moment of silence

for the record,
my heart is not into this,

Four lien sale full keel pocket cruisers were towed in from Berkeley (that's a little town between Emeryville and Albany on the east side of the Bay,) on Saturday to be cut up and crushed for the dump.

One was a S/S designed Columbia 26, with a great big artedeco inspired cabin. A lot of room below. Very substantial glass hull with a kickup ob motor well. Absolutely NOTHING wrong with the boat. The yard master lined them up after plucking them out of the water with the crane like beached whales in a row. One of the other boats had a kickup motorwell also.

Another was a Barny Nichol's plywood green hulled Buccaneer 28 with every single fitting below, deck, mast, and boom, stem to stern all nicely laid out vertigre bronze, and wooden blocks. Complete with nearly new triple stitched Pineapples. It arrived with the opening ports already sawzalled out and primary winches removed. The cabin sides are solid one inch mahogany which was pink from cuts like dry flesh. There was NOTHING wrong with this sailboat either. NOTHING. Really.

By Sunday, The Milwaukees had bitten chunks out of all the decks, mahogany coamings and cabin sides. Monday they will be crushed totally. The very special Buccaneer sure had some tall tales to tell and so, no doubt, still did the Columbia. Scavenging is sad work, nobody talks between the hollow rumbling of the saws, smiles are the bareing of teeth and nobody has written a blues tune for the unlovely demise of a pretty little boat.

I feel sick.

Well, like I said before last time I waxed metaphsical, to me it goes like this: (and may sound a bit--or more than a bit--like the a Friday night call-in on the Art Bell program!)

There is nothing worse than a dying or dead boat. Even worse are the ones with, as you said, nothing wrong...you can almost hear them screaming as the loader bites into them.

That old seiner that I got the mahogany from...she'd been sunk, raised for environmental reasons, she was done with. Rotten. No saving it. Now, this was just an old, dead, 60-year-or more used fishboat, right? I will tell you this, because this I saw--people who do not think of things like this, people in general, anybody around...as the trackhoe bit into her, anybody who was not actively working on that demo...turned away, stayed away, did not look. Maybe they couldn't feel it in a way they realized, but I think they felt it anyhow, just this huge sense of sadness, and like you could nearly hear the boat groaning. No joke.

So here is what I think:
If wood, the boat has a headstart on all of this, because trees are of course living things with a spirit of sorts on their own, and when the tree dies and becomes lumber a bit of that stays.
In any case, regardless of materials, a boat is constantly working in/on/with/against nature...and in the process, it becomes charged in a way and takes on a bit of it's own entity.
People, then, they sail the boat, they work the boat, they work ON the boat...a little bit of them rubs off and into the boat and gives her that much more entity. As an example, Dee's original owner was quite a fellow, and the harder it blew the more he wanted to sail. OK...whenever the wind picked up, the boat would take on a different feel tied at the dock, not just a different motion or what-have-you, but a different FEEL, like a dog wiggling all over when he sees the leash come out or smells the pizza guy coming up the walk. This was quite pronounced, and a number of people who I had said nothing to about it (not wanting to seem nutty) commented on it over time. One remark I remember was simple, from a gal standing on the foredeck..."Wow! She wants to GO!".

You know, I was/am (i guess 'am' still although I haven't worked as such for a number of years...but you either are or aren't, sayeth they) a luthier for quite a while. I did a lot of restorative work, major structural work, a lot of work on good old vintage instruments. In that biz it is an accepted given that the instruments have a personality and a spirit of sorts of their own...sometimes you pick up an old Telecaster and start noodling with it and all of a sudden you are playing a bunch of old Counry-Tele-Faux-Pedal-Steel licks...that's what you play because that is where your hand is drawn, because that's what some old guy did with it 5 nights a week for 20 years. Other times it's beer-hall-rock-and-roll, etc. A nice old arch-top that played bebop for ever and a day does that great but doesn't have a big loud voice. An absolutely identical example of the same guitar that was used in the rhythm section of a big band chopping out chords has one hell of a bark (the technical term is actually "Chonk", if it matters) but feels and sounds less than ideal when you play single-note runs. Anyway, I digressed as usual...sorry.

If the parts and the re-usable wood if any, and all that...just go in a big construction dumpster, she is completely forgotten and lost, and the spirit is all long gone. If it comes from the seajunk store later, it's like buying a donated organ or something, like handling bones. Sometimes you see a really nice, special piece that feels good when you pick it up even if you are not thinking about such things...and that means it came from a very special boat--so much so that even that bone still has her in it.

