Coinsidence

 

I had just stopped running—the trail runs right through the boatyard along the waterfront—and was walking up toward Araby.  A man walked toward me from the shop and asked where another boatyard was.  I told him where Ashby's was and then he asked me if I'd seen the Wylo.  I held back a grim, thinking, really what are the odds?  I told him that a Wylo, the Iron Bark II was across the channel in Russell.  Was that the Wylo he was looking for?  No he said.  He was looking for the  Wylo. 

Ahh, your looking for Nick Skeats, I said.  Is he in town?  He said, yep.  He is supposed to be around for a few weeks.

Nick Skeats is the designer of the Wylo, which is my favorite boat on the water.  I told the guy that I was a big fan and he told me he was in the process of building a Wylo down near Hauraki.  I was pretty floored.

 

The next day I was reinstalling my water pump on the old Farymann when that same man came strolling along with another guy just behind.   I said how'd ya do, and he said met Nick Skeats.  I was covered in grease so didn't shake anyone's hand properly, but I was right excited.  Here was the man who designed the boat I so adore.  This is the man, right here in front of me.  And what a vagabond he looked.  Scruffy and thin and utterly unshaven.  Here was an old world, perhaps underworld cruiser.

 

I was flattered at how he admired my boat.  He loved the classic lines, the overhangs, the old thick glass hull.  I had imagined I would sit and rain complements upon his Wylo, and here instead he is asking me question after question about Araby.  And the smile and laugh never left his face.  He espouses the same simple approach.  When I asked him how he received weather information he casually responded that the easiest way was to stick his head out the companionway.  If he didn't get wet, it wasn't raining.

 

It is so easy to get carried away with the new consumeristic approach to cruising that 99% of sailors have today.  If you hear the same spiel—you need this, you really need that—after a while you start to believe it.  After all, everyone else has it.  As I have been trying to obtain an affordable plan for my sat phone (which someone gave to me) and come to realize that it is hopeless, the realities of what is truly necessary are coming back to light.

What is necessary:

            A good strong seaworthy hull.

            A stout mast and rig

            A suit of sails including storm canvas

            An anchor and rode

            Charts and gps or sextant w/ tables

            Compass

            Food and water.

            A dinghy

            A drogue (sails and other gear aboard can suffice) and/or a sea anchor

If solo 

            Self-steering   

 

Everything else is more or less optional.  Safety-wise, some for of nav lights are good..  And a liferaft (a dinghy can double as this) is advisible.  For convenience, an engine—and the list steamrolls from there.

 

You don't need electricity; you don't need an engine, or an epirb, or a ssb or sat phone or electronic charting software or roller reefing or brightsides paint or dinghy wheels or hydro-alternators or watermakers or solar showers or awnings and dodgers or ipods and 300 gb external harddrives and playstations.

Okay, some of that stuff is nice and not all bad—if you can afford it.  Frankly, I'd love dinghy wheels.  But I won't ever buy an awning for $1500.  I think I have a decent plan for making an awning out of a plastic tube tent and a ski pole.

In the end, stuff doesn't make me happier.  If I have the basics I am basically happy.  If I really really want something—then I'll get it.  That wanting puts it at the top of the list.  And I will appreciate that thing.  And you better believe it will be most useful.

Right now it is adding an inner forestay and running backstays to my rig.  They add an extra seven hundred bucks to the cost of rerigging—but, they make me feel more secure.  I believe they will help me keep my stick up in the worst.  And that is it.  And that is my priority.  Dinghy wheels are a lot cheaper, and perhaps more useful, but not vital.

 

 

I wantAraby to age well, to get better and better with time.  She had a long haul over here, but now she is getting cleaned up and rejuvenated.  It is hard to find that balance between being frugal and being negligent, between being simple and being irresponsible.  I find I swing between the poles, but I hope the arc slows with experience.  My vision is deepening; my perspective gaining slowly with each passage.  What is truly useful?  I think I am understanding more and more.  And I think I am getting farther and farther from the status quo.

But I am not alone.  There are the Wylo's.  There is Nick Skeats and there are Trevor and Annie.  Someone told me of a solo cruiser with no gps, no engine—and only 26 years old. (Perhaps there is a reason he is solo?? Haha.)  Brian—lose the gps and it could be you! 

I want to be somewhere between the extremes.