New car topper boat for Scottish lochs

I have just bought the next filming boat for Scotland now that a Fisher is stuck on the back burner for the forseeable future

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/183130580471?ViewItem=&item=183130580471

s_l1600_2
s_l1600

s_l16003

Loch Laxford here I come - just got to buy a crap caravan, some carpet slippers, a pipe and porta potty

Dylan

This is about Sailing around Britain.

26 Responses to “New car topper boat for Scottish lochs”

  1. 26 March, 2018 at 11:29 pmRonG says:

    Surely as a man of certain years, cruel relatives have already bought you a pipe and slippers combo? Old frame tent and commode chair from any high street charity shop and you’re sorted.
    Maybe a trailer-tent you could strap the rowing boat into would do.
    Don’t forget the fishing rods.

  2. 26 March, 2018 at 11:34 pmdylan winter says:

    fishing … pah.

    We do have a frame tent but after three days of scottish rain life is ubearable. I am afraid it will be a small touring caravan with a fan heater plugged iinto the lekkie – dinghy on the roof of the car and ebike inside the van. I will post dates of being on the road on here so that you chaps can avoiid the tail back I will be creating on those scottish roads.

    I paid £466 for the Heyland Trout.

    When Jill spotted what I had bought she said “not another dinghy” and said she missed the proper boat.

    https://img1.etsystatic.com/000/0/5908576/il_570xN.341684411.jpg

  3. 27 March, 2018 at 12:02 amLen McEwen says:

    Dylan,
    That’s how I set up to sail on Sylvan Lake – 200 KM away. I got myself a holiday trailer so that I could travel down on Friday and overnight til Sunday thus sailing on the weekend. The marina operator will not let us slip renters overnight on our boats even those of us equipped with a galley and head. The holiday trailer was used. it came out of Fort McMurray and I purchased it after the wildfire for a very reasonable price. I hope that the dingy and the caravan fill the gap for you and that you will be back in a “proper boat” again soon!

    Len McEwen

  4. 27 March, 2018 at 12:08 amdylan winter says:

    I shall be fit with the rowing. I will also stick the optimist rig in her. It will allow me to scratch the scottish itch.

  5. 27 March, 2018 at 10:49 amGuy says:

    Whatever happened to that second boat that you bought that you didn’t use much? I am new to all this I’m only just started watching some of the series but didn’t you say you put one away Katie something nice little boat the one after the slug, also what’s stopping you doing what you did on the south coast In picking up another westerly as a project again ?

  6. 27 March, 2018 at 10:58 amdylan winter says:

    Sorry about the confusion… there are two different time lines running. One on the website and one in the films.

    I am not very good at making films fast and probably spend too much time thinking about them… about ways of putting the images together so that they tell a cohesive narrative, researching the local history and geography and working on the pace of the films. I also move sound around a fair bit. You have probably never heard a plane or a passing out of shot mobo in the films.

    The last proper film had a 3,000 word script which I try to record in a good acoustic and match it nicely to the images.

    For a while I tried making and posting a film each week but the films got more and more pathetic – they got shorter and shorter and there was way too much of my jowly badly shaven face just yakking at the camera accompanied by a few wobbly shots.

    I reckon I can make about eight hours of decent films a year – films that people might still watch a decade from now. I also found that the more films I post the less each one earns.

    – la vag etc churn out 20 minutes a week which get upwards of 250,000 views. La Vag and Delos are really productive and apply themselves to film making with gusto…..but it is my guess that you chaps would rather not watch a 90 second shot of a 62 year old man exercising on the heaving foredeck of a Centaur in Scotland while wearing not many clothes. That would be humilating for both of us.

    I kept harmony for just on a year and sailed the socks off her. We packed a lot into eight months of ownership but the money ran out and she had to go – plus I promised she would go. It took me two years to make the films from that one year of sailing…. maybe that was a mistake.

    Just to keep you up to speed – I have eight more proper films in the can – unedited. Then I will have finally run out of material.

    I sold Harmony for £8.5K in Glasgow and, as agreed with the bloke who had her before, I gave him half of that. So I had the use of the boat for a year – I did not make much money on the her – you know how any boat swallows money and she was in a bit of a state when I got her –

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmA-WFTPjqU

    Then I spent the following summer exploring the shallow bits of the the East Coast of Scotland in the 22 footer with full crouching headroom. I had dumped her in Edinburgh where she had sat in a dinghy park on the Forth. I took the boat all the way to the top of the Forth, Tay, Moray and Cromarty. Then I brought the Trailer sailer home and dumped it in the garden under a Tarp.

    I am currently editing those films so I will try to post most of those before the summer comes.

    Then I bought a cheaper Centaur in Cornwall for £5.5K and sailed that to the west coast for a second crack at this wonderful sailing area. I spent a summer up there filming (4 more films I think ) before again running out of cash. I sold that Centaur in Scotland in January after owning her for 13 months. I sold her for £8.5 K and that cleared the project debts – again.

    I have not been sailing in Scotland this past summer and I think that I am unlikely to get back there with a tough, warm, waterpoof boat this summer either.

    I will see how the cash flow goes over the remaining films and see if they earn enough for another crack at the Hebrides. But getting two boats scotland ready and getting them up there only to lose both of them inside a year drained a lot of positive energy

    Sailing and filming in Scotland turned out to be a £6,000 a year habit what with killing cars, petrol, moorings, storage ashore – while sailing the 22 footer on the Deben close to the house costs £140 a year,

    If the final films earn enough then I will follow through by buying a Fisher and starting again where I left off.

