Okay, folks, so here's what's going on boat-wise at the Connally household. Let me begin not quite at the beginning, but somewhere thereabouts. That still strikes me as incredible that I have a Connally household now. Yar. So. A fellow named Jonas at my school, who is in his first quarter in the wood shop, is building a boat for himself. This doesn't usually happen. Usually, people rotate to a different boat or project every few weeks, so that when they finish they've done all kinds of things, and haven't spent their whole two quarters planking. But Jonas wanted to build an 18' catboat, so he got the plans from the Wooden Boat Center on Lake Union, and he's finished lofting it and is cutting his sawn frames. All that to say, this intrigued me. As many of you know, although I am in a boat-building program, I'm not there perse to learn boat-building. It was just the most comprehensive program at the school. What I really want is to be an accomplished carpenter who can make anything that needs to be made, including a house, furniture, barrels, boats, carts, all manner of things. I was glad that the best program for this goal would be boat-building, however, since I've always had a deep fondness for wooden boats and ships. At any rate, my goal here is to learn carpentry skills, not necessarily boat-building skills, since I'm not aiming at getting hired by a boatyard, which means I wouldn't mind not jumping around as much as they would normally have me do. This also means that I would graduate with a boat, not just a degree.
So there's my goal, now for the story. Me and Adele took a trip to Vashon Island, where we intend to move, about a month ago, for Valentine's Day, and while there, our eyes were quite opened; to a number of things, though I'll only go into this one now. We'd been reading a history of Japan, and in it, there is a painting of some fishermen in a boat. It truly was an elegant craft, and captured my imagination. People had been asking me if I'd study Japanese boat building while over there, and I hadn't really given it much thought. Obviously Japan is an island nation, they must have some sort of maritime tradition, but I didn't know anything about it. But now, with this illustration, I did, and as soon as we got home, I looked on the internet for more pictures. What I found was a man by the name of Douglas Brooks, who has been a boat-builder for a number of years, and done three apprenticeships in Japan, interviewed 45 tradtional boat-builders, and travelled up and down the country. I immediately wrote him a letter and as it turned out, he was extremely helpful, willing, and kind. The boat I had seen in the picture was most likely a Shimaihagi, a craft 30' long, and mostly used for fishing. On his website however, I was most intrigued with the Bekabune, a 12' boat used for gathering seaweed and shellfish. There are a number of obstacles, though, to building this boat: I need black iron nails, so I need a blacksmith, I need Japanese tools, and I need a shop set up for building Japanese boats. Apparently, the Bekabune is also very difficult to construct, so I'd need an instructor who'd done it before. It took a little while for these to sink in. My thoughts turned towards another thing. I am an American. Perhaps I should just build an American boat. At least until I'd actually been to Japan and seen these boats up close.
This is my plan now. Assuming I can pay for the lumber, I'm going to build a 9'-10' rowboat that could potentially take a sail. I hope to get in contact with the Northwest Boatbuilding School in Port Townsend to get some lines drawings and plans, and will start in the fall, or even in the spring if I can swing it. "But what about Japanese boats?" you ask. Well, when we're more established on Vashon, I'll fell myself a cedar tree and build the Shimaihagi, which is more suited to the Puget Sound than a Bekabune anyway, and use it to transport goods to Tacoma, Seattle, and Bremerton. Commercial sail is making a comeback. Speaking of which, I talked to a fellow the other day who's helping to bring it back, and I might help him fit out some hulls that he got for free. So that'd be sweet.
Yup. That's the plan, we'll see how it plays out. I hope everything works. It's in the Lord's hands. If He's put it in my heart, it will work, and if it doesn't; oh well, it wasn't from Him anyway. I think that's it for now. I said in my last post that I'd write soon about how church is. That's coming soon. Probably tomorrow, actually.