This is a tale of bribery, manipulation, greed, desire and dare I say it?  Love. 

Some of these were weapons expertly wielded by my loving parents.  Others, I admit are character traits which I must claim as my own.  The last, well… all I can say is:  Some guys get lucky. 

As a boy, I was (allegedly) a bit of "a handful".  Not a bad kid per se but a generous assessment is that I was an energetic little chatterbox with impulse control issues and perhaps a tad too clever for my own good.  My parents enjoy recounting parent-teacher conferences commencing with phrases like:  "You're probably not going to believe this..." and "We know that most of the stories he tells couldn't possibly be true..."

On top of that, many common methods of reward and punishment put forth by childhood development gurus of the age were seemingly lost on me.  I may have been a bit "headstrong" - perhaps even, dare I say it? "stubborn"?  Throw in a healthy dose of rebellion against authority and you’ve probably summed me up.  As a result, it was very difficult to get me to do anything that I, myself, did not want to do.  But that coin had a flip-side.  If I, as in “me, myself and I”, set my mind upon a goal, then there was very little that could put me off my path toward achieving it.

And so it was that my parents, who in all probability were a great deal more clever than I gave them credit for, began a campaign of psychological manipulation and bribery that ultimately resulted in the marginally successful, seemingly well-adjusted adult that I am today.  All it took was identifying the object of my heart's desire and then dangling it like a carrot on a string before a stubborn mule.  Our mutual desires were not mutually exclusive.  All my parents wanted was for me to shut my jabbering pie-hole, focus on my studies and avoid any future calls from the principal's office.  All I wanted... was a boat. 

Fair trade.

With a destination clearly marked on my chart, my next report card was delivered with top honors in four subjects.  True to their word, my parents bought me my first boat.  In retrospect, it was a hideous, foam and vinyl beer cooler of a sailboat known as a "Sunflower".  I didn’t care.  It was a boat, it was all mine and I loved it.  Dubbed "Honors 4", my sailing career began bobbing about on the shores of Lake Erie.

“Honors-4”, a Snark Sunflower

Having identified my Achilles heel, my parents embarked on an increasingly successful campaign of psychological warfare and after just a few more years of academic achievement, my Sunflower was upgraded to a 14' Sunfish.  Now we were talking.  Sleek, shiny, and constructed of actual fiberglass!  Woo hoo!

1979 Alcort Sunfish (Mom was a better manipulator than photographer!).

Next came Summer sailing camps and dinghy racing on the local boat club’s aging fleet of Flying Juniors and some plywood El Toro dinghies that some of the elder club members had built by hand in a back room. (Can you say “foreshadowing”?  We’ll come back to that later.) 

What fun!  For several weeks each summer, we camped on boats and beaches and ate, drank and breathed sailing.  Those camps also included an unanticipated social benefit.  We got to meet GIRLS!  Well, maybe not “real” girls, since most of these girls liked to eat, drink and breathe sailing as much as the boys but still, they were actual girls who you could talk to and who would talk to us and even better, talk about something that we found interesting (i.e. sailing!).

Before I knew it, I was in high school and most of that “behavioral manipulation” had become habit.  I no longer reflexively rebelled against authority.  I was a good student.  I was getting good grades.  (“My future’s so bright..”)  And I had learned to sail.  What more does a fellow need to get through life? 

Well, maybe one thing…  flash forward 20 years… High School, College, U.S. Navy, Law School and I find myself in San Diego, California working as a trial attorney.  Work, work, work.  It’s a living.  But what is a hardworking gent supposed to do for fun?  Staring out my office window, I could see sailboats tacking back and forth in the harbor.  Memories came flooding back of warm summers and tiny boats.  Ahhh, the good old days.  Wouldn’t it be great to have a boat?

Wait a minute.  Am I remembering right?  Did some of the yacht club dads actually “build” those El Toro dinghies way back when?  Is that actually possible?  Can people really build their own boats? 

Thankfully, the calendar read “2001” and by then, the internet had actually become a fairly useful distraction.  Tappity, tappity and only a few lost billable hours later, I found “free plans” for a “D4 dinghy” by Jacques Mertens.  It was the same sort of boat that I sailed as a kid.  And the plans said that virtually anyone could build one for a few hundred dollars.  Could that be right?  No. Can’t be. Maybe?  Ah heck.  Let’s give it a try!

Merten’s D4 dinghy under construction

For the next 6 months, my tolerant spouse put up with me sawing, sanding, painting, swearing, etc. on the tiny back patio of our little townhome.  To add to her burden, she was well aware that our patio was surrounded by a 7’ privacy wall and the only exit for the completed boat would be to march it through the center of our home.  She just smiled and let me go on my merry way.  When asked by curious neighbors about the strange goings on out back, her pat response would be:  “Oh well.  At least it keeps him out of the bars”.  What she really meant was:  “He’s a lot easier to put up with now that he has a hobby.”

Completed D4 dinghy “Yertle the Turtle”

And life goes on…  The home ports change.  The jobs come and go.  But there have always been boats.  Some bought, some built.  Many, many boats.  And so many more yet to come.

So many boats, so little time...

And the tolerant spouse is still putting up with all.  Everyone should be so lucky.  That, dear reader, is “Love”.

Fair winds!

*****

What a great story. Why not tell us how you got started building boats? ed.

To comment on Duckworks articles, please visit one of the following:

our Yahoo forum

our Facebook page