Perfect vs. Good

 

From Adam Bager's post The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good
 

Perfect is the enemy of good.

- Voltaire

Perfect is the enemy of done.

- Catherine Carrigan

Perfect vs. Good

Scant on wherewithal, experience, knowledge and wisdom. Rich in dreams and hope. Foolish youth embarked into a sun yet on the rise.

We sailed off the charts and beaten paths, beyond the lights and markers. Back ways through reef and slough. Up nameless rivers. Between scattered towns.

*****

It all began with a set of chisels…

They've arrived!!

We’d have flipped for it, but Anke loves opening packages, so she always wins.

A cut here, a snip there. Some eager shucking of wrapper, and a well-made cardboard box was revealed to our greedy eyes. We could smell the cherry blossoms brushed over an industrial green background. They framed a spare script writen in bold, black strokes and arranged in vertical columns.

Kanji… Japanese.

Flushed with anticipation, we canted the lid slowly back on its paper hinge, with each a hand on one corner to share this moment of discovery. 

There! Lying in eight parallel compartments, each aglow with a rainbow sheen of oil. There they lay. Our beautiful set of temple builders’ chisels lying side by side.

Their lemony, heart centered, box-wood handles were steel ringed and socketed. We could see the darker line of steel edge we knew to be hardened, bonded to a laminate of polished metal visible as a sinuous line across the just-so bevel .

Trembling, Anke reached out her hand to lift one, turning it over to expose the underside hollows… Hollows! …that had been ground into their lower face. An ancient method, we had read, to reduce friction while paring.

These chisels were no ordinary tools. They were fit to build homes for the gods! 

Nor were they cheap. For us, they represented a significant investment in our future afloat. As sailors and masters of our own vessels, we would see to their needs as they would see to ours. 

BRAMBLE, a clinker-built British life-boat, was our first home together. She had been converted to a sailing cruiser sometime in the dim past. We had bought her as-is, hoping to learn, through her, initial sailing and boatwright skills. A strategic stepping stone on the way to a proper yacht.

She was in need of serious work. Now we had serious tools. 

Reverently, we took up the chisel appropriate to the task. A gentle, forward pressure and a feather of larch curled upward and back upon itself. Devoid of effort, this magical tool glided forth to do its work. 

Straight and true and clean and — TINK. 

Hmm… that sounded like we hit something. It sure felt like we hit something. And… a gnat-sized chip now marred our previously perfect edge!

We glared accusingly into the cut and a tiny, metallic glint sneered back. It was the jaundiced yellow of a coppery wire strand, souvenir of some long-ago brushing.

Many hours with a stone (finest waterstone, of course) elapsed. Many timorous taps with the special mallet backed the hollows away from the edge, proportional to the material we’d removed. The edge was restored!

Well. To spare you agonizing repetition, our very next efforts met with the same INSUFFERABLE results.

We traded our beautiful chisels to an overjoyed boatwright (who dealt in new construction with only the highest grades of wood) for a plain set of framing chisels. Cheap, robust and easy to maintain the edge.

*****

In hindsight this trade was our first entrance into 'the real world' where perfection isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's not bad in itself, but more like a guideline, really.

Perfect is elusive, fragile and an end-in-itself. Good is at-hand, rough-and-ready and gits 'er did.

It's a choice.

Learning to Trust Myself

Kyūzō from Seven Samurai
by Akira Kurusawa

I wish someone would give me a whole box of those sharpening guides and gizmos... so I could have the pleasure of dumping them overboard!

-- Dynamite Payson (as remembered)

Learning to Trust Myself

I'm one of those guys who spends an inordinate amount of time trying to find the easy way forward. Sometimes, this effort pays handsomely. Other times, I waste my effort in attempting to fix what ain't broke.

At present, we're building a boat in at least semi-traditional style. That is to say, it's plywood, but fastened  and bedded -- rather than glued -- together. Mostly. The critical joinery must be carefully and correctly shaped without reliance on modern, gap-filling adhesives. This calls on skills which are rusty at best and at worst heretofore unacquired.

Two cases in point...

Rolling Bevels

Rolling bevels are a cut along an edge where the bevel is not constant, but rather rolls along a gradient between known angles. This kind of loosey-goosey process is terrifying to my ordered mind, and I have successfully eliminated them from TriloBoat construction.

