Ugly Boat?

Motor Boats Monthly have been running an Ugly Boat competition for some time now. The picture shows a typical candidate recently spotted in a local estuary.

There are many home-built boats which can be found tucked away and many of these are the object of ridicule. Spare a thought though for the owners of these boats. The important thing is being out on the water, not showing off the latest lump of white plastic. The chances are that the people who own these boats can afford to run them and owe absolutely nothing on them. They will have had the satisfaction of building them from scratch and they will know how every last bit of them works.

Many years ago I built one of these ugly boats. It looked like a garden shed floating around Lake Windermere.  It leaked both from above and from below,was made fom hopelessly inappropriate materials and the local boat owners nicknamed it '3 bi 2' (that's 3 by 2 said in a northern accent).

I also owned a little yellow speed boat that cost a whopping £350.  It had a smokey two-stroke engine and broke down more times than it ran.

I have fond memories of my two (young at the time) children enjoying the adventure of floating around on that ugly boat, and to this day, I cannot say that I have enjoyed my time on the water as much as I did then. So next time you look down from the Flybridge of your luxury cruiser at the ugly boat, just remember - they are probably having a much better (and cheaper) time than the rest of us.