Appowner

Not everyone can, I agree. I've been lucky in many ways. But I also planned to do just this for many years.

I do boats too. Sail mostly. Nearest club is some 35 miles away. Yet there are plenty of nice lakes and ponds within a few miles. Health makes it tough to go 35 miles. So I'm staying local except for once or twice a year.

r ward

what do you sail ?. I used to have a 1938 vintage Star and occasionally worked for Ferd Nimphius , a wooden boat builder in central Wisconsin.

Appowner

Models. I'd be a real disaster in a real boat. Between hanging over the side and falling over the side, wouldn't be much fun for anyone on board.

For models I currently have four boats. One is an old Victoria by Thunder Tiger. It could stand a refit but it sails nicely as is. The second is a Seawind by Kyosho. It's a One Meter boat that's a ball to sail. Fast and turns on a dime.

Then I have a 6 meter hull (60 inches long) that I'm building into a sort of scale pleasure cruiser. Pics below. It's sort of my school boat as I'm using it to practice some build techniques. Main one being the planked deck but the cabin work is all scratch too. The darker wood is Mahogany and was placed on the deck first. The lighter wood is 1/8 x 3/8 x 12 inch strips of White Oak. It did not like being bent and it took me close to 2 weeks to get it all laid down. I pretty much had to do one course on each side per day. Used a very slow epoxy to glue it to the sub deck. Cancer, retiring and moving across 5 states has delayed the launch.

Last but not least is my Canterbury J boat. 48 inch long model based on the old J designs of the Americas Cup. I'm just starting this one and it too has been delayed for above reasons.