This the time for reflection, reminiscing, re-evaluating and many other words beginning with’, but not the ‘s’ word (although one hopes by the time this hits the newsstands, sailing will have resumed, but I doubt it).
It is self-evident that classic boating can only exist if there are enough classic sailors – a fact recognised by a now-defunct sister magazine, which it would be ungenerous not to reference. For every example of the classic shipwright’s skills requires an owner with the imagination to look beyond the marinas full of plastic, back to a time when yachts were produced one by one, invariably for the wealthier, but no less valid for that.
That is not to say that yachting has ever been, or will ever be, officially designated a vital service, no matter how much we bemoan our isolation and point to the therapeutic benefits of messing about in boats. The world with its awful problems can survive without yachts, let alone classic yachts.
Over the years, writers about ephemera, aka yachting journalists, have had the luck of sailing on any number of craft, classic and otherwise, and with any number of skippers and sailors, classic or otherwise.
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