I went to the Ply-wooden
boat show in Port Aransas this weekend.
There were several lovely
boats there, but two particular
boats impressed me with respect to attention of the husband towards the wife and staying together.
One is a 46' bolger designed troller. Its a beautiful
boat inside and out, the
builder meant to spend his
retirement on her with his wife. It took 10 years to build, cost several hundred or thousand dollars. But his wife complained he was spending too much time with the
boat and not with her. So after the divorce and a remarriage he spent a few years sailing the
Caribbean with his new lovely wife, but must sell the boat to support the new life with the new wife.
The other is a flat bottom rectangular house boat, the wife says is a blown up puddle duck. Its a house boat 22 feet, runs on two outboards has two rooms, enclosed
shower, double
bed and a "porch", camp
oven etc. It took three months to build, although its not totally finished. The wife and the
builder traveled in this year's
Texas 200 in the boat. The wife appeared to be happy with the arrangement.
A lot more planning went into the Bolger than the puddle duck based boat, but then again, it appears the second builder may have been paying more attention to the needs of the
family.
I wish both builders a happy life going forward and only hope I can find a new larger boat that I can enjoy with my
current wife.