A Year on the Web

When I started this web log, I had set two benchmarks for myself. One was that I would spend only three hours a week writing and posting-I just do not have a lot of free time. If, in that three hours a week, I came up with something I could use, great, if not, then I would add nothing to the site that week. The other was that I had decided that if, in a year’s time, the site had less than 10,000 hits, I would close the site because I would not be reaching a large enough audience to justify the effort.
          It is a year since I put up my first post on “Dovetails” since then I have put up 78 posts on topics ranging from adventures on our friendship sloop to wooden toys and a number of post that just explore the creative process. I have been able to keep to my goal of not spending more than three hours a week on “Dovetails” and in the last year have had more than 15000 hits as well as some regular subscribers.
          So it looks like I will keep this site open and active, in fact I have a bunch of post lined up that are of a more architectural nature, so if you are checking this site out for the first time or are a regular subscriber, stay tuned…

The Change of Seasons

I am having a hard time believing that another sailing season has ended, However, it must be autumn because the big truck appeared last week and returned the boat to her winter quarters, the boat shed we call “Shivering Timbers”.

            The temperatures here in New England last week were in the high eighties and I could not bring myself to start the winterizing chores on the boat. It was just so hard to grasp that it is already October. The last few days were more of a reality check though; the ship’s wolf and I had headed up to New Brunswick to check in with our friends at Seascape Kayak Tours on Deer Island, in the Bay of Fundy, and as our visit progressed, the weather cooled off and by the time we left, it felt like fall.
            What finally did it for me was the drive home yesterday. I had taken a few minutes to stop in and see if Harry Bryan was around his shop. I had not seen him in a while and heard that he had a new project that I “had to check out”.
            When I drove up to his shop, it was drizzling slightly and there was Harry, in the outer boat shed, crouched over an absolutely beautiful sail boat that he has been building. As we chatted and caught up over the next few minutes amongst the piles of firewood and the smell of white cedar and oak, I looked out the windows at the brightly turning leaves against the gray skies and it hit me; it really is October. I would have loved to stay longer but suddenly I felt as if I had better get back, dig out the antifreeze, and begin washing sails…it’s October!

Boat owner’s manual completed

I wrote a post earlier in the year about how much work I had put into an owner’s manual for own friendship sloop (see owner’s manual post). Well I have neglected to mention that I got the thing done last spring.
             While it ended up being a labor of love, it did allow me to learn an updated version of publishing software for work, and the project had come to a point where so much of the real work was done that I just went ahead and finished it.
             The resulting manual is seventy pages long divided in chapters or sections that include; Safety, Systems, Stowage, Operations, Rigging, Sail Evolutions, and an Appendix. I used a three ring binder format so that as we make changes we can reprint and replace just the affected pages.
             Just for giggles, here are four more sample pages.