The skipper took his first mistress in 1992. She was not the blonde, slim thing that I had been expecting. In fact, when I first saw her, I thought she was sagging a bit round the axils; she was defiantly broad in the beam. He however was clearly besotted and disappeared down her hatch to explore her internal cavities. Only to appear hours later, looking quite exhausted.
For weeks, if not months, there was a lot of banging and groaning, as he spent many hours lubricating her stern gland, and touching up her lovely bottom, which I recall was bright blue. I know it was blue because when he came home he had blue in his hair and I could smell her on him. Believe me the smell of freshly painted anti- foul is not pleasant. I don’t know how effective it really is at deterring barnacles, but it has certainly been effective in deterring the growth of hair ever since.
One afternoon, I noticed the two of them rocking around in the cradle, the banging and groaning having reached a fever pitch of shouting. He had evidently fallen into the cavernous cockpit locker, and the wind had closed the lid behind him. Fortunately I am not taken too much with jealousy otherwise he might have been there for a very long time.
Craning her into the garden had taken out two fence panels, craning her out took out the rest. Putting her onto the trailer obstructed the road. Driving to the slipway caused a very long tailback of irritated traffic. Once at the slipway an excited moment of distraction left the car handbrake off, so both boat and car were successfully launched.
Once afloat, she floundered; unresponsive to the skipper’s tickling of her outboard. Anxious onlookers put out extra fenders. Finally, much to everyone’s relief he was underway, proud and erect at the tiller – master of his mistress.
He had evidently studied the ‘rules of the road’… “Keep to the starboard side of the channel, when leaving port”. Spreaders scraped along the harbour wall. Rigging became entangled with the local angling club’s competition lines.
But the skipper sailed on, in contented oblivion, out into the open sea. He was oblivious of the angry gesticulating fishermen; oblivious of the harbour master, now in hot pursuit.
The latter had thoughtfully retrieved skipper’s tender, which had dissociated itself from the old girl’s stern and was creating a hazard for the incoming yachts. Clearly skipper had yet to master the art of tying knots, but then this was only a mistress!
“Are you heading to your mooring sir? If so, you might be in need of your tender.”
“Tender?”
“Yes sir, and can I suggest that you take urgent avoiding action; you are in the path of the incoming ferry.”
He got very wet from the wash of the incoming ferry. But not as wet as he would have done swimming from his mooring to the shore, had the harbour master not been thoughtful enough to return his tender.

Illustration Guy Venables