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West Wight Potter Mailing List maintainer
dfarrell@ridgecrest.ca.us
List hosted by www.tscnet.com
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To all you Potterers, Montgomeryites, Compackers, or Whoever;
Greetings from a longtime procrastinator who thinks he would like to sail. I
have long been viewing this website, and others like it, from silent
distance. Being boatless, I felt I had much to learn from your experience
and little to contribute, but have profited handsomely in vicarious boating,
thanks to your generous sharing of experience and opinions.
My credentials are thus: Never sailed. (20 years in Navy Enginerooms doesn't
count, except for brief, inebriated one-lunger liberty-boat rides in Naples
and Anatolia and wherever). Of course, these had no sails, but at least they
were wet and small.
That being said, I have been gradually consumed with the overriding
obsession to have and sail a boat of my own. Knowing that I'm too lazy to
build one, I'll have to buy one. My original concept essentially derived
from
A: Too much reading of Michener, Norman/Hall, Howard Pease (Todd
Moran...Hardy Boy at Sea!), Horatio Hornblower, Henry Dana, and Herman
Melville at a tender age. I Fear it has warped me forever.
B: Too much frustration at being restricted to the Mukilteo or Edmonds Pier
for fishing/crabbing (Puget Sound, to you outlanders), constantly getting
tangled with other peoples lines and catching little in consequence;
C: Too much camping at mountain lakes, gazing on their serene beauty,
sleeping/freezing in a tent while wishing I had a boat on the water to exist
in relative comfort and vie for fish or crawfish or just drift as the mood
struck me...
D: Perhaps just a tad of middle-aged angst, pushing 50 and realizing that if
I don't get off my fanny and DO IT, it'll never happen on any score, and I'll
join the ranks of-or stay in the ranks of-those living lives of quiet
desperation.
So: I need a damn boat. Or believe that I do. I need it soon, by this
spring/summer. I need it fairly cheap, say a used car price, circa $5,000 or
so. I want it to sail, to be reasonably comfortable for 2-3 people
overnight, capable of singlehanding on a relaxed, frequent basis. I need it
to be trailerable, fairly ignorable when not in use, but able to just drag it
down to the beach/ramp on short notice and get the sucker in the water by
myself and enjoy a quick sail or overnighter on short notice. Gee, does this
sound like a Potter? Also, I'd rather not lay out big bucks for a monster
truck to pull the thing; we have an Aerostar E4WD, 4.o liter Minivan with
small trailer hitch attached. Year-round moorage is also undesirable, as I
don't want to spend it and want the flexibility to get close to where I want
to sail, then sail, then come home and however reluctantly go back to work.
Also, I'm probably perverted enough at this point to climb in to the boat,
moored in my driveway, six-pack in hand, turn on the ball-game, and doze off,
dreaming of balmier days.
All this may sound slightly irrational to the general public, but I
suspect there are many kindred souls on this list who will sympathize.
Given that, I stand ready for any guidance you can muster, on-or-off
list: What to get, where to get it, how much to pay, How big a deal is
headroom really, Can a wife live with a porta-potti, pro/con on the
daggerboard/swing-keel, etc.; in short, all the stuff you regularly discuss,
but I may have missed.
It may be a lot to ask, but I am a lamb who has lost his way, and would
rather get directions from all of you, rather than stumble into a
brokerage/dealer unarmed. I've been reading tons of books, have nearly
depleted the local library, but would rather get some guidance from the
collected wisdom of folks who have been there. With the caveat, of course,
that in the end I will probably ignore most of it, find a boat that catches
my fancy, buy it and go from there. But at least I'll not be completely,
make that, moderately less, stupid.
Thanks for your patience in reading a too-long letter; I'll be eager to read
whatever you have to say. Thanks for being there.
Brian.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Jan 31 2000 - 03:27:10 PST