We once were drafted into a professional effort to roll a bevel along a long, thick, expensive plank. One pro ran the plank through a bandsaw while another called out angles marked at intervals along the plank. The angle of cut was changed by angling the plate with a protractor/handle arrangement. Our job was to shift the handle "slowly" and "smoothly", transitioning between the angles being called out.

I mean, c'mon! I can call out numbers as they slide by me with one eye covered. But to make the correct transition? THAT is a pro job foisted upon us amateurs.

But now, we're faced with rolling bevels in our own build, on our own petard.

Back to first principles: We basically have two, parallel faces. A fair curve along one edge is known from the plans. We know the edge angle at several points along that curve and also that they are increasing -- slowly and smoothly -- at known points along its length. Hmm. So if we figure out (by a simple lofting) the offset each angle makes across the thickness of the piece and plot those points on their stations, we can draw a second fair curve on the second face. Plane the edge to meet the two curves and voila! The perfect curve, de-terrified.

Ply Scarfs

For various (probably trivial) reasons, we chose to scarf the ply sides together rather than use our usual butt-straps. Conditions dictated 8in scarfs for 3/4in plywood.

Now there are an endless number of jigs possible for this, but they take time, materials and brainpower likely exceeding the job itself (in our one-off case).

First we tried the method we used on SLACKTIDE... step each sheet back 8in, fix a 2x4 runner to our circular saw to bridge the 'steps' and, with the salient depth set to 3/4in, have at.

Having at means scoring along at about 1/8in intervals, knocking that thin wall out with the blade and, using intact steps to support the 2x4 and saw, side-sweeping the flat with the tangent of the blade.

This works, but is strenuous going. I took it in stride 16 years ago, but am huffing and a-puffing, now! Worse, unlike in SLACKTIDE, our present ply finished rough with this method.

Oh well, score the steps less frequently and use the planer to the depth they indicated. But, hmm... that turned out rough, too. What's more, I did 99% of the job with the planer by eye, then carefully removed the last smidgeon guided by the scoring.

Conclusion? Try it by eye as the sole means. Result? Better results in half the time with only a quarter the effort.

In short, I'd have save myself a lot of time and trouble, wear and tear if I'd trusted myself from the beginning. Sure, there's a learning curve, but no worse than more involved methods.

NOTE: We use LPU (Liquid PolyUrethane), a modern, gap-filling adhesive, for ply scarfs, so the matching planes don't have to be utterly perfect... just good enough.

*****

We d0 need to be clear on the principles and constraints involved. I'm not talking Blind-Man's Bluff, here. There is a certain amount of letting go and winging it, but that lies in our increasing control of our bodies first, and of our tools as extensions. 

We have the luxury to inform ourselves from past masters and present. We have the luxury to practice on scrap. We can Assess, Address and Appraise.

So... ready, set, practice, go and get 'er did!

Lofting Low

 

Everything should be made as simple as possible.

But not simpler.

Albert Einstein

Lofting Low

Being naturally lazy, I've spent an inordinate amount of mental energy on making boat-building easier. Over the years, whole swathes of the process have been successfully dumbed-down toward small enough bites for Anke and me to chew. Economical in time, space, money and materials.

One such swathe is is the process of lofting a vessel. 

'Lofting' is laying down the lines which define the shape of the vessel and some its components. All the individual lines need to agree with each other, meaning extensive cross-referencing and nudgings until they do. This is a finicky process, involving patience, focus and good spatial visualization.

Generally, this is done full-size or at some large fraction thereof. The resulting vessel is 3D (three-dimensional), but the lofting is generally laid down in 2D... done on a flat expanse called the lofting floor. Often, it was located in a loft under the roof of the building shed... hence the name.

Still with me?

Okay, let's take a survey of things we need:

• A lofting space - This is generally in addition to the construction space and preferably stays available throughout the build. The lofting floor should be out-of-the-way, amply sized, smooth, sheltered and hopefully warm.
  
  
• Esoteric skills - Lofting isn't rocket science, but neither is it run-of-the-mill. We need to understand the specification of points and lines as they relate to the plans, the techniques for laying them down, fairing, correcting and coordinating and further techniques for taking them up again to apply to our growing vessel and its parts.
  
  
• Special tools - The more complex the lofting, the more tools we will need. Splines, ducks, tacks, pencils (of various colors?), spiling (taking the pattern of a curved or otherwise complex shape) plus related tools... and so on.
  
  
• Time - A fair amount of it, especially if this is our first rodeo. Especially if the vessel's shape is complex. Especially if the loft itself must be built.

