Re: Boats
Phil, it is certainly OK to e-mail me directly.
You can talk to Phil and Susanne IF they call you. I'd
recommend either mailing them or faxing them your
questions. They'll either write, fax or call you back
or not.
That's the way it works.
Try to make sure your questions are substantive and
not subjective. I suppose a decent subjective question
would be along the lines of, "I want to fish off
shore. I need to either trail or keep my boat on a
mooring. I think I can spend $x,YYY on materials. I'm
handy but I've never built a boat before. Which of
your designs do you recommend?"
The idea is to give them enough objective information
about you and your desires so that they can answer
your real question: Which boat?
If you do that you'll probably get an hour-long
conversation with Susanne. Phil is quite laconic.
Although he does speak on the phone he doesn't say
much. In addition to being laconic, he's trenchant.
He'll cut, laser-like, to the heart of the matter.
I expected to come into a good chunk of money and
thought that I could retire aboard. I made a very
substantial deposit on a Bolger design. Unfortunately
my ship has yet to come in so I'm no closer to
building my boat than I was almost ten years ago. It
has been my good fortune to be able to talk with Phil
and Susanne from time to time and to visit them
perhaps a half dozen times. They won't draw me a boat
until I can tell them that I'm going to build it. I
won't tell them until I can. One of the more
interesting aspects of the time passing has been the
changes in my percieved needs. The other has been to
watch the designs crossing their board and how the
experience PB&F gained from each design contibuted to
later ones.
If I had gotten a design when I first contavted PB&F
it would not be the same boat that they'd design
today. Although I'm disappointed that I haven't been
able to build my boat, I'm heartened that if I do get
to have a design drawn up, it will be a better boat.
Another advantage is that I've gotten to see others'
approaches to more or less the same problem, a live
aboard boat for a small family. Even though their
laundry lists of desires and requirements are
different from mine they are also simular enough so
that I learned about my needs and wants too.
Phil Smith
--- Phil <topsail@...> wrote:
You can talk to Phil and Susanne IF they call you. I'd
recommend either mailing them or faxing them your
questions. They'll either write, fax or call you back
or not.
That's the way it works.
Try to make sure your questions are substantive and
not subjective. I suppose a decent subjective question
would be along the lines of, "I want to fish off
shore. I need to either trail or keep my boat on a
mooring. I think I can spend $x,YYY on materials. I'm
handy but I've never built a boat before. Which of
your designs do you recommend?"
The idea is to give them enough objective information
about you and your desires so that they can answer
your real question: Which boat?
If you do that you'll probably get an hour-long
conversation with Susanne. Phil is quite laconic.
Although he does speak on the phone he doesn't say
much. In addition to being laconic, he's trenchant.
He'll cut, laser-like, to the heart of the matter.
I expected to come into a good chunk of money and
thought that I could retire aboard. I made a very
substantial deposit on a Bolger design. Unfortunately
my ship has yet to come in so I'm no closer to
building my boat than I was almost ten years ago. It
has been my good fortune to be able to talk with Phil
and Susanne from time to time and to visit them
perhaps a half dozen times. They won't draw me a boat
until I can tell them that I'm going to build it. I
won't tell them until I can. One of the more
interesting aspects of the time passing has been the
changes in my percieved needs. The other has been to
watch the designs crossing their board and how the
experience PB&F gained from each design contibuted to
later ones.
If I had gotten a design when I first contavted PB&F
it would not be the same boat that they'd design
today. Although I'm disappointed that I haven't been
able to build my boat, I'm heartened that if I do get
to have a design drawn up, it will be a better boat.
Another advantage is that I've gotten to see others'
approaches to more or less the same problem, a live
aboard boat for a small family. Even though their
laundry lists of desires and requirements are
different from mine they are also simular enough so
that I learned about my needs and wants too.
Phil Smith
--- Phil <topsail@...> wrote:
> Hi. I was reading all the comments and
> wondered if it was possible to
> talk to Phillip or Suzanne. I have a couple
> questions I would like to ask
> them. I hope it is ok to email you direct.
> Thank you
> Phillip
>
>
>