Why? and What?

This is the blog of a lapsed sailor.

In the past I did a pretty decent amount of boating - dinghy sailing, offshore yacht racing and a fair chunk of rowing both sitting down (Thames Skiffs) and standing up (a variety of Venetian boats).





















Then work started getting in the way more and more until I had the rather crushing realisation that a sailor was something I used to be rather than something I am.

Being a typically emotionally repressed Brit it makes it a little uncomfortable to admit that now when I stand on a riverbank or shore I actually yearn to be out on the water.  It is time to do something about this.

At the same time the long hiatus has made me realise that I want something different to what conventional boating (as defined in the south of England) offers.  Put simply I don't want to:

• Race
• Sail anything that requires an accompanying safety boat
• Be in the water except for times of my choosing
• Sail something where I can't opt to stand, sit or slob about when underway 
• Have a lump of boat stuck on a mooring or in a marina
• Own anything that can't live in my back garden (which brings the rather tricky restriction that nothing wider than 780mm gets in or out of it)
• Mess about with trailers - though I may bend a little on this one
• etc. etc. 

Yes, it is all sounding rather picky and ambitious and in truth I have barely got started with the list yet.  In a nutshell, what I want is:

'A mobile platform from which I can enjoy being on the water'

In this blog I hope to record the design, build and use of such a boat (or boats).