Wooden boats sure are pretty don't cha think? A popular subject for painters yes? And them there wooden boat people, wouldn't be caught dead on a plastic and heaven forbid a steel boat and yet Bernard Moitessier sailed around and around our blue ball of a home in his steel "Joshua". I wonder if ole Bernard ever hugged a tree? Never heard anything about that. And it's oil on canvas not acrylic on canvas for a painting of a wooden boat. Whenever I stretch a canvas I think of making a sail and painting a Kon Tiki.
The spirit of the tree carries forth on a wood boat that we plastic boats can't even touch. Plastic boats are more a product of alchemy. Yeah, maybe when one of them alchemists was trying to get gold from lead Polyester resin resulted. Then that particular alchemist bumped into an head scratching glass weaver and whammo! The world hasn't been the same since. [I know, that's a load of malarkey but a lively tale yes?]
And who was the first sailor to hug a tree? Did Slocum ever hug a tree? How about Master Christopher Jones of the Mayflower? I reckon kissing the ground and thanking the Lord for a safe passage was more probably true.
When a sailor hugs a tree do the ultra rationalistic scientific scoff in an exaggerated harrumph. Those primitive society superstitions phooey wrote James Frazer in "The Golden Bough".
The tree hugging sailor may partake in the act after accomplishing a huge feat like crossing an ocean or crossing an old mill pond.
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| Knitted crotchet wrapped around a tree overlooking the Pasquotank River in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. An Albin Vega 27 floats idly nearby. |
Save a tree sail a plastic boat!! Unless it's a very nice boat and then wood is okay.
Fair Winds
Captain Bill
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