— In dwforum@yahoogroups.com, Dean Herring wrote:
Thanks Jackie—yep spending 200-400 hours with a boat…building her is better than actually sailing for me. I’ve come to grips with that now and started to enjoy the process—it’s actually a chess game to build and epoxy everything in the right sequence … Dean
Reading Dean’s comment it struck me that I am not rushing to get my boat in the water either…it has been ‘finished’ for several decades but every Fall I start a list of improvements which usually cannot be completed until it gets warm enough in the Spring (actually here it is almost Summer before that happens) for paint and epoxy to set/dry. I find I have been revelling in carefully and slowly doing the following modifications:
- Mounting the new speed and depth transducers including a wood block to allow ropes to slide past the latter where it pokes about 1″ below the hull near the front (where it can give a slight advance warning as you approach a shallow spot)
- Cutting and fastening wood strips to hold the new solar panels on top of the cabin
- Cutting and fastening reinforcements for the bow-roller assembly I built several years ago which split when the boat anchors slipped and it weathered a hurricane sidewise (that also led to slide pins to hold the side hatch covers down)
- Cutting and fastening a 4″ x 10″ tapered block which will take the new remote shifter/throttle controls being built for my outboard
- Painting everything: white decks, green sides and red bottom paint
- Replacing the corroding lifeline wires
- Replacing the wind gauge and sensors with a cheap wireless speed unit and a Davis wind vane
- Hopefully replacing the backstay with two cables so there is redundancy on all 4 sides of the mast.
Why am I listing all this? both to show that a year when “there isn’t much to do” is not really that, and to show to myself that I am really enjoying this, taken one step at a time. I just ralized I am enjoying the process and will feel empty when it is done. I must have done 15 small batches of epoxy along the way, taken several days at painting, and always planning…planning…planning. You’re right: BUILDING…IS BETTER THAN ACTUALLY SAILING.