Now, if you take those parts and you put them to good use, and you remember where they came from...it's different, and the dead old boat and her dead old owners and a few dead old trees in some small way live on in that part. While those massive old african mahogany bunkboards from Kathy Ann will be milled into something a bit smaller, and while they will be holding a cushion instead of an exhausted fisherman, I will take comfort in knowing that that piece of wood...right THERE...held lots of scared, wet men in the rack many many times in conditions worse than what I'm in the middle of, you know?
I'm inclined to think that the difference between knowing where the part came from and not...is that if we know where it came from, or some story about it, then it's in our mind someplace and we are more likely to feel or sense the life in it. Not by projection or by talking ourselves into a belief, but in the same way that a few famous, textbook physics expiriments found that some events will only appear to take place if there is a live human being looking, but not if there is only a camera present.

Old boats that are near-dead often lack a real big personality feel, like they are asleep or comatose or something...but when you start working on them, they start to wake up.

The old folks who owned T397 for 20-odd years sailed her a lot, up the coast from OR every year to do the San Juans and BC gulf. Didn't know that until I spoke to the widow some months after I bought the boat. So, 397 knows the way--and knows HOW. I've been very lucky to get a lot of good materials and usable parts from other old boats that are no more, and a few from still-extant good old boats that were refitted. A few other parts are from anonymous donors as it were, fresh from the seajunk store...but it's my sincere hope and inclined belief that once completed and assembled, and once she tastes water again and I short-tack up the waterway to get away from the yard...all these things...my boat, and all these bits and pieces from other boats, they'll start to wake up a bit, and all of a sudden I'll have a real sweet gal on my hands.

My son is 19, and does fine woodworking as a trade. Just moved back from CA, hadn't seen the boat yet until a few weeks ago. So, he is standing in the cockpit of a gutted boat in an enclosed building; that is 5 different colors and covered in dust with no interior and with tools and materials piled here and there on the deck...looks up to the bow and earnestly comments that she's a beautiful boat. I guess he must see...or feel...something I can't.

If I sound like a nut case, so be it. After all, I'm the lunatic with the big oars! ;)

Dave

Dave,
You got soul!

I get agitated. You know those rock stars that smash their guitars on stage? That pisses me off! What kind of relationship was that? Only the maker could do that. Do you think Mr Fender ever did that?

I got really upset when the marriage fell apart. I got a little self destructive, but it was destined, I'm way over it now. 'The best thing she ever did was cut me loose.' There still is the sting in the good times and the promises I didn't keep.

The boats came in tethered one behind the other like condemned prisoners, quiet and 'comatose.' At the end all will be forgiven. Nearly all. A man of metaphysical bent will see that many a sailboat has a big part of his soul in it.

They were all redeemable. The wood Barny Nichols must have been the archtop, a piece of art you couldn't stamp out in plastic, or take by the neck and smash. Skillfully, soulfully fitted together bit by bit, a beautiful thing. It was too late. I was too late again to save the unsavable.

Everything good seems to be countered by the equally bad. Every right by a wrong. Sometimes it's immediate, sometimes there's some coasting room. Every birth has its own end in it. Whether it's a babe or the rebuild of an Ariel - the end by knacker, coral reef, unkept promises, neglect, or nonpayment of rent is included.

The seal goes softeyed, quiet and strangely docile in the loud teeth of the shark. One has to say something, right? Or it's too obscene for words.

Here's to balmy breezes and good beer with friends on the deck of a sweet little boat!

Good posts, fellas, even tho' 'tis a sad, sad subject.

And to think I am looking for a boat just like those, one that someone has abandoned and is fated for the knacker, or nearly so. Wish I knew how to find some hulls like that...

Waaayyy off-topic, a bit of goodness for our man Ebb:

In days of old, instrument makers were big buddies with another group of odd folks called Alchemists. The alchemists were basically scientifically-minded people trying to work out the what and how of our physical and chemical world, but the luthier did somethong equally as exotic-seeming. Of course, the alchemists did decide the big goal was to make gold from nothing, which of course would have crashed what economy there was...and since the church controlled the gold, they got hunted down and whacked one by one or in groups.

They wanted the instruments for church, so they pretty much let the luthiers alone as long as they never spoke heretically in public...so, often, they'd write their subversive messages on the inside of the top or in a glue joint someplace.

This particular version of the phrase in question came from the inside of a 16-th century lute, but very similar verses have been found in instruments much older.

Viva Fui In Silvis
Sum Dura Occisa
Sum Vixi Dura Tacui
Mortua Dulce Cano

Or...
I was alive in the forest
I was killed by the cruel axe
In my life I was silent
In death I sweetly sing

Best,
Dave

in death i sting the eyes
of the ax wielders -
my flesh fuels the fire -
but it rights no wrongs.

my bones make the lyre
so that the killers
can heal their guilt
with lies and sappy songs!

this is legal stuff,
there has to be some kind of notification in the public press, say, by the marina. It could be the owner died and the heirs abandoned the boat.

