Gday,
recently went out fishing on a boat my mate recently bought (just a small 15foot half cabin), really enjoyed myself and it seems to have awoken some sort of ol' irish boating blood within me.

just wondering if there are other Boaties here?

if so anyone actually built their own boat? i thought that would be a pretty cool thing.

Are there many jobs around in the Boating industry? from building or repairs though to Captain sort of work? i live in SA and there are a lot of boat shops and other ship related businesses around port adelaide way.

i reckon its great that my mate bought a boat, as he has spent the money, and I dont have too, but I would like to learn a lot about them.

i work in a technical role at the mo, but getting a bit sick of it, and long service is coming up in a few years, so thought, hmmm, maybe a change is in order? maybe even 'sea change' ha ha ha.

im not but it sounds good and yes a good change

helped build a few, repaired a few, rebuilt a couple. not a very glamerous job. Much better to enjoy the use of them.
cheers
blaze

Built a 37ft schooner thirty-five years ago. Currently it is ashore waiting on a major refit, which I am probably too old to ever get finished. Sailed up and down the east coast between Melbourne and Townsville, but mainly in Bass Strait and in Sandy Strait.

John

__________________
JDNSW
1986 110 County 3.9 diesel
1970 2a 109 2.25 petrol

Built this one:
Beatrice

Wise words .Been stuffing around boats for 50 odd years and after waking up with fibreglass itch or weld flash a few times it is SOOOO much better to just enjoy them.

An old mate took early retirement from the ATO and started hobby machining with small steam engine kits from hobby shops. He worked his way up to a triple expansion engine big enough for a 30' boat, so then took another path and taught himself boatbuilding to produce a 24' clinker day launch to use the engine. Now 81, and is into model internal combustion engines built from scratch, not kits. Current project is a scale Offenhauser 270.

Dreams so seldom attain reality. I designed a 54' cruising yacht in the early 80's with dreams to build and live aboard and raise a family and just go wherever we wanted in the world.With stars in our eyes we/I spent endless nights on the floor of our lounge room spreading increasingly large and larger sketches all over the floor. All initial costings were going to end up at $1000/ft then. Then we got married. It was going to cost approx $56k to put it in the water.....the cost of a new average home. Our first child arrived a couple years later and the sketches and plans had been out a couple of times and a new finished cost assessment had risen to $90k. By this time I had left the services and was pursuing some very high paying job offers with a view to saving the money for "our' passion. 1988 with second child due we return to Qld all cashed up and swmbo decides that a "home" is the most imortant issue, so we sell the brand new car we'd purchased, buy a clunker from in laws and put a handsome deposit on a new home. In the mean time the boat plans have been packed, unpacked, packed , unpacked, packed and unpacked when we eventually move into our new home. The new lounge room is really to small to spread open all the plans and new ideas for our dream boat, and we have since been to every major boating show in australia and have hundreds of new concepts in engines, galleys, radios etc. The revised price now is finished hull ready for fit out at approx $100k, plus the plans now have tears , creases, childrens food stains and frayed corners.3 years later Swmbo has now elected for the full security of life on the land, we have child #3 and have sold our first home for an absolute killing. Cashed up again, living very cheaply, caretaking a house for 3 years, I decide to bring out the plans again.Every time the plans come out 3 young children reckon its bonding time with dad and condition of the plans deteriorate further. Readjusted costings now put the boat in the water at over $250k and theres some lovely acreage around that can we buy and build our new house on ....yeah right again.Maybe theres room now to build the hull alongside the new house. "Youre not going to have a rusty old boat hull in the yard for years like I've seen in other places"
so, out come plans again and page by page, sheet by sheet I tear up the dream. I work alongside the broadwater in Qld and every day see the cruising yachts come and go and anchor in the basin and wonder if "LADY OF THE FLOWERS" will ever grace the waters there.

I feel your pain.

I first decided I wanted a St Pierre Dory when I was a given copy of Gardiner's "The Dory Book" at 15. It took nearly another 30 years before that dream became a reality in Beatrice. She is not what I initially envisaged because the missus insisted on a cabin (she has fair Polish/Irish skin), I was happy with a rough and tumble open boat. However since then Beatrice has more than proved her worth both as an escape and in keeping us safe in rough weather.

She, Beatrice, attracts a lot of attention and has even been featured in Wooden Boat Magazine's Small Boats Special Edition.

Keep the dream alive but expect to scale your desires. Maybe now you will not sail across the horizon until the kids have left home, or maybe your wife will be made happy if you contract a skilled craftsman to construct part of the vessel and you do the rest. Perhaps charter a vessel of the size you want for a summer holiday and see how it really feels to be out there, away from the sight of land and a little blowy, and the kids and she start getting anxious.

Whatever. Keep the dream alive in whatever form it takes.

There needs to be a :sadcry: emoticon.
I feel your pain Ramblingboy.

"The sea calls just a few men to spend their lives in a dance with her - but not all will leave the safety of the harbour to follow her. Those who are called, but remain imprisoned on land will ALWAYS long to be in the dance."

Steve