I've been reading "The Way of A Ship" by Derek Lundy lately. It is both beautiful and daunting.. His great grandfather, Benjamin Lundy, was a crewman in the Fo'c'sle' of the Beara Head, one of the last great sqaure riggers to work in the last days of the age of sail. Derek is truly the son of a son of a sailor and masterfully weaves both the story of his great grandfather's journey around the Horn (southern most tip of South America) aboard the Beara Head and the decline of the age of sail as it gave way to the steam ships of the industrial revolution.
This book is particularily compelling to me during this boat project because it only heightens the romance of ships and the sea and the men that sail them. However, it also sheds light on the often gruesome picture of life aboard a ship in the 18th and 19th centuries. Lundy frequently references the work of Conrad, Melville and Dana - all of whom spent considerable time "before the mast" in the age of sail. Conrad being the most accomplished of the three actually finished his sailing career as a captain, only quitting the life at sea to start a writing career.
Lundy, himself a sailor, lives in the San Juans and actually sailed the same route his great grandfather took on the Beara Head before he wrote this book. He's also written a book called "Godforsaken Sea" which I've yet to read but it's clearly on my list.
If you are drawn to the sea and ships that sail, you should definitely read this book. it will open up your eyes to the history of sail.
Friday, October 28, 2005
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
It's a Long Way Down...
this is the actual spot where the steel stanchion (these hold lifelines up) broke when I was trying to straighten it. The green tarp about 17' below is where I landed.
Sometimes it looks far enough to do some damage, but not far enough to right oneself and land feet first. I guess I'm like a cat only in that I seem to have several lives, given this isn't the first near miss I've ever had. Well, I guess I wouldn't call this a miss, but a direct hit...on my head. Also, if I'd landed on my feet, I'd probably have broken a leg or ankle or two. I guess I have that to be thankful for.
Friday, October 21, 2005
Queen of the Slipstream
Van Morrison sings a song called "Queen of the Slipstream" that I just love. I'm thinking of naming my boat Queen of the Slipstream - but it's quite long for the stern of a boat, even if it's a big boat. Thoughts?
I was explaining what a slipstream was to a friend of mine back in March, when I was recovering back in Virginia. Chances are you've experienced one before. It's what cyclists or race car drivers experience when they get behind aother cycle or car and "draft" them. In this case, it's a powerful and highly sought after force that uses the other to both block wind ahead and use the "slipstream" to pull you ahead using much less energy.
In nautical terms its virtually the opposite. See, ususally being in the "slipstream" of another sailboat will only disrupt the very wind you are trying to capture and harness for your benefit. In racing terms it's called catching somebody's "dirty air". Not good.
There are times when the slipstream is all you want and times when it's the last thing you want. We were talking about my dream of getting this boat and what it ended up costing me. It seems that if we are to live with passion, for our dreams, we must be willing for them to cost us our lives. In so many ways, they always do. Perhaps not always literally, but certainly in essence. To follow a dream that is bigger than we are. That calls us to more than we think we can manage is always a recipie for suffering and sometimes even dying. This by no means implies that every person who lives for a dream is choosing a foolish dream - like taking a barrel over Niagra Falls - but that people who choose to live a life of passion and dreams are willing to open themselves up to suffering for that dream.
So much of our culture, even our Western Christian culture which happens to own the most dramatic example of suffering for passion, dreams, and love, seems hell bent on the avoidacne of pain and suffering. Clearly, nobody in their right mind would choose to suffer just for the fun of it, but it seems a life well worth living will encounter suffering at some level. In fact, a life lived only to avoid suffering seems rather dull, empty and miserable anyway.
Not sure why I'm pontificating about this all because of a Van Morrison song. Really, I think it just may be a love song anyway. "You have crossed many waters to be here". Who ever said that to love another wouldn't cost dearly and maybe even your life?
I was explaining what a slipstream was to a friend of mine back in March, when I was recovering back in Virginia. Chances are you've experienced one before. It's what cyclists or race car drivers experience when they get behind aother cycle or car and "draft" them. In this case, it's a powerful and highly sought after force that uses the other to both block wind ahead and use the "slipstream" to pull you ahead using much less energy.
In nautical terms its virtually the opposite. See, ususally being in the "slipstream" of another sailboat will only disrupt the very wind you are trying to capture and harness for your benefit. In racing terms it's called catching somebody's "dirty air". Not good.
