Author: Tadzio

 

As always with a second-hand boat, you discover you bought a few of someone else’s problems. In this case, one I found was the two seacocks in the heads- that’s the toilet- that needed replacing, so I booked the boat into a marina and ran aground twice on the way there. The trip looked straightforward, but I should have downloaded the local boating map because the way from where the boat is moored to the marina is full of sandbanks. The first time I managed to get her off and thought I could find a way around, and of course I ran aground again. Really stuck, I rang the marina to say I was waiting for the tide to rise, and the boss said he would come and help with his workboat, which has a 100-horsepower outboard. We just managed to free her from the sand trap. I got her to the marina after having nearly run aground again, and on Monday picked her up after having inflicted serious injury to my bank account. 

 

BOAT – Bring Out Another Thousand. 

 

The trip back to her mooring started well, until I had a port marker on my left and, farther away, a starboard marker also on my left. I was going upstream and thought I might be out of the channel, despite being on the correct side of the port marker, so I went below to grab the boating map I’d downloaded. Of course, the boat carried by the rising tide drifted to the other side of the marker and went aground again. Fortunately, the Maritime Services boat spotted me and pulled me back. Then, when I finally made it back to the mooring area, I had to try picking up the mooring on my own, which I’d never done, but managed without problem and on the first attempt. 

With the seacocks problem fixed, my next task is to redo the deck anti-slip and generally organise the boat so I can continue working on my second book in a quiet place. The boat is part of the project, as the book will be a dual narrative about sailing ‘Resolute’ to islands off the coast of Western Australia where a Dutch ship was wrecked in the early seventeenth century, and telling the story of what happened to the crew in the following months. I’m avoiding adding to an already long list of salty sea stories and will focus on the psychological dynamics of a marooned crew losing hope of rescue.

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It’s been a busy time organising whatever number of years I have left on planet Earth. But it’s coming together, and I recently bought an old 30-foot yacht and am planning new adventures after realising on a recent bikepacking trip that age is catching up with me. I struggled up hills while dragging a loaded trailer. My plan with this yacht is to return her to seagoing condition and spend copious amounts of time sailing and writing as I go. Not Pulitzer-winning stuff; I was a street boy, second-to-last in class when I was actually in a classroom, and ageing is not helping. Sometimes I can’t remember how to spell ‘cat.’ I’ve completed one book about a certain Piccadilly Circus boy in the early seventies, and I called him ‘Thomas’ after realising I couldn’t write in the first person- too close emotionally- and switched to a close third, which creates distance between writer and protagonist. The reason for’Thomas’ is that it’s a nod to German novelist Thomas Mann. A man I would have loved to know, have a few beers with, and talk to about things that outrage the bourgeois. Right now I’m researching the next book, a historical novel involving sodomy and an 18th-century shipwreck. And it’s turning out to be more work than anticipated.  The first book was supposed to have a final chapter; I have to admit, I still need to write it. I actually returned to London earlier this year, and that final chapter is about that experience. It was weird. I also did a lot of research into the long-term effects of trauma, and on the ‘writings’ page you will find a summary in essay form, or just click the link below.

“Thomas and the Mirror of Negation.”

I’ll add stuff I find hidden on flash drives and my messy Hard Drive, or when I’m out shopping and some idea or other comes to mind in the vegetable section of the supermarket. 

Boat? She’s a 30-foot sloop, not quite as old as I am, and needs a few things done. Next week she’s going up on the hard – that’s out of the water- for replacement of a seacock, and after that there’s the deck anti-slip that needs renewing, some cleaning up, and away we go. Not too far nor too hard; standing rigging needs to be replaced, but my estimate is that can wait a bit longer. I’m thinking maybe sailing her up to Southeast Asia for that job. Cheaper than here, where the Australia Tax applies to just about everything, and I could combine getting a rerig with many nights of drunken disorderliness in a Phuket biker bar. The bad life of the older Caucasian male.