By: John

John — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 01:49:50 +0000

I am 62 yrs old, I have never built a boat. I possibly don’t have enough life time left to build one then sail it. But sail I will, darn it. I have just bought a 15ft GRP dinghy shell last year, no rigging, no centreboard. $200. It will sail this summer even if I have to use a blue tarp from the hardware store for a sail.
But all those demotivators are victims of corporate propaganda. They are typically right-handed introverts who follow society’s lack of innovation throughout their lives. Do you imagine for a minute that dudes on the River Nile or wherever who build Feluccas and the like, have ‘naval architect’ experience?
I say, live your dreams, build your boat whatever way you wish. If you need large cheap masts, go and see a utility pole making outfit, and get a pole without it being creosoted, so it can be varnished. Sails? What the heck is the difference if they go baggy after a few years and the ‘performance’ decreases – who is racing anyway? Rigging? How about galvanised turnbuckles such as is used on the aforementioned ute poles? It has been done successfully before, many times.
Humans have been sailing for years, with no tipping over testing, no regulations, just knowledge from those who already did it (not just paid a plastics factory to build one) and good old fashioned commonsense and long term thinking, (you might have heard of that, it is the stuff that Wall Street hasn’t used for years).
So, go for it guys, overbuild if in doubt, and may you never get caught on a lee shore.
My next boat after I get the hang of sailing, will be a 30 footer or so, and darn it, I will sail that too, as Costa Rica looks good every winter. You might want to read Annie Hills book about voyaging on a small income, just to set the mood, even if, like me, you hate canned fish.
Good Luck,
John

Comments on: What we brought back from Canada

By: John