Tom Cunliffe

After a lifetime of owning traditional boats featuring what one previous owner, keen to make the sale, shrewdly described as ‘every comfort but no luxury’, I finally have a yacht with her own shower. Now, instead of clumping down the dock in the early morning rain with the rest of the faithful, I breeze into the heads wrapped in my James Bond dressing gown. I dance around for while under the tinkling stream, towel off like a proper yachtsman, then relax with shining morning face over my bowl of health-promoting porridge.

While enjoying the obvious benefits of this, I do miss the unexpected encounters that come with the ablutions ashore. It always seemed to be winter when my wife and I lived aboard on the Hamble, and the loos in the shed at the end of our pier were permanently closed. Instead, we threaded through