Not a marquee in sight

Golden Mean and the marriage are blessed during our island wedding reception.

Tell me the spec

Golden mean is a fifty foot, twin engined gaff rigged steel sailing boat. She is the perfect hybrid between sea going yacht and luxury inland waterways barge. Her mast can be lowered without any external assistance and the internally housed lee boards raised -allowing for free transit in water depths of just three feet. With the mast completely down the air draft is a sleek six foot six. These features make her as at home in a waist deep back water as she is surfing down the front of an Atlantic roller in a force eight gale. Her powerful 4.1 litre Ford sabre Diesel engines give her a top speed of 11 knots but can be run in opposite directions for slow and precise manoeuvrability in locks and marinas. Her chined hull lessens the spray into the cockpit at sea but her flat bottom offers maximum accommodation and fresh water capacity inside. She can be safely beached resting comfortably on her twin skegs and flat bottom without any concern of rolling over as the tide recedes. The interior is finished in ash with teak trim throughout. The double glazed portholes and large roof hatches provide a light and elegant feel so often lacking in other boat designs. Golden Mean's well equipped galley has a full size gas cooker, microwave, fridge and washing machine. Sleeping accommodation comprises of a triple cabin forward and a double on the port side. The saloon can be converted to provide two further comfortable beds and lastly the covered cockpit can accommodate two more, making a maximum total of nine. Her tender is also a versatile vessel made from a rugged plastic making it virtually indestructible. This is surrounded by a polyurethane rubber tube radically reducing the likelihood of capsize. She can be raised easily on davits when not in use or gaffed aboard to lessen overall length in marinas. She has a silent electric outboard motor but can also be rowed. Lastly she can be converted to a sailing dingy with a battened performance main sail. Technical information: Overall length: 50 feet Beam: 13 feet 4 inches Weight: 24 tonnes light 27 tonnes heavy Ballast: 4 tonnes of lead ingots Plate steel thickness: Hull 6mm Superstructure 4 mm Sleeping capacity: 5 plus 4 Water holding capacity: 3000 litres Fuel capacity: 1000 litres Water Draft: 9 feet reducing to 2 feet 10 inches Air draft: 60 feet reducing to 6 feet 6 inches. Rig: Gaff main and stay sail plus furling head sail from bow sprit. Also square sail. Sail area: 1150 square feet Winches: 2 hydraulic, 7 self tailing Andersen type and 4 basic type. Anchors; two plough anchors with 180 feet of heavy chain raised hydraulically with manual override. Engines 2X 4.1 Ford Sabre naturally aspirated diesel engines total power 140,000 watts at 2600 RPM via 2:1 reduction gearboxes to two 22 inch three bladed contra rotating bronze propellers. Top speed 11 knots Navigation equipment: GPS, depth sounder, Nav weather forecasting and VHF radio. Generator water cooled and cocooned 240 Volt AC 4.5 KW output, manufactured by Panda Fischer Inverter: 24 Volt to mains with a 1KW output Water and central heating by 5 KW Eberspacher Diesel water heater to radiators throughout with thermostatic radiator valves fitted on each. Hot water and heating can also be provided by 750 Watt immersion heater and a heat exchanger fitted to the Starboard engine. Lastly a 5 KW wood burning stove. Battery charging at 40 amps or 10 Amps for 24 volt batteries and 20 Amps for 12 volt battery. Steering is manual hydraulic with emergency manual override. Incoming 240 Volt shore power via isolation transformer at 16 Amps Written by No.1

To float or not to float?

