And it’s great vehicle for ridicule from my family, who have made it Exhibit A to prove my propensity for procrastination.
The canoe was my first attempt at boatbuilding. It was a small, lapstrake canoe based on Thomas J. Hill’s “Ultralight Boatbuilding” book and video. His method was to use strips of mahogany plywood held together by fiberglass and resin. It sure looked easy when I watched his video.
In my less-than-perfect rendition, the unfinished hull ended up as a fixture in the middle of our basement for nearly two decades, eventually covered with old clothes and other cellar detritus.
At some point during the construction, I made a small misstep — I forget now what it was — and ceased working on it.
But I am nothing if not hopeful. Several years later, I built another wooden canoe from a kit, a simpler process than doing it from scratch.
Despite getting turned around and somehow switching the bow and stern profiles during the process (not a problem in a canoe — both ends are pointed — the kit’s amused, but upbeat manufacturers counseled me over the phone) I finished it.
It was inspirational.
I rededicated myself to the first canoe, and to this day it floats me into some pretty interesting spots. I can recommend an afternoon going down Mad River between Urbana and Springfield in a small canoe. The trout are amazing as they swarm under you and a blue heron may accompany you overhead, as it has me.
Next, feeling frisky beyond my talents, came a new idea, a cedar strip canoe based on Mac MaCarthy’s book, “Featherweight Boatbuilding.”
The long strips, about three-quarters of an inch deep and a quarter-inch thick, can be bought ready-made for a hefty sum. I elected to mill my own. This involved haunting Home Depot every few days for a month to sort through a bin for the rare cedar boards that are clear enough of knots to be cut into bendable strips.
This was probably the hardest part, although launching a few strips across my back yard from the spinning bit of a router table like they were shot from a crossbow was an impressive learning experience.
These strips are glued together edge to edge over a form and the canoe takes shape. Finish that, add trim and a seat, and then you will learn what they mean when they say building a boat is mostly a matter of sanding.
I’ve been plugging away off and on for a few years with it and it’s turned out far from perfect, but better than I had a right to expect.
The real point of it for someone like me who pushes electrons around a computer screen most days is that it’s an opportunity to actually do something in the material world.
Something real and enduring emerges.
Solving problems, making small creative decisions and watching a boat slowly take shape is kind of like writing, except that the end product floats.
Several coats of varnish will soon hide the scratchy resin surface and I will then launch it at an area lake.
Also to be launched, I hope, is my grandson Ian’s interest in boats. This canoe will be his. (I’ll deliver it after you finish learning to swim, Ian.)
There is a whole new world to see when you push off from dry land.
As a boy about Ian’s age I learned to row, sail and paddle. It’s a love that’s never left me and I own nothing more valuable to pass on.
Or as Rat famously puts it in “Wind in the Willows,” “Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”
Contact Tom Hawkins, editorial page editor of the Springfield News-Sun, at 328-0343 or thawkins@coxohio.com.