Sam Devlin nailed it with eerie prescience. He wrote Devlin’s Boat Building, the bible of modern stitch-and-glue construction, almost fifteen years ago, and in it he predicted exactly where I would be on October 3, 2009:

Overwhelmed.

“Guard against post-rollover stall-out,” he warns (p. 141). “Don’t be overwhelmed by the number of projects yet to be completed, and resist making a list of them. Just pick them off one by one …”

September had seemed like a good month in the boat shop.

I gave the bottom three coats of antifouling, cut a heart-stopping two-inch hole in the hull and installed the depth sounder, cobbled up a waterline-simulator with a sawhorse and a bunch of clamps and painted a stripe, and finally rolled on three base coats of topside paint.

Usually topside paint waits till near the end of construction. A lot could happen to the sides of the boat over the next year or two, including spills, scrapes and unanticipated holes to be drilled. But it looked easier to put at least the base coats on while the boat was still inverted, so I did. I also craved the selfish pleasure, frankly, of seeing my boat try on her party dress. Nothing makes as big a difference in appearance as quickly as paint.

And pleasure it is. The color is Interlux “Lauderdale blue.” I stirred in a 50 percent mix of flattening agent to leave a satin finish instead of high gloss, which helps mask the many surface imperfections. More credit to Interlux than to me, but it looks stunning.

On the last weekend in September, three neighbors and I rolled her upright again. No mishaps, no 911 calls—and the engineer among us noted that he heard no creaks or groans, aside from those emitted by the crew, and proclaimed that a good sign of  structural integrity.

But now, just as Devlin predicted, I’m suffering post-rollover blues. The work of finishing all the interior structures—cabin sole, cockpit sole, ballast, battery compartments, bilge pump, compression post, storage compartments, on and on and on—looks like it’s stretching into infinity. It’s daunting and discouraging.

Of course Devlin is right in advising to “just pick them off one by one.” But it’s an emotional hurdle I’m not over yet. It’s going to require a few more days of sitting on my shop stool, staring at the great blue thing that is not yet a boat.

The blue thing does now have a name: Nil Desperandum.

I’ve bounced it off several friends, Not all of them have liked it. One cracked, “If you get in trouble out there, better hope the Roman Coast Guard is around.”

I like it very much. It’s a reminder I need constantly, even when sitting on the shop stool, staring and feeling overwhelmed. Advice from the Roman poet Horace, it translates: “Quit worrying, dummy.”

• ·

The second weekend in September I went to the annual Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival, which grows more spectacular every year.

Peter Gron and I gave a joint talk on “Perfectionism and the Wooden Boat,” illustrating our differing approaches on how meticulous one should be in building a boat. Peter is vastly more skilled, methodical, and patient than I am, and his Devlin Arctic Tern, now approaching completion, sets standards that will send most other amateurs, and some professionals, into stark raving paroxysms of envy.

Even so, he’s been an inspiration (and a generous source of advice), and I’m a better boatbuilder because of him. Visit his blog here.

The festival is also

a fountain of practical ideas. As long as they’ve been around, sailboats are still floating galaxies of problems, and amateur and pro builders alike keep devising better ways to deal with them. One revolutionary

idea I may borrow for  Nil Desperandum is builder Barrett Faneuf’s cam cleats for the jibsheets. If the jib isn’t big enough to demand winches, why not use the quickest, easiest way to secure them?

Finally, the festival is a minefield of lethal boat lust.

In The Year of the Boat I wrote how my normally wise, prudent, and rational wife Patty fell for a colossal wooden boat years ago before we even knew how to sail and was hatching a plan to convert our home equity into it. And also moving aboard. I intervened. In September she did it again—or

"Ripple," a 26' Atkin gaff cutter

more accurately, a festival boat for sale did it to her. It was a 26’ Atkin gaff cutter, beautiful condition, good price. Once again I exercised my veto, but this time it was hard: I had no trouble imagining us sailing the whee off this beauty, and lavishing the care on her that she would demand.

But there’s only so much time and energy in a human life, and dividing it among five wooden boats—two kayaks, one completed daysailer, one cruiser-in-the-making, the Atkin cutter, and, yes, our day jobs—is asking the impossible. That doesn’t always stop wooden boat enthusiasts, but it made us pause. At least till next year’s festival.

Here’s a photographic sprinkling of boats and details from Port Townsend 2009.

Tags: boatbuilding, devlin, Nil Desperandum, winter wren, Wooden Boat Festival

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