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Aug. 31st, 2007 10:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasSo, since my cousins Todd and Kate both graduated college and moved into their own houses, my aunt and uncle have decided to move to a smaller house. The house was bought to house Jackie and David, and Todd and Kate, and Jackie's father Gus, who had his own, well, father-in-law apartment, I guess you'd call it. Since Gus died a couple years ago, and Todd and Kate have their own places, they really need only a third of the space they had before.
As usual, when someone in the family moves to a smaller place, or dies, Lis and I are given a chunk of their books, and most of their booze. I'm the only one in the family who is likely to actually DRINK the stuff. Everyone in the family has, like, a bottle of Canadian Club which was bought in the Sixties and is about two-thirds full, a couple flavored brandies, some liqueurs, maybe a dark rum -- nobody in the family drinks much, so the stuff that they DO buy tends to be either the stuff you make girly-drinks from (which is fine by me: I love girly drinks), or reasonably high-quality stuff. I mean, they may have bought the bottle of Meyers Rum twenty years ago, and are never going to drink it, but, y'know, Meyers is actually pretty good, and you wouldn't want to throw it away, so I get it. 'Cause I'll drink it.
It DOES mean my liquor cabinet is kind of filled-to-overflowing, and includes stuff I don't drink, but, in general, it's a good deal.
So, anyway, since my parents had been over in Marblehead, Jackie and David gave the box of booze-and-books to them to bring to us, and they came over to drop the stuff off and hang out for an hour or so. Which was fun -- I like my folks.
Anyway, Dad's new boat was strapped to the top of his truck, so I got to see it.
That boat is so pretty it hurts.
I think this is about the third boat Dad's built, not counting the busted-up tender that was in our garage for most of my childhood -- I don't remember where he got it, but he never really got around to fixing it up, and it was eventually donated to a museum. (Um. growing up, I do not EVER remember seeing a car in a garage at our house. Garages are for boats, and random crap.) But since they moved out to Wayland, I can think of three boats he's built. One was a junk-rigged one-person sailboat -- did not go fast, but handled okay, and was pretty fun to sail -- one was a very simple plywood canoe, which, I think, broke in half last year.
And then there's this one.
Oh. My. Ghu.
This one's a kayak, made out of plywood. But not plywood like the canoe. No, this is made out of mahogany, cedar, and some other woods. It has no internal frame -- it's entirely made out of bent plywood, bent into graceful curves.
It's gorgeous. I only saw it strapped, upside down, to the top of Dad's truck, and it was dark out. I wanna see it in daylight in the water.
He says that he did three miles in twenty minutes in the thing, from one end of a pond system to the other -- that's, like, seven-and-a-half, eight knots sustained in still water. Eight knots. Dad's a fifty-year-old guy in good shape, but he's not a competitive rower. For comparison, a competitive rower can make something like ten knots. And this is a long-distance kayak, not a racer -- it's built for comfort and distance. It's got space for two people and a little gear, or one person and PLENTY of gear. It's a kayak you can take camping -- it weighs 51 pounds, so, as long as you take your supplies separately, it can be portaged.
I have got to see this thing in the water.
As usual, when someone in the family moves to a smaller place, or dies, Lis and I are given a chunk of their books, and most of their booze. I'm the only one in the family who is likely to actually DRINK the stuff. Everyone in the family has, like, a bottle of Canadian Club which was bought in the Sixties and is about two-thirds full, a couple flavored brandies, some liqueurs, maybe a dark rum -- nobody in the family drinks much, so the stuff that they DO buy tends to be either the stuff you make girly-drinks from (which is fine by me: I love girly drinks), or reasonably high-quality stuff. I mean, they may have bought the bottle of Meyers Rum twenty years ago, and are never going to drink it, but, y'know, Meyers is actually pretty good, and you wouldn't want to throw it away, so I get it. 'Cause I'll drink it.
It DOES mean my liquor cabinet is kind of filled-to-overflowing, and includes stuff I don't drink, but, in general, it's a good deal.
So, anyway, since my parents had been over in Marblehead, Jackie and David gave the box of booze-and-books to them to bring to us, and they came over to drop the stuff off and hang out for an hour or so. Which was fun -- I like my folks.
Anyway, Dad's new boat was strapped to the top of his truck, so I got to see it.
That boat is so pretty it hurts.
I think this is about the third boat Dad's built, not counting the busted-up tender that was in our garage for most of my childhood -- I don't remember where he got it, but he never really got around to fixing it up, and it was eventually donated to a museum. (Um. growing up, I do not EVER remember seeing a car in a garage at our house. Garages are for boats, and random crap.) But since they moved out to Wayland, I can think of three boats he's built. One was a junk-rigged one-person sailboat -- did not go fast, but handled okay, and was pretty fun to sail -- one was a very simple plywood canoe, which, I think, broke in half last year.
And then there's this one.
Oh. My. Ghu.
This one's a kayak, made out of plywood. But not plywood like the canoe. No, this is made out of mahogany, cedar, and some other woods. It has no internal frame -- it's entirely made out of bent plywood, bent into graceful curves.
It's gorgeous. I only saw it strapped, upside down, to the top of Dad's truck, and it was dark out. I wanna see it in daylight in the water.
He says that he did three miles in twenty minutes in the thing, from one end of a pond system to the other -- that's, like, seven-and-a-half, eight knots sustained in still water. Eight knots. Dad's a fifty-year-old guy in good shape, but he's not a competitive rower. For comparison, a competitive rower can make something like ten knots. And this is a long-distance kayak, not a racer -- it's built for comfort and distance. It's got space for two people and a little gear, or one person and PLENTY of gear. It's a kayak you can take camping -- it weighs 51 pounds, so, as long as you take your supplies separately, it can be portaged.
I have got to see this thing in the water.