At noon on the second day of boat school, I folded up the lines of plywood I had stitched together with copper wire. Before me rested over seventeen feet of something that had the shape of a boat. It would sink, but it had the feel of water about it. I was not particularly proud of my accomplishment. All I had done was follow the careful but relaxed directions of the teacher, a master boat builder named Geoff Kerr. What I had done to arrive at my boat-like creation was all pretty basic. Drilled a few holes, cut copper wire, slipped the wire through the holes and twisted them tight. My thumbs were sore, my back a bit achy from standing and bending over for so many hours; I had not done anything technically difficult. No wood to cut. No precision to anything I had done. “Six inches between holes?” I had asked. “About, just eye ball it.” Whatever might go wrong could be fixed. Nothing that sanding, epoxy and paint could not fix.

On the first night at the Wooden Boat School, Rich, the generous and welcoming director, asked everyone to introduce themselves. One man ran a boat yard down the way and wanted to learn bronze casting; another owned four boats and needed to know more about diesel engines. A few from the coast guard were there to learn how to inspect wooden boats. Many people were repeat students. What was I doing there? All I knew was that I wanted to be a student for a while, to learn something new that had nothing to do with books or words.  My class was to build an Annapolis Wherry, a boat I had never seen or rowed but for some reason fell in love with the sleek lines when I saw an image on the internet. In other words, this was a version of internet dating, impulsive and perhaps all wrong.  “Do you row?” people asked, trying to understand why I was building this boat, which is 34 inches wide, and rows like a crew boat, with a sliding seat. Nope. “Is this a stitch and glue boat?” I had no idea. “Is it made of plywood.”  Probably. (One week later I could say yes, and yes to these last questions).