Ah Solo Mio

Part 1 of 3, a guide to being a loser 

It would appear on this blog that I am never short of crew or company on my sailing or other bullshitting adventures.

This is actually not the reality.

I am very much alone for most of the time.

This leads to two fairly defining things, or if not defining, at least a little bit curious.

One of the results of being alone with only the ships dog for company, leads one to talk out loud and express thoughts OUT LOUD. Often aimed in the direction of any inanimate object around the boat. That could be a winch, a line, a tangle of lines, a hatch, my boots, the toilet, my lifejacket…. Etc

Often in a Scottish or Irish accent or in French. I have no idea why.

Alright? whatchoo lookin' at bawjaws?

The furling line block, often referred to initially as: c'mon ya bastard

You (dear reader) should also be aware by now that Boogie Nights is an inanimate gender free object. It is neither a he or she, it’s an it. In the same way my car is an it and my laptop is an it.

This doesn’t stop me talking to it though. Just because it doesn’t possess a cock ‘n’ balls (le batteau, il est magnifique! Regard, le mat, c'est enorm!), or a pair of tits and a vagina (how fast will she go? Ooh she's spacious down below), doesn’t mean it doesn’t have some life in it. After all, those resins, plastics, metals and various materials it’s made from were all hewn in some form or another from the planet which was made by stars exploding billions of years ago, so it’s made from the same materials as all other life forms on the planet, including you, me and the ships dog. Just presented in a different form. 

Right on? Are you with me here?

You can see I’ve spent some time thinking about this.That's too much time spent alone with my cocktail cabinet that is and some special chocolate.

Anyway, I digress,

The second important, defining thing is, that a person alone on a boat is a certain type of person. That type of person is self sufficient.

In all manners of the meaning of the words, self, and, sufficient.

They are capable of coping with their own company.

And capable of dancing alone in a cockpit in the middle of a storm.

Capable of a whole variety of things that keep them alive and thriving in a hostile environment.

(not counting Horse & Hound magazine, that was on a different level of hostile, Ex-editor, that's EX as in, has been, but is no longer, if you ever read this, yes you, hostile, divisional, class divided, prejudiced -  even Sir Robin Knox-Johnston solo round the world extraordinaire would have struggled with that)

Mechanic, seamstress, cook, helms person, sail trimmer, meteorologist, navigator, electrician and so on.

Boogie Nights, for at least this part of its life has a custodian (yes that's me) that attempts to be all of the above to varying degrees of success.

And so the August 2014 bank holiday was all systems go. 

Clean bottom, raring to go. Friends booked to come and join me somewhere down the coast to make it look like I'm not a complete loner and to reset the sanity levels back to socially acceptable.

The plan, more or less, was to leave Gosport and head to Plymouth. Should be there in a day and a half. So I thought.

It was westerly or south westerly winds forecast. I was heading west. Sure it would be a bit of a slog, but I’m used to it. No Fucking worries, I thought.

I’m fairly well known for my dislike of the use of an engine, at any time. (most people I know would have said, "let's engine out of here, it'll be faster and easier" )

But because I'm like I am, I never even considered using the engine. I had looked at the possibility of avoiding tacking down the Solent where the channel is fairly restricting and full of marine traffic and instead, heading off around the back of the island where there would be more scope to put bigger tacks in.

(for the non-sailing folks reading this, a tack or tacking – is when you have to zig zag the boat to go in the direction you want to go in because yachts cant sail directly into the wind but at varying angles off it.)

I had put Mr Gibbins the self tacking maestro on the front to add a bit of gentile civility into tacking westward. Jenny-go-lighty was tucked away in a sail bag and stashed in the back cabin. (just because they’re objects doesn’t stop me naming them. It’s much easier to identify sails when they have a name)

Well, my first mistake was being a wanker. 

The kind of wanker that hoists a main sail (purely co-incidentally mind) alongside a flashy Hugo Boss 99 boat in the calm windless pool next to the marina we both share and then thinks, I’ll go where they’re going.

Fucking right on. Forget all that passage planning, let’s follow that professional racing boat.