As we parted company from the A320 a couple of miles South of Staines, we took our first glimpse of the willow flanked lake which was to become home. It felt as though even the Volvo estate we were travelling in breathed a sigh of relief at the escape from the hustle of the Monday morning commuter traffic and the bustle of over exuberant teenagers destined for a day’s stomach lurching at Thorpe Park. Our driver John Currer – the nautical equivalent to an estate agent – warned us; “It’s not everyone’s cup of tea.” Not a great sales pitch, but like most things associated with boats or boating, the pace is slower and the people more chilled out. John was referring to nearly thirty tonnes of painted steel and a considerable portion of a Canadian Douglas fir tree. Golden Mean was – and still is - moored on the hammer head; that is across the end of the T shaped pontoon. The view across the water from her cockpit, now our dining room, is rivalled by the view as you enter the marina where, if you look between two gleaming white cruisers out into the middle of the lake, you will see our mast standing proud. All the more so for the attention it received last Summer. If you tune in to the boating vibe straight away and stop and take in the scene for a moment, you might spot a female swan followed by six cygnets with dad bringing up the rear and checking stragglers. If it’s early May you will see swallows skimming the rooves of boats to dip and pick up insects s from the water’s surface or pied wagtails darting along the pontoon in search of spiders. You might notice that the seven starboard portholes decrease in size from the stern to the bow. A stroke of genius from the designers. If you visit one evening during advent you cannot fail to miss our Christmas lights which run up the two side shrouds and reach nearly to the top of the mast, creating a luminous triangle which reflects in the water. In all honesty the Currers can never have been convinced until the moment of purchase that we were seriously interested in buying Golden Mean. Having been for sale for nearly a year she was probably what lot of would be liveaboards weren’t looking for. Certainly not a young man who can’t see and his girlfriend. They were reluctant to even send us the details when I confessed we did not yet have a residential mooring to put her on. I have often been chastised by No.1 for nearly not reading out the advertisement in Waterways World magazine. My justification that GM was too small and too much a sailing barge to be a comfortable home. We were looking for something longer; a widebeam cruiser (like two narrowboats side by side), without all that ropes and rigging to complicate our life. Something with pot plants on the roof and caravan windows. Then of course there was the niggling worry that my husband might actually want us to SAIL her. We had seen such craft at an inland waterways boat show where the idea of living on a boat first took hold. At that stage I was quite simply encouraging my boyfriend with his surprising consent to ditch our respective flatshares and move in together. If he wanted to do this in a boat – who was I to argue? It sounded fun and the alternativeness of it appealed to me. We had both flirted with dinghy sailing and I had been dragged along on friend’s boats but I can’t say a real passion for boating had showed itself at this point in my life. As we supped our flasked coffee en route to the boat show in Lincolnshire I frankly wondered what the hell I was doing. The week before No.1 had suffered a major setback in his plan to lure me onto the river, as it were. We had visited a friend of his on a narrow boat on the Regent’s Canal in North London. The graffiti on the walls of the buildings on the other side of the canal and the badly maintained walkways that could hardly be described as pontoons did nothing to enhance my rapidly forming opinion that living on a boat was indeed cramped, damp and smelly. The idea that my darling No.1 would be tap tapping his way with his white stick over a few rickety planks during the twilight to this heap of floating junk left me cold. On top of that his friend’s boiler system had broken down, she was literally up to her armpits in grease and oil in her cold and rocky little boat and didn’t even invite us in for a cup of tea. You must be mad, No.1! Fortunately there was little chink in my armour and we got to the boat show and No.1 renewed my enthusiasm by showing me a wide, light, comfortable and brand spanking new widebeam barge, that didn’t rock when you got on it and offered more than respectable passing space in the corridor. Instantly my nesting instinct kicked in and I began to really understand the attraction of this floating home. The barge lacked nothing in terms of home comforts and was just about affordable. We had not yet found a widebeam barge for sale of around 60 feet in length when I nearly skimmed over the ad for Golden Mean. Fifty feet long and although the roof was flat enough for pot plants it was covered in sailing gear. As someone in a lock once shouted out, “You’ve got your firewood with you then!” Despite my reservations, my conscience got the better of me and I read out the ad. I remember we were sitting in St. James’s Park eating grapes and listening to Big Ben. I had been for a job interview in Trafalgar square and then traipsed to four different newsagents in uncomfortable shoes trying find a copy of Waterways World which allegedly held all the best advertisements for residential craft for sale. It’s no coincidence that the etymology of ‘Golden Mean’ is all to do with proportion, balance and compromise (as well as all sorts of complicated mathematical sequences). For us, she is the perfect compromise between comfortable living and practical boating. Big enough to house our now increased family of four and a dog and small enough for me to manoeuvre through locks and low bridges on the Thames. We didn’t look at any other boats because as soon as we saw Golden Mean we knew she most definitely was our cup of tea. When I was musing how to start this article I told No.1 the title and he asked me if I was writing about why we decided to live on a boat or why we have stayed on it. The latter should probably be portrayed in another article but in order to conclude this I will try to summarise briefly, which is difficult when there is so much to say. We have lived on board for five years and every time we walk down the pontoon it feels like we are setting off on holiday. I have heard other liveaboards say the same. Some people liken it to the close-to-nature feel of camping (if you like camping) but with boating you take all the comforts of home with you too. The cygnets, swallows and pied wagtails appear every year and sometimes the ducks come onto the boat to feed by hand. I love the sound of the geese at dusk and dawn. Whenever we want a different view we can up anchor and moor on an island, a towpath or in town. We had Christmas lunch for ten on board with all the trimmings. And we cruised down the river for it. I will never forget the looks of the post-lunch walkers on the towpath when they passed us at 3pm and we were all standing around the table in the cockpit for the queen’s speech. We have spent weeks on islands in the middle of the Thames including our wedding reception and our children’s baptisms. We regularly swim in the river and the boat is our diving board. On my birthday one November we headed to a local pub on the river a couple of miles upstream in the dark and freezing fog. There was ice on the walkway before we left. We picked up a friend and his aging mother via dinghy on the way and we had to anchor in the middle of the river waiting whilst our friend finished his bath. It was so dark and so foggy I couldn’t see the end of the lock. We had several family members and friends on board, the hearty were on the bow looking out and the rest downstairs with the wood burning stove roaring. When our children are old enough to crew we will take our home through the canals of France and into the Med and we consider this true freedom. Our everyday lives are extraordinary and memorable and this is why we stay on a boat.

