Dining Table

As part of my extensive research in the dark, dim recesses of my basement for material on this week's topic of Furniture and Sailing - making boats from furniture, making furniture from boats etc. etc. - I came across a fascinating article in the August 1938 issue of Popular Science Magazine on How to Learn to Sail on Your Dining Table. Aren't you glad that I'm the sort of anal-retentive person who never throws away any magazine that has an article about sailing in it?

The article is not actually about sailing the ocean on a dining table. It's about using your dining table as a learning aid. All you need is an electric fan to whip up some breeze and some bits and pieces to make a model boat, and you can master the fundamentals of sailing right on your dining table. At least that's what our intrepid table-top sailor E.W. Murtfeldt says.



E.W. explains how you can teach yourself about beating, reaching, running, tacking and jibing with this set-up. You can see what happens as you position the boat at various angle to the wind and what happens when you trim the sails. You can even try out such advanced maneuvers as picking up a mooring.



Wow! Who would have thunk it?

But what if the rest of your family objects to your using the dining table to "play" with your electric fan and little boat with its sail made out of "an old handkerchief or shirt tail"? What if your wife actually wants to use your dining table for dining?

Fear not, dear reader. I will have a solution to this problem in tomorrow's post...

Watch this space (if you can bear it.)