Stories

What better way to maximise your investment than to live and work aboard your boat. Colin Jones explains . . .

Working while cruising is now so simple that I am surprised more people don’t do it. After all, there is no better way to maximise your marine investment than by spending not just your free time on board but also your working day - and it has never been easier to make that happen. Boats and modern communications can give you the freedom to enjoy the fun of driving the boat, visiting some great places and earning a bob or two as you go. I know because, as a marine journalist, I have been doing just that for 20 years.

In that time, working away from home has undergone many changes. Doing it from the boat is no longer that much different from flexi-time or home office work. A number of our acquaintances who would like to live, work and play in places like Dartmouth, but cannot afford the piratical property prices in such areas, put their boats there and use them as often as possible - not just as a boat but as a sort of floating caravan. It becomes a base from which they can carry out a local job. Others use the boat as a ‘studio’, where they do the occasional work stint but the most advanced owners are able to use the boat as a completely self-sustaining (even profit making) live-in house and office.

To read more pick up a copy of the August issue of Sports Boat and RIB magazine or subscribe today.

In light of advancing technology, Sam Jefferson considers the RYA’s revised standpoint on the use of flares at sea.

As the organisation that styles itself ‘the governing body of boating’, the RYA is always going to have its detractors, but it remains pretty useful when it comes to handing out advice on boating matters. And I’m not talking about knee-jerk ‘common sense’ but the kind of advice that takes an age of chin-stroking and beard-tugging before a properly considered opinion emerges. Naturally, most of us just want to get out there and enjoy the water, but the RYA is fully prepared to settle back in its chair at very great length until the right answer is found - and it’s just as well too. After all, RYA courses have defined our safety standards for years so when it embraces a fresh direction, you need to sit up and take notice. Just such a re-think has now occurred with regards to the carriage and use of flares . . .

To read more pick up a copy of the August issue of Sports Boat and RIB magazine or subscribe today.

After a good day at sea, no sight is more welcoming than a comfortable mooring, a hearty meal, a decent drink and a bed for the night. Adrian Porter heads off in search of the best boating havens Britain has to offer . . .

1 - Bucklers Hard: Oasis of calm
If you’ve ever cruised the Solent, you will appreciate just how busy it can be. Granted, it’s never exactly gridlock by landlubber standards, but there are an awful lot of boats packed into a relatively small stretch of water. So when the time comes to make port and you need somewhere to unwind, start plotting a course for the Beaulieu River and Bucklers Hard. Despite a relatively shallow entrance, once you’re ambling up the river, enthralled at the lush greenery and picture of calm unfolding around you, you’ll realise it was worth the effort. After just two and half miles of therapeutic wanderings, you will come across Agamemnon Yard at the historic Bucklers Hard with a very large marina.
English eccentricities
A few minutes walk from the marina is the main area of Bucklers Hard - two rows of houses which contain within them a local shop, a waxworks and the wonderfully eccentric Master Builder’s pub, restaurant and hotel. The Master Builder’s is a delightfully strange mix. The main drinking bar is as you would hope - real ales (try the Ringwood Best), log fire, beamed ceilings and traditional décor. They also have an array of Godminster vodkas, including their peculiar horseradish vodka, which apparently makes a hell of a Bloody Mary. Move through to the restaurant and you find fine dining and a very different atmosphere to the bar.
The accommodation is divided into ‘nice’ and ‘very nice’ tariffs. Weekend rates are often the most pricey. Two nights cost between £240 and £320 but do include breakfast per person (based on two staying), though paying a bit extra (£340-£440) will also get you dinner. Your kids will cost £15 each at all times, though there is a maximum allowance of two.

To read more pick up a copy of the August issue of Sports Boat and RIB magazine or subscribe today.

As we charge headlong into the second half of the 2010 season, sophisticated gadgets dripping from our every toggle, Tom Isitt thinks it’s time we stopped to appreciate just how much our boating world has changed in the last decade.

“Best of The Noughties? Hah! When I was a boy, all this was fields you know (waves in the general direction of Southampton Water). And now look.”
Yes, this was my ‘curmudgeonly old git’ response when the Editor suggested a nostalgic look back at the period of time between January 2000 and December 2009 - the Noughties, as they are known in the vernacular.
“Yes, yes,” insisted the Editor, eager to curate my memories of the past decade before the Alzheimer’s gets too firm a grip. “We want to know about the good, the bad and the ugly of the Noughties.”
“What, like Arsenal doing The Double in 2002?”
A small vein in the Editor’s temple starts to throb visibly. “Er, well, no. Not like that. I was thinking more along the lines of advances in boating technology, great boats that have been launched, people who have had an impact on our favourite pastime. That sort of thing.”
And thus it falls to me to celebrate with ill-advised vehemence some of the moments from the last ten years that have been particularly critical to our lives as UK boaters. I am fully prepared to take the brunt of whatever debate this ‘inspires’ and to quit my job should it all become too much.

To read more pick up a copy of the August issue of Sports Boat and RIB magazine or subscribe today.