Re: [Cal_Boats] Small boats & new materials (Chris)

Good plan. It doesn't have to be expensive to be fun. My parents had four kids so they did their exploring by pitching us all into the station wagon, putting a luggage rack on top covered by a tarp, and setting off. Lots of breakfasts in the motel rooms (remember those little cereal boxes that you could cut open and pour the milk into?) and sandwiches by the side of the road for lunch, while we kids explored. Oh yeah I remember those cereal boxes well. Any motel we stayed in had to have a pool and we'd be in it as soon as possible. The animated movie Cars (the first one) brings back a lot of memories too. I remember "exploring" an 12" high ant hill in the desert while my dad fixed a flat tire one time much to my mom's horror LOL. The ants weren't any bigger than we had in Texas so I didn't think it was a big deal ;-). Anyway I look at my 21' Wellcraft now and wonder what dad was thinking taking us all over that lake in that tiny boat? He was thinking that he wanted to have adventures now, not twenty years later when he might have enough money to do it in style. A lesson well learned as he bought a 33' fifth wheel trailer to do extensive traveling in when he retired. Soon after he retired he had to have a cyst removed from his brain which essentially erased his ability to remember anything short term and also erased basically the last 30 years of his memories. He remembers things he did as a child and up until he got out of the Air Force and pretty much everything after that is gone. Basically all he does now is eat and sleep in an assisted living facility. I bought the Cal 39 to do some cruising as soon as my son is able to remember where we go and what we do. My goal is not to wait for retirement to travel and explore. Paul

This reminds me. I was building an ocean going sailing catamaran out of four $1.99 vinyl air mattresses, after I got out of college in '68, at my folks house, and never got around to finishing it. Too bad, I wonder what distant lands I would have explored with it, or how many sharks I'd have gotten around to feeding. That was before shark meat was even sold in the supermarket; nowadays you can rarely find it in the seafood dept. at any price. Jerry From: "pw… [at] aol.com" <pw… [at] aol.com> To: Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, November 1, 2011 8:01 AM Subject: Re: [Cal_Boats] Small boats & new materials (Chris) Good plan. It doesn't have to be expensive to be fun. My parents had four kids so they did their exploring by pitching us all into the station wagon, putting a luggage rack on top covered by a tarp, and setting off. Lots of breakfasts in the motel rooms (remember those little cereal boxes that you could cut open and pour the milk into?) and sandwiches by the side of the road for lunch, while we kids explored. Oh yeah I remember those cereal boxes well. Any motel we stayed in had to have a pool and we'd be in it as soon as possible. The animated movie Cars (the first one) brings back a lot of memories too. I remember "exploring" an 12" high ant hill in the desert while my dad fixed a flat tire one time much to my mom's horror LOL. The ants weren't any bigger than we had in Texas so I didn't think it was a big deal ;-). > > Anyway I look at my 21' Wellcraft now and wonder what dad was thinking taking us all over that lake in that tiny boat? >> >He was thinking that he wanted to have adventures now, not twenty years later when he might have enough money to do it in style. A lesson well learned as he bought a 33' fifth wheel trailer to do extensive traveling in when he retired. Soon after he retired he had to have a cyst removed from his brain which essentially erased his ability to remember anything short term and also erased basically the last 30 years of his memories. He remembers things he did as a child and up until he got out of the Air Force and pretty much everything after that is gone. Basically all he does now is eat and sleep in an assisted living facility. I bought the Cal 39 to do some cruising as soon as my son is able to remember where we go and what we do. My goal is not to wait for retirement to travel and explore. Paul > >

I was building an ocean going sailing catamaran out of four $1.99 vinyl air mattresses, after I got out of college in '68, I'm guessing you were not an engineering major in college ;-) Paul

On 11/1/2011 1:33 PM, Gerald Sobel wrote: > This reminds me. I was building an ocean going sailing catamaran out > of four $1.99 vinyl air mattresses, after I got out of college in '68, > at my folks house, and never got around to finishing it. Sounds like you were a true child of the 1960s, Jerry... that plan must have sounded great under a certain influence, but not in the cold hard light of day!! And it reminds me of my brother's statement at my Dad's funeral: "He supported us in all our endeavors, no matter how foolish or ill-conceived." There were a lot of those. But then, he also supported sailing, an undertaking that's never ill advised. Chris Campbell