Sailboat dreams
10/12/15 05:13
My life is busy and I often don’t have much time for hobbies, but I have always pursued a wide variety of recreational activities. One of the things I have enjoyed over the years is making boats. I started out with a woodstrip canoe that was constructed from materials obtained at local lumber yards and hardware stores. I later modified that boat to accommodate a sail, leeboards and rudder so that it can be sailed as well as paddled. The major motivation for building the boat was that I wanted a canoe and I couldn’t afford the price of a new canoe at the store. I could have shopped around for a used boat. They are often available at very low prices. Somehow, the idea of making a boat from scratch for a couple of hundred dollars seemed like a more appealing plan. The boat has some flaws, but it still seaworthy and good to go nearly 25 years later.
Later I decided I wanted a smaller solo canoe, so I built one. That was followed by a kayak that is the boat I use the most when paddling. That kayak has been in the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Bay of Fundy, the Puget Sound, the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers, Lakes Superior, Michigan and Huron and a host of other small bodies of water around the United States. It has traveled thousands of miles on top of our pickup. I’ve made various repairs over the years and the boat hardly looks like a showpiece, but I still get a lot of positive comments when I take it out on the water.
More canoes followed. When our grandson was born, I decided to make a row boat on the rationale that his parents might be more comfortable with him riding in a boat that was less tippy when he was young. The boat is a small yawl with a beautifully shaped wineglass transom with our grandson’s name on it. We’ve had a lot of fun rowing that boat around in sheltered waters.
When his sister was born, I started a woodstrip expedition kayak. She is 18 months old and that boat is still a work in progress in our garage. I have tried some things with the inlay of three different kinds of wood that requires a fair amount of patience. It should be in the water sometime next spring.
But I got a letter a couple of weeks ago that set me off on another project. Now I have two boats in process. Here’s how it began.
The letter, on yellow paper, with a four-year-old’s capital printing simply says: “TED CAN YOU MAKE A SAIL BOAT PLEASE? ELLIOT” Elliot is our grandson. Of course the answer is “yes!” I have dreamed of the day when our grandson would ask me to make a boat for him. I immediately wrote back with some questions about size and color. His response now has prompted me to move on to the model phase. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t read my blog, so help me keep the surprise. I’ve got a foot long model boat with a blasted keel and spars made out of dowels that is ready for paint. I’ve discussed colors with our grandson and it will be a Christmas present for him. The model should sail fairly well with a mainsail and jib and a rudder mounted on copper wires so it will stay in a fixed position. We should be able to set it in a pond and the wind will carry it in a straight line. It will be able to sail fairly well at most points of sail.
The model, of course, is just the first phase. A four-year-old is a bit young to learn to sail, though he is getting the hang of a greenland paddle in our canoe excursions and he’ll be ready for his own paddle by next summer. After he masters a few strokes, he’ll make a good bow partner for short trips. In the meantime, we can continue to plan a small sailboat that will carry three or four people.
Our grandson lives near the Puget Sound in Washington State and his city has a fairly active Sea Scouts program. I’ve watched the young sailors making their way around the sound as I have paddled my kayak during visits to their city. When he is ready, our grandson has a grandpa who will be very happy to fund sailing lessons if that is what he wants.
The other boats that I have made live with us. In fact we have too many and I have arranged to donate a canoe to a nearby nature preserve and will probably be seeking new homes for a couple more next summer. However if a sailing dinghy comes into being it will need to live at our grandson’s home. Perhaps a light weight aluminum trailer will be suitable to carry it back and forth to the water with a small family car. Storage will be a bit of a problem. I can make a cover, but boats still take up space.
Those are all problems for the future, however. I haven’t even begun to build a full size boat. I plan to stretch out the design phase for several years while our grandson grows and refines his own likes and desires. Who knows? He may not find sailing to be as much fun as he now envisions. Certainly he will discover other passions and joys. The last time we visited his home we did a little paddling, but the thing he was loving the most was his new bicycle. He and grandpa went on several wonderful bike rides and it is a good thing grandpa has a pickup to haul boats and bikes and lots of other gear.
