Of late I have been a little introspective about every thing primarily because of loss of a parent, unemployment, illness in the family and environmental impact on our life and project. The impact of all this seems to have reached a plateau and with good news of winning new employment combined with physical rest, the family life is getting back to all our expectations. Part of this is building Binary, which recently has involved only research mainly on the internet and making some navigation changes to this weblog. Therefore there will soon be activity to write up here as I am buoyed by the following quote I found:
Houses are but badly built boats so firmly aground that you cannot think of moving them. They are definitely inferior things, belonging to the vegetable not the animal world, rooted and stationary, incapable of gay transition. I admit, doubtfully, as exceptions, snailshells and caravans. The desire to build a house is the tired wish of one content thenceforward with a single anchorage. The desire to build a boat is the desire of youth, unwilling yet to accept the idea of a final resting place.
It is for that reason perhaps, that when it comes, the desire to build a boat is one of those that cannot be resisted. It begins as a little cloud on a serene horizon. It ends by covering the whole sky, so that you can think of nothing else. You must build to regain your freedom. And always you comfort yourself with the thought that yours will be the perfect boat, the boat that you may search the harbors of the world for and not find.
Arthur Ransome Racundra’s First Cruise 1923
on Mar 29th, 2005 at 3:58 am
That Ransome comment is one of my favorites too. Part of the reason I like your site is that the Oram boat seems to progress relatively quickly.
On the other hand (I should just leave it with the first hand) my experience of boatbuilding is that it isn’t always as freeing as supposed. One acquires a whole second household for the boat, and sometimes ten years of slog ends up conditioning a soul who misses boatbuilding more than travel on the open oceans! Keep speeding along.
Tillman had a great quote too. He was asked what one had to do in order to go on these wonderful trips. His answer was to “put on your boots and go.”
on Apr 12th, 2005 at 8:07 pm
Stay at it, we have recently finished a Mango mk2 (Tribute).
She is a joy to sail and cruise on/in. We too had set backs, family death, injuries, unemployment.
Good luck,
Bryan