Sunday, May 1, 2011

land locked

I have found the time to start posting on my blog. I will be writing about my boat designs, both power and sail, with all the background on each of them hopfully giving insight to the
process.My daughter lillian will be helping me with the photos as I don't have a clue yet as how it's done.Right now ,Rachel my wife, lillian and I are living in St.Augustine fla. renting a small house on Salt Run here with the Hogfish Maximus tied out front on a friends dock.Lillian has two more yeras of High school to go so we are trying to give her a somewhat normal life to get her started into the machine of North American life.She is in the AICE program here doing a fine job but would rather be sailing in the West Indies instead,But she has to begin being part of the system so she can figure it out on her own terms.I feel excited for her and also sad as it's a big complicated machine to find your way through and I am so glad that I have been fortunate enough to have made a life of being inside and out of the mainstream.It is always a shocker to come back to America with it's stores full of 20 types of the same thing,having to buy a car first thing so as to be able to just get around,first , last , rent, rules, signs ,real crime,the media everywhere,oh to be back on the sea with only the anchorage to think of ,where the next job will take us and who will we meet today.Sorry Lilly,but you will have to figure out your own escape plan. As I have to help feed the machine that is called day to day life here in the real world with all it's benefits ,rent, car insurance, gas,shop insurance,liability insurance for the shop rental owner,food costs more here because there is so much more to have , plus we have a huge fridge that seams to eat food , PHONES for each of us because we have to cordinate our busy lives now.we just can't say will meet you at the dihgny dock.And also we now each have our own computers because we each now have our own separate lives and time is such that we can't share.So I have taken on a boatbuilding job for a South African friend to finish building an Ian Farrier 32ax sailing trimaran in foam epoxy constuction.The boat was started by a gentelman by the name of Charley Brown in Washington state. He got as far as the bare hulls then had a heart attack and died.I am finishing the boat from there.Its a year long project and will be sailing this summer.We all all doing fine now and i will be trying to write something here as much as possible before I make my escape back to my real world.

3 comments:

The Rudstroms said...

I recently discovered your blog through a thread on the Boat Design Forum.

My family and I also live in a non mainstream setting. We live in a remote village in Alaska. There are no cars, no roads, (everything gets here by airplane or boat), no big box stores, etc.

We normally head down south to the lower 48 every year for summer vacation. It is always a big adjustment for us, the busy scheduals, driving every where, spending so much time inside.

Our son is only 4 now, and he is growing up with this strange lifestyle that we lead. We hope that he can learn to functinon in the mainstream machine, but also realize that there are alternatives to it.

Take look at our blogs
http://rudstrom.blogspot.com/
http://whatsintheshop.blogspot.com/
if you want to see what life is like in "bush" alaska.

Anyway, you have an intersting boat. I have been a fan of simple sharpie type boats for long time. I hope to build on myself some day. I look forward to hearing more from you.

C.O.

Treva said...

Chris and Rachel, welcome back to the mainland. Good luck with adjusting. Well, I hope you never adjust. Get back to life on the seas, in the Bahamas and the Caribbean when you can. I'm soon headed to Florida for a runaround, assuming my car holds up. Would be lovely to see you. - Treva

boatman said...

hi chris,

strange we have never met, knowing a lot of the same people......wyatt....geno baker.....tom Gordon.... I even hooked Flip up with his high school best friend [I was fixing scratches on his boat]

I even knew your dad.....in '98 he did a pen n ink of a 67' pacemaker I stretched at lamb's yacht center....and it was so good [beyond words] I had him do a watercolor of my lobsterboat, one of those I built and kept [geno once showed you a picture of it-- red with a black stripe on cabin side ...with a flybridge....he said you looked at it for a long time]

....I gave Frank my Bahamas cruising pictures to use for it...I was told his wife was so taken by our pictures she got him to go back to the Bahamas again.....tho I am not sure of this.

I gave him twice what he ask for to do the watercolor [still not enough].....its in special glass on a wall that never sees the sun.....and cherished.

I am told he passed at some point.....as my dad did when I was 13.

anyway probly 10 years ago or more, we were in green turtle and saw your boat over in the skinny pocket in white sound and stopped and met Rachel and the kids, as you were away whittling I believe.

currently I am redoing the bow of my 16' 25 year old plywood flats skiff.....stealing some of your hell's bay ideas...which got me thinking of its designer......why reinvent the wheel.

and wyatt is getting closer to his sharpie project.

hope this finds you well.

scott grider
atlantic beach, fl