I started out in my early twenties figuring that somebody builds sailboats. No magic, no hidden tricks, no special foundry or blast furnace required. Just a set of skills that can be learned and some materials bought at the lumber yard, the fiberglass and resin supplier, and the ship's chandlery.
I couldn't buy a sailboat. No money. But I could scrimp, save, and collect useful things while I built it myself. When I was done, I would be master of my own ship and able to travel anywhere in the world. Seductive yearnings.
So when I quit graduate school, the project satisfied a terrific creative need as well as a deep drive to be independent at age 25. It took three years and the profound cooperation of my patient wife, Dagmar. We did not travel much during those years...
I began as a novice boat builder. You have to start everything somewhere at sometime. I got a lot better as I went along.
Thirty years after I sold the first Great Bear on the shores of Lake Ponchartrain with about 17,000 sea miles showing on her log, I bought a "derelict vessel" of about the same length at a Maine boatyard auction and rebuilt her seaworthy, naming her also The Great Bear.
