Ahoy mateys

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Another hobby and actually I have been involved in and out of the trade side of it for most of my working life are bicycles, and I must say that after working on more of them then I could count, and test riding roughly a quarter of them at a guess, I would say that of all the gear systems, todays fashions of bicycle technology is designed to wear out quicker and fail. It was never designed this way in the past. Not on purpose anyway! Yet now it is and the youngsters can't seem to see it. They just want the latest of whatever is out there! (I was once like that!)

Welcome to WP!

Your life story is really interesting to me. I was raised almost exclusively on cabin cruiser boats from age 0-5. When I was born I actually went on our boat for a lengthy holiday prior to even going in our house. My dad and granddad who were engineers built all our boats by hand in dry dock. My grandfather founded a yacht club. I've posted pictures on here somewhere before.

I'd love to hear more of your experiences.

Wow Isabella, that’s super impressive. The mariner life is hard and especially so with boat builders. I have so much respect for whoever the individuals were who built my boat, especially after repairing that portion of the deck. I’ll probably post a thread at some point with more pictures of my progress once I get the cabin painted. Hopefully will be able to have that finished within the next few months, but as I’m sure you know, everything on boats takes triple the time and money of an equivalent land based project. BOAT= Bust Out Another Thousand.

I’ve lived on boats for the past 5 years but I’ve never traveled to extensively on any of them. The ocean is a scary place and the more I learn the scarier it is, but this boat can make it through anything if anything can.

Have you been around boat building your whole life or was it an only early experience? My grandpa ran his own fishing charter in Alaska when I was very little but it ended before I can remember. I’ve done two seasons of commercial fishing in 25 ft aluminum skiffs, that’s the extent of my boating experience before coming to San Francisco Bay. Like all things, the first step to being a mariner is accepting that you have no idea what you’re doing and stepping forward anyway.

Do you mind if I post some pictures here on your thread? I'll have to dig them out and crop them a bit but I have several photos you might enjoy and I wouldn't want to put them on your upcoming boat photo thread.

My dad and granddad have both passed away. Our last boat was built by my grandad when I was around 13. It's kind of an interesting story because he actually vanished from my life for eight years, from my ages 5-13. He had undiagnosed ASD and severe depression / agoraphobia, so he set out on his boat and basically went into hiding. Left my grandmother and everything. Turns out that when he left, he made his way to Montreal (for some unknown reason) to start a new life, then eventually built another boat there and drove it all the way to Miami by the St Lawrence Seaway to the Atlantic.

I thought he had died when I was 5 but lo and behold he reappeared when I was 13, and built our final boat which we all used as a family. Yes I have always been around boat building. My dad continued to repair people's boats as a hobby until his 70s when he passed away. He used to come home blue (What was that? Fibreglass?)

I'm still a member of the yacht club my granddad founded (and helped build with his own hands!) although we don't currently have a boat. We have Ambassador status (no dues payable, but all the perks). My good friend has two fishing boats I can use or travel with, when needed.

I've never learned to sail. My dad had a friendly bias against sailboats, but of course I know many sailors and I spent a lot of time on sailboats over the years. I actually met my (ex) husband on a sailboat in Balboa CA.

This is so interesting to me. Now I want to pull out my photo albums!

Yeah pictures would be awesome. What a treat to have ambassador status at a yacht club.

Your story about your dad sounds bittersweet. I also want to set sail and hide away on my boat. I feel strongly that if I had started a family instead of living selfishly (not meaning this entirely negatively), that I would painfully tempted to run away also. Like I’m fantastic at starting things, but historically I don’t follow through, once I reach critical overwhelming. Why does life have to become such a Chinese finger trap at times? At least it offers us redemption if we are able to realize it.

Very glad to hear he returned to you. What part of the country are you from? In regards to the blue, the only thing that comes to mind is blue anti-fouling paint that would be painted on the bottom of boats to help prevent growth. Some of it is referred to as ‘ablative’, which means it’s kinda chalky and it separates from itself easily. The idea is that when something grabs onto it and begins to grow, it just falls off as the boat moves.

Like I said I dive for work, and I’m primarily a hull cleaner, so I spend my days diving under boats and cleaning the growth off the bottoms (anything from wiping away light layer of algae to scraping a forest of mussels and crabs and sea squirts and all kinds of strange alien plant life).

Thanks for the info about the blue stuff! Yes that sounds exactly right! Your job sounds much like what my dad did at times with fixing boat engines and scraping blue stuff.

I'll look up my pictures later tonight or tomorrow for you.

It was my granddad who vanished, not my dad. But yeah, it was pretty rough. Granddad came back when I was 13, but then committed suicide on my 16th birthday. Very sad. I have all sorts of boat stories and memories. My favourite sound in the world is the clanging of sailboat masts, or the glug-glug of a cabin cruiser leaving its slip. I'm obsessed with ducks too, because of fond memories feeding ducks off the bow of the boat in my giant life vest when we were moored at various islands.

Life is definitely a game of Chinese boxes.

How about the enduring groans of stretching and relaxing dock lines?

It certainly sounds like Life hasn’t been hiding any secrets from you. It’s interesting how each of us experiences such tragedies and calamities in life, but they’re so different. We are so collectively alone, and thank you for being here to help me come to terms with that.

And individually we are together, can’t have one side of the coin without the other



That’s great, are you familiar with those small folding bikes? I’d like to get a good quality small folding bike, possibly electric if it’s a really nice setup but I’m not too interested in the gimmicks, a non electric would be just fine. I’d like to have one I can easily stow on board the boat for when I cruise the Tongass. There’s no roads in or out, it’s all boat or plane, so when I get to different ports, a folding bike would be perfect. If you have knowledge on this specific niche, my specific preferred criteria would be: Folding, Compact size, DURABLE, and with rough trail capability as opposed to strictly maintained road. Thanks of you can help, otherwise thanks anyway!

Any time, mate! ^

Yes that's a good sound too!