You're My Everything

 

This little ship means a lot to me.  I don't think anyone can fully understand what she represents to me especially. 

The context is that,  after years of living below the Minimum Wage & continuing to support two children,  I have no buckets of cash set aside to afford a liveaboard yacht to retire on to. Actually,  I probably could afford to buy such a boat,  but there's no way I could afford to keep it registered & maintained,  let alone modified for cruising. I would be forced to become a hermit of the backwaters,  which I suppose is not the end of the world.  

This little ship is literally my Retirement Plan. She is to me what a Winnebago or caravan,  overseas holidays & cruises are to wealthy older people.  I know that I've written here that I want seriously looking for a boat when I came across her,  but it's true that she literally fell into my lap, into my world. It's almost like she showed up in my little world without me really trying & had totally amazed me with her beauty & capability as a pocket cruiser.  I've had nearly a dozen boats throughout my life,  including large fibreglass yachts & I sailed along the coast& so on. My first serious cruising boat I fitted out from new with a new diesel,  sails & windvane.  I knew she was capable of great things,  but the timing was wrong,  leading into a marriage of three decades that left me rich in experience & a house,  but with little money to live off & a sailing dinghy.  The point is that Jacky is far & away the most beautiful, "user friendly" & flexible cruising boat that I've ever had.  

All my life I've remained critical of my culture's abuse of fossil fuels. This longheld personal drive has seen me leave a Hough paying career in coal mining, use older smaller cars & limit my personal income & spending in order that people in poorer countries & indeed the planet, can live well. So any boat has to fit this mentality. It has to be trailable to allow home based maintenance, small to allow use with a small car, & able to be sailed without an engine.  Jacky neatly fits each of these requirements, as well as being roomy enough for longer term cruising & capable of coastal sailing legs.  She's perfect in so many ways. 

 


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