Nothing On a Boat Is Straight Or Square ... Including the Path to Project Completion
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A BOATBUILDING PRO AND A DEDICATED AMATEUR IS OFTEN SIMPLY THE LEVEL OF CYNICISM EACH HAS RESPECTIVELY ACHIEVED
One of the things I’ve always found attractive about what — for want of a better term — I’ve come to call the “yachting sub-culture”, is its hyper-eclectic mix of hard-assed professionals and romantic enthusiasts.
In the yachting and boating sector, designers, builders, tradesmen, marine-business people, sportsmen, adventurers, itinerant retirees, writers, photographers, inventors, and near-genius creatives continually rub elbows with fourflushers, hardcore scammers, and other assorted dockside ne’er-do-wells, all bound together in a cultural melange based on an enduring, almost obsessive fascination with boats and boating.
For me, the sub-culture has always been a kind of magical underworld where every so often I run across a fellow-traveler who not only has what must be a direct intravenous connection to the heart of the boating world, but who also possesses a sufficiently literary bent to illuminate the core of what yachting and boating are all about. Author/Photographer/Fledgling Boatbuilder, Janice Anne Wheeler, is one of those people — in spades.
Her writing is richly literary and rekindles some of the magic that many hard-bitten pros and long-time enthusiasts felt when they first began their romance with “messing about in boats”. And if you partake in it, believe me, you’ll feel better for the fresh perspective, free of cynicism, that it brings to your relationship with the object of your cultural obsession.
I know that’s the way it affects me. After seeing so many boat building and restoration projects go awry and so many weary dreamers ground down by reality over the years, reading some of Janice Anne’s “stuff” — as we writers are wont to call it — moves me to shed at least some of the cynical crust I’ve accreted in the boating business. I even feel — well, almost — like going to a boat show again.
You can sample some of my trademark cynicism at the following link:
Notwithstanding which is why I recommend you take a quick dive into what Janice Ann Wheeler publishes here on Substack, then do yourself a favor and consider subscribing.
In support for independent boating and yachting writers on Substack, if you purchase (or already have) a paid annual subscription to Sparring With Mother Nature by Janice Anne Wheeler, FYBBO will (during the month of February 2025) give you an annual premium-level paid subscription to For Yacht Builders, Buyers, and Owners at a 50% discount. That’s a sizeable stack of good reading, plus access to our premium-level special features such as DIY Forum and membership in the FYBBO Community… for pennies as day. So, do consider subscribing today.
Fair winds and safe harbors — Phil Friedman, FYBBO Editor and Publisher
Copyright © 2025 by Phil Friedman ― All Rights Reserved
I appreciate your perspective and all your support Phil! There is a remarkable amount to learn and this is certainly a great resource.
Thank you! Very much.
J