Craftsmanship on show

The 19th annual Woodenboat Show is to be held next weekend in Mystic Seaport, Connecticut. I hope any readers of this blog who live nearby will attend, and let us know how they found it in a comment to this post.

According to the Web site of the Mystic Seaport Museum:

Wooden boats of every type – large and small, old and new, power, sail, oar and paddle – will be on display including cruising yachts, launches, runabouts, fishing boats, performance powerboats, daysailers, dinghies, rowboats, canoes, performance shells, multihulls and racing boats.

In addition to beautiful boats in the water, visitors can enjoy browsing through tents and extensive land exhibits which include boatbuilders, sail makers, marine adhesive and coatings companies, boat schools and associations, maritime art and antiques, tools, wooden boat hardware, nautical gear, books and innovative items.

There’s more at the link.

I wish I could be there! I’ve sailed many small craft in South Africa. Despite the strength, low cost, and durability of modern materials, there’s a timeless beauty and grace to wooden boats. They’re a lot more trouble to build to high standards, and require a lot more maintenance, but the reward for their owners is a watercraft of classical grace and beauty.

(Of course, one has to be well-heeled to enjoy them . . . a boat has been defined as ‘a hole in the water into which one throws money’, and even the word ‘boat’ is said to be an acronym for ‘Bring Out Another Thousand’!)

Peter