The Captain

Sails and spiders

Way back then when we were still finding secret compartments under the floor and enchantment at the back of the wardrobe, we discovered a leak. Being the experienced seadogs our neighbours at the marina are, and given that we share a tap located outside their saloon window, they had noted the frequency with which we communed with the hose and had privately asked one another;

"Are they filling the boat?"

(The hull as opposed to the water tanks).

As it happens we were. We spent an aggravated weekend trying to pull 1150 square feet of sodden canvas (our mainsail) out through a small gap under the floorboards in the saloon. This is not an activity that you will find listed on my 'Top 10 fun activities to do on a boat' posting.

The same neighbour later remarked that spiders are the sign of a dry boat. This being a sore point at the time. Pied wagtails eat spiders. You will understand why we were pleased to welcome this one as a regular visitor.

The Captain

Life with Magic

Having extolled the virtues of the white stick I promptly disposed of it and got a dog. The way I describe that move makes it sound quick and simple. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the time it took between filling out the first form and getting the dog we managed to produce two children. Getting a guide dog takes an extraordinarily long time but on the 6th of November 2007 we finally got to meet Magic, a black lab retriever cross aged 18 months. The first thing he did was sit on my lap - much to the horror of the trainer - and he has been a lap dog ever since. Having met him for the first time I promptly had to say goodbye whilst preparations were made for the two week residential training course where I would learn with three others how to use a guide dog. The slightly annoying perception is that us blind people hang on the handle and the dog finds his way to what ever destination we whisper in his ear at the start of the journey. The Brits love animals and they especially love the idea of a magic dog that can sort out travel arrangements and take in the tube map at a glance. I’ve even been asked how they teach a dog to read signs! If you are one of those that foster Disney type animal fantasies then stop reading now as they are about to be destroyed. The truth is that Magic wouldn’t get down the pontoon on his own before being distracted by goose poo and the ducklings. I wouldn’t get very far either but together we make an excellent team. Getting that partnership to work well is the aim of the training course and all trips ever after. It was a rollercoaster ride for everyone and there were a few tears shed along the way. For the families it’s a big change too. Getting the dog is similar to seeing the white stick in use for the first time with all the stigmas and connotations that go with it. Seeing a member of your family with a harnessed up guide dog can be quite a shock which undoubtedly takes time to adjust to. The fact that there is a cute dog on the end does help - a dynamic that the stick lacks - but there is no getting away from the realisation that one has started down the road of the “really blind.” Residual sight can be a problem when using a guide dog as there is a tendency to override the dog's responsibilities which basically consists of avoiding obstacles whilst working to the next kerb. The decisions about when to cross the road and where we are going remain down to me so no, the dog does not go when the green man flashes. I was once asked, do you trust Magic completely?” My answer was “No.” I do trust him but in a realistic way. He is still a dog and can be distracted at any time by a multitude of things and it’s knowing what to do with limited information that’s the real skill in using a dog. He may be taking an alternative route to avoid roadworks that have sprung up overnight or he might be swerving to grab that banana skin that someone has left on the pavement. Being able to tell the difference takes time but is certainly achievable. Avoiding obstacles is not to be made light of though and the dog does it so much better than a stick. A dog will weave through the crowds on Oxford street in a way that is unimaginable with a stick and far better than a human guide. Working from point to point across a wide open space such as a field or station concourse is made fluid and a pleasure rather than a frustrating battle. At home Magic is a wonderful dog to have around and has readily taken to life aboard, soaking up the sun in the cockpit or sitting right up at the bow as we travel up river with the wind blowing his ears out like two little wings. He was chosen as a dog that wouldn’t be distracted by the abundant bird life we enjoy here . We interrupted two swans mating right in the middle of our path and he hardly checked his speed. The swans on the other hand issued forth hisses like steam escaping from a boiler ready to explode and scrambled down the bank into the water. We recently noticed the same pair with six little cygnets. So, life goes on with magic for us and it seems so for the swans as well. T

