Messing about in Boats & guaranteed cure for seasickness

Keeping one foot on the PLUG !

This blog spans several decades and two continents. You'll need to read the entire story to get the guaranteed cure for seasickness as there is a price for everything - NO free lunches here!
My first 'boating' experience was on on the river Dahme in Neue Muehle (refer to earlier blogs) in a wooden wash trough stealthily 'borrowed' from Mum.
The problem with that contraption was that it had a plughole and plug - designed to keep the water in the trough! Putting it in the water meant there was pressure from underneath against the plug, which promptly popped out and the contraption was flooded.
The trick was to keep one heel on the darned plug to stay reasonably dry.

Going upmarket in the boating caper

The second occasion was messing around in my uncles paddle boat. Much more civilised and drier, unless we, my mates and I, deliberately capsized it just for fun - the things 11 year old boys will do. An absolutely marvellous example of old-fashioned workmanship. A hand-built clinker version from the early 1930's, all varnished and virtually unsinkable!

After these episodes a few years went by, involving 'escaping' from East Germany to West Berlin. Once settled there, I did eventually scrape together enough money to buy a blow-up kayak to use on the big lake at Tegel.

Between a Rock and a hard place

The lake has two islands in it plus many reed-covered shores where one could paddle into and hide.
The reason for the blow-up version was that it could be deflated and packed into a neat round pouch that had large enough handles to carry it like a rucksack. Since we lived in a small two-room flat on the third floor, storage of the boat was a prime consideration - commercial boat storage was on the far side of my budget.
The money for the blow-up boat came from delivering newspapers very early in the morning before school and later serving an apprenticeship in a hardware store.

Once I debunked West Berlin in early 1962, first to Bad Godesberg near Bonn and then to Copenhagen, the boating caper experienced something of  hiatus.
It was not picked-up again till our arrival in Perth. Time and money were the main deterrents up till then, plus I was rather busy building a weekend cabin in the hills north of Melbourne.

The 48 hours wonder!

Once settled in Perth we ventured forth to purchase a real boat! Well, a third-hand decommissioned cray boat anyway.
The boat was moored in the Canning river on a mooring the dealer from whom we bought it owned. Purchased on Friday, went on it on Saturday to make an endless list of what was needed to make it halfway habitable, had a picnic lunch and left late in the afternoon.
With boats one always makes endless lists of things that need fixing or improving - hence the saying: "A boat is a hole in the water that one pours once money into".
Got a phone call early Sunday morning from the dealer with the cheerful news: "Mate, your boat has sunk!"  Raced down there to have a look - only the bow was sticking out of the water.
Got onto the insurance company Monday morning to get it sorted. Late Monday afternoon I got a call from a policeman from the diving squad: "Mate, you want to sell that sunken boat?" Told him it was in the hands of the insurance company. By Wednesday I got a call from the insurance company that they would pay out the sum insured, they had found a buyer on an as is, where is basis, which suited them just fine.
By the following weekend the boat was afloat, being towed to a shipyard for repairs - makes one wonder who did what to whom?!

The mighty Swordfish

The dealer had another boat moored there that caught our eye. Her name was Swordfish, she was a 32 ft brute of a thing, but very, very comfortable. Large wheelhouse cum saloon, good size forward cabin that slept three. A motor-sailer with a 75 hp Ford diesel engine, the list goes on. BUT she required some maintenance! Spent the best years of my life for a full week down at Fremantle Slipways repainting her. Grinding off all the anti fouling and starting again - a true labour of love.

We had Swordfish for a few years, moored up at Yanchep Marina and mainly being used as a weekend cabin. She was just too big and cumbersome for two 'feeble' people to sail. So we sold her to a guy that sailed her all the way up to Wyndham, in the far north-west of Western Australia.

May-Maid the magnificent

We looked for something more manageable and came across 'Mary Maid' - a 21 ft day sailer. Lovely wooden boat she was, except for one weakness. She reminded me of my first vessel - leaked like a sieve!