So Hugo Boss 99 trundled off ahead of me, carrying a cockpit full of most likely, corporate cocks and cock-esses who needed lubricating to keep the money flowing to that giant organ of PR majesty. 

They then unfurled their massive genoa and fekked off up the Solent into the wind like Frankle with his ears pinned back, leaving me behind like an ill-bred knock knee donkey.

I’m not bitter.

Not at all, I smiled to myself as I passed them at anchor, three hours later.

I ran down below to fetch my phone to take a picture and gloat about my wonderful life on facebook. But no, the phone had been propelled during a particularly enthusiastic tack, off a non-slip mat, straight onto the floor. Into a puddle of salt water.

First of all, shit. My phone is dead. But secondly and more importantly, SHIT, THAT’S SALT WATER!

With each tack I had a glance down below to see which side the water was coming in from. Just a trickle and it appeared to be coming in from the back locker.

There’s a through hull fitting in there and an engine exhaust pipe. Those are the only two possibilities other than a ruddy gre’t ‘ol’ punched through by a partially submerged shipping container. Which it wasn’t.

Now another lesson for the non sailing. Rules of the road here determine who gives way to whom. Because the watery road way is way more complex than the high street in Kensington in the sense that those in small hatchbacks give way to those in big 4x4’s and 4x4's give way to cars with flags on the bonnet, we have rules for who does what and when on the water.

So each time the sails on my boat are aligned down the right side, that’s called port tack, because the wind is blowing on the port side, the left side of the boat.

When we are on port tack, then we have to give way to pretty much every fucker out there in the Solent. Ships, tankers and ferries, always. Yachts, mostly all of them out that day. BUT, when the sails are the other side, that’s starboard tack, that means for a little while, during that tack, most yachts have to give way to me. And they're the cheeky bastards I'm looking out for.

So it was during these starboard tacks where I did my investigating and ran around pulling the boat apart to find the source of the water.

So convinced was I that it was the seacock valve in the back locker, that I emptied the locker and climbed in headfirst to reach it to check if it was wet.

The problem is the restricted access. It’s just, just beyond finger tips. So I have to wriggle ever further than is safe or comfortable into the cupboard, head first. Diagonally.

With just my legs sticking out of the cupboard I eventually reached the valve. It was dry. But I closed it anyway.

Then the reverse maneuver out of the cupboard was the source of amusement for: no one. 

No one was there to see it, or pull my legs to assist with the reversing.

Thankfully I’d removed my lifejacket for this otherwise things could have gone from faintly ridiculous (3) to highly ridiculous (5.5) on a scale of ridiculous where paying people a fair living wage is right there on 1 and Boris Johnson being prime minister is a 10.

It took what felt like half an hour to free myself, it was probably just 30 seconds. I was half expecting to have a trail of boats diverting course behind me to avoid the runaway yacht without a helmsperson. I finally re-emerged the right way up, with a very red face, looking guiltily around for signs of annoyance to other Solent users.

But no. Only some Cant calling starboard on me, spouting a technicality of the double starboard rule and pointing at his sail and then my sail, as if to incite any amount of giving a shit from me.  

A quick glance at the depth gauge said it was time to tack though.

On the next starboard tack I ran down below to send out a message via the downstairs chartplotter to friends to say my phone was dead and then a message came through from Hazel of Triangle Race fame.

You’re not sailing tonight are you? Suggest you look at the weather again.

to which I replied something like: Meh, bloody solent, has me still in its grip. I just want to get out of here. It'll be fine

Port tack… Wait.

Starboard tack… download more wind files and look at met office weather. (again)

Port tack… Wait.

Starboard tack… have a look at the tide times.

Port tack… Wait.

Starboard tack… think. 

Port tack… It’s been 11 hours of this tacking bollocks. Shall we go and hide in Yarmouth? I asked the main sheet. It was silent in its reply, but it seemed to just ease out on its own.

I know no shame. Here is the proof of my days exploits.

180 degrees about turn and head for Yarmouth, Isle of Wight.

It was a wise move.

The top slider on the main sail had just snapped again and the mainsail top batten had vanished.

Time to lick my wounded ego and do a new passage plan for tomorrow and find that salt water ingress.