I can't count the number of times I've bemoaned this list, only to have someone tell me how simple and easy it all is. Only problem is that I've done it and it isn't.

Let's see what can be done to ease our way...

Simple Vessels in Sheet Materials

The first step is to simplify the problem.

Sheet materials generally lie flat or follow a section-of-cylinder or section-of-cone. Vessels built from them are a subset of shapes which - as a class - are generally much easier to loft and build.

NOTE: Sheet materials may also be tortured into compound curves but that ain't entirely simple, neither!

Simple vessels with fewer and simpler curves are easier to loft and build. In this post and lead image, I attempt a rough hierarchy of vessel shape complexity.

Lofting Space

Clearly, if we can take the loft out of lofting, we're ahead of the game.

Phil Bolger with Dynamite Payson popularized Instant Boats in their book(s) of the same name. A key feature is that the lines are laid down (lofted) directly on flat panels (e.g., bottoms, sides, decks and components) before bending into shape. Such lines are said to be expanded.

Following this practice, one eliminates the separate lofting floor. Time and potential errors are saved as most lines are directly cut to shape the panels (no transfer from loft to materials).

In our (flat and rockered bottom) builds, we've taken to building the bottom first, in sections which are finished, flipped and joined. While still flat, we use this structure as a building platform for bulkheads, sides and other components. Once ready, we assemble the structure building upwards from the bottom. This saves flipping a vessel that has been built inverted.

Esoteric Skills

By this point, the 3D shape of the vessel has been chosen and designed for low complexity. Required skills are accordingly much reduced. 

Spatial visualization is far less taxed. Cross-references are minimal and straight-forward. Curves are simple and simply faired. Corrections are mostly limited to point control (vs the correction and coordination of interrelated lines).

Design can go a long way toward easing or eliminating spiling. Box-Barge/Scows, for example are self-rectifying (if the edges meet, they pull themselves into square). Their parallel sides and dead-flat bottom sections mean 'house-carpentry' for most of the hull (no spiling at all!).

In TriloBoats, the use of whole and simple fractions of sheets mean laying out and cutting are held to the minimum, with attendant reductions in waste.

Special Tools

While a few special tools will likely be necessary in any hull shape more complex than the simple box, simplifying holds them to a handful.

In particular, simple curves allow stiffer splines that are generally three point curves (two control points - one toward each end - plus one somewhere in the middle. Unlike the more sophisticated tools for fairing complex curves, simple weights over a sharp corner suffice (of a plank, say, or paperback book).

Design can often help here, too - employing simple rectangles and arcs of a circle - to eliminate splines and rolling bevels.

Time

Everything discussed here has saved time. Time, time, time, time.

Lofting space comes 'free' with the vessel being built. This is (infra)structure right at hand (no round-trip to the loft, looking for a clue).

Simpler lines are laid down once with straight edge, simple spline and radius, and rarely 'taken up'. Cuts are made directly along these lines. Spiling is reduced.

At the extreme end (box-barge/scows) much time is saved in layout, cutting and squaring up the hull. Spiling, most bevels and all rolling bevels are reduced or eliminated.

Bolger never liked the term instant boat, but we can sure edge closer!

*****

Nothing I've written here is in disparagement of lofting or the complex end of vessel space. I love those Curvy Dogs! I respect those who lavish their skill, time, energy and passion in every aspect of their construction.

But like I said, I'm lazy. What's more...

I'd rather be sailing!

Sailing in Place

 

Book Release!

Sailing in Place has gone live at Amazon (yeah, I know, but it's a start 😖 ). Both a Kindle version and paperback are available, and I'm working toward .epub and PDF versions to be made available at TriloBoats.com.

This is our first book and serves as introduction and background to our planned series, Sailing Simple: Means and Mindset, to which we'll be adding as time rolls on. Each new title will be a themed collection of updated posts from this blog (we've learned a lot over the years) extended with new writing.

Sailing in Place revolves around our life on the water; how we think about it and approach its challenges. It's not a memoir, though we spin some yarns. No nuts-and-bolts how-to, though the hardware shows. We hope, rather, to convey a taste of the flavor and flair that goes with sailing engine-free in a place of overwhelming beauty.

The blog has been a great place to share much of what we've learned over the years. But it has organizational limitations... it's not been easy to tie related posts together into larger themes.

