Focus!

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I'd been avoiding hull work because of my troubles with epoxy filleting.  That's certainly true, but it's not the whole story.  I've also been a bit distracted.

My dad is a lover of antique British automobiles.  It's an illness I have avoided, for the most part, out of necessity: they are expensive toys, and I've consciously chosen a frugal path in life.

But there are times when the symptoms crop up.  I've been frustrated with our modern SAAB wagon recently, because it is unreliable.  It's also expensive to repair, because it's complicated and the engine bay is terribly cramped.  Historically, I've done a lot of our family's car repair, but this machine is just too unfriendly to the driveway mechanic.  It makes one long for a simpler conveyance.

Like, say, a 1974 Land Rover?  Yes, that would do nicely.  One cropped up on Craigslist recently, and the seller was kind enough to show me around the truck even though I made it clear I probably wouldn't be able to buy it.  It's stone-simple, easy to work on, and will probably be purposefully trundling along long after my prima donna SAAB has been crushed and melted down for scrap.

So for a while there, I was reading about Land Rovers online when I should have been filleting my hull.  Until I recognized the pattern, and pulled myself out of it.  I don't want this project to languish because I got distracted; I want it finished and ready for the water when the coming winter draws to a close.

My dad has a saying about this, which he reminds himself of whenever he's momentarily distracted from a goal: "Focus!"  It's a concise way of saying that yes, there are many things that would be nice to have, or fun to do, but you've chosen this thing, and you need to stick with it until it's done before you start something else.  Otherwise, you risk achieving neither because you've spread yourself too thin.

The boat I'm building is only 16 feet long and has a tiny, simple hull.  But it's still a project composed of many little tasks, some of which are tedious.  You don't successfully finish a project like this unless you're able to stay on track and power through the unglamorous patches, like... like... um....

...like an old Land Rover slogging doggedly along a muddy track towards a distant destination.  Yeah, that's the perfect metaphor.