A Shipwright in Training

Back in 2006 I started this whole process with the eventual goal of working as a shipwright, and along the way I’ve actually gotten paid to do boat carpenter work. All of these experiences have been incredibly valuable, and the money has helped to make this whole venture possible. I’ve approached them with a few specific goals in mind:

• get experience
• learn as much as I can
• make some cash
• think about how these experiences lead to the eventual goal of a job that I want.

Today it paid off in spades. I was offered a job starting as soon as I get out of school working on a new build of an Olin Stephens design six-meter named Cherokee. There’s a little bit about it here. Here’s a quote from the IYRS blurb about it:

That will keep me here in Newport through October I think… it’s going to move fast. We’re talking about 4-5 months start to finish.

Later on in the day I got a call from the guy who’s in charge of maintaining the USS Constitution… yes, Old Ironsides, docked in Boston harbor.

He also offered me a position! Either all this work is paying off, or folks are desperate for people to work on wooden boats for not too much money. Or both.

Since I already said yes to Cherokee, I had to turn this one down, but there may be space still open come October… I liked the fellow in charge of the boat, and working for the Navy (yep, it’s a civilian Navy job) has some real benefits like insurance and retirement. We’ll see… living around the Boston area is hard financially. Luckily the train system is excellent.

The downside is that I’m still an hour away from my sweetie throughout the summer, and Boston adds another hour to that.  Damn.

I’m ready for teleporter technology now. Honest, any time soon is fine by me.

For those of you who don’t know much about blogs, there’s a little thing called the Blogroll down on the right side of this particular blog (it can be in other places on other blogs).  The Blogroll is a series of links to other sites of interest. 

Tonight I’ve added 2 after learning that I’ve been mentioned in the Messing About In Ships podcast.  The podcast is hosted by two folks, Peter Mello, (who runs Sea Fever Consulting and keeps up an excellent, informative blog about a wide range of interesting maritime items called Sea Fever) and Captain John Konrad (who also runs an excellent maritime industry resource site called GCaptain).  Peter says some very nice things about my blog that would be sure to make my mother very happy if she could only figure out how to listen to it. 

And, I must say, Peter is a singular gentleman with a keen, incisive intellect, and fine literary taste.  Clearly, the world needs more fellows of his ilk.

Right.  So, seriously, Peter and John’s podcasts can be found at Messing About In Ships.  To listen to the podcast from the website, go to the little arrow that looks like a “Play” control on a tape deck and click on it.  You can also subscribe to their podcast through iTunes. 

Thanks again guys, and keep up the good work!

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