How a Nation Rediscovered Sailing
It found local sponsors, secured government tax exemption and led to the purchase of 26 Optimists, subsidized and sourced by the International Optimist Dinghy Association (IODA). Initially the boats were distributed between the Sea Scouts and three …
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Extended Optimist family heading to Melbourne
The Optimist class is reportedly the fastest growing single-handed dinghy class in the world, which is designed for girls and boys aged between 8 to 15 years. “A bathtub that breeds the best sailors” is one description of an Optimist the class proudly …
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Mare Forza Venti Passione in mostra
Croce del Sud, Courageous, La Spina, Eilean, Elsinore, i Dinghy Flash, Mailin, i dragoni, le vele latine ò castaviello e Sant'Anna, Lulù e Sunshine, Hupnotic, Lulworth, Mariquita, Mopi, Moonbeam IV, Orion, Pen Duick, Sirius, Sylvia, The Lady Anne …
Read more on La Repubblica
An Optimist Sailing selected video:
The museum is dedicated to the critical role that ships have played in the course of history and the development of the modern world. The museum is home to dozens of maritime exhibits and more that 250 intricately crafted models from all periods of history. From Egyptian barges and Greek warships to modern submarines, if it floats, there is almost certainly a beautiful scale replica on display here. The delicate models are arranged in groups reflecting periods of history, from the earliest Viking sailing ships to the classic liners of the early part of the last century. We invite you to come aboard and wander our decks into the age of great sails. Come, rediscover our maritime history!
Visit the MyPE YouTube Channel.
A How a Nation Rediscovered Sailing tagged image from photographer – Julian Partridge as published on Flickr.
Mk6 housing solution – The ”crocodile dundee” – and how it aids Julian’s Arrival and Survival
Mk6 housing solution – The ”crocodile dundee” – and how it aids Julian’s Arrival and Survival by Julian Partridge
* He who has the more #populationreach has the greater #opportunity for #J0 happiness.
…
Exciting improvement changes from the Mk5:
* ditched snail/parachute pack: with ultralight sleeping bag and a tight groundsheet/bag enclosure design that format cld still work but it was a clumsy backpacky design in my prototype form, and even with an army harness it wouldn’t hang properly: not cool
* sbag folded and rolled to make it a long and thin roll instead of a bulk
* groundsheet extd to 8ft for more leg room / less wet bedding
* groundsheet now rolled simply over sbag and my inner dry bag of clothes, and tied with its own tethers – makes cool seat as rolled too
* ditched hat/umbrella unit: cld not see to walk and it did not protect trousers from deluge: unlikely ever to make cool either
* ”raincoat” unit now formed of larger flat poncho sheet with separate ”pirate” folded hat, folded together and kept outside bag roll for sudden deluges while still needing to walk – pirate hat doubles as rain catcher for drinking water – poncho makes neat backup ground sheet eg resting by day with roll as pillow
* roll hung with long single shoulder strap slung like a quiver of arrows or croc dundee’s outback bed roll: uber cool – much better to be an evolved snail with detachable shell!
Stick is now purely a stick with handkerchief-style food bag – the old ways r best!! [#TheProfessor now has his own stick and food handkerchief too, tho he still enjoys the use of my stick as his regular transport vehicle!]
Known issues:
* not 12h deluge safe – need to sort wet layout for easy house build and move in when ground already wet and in rain [it poured and drizzled all night and early am last night – bag got wet inside at feet end mainly, kept being woken up by new wetness and the sheet unwrapping exposing me to rain
Future options:
* 2-piece house using poncho as ground sheet and bag roll sheet as roof or reverse
* poss rtn to tube for groundsheet that may be used flat as a sheet or open when inside in rain
* why not a true raincoat fit for 12h deluges that you can wear lying on the ground!?
…
Consider this: A house and a set of clothes are both really my family unit’s ‘Clothing’… As when getting changed on the beach under your towel instead of in a changing hut; or as a houseboat or a yacht is like a raincoat when you are travelling in bad weather. In the same way a car appears to be a kind of a hat! In which case is transportation – a vehicle – clothing too or is it something different and special again!?
…
Slept in a low cliff floral setting last night. Was right by a public footpath – well used by the Shotley locals for dog walking etc: a real no no for tramp peace. But up a slippy mud worn bank was this natural cliff ledge. Not overlooked from above as covered by wild brambles and trees, high and sheer drop looking down over the passers by on the path [you are invisible when above others!] And facing the cliff was Harwich and its wide estuary – no eyes from that aspect either. Only problem: sheer 12 ft climb up muddy bank needed to access the spot. Enter #JBS001 – Julian’s Big Stick.
