Books

The revenge of hubris

Coming now to the nickels, dimes, and the last dog days of what remains of this 69th August I’ve come to know— I leap like a gazelle, eat like a voracious crocodile as what to make of this corner of creation we find the capitalist system to have worked itself into.

Threshold landings taking shape

Threading the needle of my adulthood through the eye of my extended youth has been a work in progress. I delude myself imagining the unrequited love I’d found cavorting along the surfs edge with the throng of nubile bikini clad wanton darlings of times gone by. I the gallant gentleman volunteering to swab sunscreen onto their shoulders and backs. Trustable, useful and mesmerized. Infatuation needs to come with a better operator’s manual for the next visit should this reincarnation thing in fact be true.

The rules are the rules. Ignoring the rules will place at risk the chances of losing the whole game. Instead of that romp in the midnight sun along the shores edge you are left to eat alone at an open all-night Denny’s. Here is located the starting line in the race to win the purest love, a love like no other, the one that changes the solitude that has been eating away inside since being separated from my mom the first day of kindergarten .

Installation for fitting prior to staining

Landing decks have been fashioned. Ends of fresh cut lumber have been sanded, the planks screwed to the frames, rough edges sanded until they were as smooth as the shoulders in need of sunscreen, then coming back to the task at hand I stood the platform on end to stain the new exterior landing’s then let them dry while I drip with sweat in the late summer sun.

Maestro fully restored ready to sail

How I had steered the ship of my life into a boatyard to restore a wooden sailboat had to do with the hubris, this was the blunder I allowed to tyrannize any chance of my ever being less ambitious. I entertained a doozy, the one I nailed my future to, brash and confident that the restoration would take maybe 3 months tops when in fact it would turn into a 7-year task.

Journeyman pointing to the screw I had to extract

Right off the bat you need to know the odds of making it to the end was near zero. The project’s sole volunteer hadn’t much woodworking experience. The hull required 2500 screws to be fastened to fresh oak ribs that had been sistered into place alongside the existing worn ribs. Those laminated oak frames were steamed until bendable then buttered up with epoxy and slid quick into place before they stiffened. I’m exhausted just remembering how the project had trapped me, how there was no way out, that giving up when you are so close would be something I could not bare to carry in my heart, this the scar I knew would be a fatal wounding ending my best shot at living my best life. Quitting the project was not an option. It would be like giving up on everything I stood for, every ounce of character I’d earned, every bit of progress I had made, my phantom General’s had got me into a quagmire, and I would have to fight my way out against having underestimated the scale and scope entailed in the restoration of a wooden boat.

Every screw is bunged after sinking new fastener into fresh ribs

There were terrifying nights during the years while I was working on the sloop’s restoration. Tormented by my folly I’d awaken in a flop sweat. An all but impossible to remove rotted fastener on more than one occasion required the entire day to extract. The journeymen boatwrights in the yard knowing that they may not interfere, that if they did intercede and extract the screw that it would ruin any chance of my growing into a self-sufficient craftsman. The only way to learn how to stand on my own two feet would by being brought to my knees fighting tooth and nail against a screw. I prevailed only after failing in every other way I could devise. The shamanic confidence of the most able craftsmen in a boatyard is always the same, it is hard won, the success arrives only after all the failures have had their turn. A capable boatwright’s skills once earned are never lost.

I am still refining my talents. Being a husband welded by vowing then practiced each day not just by use of your best pieces but also by revision of your least workable parts is at least as stubborn a task as extracting a screw from the plank of a wooden boat.

Spring 2001-2007 from beginning to end

And then there is the ongoing pleasure of loving my daughter-now an adult-but always in my mind the kid. The unconditional nature of childrearing fuels the will to the lifelong task. Doing my best to improve the kid, the wife doing what she can to improve her husband, the journeymen boatwrights not interfering letting the wooden sloop work its will upon the novice craftsman… these are eternal frictions of nature at work. Endeavoring to unlock the mystery of how fixing a thing has the potential to make a well-lived life possible may not be so easy to explain, but it is true. The trial of restoring a wooden boat will render its verdict by etching to memory how you cannot quit a thing until it is complete, and finally when you arrive both boat and man have been forged by the challenge for the better.

Books

Big Bad Boats

 

Rocket Science a mini-monster from the Cook Islands.

This is 50 feet, water ballasted, twin ruddered, carbon fibered, wickedly fast boat with a 13 foot draft!!!!

I stepped aboard a monster Sunday. The beast tethered to a dock. Sixty-five feet of ocean going, purpose built, go anywhere, under any conditions sailboat.

The beast had been born inNew Zealandto an American couple. For eight years this water ballasted ballistic sailing vessel was both a means to an end and an end in itself.

