Can Do

I dropped by to visit some friends a few days ago. They're a sailing couple turned homesteading couple--though they haven't given up the sailing piece--just added the live-off-the-land piece. They have a neat little Winthrop Warner sloop that they called home for several years before dropping the hook here in Penobscot Bay, stumbling onto a fortunate land deal, and turning attention to woodworking and tomatoes and such.
    Anyhow, as I said, I paid a surprise visit the other day. Their car was parked in the usual vernal posture: backed up to the boat, trunk open, tools scattered about behind it. I walked up to the boat and gave a shout through an opening at the turn of the bilge where a plank had been removed. B answered, her voice muffled by a respirator. They'd peeled away some ceiling planking for inspection, it turned out, and had discovered a line of broken frames. The problem needed immediate attention; there could be no sailing until it was fixed.
    It occurred to me there that that's often where good older boats lose ground. These little high-maintenance events are turning points: Discover problem... drop a plank or two... gather materials... lose interest... lose interest some more. The original problem then gets compounded by rain and sun and cold, and soon a good boat with a few broken frames is a once-good boat with a host of serious problems.
    I know this couple well enough to know that they'll finish this job by midsummer. New problems will arise later, and they'll tend to these, too. With this kind of stewardship, that boat will sail indefinitely.
    Why am I sharing this? Because maybe your car is currently backed up to your boat and there are tools all scattered about behind it. Maybe you've discovered a hidden problem, and there's no promise of summer yet in the weather. It's an easy time to get discouraged. I get a charge of ambition from people like K & B, who don't complain when faced with dropping a plank or two in mid May and bending in a few new frames. They'll be sailing this summer, no matter what. Maybe you'll find some encouragement here, too.

Comments

[Bob Cleek]

Fibreglass wooden boats? You gotta be kidding! Sure, they are out there. Every so often somebody just HAS to lay up a "lapstrake" glass hull, or scribe plank lines on the mold. Some of these are rather well done. Still and all, WoodenBoat is about wooden boats, which ought to be boats built traditionally of wood, or extensions of that historic technology in the present day. (Okay, if you must, epoxy lamination... LOL)

If people with plastic boats want to install fine joinerwork on them, we should encourage them, but not at the expense of addressing traditional wooden boat building and "culture." Let them read WoodenBoat and figure it out themselves. If God had wanted us to have fibreglass wooden boats, He'd have made fibreglass trees.

Frankly, there's been too much off the wall stuff in the magazine of late, although I do know that coming up with new material is a chore.