degrub and francois - thanks; yes, that tender has known a sweeter time. Yesterday’s local paper showed a 28metre yacht in flames… seems to happen quite a lot. Maybe the used boat market has gone sour. For sure, there has been a lot of publicity recently about the effect of inflation on boat ownership, with the boats under about 7m being hardest hit. Moorings have become outrageously expensive and, as ever, the shallower pockets can't find the resources. Guys with deeper pockets don’t have any interest in smaller craft - entirely different uses for them. Space is one huge problem, with the local club having a waiting list stretching out for years. God alone knows the cost of a mooring when the chance to get one finally comes around.
Some boat owners have their cars decorated with “Tender to xyz” stickers; I thought of sticking one on mine, reading “Tender to Tumescent; it’s an age thing” but thought better of it.
Funny thing: though I see these multi-million dollar boats every day, the desire for the unattainable (for me) has finally gone. This could well have a lot to do with my actinic keratosis - which demands very strong sun blocking cream in sunshine, so going out to sea and all that fierce radiation bouncing off the water in every direction has become dangerous - or simply the personal experience of sailing with good friends who had such vessels, but the cold reality seems to be that actual time out and about is relatively very brief, but the maintenance bills constant. User satisfaction with boats appears to be ever more closely related to camera satisfaction… instead of pixels the lure is to be found in meters of length and magical horsepower/torque combinations. Whoda thunk relative poverty could bring peace of mind! ;-)
