DREAMING OF A NEW BOAT
November 28th, 2009A Maine winter is coming on so I had to do this oil painting of the Paine 26 I hope to build someday. She’s a scaled up Herreshoff 12 1/2.
A Maine winter is coming on so I had to do this oil painting of the Paine 26 I hope to build someday. She’s a scaled up Herreshoff 12 1/2.
A collector who already owned two of my paintings has bought two more. They are PUNCHING TO WINDWARD and TRANSATLANTIC RACE 1966. Now his office is perfect as it has Chuck Paine paintings on all four walls. You can see more on the subject of painting at www.painefineart.com.
I finally got to sail the Dave Gerr designed Nester dinghy that I converted from a pure rowboat over last winter. She sails fine, albeit with a bit of lee helm. And she twists bigtime as you can see, though not enough to actually let the ocean come in.
I have just returned from the Annapolis Show. Big news was the absense of the Hinckley Company, combined with the article in the NYT business section re their financial woes. But the gate was much better than in past years, which is never a bad sign.
Here’s a photo of Visions of Johanna. She’s through the Panama Canal now and headed futher South.
We made it to Cartagena in 9 1/2 sailing days- well over 2000 miles! I met this fellow at the Muse0 d’oro in the old town. He gave us a tour of the museum, claiming to speak English. He did- about three words, then he’d lapse into Spanish. But it didn’t matter- I wanted to get a picture of his face.
When I was a kid I grew up in a little shack very much like this. Maybe when I’m older I’ll move to Great Inagua and see if I can buy this one.
After the Gulf Stream my long jeans were no longer necessary, so I made them into shorts.
I departed Newport in Bill Strassberg’s VISIONS OF JOHANNA in mid May. Just to prove I actually got some work done, here I am braced in the main cabin writing the few final chapters of my book. Two days later the jacket was no longer necessary.
I spent most of the month of May sailing. First I attended the Family Island Regatta at the invitation of my brother. Then I boarded Doug Diehl’s wonderful CONSULTING TIME for a weeklong sail to Florida. Here I’m at Warderwick Wells studying native Bahamian boat construction techniques. Not sure about that caulking.