A new school

It’s not a question of how to design a boatIt’s a question of why A boat’s design affects everything it does. Boats are potent symbols. Their form, the entire aesthetic out of which they grow, affects our perception of them. As we interact with our boats their forms change our lives. A boat needs aContinue

Avalon, a 106′ Schooner

Avalon is based on the schooners that fished the Grand Banks at the turn of the Twentieth Century. They marked the end-point of an evolution that had been ongoing for some three hundred years. They came to be right at the time engines and oil changed everything. At the other end of that excursion fromContinue

Yearning for a purpose

When I wrote Designer & Client this is what I saw:So much of what we do is… required of us.……no one is forcing us to have a pleasure boat. No practical purpose is fulfilled by owning one… A boat is an opportunity to create a dream and act on it. Most such dreams are modest:Continue

Peregrine, a 46′ Schooner

Peregrine, a pilgrim. Not the Thanksgiving type, a traveler, a wanderer. Traveling with a purpose. Bring something somewhere and finding something to take on to the next port. We tend to think of this as a mercantile transaction, but there are other things we might carry besides a cargo. What if we carry a skill,Continue

Finding Passage

Where do we start?Where we are is broken. Lies in tatters. Corrupt. We’re mired in toxic imitations of vitality.So many things are broken. Things we’ve forgotten what they were for.We are broken. Caught between our past and our loss of connection. Stuck in the ways we learned how to behave. Traumas endured and perpetrated. WeContinue

The Schooner Actæon

In my novel, Shoal Hope a rum-runner sails a schooner named Actæon. It’s larger than this one, loosely based on McCoy’s Arethusa. This Actæon is much smaller; but still a large boat. When MacFarlane first sees his Actæon: That old boat was in bad shape. Went up to New England, looking for a replacement. HeardContinue