The design was conceived with a lengthy and sleek hard dodger. The stick was massive, the spreaders gargantuan, staysail could be hanked on, and the jib roller furled. Temporary lower backstays were ready in the event the staysail was deployed.

Oversized winches were aft, a weight compromising windlass on the bow (looked more than adequate for the job while small enough not to interfere with the boats sailing characteristics.) And I have to mention the spinnaker pole stowed vertically against the leading edge of the mast.

A mere man and woman, two people handled the task of sailing this unrelenting powerhouse. Losing control of a boat this size, flogging a sail, jamming a line, getting a sail down, hoisting one up, furling an unfurled sail, or having the guts to unfurl the thing was akin to going into a war zone voluntarily.

At the center on the starboard side below a diesel heater had been installed. There was a huge generator, a larger still auxiliary diesel. Forward in the V berth a queen sized bed. The boats interior was not Spartan, but its purpose was the point. Navigation, cooking, electronics, the heads, showers, rear stateroom, the interior lighting, portlights were all what you would expect of this one of fiberglass Titan.

I was imagining the able bodied seamen I’d want with me should I’d found myself heading out the Gate on an ebb in a blow. I’d pick a couple of old coots the balance would come broad shouldered, under forty and be either crazy or have guts, preferably both!

In 2003 I was down inFt.Lauderdale. Wandering the docks I stumbled upon a brokerage that specialized in selling sailboats of this size. They were all beasts. You looked at one and said I could take that boat right now to Europe, that other up the Northwest passage, still another toAntarctica. There were a few tender looking boats mixed among the toughie’s, and then there was this one I was aboard yesterday.

It is something special to be aboard something that resembles what you would use to get you through your worst nightmare. It is something like how you would travel to somewhere over a rainbow intent upon arriving back from a dream you would be wise not to make.

Is that a merry-go-round or Secretariat…

Available at Amazon or Barnes and Noble as ebook for the grand total of $1.00

What are you waiting for? 

 

 

 

Books

Good Man to Go with a Good Woman aboard a Blue Water Vessel

Handmade Excellence...

I’m a big fan of traditional yachts. Here is Chris and Helen’s. Lyle Hess designed this vessel with the Bristol Channel Cutter in mind. She displaces almost twenty thousand pounds. She is made of wood. Chris built her in New Zealand. While her hull is made up wood she’s been sealed (in fiberglass?) and LPU painted. Helen and Chris have sailed her around the world. Chris helped me on a few problems with my wooden sloop Maestro. Building a yacht of this type requires something on the order of seven thousand hours. Having worked along side Chris it is impressive to compare the speed and accuracy of his work with mine. Not only does my work go slower my work doesn’t look as good as Chris’s work when completed. When I lived in the same marina I used to pause anytime he was working on a project to observe how he approached the thing, what tools and techniques he used. In matters such as wooden boat repair not only are there unusual tools there is also an oral tradition to the craft. Much of what you might want to know isn’t written down. The way to do something is passed from one craftsman to the next. You want to know if someone knows what they are talking about take a look at their boat. I enjoy being aboard their fine boat. It is a place where every inch of every part of their boat is an example of skill, seamanship, and wisdom. It is rare that we are allowed to enter into the very inside of the results of a person’s handmade best efforts. I admire this couple and their fine yacht for what it says about how much beauty they see in the building and maintaining of a classic blue water sailing yacht.

BANKRUPT HEART                      THE SECOND NOVEL 

“Creating the
universe was really pretty simple, one big bang…and boom, the whole of creation
in one flash. You’d think after a stunt like that it would be so simple, what
in the name of god would have been so hard about making a good man to go with a
good woman?”

Bankrupt Heart Copyright © 2011 by Dana Smith

Books

Water Wonder Dog World

Yacht-Doggie as Sailor

 

Lacey is a good dog. I tell her that. I say, “Lacey you are
a good dog.” She’s deaf now. Can’t hear me, didn’t listen when she could unless
I said, “Where’s the ball?” Then she heard me! She’s 14 years old now and sinks
like a stone. She doesn’t have the energy to doggie paddle any longer. She
traveled with me to Sunfest in West
Palm Beach, Florida
back in 2003. We did shows for a few days and then we sailed off to the east of
Key West and
anchored off and snorkeled for a few days. Barracuda were mighty impressed with
this furry lure. If I dove in off the stern Lacey followed. She didn’t want to
miss a thing. She’ll bury her head beneath the water to look around, at least
she did back in the day. Now, she’s just an old dog. So, we sail the San Francisco Bay together. On blustery days she gives
me a look like, “who do you think, you’re kidding. You call this fun?” Other
days when things are not too raucous out there she doesn’t mind. I used to
leash her to the stern of the Golden Gate
sloop we owned and she’d spend the entire sail mesmerized by the wake kicked up
as the sloop healed over close hauled. Waves to a Jack Russell are like smoke
rings to a cat’s imagination. She can’t hear much anymore but she still helps
me see the world, or in this case the water, through her terrier eyes…This is
dog as lesson, lessons of wonder, life as never seen before….

