A Shipwright in Training

Here’s the story.

I’ve been thinking of switching careers from psychologist to woodworker for a while. I’ve travelled around looking at how successful woodworkers pull it off, and I’ve looked at schools such as the North Bennet Street School in Boston and RIT in Albany. Both were amazing in their own way, and got me more excited about the possibility of making a living in this business. At the same time, I also came to accept that I’m a craftsman, not an artist intent on pushing the limits of the material or exploring the possibilities of design. So that brought me back to: how to do woodworking that feels exciting and can become a career? My friend asked me, “what about boats?”

I love to sail, I love to work in wood, I love to fix problems. Seemed like a good fit. Again, I started reading and doing a lot of thinking about what being a shipwright would be like. I read Michael Ruhlman’s book Wooden Boats, and that was about the best thing I found to give a feel for daily life in a successful boatbuilding shop. I kept reading about how to loft, how boats go together, how to repair them… and I kept saying “yes, yes” when I imagined doing this work.

So, Sept. 05, I took a tour of 3 boat schools on the east coast: The Atlantic Challenge Apprenticeship, The Landing School, and The International Yacht Restoration School. These were all full time 2-year certificate programs… 2 years without income is a very long time. I loved the funky, down-home feel of the Apprenticeship, but I was most drawn to the restoration focus at IYRS. And besides, IYRS had some of the coolest boats in the world to work on. I spent about 3 hours touring IYRS with Jay Picote, a past graduate and current Program Associate, and felt completely at home. By the end of the tour I’d made up my mind to apply.

I started writing my application letter to IYRS the next month and asked 3 old friends to write letters of support. Clark Poston, the Program Director interviewed me by phone in early January, and on the 17th, they sent the formal letter inviting me to attend. Whew…

Now comes the hard part. Let’s start with a partial list:

House

• set a fair price to rent the house & get someone to live there that will act as a manager.
• completely pack up the woodshop, store all tools in a manner that will keep them rust free for 2 years in a basement
• go through all the stuff I’ve accumulated and don’t need. Have a huge yard sale.
• Pack and store everything else
• Arrange for a handyman that can be available for on-call emergencies.
• Pack up and send various things that I’ve been holding on to and meaning to give away to people.
• Pare down my stuff. period.
• Pack only enough things to can fit in my car (or car + small trailer).
• Begin apartment hunting in Newport

Job

• Extend hours over the next 7 months to bring in more income
• At the same time, make sure new clients are aware of my move well in advance so we can prepare for transfer
• Apply for RI psychologist license so I can do some evaluations on the weekends to bring in some money.
• Develop relationships with clinics in Newport that I could use as a base of operations for evaluations.
• Make sure my malpractice insurance covers multiple-state work.

On and on…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 24th, 2006 at 2:23 pm and is filed under Preparation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.