Soon after mooring up and having tidied the snake pit, I went to flush the toilet and realised, salt water had seeped from the flush handle nut which had vibrated loose. It had seeped along a part of the hull and into the shower tray. 

Tit.

Scrubber

 I did have a nice little blog post written telling you all about my scrubbing experience. but then it was lost in one deft stroke of pure unluck as my phone containing all of said nuggets of pixel based joy landed nose down in a very small puddle of salt water. They do say it only takes an inch to drown in, well it would seem that my Samsung Galaxy S3 needed only 15mm to kill it.

My previous wrestle with a wetsuit for water line scrubbing revealed to me that I really needed to get the boat out of the water for a proper bottom scrub. There's several options for this,
 

A full lift out with a crane, scrub and then put back in, £250

A sealift, which is this marvellous floating submersible hoist thingy based in Haslar marina £140 on a summer special offer

If I had the choice, I would have chosen sealift, it would have all been done in just 2 hours.

or scrubbing posts at a local sailing club called Hardway, £10 plus jet wash power tokens and most of a day.

Given my current "strappedforcash" status, I'm on a very tight budget. So scrubbing posts it was.

Malcolm, the handiest man around Haslar Marina furnished me with roller handles, a third of a tin of hard wearing antifoul and even drove over to the local sailing club to give me a hand getting onto the posts.

I needed a few other things in my favour

• Big tides :  check
• light winds :  check
• warm weather : check
• no rain :  mostly check

The tide times were just right to pull alongside the posts mid day on the last bit of the rising tide, get the boat positioned and then tweak and adjust as the tide fell. The small amount of breeze was blowing me on to the posts and it was all incredibly easy and civilised. 

As the tide dropped and revealed my keel for the first time since mid May when I was out for the steering seizure I was quite surprised how little weed there was. 

But on closer inspection with a high pressure jetwash nozzle, it was apparent that the barnacles had made a decent sized housing estate on my keel. 

It was then a race against time, jet washing and scrubbing to a point where I could put a quick coat of antifoul on before the tide came rushing back to float us away again. 

I was extremely lucky to have the help of Hardway club member and all round thoroughly nice chap Chris Waters. Without his help I doubt if I would have managed to get all the antifoul on before the tide came back.

I didn't have time to stand back and admire our joint efforts, I was whisked away to the club house where a lively evening of post race socialising was going on and the put on a fantastic menu of really good club food.
No one minded my black paint splattered face or hands. Nor did they mind the ships dog dining with us.

Hardway sailing club seems to be a very sociable club indeed.

After a little post meal nap, I was up at mid night to await the last bit of tidal height to lift me off the bottom.
Chris came back to help again and even jumped onboard Boogie Nights for the short motor back down Portsmouth harbour to Haslar and helped with mooring.

 Now I'm eager to see what difference that clean bottom will have to the boats performance.

Braking bad

I had an old house mate (from my days of land living) a friend called "tall" Dave come to visit for a weekend. 

He's a good mate who enjoys sailing but by his own admission has forgotten almost everything he learned on a competent crew course several years ago. He helped bring Mistral - Varekai  Boogie Nights back from Spain over four years ago but has done little sailing since then.

I introduced him to Beach Barbie first. Explaining her importance to the overall safety and security of the vessel.
Followed by the other safety kit (all new), the lines (all new), the kettle (the only original item), the helm (recently fettled, see blog entry "got a stiffy") and the sails (all new).

The boat has changed quite a bit since that big trip we did. There's a lot to take in.

Safety first, how to use the man over board items; the throwing line; the life ring and dan buoy; the rescue sling. How to deploy the liferaft. Where the fire extinguishers are. Where the gas shut off valve is. Where the flares live. Where the safety lines live. Where the May Day VHF radio crib sheet lives. Where the bilge pumps are located. Correctly fitted life jacket and how to activate it if you fall in and it doesn't automatically inflate.

Cup of Coffee? You look like you need it. 

Then, I moved on to which line does what. They have all moved since he sailed it on that delivery trip.

