ADDICTED TO BOATS

You don't have to be loaded to get into boating as Glen Stanford discovered after a chance encounter with a boat-owning colleague

- WORDS & PHOTOS: Glen Stanford

Purely by chance: that's how my journey into boating began.

I was a working as a security guard at Canary Wharf, and as our children were starting to fly the nest, my wife and I were looking for a weekend hobby to keep us occupied. A friend at work mentioned he owned a boat and invited us to join them for a day out.

When we arrived at North Fambridge marina and saw his Sealine F43, it felt like stepping into another world - the boat looked huge, as did the bills. However, we soon discovered that everyone was really friendly. We ended up visiting quite a few times over the next few months, being invited to events at the marina and getting to meet a lot of new people. The social scene was great and nobody cared about the size of your boat.

At the time, it did feel a bit out of our league. I was just starting my own one-man business, so money was tight and buying our own boat seemed beyond our reach. But when we heard there was a boat for sale just a few berths away from my friend's, we couldn't resist having a quick look. It turned out to be a lovely 27ft Crownline called Lazy Daze at an asking price of £12,000. That was a huge sum for us back then but our new friends helped check it over - we still had no clue what we were doing- and after some hesitation, we decided to buy it.

Despite losing a few nights' sleep over spending all that money on a weekend hobby, we loved our new purchase and started spending all our weekends making the boat our own and enjoying the marina life. We began learning everything about boating and all that comes with it. We found out about tides - quite important apparently - and soon after, I earned my first trophy at the annual laying-up ceremony.