The Fall Back
A strong enough economy will likely continue to supply the things we need for the good life we’ve grown used to. But if it doesn’t, small boat skippers can fall back.
By Richard Smith
During the Depression years, I remember dad talking about how we might have to fall back if things got really bad. What he meant was that we might have to live very cheaply for a while until the economic climate improved—until he could find work. Things did improve eventually but it took a while. I grew up with the feeling that everything could disappear overnight and that we might have to fall back for a while.
And that’s where the boat comes in. Sailboat skippers get used to the idea that sooner or later something will fail. We know that nothing lasts forever and it’s not supposed to. I can’t fix the economy but I can fix most of what goes wrong with my boat. If I can’t, a friend can usually lend a hand. I get uncomfortable if something breaks and I don’t know how to fix it. Generally, that’s why I think it’s a good idea to keep things as simple as possible.
A few thousand years of sailing small boats around big oceans has produced a tradition of improvisation—of making do. Good seamanship springs more from necessity than a credit card. I can get my boat looking good any Saturday afternoon without spending a dime. I can look after the engine and usually get it running better. I can tweak the rigging. I can turn the halyards end for end, re-varnish the companionway slides and scrub the toerail. It feels good. It fortifies me against simmering thoughts of economic gloom and doom and I feel a certain self confidence, deserved or not. The boat is something that can never be taken away. Never. If it can, it’s too big. Or too new.
In hard times, the luxury of a secure marina berth may become unaffordable. The haul-outs and even a diver to go down in the spring to clean up the bottom and replace zincs may be out of the picture. I may have to learn to do that myself. The special trailer and the big pick-up to tow her may have to go. We may have to live aboard for a while—in harbors and secluded bays with good mud bottoms where the boat can be laid over on her side between tides. We may have to fall back to that.
The dinghy would come into her own then, vital to a life at anchor. We’d have to think carefully about a harbor that old Scout would approve of, a hundred yards or so, no more —not with his dodgy bladder—from a good beach. We’d land on a sand bar at low tide, a log-strewn shore at high. The dinghy would take us out to the deep rocks to jig for cod or Cabazon. We could pick mussels, dig Littlenecks and steam them in a little white wine. We’ve harvested supper from the tide pools at Turn Island and ate sea lettuce salad with what came up with the anchor off Penrose Point. We’ve spent nights within sight of apple trees and fields of blackberries. We slept well.
It’s all in the mind, of course—the place to fall back to if times get hard. Probably they won’t. The stock market will fall and rise again, fall and rise, jobs will be harder and then easier to get, houses will be more or less affordable. A strong enough economy will likely continue to supply the things we need for the good life we’ve grown used to. But if it doesn’t, small boat skippers can fall back.
It’s all in the mind, of course—the place to fall back to if times get hard. Probably they won’t. The stock market will fall and rise again, fall and rise, jobs will be harder and then easier to get, houses will be more or less affordable. A strong enough economy will likely continue to supply the things we need for the good life we’ve grown used to. But if it doesn’t, small boat skippers can fall back.
Our ability to spend days sailing to nights in quiet anchorages—for days or weeks on end—is proof that we’re not ruled by convention or fear of failure. We’re not dominated by a dependency upon others and forces we may not understand. We can maintain a connection with the tradition of independence and resourcefulness that’s always been a part of life with small craft. A boat provides the adventure we seek but it’s also like a house trailer in the back yard, a garden shed or a tree house. It’s a home away from home—a place to collect our thoughts just outside the well worn routine of everyday life. A boat provides extra proof, if we need it, that we’re able to meet whatever threatens the comfort and ease of the good lives we’ve chosen. •SCA•
Richard Smith has built and restored a variety of boats including several dinghies, a Whitehall and an 18-foot sailboat. He has sailed in both Puget Sound and England where he built and lived aboard a thirty-foot steel cutter in Liverpool where he taught architecture and cruised in the Irish Sea.
As appeared in issue #64
I’ve lived the adage, “a boat is an insurance policy for when all hell breaks loose on shore,” for the life of a sailor by nature, is about attaining skills of sustainability.
My parents (sailors) taught me that!
Yes, I know this thought process well - my retirement may depend on it. But that doesn't and can't take away the joy and adventure of sailing that puts it number one on our low budget priority list!