     Bankrupt Heart                          The Second Novel 

 

      “Finn possesses such character. I
know your friend well. I think the loon loves his boats more than he loves his
women.” The man began to walk down the dock.

            “You do know Finn,” Ry finished his
thought. “Right about now I’d say there’s a woman trying to change his mind
about that.”

            “God bless the woman for trying. We
should all be so lucky.” The man waved goodnight.

            “What is your cat’s name?”

            “Her name is Asia…I
call her Catalyst, she owns this neighborhood.”

            Ry laughed. “I used to own a whole
city.”

Bankrupt Heart Copyright © 2011 by Dana Smith

 

Books

Under the Spell of a Golden Gate Wooden sloop, Hull #18 Maestro

Baby in Cradle of the Imagination

Indian summer ignites my passions. I don’t mind a hot summer
day, don’t care for a cold winter night, but those last gasps of balm that
slather my skin as the Northern hemisphere inevitably marches toward winter
stir some deeper part of my yearnings. Because fitting out a wooden sloop is so
time intense they become objects of contemplation. Some days a single task
takes the whole of the day. You get out of a thing what you put into it. Put
your whole back into a marriage and you might just get the life partner your
heart has always dreamed of. So, like the feel of sun on my skin in October the
mere sight of a wooden sloop displaying a refurbished and seaworthy appearance
stirs some illusions I carry in my soul as I quest toward perfections that I
know do not actually exist in reality. And so against the odds a beautiful day
appears between the last storm and before the next. One repaired and soon to be
launched wooden sloop pushes back against the tyranny of all those neglected
hulls dissolving back into the primordial soup from which they arose. My mothers
love for her son was unconditional, absolute, and foundational. As Shunryu
Suzuki would say, “we must find perfection in imperfection.” Work on a wood
sloop beneath the healing beams of an Indian summer day comes close to such a
notion.

 

Bankrupt Heart                                               The Second Novel 

“He had to start over and walk the length of the mast one more time. Seemed by the
time he got to the other end he’d forgot he was supposed to be doing a final
inspection instead of dwelling upon his new job. It was like that for Ry. He
looked up. He turned and looked one direction and then in another direction, he
looked up into the sky, it was blue the air clear the sun warm, he looked down
into the water it was calm, reflecting the sky it was darker but blue, the
siren like high pitched scream of a woodworker cutting an edge with a router in
the distance sounded right to his ear, Palo and Javier were moving boats with
the jitney, Max had just dashed by in his straw hat with his stoic manner, the
yard was alive with one man  painting a
bottom, another man carving out a piece of rot from the hull of a wood boat in
the early stages of a major refit. The long rainy season was giving way to
warmer days. The light of the sun shined more often and longer. The late
afternoon was after a hot shower, if a man had worked to his limit became a time for
satisfaction, for a beer, with the acknowledgement that a hard day’s labor had
moved a project closer to its end.”

Bankrupt Heart Copyright © 2011 by Dana Smith

Books

Removing Change

Going Back 40 Years

Finishing Bankrupt Heart meant I could focus on finishing the refinishing of the exterior of our redwood home. The east side of the building hasn’t been touched since it was first stained in 1974. Orbital sander in hand and with about 40 hours of spare time and just like that the side of the house is now ready for new stain. Sanding wood plays a role in the book and so it is appropriate I was allowed by the gods of fate to immitate the art I have just been saturated in for the last 21 months. Sanding like long fiction requires an extended time horizon. We have to look into the impulses for instant gratification and put those yearnings on hold while exercising patience. With time and effort great things can emerge so long as we are headed in the right direction. Having refinished my old wooden sloop so many times I’ve learned to follow the steps, and while it is hard to see, it is with the use of these many steps that a great accomplishment is completed. Working on the novel there lurks in the mind of an author a fear that what is being expressed on any one page won’t add up to a hill of beans, that all these incidents, these scenes to the story, hang together and mean little to nothing. Whether it is a novel, the side of a redwood building, or the fate of a nations future… what seems to emerge in my mind as one of the great lessons in life is that the great accomplishments come by having the courage to work toward something over a long time horizon. Working toward goals that will literally transform the workers, the world, and the soul of the men or women who have the courage to wait for the reward of a job well done. I’m waiting and listening for leaders who can inspire people to such ends, instead of spreading fear that such endeavors are not the source code to our future. These midgets of imagination need to be sent packing back to the timid and selfish world that they have crawled out of.

