It Takes a Neighborhood

It takes a village to raise a child, or so the saying goes. And now I’ve concluded that it takes a neighborhood to build a boat. I tell people that my boyfriend is building a boat. They always reply with, “He’s building it?” They are wondering whether the statement means that he is paying someone to build a boat or he is actually building the boat himself. I reassure the questioner with yes he’s building it, noting that he started with plates of steel. But of course he did not build the whole boat only by himself.

A walk through a small dirt road, stray dog-filled neighborhood in Benavidez will reveal those who helped to build this boat. The boat itself sat in the front yard of a family that wanted to earn a few extra dollars. For three years they watched welding, sawing, and painting as well as their grass turn to a brown mud pit. Jesus, lives next door to the yard that turned to mud. He had already built five steel hulled sailboats, prior to Quijote, so his knowledge in just about everything was essential. He is a perfectionist when it comes to the steel hull. Just before the boat was launched I saw a guy at the marina come up and knock the hull to see if it was steel or fiberglass – a HUGE compliment to anyone who has built a steel hulled boat. Jesus lives with his tools. His workshop is an extension of his home, or possibly the other way around. Jars of washers sit between the fridge and stove and next to the bread. Boat plans are pinned up over his bed and sailing magazines rest next to the toilet. Jesus knows what he is doing, but also needs some nudging now and then to actually start the work. Often times the flat screen TV, bought with a bonus for finishing the keel of Quijote can often become an easy distraction.

Let’s continue through the neighborhood. Ricardo, another neighbor, does car upholstery for a living. While sailors are supposed to be good at sewing, we left the upholstery on Quijote to the expert. The couches in the main saloon (eating area) have a beautiful leather set of cushions on them. Ricardo also made the mattresses, which had to fit the beds that have no right angles (this tends to happen on a boat where every bit of free space is used). All of the pieces got delivered in his old (very old – see picture) Ford pick-up.

Continuing down the street, there is a little old woman who lives in a small house with a shop window (I wanted to end that sentence with the word shoe – to the little old woman lived in a shoe). In the front room of her house she keeps a small shop of essentials – bread, pastries, cans of tomatoes, beers, plastic toys, thermoses, tea, and hamburger patties. Her shop filled our bellies many days. I’m sure Q4 revenue will drop now that the boat is finished.

Alberto, Claudio, and Sergio live a short drive away. For one and a half years they built the inside of Quijote. Two years ago she was an empty hull of steel. Alberto led the transformation with the initial framing up to the final touches of each closet door. Alberto used to work for a shipyard, but after an injury works for himself. Claudio, his son-in-law joined him, where together they worked on another boat, Antarcticos. And now after the economic downturn, Alberto's son is back from working in Spain and is the helper around the boat – sanding painting, doing whatever odd jobs need to be done.

Gaston also lives a short drive away. He is the electrician and he is a talker. He has proved his Italian ancestry, doing just as much hand waving as lip moving. He ran all of the wires for everything from the steering system to the sonar to the toilets. A miracle, after kilometers of wires were run, nearly everything works.

A friend from the sailing club does refrigeration work. He installed the refrigeration, which is built into the galley cabinets and runs down into the keel for effective cooling.

Hugo doesn’t live in the neighborhood, but swings by to join the “club” whenever he can. He is also building his own boat and brings encouragement and support. Also in the “Club de Jesus” is Nestor. He is building his own boat in the backyard of the family on the other side of Jesus. Nestor graciously ran many errands often claiming a store was close to his home, when he would often drive halfway across town.

And then there are the family contributions. Fede’s dad helped fund the engine, wanting his son to start his boat right with a good new engine. Fede’s Aunt provided the Aft cabin bath towels. My mom donated $500 from her winnings at Bingo that went to purchase the battery charger. Fede’s mom will be purchasing a small dingy. I donated my safety award points to buy the sonar . WesternGeco unknowingly has donated many used ropes and shackles (not to worry – all were expired as per their certifications, meaning they would have been thrown in the trash by westerngeco – RECYCLING!!).

Also a note should go out to our worldwide logistics hubs. We have one based in Oakland, MD (ie mom and dad) and one based in Zurich Switzerland (Fede’s brother Tomas). As items have popped up on ebay or super special sales on UK sailing websites, Fede has purchased and shipped items around the world.

Fede, of course, spent nearly every waking hour of his five weeks off for the past three years working on the boat. He planned the whole construction, the position on each cabin, each pipe, each screw. He worked side by side with Jesus each day welding and building the hull. He installed the entire engine system and all of the plumbing. He drove around the entire greater Buenos Aires picking up LED's for all the lights, oil for this, oil for that, flooring for this, pipes for this, connectors for that, hinges for this, and dropping off lights at the mast man.

Yes. He built his boat.

After three years of building his sailboat, Fede successfully started the engine and motored away from the marina on September 11 2010.
















For even more information about Quijote, check out her website: http://syquijote.com/

Meet the Smith Family

“Meet the Parents” came out, then “Meet the Fockers”, now sit back, relax and get ready for “Meet the Smith Family”.

Fede came to the Lake for Christmas – his first time in the US, and more importantly his first time to meet my family. However, I must stop here and note that it was NOT his first time to interact with my family. He and my mom had been emailing almost daily for the past few months – which will come into play very soon in this “feature film”.

