Ugly, bottom heavy and hairless

I focussed on ugliness in ships today.  Sometimes you are struck by ugliness right between the eyes.  It feels like a hard slap across the face.  Malta has so many beautiful places and backdrops ugliness stands out even more horrifically.  There is nothing like light and beauty to make the darkness and shadows evident.  I am not an expert sailor I hasten to add.  My purchase when I got my first paycheck, as an assistant engineer in Plessey, Cowes was to buy a sailing dinghy.  It was a small topper and it fairly flew across the water despite my appalling sailing skills.  

I always turned it over when trying to change tack with the wind behind me.  I got used to the unpredictable nature of my sailing skills but once a friend was heavily traumatised by my frequent capsizing. They abandoned ship and swam to the nearest shore and never came sailing again.  I enjoyed the excitement and was prepared to put up with the disasters.  I learned to appreciate beautiful yachts in Cowes, there were so many around you got fussy about small details.  The lines should be smooth, pleasing to the eye, she should be balanced not top heavy or bottom heavy.  There needs to be a symmetry.  Hard to put into words but you know it when you see it.  So this morning I walked along the sea front in Malta and recorded all the ugly boats I could find against this most beautiful coastline.  I was shocked how many there were.  The first was this fat assed top heavy cow of a boat.

Note the fat bottom and the grotesque top.  It has a huge caravan stuck on an ugly fat shapeless bottom.  Someone made this.  That person had no sense of beauty or balance.  The main thought was obviously, buy a cheap boat and then have a room you can stand in on top, never mind the looks.  At times, things can be even worse.  You can start out with a stunning yacht which has been butchered beyond belief.  Here it is and it is a crime against beauty.

Some brute has added a huge white chimney to it!  They have stuck a monstrous deformed nose on a masterpiece.  A case of plastic surgery gone wrong.  Was it a genuine mistake or done with cruel intent?  Then, there are the plain.  No beauty, or ugliness just nothing much to look at.

But plainness is mile above the abused beauty of the next one I came across.

It is a stark reminder of how all of us would look if subjected to appalling treatment over a long period.  Not seaworthy and all ugly and deformed.  You cannot help trying to work out how beautiful this boat once was.  While walking around and feeling sorry for these abused forgotten ones I spotted a neglected beauty still radiant despite the neglect.  Couldn't get a good photo as she was behind a wire fence and had been here decades rotting away.  But the lines and the shape was superb. You could imagine her cutting through the water, stern kissing the water.  If her wood was repaired, sanded and polished it would be breath taking to see the result.

The sun was behind me and I had no room to get a good picture and could only take her in parts.

The more I looked the more I wanted to be the one who restored her.  Such a shame to see this beauty imprisoned here.

A lovely deep keel and nice lines.

The grass is so high it almost reaches the decks.

I am frustrated I cannot take a clear shot of this old beauty.  These shots do not do her justice, you would need to see her face to face. Reluctantly, I leave unable to do her justice but wanting to come back with a sander and start restoration work.  Walking back towards home I see a yacht in great shape that comes and goes bringing tourists around the island.  But, she is is always under motor instead of ever having her sails up.  Knowing how beautiful she would be under sail, it feels sad never to see her move with the wind as she should.

I would love to see her sails aloft and silent as she glides past.  I found this old shot of her, online.

Now, that's more like it. Note how the sails are like hair they become a sailing ship's crowning beauty, bringing extra balance and pleasure to the eye.  Here is another lovely one, sails all out catching the wind and the sun.  Beauty is certainly a therapy for the mind and soul.