Every year, I make the pilgrimage to Port Townsend to attend the Wooden Boat Festival as a birthday present to myself.  This year, I was happy to bring my wife and our 2 year old son to the 40th annual.

In past years, I've always focused on the Eastport Pram because it seemed the most attainable to my heretofor nonexistent boat building experience and financial reach.  Having successfully built that EP a couple of years ago, I've come down with a serious case of "next-boat-itis" and am now similarly obsessed with the Passagemaker Dingy - Take Apart version for the same reasons.  Let me say from first hand experience that there is a huge difference between sitting in the display boat in a gravel parking lot and sitting in the sailboat you built in the water.  Sitting in the display PM already made me feel more stable and safe on the water with my family aboard with the gunter sloop rig providing better windward performance.  I can also take some gear for a solo sail/camp excursion if needed for Father/Son outings.  Also more room for the munchkin to crawl around in so he won't be bored.  Seeing my son crawl around in the PM like he already owned it was a heart warming experience for this Dad/professional sailor/amateur boat builder.

Soon, my son got bored with the boat and wandered off with him Mom.  I still sat in the PM, envisioning saw horses and epoxied panels, scarf joints and nitrile gloved hands lovingly building the larger version of the EP in order to make more family memories.  I glanced over and saw my wife attending our son while he crawled around inside the Teardrop Camper.  I guess the cave-like interior appealed to him.  I walked over and saw my wife's eyes all aglow.  At this point I need to mention that we were tent-camping at Fort Worden on the beach and it had been a challenge for us to put up the tent in the wind.  She gushed at how pretty it was, how simple it would be to just pull into a campsite and the bed was already made.  She said it would be so convenient to pull out the cooking gear from inside, put it on the picnic table and start dinner.  That's when I made my major mistake.  I took her around back and showed her the galley.  I said that once you pull into your spot, you can just pop the "trunk" open and you're all ready to start cooking, no setup on the picnic table.  She was blown away.  I've been researching and drooling over teardrop trailers for years before CLC offered up their 21st century take on the classic design.  She had grown up camping in a VW van, with similar instant access to a galley and bed, so thought the CLC camper a perfect balance of beautiful form and function.

This last Saturday night, while sitting around the campfire, I was basking in the afterglow of the festival.  We had visited the usual suspects and I now that I had some boat building experience and another year of reading the forums and blogs, I felt brave/informed enough to venture out onto the docks to chat with the folks on the boats.  I was able to meet one of the builders on his SCAMP, who made my son very welcome aboard.  I also had a very nice chat with Geoff Kerr, who is obviously very involved with CLC and building their designs.  He was quietly sitting on the Pocketship, enjoying the seductive sunshine that you can only get in the PNW on one of those special autumn afternoons.  I was blown away by the size of the cockpit in this mini-cruiser and was very comfortable down below.  At 6'2", I rely on John inserting images of humans as a gauge stick for myself online, but there's nothing like actually sitting in the boats themselves, hence boat shows.  

While wandering around the sprawling CLC "booth", I had inquired a couple of times about the Nanoship.  The stock answer was "You probably need to talk to John or Jay about that", but of course, they're the guys who have the most demands on them at the show, so I didn't want to bother them.  I figured I'll find out what I need to know here on the forum.  The reason I bring up the Nanoship is that I'm thinking that will be the "next boat" after the PM even if I have to be a "beta builder", but sitting in the Pocketship had me going "Hmmm..."  Having sailed, taught and lived aboard my Precision 21, I think the Pocketship is a very close competitor to some of the Dix and Welsford designs I've been poring over lately.

Waking from my musings while staring at the campfire, I asked my wife what she thought about the PM thinking she be jazzed about the added room, comfort and safety.  She immediately told me, as if it had been sitting on the tip of her tongue, that my next project should be the camper.  As if it was somehow a compromise, she said (using a factoid that I had shared at the festival while pointing out the various aspects of the camper) that I could then make the PM and store it on racks on top of the camper.  She had envisioned this nice little package all ready to roll out of the driveway on the way to some national park.  The trap had slammed shut.  Now all I need to do is find a few hundred hours and a few thousand dollars...

File that under "Nice Problems to Have"...

Captain Skully out...