Thanks to you all for reading along with us since... what?... 2011! We've enjoyed sharing what we've been given and meeting many of you online and a few in person. 

Here's hoping that you're enjoying the cruise as much as we are!

*****

For those of you who read Sailing in Place and feel inspired to do so, your honest rating and/or review at Amazon is most appreciated! 

Wood Heat for the Lazy

Spike in the Log 

Pulled from the Log

EROEI – Energy Return On Energy Invested

Wood Heat for the Lazy

It’s often said that wood is the fuel that warms us twice. But that’s understated!

Lessee…

1. Locate, fall and limb tree (standing dead and dry).

2. Buck into stove-length rounds.

3. Split to various sizes..

4. Transport to home.

5. Stack (store) handy to stove.

6. COOK and/or HEAT.

7. Clean stove (periodically).

By my count, it warms us seven times! On our waterborne home, this omits fetching wood in from the woodshed. And I didn’t even mention greenwood seasoning (drying 2 to 3 years)!.

All this represents a considerable amount of energy invested in the energy returned for desired cooking and heating.

Similar to cost/benefit analysis, EROEI is the ratio of the amount of energy we get from a given energy expenditure; the bang for our energetic buck. Without doing any math, it urges us to think about our energy inputs, outputs and benefits in relation to costs. It’s an orienting concept. High EROEI is good; Low EROEI is less good. EROEI = 1 is pointless; EROEI < 1 is a downward spiral.

For fuels such as diesel, gas or electric, our personal EROEI may appear lesser, but money must be made and spent with all the energy investments that requires of us. The equation is more complex, perhaps, but pertains, nonetheless.

From our point of view, a few hours passed weekly in beautiful woods and useful exertion  in return for energy independance has been a good bargain. It has gotten us off our lazy butts and into the wider world. Our blood flowing and our backs strong. But as we age and our store of individual energy diminishes we’re looking ahead. 

What follows are a handful of approaches, resources and tactics aimed at increasing our return and reducing our investment for higher EROEI.

Smaller Volume plus Insulation

Insulation is a lesson we learned better late than never. Higher R-value hull and overheads with double-paned windows have become our standard practice. 

Now we’re looking to reduce volume. The smaller a space to heat, the less energy return is required, which in turn lowers our necessary energy investment (for heating, but also for row/sailing and maintenance).

In WAYWARD (our present boat), the living space is 20ft x 8ft x 5ft in the main, plus a trunk cabin and hatch that end up totalling about 1000ft3. The boat we’re now building for our dotage will be 12ft x 4ft x 4ft plus a small galley extension to total about 250ft3. 

We’ll have only a quarter the volume to heat!

Rocket Stoves

It’s said that the energy lost in woodsmoke is nearly half the total of unburnt wood. Rocket Stoves burn that smoke, reducing wood demand accordingly. With a quarter the volume to heat and (about) half the wood per unit of heat, we’re already talking around 1/8th the required energy investment for the desired outcome.

Furthermore, they reduce or eliminate energy invested in points 1-4 from our list above.

1. Target small dead limbs – Thumb to wrist size covers cooking to heating. This eliminates whole tree felling and brings the dead limbs of many otherwise living trees online. In our forests, there is a super-abundance of limbs in this range, both among lower branches and windfallen. As a bonus, our coniferous limbs are sap rich near the bole for extra energy density.
   
   

2. Process to length – All methods (see below) are much easier with small diameters than bucking sound wood. Since there is no stove box, we can use longer pieces, reducing the number of cuts.
   
   

3. No splitting! – This is especially helpful as long-fibered spruce, generally our most practical firewood, resists splitting (which make it great for spars).
   
   

4. Transport – Because gathering is such light duty, we can typically keep up by gathering a small amount on our daily ventures on shore, spreading effort over longer time. In our case, the heavy packs we’ve been using over treacherous footing constantly threaten strain or sprain… smaller loads are fail-safer.

These points are hard to quantify, but further increase our EROEI to a substantial degree.

Alternatives to Sawing

Sawing wood is hard work, even with a blade that is well sharpened and set (a process of considerable energy investment!). Nevertheless, it’s the least effort for bucking up rounds which are sound and of larger diameter, and/or of a tough species. For small diameters, however, other methods are faster and take less effort. As a bonus, since small stuff is less stable for sawing, the saw can skitter dangerously… other methods, while not carefree, are generally a degree fail-safer.

