CRUISING THE AISLES

It is boat-show time again from London to Los Angeles, and in half a hundred cities between these extremes landsmen will face perils in the aisles they never will find afloat. As Artist Roy McKie suggests below, a sailorman needs an understanding companion when he enters the door, preferably one wise in the ways of the sea and the salesman. Once he takes the plunge, there is no turning back; he is committed. No landlubber has ever gone to a boat show and emerged entirely content with the land.

If you can drive a car, you can drive a boat, the salesman is saying. Actually it will be easier on the water; all those people won't be in the way.

Only gods get to go aboard the big boats, but Junior will soon mar their paradise. In a minute, he's going to get his arm stuck in that exhaust pipe.

The fan is there to make the spinnaker belly out, but it gives an indoor voyager a heady sense of what it's like to round the Horn in a gale.

That motor generates plenty of horsepower for the skipper, but if those curtains don't come in the mate's favorite shade of blue the whole deal is off.

There is nothing like good plumbing to make you feel right at home at sea. The only thing is, if you're at sea, how do you call the plumber?

To the interested novice nothing is more fascinating than the subtle skills of the sailorman. These two apprentices could go on tying knots forever.

Terrible things can happen to a neglected bottom. Some people may even be persuaded to buy antifoulants before they remember they have no boat.

Be prepared! You can always go sailing in a pair of dungarees and a shirt, but what if the commodore should ask you over to lunch at the yacht club?

So here he is, back from the boat show with a brand-new engine, and it is winter and the bays are all frozen. Don't bother your father now, boy!

TEN ILLUSTRATIONS