Used stick to dig in to make footholds to aid your muddy climb and you’ve now made the impossible – or that which was so unattractive to you in your present circumstances as if it were impossible – climb, possible. And now also, miraculously, easy too! #deimpossiblize #easyize
So my stick helped me to transport myself to my new temporary home location for the night.
Stick-less: more productive hours lost walking and searching for alt house soln, almost certainly compromising my #houserichness. With-stick: one significantly better day and night for Julian!
But is my stick, Clothing too!?
…
I’m now thinking that what I am configuring here is a Life Episode solution – ”housing” in this special case – which is a special built configuration assembled from a common kit of elements: a family [me plus Bear last night]; a clothing set [my jeans shoes tshirt… ”bed” ”floor” ”roof” ”walls”], and… a Location Framework, to coin a name for it, the binder making the lot into a usable set-up [cliff pitch… my stick]
With this view, I think transport – my shoes, a car, a yacht, a bus ticket, my stick!! – is a location framework feature whose purpose is to enable me to perform as I desire over my whole space-time allocation. For the evening night and early morning till I move on [8 am as it happened, in the rain but quite happy still!].
Conventionally, Land would be simply viewed the location framework element. And the bricks and slates of your typical one-up-two-down ”house” would be seen as a development of this Land – an ”improvement” over the greenfield state of it, as a landowning economist might think.
And my duffel coat and flipflops? Well they would be my ”clothes” of course – non-housing related fashion goods to the consumerist economist.
And what about my pre 1900 horse!? Well that would be my transport vehicle. Its saddle: an improvement to the barebacked horse, or part of the richer man’s clothing set if you prefer…
Problem with that conventional model is, what is a house when there is no land!? And what is your vehicle when you can’t afford to feed Neddy?? [or to buy a bus ticket if it’s really the year 2014, for instance!?] And what clothing does a homeless man need to afford to be able to survive and live adequately… [whilst looking for work, of course!]
Back to Julian’s stick then…
When I was nicely up on my ledge last night, my stick became a bit in the way – no function required once Julian was settled on his chosen [self-allocated] location…
I now recall, back when on my #mission4jobs, Cooper [that awful man in Vegas who had the unnervingly accurate talent of reading my soul and life history in a single glance, whilst simultaneously and grotesquely spitting all over the social space 360 degrees surrounding him and me in the casino restaurant we had spontaneously dropped in on for our 3am breakfast (he made me pay!)] who’d said I should write a book about my journeys, giving me his title for it. ”Arrival and Survival”, he’d said. You have to know *how to arrive* and *how to survive*, he generously coached me for free. [I recall now too, another of his solomon-like tips for streetwise survival: You just have to let them know you are the *wrong person* to mess with, was what he’d said, about how to deal with any would-be attacker when sleeping rough – Very good advice!!]
Well it seems, in Julian’s little streetwise house-hunting scenario last night, that my stick had a clear function in Cooper’s Arrival Phase of this particular life episode of mine: it made my location *accessible* to me. [I see now by this experience that Accessibility or Affordability (same thing) is a special property particular to an individual in his/her particular circumstances at a particular moment in time – it is not, as the housing planners would want us to have it, an absolute abstract general quality of the structure, for political use as a seal of fitness for purpose]
…
So a vehicle *is* part of a solution kit: it enables the Arrival usage. But it may not be of the conventional wheeled or hulled form. Ie it nay me a rope ladder or a lift or your gated pathway from the public pavement to your own front door. Or a Stick.
But that’s not all! A vehicle may additionally be part of the on-location solution – the Survival part. Eg it may replace fixed portion of owned land – the conventional land allocation for your conventional housing unit – providing a convenient alternative by improving a flow of ‘rented’ spacetime – eg the way having a ticket to ride on the overnight National Express from Victoria to Glasgow makes an apparently static ”bedroom” for the lucky ticket-holding tramp out of the coach’s moving footprint of road space which flows under it at the speed it’s travelling at [for one night at least].
And yet another function of a vehicle is to increase the average speed a person may travel over his location space. This has the effect of improving the power of the solution – the fertility of the land, by analogy – as the occupier is now able to reach far more area than without – a vehicle increases your personal #populationreach in this particular life episode — a major multiplier for growth!
