Small Boats

Dinghies at Old Leigh, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

As Mies van der Rohe once observed 'less is more', and never was that more true than in boat ownership. Although my avaricious instincts have always pointed me towards a bigger boat, with more berths/facilities/engines/masts/equipment I have often found that enjoying the experience of being on the water is not necessarily a function of waterline length (or price).
The smallest boat I ever owned was the Optimist dinghy that I learned to sail in. The biggest was a 62 foot narrowboat and although the Optimist didn't have a woodburning stove, a bath or a DVD player, it was loads of fun, cost nothing to own and I spent much more time using it than I did painting it, mending it and polishing it (unlike the narrowboat).
I have just sold my cruiser 'Henry' on the Lancaster Canal with the purpose, for once, of downsizing. My new boat is a 16 foot Orkney Longliner. No berths, one engine, two oars.
Which just might be one of my better decisions.
Only time will tell, but predictably I have already started to 'desimplify' the Orkney, by installing an electrical system, polishing the hull, making a cover for the fuel tank...

So even if less is indeed more, small may not be simple. But as Mies van der Rohe also said, 'A chair is a very difficult object. A skyscraper is almost easier. That is why Chippendale is famous.'

Boat on the River Urr

The River Urr in Kippford, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

A few days in Scotland with my camera gave me the chance to visit a number of new venues. And take lots of photographs of the same stuff that I shoot every weekend at home. Boats, water, mountains, piers, beaches, the sky, boats, clouds, and boats.
This particular boat was part of the scene in Kippford (or Scaur) near Dalbeattie when I arrived there on Monday morning. I wasn't sure if she was an Osborne or had been built locally, but as I set up the tripod and clamped the camera to it, a boiler suited bloke came past, and with a surprisingly strong Essex accent said ' You'll have to hurry up and take that before it sinks'.
Always completely incapable of the quick retort, I mumbled something about waiting until low tide and trying again but then noticed the way her waterline disappeared halfway down her length and knew that he was right. She was sinking before my eyes.
Why are so many boats so completely neglected? Why do people buy them and then leave them to their fate? Who can afford to invest thousands of pounds in something and then let it go to wrack and ruin? Is it any of my business?
Probably not, but for what its worth, I was able to take this photo before the boat sank, using a Fuji S2 Pro and a Tokina 12-24 lens with a circular polariser. The camera was set to continuous shooting with a three frame bracket and the image was processed with Photomatix, output as an 8 bit file and then finished off in Photoshop.

Tranquillity.

Tranquillity moored., originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

There are at least eight boats registered with British Waterways with the name 'Tranquillity'. This is one of them, a Norman 23 that I owned a couple of years ago, and the first boat I kept at Bridgehouse Marina on the Lancaster Canal. She was also my first motor cruiser in a while, after having owned yachts for ten years or so.
I remember the day I took this photograph with remarkable clarity (given my inability to remember my own name sometimes).
The canal was mirror flat calm. I had moored about a mile north of Garstang and spent the afternoon fishing, reading the newspaper and listening to the radio. I had forgotten about everything that a few hours before had seemed so important. Work, money, relatives, ill health, cutting the lawn, the onset of senility and decrepit old age all faded into insignificance. It was the sort of day that makes all the downsides of boat ownership like antifouling and mooring fees seem immaterial.
Looking at this photograph brings it all back to me again, so vividly I could still be sitting in the cockpit waiting for the sun to dip below my imaginary yardarm and watching the tip of my float.
In my little world that is what photography and boating are all about.
Tranquillity.