Enjoy the experience of off shore sailing...

I now realise that if I want to continue to sail with Boaters I need to diet.

And so methinks do many of our Members.

This may seem a bit harsh and a bit drastic but given what I heard at the Skippers Question Time drastic action must be the order of the day for many if not all of us.

For those of you who missed what I thought was a truly excellent and informative evening, a question was posed along the lines of how should we rescue from someone the sea when they might weigh considerably more than the fenders with which we normally practice our man overboard technique.

Now I do not mean to be rude when I say this but taking one look around the room on the night I would posit that there cannot be a single Boater, male or female, who does not weigh considerably more than all the fenders on the boat combined.

And that is when our clothes are not weighed down by water.

But it was the answer that scared me.

And if anyone needs any more motivation to diet and lose weight, this must be it.

The panel were unanimous on the answer. Don’t fall in.

Brilliant advice!

On a par with the warning notice on a packet of peanuts that ‘this packet may contain nuts’.

I am not aware of anyone who has ever chosen to go overboard. But people do and when they do we must be prepared know how to pluck people from the sea.

And I for one have always placed my faith in Boaters Skippers to hoist me from the fishy waters.

It seems like I may have been wrong. And here is the really scary thing.

No one had a really clear idea how they would get someone of our weight on-board.

The consensus from my reading of what was said is that basically if you go over you are dead. Don’t expect us to get you out. We can’t. You are too heavy. And by the way your safety harness is not going to do you much good.

Thanks, lads (and lady).

Makes me wonder why we spend so much time on our RYA courses learning how to rescue fenders.

We might be great at recovering those but our ability to apply this learning to Boaters Members at peril on and in the sea seems very limited.

And I am not sure that this is limited to Boaters Skippers. There are plenty of articles seemingly which reinforce the news that MOB drills for real rarely work.

Unless the RNLI are within escort distance of the boat.

But have you ever seen a boat with stand-on RNLI tender?

Alternatively we could ask our Sailing Secretary to take into account our BMI index when allocating crews.

That way we might be assured that should we hit the water, there is at least the chance we will have the people on board with the size and stature to get us back onto dry land.

Or I could diet.

It might at least give me a fighting chance if I can get my weight down to Fender Weight.

And even if it doesn’t improve my survival chances, I will look great in my bikini next year.

Does anyone remember ‘Howard’s Way’?

Of course you do.

Given the age of many members of Boaters, and hopefully you will not consider me rude when I raise this issue, but I would be rather surprised if many of you did not remember this Sunday evening TV staple.

It had a role in inspiring me to take to the water.

For those of you too young to know what we are talking about, or who have a tendency to erase naff TV from their memory banks, a little memory jog might be in order. Running through the late 1980s in the slot now reserved for ‘Call the Midwife’, this TV drama was set in the yachting community based on a town that looked remarkably like Hamble (Probably because it was filmed in Hamble!)
And it featured tales of extra-marital affairs, dirty business dealing and power dressing.
It is best described as cheesy.

But in those days we only had 4 channels to choose from. We lacked iPads. We didn’t have Facebook or Twitter and SnapChat to amuse us. So it got pretty decent ratings.

Quaint.

There wasn’t much sailing done, from memory, but the clothes were always stunning. Especially the shoulder pads.
And even the men were well dressed. And tanned. And medallioned.
Lots of navy and white. Always well pressed. Always cool.
It was power dressing on steroids.

Now think back to your last Boaters weekend.
How much navy and white did you see? How many people packed a blazer? How many wore dazzling white deck shoes? How many of us were sporting shoulder pads under our Bromsgrove Boater gilets?

This is only a guess but the answer is probably not a lot…

I don’t know about you but one of my great thrills in life is wondering prior to each Boater’s meeting if the AV equipment, i.e. the laptop and sound system, is going to work.

And for those of you thinking that if this is the excitement highpoint of my life each month, and I need to get out more – you would be right…

But do you not get a frisson of excitement as the speakers rise to their feet to talk and present to us? Do you not wonder if the equipment this month is going to work?
And every month we get asked ‘Is this thing on?’ and ‘Can you hear me?’
The answer to which is usually no and no.

And given our age as a group, even Brian Blessed would need amplification to satisfy the aural expectations of us all, should he decide to pay us a visit.

This is a great shame as, unlike many who might speak to us, and I would include the Committee here, he at least would have a fighting chance of being heard by us all. And without amplification.

Why is it so difficult for us to get everything in full working order?
It is not as if we need Glastonbury Festival-like sound after all.
All we need is to link a laptop to a projector and know how to turn on Powerpoint.
And provide some straightforward amplification.

It should be simples.

But I wouldn’t change a thing.
I would not want to see our Membership monies splurged on an easier to use sound system.
Like a megaphone.
Nor do I want to see the introduction of tedious pre-meeting sound checks.
One-two-one-two.
And it would be silly for a venue of our size to have a fully qualified sound engineer with hi-tech mixing desk in attendance at our meetings.
Where would be the fun if we did any of those things?

I would miss the rising anticipation in advance of every meeting. The wonder. The excitement.
And those of us in the cheap seats in the hall would miss our monthly flutter on what will work perfectly this time.

Will it be the sound?
Will it be the laptop?
Will it be both?

Please, please, please don’t change a thing.
We love it just the way you are.