After spending a little bit of the Southampton Boat Show wandering around the largest and the smallest of nautical craft I discovered an alarming phenomena between yachtsmen and yachtswomen (or at least wives).

Small is Beautiful

The premise works simply, it seems the exact opposite of cars. I suggest women like small cars, they like to be able to use the word nippy when describing them and out of preference it should be painted red, or at worst yellow

Engine size is not specific, as the engine occupies that infrequently visited cavity under the bonnet. Top end is also deemed not important; it is only men who seem impressed by the fact that their car can travel at twice the legal limit. But most importantly a girl car should be small enough so it only nicely dents the environment, rather than waving two fingers at it as rabbits keel over on the verges from the industrial level CO2 emissions.

More Power!

When I travel around in 4 litre splendour enveloped by my leather lined tin, I don’t feel guilty about the ozone layer. You don’t find me hesitantly engaging the kick-down with pictures of polluted lakes and Australians with bad sun burn dancing in my head. No, I feel like a man driving his front room, I feel comfortable and importantly I don’t bang my head on the door pillar when looking both ways at a junction. I feel happy, safe in the knowledge that I can do 150 mph (should I wish to lose my licence) and reassured of 0-60 in less than 7 seconds (should I ever find enough open tarmac to do it). Even if I do (oh, I do) spend most of my driving life at 20mph stuck behind an artic, I have a hundred different switches, dials, monitors and tacho-hoodramaflips to keep me amused. As for red, red is the last colour I would want I want to malevolent in my splendour. Black, Blue or at it’s loudest Gun-metal grey. I don’t want everybody saying "look at that!", I want them saying "where did that go?". Anonymous except for the feint smell of carbon monoxide and warm rubber. You can see the difference we are talking Golf or Punto verses Jag or 735i…

Back to Basics

Now when it comes to sailing/boating it all goes backwards. Those honest to god yachtsmen amongst us know what I mean. Apart from the passage makers, for whom I have utmost respect, you can’t really sail a big boat. Wrap me up in breathable oilies, give me a 30 ft hard chine racer and a force 5 and we are really sailing.

There’s only enough room down below to make tea, throw up, and sleep. Two of those things you are only really going to do when you finish sailing and one only requires you to be down below for the sake of vanity (take a thermos, sleep under the stars and chunder, if you must, over the side - and never go below! "down their… Oh yes, that’s where I keep my sails!") Give me tiller steering, so you feel the boat round. Give me Dacron acres of it stiffening in the breeze. Give the simple things like straight 2 speed winches, and as for roller furling well it’s great for the kitchen sunblind.

So, your heeled at 30 degrees, which inevitably feels like 60, what little crockery you have is smashing itself to bits down below, the waves and spray crashing over and into the cockpit, no dodgers, no spray hood and it feels good. There’s no race on, you're just sailing (I can feel my pulse rising and that’s just writing it!). Now don’t get me wrong, you wont find me doing the mini-transat, but you would find me grinning from ear to ear in the office on Monday

The Twilight Zone

But then comes the problem, as you are swaggering round a place like Southampton the taste of salt a fading memory.(except on the fish and chips which use shock and awe tactics to get you to pay the huge asking price.. "How much!" I said and then in haze of complete incomprehension. My assumption that the number of digits on the till must be an error I paid the money and quietly, head hanging, walked away) and stumble aboard the latest French offering. You get on a boat and the galley is bigger, better equipped and laid out than the kitchen at home (complete with roller blinds). It has a three-piece suite, a shower, heating and a dressing table… And of course she loves it. "My dear" I say patiently "this is a bloody cottage not a sailboat." It has a bow thruster for Christ’s sake and 2 showers. "But it’s lovely" she retorts "you could have 8 round that table." (In my minds eye I immediately conjure up an image of 8 cold wet oil skin clad sea rovers, slopping stew down their fronts and into the middle of the salt/wind burned faces. With water and broken plate shards slopping from side to side round their ankles. Not, I imagine, what she has in mind). It’s got hydraulic roller furling, power self tailing winches a spray hood and two, not just one, but two, wheels to steer her by. Which would seem a definite problem should we ever come to dispute our destination. This is so far away from a sailboat it’s a veritable Wimpy show home afloat.

As we perambulate between stands I see a similar trait amongst these water folk, beleaguered looking chaps and elated looking women. Then, sin of sins we glide passed the Sunseeker boys (how can anyone make a blazer and tie look so Spivey). "Oh just a quick look" she says pleadingly. Foolishly, rather than my usual reply of "over my dead body" I relent as it’s her day out too and no doubt I’ll volunteer to drink her Guinness as she volunteers to drive us home.

"Good afternoon sir, do you have an appointment?" Hmm I think I obviously don’t look rich enough, or maybe it’s the slight glazing of eyes and grinding teeth. We get on board a 60 footer, which makes the house look like a dustcart, both in size and quality. She adores it, "Wow" she says at every opportunity. On the fly bridge "Look at all those dials, that’s cool," pausing "oil pressure, tacho, trim tab pitch indicator..". Then later "look at the size of those engines..". "How fast does it go" she asks the salesman. What! I think to myself. "That’s incredible." she continues and turning to me "We could be in France by lunchtime time on a rising tide."

This is all wrong, what does someone who owns a car small enough to park in the boot of mine, want with horsepower details for giant caterpillar diesel engine. Why does she just smile and say "wow" when I say it burns 25 gallons an hour. Think of the ozone layer, think of unnecessary waste, think of acid rain, think of fluffy pandas coughing in the smog. I am starting to feel dizzy the smell of leather and walnut makes me feel sick. They even have an assistant ready to engage in discourse about fabric colours and shower tap co-ordination. The carpet is being inexorably torn from under my feet, well the shag pile is in fact quite static and deep, but you know what I mean. As we are leaving via the 'patio' a huge smile arrives across her face. But something in the distance catches my eye... It’s red... It’s small (well compared to 60 feet)... It has a hull like an arrowhead a deep fin keel like a razor, a rake on the mast like a hairgrip. It’s ozone friendly. It looks, well … Nippy… I want one.

David Leith
Our illustrious Managing Editor

Currently is inexplicably single and has sailed everything from the Mir to an Albacore. He doesn't have a spray hood or dodgers and likes the Solent from October to March.

Photos from Freefoto.com

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