DO-IT-YOURSELF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

You may have read, elsewhere in this magazine, how Dag Blidback, the Swedish Star racer, lost his Arcona 36, 'Star Dust', in the summer of 1999, when she sank ablaze off Trinidad in the West Indies. The loss adjuster from England having announced that he would not arrive for a further week, Dag decided he had better find a place to rent rather than overtax the hospitality of friends.

On Friday the 13th of August ( an inauspicious date, let's face it) Dag went to see an 'apartment' which was available to rent at a 'resort' near to Chaguaramas Bay, where, three years ago he had rented a clean and decent apartment for around US$ 7.50 per day. The gentleman who took him to see the apartment was confident that Dag would find what he was looking for in the premises he was about to see.

Even before the landlord entered into a pitched battle with the front door, which was jarred against the warped floorboards, Dag had time to notice that curtains would not be necessary since the missing glass of the window panes had been replaced with cardboard.
There was a bed inside the apartment. A comfortable-looking and quite large bed with only one slight drawback, being a deficiency in the leg department, to the tune of one.
Unperturbed and certain that a small pile of novels would resolve any anxiety in that department, Dag strode bravely into the kitchen and hurried smartly out again. Drawing a mental veil over what he had seen in there, he followed the landlord into the bathroom. The shower was of the type which has the heating element in the fixed head on the wall above the tub. Nothing unusual in that except that the bare wires were clearly in evidence and placed to give the maximum element of surprise. Just as Dag was mentally calculating the work involved in fixing the place up a bit, should he decide to take it, including re-wiring the bathroom as a gesture of goodwill, and self-preservation, the landlord mentioned that there was no power to the premises at the moment. Well that would certainly help with the safety factor, Dag thought and, out of idle curiosity, enquired how much the landlord had in mind to charge for the place. Wish we'd been there to see the look on his face when the landlord announced that, as a special favour, he would only charge the equivalent of US$ 66.00 per day!
Needless to say, Dag was delighted, a couple of days later, to be offered a position as captain of the "Snipe" which he accepted with a sigh of relief, not least for the accommodation it afforded!

COMPLAINTS DEPARTMENT

Do you wear glasses? I do and I reckon to get through three to five pairs each year. Why? Simple! They break. No matter how strong-looking the little screws at the hinges drop out and the glasses drop off.
Sod's Law ensures that you are over water when this happens. Hang them around your neck on those stringy things, to avoid losing them and. sure enough you will hear a sickening crunch, as you clasp that sail-bag you had been meaning to stow to your chest and struggle aft with it. Bang goes another pair.
Top pockets on shirts, jackets and t-shirts are an infallible way of losing 'the lights'.
Just lean over a drain; the boat; the dock; a bridge; a waterfall; the Leaning Tower of Pisa and Pouff! Off to the opticians' we go.
I am convinced that the manufacturers of spectacles could, if they wanted, produce glasses that could be stowed on ones' head safely, at an affordable price. 
They ought to hurry, I'm already wondering whether sunglasses come in the form of contact lenses...just a thought...

Keith 'Robbie' Robinson
Executive Editor of MarineZine