There are times when the slipstream is all you want and times when it's the last thing you want. We were talking about my dream of getting this boat and what it ended up costing me. It seems that if we are to live with passion, for our dreams, we must be willing for them to cost us our lives. In so many ways, they always do. Perhaps not always literally, but certainly in essence. To follow a dream that is bigger than we are. That calls us to more than we think we can manage is always a recipie for suffering and sometimes even dying. This by no means implies that every person who lives for a dream is choosing a foolish dream - like taking a barrel over Niagra Falls - but that people who choose to live a life of passion and dreams are willing to open themselves up to suffering for that dream.
So much of our culture, even our Western Christian culture which happens to own the most dramatic example of suffering for passion, dreams, and love, seems hell bent on the avoidacne of pain and suffering. Clearly, nobody in their right mind would choose to suffer just for the fun of it, but it seems a life well worth living will encounter suffering at some level. In fact, a life lived only to avoid suffering seems rather dull, empty and miserable anyway.
Not sure why I'm pontificating about this all because of a Van Morrison song. Really, I think it just may be a love song anyway. "You have crossed many waters to be here". Who ever said that to love another wouldn't cost dearly and maybe even your life?
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Ships are Safe at Harbor
But that's not what ships are for.....
That's a song by Michael Lilly that wrecks me. I usually play it for anybody I can and most definitely play it for participants on my boat trips.
While this blog is mostly dedicated to the life of this rebuild project, I'm sure it's going to veer into other areas of my life. In fact, this boat project is about much more than just a boat project. This is about my life. This is about my choice to throw my hat over the proverbial wall. So I think there will be some updates on the details of the rebuild project, but mostly my thoughts on what this means for my life. What the wind and water mean to all of life.
To sail you must allow the natural to happen. You must allow for the mystery of life to take over. To truly be alive to sailing one must be alive to the mystery of life. The uncertain and unknown. We must give ourselves to the fluid world of wind and water and sky. If you are determined to know, to control where you begin and end, you will be miserable to the flux of the wind water and sky.
While it may be possible to harness the wind and take it where we want to go, or have it take us where we want to go, it is always lucky. A gift. Like men who climb the world’s highest mountains, we must enter the world of water and wind with reverence and awe. With a sense that we’ve been gifted with exactly what we need to get where we’re going. With the knowledge that the sea can turn on a dime and kill you. That the wind can do a 180 and send you off in any direction as long as it’s not where you want to go.
Could it be true that just about any voyage on a sailboat should be celebrated upon safe return to the dock? Even if it’s just a short little sail on a short little boat.
Being open to the flux and thankful for the coming home seems vital.
Monday, October 17, 2005
the birth of a dream...
It's a strange phenomenon to depend on somebody else to recount your life to you, to borrow memory. Or rather, to have somebody tell you without even asking them. That's about how it happened to me back in March when I had folks filling me in on the events of the previous two weeks of my life. Which, outside of being born, turned out to be the two most epic and precarious weeks of my existence on this earth.....more on that later.
Let me back up, while I can, and tell you how I got to that point. For years I have loved to sail. I'll tell the story of how I started sailing later, but for now I'll just say that the wind and the water, experienced from a sailing vessel has a grip on my soul that just wont let go.
Mix that with the grip of being a therapist, experiencing first hand the stories, drama, tragedy, and wonder of "the other" and I have a recipie for the events of this year. A couple years ago my dear friend Doug Shirley and I decided to combine our interests in experiential, relationally based counseling weekends and offer mens sailing weekends on Augusta, Dan Blanchard's beautiful 4o' yacht. The wild success of these weekends led me to start dreaming about getting a boat of my own (something I've always wanted anyway) to offer these experiences to people.
In November of 2004 Dan tipped me off to an opportuinty to acquire a 55' beauty (Tin Tin) for the cost of trucking it up to Seattle. We flew down to San Diego in December to have a look at this delapitated beauty. It turned out that she wasn't really delapitated, just taken apart and needing to be put back together. Having Dan, who's been around boats forever and could forget more than I'll ever know about boats, to look at her was so important. Needless to say, when I looked at it, I said, "I wouldn't have the slightest idea where to begin".
Well, after perhaps one of the most tumultuous decision making processes of my life, I decided to go for it and follow the dream. To get this boat and restore her back to her glory so I could take people out and provide potentially live changing experiences was the dream.
On February 18th of 2005, the boat showed up after a 4 day journey up the coast. She stood about 15' on the trailer so the route the trucking company had to take was rather circuitous and required pilot cars the whole way. Dan, Clinton and I went to meet her in Everett and share the excitement of Tin Tin's arrival and the begining of the project.
February 19th, 2005 - a date that will never be forgotten for many. Clinton, Eric and I met to build a rain cover for the boat to keep her dry during the winter. Luckily, it was a beautiful day so we could get lots done. After a trip to Lowes and lunch at a little Mexican restaurant, we climbed up on the boat to get to work. This is where my memory stops and doesn't start until around March 4th.
