That is the phrase that instilled in me the certainty of metal for my next world voyaging boat.
I had awoken one morning the night after a fast moving storm blew through an anchorage. When I saw a boat that had dragged deep into the mangroves and lay far over on its side I immediately jumped into my tender and went over to render aid. Surely, had it been me and my wooden boat the curtains would be drawing closed on the final scene.
A bit hyped up, I pounded on the side of the steel vessel offering up my services as rescuer, but to my surprise, the owner eventually, sleepily, peered over the side dressed only in his underwear. Obviously having been roused early from his bunk he wasn't much for small talk - he umphed out the quote above. Wow... what a different perspective on grounding out. His biggest concern was that he be around once the tide came back! My fascination with metal boats was confirmed. There-after I started noticing the volume of hard chined boats around the anchorages. The French seemed most fond of them and would often tell great sagas of their own builds. I was hooked.
Having spent a year recently reading volumes of books specific to the details of a full metal build I felt confident that my new library of knowledge, combined with my wooden boat building experiences qualified me fully as a candidate for a low level amateur homebuild. From there I started to pour over designs; hard chine, round chine, origami, aluminum, steel, down wind sleds, traditional shapes... wow.
I became somewhat settled on the possibility of a dix design in the low 40' range and from there I began to run some financial numbers. A month into that I began to see the ugly dragon-of-truth blow its devouring flames. The bottom line was that if I pitched in everything I could, and I were lucky, I could pull together a beautiful hull, but that would likely be the end of it right there. I had many internet forum acquaintances warn me that the river of metal boatbuilding is lined with unfinished steel cadavers.
The answer was disappointing, but reality was hard to ignore... I could not afford to build my own boat. It was hard to accept that a full build from my own hands was not in my future, but maybe there were other options? And so began my search for a rebuildable boat.
Time afforded me the education of streamlining searches on the internet and new possibilities were beginning to come into view. I started to believe that one day something fitting would pop up. It wasn't long before they began to surface. I had found the headwaters of the river of unfinished and abandoned metal boats. I began to feel that the game was back on and with it my hopes rose of one day having a capable little ship again. I wrote down my base of requirements, entered them on the net and hit the search button a few thousand times.
The answer was disappointing, but reality was hard to ignore... I could not afford to build my own boat. It was hard to accept that a full build from my own hands was not in my future, but maybe there were other options? And so began my search for a rebuildable boat.
Time afforded me the education of streamlining searches on the internet and new possibilities were beginning to come into view. I started to believe that one day something fitting would pop up. It wasn't long before they began to surface. I had found the headwaters of the river of unfinished and abandoned metal boats. I began to feel that the game was back on and with it my hopes rose of one day having a capable little ship again. I wrote down my base of requirements, entered them on the net and hit the search button a few thousand times.
