Let’s all go …

    … to the boat show.

    Perhaps the No. 1 question asked of me when people learn I’m building a wood sailboat in the basement is “where are you going to sail her?”

    The answer is simple. It’s my retirement plan. The boat will be launched, eventually, in one of our two oceans with no planned destination. But being an avid sailor in Colorado is not the norm. Climbing 14ers or skiing the back bowls of one of the many resorts is a more common passion of residents in this state.

    So it wasn’t surprising that the Denver Boat Show this past weekend had little to do with sailing. I made the trip down to the convention center with hopes of getting my fix of sailboats and related gear – heading to the far back corner of the center where a few sails were visible, past legions of families looking over graffiti-graphic plastered ski boats with rock concert sized sound systems and plastic accessories.

    In that faraway place reserved for the limited few, I met up with Bob Phillips, who had lovingly restored and maintained “Shearwater,” a lapstrake wood work boat powered by steam. The 1900-built boat had been imported from England and now plies the waters of Colorado. It wasn’t a sailboat. But it was wood, and the effort put into keeping his vessel shipshape was evident among the plastic, no-maintenance fleet of ski boats.

    Despite the lack of canvas, my passion was renewed. I returned home to sand four more hours on a project that is now years past my expected completion date. In the next few months, I’ll be learning to weld with hopes of pouring the 1,800-pound lead keel and righting the collection of 1,000 wood strips and pieces that are now my upside-down hull to begin work on the cabin and deck that will some day serve as home.

    Mark Twain once said, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

    In the meantime, I’ll just dream and remember, “Ships are the nearest thing to dreams that hands have ever made.” -Robert N. Rose