Funny how particular names seem to come along in batches – August seems to have brought a rash of Tims, whereas July was dominated by Chrisses. And there was a minor outbreak of Brians earlier in the year. After Tim Gilmore of Dolphin Quay Boatyard, may I now introduce Tim Davies of Simrad marine electronics, seen here bravely attempting to persuade sailing instruments to satisfy a rower’s needs – and very nearly succeeding.
I was over at Simrad for several hours this afternoon, making impossible demands of Tim and technology. I wanted the displays to show me wind speed and direction, speed over ground, speed through the water, distance to waypoint, and a stopwatch, all at the same time. Oh, and a stroke meter would be nice too. Surely not so much to ask?!
Tim tolerated my unusual requests with remarkable good humour, and by persuading bits of kit from different families to talk to each other (a feat akin to getting Capulets and Montagues on speaking terms) he managed to give me most of what I wanted.
So now I’ll have lots of lovely numbers to contemplate, to while away those long nights at the oars. A bit of star-gazing, a bit of mental arithmetic to work out how many more strokes toAntigua, a bit of music, and of course occasionally remembering to look out for ships – those dark solitary hours will just fly by.