"

There's two up-fuckers, four down-fuckers based on traffic light colours, 1 red, 1 amber and 2 greens, a vanga-dang, a "Mr Jibbins" (we won't be using that today) and a "Dump n Grind" (previously known as  "scream if ya wanna go faster" aka the main sheet).  That's 9 clutches right under your nose.
The Dump n Grind has a Disco Tweaker too, which is something I added by nicking a handy billy** originally destined for use with a boom brake* and requires cowboy, yee-har skills to use, see you just flick it like this... and yee-har.  The blue Dump N Grind line lives in a heap by the wheel, the disco line lives on the other side of the winch bar in the cockpit to avoid the two getting snaggled.
Then there's the new furling line block with a ratchet and cam cleat on one side of the cockpit, a spinnaker pole down haul block on the other and sheet lines running forward to the new Genoa (no never met her) , Mr Jibbins the self tacker is packed away in a bag on my bunk. 
The two jib up fuckers and the red for danger spinnaker halyard are all nestled at the mast now, located by that new mast winch which arrived eleven months ago. Nice isn't it. Makes life so much easier.
Oh and that silver rope, that's the pole up. yes, That big pole that's attached to the rail. Don't worry, we won't be getting the spinnaker out today, yes that big colourful sail in the bag, I reassured Dave, however, I'm going to put it in the saloon where I can reach it easily, just in case, you know, just in case. 

"

Whilst my boat savvy friends and previous co-skippers Hazel, Rick and Sue picked all of this up as naturally as opening a bottle of wine and putting your feet up, Dave looked a little bewildered.

No worries, once we slipped our lines out of the marina berth, we headed off for a night on anchor in Chichester Harbour.

Dave doing his best impression of Will Smith, the fresh prince of Chichester.

I put Dave on the wheel with a telly screen to give him a break from having to remember things, which left me free to play with the sails and the sun was shining.

Goose winging into Chichester Harbour on a sunny summer evening with light winds.

It's been a long while since I last anchored Boogie Nights, but everything set first time round, no messing and we were soon sitting down for a late evening dinner in the cockpit while the small handheld GPS (my dad bought it for the boat when he helped bring it back from Gibraltar in 2010 - thanks dad) was switched on as anchor alarm.
If we drifted more than the length of the boat, it sets off a little chirrup to let us know.
With the changing of the tide in the middle of the night I looked to visually check that our anchor was still good. I'd forgotten how much I love being at anchor.

A beautiful moonlit night

anchor lights

Next stop was Cowes, Friday was the last day of Cowes week, so watching fireworks and meeting with friends was planned. Torrential downpours weren't planned though and it turned into a bit of a wash out.
The weather forecast was showing that a big old tail end of a tropical storm, called Bertha, was heading our way on Sunday. But Saturday was looking good for sailing.

To make up for a piss poor Cowes night, I mentioned to Dave that the weather and tides were spot on for a fast lap of the Isle of Wight. A bit lumpy for the first couple of hours then a great wind direction for a fast sail round the back of the island then back to shelter before the gales arrive.
Dave was keen. I was looking forward to a good blast to clear away the previous nights dark clouds and damp spirits.

Beach Barbie with her classy cable tie crown keeps a look out for racing boats ahead of us

We turned left out of Cowes. It was a bit choppy, with the strong south westerly wind picking up the fairly big tide as it headed down toward the needles channel.
My first mistake was not hoisting the main sail within the sheltered harbour entrance. This meant we were being bounced around and the boat rolled and slammed as we ducked between racing yachts trying to avoid interfering with their race. Just as the melee was clearing and we found some clear space on the water I prepared to hoist the main. This is when I realised my second mistake, I hadn't double checked the halyard fitting as usual.
The Halyard (up-fucker 1) had become detached and was now flying several metres in the air behind us.
So I spun the boat around to head downwind to see if the halyard might fall back within the grasp of the spreaders.

No. It was now flying ahead of us by several metres.

No matter which way I turned the boat, the halyard just kept on flying beyond reach.
Motoring as fast as possible downwind yielded the best results with it occasionally dropping down and hitting the forestay, so I sent "tall" Dave forward with a couple of lifelines attached to his life jacket harness and my longest boat hook, having already gone forward myself and realised I was around 30cm too short to reach it.

After 20 long minutes of waving the hook at the sky, he managed to snag the halyard and pull it back in.

