COMMENT
WHEN THINGS RUN THEIR NATURAL COURSE IT’S EVENTUALLY TIME TO LET SOMEONE ELSE TAKE THE HELM... SO SKIP IS DOING JUST THAT
I‘ve reached 100 folks. Not in age, as that’s still three decades away, but in the number of columns written for this esteemed magazine. Leading up to this magical, purely arbitrary number I had a think and decided this might be a good time to quiver my pen.
When the editor asked me to take over the column from Robin Knox-Johnston for the October 2014 issue of Yachting World, I readily agreed. Not only do I enjoy writing down my thoughts, but I had some axes to grind, scores to settle from previous civilized discussions, points to make with particular orthodoxies in the marine industry and observations of some worrying trends in boating in general. What a great soap box to climb on to!
The editor said I could write whatever I liked, including looking back anecdotally to yacht races, cruises and adventures that in my case go back a staggering 50 years plus, right to my roots in Belmont Harbour on the Chicago lakefront. I certainly have had a few stories to tell, and I told many in this column, but many of the more risqué ones are left untold with deference to some of our sensitive readers.
I took the low hanging fruit first on controversial topics as diverse as an over-preoccupation with safety, rescues at sea and why they were not necessary in the first place, how to learn how to sail (start in a Laser), automation on marine systems and navigation systems in particular and the resulting loss of first principles. You get the idea.
Never seen in print, but I know for sure that it happens in conversations, I have been accused of Luddism, retro thinking and looking back in time too often, but I was always secure in the knowledge that unless you push back every now and again on the relentless march of progress in technologies that breed conveniences there is a downside – not least of all loss of simple pleasures.
I’ve always made a point to be thought provoking, have tried to be balanced in my narrative, at times ironic , but always with a sense of humour.
After all, yachting is a pastime that should be enjoyed so the idea is not to take yourself too seriously for fear of really going overboard, with or without a lifejacket.
As the years went on though, I had to be careful in not repeating myself, but I do admit to writing three articles, more or less along the same lines, about the proliferation of abandonments of yachts for no apparent reason other than discomfort. There’s no doubt that over time you begin to struggle
