A sailboat, a seven metre sloop to be exact, dwells on a trailer with flat wheels on long tall grass a few meters away from a launching dock on Vancouver Island. It has never been on the water. Not for 40 years!
Here is the introductory video for this 12 week project. https://youtu.be/CVP9_ppAE2Y
It was bought in pieces designed in 1957 by Carl Alberg and built by Allan Nye Scott Enterprises of Belleville, Ontario in 1979.
After it’s owner saw the work I did on the Sea Mouse (which was the star of the book “The Waters In-between” by Kevin Patterson) I was invited to work with him on his boat to finish it so he could finally set sail.
I agreed as an exchange for an off grid, basement suite that had been created by lifting an old rancher 10 feet in the air and turning it 90 degrees to get a view of Maple Bay.
It was the beginning of my third quarter, annual quarters that I create 12 week years in. Do you know that book, The Twelve Week Year?
I said, Ok, let’s take twelve weeks to get it floating.
I like challenges. But calling this a challenge might be a bit of an understatement.
However, this friend of 30 years, now 75 deserves to see his sailboat on Maple Bay.
Since he first bought it in 1979, this boat has spent time in a Toronto warehouse, travelled thousands of miles on the Trans-Canada Highway, parked in Steveston BC, moved to Abbotsford, then to underground storage in Burnaby and Vancouver Island after a professional rigging session to make sure it was all in one piece. It spent some time at the Tea Farm on Richard’s Trail and then eventually terminated its land based travels on a driveway overlooking Maple Bay.
After spending forty some years in that wilderness of city lights, it has been patently waiting in the long gestation process. It is about to be born or perhaps reborn as many of us can relate to.
Follow this blog to chart the progress of the building and restoration of the “Mr. E” that is perhaps like a part of yourself that has been set aside as “a someday dream”. Stay with these posts as we honour the process and journey that eventually brings us home as we sail ever onwards.
