05-12-2008, 11:47 AM
Indeed, it is true. After only a year of sailing, the Mini-Cup class boat Nealy Perfet suffered a fatal piercing of the mast/daggerboard box by her own mast. She had capsized in Fort Loudon Lake, not a bad thing in and of itself, but when I tried to right her, it appears the yard was tangled in rigging and the weight of all was more than the meager 1/4" of exterior fir plywood could bear. A kind, albeit awfully drunk for a Wednesday morning, couple towed us back to the dock and Nealy Perfet is resting peacefully on her trailer in the back yard now, waiting to be chopped up into tiny bits ( :? that came out all wrong...) Anyways, there are two bits of good news in all this. First, I am building another boat. This one will be a Goat Island Skiff, designed by Michael Storer. I've been following the ideas about reorganizing BYYB to allow outside boat designs in, and I hope that does go through.
Second, my wife couldn't stand the wailing and sobbing over my lost ship, so she said I should write down my feelings. Now that I've written a song about it, she'd much rather I was sobbing again. :roll:
No music yet, but if you happen to be listening to "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" then the words just happen to fit (apologies to Gordon Lightfoot).
Fellow builders, I present "Wreck of the Nealy Perfet"
The legend lives on
from the Weekender on down
of the cheap boats you can build from plywood
Made with relative ease
Mostly by retirees
but no one in :twisted: ever thought I would.
I downloaded plans
from the Stevensan's (artistic license there)
Borrowed all of the tools I could wrangle
She came out straight and prim
All except for her stem
which was off by a five degree angle!
With an oak rudder blaed
and a sail custom made
by a lady that I used to work with
Rustoleum green
made her topsides gleam
and I christened her my Nealy Perfet.
I sailed her through fall
and stored boat, sails and all
under tarp so I wouldn't outlast her.
And all winter long
the siren's song
brought me stuff that would make her go faster!
I hung lazy jacks
and a steel mainsheet track
some new pulleys and a strap for hiking.
She needed a ride
and from the classifieds
came a trailer on which she looked striking.
Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
but in Knoxville they sail on Fort Loudon.
With winds of 12 knots
She'll be running like snot
and I couldn't wait to put her bow in!
(Fancy guitar solo... No really!)
With all her new gear
she reached fast on her ear
and the waves sprayed up over the gunwales.
But in my rush to sail
I had but a paddle to bail.
'Twas about as much use as a funnel.
So I turned her hove-to
with just me as the crew.
I was bailing while sails were a-flappin'
With my head down below
she turned away from the blow
and a big gust of wind caught me nappin'.
The boom went in first
and the lake's giant thirst
filled the sails like the dirt fills a dozer.
The yard went in too
and the mast followed soon.
Then I knew I was going to lose her!
She might have struck ground
and in glory gone down
on an iceberg in some place that's colder.
As we towed her I knew
that the worst case was true.
In the end it's her own mast that holed her!
The legend lives on
from the Mini-Cup on down
of the builders and sailors like brothers.
One ship is gone
but it won't be for long
'cause I'm gonna go build me another!
____________________
Tonight when you pour your evening beer, rum or wine, please raise a glass to the Nealy Perfet. A d&*n fine, fast ship!
And that's a really easy rhyming pattern to write to. Just rhyme the first two lines, third line is doubled and rhymed with line six, and lines four and five rhyme with each other. You can plug in just about anything and make it work.