• Lop – A good set of ratcheting anvil loppers (for dry wood) makes quick and easy work of any limb within its range.
  
  

• Chop - With an ax, hatchet or hatchet/maul and a hardspot (stump or log) chop down perpendicular with a single strike on opposing sides (two, four or more according to difficulty) of a limb to create a weak spot (we’re not generally chopping through). Pull the end back to bridge between hardspot and ground and smack it with the back of the tool to break or use any of the following methods. It’s generally more efficient to first chop along the whole log, then break along in one go.

• Break - Depending on diameter, species, soundness and dryness wood can be directly broken by hand or across a knee, tree, limb, rock, etc.. Holding to either side and striking at the breakpoint impact loads that point for usually good results (use caution to preserve your wrists against that same impact!).

• Leverage - Leverage multiplies our power, greatly reducing energy invested. Look for a hard point and a fulcrum a little less than the desired length apart. Closely spaced trees or limbs work well, as do rock neighbors, crevasses and overhangs. Insert the stick with its end on the (further) hardspot and break point on the (nearer) fulcrum. Pry until broken. Sometimes it helps to break halfway, turn the stick 180deg and finish the other way.

• Whack Job - This one only works with punky wood, but is fastest and very easy. Find a hardspot, preferably with a sharpish edge (rock, say). Swing the wood like a bat to impact at your desired break point. Momentum snaps the stick on contact. As with an axe, use effort to accelerate the swing but relax before impact (ride the end of the swing) to reduce shock to your joints.

• Cudgeling - Again, pretty much for punkwood. Find a soundwood cudgel (usually about the size of a baseball bat), bridge the victim, and whop it in the middle to break. Watch out for flying ends!

All these methods can be mixed and matched as convenient. The ‘tool-less’ methods are especially helpful in the field for impromptu picnics, and help reduce long wood for a smaller, safer fire.

As you can see, the more brittle the wood, the easier it all gets. Which brings us to…

Punky Wood

Punky (rotting) wood has lost a portion of its energy content to oxidation… in effect, it is pre-burnt to a degree. But a goodly amount of energy remains. 

The benefit is that fermentation has weakened the longitudinal fibers, leaving it easy to break by any of the manual means or with ‘found’ tools. In minutes of light effort, armloads of firewood can be gathered with neither lop, chop nor saw. No tools to sharpen, transport or lose!!

While gathering, we look for the rather broad ‘Goldilocks’ point: not too firm, not too far gone. Light and dry. Well-aired in place or partially elevated above the ground, they dry quickly. The woods are rife with low-hanging dead- and fallen limbs in this state. Close to our fire, boat or dory is a plus.

Punkwood is consumed quicker than sound wood. Thicker diameters can be used to slow and cool combustion (which is proportional to engaged surface area). Where sound wood thin enough to break by hand burns away quick and hot, we can go for larger diameters in punky woods that burn cooler and last far longer. This is especially useful for even heat of a cool evening. Thick ‘uns also take up less storage volume than the equivalent mass in small stuff.

In our parts alders line much of the coast. This quick-growing ‘hardwood’ produces many dead limbs which go punky in short order. Other species such as poplars, aspens and birch are similar.

A couple of cons with this approach…

Compared to sound wood, punkwood requires more volume to transport, tend and store for any given amount of heat. Greater throughput means more ash and its clean-out. These energy investments weigh against its other gains.

While punkwood dries quickly, it absorbs water just as readily. In wet weather (which includes most of winter), it’s often too wet to use.

Still and all, for much of the year, it requires substantially less energy invested for energy returned. So low, in fact, that ‘bouquets’ of punkwood from our daily walks generally supply us with all the summertime wood we need.

‘Spikes’

Spikes are the pitchy roots of limbs from a rotten conifer trunk of pitch rich species (e.g., some pines, spruce, fir?). The pitch is energy dense AND preserves the spike AND waterproofs it… spikes are only ever surface-wet and dry quickly. The rest of the limb has usually rotted away leaving stove-length pieces.

Once the trunk of a fallen tree is fully soft, one can walk along it and harvest the limbs, pulling the spikes like carrots. Or walk along many creeks and beaches and simply pick up spikes (which don’t float) from trees long gone. A few days in the sun or behind the stove and good to go.

Bark

Beachcombed fir bark is a windfall, as fir only grows far to the south of us. Ranging from 1 1/2in to 6in thick and up to 6ft long, it is easily broken to length. Quite resinous, it resists absorbing water and dries quickly in any case. It charcoals quickly but lasts long, perfect for warming on a rainy day.

