This takes me back to the first sailboat our family purchased. It was
completely designed and built by a blind man. (He was a cabinet maker by
profession, but was also designing a small dinghy that fathers and sons
could easily build together as a project.)

Our boat was called "Margaret M" and was a full wine-glass-shaped hull
with cast keel, far ahead of its time as it had a very sharp (almost
concave) bow and widened (very sleekly) to a much fuller section farther
back (which many ocean racers later adopted as the style of choice.)

The hull was carvel planked / caulked. The deck was finished bright and
was planked by alternating strips of light and dark wood which looked
fantastic. (You wouldn't expect a blind man to care about such detail.) =

It had a teardrop profiled mast, and a small cockpit with a grate in
the floor take in any water that came aboard. (It was a very low
profile hull so often water swept the deck and wasn't all deflected by
the angled splash shield ahead of the mast.) Sailing characteristics
were fantastic otherwise.

We understood it had been built entirely by feel (using long stringers
until things "felt right"), and although we had found it as a used boat,
my Dad tracked him down and we later visited and my recollection was
that he was indeed totally blind.

Boats have come and gone, but this is the one that really stands out in
my mind.

Dave

Martin Sch=F6=F6n wrote:
=

On Sun, 02 May 2004 08:58:13 -0700, Parallax wrote:
=

Yesterday (Saturday), while working on my two Stevenson Mini-Cup
boats, my glasses suddenly broke. This was not a break that could be=

repaired with tape and I realized I was essentially legally blind til=
l
Monday since I had no backup. Being absurdly optimistic and stubborn=
,
snip
=

Good read!
It reminds me of a fellow I knew back in the late 1980s. Despite very
poor vision - depth of vision was no problem but field of vision, he
could just se my complete face if I sat across a table - he designed
and built himself a small coastal cruising cat and went sailing.
The boat was far from pretty but it worked.
=

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