What now?
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Fri 12 Aug 2011 12:15
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Capetown Friday 12th August
Ah! the glorious 12th the day the grouse season
starts in Scotland and I am heading home tomorrow for a couple of weeks.
Not for grouse shooting you understand but to catch up with business and
family.
Here in Capetown most of our travelling around has
come to an end and most of the boat jobs are either finished or are in
hand.
Our trip into Durban you may remember caused a fair
bit of damage to the boat. Thankfully nothing that can't be sorted and to do so
Discovery Yachts as part of their owner care sent out one of their senior
team to support the preparations for my intended single handed voyage back
to the Canaries or Gibraltar.
Our forestay on the jib is 19mm 1x19 stainless
steel wire as are the V1's. Both V1's and the forestay need replacing and
this work will be done aboard while I am at home in Scotland. That and some
repairs to leaking hatches which took a pounding should be complete for my
return.
Talking of single handing, it is my intention
to sail alone the last 7,000 miles (remember round the world at the equator is
21,600 miles) which is a fair old chunk so everything must be well prepared and
checked. This process will not eliminate any breakages etc but may minimise them
and hopefully the big ticket items are all signed off and should be good
for 7,000 more miles at least.
It is by no means certain that I will be able to go
single handed however. There is a fair bit of family resistance to the plan
and my insurers have refused cover for the trip. The family know that I
will have to do what I have to do at the end of the day but I cannot do without
boat insurance. I also need to get a medical mechanic to take a look at my back
to make sure there are no loose screws there or anywhere else. I really feel
after six months that my back should be better than it is, but then the poor
vertibrae have barely had a days peace since my accident.
Lots of people have said "oh if you need crew I
would be happy to ...." or "if you need crew I know someone who .....". I am
very grateful for these offers and I may yet have to take someone up on one of
them but it is not for lack of crew I am planning single handing.
No, it's because I would like to ramp up the
challenge a little as I feel I can push a bit further. Anyway all this land
lubbing and over-indulging of the past couple of months in Africa need to be
worked off.
When we set off on this adventure we were never
sure what in terms of personal outlook and direction our lives may
take following such a trip. I am fairly sure I know what I want to do with
whatever I have of the rest of my life. The last couple of months sailing alone,
as well being a bit of a challenge, will allow time for reflection,
introspection, consolidation of thinking and lessons learned, and
motivation and inspiration to head off in new and challenging future directions.
If for any reason I am not able to undertake it alone I will be greatly
disappointed.
You may however not be so disappointed, as I am
sure being alone would generate endless thoughts about all manner of subjects
and you will know that I can be prone to a damn good rant on the blog even mid
ocean.
Speaking of rants; do you remember my blog 18th
of November - "Dodgy Euro?" I quote " When the Euro was introduced I gave
it 25 years - max. I always thought the real split would come when Euro wide
monetary policy would not suit France or Germany. Though Portugal, Ireland,
Greece and Spain are seen as extremely weak at the moment. I really have to
wonder how France's economy can keep going as it has. Could there be something
really weak at the core? There is no focus on it now and they MAY scrape by
without serious attention being paid to their economics, but what would happen
if they stopped receiving the £16billion in agricultural subsidy that the rest
of Europe timidly stumps up each year for them? Will they stick with the
grand macro-socialist plan if they are no longer disproportionally advantaged. I
for one, will be surprised."
So remember you heard it here first! This is what I
think will happen now - but remember I am just a creelmaker. Greece and or
Ireland and or Portugal will have to default on their debts or at least
"technically" default. By this I mean have their repayment terms extended, the
interest rate lowered and or some of the debt written off. What is now called
a "technical" default is, yes you guessed it, a good old fashioned default
- non repayment of loan according to agreed terms.
They will have to default because they along with
the most of Europe, including France and the UK, have run up billions and
billions of debt financing unsustainable, self serving, inefficient and wasteful
public sectors. Big fat inefficient Governments. Overheads. This is not
difficult to understand. Don't let the financial news confuse you. It is quite
simply governments who grew enormous across Europe in the last 15 years
squandering all the income from the private sector and additionally borrowing
more to boot to feed their "macro" obsession. Now the income has dried up from
the private sector the inefficiency and gross unaffordability and
wasteage in profligate governments has been laid bare for all to
see.
They will default because the weight of the public
sector has broken the back of private industry, not that I for one have not been
screaming about it for a long time now. These economies can not grow (generate
increased revenue for government) and the mountain of debt and related interest
payments cannot be serviced. Simple - there is not enough margin to pay for the
levels of overheads. These "overheads" are not only debt interest but huge and
inefficient public sectors. Simple - the overheads need to be cut and as
turkeys don't vote for Christmas this is proving difficult for politicians and
the public sectors to stomach across Europe. My bet is they will find it
more pallatable to default on the interest costs or loan repayments than they
will to cut back sufficiently on public expenditure.
That's my reasoning now here is what I think will
be the consequences. If one or more of any of these countries, (and
or Spain and Italy) default, the stronger Euro countries - we are
talking about Germany and allegedly France - will have to pick up the tab
or abandon the weaker countries to their own fate. If they say "you're on your
own" it's the end of the Euro as we know it. If they don't abandon them and
absorb their debts then cretainly France and possibly Germany will then end up
with public sector budgets they cannot afford either. As I said previously I
always felt the end of the Euro would come when things did not suit France or
Germany - we are approaching that possibility now. Not because of the CAP
but because of other countries debts. Remember that only 51% of Germans and 53%
of French originally wanted the Euro. What now? Interesting times.
I should also say that at least the UK governement
have some more monetary flexibility being outside the Euro and have made a
start on attaining budget responsibility and starting to cut our costs so we are
living within our means. It only a start however and only just in the nick of
time.
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