It's days like this
It's days like this when I start thinking about getting a boat on the water.
Mind you, it's early winter and spring still seemed pretty far away.
I was intent on building a boat and knew I'd need a whole winter.
I'd already bought plans; the sails were ordered and paid for. And I was in the middle of insulating the shop.
And then came the random comment.
"..Oh did you see this one?"
"It's right in town ..You've probably seen it already".
"No ..wait ..show me".
And we were off.
When I was a kid there were quite a number of wooden boats in the harbour. There was a boatworks in town building boats. Every town up and down the shore had some kind of connection with the water.
I remember seeing a Nordic Folkboat that often moored in the harbour. It wasn't like the other boats. It was always waiting. With it's exquisite lines and all that warm exposed wood. Wholesome and made with human hands. Owned by humans and sailed by humans. It seemed to say everything good you could say about a boat.
And as every year went by, there was increasingly more and more fiberglass, polyurethane and epoxy. Impersonal, perfect and unaffected by the world.
Bronze, brass, oiled wood and painted steel were disappearing. Stainless steel and plastic was steadily taking it's place. Cheap, sterile, instant and artificial. A future where everything was wrong.
And here I was looking at the Folk Boat's original inpiration so to speak. And it was staring me right in the face.
How could I say no?