A place of fading dreams

Just down the road from us is in the village of Uphill, a small boatyard on a pill, just by the River Axe which leads directly into the sea. A pill by the way (which gives Uphill its name – originally Uppa’s pill) is a small inlet or harbour, or a little creek or waterway… there is actually a village in Somerset called Pill, on the coast near where the River Avon flows into the sea… Getting back to the pill in Somerset, where there used to be a wharf which was quite significant in its day, there is a boatyard and small marina, where people keep their boats.

My husband loves going down there to draw and paint the boats, and has done over several years and so has noticed boats that come and boats that go, and boats which seem to have been abandoned. We were talking to a friend, another artist, who is going to take a group of her students there, and she was asking about the boatyard, and got into a conversation about the number of wrecks there are mouldering away.

people buy boats for all sorts of reasons; some people, particularly in a seaside village like ours, have always had boats, maybe inheriting one from a parent or grandparent, changing their boats as they want a bigger one, smaller one, faster one, easier one… maybe these people are members of the yacht club which have their clubhouse on stilts on the beach, on stilts so the tide can come in and the yachties can keep drinking and socializing, waiting for the tide to go out so they can go home…

Some people come new to boating, decide to buy a boat and have a great deal of fun and enjoyment. Some people who know nothing about boats come here on holiday, wander round the boatyard, maybe see a boat for sale and fall in love… fall in love with the boat, and fall in love with the dream.

It costs a lot; the boat is expensive, but that is only the beginning. There are the mooring fees – they don’t just sit in the boatyard for free! They have to be maintained, just everyday maintenance and attention which takes time, and actual ‘servicing’ and repairing which takes money. They have to have to be insured – or they should be insured!

Then there is the use of the boat… buying a dream is one thing, being able to get the boat into the water (knowing when the tides are in order to launch it is a good idea) being able to sail out of the pill and into the river and then out into the sea is something quite different. The sea round here – like most sea – is dangerous, mudflats, riptides, unexpected currents, offshore/onshore winds, contending with other water users in other boats – and wind-surfers, and jet-skiers … none of this is as easy as seeing the boat for sale in a shipyard and imagining skimming beautifully and swiftly across the water.

Some boats are bought and never touch the water again; some are bought and disaster happens; some are bought and enjoyed for a few years until circumstances change.

The skeletal remains in the boatyard, the half-repaired ruins, the lonely hulks beneath rotting tarpaulin, these are  forgotten dreams, fading, dying dreams…