Another new post on Boats for difficult times:
Category Archives: Boats I’d Like to Design
Post on “Boats for difficult times”
Fortuitous Mashup?
Two ideas collided this morning. “Boats I’d like to design” and Crowd-Sourcing.
It struck me right away, “Why hadn’t I thought of this before?!”
The strangulation point that’s afflicted boat design – leaving Yacht Design to the side – has been the growing gap between what people can afford – in a world of lowering incomes and many competing interests and activities chasing that lesser amount of discretionary income – and what a design costs to produce. People would like a new design, can see at least some of the benefits of having a boat that fits their needs most closely; but they simply can’t afford what it costs to commission a design.
Like this:
Boats I’d Like to Design: Canoe Yawl
One of the first designs I fell in love with was L. Francis Herresshoff’s Rozinante. There was one being built at the “Boat School” in Lubec when I arrived there in 1973. Reading L. Francis’ Compleat Cruiser fleshed out the story behind this wonderful craft. It’s fitting that when I want to focus on writing stories about designs as I am in this series, that I return to this design and to this type. Continue reading
Boats I’d like to design
This was the title to a post on my home site that led to a new project. While that original kernel evolved into Boats for Difficult Times, I think its original impulse deserves an airing here.
A designer usually compiles a list of previous work and then looks for potential clients to approach them for boats they’d like to have. Sometimes, and I’ve done this quite a lot over the years, a designer will begin developing a new idea speculatively in the hopes of attracting a client to complete it. This will be a little different. As I see it now at least, what I want to do here is talk about boats I’d like to design. Continue reading