While inspecting the deck on the port side near the bow, I apparently bent down and began to yank on a stanchion that had been bent down for delivery. I must have been pulling quite hard because the steel broke (it was weakened by the crimp from bending it) and I launched forward, which was outboard, over the side. With an "oh shit!!!" I fell 16' down to the hard gravel yard on to my head. The detailed account of the month I spent in the hospital can be found at www.fogblog.net .
The summary is that I was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center where they performed an emergency Crainiectomy to remove nearly half of the right side of my skull to allow for my injured brain to swell without killing me and to minimize the permanent brain damage - usually a forgone conclusion in cases like this.
My skull was stored in a freezer for three months while I recovered and I got put back together on May 2oth. Now I have my head back together and am as close to 100% as I can tell. Needless to say the recovery has been nothing short of a miracle. see the above mentioned blog to read more....
So here I am, alive and well and working on the boat that nearly cost me my life to restore her and my dream to glory. This blog is dedicated to chronicling that journey.
Let me back up, while I can, and tell you how I got to that point. For years I have loved to sail. I'll tell the story of how I started sailing later, but for now I'll just say that the wind and the water, experienced from a sailing vessel has a grip on my soul that just wont let go.
Mix that with the grip of being a therapist, experiencing first hand the stories, drama, tragedy, and wonder of "the other" and I have a recipie for the events of this year. A couple years ago my dear friend Doug Shirley and I decided to combine our interests in experiential, relationally based counseling weekends and offer mens sailing weekends on Augusta, Dan Blanchard's beautiful 4o' yacht. The wild success of these weekends led me to start dreaming about getting a boat of my own (something I've always wanted anyway) to offer these experiences to people.
In November of 2004 Dan tipped me off to an opportuinty to acquire a 55' beauty (Tin Tin) for the cost of trucking it up to Seattle. We flew down to San Diego in December to have a look at this delapitated beauty. It turned out that she wasn't really delapitated, just taken apart and needing to be put back together. Having Dan, who's been around boats forever and could forget more than I'll ever know about boats, to look at her was so important. Needless to say, when I looked at it, I said, "I wouldn't have the slightest idea where to begin".
Well, after perhaps one of the most tumultuous decision making processes of my life, I decided to go for it and follow the dream. To get this boat and restore her back to her glory so I could take people out and provide potentially live changing experiences was the dream.
On February 18th of 2005, the boat showed up after a 4 day journey up the coast. She stood about 15' on the trailer so the route the trucking company had to take was rather circuitous and required pilot cars the whole way. Dan, Clinton and I went to meet her in Everett and share the excitement of Tin Tin's arrival and the begining of the project.
February 19th, 2005 - a date that will never be forgotten for many. Clinton, Eric and I met to build a rain cover for the boat to keep her dry during the winter. Luckily, it was a beautiful day so we could get lots done. After a trip to Lowes and lunch at a little Mexican restaurant, we climbed up on the boat to get to work. This is where my memory stops and doesn't start until around March 4th.
While inspecting the deck on the port side near the bow, I apparently bent down and began to yank on a stanchion that had been bent down for delivery. I must have been pulling quite hard because the steel broke (it was weakened by the crimp from bending it) and I launched forward, which was outboard, over the side. With an "oh shit!!!" I fell 16' down to the hard gravel yard on to my head. The detailed account of the month I spent in the hospital can be found at www.fogblog.net .
The summary is that I was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center where they performed an emergency Crainiectomy to remove nearly half of the right side of my skull to allow for my injured brain to swell without killing me and to minimize the permanent brain damage - usually a forgone conclusion in cases like this.
My skull was stored in a freezer for three months while I recovered and I got put back together on May 2oth. Now I have my head back together and am as close to 100% as I can tell. Needless to say the recovery has been nothing short of a miracle. see the above mentioned blog to read more....
So here I am, alive and well and working on the boat that nearly cost me my life to restore her and my dream to glory. This blog is dedicated to chronicling that journey.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
She Will Sail Again One Day....
This the original brochure picture of Tin Tin. She was built by Cheoy Lee Shipyards in 1986. There were only two Pedrick 55's built and the boat formerly known as Tin Tin eagerly awaits to feel the wind and ply the waters. Many more photos of her in her current condition will follow.
Resurfacing
This will be a place to follow the progress of the Cheoy Lee Pedrick 55 formerly named Tin Tin, the musings and mania of her owner(s) and the spiritual birth and rebirth of anybody that chooses to love such a dream.
Who knew such a windfall could cost so much?
Who knew such a windfall could cost so much?
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