…
So, a general life episode solution is a well formed system that comprises: the family in-need, their clothing set, and their location framework. The latter comprising the family’s unique workable solution of their arrival device, their desirable location, and their on-location vehicle.
And a fit life episode solution is one that optimises a family’s personal #houserichness [land ownership not required]
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I observed myself the other day, when struggling to be nicely organised and efficient and focused, with my latest dwas tool – the i4ca sheet – trying to mentally grapple with the Pressing Issues section… I had ”Nothing to sell!!” as my Most Pressing Issue on the previous week’s sheet and I crossed that out for this weeks ‘Reasonable Plan’ [putting a nagging family issue back there, in its place].
You see, is Julian’s status of unemployment An Issue – a problem to be efforted expediently to minimise [his.. David’s?? suffering!?]. Or is it not. You can’t always keep the Cloak of Doom and Shame on yourself just because you are, obviously, still Economically Unemployed [according to Dave].
Look, everyone! Julian is unemployed! Shame! (and you whisper: must be his own fault – he just doesn’t want to work – **ffin scrounger)
From a project manager’s viewpoint, this schizo way of treating the ”project’s” status is not competent: you have to either externalise the issue and make the project products satisfy that need, or internalise it as some unexpected kind of speedbump to the overall project’s timely completion.
In this case, Julian’s Life Episode Project Manager [ie Julian] is currently efforting the ”unemployedness” state of his local nation, so it makes no sense for him to record another internal issue relating to Julian’s unemployment – you just go round and round in circles if you do that… [tho this is the attitude Julian is faced with whenever he is greeted by the multitude of JCP-related contact workers]. It’s distressing, thinking and treating people like that! Wrong!
The Good Project Manager is a Happy Project Manager – just because the London 2012 Olympics Stadium isn’t finished yet [in the year 2011, say] is no reason for him to go round the project community with a face of torment and scorn!! Is it, David!?
This is the conflict of the unemployed man: you are in a position of inner conflict: both suffering and happy at the same time.
You are Suffering because you are unwaged, unused, unwanted, Unemployed, and they say it’s Your Fault!! You are ”clearly” lazy, doing something ”foolish” and ”dishonest”. A sinner!
Or is it OK to be Happy!? Yes, clearly, you are still presently unused or underused – *unneeded* right this minute – but that doesn’t make you worthless!! In most cases you will not be at fault – your CV just isn’t precisely what the paucity of recruiters are ideally looking for – you are a few heads too many towards the back of the queue [you only need to be second in the queue to fail totally]. Sorry chum – better luck next week! And yes, you are receiving aid – you have no choice! — you need it to Survive!! No, really Julian: you *are* welcome here – you Do belong here… Be Happy. Just do your best to stay attractive, current… and KBO, as Churchill would advise us all!
Anyhow, Julian erased the suffering mindset version from his Reasonable Weekly Action Plan. He *does* have valuable things to sell – his personal capacity — his talent — his labour. The real issue: the lack of recruiters – not his problem. He’s Doing Happy now.
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Putting all this into the practical here and now: JSA should be ditched and a wholly new and fit concept of aid in underemployment introduced. One where a standard bricks-and-mortar house is not presumed as a given – ie esp where the cost of warm food in sufficient qty is *not* presumed the same for every soul in the land, regardless of their body needs, their fridge and cooking capacity, or their state of housing and its proximity to Asda. One where bus tickets may be as vital as dry mattresses. And one where access to safe sleeping time and a fully protected welcome at a fit location for any length of time is an absolute functional priority, however that needs to be framed and paid for, before any notion of what a productive day seeking work for that individual by that individual, and how to motivate that, is factored in.
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About Julian and how to contact him
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PS 18 July 2014: My trip – this leg of my regular weekend walks wild camping – I put down on my JCP form to account for my labours for the period, as ”engagement”. In and around Manningtree to Felixstowe on this occasion. I am legally homeless on these two nights but I am emotionally and practically… what!? Definitely not ”homeless” – on an adventure, I think! I see it as a gift and an opportunity to get out. I know I have a good house to go back to on each Sunday night, so these two nights are nothing like the suffering kind of housing poverty! Nothing like them at all! Because I have *the choice* **.
