It is your Destiny...

Destiny racing in the Banderas Bay Regatta in Mexico

It is your destiny...the title of a slide show given by Leigh about his extensive restoration work on a sailboat named Destiny (interesting side note is that Destiny is an 85-foot schooner built for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and launched in 1934. After serving as a submarine scout during World War II, the ship was sold to Howard Hughes and later became a charter boat in Hawaii). The purpose of the slide show was to talk about working in the "trades" and more specifically in Port Townsend at two of the best wooden boat shops in the country. The good news is that you can look forward to low wages, sporadic work and barriers to entry, but if you are persistent the work is challenging and rewarding. Three traits that all shops look for (and probably most any other job) are: 1) speed, not just fast but efficient, 2) problem solving and 3) owning up to your mistakes.

Work in the shop included finishing both the small and large spar gauge, sharpening a brand new drawknife and then making some wood shavings using the drawknife on a 4 x 4 piece of fir. The goal is to turn the square stock into a round spar. Step one was completed today by shaving the wood down into a octagon. Tomorrow I will finish tuning my No. 4 plane and then use it to further cut the octagon into 16 sides.