This is a way marina managers get rid of their deadbeats. Maybe one goes around and just asks. And makes an offer. Pays the back rent. I don't know. The knacker gets $1500 up front for removing the offender. (the money comes from your registration ) You probably could have gotten the Columbia or the Buccaneer for $500. Don't know. Go for it, KEEP 'EM ALIVE!

I have watched the destruction on the beach and in the yard of a mess of boats over the years. Three boats that I recall specifically now, are a Columbia 24 Challenger and two wooden boats: one schooner and one sloop. I knew the owners of those three boats and I looked at two them when they were for sale before they went onto the beach.

The routine around here is that old boats wind up selling cheap without slip rights, and they are anchored off the pier. Eventually, they drag anchor and wind up on the beach, or they come into the harbor for the winter, but the end tie fees eventually run into the red and the resale value is essentially zero or near zero. Eventually, someone decides to destroy them. If a boat has gone on he beach and has damage, the damage usually exceeds the value of the boat.

It is perhaps even sadder to know the people for whom these boats once offered promise of adventure, a new lifestyle, cheap housing, or a life dream fulfilled. As I watched an old wooden full keel sloop being cut up here last week, I noted very little deterioration of the wood. I visited the tortured carcass every evening until nothing but the keel remained. That boat was given for free to a guy whom I knew. He had spent some time in the Caribbean when he was young. He went to sea as a commercial fisherman hoping to return to put the mast back up on that boat and sail away, but the chainsaws got it first. Perhaps that dream of his died and he just walked away, or perhaps he gave it to someone else. I don't know. Some of the mussels on the bottom were eligible for social security. But it is sad not only to see the boat go, but also sad to know that a dream died with it, or perhaps the dream died first.

Finally, all this metaphysical musing is interesting. Perhaps it is not the owners whose consciousness infests their boats. Perhaps boats are conscious. If you doubt that the universe is conscious, if you doubt that the ocean is conscious, you have not been listening. If the ocean is a living being, then why cannot a boat be conscious? If you tie the jib sheet off to your tiller and let her sail herself, you will have no doubt. A man from Brazil named Carl once told me that the ocean was a living being. It took me a few years to abandon my scientific perspective and come to understand that Carl was telling the truth. But what does this mean to the sailor? What does it mean to be drunk on the sea? Doesn't it mean to be immersed in the consciousness, or as the mystics say, "to be one with it." Isn't this at least one of the reasons why we sail?

Reread the section of Moby Dick where Pip, the cabin boy, falls overboard while on a whale boat and has to wait for the "Pequod" to come over the horizon to rescue him. Melville understood this, but then again he was, for a time, a sailor.

Here is my poem for Carl on the topic from my unpublished book, "The Place of Many Voices". The "Stone Seal" was my first boat.

-- Mother Ocean

Glass of seawater
Fouls and dies on table.
Carl says, "The ocean
Is a living being."

Childhood spent
Running Barefoot
On South Atlantic beaches,
Living being of sea.

"Microorganisms in the glass die,"
I say as Carl laughs,
Sun bleached hair shaking,
Salt on his teeth.

Twenty years
Before I felt her heart beat,
Sun melting like butter
On her metallic skin.

Ocean swells roll
Under keel of old Stone Seal,
Rhythmic drumming
Of liquid heart on hull.

Thirty years
Before I understood
That the Ocean's beings
Are her flesh.

Dive on reef
With gray fish floating,
Striped eel slithers into crevice
Then is gone.

One million
Breathing things
Glow like galaxies
In hand held light.

Pumped by human heart
Blood flows with same salinity.
Salt waves flow through living tissue,
Mother Ocean's living glass.

(Ebb Wrote:
'Dave, You got soul!'...or something like that.)

Since this is off-topic, well, I'm going off-topic.
See, every one of my friends' boats seems to have a theme song...or a fight song...or a 'look out, batten down' kinda song.

DECISION's was 'Hair of the Dog' by Nazareth

RENEGADE's used to be 'Welcome to the Jungle' by Guns-n-Roses(I THINK it's Guns-n-Roses, at least. Jay used to go bombing across the bay with the S2T steering at work, gyrating madly in cowboy boots on the foredeck with this song blastin'. Quite a sight!)

YGGDRSSIL, my pal Tom's Vega, has 'Doggy Tom' by Lords of Acid

And of course, my friend Perry's Cheoy Lee Cadet has the song she's named for...DINAH MOE HUMM by Frank Zappa.


