Okay, maybe they wouldn't be much help in sorting out a broken diesel engine or surviving an alien invasion from outer space, but they're awesome at wiping up spills. I'm klutzy. I spill things all the time. And, if the aliens ever do invade, I'm pretty sure I'd spill my glass of red wine absolutely everywhere in all the excitement and then I'd turn to my stack of trusty tea towels to save the day.
The previous owners of our boat left behind quite a few tea towels. They're nice enough and are up to to the task of cleaning up wine spills, but they lack any real pizazz. So, you can imagine how excited I was when fellow Moody 346 owners, Guy and Sylvia from Pura Vida, gave me this awesome tea towel, when they were at Indiantown Marina a few months ago.
This is a very special tea towel, honoring the 30th anniversary of the Moody Owners Association or MOA (complete unrelated to the Moa Preservation Society, which Scott and I founded a few years ago.) Guy and Sylvia told us that it would be well worth joining MOA. When Karen and John of Pascal, another Moody 346, popped by Indiantown Marina for a visit a month or so ago, they also mentioned that it would be a really useful group to join.
Who am I to argue with my fellow Moody 346 owners, especially ones as nice as these guys? So, we forked over £20 (around US$29) for an annual membership and joined hundreds of fellow Moody yacht owners in this exclusive organization.
Only Moody owners can join, which makes it kind of neat. You feel like you're part of a special club. I had hoped there was a secret handshake that Moody owners gave each other which signaled something like, "Greetings Sister, I shake your hand in Moody solidarity." But, when I shook my fellow Moody 346 owners' hands, they were ordinary handshakes. Good, solid and firm handshakes, but pretty ordinary.
Then I realized it was the tea towel that sets Moody owners apart, not a secret handshake. That's how you know a fellow Moody owner when you see one - it's the tea towel. Of course, you'd probably find their tea towel on their Moody yacht, but the tea towel is what really confirms it.
Now, I just have to figure out what to do with my MOA tea towel. It seems too special to use for the actual drying of dishes and wiping up of spills. Maybe I'll turn it into a fabric bag which I can store clothes and bedding in, like my bloggy pal Melissa at Little Cunning Plan recently did.
Well, that's enough for now. I need to put a load of laundry in. I've got a pile of dirty tea towels that need washing. For some reason, there's red wine stains on a bunch of them. Completely unrelated to an alien invasion. Oops. On the bright side, those Spartan green fleece slipcovers I made last year see resistant to stains.
Do you belong to any clubs or organizations? For those of you with boats, have you ever met the owners of your sister ships?
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Fun reading! You could always make a cushion cover out of it like one of our Compass readers! How about an article for Compass from your neck of the woods? Kind regards, Abi (Compass editor) :) compass.editor@moodyowners.org.
ReplyDeleteSure Abi - happy to help out with an article. I'll drop you a line to find out more about it.
DeleteCongratulations on the towel and the Moody group!
ReplyDeleteNow, if aliens spill anything, you're ready...
Maybe the aliens have their own tea towels? I would think their spaceships would be like our sailboats with owners associations for the different models.
DeleteHey thanks for the unanticipated shout out! And I do love a nice tea towel. When I visited Scotland, it was the only souvenir I wanted. I inherited this love of linen tea towels (yes they do need to be linen, otherwise I'd be overrun with cuteness in towels. I have to draw a line somewhere.) from my mother. I have some from Australia with cute animals on them. From Scotland i have one with castles, of course, and wild flowers. When the kids were little I did make pillows from their special towels. They took the pillows with them to daycare. So you and I, we have towels in common! Now if only we could find an owners group for our Olympic Adventure. Unfortunately, even if there were such a group, it would probably be located in Greece and I wouldn't be able to understand them. Too bad about the secret handshake, though. That would give the group so much more mysterious power.
ReplyDeleteI think tea towels are a great idea for souvenirs or presents when you live on a boat. They're cute and functional. I think you're going to have to look into the Olympic Adventure owners group - you might not be able to understand him but the food they serve at meetings would be so delicious!
DeleteOhh jealous! I do love a good tea towel! Xx
ReplyDeleteIt is a pretty cute one!