From the first days when I became involved in a water sports program at a church camp, I have known that boats are, for me, all about relationships. A teenager in a canoe will talk about the meaning of life and his or her dreams and fears in a way that cannot always be accomplished in other settings. Small boats enable us to go places and see things from a fresh perspective.
Already my love of boats has produced a wonderful correspondence with my grandson in an era where people don’t write many letters. I count myself among the most fortunate of people and I’ve been saving all of the letters.
Later I decided I wanted a smaller solo canoe, so I built one. That was followed by a kayak that is the boat I use the most when paddling. That kayak has been in the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Bay of Fundy, the Puget Sound, the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers, Lakes Superior, Michigan and Huron and a host of other small bodies of water around the United States. It has traveled thousands of miles on top of our pickup. I’ve made various repairs over the years and the boat hardly looks like a showpiece, but I still get a lot of positive comments when I take it out on the water.
More canoes followed. When our grandson was born, I decided to make a row boat on the rationale that his parents might be more comfortable with him riding in a boat that was less tippy when he was young. The boat is a small yawl with a beautifully shaped wineglass transom with our grandson’s name on it. We’ve had a lot of fun rowing that boat around in sheltered waters.
When his sister was born, I started a woodstrip expedition kayak. She is 18 months old and that boat is still a work in progress in our garage. I have tried some things with the inlay of three different kinds of wood that requires a fair amount of patience. It should be in the water sometime next spring.
But I got a letter a couple of weeks ago that set me off on another project. Now I have two boats in process. Here’s how it began.
The letter, on yellow paper, with a four-year-old’s capital printing simply says: “TED CAN YOU MAKE A SAIL BOAT PLEASE? ELLIOT” Elliot is our grandson. Of course the answer is “yes!” I have dreamed of the day when our grandson would ask me to make a boat for him. I immediately wrote back with some questions about size and color. His response now has prompted me to move on to the model phase. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t read my blog, so help me keep the surprise. I’ve got a foot long model boat with a blasted keel and spars made out of dowels that is ready for paint. I’ve discussed colors with our grandson and it will be a Christmas present for him. The model should sail fairly well with a mainsail and jib and a rudder mounted on copper wires so it will stay in a fixed position. We should be able to set it in a pond and the wind will carry it in a straight line. It will be able to sail fairly well at most points of sail.
The model, of course, is just the first phase. A four-year-old is a bit young to learn to sail, though he is getting the hang of a greenland paddle in our canoe excursions and he’ll be ready for his own paddle by next summer. After he masters a few strokes, he’ll make a good bow partner for short trips. In the meantime, we can continue to plan a small sailboat that will carry three or four people.
Our grandson lives near the Puget Sound in Washington State and his city has a fairly active Sea Scouts program. I’ve watched the young sailors making their way around the sound as I have paddled my kayak during visits to their city. When he is ready, our grandson has a grandpa who will be very happy to fund sailing lessons if that is what he wants.
The other boats that I have made live with us. In fact we have too many and I have arranged to donate a canoe to a nearby nature preserve and will probably be seeking new homes for a couple more next summer. However if a sailing dinghy comes into being it will need to live at our grandson’s home. Perhaps a light weight aluminum trailer will be suitable to carry it back and forth to the water with a small family car. Storage will be a bit of a problem. I can make a cover, but boats still take up space.
Those are all problems for the future, however. I haven’t even begun to build a full size boat. I plan to stretch out the design phase for several years while our grandson grows and refines his own likes and desires. Who knows? He may not find sailing to be as much fun as he now envisions. Certainly he will discover other passions and joys. The last time we visited his home we did a little paddling, but the thing he was loving the most was his new bicycle. He and grandpa went on several wonderful bike rides and it is a good thing grandpa has a pickup to haul boats and bikes and lots of other gear.
From the first days when I became involved in a water sports program at a church camp, I have known that boats are, for me, all about relationships. A teenager in a canoe will talk about the meaning of life and his or her dreams and fears in a way that cannot always be accomplished in other settings. Small boats enable us to go places and see things from a fresh perspective.
Already my love of boats has produced a wonderful correspondence with my grandson in an era where people don’t write many letters. I count myself among the most fortunate of people and I’ve been saving all of the letters.