Alan and Sharie Farrell used mostly fir bark, especially in their later years. It became scarce as British Columbia logging receded, and this became quite a problem for them as time went on.

Fir bark works great in a fire-box. We haven’t yet tried it in our Rocket Stove, and I have my doubts. Too smoky? And the Rocket principle is a hot burn. 

But there are other applications…

Coppicing

Coppicing is the practice of cutting a swift-growing species (such as alders, willows, poplars and many fruit trees!) back to a stump trunk. New limbs spring up in their hundreds for sustainable harvest. It was commonly used for prolific woodlot fuel production on farms and commercial stands.

This approach looks to be a promising option for favorite spots…an arboreal guerrilla garden!

*****

There are many things we’ll miss about our current wood-range with oven. But I gotta say, its low EROEI won’t be one of them.

We’ll just have to find other ways to get our exercise!

Wall Hangin'

 

A Wall-Flower's View

I was pretty far gone, but not so far gone that I thought anyone with half a toehold in reality would think what we were doing was a good idea.

-- Meg Rosoff

Wall Hangin'

For years we would scurry for shelter at day's end. Weather can come up from flat calm no matter the forecast, and we were afraid of the dark.

Over the years, though, we slowly got used to night sailing. Getting caught out gave us plenty of opportunities. With experience, anxieties ebbed. We learned that we could almost always see silhouettes and learned to navigate by them, the lead and echolocation. Anxiety slipped away.

We began to notice that exposed anchorings -- we call them wall hangs -- have their own attractions.

First of all, they're at hand. When the wind dies, we can most often get a hook or two down within fifty yards of shoreline. Often while it's still light and we can enjoy sunset and the last of the day.

And the view! One-eighty degrees of vistas open far and wide, unveiled by the close embrace of  cove or creek. 

The full palette of the boreal maritime rain-country waxes and wanes in intensity from distance muted greens, grays and blues to sunshot opalescences of vermilion and golds against bands of brilliant azures. Illuminated gulls like white fire against the sky, or their fuligin counterparts -- the crows and ravens -- like animated rents in the tapestry to the black, underlying void. Then dimming back to the more somber and twilit purples, perforated by stars uncounted as full dark descends.

Most nights the moon, crescent or gibbous, sails above us, illuminating cloud and fog to shades of ghostly pearl. 

And around us, the wider seaways come alive with bioluminescent script, eloquent of all that move within it; fish and kelp and wave and stone. Porpoise surging along in sprays of light, or the great whales fluking dazzlement in their wake.

We're not yet to the point that we sleep as well while wall hangin'. We doze with one ear cocked for the first ripple of wind. Best to be anchors-up and sailing before the wind comes on to blow.

But we're well compensated for these wakeful nights!

*****

A couple of observations...

• Much of our coastline is steep-to, falling quickly off to unreachable depths. But for reasons unknown to me, there is often a ledge running along before the drop-off at around 2 to 10 fathoms. Kelp fringes tend to holdfast, along here, giving some indication of a spot to prospect at our preferred depths (about 7ftm max). Where the lead finds decent bottom, we have a contender.
  
  
• Beware of rocks and reefs in this stretch, which are poorly charted, if at all... consider tapping around with the lead from the tender after getting a toe-hold, to confirm a clear spot.
  
  
• Because this ledge is most often narrow, we often put out two anchors to limit swing inshore and along the ledge.
  
  
• Consider setting a loose watch to check position occasionally... holding is unreported and likely to be marginal. We prepare to sail at the first breeze, though once awake and ready, may pause for breakfast at anchor if conditions stay light.

How We Got Started

M/V ANNA JACKMAN

Dave’s first ‘berth’ at 6 months

Begin as you mean to go on.

-- British Saying


How We Got Started, OR, Down to the Sea in Slips

My first sail, at fourteen, was with fellow teens in a flotilla of rafts and canoes faring from Hoonah -- in Southeast Alaska -- to Tenakee Springs and back, involving two inlets separated by a high-tide portage. 

This all went about as you might expect… passion and drama, high times and low.

One glorious, fair wind day we rafted our seven slim vessels together, erected a lattice of spruce boughs festooned with tarp and poncho, and sailed a sunny thirty miles!

