Time

I read somewhere that a sharpie could be built in a weekend. Hah! Since I started in 2009 and obviously won’t launch until 2011, I thought about how many hours it has taken me to build the boat to this point. Twelve months, minus three when I was out of town. Four weeks in October and November out of town. So say eight months. I work every day for four or five hours, but probably miss one day a week entirely for one reason or another. Add it up: I’m at about 930 hours. That's not counting time spent writing this blog, which is icing on the cake; I enjoy it as much as the boatbuilding, and it gives me a chance to think through what I’ve done and what comes next. Anyway, that’s more than a weekend. I can’t think of a better way to spend time, and I value my time highly, but obviously it isn’t worth much these days in money terms. With that in mind, consider Howard Chapelle’s ideas about the cost of a boatbuilder’s time when he makes a mistake:


It has been often said that the mistakes of the amateur builder are less costly than those of the professional. There is some truth in this- but not much. The amateur’s mistakes may destroy costly material but, more often, [lead] him to try to “patch” rather than start back and correct. …with the result that the completed boat is either a fizzle or a jerry-built abortion.

Reading that, I remembered when I was fitting the side planks to the stem and found that the stem had been cut at too great an angle, forcing the side planks to take an unnatural turn in- after I had already glued and screwed them on. I very nearly pressed ahead with a “patch” which might very well have resulted in a “fizzle”. I backed up and rebuilt the sides and stem. An obvious right decision, but it wasn’t obvious at the time.