We had some good times in her on the Swan River, but one always had to have a spare hand on board to do the bailing. That got somewhat tiresome in the end and we looked for an alternative. Along it came in the guise of a good mate of mine who owned an 18 ft Red jacket that he was not entirely happy with. We did a straight swap - he got a leaking boat and I got a sailboat, albeit somewhat cramped, that performed beautifully. The bonus was that it was on a trailer and we could keep her on our front lawn.
As was our wish, we had her a year or so and started thinking of something else in the boating department. We wanted a boat that was reasonably fast to make the crossing to Rottnest, a rather nice island off the coast of Perth. It had to be trailable yet be big enough to keep on a mooring in the Swan river for early evening put-puts during the week. We'd inherited the mooring from an acquaintance when we had Mary-Maid.

That was when we found the Swiftcraft Sportsman - a 21 ft power boat (or stink boat as I call them) with a cuddy cabin sleeping two, 175 hp Mercury stern drive and all the get-up and go one could desire. The Swiftcraft was quite a big, heavy boat AND we towed it with a Peugeot 504! Should have seen the looks on peoples faces at the boat ramps, especially when retrieving the beast. "You'll never pull that one up with that little four cylinder car, mate!" They had problems with smaller boats using Holdens or Falcons. Must say, never had a problem with old 'Henri' - - Peugeot's have a lot of grunt and know how to get the power to the rear wheels. Back the trailer in the water, winch the boat up onto it and then just pull away smoothly as anything.
Everything good comes to an end. In late 1983 we decided to return to Europe to see if we wanted to live there. Swiftcraft was sold, along with a lot of other possessions, and we made our way to Europe, mostly overland, starting in February 1984. It was great for a while, whilst it was 'new', but the novelty wore off and we returned to Australia in May 1987.

Nautilus the Invincible

Had to have a boat again! That was the first mission! Hunted around and found this pocket motor-sailer - the Nautilus (which is actually a brand name but we never called it anything else but that). She came on a trailer, but pooh! Too cumbersome to lug around. Parked the trailer at my works (we had no room for it where we were living then) and rented a pen (just like the big boys) at the brand new Hillaries Marina, where this picture was taken.
The little fellow turned out to be an exceptionally sturdy sea vessel, making the crossing to Rottnest numerous times in all weathers, including 45 knot winds! Being only 18 ft the accommodation was a little cramped, even though it was billed as a four berth trailer-sailer! Yeah, maybe four midgets? But - it was quite acceptable for two people for a short time. You can guess where this one is going. After about eighteen months messing about in Nautilus, she was by the way the best tuna boat I ever owned - we caught so many when they were running it was unbelievable - she had to make way for a real Yacht!

DELINQUENT - what an apt name

I searched high and low, on and off, till I came across DELINQUENT - a boat I just had to have. A 28 ft fibreglass ocean going boat. She was build in Essex in the UK and sailed out to Australia in the late 70's. Everything on her was build for blue water cruising - she even had a cabin heater to cope with those freezing English winters.
Nothing trailable here, she just slipped into the pen at Hillaries vacated by Nautilus.
She had two comfortable berth in the main cabin plus a pilot berth that was mainly used for stowage. She had a galley (very small) plus a proper chart table with night light and so on.
Some very 'exciting' journeys were had on Delinquent. Once, we set off to sail to Geographe Bay for a very long weekend. Well, clearing the islands off Perth one hell of an easterly storm blew up, leaving me with little choice but to furl all sails and run with the wind. Even under bare pole she was doing a good 9 knots, which is quite a feat for a relatively small boat. We headed west all night and as the wind abated somewhat towards morning I turned north. Getting my bearings I changed course to east-north-east and continued. We plodded along all day and into the next night. Eventually, at about 3 AM I saw the flashes from a lighthouse. Scrambling into the cabin to examine my tables and charts I figured out, from the sequence of the flashes, that it was the Guilderton lighthouse, well north of Perth. The wind having abated quite a bit, I hoisted some sail and changed course to the south-west. Eventually we reached Hillaries by mid-morning, quite chuffed with myself and starving to death. First orders were to tie up the boat and then cook up a storm in the tiny galley - bacon, eggs, tomatoes and toast, could have fed an army with the amount I made - but it was good!

AND - with this - the bane of time has caught up with me again, once more. My humble apologies, but I will have continue this tale in next week's blog. The guaranteed cure for seasickness will be at the top of the list for that blog - PROMISE.