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ArqDirk’s model of my Bluestone schooner. As usual, clicking on the thumbnail will produce a larger image
I didn’t know whether to laugh out loud or shout in anger a couple of evenings ago. I switched on an arts programme on Radio 4 and heard a preposterous ‘artist’ explain that she’d visited somewhere and seen a large rock that didn’t belong to the local area. She learned, apparently, that it had been brought from somewhere else and deposited on the spot where she saw it by a glacier or an ice sheet, and was therefore what’s officially known as an erratic – though when I was a kid in North Lincolnshire, I remember that we called them ‘bluestones’.
So she’d seen an erratic and liked it. So far so good. But then I became positively emotional when she went on to explain how she had become ‘excited’ by the idea of rocks being deposited in places where they didn’t belong and said that with the ‘help’ of a well known arts funding body she had now moved as many as three rocks to new sites from their original homes. What a funny old world. Oh how we laughed! I hope the rocks are equally excited about their new homes.
Thinking about this incident has reminded me that someone I know only as ArqDirk deserves some credit for creating a remarkable Sketchup model of my Bluestone schooner design, which, as you may have guessed, I named some years ago after the bluestones of North Lincolnshire because it combined elements I found in both the old Humber dusters and the North American Hampton boat, which seemed to me to be almost an erratic of its own. Perhaps someone will give Arq a grant one day – creating this model will have taken a considerable amount of effort and thought. I’d give him one myself, but I’m considering a new career moving rocks and may be too busy…
The design won a Duckworks Magazine competition back in 2000, by the way.
Click here to download ArqDirk’s model, which you will be able to manipulate and view from various angles once you have imported it into Sketchup .
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Just so the hard chined version does not feel left out….
Model Name: BluestoneChine
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mi…
Thanks David!
A bloke I know transported a rock from one place to another last weekend. He tied his yacht to a mooring that he knew wasn't really up to the job, because 'it was only for one night'. When we went out rowing the next day we saw the boat on the mudbanks. 'It was barely more than a paving stone' was one description of the rock holding the mooring down. Should he apply for an Arts Council grant?
I'm not sure you can apply for them inretrospect š
But what if he found a museum or gallery that wanted to buy a piece of his precious work?
G
Been there, done that. Over and over.
Your pal,
Sisyphus.
Do you know if anyone has built this design?
Thanks for the Link David. Lol Bob! And Doryman, no-one has built it, though a series of people have wanted to build from it to create something very different and which often haven't made sense to me.
In a way I've tended to discourage people from building it, not because I lack faith the design will work and not because I wouldn't like to see such an attractive boat built and giving pleasure, but because:
a) I would feel dreadful if someone invested a lot of time and money in building this attractive but rather specialist boat, and it somehow turned out not to be what they wanted – the accommodation is pretty tight, for one thing. This is a boat that is probably best understood by an experienced boat user and builder – I feel it would be very easy for a less experiencced boat user to be seduced by its attractiveness, build the boat and find that it doesn't meet their needs. This is why I haven't drawn every last detail and also why, since drawing the Bluestone, I have instinctively stuck to simpler, cheaper and more obvious design projects!
b) The plans aren't wildly detailed as I say, and best suited to experienced builders who have built something similar in the past, and who are able to reference previous successful boats for some of the details. 'I've made the mast partners and foot like this because the same thing worked on a boat I made four years ago,' is the kind of statement I'd like to hear!
I hope all this makes sense, and folks understand that I'd be delighted if a serious, experienced builder decided the Bluestone was the boat for them.
If anyone would like to talk with me further on the Bluestone, please contact me at gmatkin@gmail.com.
Gav