If I’ve paid to take part in Sail Caledonia it’s in my diary, and I am definitely going to be away that week. But I find it difficult to put an extended time aside for local sailing. Partly because being self employed, holidays are a loose concept and if a meeting is needed or some project has to be done urgently, a local holiday evaporates.
But going sailing for an afternoon or evening has become increasingly difficult for other reasons. My hope when choosing a “lightweight” design like Walkabout was that I could easily and quickly launch singlehanded. If I had a nice gently sloping concrete slipway, or even easy access onto hard packed sand or gravel, that would be possible. While it’s great that my local sailing club is just five minutes walk down the road, launching is straight off the beach across soft sand. It’s just about physically possible to take Scratch over the sand singlehanded if I take out the oars, mast, anchor etc and carry these down in separate trips.
Since the club bought a quad bike I’ve used that, which is ok if the weather’s been wet and the sand is a bit more solid. But in dry weather the quad just bogs down when towing any weight – including Scratch. And that’s not all! Whether it’s the recession or just that we’ve been ‘discovered’ I don’t know, but the club shed has been broken into several times recently and the quad is now secured with a wheel clamp and a padlock and chain. This adds more time to getting the quad ready to use and put away.
The result is that if I want to launch and recover relatively easily I need to go out on the two times a week in the season when the club provides safety cover – the quad is already out and unlocked, a path down the beach has been cleared and other people are around to push boats through the sand if necessary.
The point of this long moan is to explain why I’ve betrayed Scratch: while Walkabout is a great design and I love the boat dearly, in my particular situation she doesn’t fulfil the second part of my dream. Say it quietly – I’ve built another boat.
In the light of experience I’ve evolved my dream: the ability to be on the water, whether for sailing or rowing, at the drop of a hat. The more adventurous stuff is still there at the back of my mind, but it’s not calling so strongly. The essential design criteria are: easy to launch by hand across soft sand and a busy beach without any help; excellent rowing ability for one; relatively quick and easy to build; able to cope with some breaking waves when returning to the beach.
Selkie in build: Building Selkie in my garage was a little cramped so I put wheels under the building frame to make it easier to move outside when the weather allowed.
"Scratch", my John Welsford Walkabout
21.