DeleteI must be the "odd one out", I don't have any tea/dish towels like that. Mine are microfiber towels that I purchased from a website called "FlyLady". She calls them rags in a bag, (you get 3 in a mesh bag), and I have NEVER found anything that soaks up water, and dries quickly like them. I am very strict about which color is used for which specific purpose: Silver for hands, bronze for dishes, and purple for windows. Woe to you if you use the wrong one! (maybe I should sew something pretty on them...then maybe I could call them tea towels.....hmmm)
ReplyDeleteWe purchased our Nauticat on a Thursday, and there just happened to be a Nauticat Rally starting on Friday, just a few harbors away. The previous owner came with us to motor over and introduce us to the "clan". We had a good time, and everyone got to say goodby to Jack and Susan, as well as hello to us. My blogpost in June 2014 : Donna's adventure begins Part 1a, is after the rally, about how I take the wheel for the first time, almost run into the fuel/pumpout dock, and try to explain to my non-sailing friends/family what the heck I have gotten myself into.
Last summer we were surprised to randomly meet up with another Nauticat 43 in a little bay on Zarembo Island. How fun! They pointed to us, we pointed to them.... "Hey it's......ahoy there!" We don't have a secret handshake, but we do have a Yahoo owners group.
I tried a microfiber towel once and wasn't too impressed. I suspect I didn't get the right kind because everyone else raves about them. I'll check out the Flylady site.
DeleteNauticats are adorable! There's a cute one next to me. I love their looks and their names - after all, it has "cat" in it.
We don't have any cotton towels onboard, even for bath towels. It takes DAYS, if ever, for them to dry in our climate.
DeleteI'm not fond of the Nauticat logo, but yes, CAT in the name is cool. (except when asked, "oh, you have a catamaran?", "uh, no.....") :-)
What a lovely tea towel!
ReplyDeleteThanks Linda :-)
DeleteIt could be a "guest" towel - not for using, just for looking! We're in the Lagoon owners group, and a few other owners have come to Independence to gape at our hard top, at which point the males descend into very boring discussions about travelers and halyards, and try to out mansplain each other, while I start to drink wine and look for a tea towel to mop up the spills! - Lucy
ReplyDeleteIf only we had a guest bathroom/head to use it in? Along with a place for adorable soaps in the shapes of flowers and puppy dogs also just for looking, not using.
DeleteGoing by "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", a tea-towel is probably be second best after a regular towel to have in case of an alien invasion. That leaves you with broken diesel engines as problems where tea-towels might be only of little help.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read "The Hitchiker's Guide" in ages. Might be one to go back and reread :-)
DeleteA tea towel is one of the most useful things ever. Too bad they get dirty, gross and ragged so quickly. It makes using a nice one a dreadful decision. We're not members of any clubs or organizations, but it was special whenever we met people with the same boat as ours, which didn't happen often.
ReplyDeleteI remember when we lived in NZ and met people who owned the same boat as us (a Raven 26) - it was a lot of fun to compare notes and check each others' boats out.
DeleteThe closest I've been to belonging to a club was a 2 year stint in French Club in high school -- I found the pressure to be social while building homecoming floats and holding car washes to be too much for me and gave the whole club thing up.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Stephanie @ SV CAMBRIA
Maybe you could start holding boat washes now :-)
DeleteStylish tea towel! We have so many, mostly gifts, and I use them in strict rotation so that they seem to last for ever. Some were even wedding presents which means they are almost archeological objects. When we had our kitchen redone a few years ago I bought some that matched and for a while used only them, but now we have lapsed to the old non-matching hotch-potch. There must be an interesting sociological study to be done on people's use of tea towels!
ReplyDeleteThat would be an interesting story to study tea towels :-) It is nice when your tea towels match the decor, but probably not sustainable in the long run.
DeleteI love that tea towel. I call them dish towels, but they are probably the same right?
ReplyDeleteWe belong to lots of organizations. Yacht clubs and the like. Sister ship. Sea Ray Sundancers are a dime a dozen. I've seen lots of them.
Have a fabulous day. ☺
They are the same thing. Tea towel is the British term for our dish towels and since it's a British organization, they call them tea towels, so I thought I would too :-)
Delete