He clambered back to the cockpit with his prize, a fancy grey dyneema line with a faulty clip on the end. I asked if Barbie had had anything to say while he was up there, to which he replied,

No, she was resolutely silent. I think she is reserving her judgement for later.

We then changed places so that I could run around the boat with the halyard and undo it from its maypole style mess. With a fresh roll of tape in my pocket I fastened it back to the main and taped the loose catch, pulled a couple of reefs in the mainsail before hoisting and then finally we were sailing an hour after setting off!
But by this time, the damage had been done.
Dave was decidedly a whiter shade of pale.

I sailed the boat solo while Dave sat and stared at the horizon willing his sea sisckness tablet to start working. I suggested he go and lay down until it took effect, but unsurprisingly he was unwilling to go down inside the boat.
It's not easy tacking down a very busy Solent into 28kts of wind while you have a large person looking ill in the cockpit. Whilst I can handle Boogie Nights well enough on my own, I can't handle seeing friends look unwell, not when they're supposed to be enjoying it. We do this for fun!
We reached a point, just south of Yarmouth (Isle of Wight Yarmouth, not Great Yarmouth on the east coast) when I asked Dave if he would like to continue or head back.

Freshly painted nails make me more self aware of my delicate digits. My favourite Gill gilet is ever present blocking the wind but allowing me to keep the layers thin. 

lightweight leggings are much easier to pull waterproof trousers over if the weather turns foul.
Leopard print is de rigueur on Boogie Nights

We headed back up the Solent.

running without a preventer

With the wind behind us everything seemed so much calmer for Dave. But for me, this is when I get twitchy. Needing to gybe every 10-20 minutes meant rigging a preventer (stops the boom from crashing across the boat) was going to be a right royal pain in the arse. So steering by hand was essential. As was being quick on the helm.

another Dehler, called Kelana heading the same way.

Oh how I wished I could beam Hazel in at that moment, or any of my boaty friends who understand the risks of running without a preventer, trying to cut it as fine as possible to minimise the number of gybes needed to maintain a good/fast course

It was around this time I cursed myself for not fitting the boom brake I was given as a gift at the end of 2013. (it's a Walder boom brake, which isn't my first choice, but when it's gifted to you, you don't turn that kind of generosity down)

I've been stepping over it for months in my forward cabin. I put it there thinking eventually I would get pissed off enough to give in and finally fit it. I've stubbed my toes on it, bruised the soles of my feet on it, got tangled up in it. Always cursing.

So, this week, after 10 months of pain and cursing,  I finally fitted that f*&king thing! That bad boy boom is now braked.

A second hand donated Walder boom brake

(*the boom brake requires the use of a handy billy to tension up the line on the drum, causing added friction, which means the boom can move only slowly while it slides around the drum, so when the boat is going into the wind, the boom brake is released without tension, but then when the wind is behind the boat, tension is applied to the brake, which stops the boom from being able to fly across the boat uncontrolled, which would damage the boom, mast or other fittings or could potentially kill someone if they got in the way)

 (** a handy billy is a mini block and tackle which gives a much stronger purchase on a line. So one line attaches to the end shackle. The handy billy has it's own captive line tied on to the end of one of the blocks and then goes backward and forward around the pulleys, it becomes 4:1 ratio, which means a small amount of pulling by me on the handy billy line means lots of pulling power on the single line attached to the end of it.

a highly technical drawing of a handy billy

The other half

For anyone considering life on a boat, one of the questions  that immediately springs to mind, 

other than

"is it cold in winter"

is "where do you keep all your stuff?" But, the question should really be,

how much stuff do you need?

We are so conditioned to acquiring more and more things that make life easier, simpler, more efficient or more, just, more... that learning to reverse that can be very very hard. Especially when lots of those things have been given as presents from friends and family over several years.

www.storyofstuff.org

It took years for me to pare down my possessions to enable me to fit them in the 57' narrowboat, Honey Ryder. It was down to clinical, cold hearted, calculated sheer bloody mindedness and several slightly awkward conversations with folks who felt slightly peeved that I had Ebayed gifts from several years previous.