Which leads me, you see, to stop and think about what the real theme song for MANDARA should be. See Ebb, I don't know how much it is that I got soul as it is that the boats do. Anyway, I started thinkin' about some of the stuff that keeps going into the shop BoomBox with the most frequency: Otis Redding. Wilson Pickett. Sam and Dave. Aretha. Booker T. and the MG's...a little Tower of Power and some Blood Sweat and Tears tossed in there along with some old Santana and a bit of Tito Puente. Boat's got soul with a capital 'S'. We're both sorry over nothin'. Hold on, sayeth I, I'm comin.

OK. So I keep worrying about what the real official SV Mandara song is. Odd thing to worry about while you have no interior or rig, but these things happen and get stuck in the mind, right?

I mean, I love my Dick Dale CD's too...but I just can't see 'Lets' Go Trippin' as the theme here...the soul bag is more like it.

I think it's 'Green Onions' by Booker T. and the MG's. Maybe 'Hip-Hug-Her' by the same band.

Either that or it's 'Sex Bomb' by Tom Jones. :eek:
Dave

That's an easy one for me--the old hymn "Amazing Grace." Not much to dance to, but I like the lyrics


"Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
'Tis Grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And Grace will lead me home."

Hey, Ebb--

Remember how we have never had much fortune connecting via the forum e-mail link?
Well...I lost your e-mail addy. Can you drop me a line at . . . .[delete]
I'm in need of some good old boat relics for T397, and thought you might have...

Thanks,
Dave

[Go to Dave's profile and click on "E-mail marymandara"]

Dave,
After sending you a brief message on your profile page as suggested by Bill, junk words come up saying I am not "subscribed to any forum." I hope you got the email

Well,
no email.

Agree with Scott that boats are conscious beings.....
but computers have no soul.

Somewhere along the line as the boat is getting close to turning all grey in order to turn other colors of grey and white, in amongst the final death gasps of geuinely worn-out, eaten-up, USA Made Hutchins air sanders and the creaking of the herniated cervical discs with each pass of the ridiculously large homemade longboards that would be just great like a 19th century crosscut saw if only there were two to use...cometh the long dark teatime of the boatwright soul.

The accidental boatbuilder stares at the rafters of a 50-plus-year-old boatshed and wonders if anyone ever actually hung themselves in there. They did find a body in there a couple winters ago, but it was just a poor transient who'd tried to keep warm in a cold, open, empty building and found that Night Train made poor antifreeze.

A couple years ago at a yard on the other end of town, down by the old Uniflite compound, some poor guy was at a similar point in some huge project and had slowly been slipping cogs until one day the men with the big butterfly net had to come and take him away in a straitjacket. No joke, this happened. Boat ended up at the landfill. There but for a small tick of the nerves goeth I, perhaps.

And, somethime onwards towards 0300 the inevitable happened...the boat finally started talking out loud, in a kind of throaty and joking, butch-girl sorta tone...like the gal in the Carhartts that can be the best buddy you ever had, more solid friend than any man...but no matter how much you like each other you know right upfront that you will only be able to see each other so closely before the patently obvious dichotomy becomes the sordid limiter...that you are built of flesh and she of fiberglass and wood.

My boat...could be a politician or a game show host. With the boat's keel standing a full 26" above the floor, I am astride a Tower Of Power. She spoke in riddles that I could only half understand but somehow sense that Ebb might know better having been around Berkeley in the rough time period or her references.

Anyway, the politician/lobbyist/sexy tough girl in a toolbelt ever that she is, she chuckled in my hearing protectors as she suggests that the fairing might go better if I gave my creaking elbows some 'fat 'ol East Bay Grease'. I asked if I was really truly doing the right thing, and all she could do for me was to answer with a teasing question (hence the political debate quality of the discussion)...'What IS Hip'? Chuckling again, she teases me: "Tell Mama!".

And then she was silent, slipped away back into her innocent-looking bare glass shell, denuded and stripped bare of the M&M layers of colored gelcoat candy coating and EasyPoxy shineup M&M gloss topcoat like an evelasting gobstopper or one of those Atomic Fireball jawbreakers I like to cram my mouth full of if I'm gonna be stuck in a respirator for a long time. Talk that trash, girl, Knock yourself out! That's all right by me.

Perhaps I have been spending too much time in the boatshed. I seem to have come down with a disturbingly chronic and unpleasant itch. It's just So Very Hard to Go.

Methinks tonight I may find myself Down at the Nightclub instead.

At least my boat does not listen to rap.

Dave

Dude--generally speaking, it is not a good idea to lay-up glass without your respirator, drink tequila and read Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson all in one night. Might begin to see things. Or hear them. Or end up dating a woman with hairy armpits.