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    It would be Nice to have a Boat
    It would be Nice to have a Boat
    It would be Nice to have a Boat
    Ebook125 pages1 hour

    It would be Nice to have a Boat

    By Jim Barrass

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    About this ebook

    "It would be nice to have a boat." These fatal words led to years of boat ownership commencing with the purchase of a rotten 25 foot plywood sloop called 'True Colours' and concluded with an aborted plan to sail the seven seas in a 42 foot steel cutter-rigged sloop 'Tania'.
    The author's miseries and joys are described in the many incidents which occurred from the time he and his wife set off from the boat sales marina in Tasmania in their newly acquired rotten boat - which was to spend eighteen months on a cradle at their house while they fixed up all the rot.
    The tale is interwoven with other incidents in the author's life, involving his skills or lack of them, some of which were major disasters and some of which were victories of a sort. It describes some of the trials and tribulations of boat ownership, that will be recognised by those who have owned one, and may amuse those that have managed to avoid having a boat.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJim Barrass
    Release dateAug 22, 2014
    ISBN9781310518492
    It would be Nice to have a Boat

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      Book preview

      It would be Nice to have a Boat - Jim Barrass

      It would be nice to have a boat

      By Jim Barrass

      Copyright 2014 Jim Barrass

      All Rights Reserved

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Maps – Tasmania and Bruny Island

      Chapter 1: A boat to chug over to Bruny.

      Chapter 2: …and your suit will never get wet…

      Chapter 3: Ah for a tall ship…

      Chapter 4: Down to the sea.

      Chapter 5: Into deeper water.

      Chapter 6: Home delivery.

      Chapter 7: Man overboard.

      Chapter 8: A work –programme developed.

      Chapter 9: Boat or planter box

      Chapter 10: You can’t have too much cover.

      Chapter 11: Oh damn – the motor!

      Chapter 12: Team-work.

      Chapter 13: Level-headed.

      Chapter 14: She’ll be right.

      Chapter 15: Boats and fish.

      Chapter 16: Unintended consequences

      Chapter 17: A sawdust-led recovery

      Epilogue

      About the author

      Acknowledgements

      maps-Tasmania and Bruny Island

      Chapter 1: A boat to chug over to Bruny

      The boating saga all came about because we were sitting in our breakfast area one delightful spring morning looking out over The Iron Pot at the mouth of the Derwent when Judy said whimsically; It would be nice to have a boat so that we could chug over to Bruny Island for breakfast.

      A boat!  I've always loved boats and never had one! That is if you don’t count the ‘canoe’ a mate and I made when I was 14. We had cut a forty-four gallon tar drum in half and joined up the ends. It was very unstable and when you fell out you carved bits out of your body on the jagged edges of iron.

      A boat made so much sense in Tasmania where the water was too cold to enter, at 12 degrees centigrade down near Hobart most of the year, getting up to a steamy 14 degrees on the two days of mid-summer.

      A boat would be a perfect way to enjoy the miles and miles of waterway down the d’Entrecasteaux Channel between Bruny Island and the main island of Tasmania.

      Before Judy could analyse the likely effect of her casual remark, I had whipped out the newspaper and had her in a car heading towards a likely sounding boat, which was within the agreed price of around $1000 (don't laugh).  She figured that she only wanted to go a maximum of one mile from Tinderbox Beach to Bruny Island for breakfast; and if it couldn't be done for $1000 then forget the whole thing. By this time she had seen the strange Catherine-wheels appear in my eyes such as Donald Duck gets when a brilliant idea arrives, and she was starting to have misgivings. As it turned out, the boat we looked at for $1000 was useless.  It was a plywood half-cab filled with rot.  No-one in their right mind would have exposed themselves to all the work involved in getting it seaworthy.

      So we settled in to a period of Saturdays looking for a Bruny Island ferry at the right price.

      Both Judy and I had relatively senior positions on contracts with the Tasmanian Government and we loved living out of town at Tinderbox where we and the two boys William and Boris, had made our home some year or so earlier after spending our working life till then on the mainland of Australia. Now William was attending the University of Tasmania studying to become an electrical engineer, and Boris the oldest boy had moved out.

      Our house was nestled on the side of a steep hill with its back to the south-westerly winds that rocketed up from the Southern Ocean on the other side of Tasmania. Glass windows on the eastern side trapped the north-easterly sun in the mornings, and the veranda looked down over our 8 acres of land, out to the entrance of the Derwent River and in the distance Storm Bay and the Tasman Sea.

      So our situation in Tinderbox helped to make our lives very pleasant, but it would have been nice to be able to have boat access to the beautiful clear water and lovely beaches for miles around.

      Chapter 2: …and your suit will never get wet…

      We had tried to enjoy the water once after getting the idea of buying wetsuits and snorkels, and following the underwater trail that had been set up at Tinderbox beach. At that time I decided that I would look for a second-hand wetsuit, so I set off from work in my suit one lunch hour and discovered a pawn shop.

      Do you have any wetsuits? I enquired of the man at the entrance counter.

      Yes mate, go up to the next floor. He replied after carefully examining my dark suit.

      So I went to the next floor and found heaps of wetsuits on racks. I selected one of those where the top is one piece with a hood and no zippered opening, removed my suit coat and shirt and after some effort managed to get my arms into the sleeves. Then I pulled the body of the thing over my head and tried to get my head through to the hole where the hood was located. I got about halfway into the thing and couldn’t get it on any further…it stuck.

      Okay, I thought. It’s too small.  So I tried to take it off.

      It wouldn’t come off! 

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