Selling 'Anna M' under the Threat of a Third World War?

 

The writer.

I suffer from being frequently told off for 'harping on' about the looming threats which we are facing these days. 'There's nothing we can do about it anyway! You just have to get on with living from day to day, and making the best of it! You'll only drive yourself and the rest of us mad!' Here in the West of Ireland, we are particularly prone to thinking that we live in a little world of our own, and who would be bothered with attacking us anyway? There may perhaps be a few juicy targets here, such as the European headquarters of Google and its associated data centres, but our best plan is to keep our heads down and enjoy life as best we can! 

    Those who advocate keeping the mental shutters down do have some points in their favour. My own father, having just been through the Second World War in the British army, spoke about the reality of it very little, as did most of his generation at the time, being anxious to put it all behind them. However we have tended to inhabit a truncated version of reality ever since, with for instance the British Government suppressing the BBC's attempt to show what a nuclear attack on England would be like, in the film 'The War Game'. My old fella didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the plans, which he was involved in, about what to do if it happened.

    Perhaps to an extent such an attitude is necessary and it is certainly understandable. I noticed a photo of a crew trying to shoot incoming drones down the other day, over the heads of a crowd enjoying themselves on a beach in Odessa. Fair play! The world is changing so fast now, with such explosive volatility, that it's very hard for any of us to keep up; yet if we close our minds to the many dire possibilities, there is no hope of coping with them. If on the other hand we do open our eyes, draw implications and prepare, and do not give our enemies the impression of being asleep, we have a much better chance of making some kind of a fist at it.  

    Little actual personal events can help to break through the fog, such as a Swedish acquaintance of mine, aged 60, who is in the naval reserve, being called up for training. How things must have changed since he first signed up! But here in Ireland, if people think about our so-called neutrality at all, many tend to the view that it's just too bad for the Swedes and the Finns, being so close to Russia. Who would want to harm dear little Ireland (especially so long as we keep on sending the Russians alumina)? Have we altogether lost our status as a victim nation, and joined the ranks of those wealthy nations who are subject to the envy and resentment of the benighted, being better off and more free? Dictators simply have to try to turn such neighbours into enemies! Militarism is their survival strategy, so to assume Russia and Iran will shortly be beaten into shape is risky. In defeat their leaders are likely to lash out yet more recklessly. They are huge countries with many resources, plus China and North Korea behind them.  

    Quite apart from our strategic position, there are a few juicy targets here in Ireland, such as the European headquarters of Google and its associated data centres and undersea cables. Our gas, and hence half our electricity, comes  under the sea from Scotland and Norway, plus a growing percentage of our electricity direct from Britain and France. It's small wonder that the issue of 'Irish Neutrality' has become extremely contentious recently, though in fact it is inconceivable that we should not cooperate with our democratic neighbours in organising our common defence! 

    To understand the controversy, one has to go back to 'the Emergency', as WWII was referred to. The Irish were far from being fully aware of what the Nazis were doing to begin with, and it was hard to figure out what was true and what was propaganda. They had but recently freed themselves of the British Empire, with their leader, Eamon de Valera, only escaping being shot like the other rebel leaders because of his American citizenship; still they ended up in practice not very neutral at all, with a higher proportion of volunteers from the Republic than from Northern Ireland, and the Irish Government cooperating with the British in for instance making plans for a German invasion by way of Killybegs in Co.Donegal. I knew someone who had spoken with British officers in bowler hats and suits, accompanied by Irish ones, who had been there doing so. It was not the Germans who were offered collaboration, as Hitler hoped at one stage.

    Incidently the fuss about the Treaty Ports, the denial of which Churchill bitterly complained of, doesn't make much sense to me. The u-boat and convoy action was mostly to the north of Ireland in WWII, so we are mainly talking about Lough Swilly, which may have been a good place to bunker the Grand Fleet in WWI, but has no proper port. What was wrong with Derry, just round Malin Head, or indeed Belfast or the Clyde,- not very far away, and really useful places for damaged ships? The fuss was a classic case of thinking in terms of the previous war.

    If there is indeed a new Emergency upon us, we might not be given time to adapt to very different circumstances. We were a much more resilient and self-reliant crowd back then. It may be a good idea to recall how we survived, down to the actual details of living with little oil and no internet, but also to figure out how to use technology to make our lives more resilient, which we should be doing anyway, just as we need to get away from the tendency to depend on the global market or the State for all our needs, and to rebuild our personal, community and spiritual relationships. The better we prepare, the less probable that another Emergency will be catastrophic, and the better our chances of winning through to a new post-oil civilisation.

    Such grand ideas are rather daunting; I would rather focus on boats. They plough their ways through the sea largely unnoticed and unseen, until they don't. If enough of those rusty old ships hadn't managed to cross the Atlantic in WWII, Britain would have gone under. I have always recalled a saying of my godfather and cousin, Uncle Phil, who was a District Officer in the Ganges Delta at that time, when all the boats had been requisitioned in anticipation of a Japanese invasion. He said there was plenty of rice available while many were starving, but no way of distributing it. Our Shannon River was once a major artery of Ireland. I look back to the days when Irish monks frequently criss-crossed the sea. I want us to still be able to do so, with better technology but equal self-reliance!

   However, self-reliance is a luxury, especially when one is eighty. My dear sister has just passed away, having given me a good lesson recently in how terribly dependent we tend to become, yet again, in old age! But in a strange way self-reliance rhymes, as it were, with community, which is something Exiteers of all kinds don't seem to realise. It is altogether different to individualism, or on another level, nationalism. I have to admit that the 'Anna M' has partly been so important to me as a vessel of my own independence, but I can honestly say that I feel the very principle of self-reliance is yet more important to me,- and it is bound up with the kind of community that boats and the sea generate. 

    Perhaps we may claim that it is predominantly maritime nations which line up with the free, democratic and open nations of the world. Unfortunately we are in danger of finding ourselves ranged against the continental, authoritarian block of Russia, Iran, North Korea and China. To give President Trump a bit of credit, it is possible that his disgusting cozying up to Putin is partly motivated by fear of ending up with a world war along these lines. However he is in danger of reverting to 'the Ducky' in my book. There can  be nothing long-term to be gained by trying to appease a tyrant and bully.

   Whatever about all that, I am reconciled with the fact that my days as a skipper for serious sailing are over, but I am looking for someone to carry this particular struggle on, with or without whatever assistance I can contribute myself. In other words I will sell her outright if someone comes up with the right kind of money, and she is a fantastic opportunity for someone who wants a sea-worthy liveaboard, or I will cooperate with anyone who wants to carry the electric drive project forward in partnership.

Enough power to live aboard!