Bankrupt Heart                               The Novel

“I’m going to give Jasmine everything I got.” Ry said. “Whatever the hell I’ve been
doing the last three months, isn’t working.”

Finn was looking out the windows he was becoming
drowsy, drifting thought to thought. He wasn’t much listening anymore.

“I’m 56 years old and I still haven’t grown up, I’m
still scared of being alone.” He looked across the pilothouse toward his
friend. Could tell he was just about to fall asleep. “Finny, how come you like
being alone and I hate it?” Finn didn’t react, not a word, nothing. “Maybe
that’s how it works.” Ry concluded.

“How’s what work?” Finn said. He was absent, his
interest vanishing from the conversation.

“How do we make our dreams all come true?” Ry asked.
“Before it’s all over while there is still time.”

 

Books · Performances

Change Changed Newport

A Place Named After a Floppy Hat

Busking was salvaged from the dictionary some years back and put to work again as a term describing street performing. I visited Newport,
Rhode Island and while strolling the waterfront walked past this joint. Not that busking would go down very well in Newport. I make it my business to know about where buskers play and Newport appears closed for business. When looking for situations that might be right for the game we play we are first looking for a space that we could make work. I didn’t see that space in Newport. Second we look for a situation. The situation looked promising. People appeared as if they could use something to do. Finally, we look for the kind of people who might react favorably to the offering. That looked hard to read by my eye. I’m not sure I saw a kind of visitor to downtown Newport who might be inclined to spending some impromptu moment engaged in a bit of mirth and diversion. I did see a good city sponsored music presentation in a
local waterfront park. And of course the legendary jazz and folk festivals are both in Newport. I didn’t really know what Newport, Rhode Island would mean, didn’t know what the vibe was in that town, but having been there now I kind of got my first taste. The legendary Andrew Potter of High Street Circus lives nearby in Jamestown with his wife and daughter when she’s not away in college. We walked the historic district, drove past the mansions, the New York City Yacht Club, and slipped the line off Andrew’s sailboat and took a good romp across her legendary sailing waters. Newport is a great place for buskers to go sailing is what I’ve learned. Some things will never change, even in the face of the fact that nothing remains the same forever. When the New York City Yacht Club lost the America’s Cup that is when change changedNewport.

Bankrupt Heart                              The Novel

“Nick had a nifty side job using a power washer to
clean hauled out boats. This morning he was flogging the pull chord trying to
get the machine to start. While Ry was sanding Nick was cussing, and this
wasn’t just simple cussing, this was existential cussing, this was cussing like
when Picasso was painting, this was Nick putting the fear of the gods into the
inanimate object of his unfulfilled wishes cussing, this was Nick flipping the
whole mess on its side, pulling spark plugs, replacing spark plugs, changing
gas, trying again until the power washer after ruining his whole day in spite
of all his impatience and cussing at long last started.”

Books

Change of Address of Changes

One of my homes....

I’m in my home up in the hills. I can just see the chimney of Eugene O’Neil’s Tao House from the living room. I’ve been here since January 2010. We came from Telegraph Hill in San Francisco where my wife and I lived together since March of 2007. We had an apartment at the edge of a cliff and we faced east. The view of sunrise was sublime. We often got up just for that show. When we met I was living aboard Maestro, my 25 foot wooden sloop. I’d found my way to this home by 2004. I lived in the San Rafael Yacht Harbor. I loved it. I did a piece of life in Berkeley near the Rose Garden not far from the Gourmet Ghetto. That began in 2001. In the first six months of 2001 I lived in my travel trailer in Castro
Valley. My trailer prior to that resided on the bumper of my truck. More or less I bounced between the American Southwest for half the year and the Northwest and into Canada for the other half. That segment began in 1999. I owned my trailer until 2007 and used it for work where in autumn for this last decade I worked in Queen Creek, Arizona at Schnepf Farm where my performing dog Lacey and I spent October’s entertaining visitors. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the back of my truck where I have often slept while out doing dates on the road. For example in 2004 I did the Ohio State Fair and didn’t want to pull the trailer and in that case I slept on my bunk in the back of my pickup truck…very nice. If it was all added up I’ve lived on things that move almost as much as I’ve lived on things that don’t in the last twelve years. The biggest change of all isn’t where I sleep, but with whom and of all the changes that has been the most amazing change of all.

Highway Home    The Novel

” The first decision he made was to keep on sleeping in the back of his van. He might get a place later. He found several
places to park where he wouldn’t be rousted out or hassled by anyone. He rotated from one spot to another and was careful about attracting attention. It
was a good time to hold his cards close. In the morning he’d get up and have coffee at The Irishman’s Café, an offbeat joint near Portland State
University where customers poured their own coffee, borrowed the newspaper from the person next to them, and spoke in neighborly tones to the workers.”