Hey Scott, please don't feel like that about giving your honest critique. I'd much rather have an honest opinion than no comment at all. I'm here and posting my work for 2 reasons...a) To learn from your knowledge, skills and advice, b) to share some photo's with you all. Please continue to point out improvements as you see fit.
Now then,,,,on to the techs, I did in fact notice the softness in the pic and did use some USM. However, I have learned to use this sparingly as it is easy to overbake things. I might have done better with some different settings, but as NEM has pointed out, I didn't think the end effect was hurting the shot too much.
I wanted to get the detail of the layers of different paint and let you see how worn this vessel is as it made me think about adventures people may have had in it.......it's a wonderful thing imagination. Most of all, I wanted to try and nail the composition, and walked around the boat several times to eye it up. Whilst I took a couple of others, this was my preferred pic. As Lionello pointed out we sometimes wrestle with he weather and lighting elements in the UK, but the way I look at it, there's plenty other photographers who work with the same elements and make it work, so back to that learning curve, LOL.
Final thought - Whilst I humbly accept your critiques and opinions on the techs (please keep them coming) I really do think interpretation of subject matter is a more individual thing (check my signature), so I'll make no apology if anyone thinks this is weak. It struck a chord for me and thought that moment should be captured.
So there you go, thank you all very much, I'm off to post another now