I had warned Fede that in the States its less common for boyfriends-girlfriends to share rooms in the parents house. So having heard this, he emailed my mom asking if there were any house rules. She responded with the usual Lake rules:

• No shoes in the house
• No boogers on the wall
• No Italian Hair in the bathroom
• No eating on the couch

He responded “great, Glad to hear you are so liberal and sharing a room is not a problem for you”. And thus started the beginning of the great series of “tests” that Fede would encounter. Also note at this point that my mom has always had a theoretical test up her sleeve for potential boyfriends. Her plan was - once they were at the Lake, she would go loosen a washer on the toilet or sink. Then a bit later complain of a leaking faucet. If the potential boyfriend said “Mrs. Smith let me go take a look” and then came back saying “oh, I tightened everything up, all should be ok”, then….thumbs up. If he said “you should call a plumber” then…thumbs down.

Back to the bed sharing. So after the series of emails my mom started to plan. The first of the plans involved a pillow case. She bought a pack of those iron on-print-off sheets that you can use to iron on a picture to a t-shirt. She found a picture of me sleeping, hair crazy, and drool dripping, and printed it. Then she ironed it onto a Pillow case, so that when Fede arrived, he would pull back the covers and find Laura seemingly with him in the bed. (note she found this so amusing that she carried the pillow case in her purse with her for weeks showing everyone)

Fede finally arrived the 18^th of December and there in the Bedroom was the pillow case, but also a warning. My mom had placed SPEARS on the ceiling fan above his bed. She informed him that should she need to, a quick door slam would easily bring them all down… luckily he laughed and noted that he would removed them before going to sleep.

And that was just the beginning. There was no leaky faucet, but the snow blower did break and luckily Fede fixed it (or knew what needed replacing) within minutes. He also got coerced into putting the (live) tree into the Christmas tree stand. After the third attempt at a straight fall-free tree, Fede exasperated, proclaimed with his head poking out from the tree “this is harder than sailing across the Atlantic alone (which he did a few years back)”.

On Christmas Eve, Eve my mother had a "Meet the Fede Party". I thought the name was just a joke and it was really just a chance for some family friends to come over before Christmas. However, I asked my mom about her planning and she said the whole get together started when my former piano teacher made a comment about wanting to meet Fede. Solution: throw a party and invite 10-14 guests!

Other tests around the house included playing the family card game “oh Hell” with the same consequences of losing as the rest of the family – cleaning the dishes. He not only did well, but WON 2 of the games. He also easily and happily played the whole gamut of Smith games, and did so with a smile.

And yes. He passed all of the tests. Two thumbs up from Mom. He fit in wonderfully with the Smith family. All those at the "Meet the Fede Party" also gave a thumbs up. The door never had to slam to drop the spears and he took the pillow case home to show his family. And he was even invited back.

High's and Low's

It’s a common tradition on Outdoor Action trips to reflect on the day or a trip with “highs and Lows”. Its’ been a while since I’ve blogged, so I’ll do a “highs and lows” of my past few months.

High:
Going home for Christmas. I had been out of the US for 13 months. Everyone came home for the snow that dumped on the East Coast this year: Tesia flying from Japan, I flying from India, and Federico, my Argentinian boyfriend also flying from India. All forms of winter were enjoyed – skating, sledding, downhill skiing, cross country skiing, a sleigh ride on Christmas eve. Fantastic. However Christmas deserves more of a description, so I promise to write more in a later post. It was Fede’s first time to meet the Family and I swear a movie could have been made about the 8 days he was there – I promise to expand…

Low:
My whole Fall. Well not the whole fall, but much of October and the beginning of November. I was somewhat forced to go early into the office and push going to Japan to the second half of my break. Somehow I’ve managed to become the ONLY person who can test our acquisition software. After a week of isolated testing, I had to help move our lab & equipment to our new building. This involved working 12 hour days in the basement of a building where no one else was working yet. So needless to say, I saw none of my friends. This may sound petty, but since I’m not around that much, people don’t know I’m in Oslo unless they see me, so this means, no one invites me on hiking trips, or picnics, or dinners. Its rough sometimes. The night before I left Oslo, I broke down crying and weeping that “I have no friends”. I even had to work one weekend. The Japan trip that was supposed to be 2-2.5 weeks was reduced to 5 days since I had been PROACTIVE and had actually gotten my Indian visa. So I had to return to the boat 9 days early.

High:
Last trip I officially became certified as a coxswain on the boats. For some reason this seems to mean a lot to me. I’m pretty proud of being a coxswain. Why I’m not sure – perhaps because not too many girls are? Perhaps because when I first joined I decided this was something that I wanted to do / achieve? However, I was certified at the end of the trip so it was only 5 days ago that I went out on my own for the first time. Trial by fire. Our first job of the day was to go back to a cable to investigate fishing gear. We had the cable in the arms of our work boat and I was dropping back along the cable. The crew was cutting off ropes and fishing gear. The next thing I hear is “we have a dolphin, we have a dolphin in the fishing gear”. Aye aye aye. I shout back “is it dead or alive?”. The respond “dead, very dead”. After 30 seconds or a minute, they managed to cut the ropes and it dropped off into the blue of the ocean. (note having a dead dolphin was NOT a high)

I also took out the Fast Rescue boat (FRB) for my first personnel transfer. Its usually the damsel in distress that gets rescued, but ha, here it’s the other way around!. Fede had had to go over to our supply boat to advise their captain when he came alongside our boat for bunkering of fuel and provisioning. Once the supply boat had been cast off, Fede needed to be brought back to our boat. So I was sent off on my first personnel transfer and I went to Pick up Fede!!! I just keep reminding him that I rescued him…