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Tips and stories to add value to you and your organisation

The Topless Boating Story

22 September 2019

I own a boat. I’m not afraid to admit that. In fact, I don’t just own it, I love it, well love her to be precise. Boats are always her.

She’s old and fun, guzzles petrol and makes a great noise when the V8 kicks into life.

Oh and I need to explain that despite living in Norfolk, with our proud Nelson heritage, I bought her knowing nothing about boats. I like a challenge. If you’d like a challenge and a quick way to empty your wallet then buy a boat too. Shopping with your partner, on a lazy Saturday afternoon, has got nothing on the cash burning potential of a boat.

And before you think that, after more than 10 years of blogging, I’ve gone mad and am going to share a, shall we say, romantic story, then I’m going to have to disappoint you.

Although it’s well known that sex sells, this really isn’t that kind of blog post. The ‘topless’ in the title isn’t a reference to me removing my string vest. No no. It’s about an area of boating hitherto unexplored by me.

You see, my boat has a clever canvass hood. You can unzip the sides, roll up the rear and treat the hood-spiders to a grand day out on the river.

However, I’ve owned the boat for three years and up until last month have never gone the Full Monty with her.

My confidence bolstered by having my boating buddy on hand, I unzipped the roof panels, pulled out the split pins on the struts and we lifted the roof-cage clear of the boat.

The sun shone brightly and she looked amazing, fully open the big blue sky at last. She was topless, but of course, nautical decorum means that my string vest stays on at all times.

The big advantage of taking down the canopy is that we can get her under more bridges, which tend to be on the low side on the Norfolk Broads.

So we did. Under Ludham bridge and a pleasant meander up the river Ant to Barton Broad. Lovely.

What’s the business moral of the story? Well, I was nervous about pulling out the pins and unsure if the hood would collapse in a heap, or be old and stiff and impossible to re-erect. As it turned out, it was fine.

We can now cruise under low bridges whenever we please.

If we never change anything, or take a risk, we never get to experience new things. Within our business environment we all have things that are worth exploring.

So the moral is this; pull out the pins and see what happens next. It may open up new opportunities and we can all go topless in our own way!

Next week: The Leadership Skills Quiz