Issue 17 : Mar/Apr 2001
One of the peculiarities of the magazine business is that the deadline for the March issue is January 1. Nothing personal; even if you are married to the editor, it is still January 1. In this case it was moved up a week for tactical reasons, so I find myself writing just before the winter solstice a piece that will be read in early spring . . . a little time capsule.
My friend George is fond of saying that you should not read anything that is less than 200 years old — then he reads computer manuals with the ink still wet. Some really good writing has stood the test of centuries and yet still remains wise and relevant. Most writings die with their age, as is proper. I don’t presume to get much past spring with this one.
I had a call yesterday from a reader who said that last year he bought the boat he had wanted and almost bought about a quarter century ago. Yup, he’s got it now; the same model and same year he had almost bought then. He said he was happy with the boat and had some regrets that he didn’t buy it sooner. I told him I expected him to try to make up for lost time. He said he would.
He didn’t say exactly why he waited so long, but what he did say made me think it was about values. Perhaps timeless values. He had other things he needed to do with his time and his money for a quarter of a century. He’d done them, and now it was time for that boat. He’d balanced values and time and other resources to execute his duties as he saw them. Perhaps he was guided in some part by writings that were wise and relevant, perhaps some were even quite old. The good stuff can stand the test of time.
The pressures of duty notwithstanding, when your time is done, your time is done. If you were meant to be a sailor, and you have not sailed, it will not matter. Your time will be done.
So it is legitimate to ask where that sailboat in your mind fits into the complex play of values, time, and duty in your life. It can nurture the spirit, and provide the needed strength for the other things that duty demands. It need not consume much money. In most cases, the boat of modest cost delivers the best return per unit of money.
Properly done, however, sailing a boat will consume a fairly large amount of time, which is the most precious resource. But then, perhaps, it is not time consumed so much as time well spent. If this is true, then those blessed boats that we can afford, the small ones, the old ones, the cheap ones that will take even more of your time to restore, are incredibly valid and pertinent. They are the good old boats that have withstood the test of time. If you’ve got one you probably know all that already, if you don’t . . .
Get one and go sailing.
Jerry is technical editor of Good Old Boat. He’s been sailing for 34 years, actively racing Ensigns, Flying Scots, and other boats and cruising Lake Superior with his wife and editor, Karen Larson, in their C&C 30, Mystic. Before founding the magazine, he enjoyed a 29-year career in engineering, during which he was awarded six patents. Prior to his engineering career he served in the U.S. Navy aboard the heavy cruiser USS Newport News, in which he sailed halfway around the world and back twice.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
