Twenty years from now; you will be more disappointed
by the things 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.
— MARK TWAIN
The man who never dreams, never does. That is axiomatic. That is undeniable. In our dreams we find the hope for a good tomorrow, and an even a better today. The two are inseparable. Like individual strands on a rope, the present and the future intertwine so that the one becomes indistinguishable from the other. Indeed, what affects the one, always affects the other. If we waste the day, we waste the tomorrow as well. If we fritter away our life, we must do so day by day. It cannot be any other way. Indeed, it is the morrow that gives the day meaning, just as it is the day that gives the morrow joy.
Yet, the morrow comes whether planned for or not. Time and tide wait for no man. No matter who we are, we cannot hold back the coming years. And if our todays are unfulfilled and empty, our tomorrows will be even more so. In some inscrutable sense, we mold our very future. We ultimately become what we have built, what we have planned, what we have done.
The miser and stingy man comes to look the part of the selfishness he nurtured in younger years. We all have seen the scowled look on an older person’s face, heard the cynical tone in their voice, and wondered how they came to become what they are. To be sure, it was never one act in one day. Rather, though, the change came slowly, by degrees— day turned into years, years into decades, decades into a lifetime.
Our thoughts in this issue of Gaff Rig
are not so much about character and time as they are about up and doing,
about living out our dreams. Far too many of us plan, but we never do.
We let uncertain doubts rob us of what could be. If you have ever dreamt
of building a boat, don’t set that dream aside. You will not be
younger tomorrow. Build your dream whether it has a boat in it or not.
But build your dream. You can do it. Others have, and you will find their
stories in these very pages.
Back Yard Yacht Builders
A non-commercial association of amateur boat-builder enthusiasts.
All our wooden boats are Stevenson designs.