Stop bitching you moany old twat

I think I will keep a running commentary for you this weekend.  I have told both boats now that I will take the weekend to think about it and let them both know on Monday.

It sounds like a real dream situation doesn’t it?  Two jobs that if they came along at different times I would drop whatever I was doing and take them.  Problem is, they are both here right now, while speaking to boat 1 for the first time this week, my phone rang with the captain of boat 2.  Both need me to fly out on the 15th of December, immediately after finishing my course updates.

Mince Pie Queen Shazza suggests a flip of a coin – maybe that is the solution and I should stop fretting. Mr. D M A Hewson suggests chasing the sailing boat with the Millionaire female owner.  Curious that one – so I did a little checking.  Seems the female owner of the sailing yacht is the estranged wife of one of the Google billionaires.  In addition to that, she wasn’t bad looking either!!!

First email I read this morning was from Boat 2.  Captain was telling me that they have some more ‘wriggle room’ to negotiate with.  Damn, that didn’t help at all.  I decided to be honest with him and told him that I do not want to get into a ‘to and fro’ battle with him and boat 1 but it might be a good idea if he gave me his best case scenario as a final offer.

Honesty is always the best policy.  I didn’t tell him that he was NOT my favourite this morning though.  There are a couple of down points to the sailing yacht you see.  This morning, after sleeping on board last night, in a bed too short for me and equally too narrow, I was glowing at the idea of my own cabin with a better sized bunk.  My back was crooked and I struggled to get moving – the sailing boat will inevitably bring more of that pain.  The other killer decision is the open cockpit.  You may not be able to understand my pain here but open cockpits are good for day sailing, you have absolutely no protection from the elements but can see and hear everything clearly from the helm.

That sounds oh so romantic as you pull into Porto Fino but a 16 day transatlantic crossing can be murder.  Cold, wet and salty with no escape from the elements and not being able to shower due to the excessive angle of lean.

The other side of that coin is this simple fact.  For a boat to find a good engineer, it is tough, real tough.  There are lots of tossers out there, I know, I have taken control of boats from many of them.  To find a good engineer that can also sail a large super yacht across the Atlantic is as easy as finding hens teeth or rocking horse shit or a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.  It is one of the reasons why I stayed on sailing yachts rather than take the easier, more comfortable route of Motor Yachts – I was saving one of those roles for my twilight years.  Right now – I have the pedigree that these people want.

Always in the back of my mind now is me being 47.  Not that age is a problem in my role, the Captain and Engineer are two jobs you should always fill with very experienced people, I do just wonder though how much longer I can keep doing this job.  The answer to that is simple – for as long as I can keep passing my ships medical exams.  Because of that, I do want to pursue my next level of license for one simple fact – when my legs are too unsteady to work at sea I can take a job as a project manager or build engineer with a ship builder .  I will need to have the next license up for that.  All this thinking made me check my qualifying service time last night and surprising to me, I do have enough sea service now to take my next license.

That raises the question, should I blow both boats out and go and study for three months?

Damn it