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I'll build my own boats, but not my own chairs.
By 'build', I mean that I'll draw the boat on paper and then assemble it using wood and glue wherein I take responsibility of every aspect of the “loft to launch” design process. Furthermore --and worse-- I look down on them that don't “draw what they build and build what they draw.” Free speech protects my right to say that. But can that attitude be justified if in areas other than boats I'll buy kits or completed objects, such as chairs, tables and bookcases, that can take no greater skill to design and assemble?
Honesty says, “No”. If I'm willing to buy chairs, tables and bookcases, because the price is right, their functionality adequate, and their aesthetics acceptable, why doesn't that “ethic” extend to boats and, especially, to boat kits? Why do I refuse to pay their prices?
Two answers suggest themselves. The kits --mostly-- don't offer a design that meets my needs in a boat. The 3x-4x markup of the kits over my estimate of their “fair value” is an injustice I refuse to tolerate. So, it's economics as much as anything that drove me to deigning my own boats. Having drawn and built a dozen to date, the “design” process has become as simple as making pancakes for friends on a Sunday morning, which brings me to the real point of this post and rant, the inadequacy of the kit that Rivers West offers to the public at its Annual Family Build, which I've detailed elsewhere and which files I'd be happy to share if anyone wants to see them.
There is nothing wrong with the lines of the Salt Bay Skiff, which is just one variation of the dozens there are known as “flat-iron skiffs”. But there is nearly nothing right with how Rivers West is choosing to build that boat, never mind that the price charged for its kit is abusively high. It grieves me as a boat-drawer/ boat-builder to see such a thing happen. But entrenched interests resist making the needed changes.
Oh, well. Not my problem. If Portland's families want a better boat kit than Rivers West offers them, they are going to have to demand it, not me.
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