32 of 365TTSM - Shenandoah

This is the Shenandoah, a three-masted schooner out of Southampton, dating from 1902, currently docked at Elizabeth Street pier in Hobart. The photograph doesn't capture how achingly beautiful this boat is. Not only are her lines representative of design perfection, everything about her is immaculately maintained. Today several young men were varnishing her already shining rails. Her decks are made of teak and her pulley blocks are some other sort of stunning timber, so polished that they wouldn't look out of place in one of the timber galleries on Salamanca. So why does she shit me? Because when I stand on the dock admiring her, I start to romanticise a potential future of sailing the oceans of the world on a vessel with sails and what a jolly fine life that would be. And on the basis of that I will accept the next invitation I receive to go sailing with a Hobartian. And it won't be until I'm well out in the Derwent that I will remember that I have the sailing stomach of a young midshipman Hornblower  and spend the entire event vomiting and remembering that it doesn't matter how beautiful they are - boats are evil.