It’s not a rich man’s choice by any means, as the alternative to rough sleeping is somewhat undignifying, believe me. But in another way it is: given I have chosen to sleep rough and travel on these Friday to Sunday’s, while the summer is upon us, and that – thru deep personal austerity for years now – I have the cash to afford a train and bus ride away, I can go almost anywhere I like. The main freedom-maker has been my ultralight housing solution – over these past weeks and months I have got it working well so it doesn’t matter what the weather does to me, I can survive. I enjoy bad weather now! Bring it on!!
So I think I’ve earned this freedom. And I enjoy it.
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It occurs there’s a good demonstration of the concept of #populationreach here…
Let’s say I could have stayed in my lodgings for the weekend. What would have been the difference to my #populationreach ?
Well.. Look at the alternative I chose: look at at what happened by Julian picking up sticks and tramping all around South Suffolk, on this momentary life episode of his… Look at all the moments of population engagement he achieved:
– people watching at Newmarket station
– the bright sunny scenery streaming past my train set window
– the somewhat autistic confrontation ticket collector encounter
– the adventure working out what direction to walk in once at Manningtree station [what the ticket guy kept calling ”manree” as some kind of joke I now think]
– the exploration of Manree town centre [nice]
– finding a library and getting signed up for a card and chatting to the guy who was inspired by my ‘circumnavigation of Norfolk and Suffolk’ mission
– being helped with os maps to plan my journey [felt like Christmas]
– belong astonished at the beauty of the Stour from this aspect
– walking [Julian@work]
– finding village way points to pursue
– finding the first coop and buying milk and digestives and chatting up the checkout chicks
– spotting yew trees
– my first night looking good in a tall light brown mustard field [easy to disappear out of passing eyes – esp without a tent.. hence Julian’s ultra low profile housing system design]
– noticing the field lit at night as if under a colditz searchlight
…And…:
– being awoken at some time unknown in the night by a land rover noisily turning in and out of the field entrance and driving aggressively away
– waking early to the sound of two voices: we’ll have to go an kick his face in…. it will rain soon hahaha…
– resting nicely in my warm sbag [knowing the voices were just trying to scare anyone with ”no local connection” away]
– dressing under cover of the tall mustard crop, taking breakfast of leftover milk and choc digestive, then packing up v efficiently – liking very much my new utlra quick and light housing solution!!
– walking out of the field, forging my way thru the thick mustard camouflage, following the farmer’s tractor ruts
– walking on in the bright morning thru the countryside
– discovering the next village just as my need for fluids and foods peaked
– finding another coop and some more ladies to chat up
– that bloke who let me use the village hall toilet and then showed me the best road to continue on to Shotley
– spotting a sign for Pin Mill, thinking it a historical factory town [Adam Smith’s inspirational pin manufactory, perhaps!?]
– finding a dead end and backtracking then chatting to a lady in her garden asking the way to Pin Mill and what it was [an old harbour, surprisingly!]
– passing pleasantries with he couple in the car park who find this tramp with stick over his shoulder [plus bear] attention-grabbing
– discovering the beauty of Pin Mill boat yard and quay and the wide river with those fantastic red ochre-sailed historic Thames barges! Wow!!
– chatting t two old ladies who ask me about the jetty, thinking I am a local boatman
– loving the boats of all sizes and types
– spotting a dad and his boy and girl with life jackets enjoying rowing in the calm water by the closest Thames barge
– calling out to ask if they’d like to be extras and pretend the bear is their pilot rescuing them, and the dad saying yes, loving the idea
– making another fun photo comic shot of the bear in the boat [more IP content – assets – for Julian’s varied and fledgling enterprises]
– stopping off in the Oyster
– playing with the bear to charm the pub girls to play along too, and succeeding [without appearing too nuts!]
– ordering my now usual and very refreshing and good value: a half with boiling water top up to make a hot water shandy.. Ahhhh!