Sailing!! Oh, it was wondrous, lazing along without a stroke, pushed by the kindly flow of the world! I'd had zero exposure to real-life sailing craft, and had somehow acquired the misimpression that such were nowadays yachts; toys of the very rich. Now this experience planted a seed of another species.

On to college. Strange financial terms meant that whatever I earned in summer came off my aid package. Summer overheads, in other words, translated directly to debt. What to do? Well. I hadn't seen much of the 'Lower 48'. Hitch-hiking was an obvious solution. Which I loved.

On the Road, I discovered the Tao -- that Watercourse Way – and Drift, a pace that suits me. To me the phrase, "sails full and by the wind's whim", are heart and soul of the drifting, dreaming Tao.

I considered hitching on; but the glow of the '60s was fading, and the Road was becoming dark and strange. I considered a 'hippie' bus; but a motor vehicle is no improvement on a motor boat. How to be free and footloose in a world of pistons, cogs and oil?

Musing, I returned to Sitka and signed aboard a salmon troller for a couple of seasons and worked the shoreside fish plants.

And then. And then! Rummaging through a box of Library cast-offs I came across. Sailing the Farm! A Survival Guide to Homesteading on the Ocean!! Independence on Thirty Feet!!! Ken Neumeyer, I exalt your name!

My torch was finally well and truly lit.

But to build or to buy? That was the question! Didn't help that I soon fell head-over-heels with the Pardeys and SERRAFYN/Lyle Hess! Good people; good boats - but well out of present reach.

I more-or-less wasted a few years in research, dither and scheme.


*****

Anke learned to swim before she could walk.

She grew up shoreside along the river Rhein in Duisburg, Germany; the world's largest inland port. Shipping, boats and barges were a constant backdrop. Riverside parks stretch for miles along the banks, and bridges criss-cross the river.

In Schleswig, on the Baltic coast, a family friend would sometimes take her along to join his children in working the nets.

But Europe is crowded. She was drawn to the wide wildernesses of boreal forest. She signed on for a cultural exchange, which took her to Sitka at the dawn of her adult life.

She soon found employment at Patterson Bay, a wilderness research station studying salmon hatchery. Lots of water-work, there, both fresh and salt, ashore and afloat.

And she loved cold water. There were rumors of mermaid sightings.

*****

It was love at first sight.

I was watching a small (live-aboard) sailboat for a friend who'd urged me to take it out. To my concerns that I was a pre-beginner, he tut-tutted. "If anything breaks, you'll fix her, and we'll both be the better for it."

So Anke and I headed off, on the first adventure of our new life together. All book-larnin' and no experience.

We scared ourselves, of course. Despite small, bite-sized steps we occasionally encountered a puff of wind or send of swell. Our first real ‘voyage’ had us up sailing and worrying all night, resisting the motor we had forsworn, the sooner to learn what it takes to go without.

We finally put anchor down, fell into one another's arms, and slept.

Hooked for life.


*****

In those days small, inexpensive wooden sailboats were scarce. In vain, we scoured the Seattle waterfront, looking for a small, sailing liveaboard that we could afford, yet was only moderately challenged (we wanted to learn marine carpentry, but not rebuild!). It also required that certain je n’sais pas quois.

I, of course, had my hopes set on a boat far above our means. Deep draft, ocean capable, classic! Anke pragmatically suggested that I wake from fruitess dreamboating and follow the Pardey's advice that we 'go small, go simple, go now.' Accordingly, our horizons expanded.

We found just what we were looking for in BRAMBLE (formerly TERRAPIN), a salty, gaff-rigged, lifeboat conversion from 1942. Bronze-fastened, larch-on-oak. 26ft on deck by 8ft beam by about 2½ft draft (this was our first taste of shoal draft - both serendipitous and portentous!).

The owner accepted rent-sized installments after an initial down-payment. I took a job flipping pizza, while Anke worked at a small winery. After eight months, we owned our own home, free and clear.

Our first port - while working off our debt - was in the late, great live-aboard community at Eagle Harbor, Bainbridge Island, across from Seattle. It has since succumbed to predatory Bureaucracy, but at that time was truly Magic Harbor. There, many gracious friends patiently mentored us onto the water.

Despite our (or at least my) slow and stuttering start, Anke and I now live aboard among the islands of SE Alaska's Alexander Archipelago. Since BRAMBLE, we've designed, built and sailed a series of vessels.

We sail on a shoe-string, engine-free, and are learning to subsist ever more on local forage.

Goin' on a while, now.