SVN solovelanet

3 SVN Solovelanet Global M ore and more prophecies are being heard about a world of sharing economy, where everything is rented for a few hours or a few days. A world where there will no longer be any responsibility for possession, or for maintenance of objects. Someone says that we will even rent home furniture so as to be able to change it at will. Consequently, many see a future with boats for hire, with harbours and boats devoid of yacht owners. I don't know if that is really going to happen, and don't see anything wrong there. I don't know if in ten years the present eight or nine year olds, instead of asking their dads to buy them a car, will want the credit card to rent one only when needed. I just hope that in thirty years those same guys won't decide to just rent boats instead of buying one. The boat is something different: she is neither a car nor a piece of furnitu- re, and she is not used to move from one place to another. The boat is a machine of ideas, as well as an idea in herself. My own idea of freedom. Renting a boat is certainly nice, but it just means taking a means of tran- sportation to go from one place to another. Starting a voyage with your own boat is a different experience: it means embarking in an adventure. With my own boat I push myself into situations that I would never want to face with a rented one. With my own boat I experience emotions that I would never feel on one that I use just for two weeks.On my own boat I know that I have a wrench in the third drawer and that another one, iden- tical but split, is in the second toolbox in the cockpit locker. I know that I have eight steel clamps of various sizes, and that I have a brand new bilge pump, carefully chosen to do the job required at that point. In my own boat, the pilot book page about my favourite bay has been marked with a dog-ear so I can find it easily. No, the boat is more than just a means of transport, and not owning one, no matter how small, means forfeiting the chance to understand the sea and sailing. I hope future youngsters won't want to give up learning to talk to the sails of their boat and ask them if that wind is too strong or is still OK, because if you can't talk to the sails, you are never going to enjoy the intimate pleasure of sailing. EDITORIALE Yacht owner: a species in danger of extinction? Many are prophesying a future of sharing economy, when we will own nothing and rent everything. Then yacht owners might perhaps become an endangered species. Maurizio Anzillotti Maurizio Anzillotti m.anzillotti@svn-network.net

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