wooden boats and the “working” class
I don’t remember the context of the conversation, but I think it came after talking to someone who’d spent however long (a month? six months? a year?) building a boat at the Port Townsend Wooden Boat school. Which is of course very cool and I’m sure it’s a lovely organization, but what I remember is the slight scorn in my dad’s voice as he talked about those people.
Those people go out to PT, spend six months or whatever building a wooden pleasure/hobby boat under heavy supervision, and then think they know how to build a fucking boat. Those people do not understand that wooden boats are precious and quaint, but that real boat builders do that shit in a week and a half because they need to get paid, and you don’t get paid for dicking around for six months. Those people whine about the demise of wooden boats, because they don’t seem to realize that most people with boats, historically (up to and including this decade), have boats because boats are for working. Boats need to be cheap and they need to fit their job. They’re for fishing, for travelling, for moving shit around. Boat people might love beautiful boats, but they respect useful boats.
My dad can make small talk with those people, but he’s not one of them. He likes to do a thing because it needs to get done. He likes messing about with boats, but he knows what it’s like to work on a boat every damn day, because he bought his first work-boat when he was ten.
My dad’s back on the boat. We’ve set aside Sundays for it, and we should be sailing soon.
Edited to add: nothing against wooden boats—and my dad loves them—just that even wooden boats are often workboats. the prettiness isn’t the only point, is all.
