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Going with the Creative Tide
Have a 16ft wooden sailing boat called Prioni. It is a Scruffie: a lot like its owner.
Once a quarter, I partake in a little regatta run by a friend at Talburpin Point, Redland Bay. There is a varied fleet of small boats, many of them wooden but few, if any, of the same class.
Tony has devised a unique course and scoring system. The fleet starts together, and the first boat to a predefined marker (most often a channel buoy) gets line honours. But when the lead boat turns around, everyone also turns around and heads for the finishing line. The first home wins on handicap.
It is a fun format, as for slower boats like mine, we are so far behind in the upwind slog that we are always in a good position to have a chance at a handicap place.
I have just finished reading Nigel Marsh’s latest book, ‘Smart, Stupid and Sixty, the third in his memoir series. It is a cracking read, especially for those in what he calls ‘the third trimester of life.
I can relate to this idea of the final third. In the work that I do around storytelling, I favour the three-act model. Act One features the setup and an inciting incident; Act Two is the messy middle where all seems lost, but there are small hopes. The final act has the climax and then the resolution. As I look back on my life, I think that the climax was…
