Final Resting Place

Final Resting Place, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

This rather sorry looking boat was resting on the bed of the canal just south of Bridgehouse Marina for some months earlier this year. While it was undeniably picturesque, it was also an invitation for the local 'yoof' to throw stones at it and was in any event a pollution risk, and it has now been removed, probably by BW and presumably to be broken up.
In a previous life, she was named 'Vesta', and was operated as a hire boat on the Norfolk Broads by Southgates in Horning. She must have given hundreds of families their first taste of holidays afloat.
I was taken to the Broads by my parents in 1963, to spend a week on 'Silvery Wings', a cruiser we hired from Smith and Forsters in Brundall. I immediately, and irreversibly, fell in love with both the Norfolk Broads and with motor cruisers, and since then I seem to have spent most of my working life trying to make money to spend on hiring, buying, renovating, and maintaining them.
We drove to Brundall in my Dad's Austin A40 (Farina). I haven't a clue where that is now, nor do I know where any of the 27 (!) cars I have owned have gone either. But I have kept track of a remarkable proportion of my boats. Sabre is on the Colne, Pyeseas is in Ipswich at Fox's, Stargazer is in Brundall, Navigator 2 is on the River Wey, Little Ness on Strangford Lough.... I could go on.
I hope none of them end up like 'Vesta'. It would be a bit like watching your ex wife being torn to pieces by Trinny and Suzannah, without the happy bit at the end.
I suppose there would always be a temptation to attempt to restore her to her former glory. But old wooden boats need more than a pair of heels and some lip gloss. They need a lifetime of utter devotion and a platinum credit card.