F24 ‘Kilter’ waits at Port Dinorwic (Richard Pollard)
The most significant characteristic of a traditionally built wooden boat is that it is pretty. The intermingling of its function and its form mean that it has to be beautiful. And yet, it’s got this job to do. An important job.
The deal is: you look after the boat, and then the boat can look after you.
F28 ‘Deba’ at Port Edgar, nr Edinburgh before being broken up (Dave May)
You can touch the wood, and it feels good in the hand. It’s actual, it’s true. You can see it bent into curves, and imagine sailing away on it. Curves are everywhere on a wooden boat. The curve might be said to be God’s signature on earth.
F28 Fulmar at La Roche (Laurence Robinault)
A wooden boat touches men’s dream life; they can sail away on it. Men go slightly mad when they are around boats. Whatever they know heaven to be, they know just as certainly that they can get there on a beautiful wooden boat.
F24 ‘Rapport’ (Nick Ardley)
See how much we are losing in this homogenised, market-ethic, throwaway culture. We like the ideas of self-reliance and resourcefulness, but we don’t do much to foster these qualities, nor do we reward them. They are not treated as the assets they once were.
F24 ‘Pistol Knight’ before restoration (Dave Keffen)
A wooden boat has the anatomy of a living body. There is a backbone… ribs… muscles and tendons (the rigging) and skin (the planking).
F27 Bonito, prow only remains now (Paul Mullings)
Wooden boats combine extraordinary craftsmanship with centuries of wisdom about how to keep pieces of wood together at sea. Physics is involved in a way that is artful. These boats are almost invariably beautiful to behold.
F27 Bonito nearing the end (John Benford)
A wooden boat is a metaphor for all the things that matter in our cheap, disposable world. If only we can look after it, then the boat can look after us.
Taken mostly from Wooden Boats by Michael Ruhlman, with some quotes from Ross Gannon, David McCullough, Jon Wilson and Peter Spectre.
