Perspective

It's hard to keep life in perspective sometimes, particularly when racing Moths is your hobby. It can be all encompassing, and it has been for decades. I can recall a time when winning moth sailors would have laboured over a project in an unheated shed to emerge after six months, newly single and with rickets, but with a fast creation that scooped up the prizes largely by making all other boats redundant.

Today you have to race sailors who are bred to win world championships until the end of time, so given the need to make every second count it was a surprise when I experienced a wonderful evening in my Mach 2 on Tuesday night. I was the only Moth out, like I had been years before, and the harbour was empty. I was pleased that I wasn't too far gone to be reminded of the soulful beauty of foiling and occasionally low riding across the harbour. The only thing that I've still yet to get used to is the "phat" of a failed take off; it still reminds me of a dead pheasant hitting the ground, but other than the round the island race it was the best sail I've had this year.

It was just fabulous actually, I could have stayed out all night and very nearly did. Largely owing to an ebb tide which made France the next stop but it was great to briefly get away from the constant communication that evades our lives, from the very moving Facebook status updates "so and so has to go to work today (boo) but she may take a sicky (te he) but they really need her (lol) to the constant news barrage that modern tools and lack of will power mean I keep constantly abreast of, and of course from blogs like this. I swear one day it will be possible to die from binary exposure.

Mothing takes on many forms, and its "pick me up" ability is never lost on me, but it does come at a price, and that's the price of the boat, but you need to keep that in perspective too, getting married cost more than a Mach 2 and getting divorced costs more than two and you'd need a fleet to pay for the cost of dying.