On my mission to have less but live more, I asked all friends and relatives to please not buy me any gift or thing that doesn't have a very specific purpose (I should make it clear that I have very generous friends and family for which I am extremely grateful)  To the point that I get very anxious when given a well meaning but useless item. My immediate thought, where will it go?

If it cant be drunk or eaten; fit easily within a boat cupboard; withstand 45knots of direct wind or be dropped on the floor in a puddle of salt water and remain useful then it has no place here. 

When I was living on Honey Ryder, every month I would go through the cupboards in a section of the boat and have a bit of a clear out. With every thing that I got rid of, I felt as though a weight was lifting from my shoulders. That 57' x 6' metal tube was schtuff absorbing. Even when it was fully loaded, it still trundled along at 4 or 5 mph. It was a non performance boat. It weighed 15 tonnes. It was made of sheet steel. If I had 3 pairs of shoes or 10, it really didn't give a toss either way. It was a bit like the Hob-Nob biscuit of the boat world. You know, the kind you can dip in a hot drink and it asks for more.

"C'mon, is that all you've got? Hit me, hit me again, just lay it on me. C'mon, I can take it"

When I was paring down, ready to sell Honey Ryder I had the aim to fit everything I own into a car.
One single car.

It wasn't easy. And I didn't quite manage it. My car was too small.
It seems I am quite the maximallist for a minimalist.

When I bought the Dehler 36 four and a half years ago in Gibraltar, I didn't have particularly many plans, other than to sail solo round Britain at some point and have a nice time cruising around in the holidays and at weekends, I certainly didn't want to race it, but I am a speed demon and I like to go as fast as I can at all times.
Minimalism, though important, wasn't an all consuming obsession until reality hit home after sailing Mistral, Varekai, Boogie Nights back to the UK virtually empty and then it filled rapidly with "life". Or at least what I thought was life.

It's only when you move onboard a weight sensitive yacht and start to get a feel for how your stuff fits as well as how your stuff is, or isn't, fit for purpose that you can see further areas that can be slimmed down or changed.
While I was worrying about fitting everything into a car, what I should also have been considering was getting everything I own down to less than 120kg, or the weight of two people.

No room for fat people unless they're going to sit on the rail. Make them pack light.

The boat seems to whinge and complain at anything brought on board. It mocks me.
The shape of the cupboards means they are awkward to use. Food shopping is frought, everything that comes onboard has to be taken out of its packaging and put into boat specific containers. This highlights the vast amount of over packaging we deal with daily when emptying four carrier bags of food and immediately have one full carrier bag of rubbish (recycling) to go straight back out. .

"so you want to put that large bag of crisps in there do you? Fine, they're light enough, but you won't be able to close the door"

How many pairs of jeans? They're heavy, how about jeggings? Make sure you roll them really small otherwise the door wont shut. Thick cotton shirts? Let's just have long sleeve t-shirts and throw a short sleeve shirt over the top. That way you can survive with fewer space consuming shirts on hangers.

"you're gonna need some smaller hangers, this cupboard is meant for pigmies with narrow shoulders."

Don't forget to roll those t-shirts nice and small, otherwise the door wont shut
One coat, not six. One pair of boots, not three. Maxi dress? Ha ha ha. You want jumpers? You can have two, and make sure you roll them small, otherwise the door wont shut.

a bonus is that people think you dress kinda kooky and edgy, without realising that it's borne out of lack of options.

It becomes very apparent, very quickly that a yachts performance is effected enormously by the weight it has to carry and how it's distributed.
The wardrobe is on a strict one in, one out rule. Everything is counted, itemised, audited. 

I never thought I'd be saying that I audit my wardrobe.

In the galley, that glass jug and earthenware you've always moved from house to house, suddenly seems to weigh the same as a baby elephant and despite being aesthetically pleasing, it is now coming between you and that extra 0.002 of a knot you so desperately seek when sailing.

plastic straight sided jug with attachable lid is very light and practical. Glass jug = baby elephant.

Weigh your dog. Unless you're going to train it to ride the rail and hike to maximise the moveable ballast weight, then trade that heavyweight Labrador/Doberman/Alsatian in for a 3kg compact version.