– breaking the ice with the lady and gent at the table next to me, curious about why I am drinking at a table with a bear
– doing another spoof photo shoot with lady and bear
– cracking on, walking the river path towards Shotley Gate in the baking hot sun – enjoying the glorious day
– finding a gobsmackingly beautiful scene of red ochre sails gliding past a small clearing in the wood
– doing another situation shot with the bear walking alone in the woods [more assets gathered]
– the Irish walkers coming the other way, greeting each other with walkers’s smalltalk and the girl showing me the coastal path to Shotley
– walking on and suddenly being swamped with glowing red fire – a wild poppy in corn field
– stopping to capture a photo and meeting the Kiwi and Portuguese couple, chatting about beautiful walks in Africa and here, they with a yacht moored up river towards their new home in London, he missing Africa badly, she, his partner and reason for moving to London against his nature, she v pretty dark skinned, almost Aborigine Australian features – shaking hands farewell as if now good friends already, and then walking on alone again, very happy — at peace #whatispeace
– taking no hurry at all, walking, walking, walking, thru mud and grass and pebbles and grass…
– finding a large marina, with benches dedicated to lost loves by the Orwell bank and then a poshish yachtsman’s pub, ordering another hot water shandy
– feeling clearly out of place with my tramps plastic mess of a backpack and a bear [no MG Aero or BMW 1200 RS Tourer or 40 footer to show off to gain a place in this manor – by Julian doesn’t care — not his value set these days at all!]
– picking up house pack and walking on to find a pitch for the night
– asking a local lad if there’s an all day store near by — there isn’t
– snoozing in a picnic area by the river
– finding a nice looking hideaway nook up a muddy bank off the path
– settling-in for a very good night unmolested by beast or man
– getting soaked, surviving, loving it!!
– waking in rain and packing up smartly and walking back to the marina resto in ”raincoat” not getting too wet
– mingling with posh boatpeople
– scavenging some ‘boat posh underlay’ put out for recycling by posh boat lady — vision of it being good for thermal soft bed matting
– more marina mingling in drizzle
– that ferry ride — oppo for The Professor to pilot the ship — the 2 crewmen play along: more material created and gathered
– mingling in the cafe at the Felixstowe fort end [sniffy manageress doe snot get the Bear joke – no material gathered]
– hot walk in sun with random mingling… granddad and granddaughter, young couple, gang of rebellious smokers on the station platform
– the train ride to Ipswich — more mingling – group of girls do selfie with The Prof
– goodegg ticket collector lets The Prof ”drive” the train [from the rear end] — more material and much shared happiness… finally arriving back at base [homeish]
And rest.
…
So: the #populationreach impact!? Well it’s roughly:
* 3 days and 2 nights in a New Place
* one dramatic change of enspiriting climate and scenery
* interesting places visited: Manree, Stour, Brantham, Sutton, Holbrook, Pin Mill, Orwell, Shotley Gate, Harwich pier, Landguard Fort, Felixstowe
* about 47 positive people new fledgling relationships forged, and 7ish negative ones, and just as many shared moments of happiness contributed to the world
* a handful of gob-smacking moments of discovery
* a good bit of random enlightenment about this and that [mostly this]
* some stunning visual material
* some heart-warming Professorial material
* a further boost to Julian’s personal feeling of self-reliance and street survival skills
* this ebook fragment
…
What then if I had stayed in my longings and had not pushed myself to do that mini adventure instead!?
With no other ”housing” materiel than my pjs and dirty socks, I could have…. had 3 more of the same days and nights.. sleeping, eating breakfast, watching tv [tv with all the most valuable fertile discover ground already razed from the face of it; tv that millions of other pj-wearing consumers are also concurrently watching, half brain dead]… trying to do some desk-based work of some kind – but based on old IP — in a state of emotional homelessness — trapped, exhausted….
There is Hussein and Ali in the shop opposite — worth a ”you OK?’ ‘you OK?” interaction over buying my milk ration… And Elaine and Cecil on the right.. and Wayne and co, and Terry and Tracey — more nice-but-banal all-underutilized-local-persons interaction opportunities…
And the cash money!? Circa £20 to stay in lodging [if given uncertain permission] vs £30 to travel – to Re-Arrive and Rediscover my passion for self-reliant Survival and Inspiring Collaborative and spiritually-enriching New Enterprise!
… Well! Which would you choose!?
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PS 21 August 2014: Not to forget the benefit of free "gym" opportunity of 6 hrs per day walking and 24hr vibrant living into the above bargain…
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** and about having a housing ‘choice’: this is really important: when they say in their presales smallprint that "Your home is at risk if you do not keep up payments on your mortgage" I want you to know that this is not the point.
What they should say is "By entering into this agreement unawares you are in grave danger that you and your family may *never again* get a proper house" [eg if you fail to appear credit-worthy or "unprofessional"].
The choice that is vital to have is the choice of a comfortable home to go to in the near future, not the choice whether or not to leave the comfortable [or otherwise] home you currently find yourself in. Please be advised.
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More Optimist Dinghy goodness from Optimist.co.za.