Everybody loves looking at sailboats.  Even power boaters, as much as they would never admit it.  Pictures of sail boats crossing the sun as it slowly sets on a perfect day.  Seagulls wafting through the air, and a few couples old and new strolling down the beach.  How could you imagine a more beautiful and serene setting.  I have a hard time doing so.  I’ve always loved being around the water, ever since I was a little kid.  Probably something to do with my parents both being from the East coast of Canada, and spending many of my childhood summers in the tiny water surrounded city of Dalhousie New Brunswick.  Even though I grew up in Ontario, we never lived far from the water.  Sarnia, was surrounded by both the St. Clair River, and Lake Huron.  As I grew older, and moved to London, Ontario, I was still only an hour away from two of the Great Lakes.  Lake Huron or Lake Erie.  We spent several summers renting cottages along the Lake Huron shoreline, and not to surprisingly ended up owning a sailboat that we kept in the sleepy town of Bayfield Ontario.  Only an hour from London.

But let me tell you, owning a sailboat is not all smooth sailing.  Yes, bad pun intended.  There is plenty of stuff to deal with when owning a boat.  I’m not an overly hands on kind of guy when it comes to fixing things, and on a sailboat, there is plenty of stuff to fix.  Owning a boat I’ve found out, is just a little different from owning other mechanical devices like cars, appliances, furnaces, homes, and what have you.  Now, this probably more to do with where I keep my boat, but there is not a lot of places around to do work on the boat for you.  Our marina has one boat shop that does mechanical, fiberglass, electrical, rigging, and all that other stuff that goes with owning a boat.  But, the problem is, they’re the only place in town.  There are likely close to 500 boats in town.  Needless to say, it can be tough to get the attention of the local shop.  There’s just too many boaters for them to keep up with.

So, that means the work on your boat either doesn’t get done, or you learn to do it yourself.  In my case, it’s a little bit of both.  There are a few things I’ve done, even though I wasn’t 100% comfortable doing them.  Then there’s a whole bunch of other stuff that either just doesn’t get done because I don’t have the time, it feels like too much for me to do, or it’s not really all that important.  Quite often, I do end up spending time on the boat fixing, repairing, or maintaining things, when what I really should be doing is sailing it, reading a good book on it, or sipping some nice cool boat drinks.

Of all the things on my boat that need fixing, I think that is the most important.  I would be nice to spend all my boating time boating, and not playing Mr Handyman.