Yesterday, I picked up a boat from a lovely woman in Long Beach. The boat, a Snipe, had been part of her family since the 1950s, when her father bought it from a coworker. As we pulled off the makeshift cover, and blue plastic tarp bits sailed through the air, the smell of wooden boat was clear, but not the bad smell of rot, rather that smell of timeless craftsmanship. For her, it was the smell of childhood.
Family lore was that the boat was built in 1948, but after some investigation, the sails revealed that it was Snipe #1953, and a measurer's stamp from August 1937 confirmed the vintage.
After lots of archeology and storytelling, we came to an agreement, this would be a "free to a good home" kind of transaction, and I would keep her up to date on the progress of my progress. So that's what this blog will be, and interspersed, I'll try to tell some of the back stories as how we got there on a hot Saturday afternoon in Long Beach.
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