Good to see you

Since moving to London I have become aware of a commonly voiced viewpoint amongst Londoners viewing themselves as a pretty unfriendly and generally miserable lot (especially in the mornings on the tube). However my experience is somewhat different. What, you may ask could, possibly make me think of the commuting public as anything other than at best a tolerable inconvenience and at worst a hostile mob intent on making my life a misery? Four interlocking pieces of aluminium held together by a piece of elastic running through their senders and spray painted white. A symbol cane used by the visually impaired. That is the difference, and what a difference it is. I never cease to be amazed at the generosity and depth of feeling this stick seems to invoke. At the age of 21 I was diagnosed with Retinitous Pigmentosa; a degenerative eye disease. I was looking down a road outside my university hall of residence, at a girl in fact, when a red Ford Fiesta drove by. I was more interested in the female than the Ford and so kept my gaze fixed. As the car drove down the hill it seemed to disappear. At this point I would normally have shifted my vision and relocated the car and as such thought no more of it, however in this case the girl retained my attention. Less than a second later the car climbing the hill further on came back into view. I turned to my friend who was also looking at this fantastically beautiful girl, “Dave, did you see that car?” “What are you talking about?” he said, looking at me incredulously. The girl by this point was disappearing out of sight. “You saw the girl?” “Yes, of course I did.” I explained that as I was looking at her the car came by, went down the hill, sort of vanished and then came back into view up the other side. I then asked, “Does this ever happen to you?” I will never forget the moment as he turned to me and said, “That’s not normal; you should get that checked out.” As they say, the rest is history. I am sometimes asked, if there was a button that could be pressed in order to restore my sight, would I push it? The motivations for asking such a question I find interesting. Somewhere along the line doubt has been introduced. Perhaps it is an ungraspable carrot dangled in order to test my conviction and reassure them that that disability is doable, or not. It’s a win win situation for the physiologically normal questioner. When I answer this type of question in the negative, I experience a sense that I am performing some kind of public service. The anxieties experienced by people regarding disability seem akin to fears regarding our own mortality. It’s as if I have in some way partially died and as such am in a position to provide reassurance. Sometimes I’m not interested in entering into this intellectual web and simply wish to carry on with life as normal. And there we have it again, that word; normal. The simple truth is that there is no normal. Attempts to kid oneself that one has a right to certain expectations in life will invariably but ultimately lead to disappointment. Be it retention of the present or expectations of the future, both are subject to change -however uncomfortable this makes one feel - but the resulting realities are completely valid and totally legitimate. So long live abnormality, it’s a truly liberating insight, to have the confidence to accept oneself as we find ourselves and allow others to do the same. This sort of mutual respect is, I believe, based on genuine love and is an appropriate way to commune with others. This attitude is ultimately based on a conviction that I am no better than anyone else. This may be interpreted by the cynic as an optimistic yet unconvincing way of saying that I as a disabled person am no worse than anyone else. This sort of response is understandably very common. How many times I have heard my life being referred to as a tragedy, or simply overheard the heart felt comment, “…that’s just so sad.” I’m not suggesting that blindness is some kind of party that everyone should attend but I do challenge the assumption that it should be viewed entirely negatively. The white stick seems to be the ultimate ice breaker. Let me describe a real interaction. I choose this one as it is fairly typical whilst remaining entertaining. I was waiting for a tram (yes we do have trams these days), at Merton Park Tram stop. As I walked onto the platform I noticed a woman on her own. It was just starting to get dark on an Autumnal evening in November. I continued to walk towards her aware that she would have by this time have noticed the stick and be telling herself that this bloke walking towards her is not a threat and in fact may be in need of assistance. I sat down next to her. I breathed in, sat back and prepared myself for a wait. How long I did not know and as I wasn’t in a rush I didn’t much care. She touched my arm as if to maximise her chances of making contact with this unknown quantity, “The next tram is in four minutes,” she said nervously. “Thanks,” I said appreciatively, turning to her and giving her a smile. “How’s your day been?” And then we were off. She had had a fairly awful day. She seemed fairly confused about the way life was panning out for her. She seemed to be questioning the validity of her limited interaction with the world and whether she should feel bad not being particularly interested in geo politics or anything else outside of her immediate life. My response was characteristically affirmative explaining that a disinterest in politics did not mean that she was of less value than anyone else and that concern regarding her family and immediate environment was indeed commendable. The tram then arrived and this conversation continued for the next four stops. As we pulled in she said “This is where I normally get off.” As the doors opened she turned to go but hesitated. She turned back, approached me again and gave me a big kiss, then skipped off into the darkening gloom. 1st Officer

