Hit the deck running with sebago shoes

Hit the deck running with Sebago shoes. And Niles. And well, me if you need an extra deck hand…

The sun shimmies off the waters bonce like a gopher dancing in the grass. All you can see for miles is azure blue water, Riviera coastline and picture perfect bronzed bodies lying on the ample deck. It goes without saying that the Champagne is flowing and that Wills the deck hand has whiter teeth than Richard Hammond – but it also goes without saying that this scene is incomplete without Sebago shoes.

Sebago shoes are all about the water. The yacht deck. Being built to withstand the salty spray. To take a wave without slipping overboard. Being worn without socks.

Yes you heard me – worn without socks.

Apparently Sebago’s and socks go together like tuna and chorizo so they simply cannot be paired up. It would appear to be a crime of upper class proportion to do so.

Even if you wear them with jeans and a shirt, shorts and a polo or to do a spot of gardening (oh I’ve seen it done) - there is only one, and I mean one scenario whereby you can get away with wearing Sebago’s with socks!

Unless you’ve moored the boat up (or ceased pretensions of owning one) arranged for your clubs to be caddied (or else borrowed some) and proceeded to hack lumps of grass out of the fairway as you embark on what the finer classes call a game of golf – you are hitherto frowned upon by people with names like ‘Jonty’, ‘Niles’ or ‘Vic’ for wearing Sebago’s with socks.

To find out more about this curious phenomenon – I spoke to somebody who had recently assumed the identity ‘Niles’.

Doltish Lowbrow is now known as ‘Niles’ both by the law (in at least 23 UN States) and by his associates. Following the incredible success he had since changing his name to ‘Niles’ he united with others over the internet to form the group NOGGIN (Niles’s Outlook Gains Great Improvement over Neil’s).

Doltish Lowbrow was a long term dole bludger before changing his name to Neil with little success. Now going by the name of Niles Gumption he is the owner of a yacht, a house in Monaco and he regularly attends the Cannes Film Festival Yacht Charter as well as the Monaco Grand Prix Yacht Charter.

He rates Sebago shoes as one of his greatest ever purchases:

‘Assuming the wearing of Sebago docksides was almost as important to me as assuming the name Niles – I don’t know where I’d be without either! They’re so comfy I could fall asleep in them and they’re trendier than the students who wear them.’

Asking him whether he wears them with socks, purely being nosey, he answered:

‘Yachts and socks, or indeed Sebago’s and socks are big no no’s if you have the docksides as I and my deck hand Wills do.’

I enquired whether Niles would be interested in the skills of a notoriously clumsy, inexperienced and scattered deckhand – me – but he declined, politely adding.

Perhaps you should start by buying some Sebago shoes my friend, maybe then we could talk.’

This upset me doubly as he had already told me he needed an extra deck hand for an upcoming trip to the Antigua Yacht Charter Show in December.

But apparently deck handing is the calling of people called Wills, yachting that of people called Niles and Sebago shoes for anyone stylish enough. As for me, well perhaps I’ll buy a pair safe in the confidence that they have rust free eyelets?!