If I'da done it sooner

[Paulyboy]

This was kindled by the thread about boat employment in Maine. I'd like to get a feeling how many of us wish we had started building boats as a business either younger, ot at all, and how old we are now. I'm 47, did a lot with my hands ala art, chef stuff, woodworking, writing, music, etc., but I wish I'd have stayed in R.I. and learned to build boats the good way.........

[win_wood]

Got me to thinking too. When I was about 20 (I am now 38) I went to Wilmington N.C. to talk to someone at the community college there. I got to the college and walked through but decided not to inquire for some reason. I think I was just too young and unsure of myself. My parents had discouraged me about my dream to learn to build boats the old fashioned way saying that there was no money in it. They were right about that but I can't tell you how many times I feel that I made a mistake in not pursuing it. I got good grades in school and kind of felt that I was expected to do something more academic so engineering it was. Now I design metal forming tools all day at a desk. Very unfulfilling! Decent money but unfullfilling. I have recently started a side business doing this work (just for the lucrative money) and would really like to go out on my own mostly just to take control of my time and to someday build that dream boat. Unfortunately, working 2 jobs, I now have some money and a dream boat-size shop (about 40 x 50 with a 22 ft ceiling down the center) but no time to do much woodworking. It will come if I have patience and this is what I hold on to. Gosh I love to visit the New England shore...... well back to work.

[Dan Hall]

Hey! Good grief, neither one of you guys is dead yet. Read this posting. It may well change your life. It changed my mind by about 2 years!

http://www.nrec.org/synapse48/wantless.html

Dan
Whose just bought a little boat and getting out of the rat's race a little earlier than he thought.

[Bruce Hooke]

Heck, my cousin, who is in his about 50, just picked up and moved with his wife from Indiana to Maine and got a job at Hodgdon Yachts. He had extensive woodworking experience but no boatbuilding experience. From what he said, Hodgdon wasn't even that concerned about how much woodworking experience he had, what they wanted was somebody who was enthusiastic about the work and committed to it.

[Captain Rich]

My first job was in a boat yard that did 95% wooden boat work. I fell in love with the beauty of them. I left there and worked in some big commercial yards for a few years and ended up going back to the wooded boat yard. The owner made me an offer a few months after being back to send me to Maine to learn boat building. As events in life would have in, I was contacted by a cousin a few weeks later asking if I wanted to learn non-destructive testing for the nuclear power industry. I decided to try a few weeks on the road to find out what it was all about. After I recieved my first check, I never looked back to working in a boat yard. As we know, the pay is rather humble in a boat yard.
So, years later I find myself as quality engineer in metals manufacturing. I too sit at a desk all day long and think about if I had stayed and learned to build boats.
I got real itchy a couple years ago and went and got my master license and have lately started to look for other opportunities. If I had to do it over, I think that I would have taken the boat building clases in Maine.
With my background, I think that I might be able to get a respectable job around boats, which will be enough to pay the bills and make me quite happy.
Rich

[Hughman]

If I might point out one small worm in this rosy apple, people who work in (other peoples)boatshops seldom go sailing. busmans holiday kind of thing, ya know. YMMV

[PatCassidy]

I quit my career in banking at age 47 - 2+ years ago. Got my captain's license and trying to make a go of it on the water. Change is never easy.

[JeffH]

Originally posted by Hughman:
If I might point out one small worm in this rosy apple, people who work in (other peoples)boatshops seldom go sailing. busmans holiday kind of thing, ya know. YMMVHeh... I'd dispute that. Almost all of my co-workers (about 50-odd) own boats, though, admittedly, not all of them get sailed regularly. A few, however, are quite passionate about the boats they own/built/restored, and talk about them at extreme length. Can take a strong stomach, sometimes, to look at boats, build boats, sail boats, and talk about boats every day... Right now, though, I might be talked into giving up key body parts to be able to go sailing, after the last solid three weeks of rain. Might be a different story at the end of the summer...

The ones who don't sail very often are the owners of the yards. :D :D

Jeff

[Hughman]

Well, Jeff, you are in one of the more enlightened places on this planet....