Is it cold in the Winter?

Frequently asked questions. The title for another posting, perhaps? Anyone that's made a life choice outside of the norm will have mentally compiled answers to questions ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. Very rarely do we get an original question. Our answers are tempered by our temper. If we are in a good mental space we try to be polite. Sometimes our family tell us we are chippy, but they probably don't see so much of the polite. Privately, we discuss possible - and convincing - answers to these questions but I suspect these well formulated answers are more likely to appear on this blog than pop out of my mouth when I'm being barraged.

I was once asked, "Is it windy in your boat?" that was an extreme. The poser of the question was Irish, I've never been to Ireland and she has never been on our boat. Perhaps Ireland is particularly windy? Since we live on a sailing barge it's quite useful if there is wind OUTSIDE the boat. It can also be pleasant to have a cool breeze wafting through the saloon on a hot Summer's day. Easily achieved by opening one of our roof hatches (sky-lights, you land lubbers). Or the door.

The most popular question we get asked, is "Is it cold in the Winter?". I wish I had the courage to ask if your house is cold in the Winter, but as I said I generally try to be polite. Despite global warming's best attempts at warming up our island, after five years living on a sailing barge in the UK I think I would have weighed anchor and set myself adrift from the live aboard scene by now if we didn't have central heating.

A bit like when I was pregnant people kept saying "Do you know what you're having?". Since we did but we weren't telling (as my Mum put it) we were perhaps a little defensive but I think I only once let slip "a baby".

I do have some sympathy for the askers of these frequent questions though. We had a boat on our pontoon a few years ago that we called 'the pirate ship'. It was an ancient sailing barge that had had it's steel hull re-covered by another hull a few years ago because it was in such bad repair. Inside was cramped, damp, smelly and lacking in any home comforts. The woodwork was mouldy and dark. You couldn't go to the loo without first entering and exiting the foreward cabin and you certainly couldn't pass in the corridor even if you were on intimate terms.

Happily, our ship is none of these things but I forgive you asking the sublime and even the ridiculous questions. I hope this blog will go some way to inspire and inform you of the unquestionable delights (and disasters) of a family of five (including the dog) living on board.

We also have a woodburning stove. It can sometimes be too hot in the Winter.

The Captain