SENSE OF CRAFT
I have always been inspired by boats and the sea and was probably moved in this direction from an early age having read the National Geographic accounting of sixteen year old Robin Lee Graham’s 1965 (5) year solo voyage around the world starting, and Joshua Slocum’s book, Sailing Alone Around the World, in which he recounts being “given” a sloop that turned out to be a wreck in the middle of a farm field that he rebuilt by hand and proceeded to be the first man to solo sail around the world starting in 1895 and running thru to 1898.
The perseverance, skills, intensely independent spirit that each of these people demonstrated just lit a fire in me that still burns brightly today some 55 years after initially learning about these solo sailors in my late teenage years.
My journey led me to lots of sailing, first on Long Island Sound and the Hudson River, then the Caribbean, Bahamas, New England and Maine Coast, Greece, Portugal, Madeira, and ultimately to my home-port waters in and around Sag Harbor.
I was also moved to build a wooden sailboat and did so single-handedly in 1975/76 starting out in a workshop in Port Jefferson and finishing in a small barn in East Setauket, NY. The above picture is me sailing “Morning Glory” on launch day in June of 1976.
At the age of 18, I spent 6 months as crew on the John Alden 72’ length on deck staysail schooner “Golden Eagle” sailing Long Island Sound, and the Hudson River. Ultimately voyaging toward the Caribbean only to encounter an intense storm off Cape Henry Virginia and 25-foot waves that ended in a rescue operation by the Coast Guard and damages to the boat which was purchased by Phinneas Sprague of Portland Maine, who rebuilt the boat and sailed her around the world (unfortunately without me).
The picture above is the former Golden Eagle, renamed Mariah by Phinneas and at anchor in the South Pacific during the Sprague Family circumnavigation.
One might ask about the connection between sailing, the sea, and architecture and there is a strong and significant inter-relationship that begins with the design of a sailboat, the craft of its construction, and the way in which a sailboat harnesses the forces of nature to move through the water. There are numerous parallels to architecture if one considers that the design and construction of buildings accounts for an incredible proportion of man’s consumption of materials, both natural and man-made, with a profound impact on the environment, the atmosphere, our earth and the larger universe.
This is the first blog in a series that relates my passion for sailing, engagement with craft, boats I have owned, voyages I have made and my sense of the relationship between all these things and my work as an architect.
