I was wondering... could you make a boat out of a piece of furniture? A bookshelf? A chair? A table, for example?
If it's made of wood and it floats, could you jury rig a sail and some kind of steering oar and actually sail the thing?
Has anybody ever done this? To rescue themselves after a shipwreck, perhaps? Or as part of some crazy fun challenge at a sailing club?
Vice versa, can you convert a boat into a piece of furniture? An Optimist into a coffee table? A Sunfish into a settee?
Just wondering....
What do you think?
14 comments:
Isn't the Laser made from an ironing board? That counts as furniture doesn't it?
My sailmaker, ex-step-uncle used to have a shower curtain made from old penguin sails.
I think you could make a boat out of furniture.
But it probably wouldn't be a very good boat.
Some people claim my boat, a Catalina 30, is just a living room full of furniture, with some sails on top.
I think larger, more significant questions are what may have prompted you to posit such a question, and why I use words like 'posit'.
I remember being in a discussion once with a one-design racer who said that if you had *enough* people racing cast-iron bathtubs, it would be fun.
Good question O Docker. Why would I posit such a question? You don't find this topic covered in Sailing World or Yachts and Yachting. Even Sailing Anarchy won't touch it. That's why people read my blog... I think.
When I was sailing Inernational 14s, the best boats were cold molded beauties from England. Bill Moss bought a bare hull Kirby 5 from McCutcheon and put it in his living room (he was unmarried at the time) where he had trouble getting the time to finish it, so it stayed for many years as the centerpiece of the decor. All the fleet wives were scared to death that a 14 hull would wind up in their living rooms.
For years we used worn out 14 and J22 mains as awnings for our deck.
In 1967 in Queensland, Australia, after being blown and wrecked onto a beach by a cyclone, the captain used a door to replace the rudder and we sailed back to port with it. Does this count?
How about a bathtub?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oFi30VsP3U
Up at Lake Sunapee, we were hosted at a house that had half a wooden Star boat as its mantle. Very nice!
twang! a guitar boat! http://gizmodo.com/5061738/josh-pykes-guitar-boat-floats-on-an-ocean-of-rock
Frankie, that's AWESOME.
Now here's one that may not count, owing to pure commonness:
Canoe bookshelves.
ps - a bit off topic, but here is what I believe to be one of the coolest boats ever made from a giant pumpkin.
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