesnt have to do very much on board but observe? Oooh how the rail meat and cockpit boxers hate transom standers. Interlopers. If only the helm would listen to them!! Well as in business,. you often need an outside pair of eyes to point out the obvious, and more over, to make it accepted that there are faults and room for improvement in the basics. I did do some transom consulting in Oslo, but being actually more active as crew, it working badly once and fantastically the next time on a j109.

in terms of preaching from the blunt end, then I know what I like and have known for a very loing time. For me there is no point in sailing with a conceated skipper who does not listen. I have been there. Consultative demorcraices with flow of info work much better. Tension yes. Dictatorship no. I would rather sail with a boat which is moving up 20 places from mid fleet than a boat which bitches and moans about not winning every time out. I have sailed with the latter believe me, and it was a negative experience. In truth I hate glamour pussies and would be am' rock stars. They are playing Karaoke prima donnas, and need cut down to size. I have been lucky to sail with some Pros and now two of my boys from sail school have become pros so sgut the fuck up bitches, if you are not learning and listening then you are not going to deserve your bandit IRC rating any time soon.

Maybe the allure is all in nostalgia and a little bit of unfinished business. I have been away as long as Scottish Series overnights have. I may have become bored. I may have stayed skint or mortgage embarressed when it regarded buying a boat again. However there is a great variety in Aqua Caledonis, which perhaps is more accessible than before. There are several classes which are now eminently affordable to get into and get podium places, north of the border at least, such as the Flying Fifteen, the Pipers or the RS400s. There are also wonderful under the radar adventures to be had in the humble wayfarer or drascombe lugger which challenge seamanship and offer something more wonderful than banging from pontoon to pontoon in a 44 foot caravan.  There is then also combining sailing not only with camping, but with hills and paths and hiring bikes and visiting the friendly wee folk who live in shallow coves and lochheads of the west coast.

One thing I am still kind of learning at a deep level is to say sod off to the folk you dont get on with, and never are. On the clyde I had a wee pal I sailed with, who I met a lot of sailors through and got invited to sail. There was always a kind of feeling I got that the new boat didnt really take me seriously or thought I was a new beginner even. Penny dropped that in fact said wee pal was giving a little snide introduction to dampen expectations in a kind of presbyter fashion. I had some really funny experiences wiht and through him so I am ol;d enough to forgive and forget.

So here is my prognosis. I would own  a 707 and run a fucking slendid team of chaps/chappesses, I would be an instructior down at Tighnabruaich a week a year, I would be in the RY A system somewhere, I would be running a smaller OD, I would be Wayfarer adventurng up the west coast kind of Nano touring. I would also be delivering boats and doing skippered charter work. I'd be having a bloody fuckikng ball.