This month sees the Southampton International Boat Show, that end-of-summer opportunity for the great pastime of staring at other boats. Some, of course, focus intensely on equipment, not least because…
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Forget good company, give me a crew who can fix the head! – Libby Purves
Kindly, tolerant people don’t usually rate their friends according to how useful they are. If they do it’s not so much a friendship as a networking opportunity, influence-and-patronage. In real…
Does your boat represent freedom or a is it a floating prison? Libby Purves
While listening to a programme on BBC Radio 4, I heard a historian quoting a medieval mystery play. These 14th- century spectacles always had a bit of low comedy alongside…
Why every sailor eventually starts singing to their boat – Libby Purves
During the romantic wedding season, let us muse on the emotional attachments we yachtspeople have, not all of them human. The obvious grand affair of the heart is with the…
Of mildewed Sou’westers and high-vis dreams – Libby Purves
Some evenings, when we’re simply not in a mood for watching a sloppy romance, old sitcoms or the latest modish-sadistic thriller, we indulge in putting on ancient BBC Archive programmes…
Winter jobs and frozen fingers – Libby Purves
Here in Suffolk, on a frosty new year’s morning, a walk across the common always takes me to the river, its fast tides churning and tugging at the row of…
Getting away from it all? How the relentless news cycle follows you even when sailing offshore
A new factor in this modern age of cruising is the relationship between the rolling news cycle and crews at sea. Ashore, news is now a relentless, inescapable 24/7 battering…
‘What is the best thing to do when you enter a new marina? Laundry… yes really!’ – Libby Purves
Ever wonder what a person learns from 57 summers yacht cruising, serving as crew aboard boats from 18 to 50ft and then joint-owning a series of sloops and a ketch,…
‘We tied up our wet boat, with wet ropes, to the wet quay’ – Libby Purves
Shuddering our way through the latest cold front, accompanied by dank spring drizzle, it seems fitting to talk of the glory of dryness. A lot of our sailing, down the…
‘Anything can be the beginning of another boating friendship’ – Libby Purves
Thirty years ago this spring I had my first novel published, Casting Off – apprentice-work, a bit chick-lit at times, but at least it was nautical. Inspired by watching couples…