    If they don’t then that journey will have to go on hold for five years until the pension kicks in.

  7. 27 March, 2018 at 2:37 pmSteve says:

    Dyl., bit lost as to why you want another dinghy.. what happened to the lovely green one, or is this one significantly bigger??

  8. 27 March, 2018 at 2:57 pmdylan winter says:

    This one is 11 foot 11 inches – the other one is just under ten. This could be two footisis of course, but I would never confess to suffering from such a disease.

    However, I offered to refurbish an identical dinghy belonging to the scouts over this winter. I used it a lot, it both rows and sails beautifully and it is much safer than the little one. This one takes two, a dog, a sail and can handle almost anything this river – and hopefully loch laxford – is likely to throw at me. Plus, this one is long enough for me to lie down in her. I plan to do some overnights if I am still tough enough. I love little sailing adventures and waking up in new places – but over the past year I have pretty much tromped over and up all the local rivers and want to see more of scotland.

    The project is not able to generate enough cash for me to sail a yacht in scotland…. so this seems like an alternative way of seeing some of those places I missed.

  9. 27 March, 2018 at 3:57 pmJon Booth says:

    There’s surely a book in all of this, if not a trilogy? That’d fund the rest of KTL?

    Best
    JB

  10. 27 March, 2018 at 4:03 pmdylan winter says:

    I have written two books – they are literally not worth the paper they are written on.

    Both are now on Amazon for 1 penny each – post and packing is £2.80.

    Books do not sell – especially not sailing books.

    It must be years since anyone wrote a sailing book that has sold enough to justify the time.

    The dinghy is just to allow me to go and see some of those places I missed. Sutherland was wonderful and I want to go back for more of the same. If I cannot get back in a proper boat then I will go back in an improper one. I have enjoyed the dinghy exploring along this east coast these past 14 months…. but I have seen most of it now and, as you know, I love not knowing what lies around the next corner.

    Jill is not entirely on-board with this plan. She does not see herself as a caravan sort of person – whatever that means.

  11. 27 March, 2018 at 9:07 pmTim says:

    I assume that photo was taken in your BBC days just before you read the news.

  12. 28 March, 2018 at 12:53 amRuss says:

    Went to a Tom Cunliffe talk this week, his books didn’t sell either, at least I didn’t buy one!
    Paid £12.50 for the privilege of listening to him waffle for an hour – maybe you could tout your time similarly if you could stand it. Dinghy looks good, better than the one I got off ebay last year for 99p. Bright orange and full of s*** – named it the Donald and sold it for a cool hundred after a jetwash. Craning in at Gibraltar point this sat at dawn. Always an outing on my grubby Hurley if you’re interested, It’d remind you of the slug!!

  13. 28 March, 2018 at 2:10 pmPaul says:

    Why Loch Laxford? Is the SAC attracting you there?

  14. 28 March, 2018 at 3:00 pmPeter Truelove says:

    Good move Dylan. A much more appropriate dinghy. I was losing sleep over the idea of you exploring the lochs of Scotland in ‘Sweet Pea’. She’s very pretty but the extra length and volume of the Trout will make her an altogether more seaworthy option. A good buy. P.

  15. 28 March, 2018 at 8:06 pmAidan says:

    Hi Dylan
    What drives me nuts, is when I see children wearing buoyancy aids and the accompanying adult not.
    It’s madness.
    Aidan

  16. 28 March, 2018 at 10:43 pmdylan winter says:

    I had heard that he is an excellent speaker ….. I loved his TV series.

  17. 28 March, 2018 at 10:44 pmdylan winter says:

    It looks like a lovely place to explore… what is the SAC?

  18. 28 March, 2018 at 10:45 pmdylan winter says:

    I spent the winter using a similar dinghy on the river here – the extra two feet makes a lot of difference. I drove to Britsol today to pick it up. It needs a bit of a tidy up but it is only ten years old – the newest boat I have ever owned.

  19. 28 March, 2018 at 10:47 pmdylan winter says:

    I agree – in a dinghy certainly. In a yacht less important I think

  20. 29 March, 2018 at 7:23 amPaul says:

    Special Area of Conservation (SAC). It will be a great place to use your wildlife film making skills.

  21. 29 March, 2018 at 7:31 amPaul says:

    A possible mini series… One man in a little boat with a camera. You should be able to get very close up to the wildlife and there are lots of these little places like Laxford in Scotland. The fairy isles might be a good choice… they have beaver ;)

  22. 29 March, 2018 at 9:02 amdylan winter says:

    still got to make it pay ion some way – of course, a dinghy is cheaper to run than a Fisher….

  23. 29 March, 2018 at 9:03 amdylan winter says:

    aha – my decision to go back and have a look was based purely on the look of the place from Google earth – it looks amazing. I often see canoeists paddling in and out of the rocks – I am too old to canoe now but rowing a dinghy is fine.

  24. 29 March, 2018 at 9:15 amPaul says:

    Maybe use your research skills and turn them into wildlife guides which could possibly expand your target audience to conoeists and walkers. If you have a SLR and the videos take off you also have the potential to release guide books. Theme it around a middle aged (slightly eccentric) english man exploring the last wild areas of the UK… Add a bit of character by spending some nights sleeping in your little boat :)

  25. 2 April, 2018 at 7:00 pmEd says:

    Nice upgrade from your other dinghy. Now, if it were just a couple of feet longer……..

  26. 25 April, 2018 at 12:16 amBryan D says:

    You know that Heyland Marine are still actively selling small boats and parts for them, try their website
    https://heylandmarine.com

Leave a Reply to Ed