 You'll find yourself perusing the plastic summer season picnic section at the supermarket, with a tape measure, to ensure any glass to plastic replacement isn't more than X high and X wide with straight sides so that other lightweight plastic things can be stacked inside it to save space.
  Glass coffee jars? They're a just a plain liability, a plastic coffee receptacle is required. Sugar in a glass sugar jar? You're kidding right? That's slowing you down by at least 0.000001knot.
Actual glass wine glasses? Ok, I'm not a barbarian, I saved a couple of those for shore based quaffing, but otherwise all glasses are being replaced with plastic.  I'm still seeking plastic replacements for shot glasses. (friends/family - a gift idea, it passes the eat/drink/drop test)
Over the years I have acquired six different mugs (all of them pottery type), that's SIX! I don't even drink hot drinks and I've never had more than four people on the boat. Clearly there is still work to be done.

6 pottery mugs, hardly ever used. Plastic rules the drinks cupboard.

Anything that looks pretty is usually a liability. You'll find yourself browsing the shelves of kitchenware in various stores and giving it the little nail tap on the side to check if it's glass or plastic and swiftly eschewing  anything that goes with a ting or ring, preferring instead a dull clack or thud.

hand painted bowls from Istanbul, pretty but fragile, not very heavy though. They've survived the past 4.5 years amazingly.
It's hard to have too many bowls on a boat, they're more practical than plates.

Almost my entire book collection lives on this

Kindle

All of my music lives on a hard drive and a couple of MP3 players that plug directly into the stereo, films are gradually being moved from dvd to hard drive. Very little excess baggage lives on the boat. But I have every kind of luxury and space/weight saving gadget any sane person could want, and more.  But sometimes there's things that you want to keep, they're useful, but you don't want to live with them.  All of those tools needed for anti fouling or other annual jobs. I've got three sewing machines, but I don't want to carry them all on the boat all of the time.

Seasonal stuff such as thick duvets, electric blankets and winter boots are just dead weight in the summer. I don't want to get rid of them, but I really don't want them on the boat. A family heirloom pottery piggy bank and lead crystal vase? Where in the name of Schtuffingtons should that live?
Where to put spare sails or those pesky doors that I took off to allow the boat to breath?

The answer, is that most people who live on a boat have shore-side storage. Some have a shed.
Some have a shed on wheels (a trailer or horse box). And some of us have a shed on wheels that can be driven.

My van is in effect the other half of my house. It's that, much visited loft space in a house, it's the cupboard under the stairs, it's the shed down the end of the garden, it's the spare box room.

Within its practical cavernous interior my dirty habit of fabric hoarding resides. My entire wardrobe of cycling clothing, my giant larousse french dictionary, my winter coats, a union jack tutu and spare main sail battens, the baby sander, the bucket of car wash and sponges, the games of pictionary and Cluedo sit on a shelf next to some motorbike gloves and a helmet which is right beside my photo studio light stands and a spare diesel jerry can.
It doubles as a changing room, a workshop, a cycle storage and maintenance area.

abandoned for too long, the shed needs a bit of a tidy

My Peugeot Boxer long and high is a mighty tool. But in recent times it's been a troubled thing. It first failed its mot as it needed a bit of welding, nothing major. No problem, "I will just sell the half ton tail lift out of the back and that should raise enough money to get it through" I thought. But whoops, the William Anker who came to remove the taillift, in my absence, chose to rip it out rather than sympathetically remove it. Bolt cropping the electrics he basically disabled the poor Boxer, unbeknown to me, until the time came to try and drive it to an MOT station. I knew I would be in for a tough time when I moved south while the poor van languished in Essex, unloved and undrivable and more importantly, too far away to use as a shed. 

While I've been gadding about on the triangle race and other sailing trippettes here and there as well as working, the van has been towed backwards and forwards around the marina in Essex by friends who were trying to keep it safe for me until I could arrange to move it.

I hired a truck, and went to rescue it. It took a full day. And a curry.

piggyback truckin'

Now I have my "shed" within the same car park as my car, I can finally get to the bottom of the electrical problem and see if I can get it fixed up and road worthy again.

First job, de-clutter six months worth of schtuff accumulation.