CAN YOU FATHOM THIS?

Allow me to rock the boat.

I love sail­ing. Age means I need to be mind­ful of what I at­tempt now, but going from A to B – mak­ing pas­sage – using the el­e­ments alone has been an ex­tra­or­di­nary source of ful­fil­ment. Surf­ing waves in a dinghy, the salt spray soak­ing you, feel­ing and read­ing the sea and wind, tak­ing on the sev­enty per cent of the world that is water, or rather dream­ing of doing so, is vital for me. I have sailed from the UK to Nor­mandy re­peat­edly. I know first hand the va­garies and tem­per of the North Sea.

Un­for­tu­nately farm­ing and fee­ble eco­nom­ics mean my savour­ing of the cel­e­brated Cata­lan sail­ing tra­di­tion is lim­ited, but I in­tend to rem­edy that. Be­sides, it is in my bones.

So many cen­turies-old nau­ti­cal terms re­main in com­mon par­lance on the is­land of my youth and in our house­hold; for ex­am­ple, sail­ing too close to the wind (doing some­thing dan­ger­ous or dis­hon­est), bat­ten­ing down the hatches (prepar­ing for storm or dan­ger), loaded to the gun­nels/gun­wales (over­loaded), tak­ing the helm (hav­ing full au­thor­ity/con­trol), broad­side (let­ting rip with a fierce ver­bal at­tack, a turn of phrase from war­ship can­non on one side fir­ing at a rival).

This isn’t a broad­side. It is a per­ti­nent ques­tion. As a log­i­cal beach ac­cess law sounds the death knell for some not-for-profit beach sail­ing clubs I won­der how the for­mula one yacht crews of the Amer­ica’s Cup first took to the water? For sure many started in small crafts as part of a club. How many yachts­men and women of the fu­ture may now never know the pos­si­bil­i­ties of just being in bal­ance with a small boat or plan­ning and mak­ing pas­sages in a yacht?

Some of these clubs have been around for nearly 50 years and many thou­sands of chil­dren have taken to the water for the first time through them.

The in­flex­i­ble Span­ish Coastal Law (Ley de Costas 1988) seeks to give pub­lic ac­cess to the whole length of the coast­line, to de­fend the coast against ero­sion and ex­ces­sive ur­ban­i­sa­tion. No ifs or maybes.

This seems a case of throw­ing the baby out with the bath water.

As for the Amer­ica’s Cup, I con­fess it leaves me cold. It may or may not ben­e­fit Barcelona,q what with the mega money in town and the city’s rep­u­ta­tion for sail­ing com­pe­ti­tions of the high­est order. But I find it nei­ther a great (on­line/TV) spec­ta­cle nor re­lat­able. It is so di­vorced from my ap­pre­ci­a­tion of how sail­ing is and what it looks like. I sus­pect the same is true for the ma­jor­ity of the sail­ing com­mu­nity.

No of­fence, but I ap­pear to be se­ri­ously out of date with those pur­su­ing their Cup dream and those pay­ing for it. Good luck to them. Not my world. I will con­tinue to surf the net for well-cared-for, dream-in­spir­ing, solid older yachts under the €30,000 mark. Or I may just look again at my bank ac­count and set­tle for a day boat.