This is painted on the floor of my boatshop — probably painted by my grandmother who was the type of person who could pull off this type of work.
I believe these are called “scantlings” — essentially full-scale plans that boat builders referred to as a template for cutting planks. I don’t fully understand how they were used, and when in the boat building process, but it’s pretty cool they’re still there after 60 years.
Originally uploaded by dchurbuck.
When one thinks about leaving a legacy or mark on the world, we often think of examples like Oppenheimer, Newton, Edison, Franklin, Picasso, or Salk. This list could go one naming greats in any discipline, be it medicine, physics, or art. For the “common man” often it’s things like these scantlings, or the boats created from them that span generations and serve as a legacy perhaps not as broadly impacting, but still poignant to friends, family, and historians. While technology is great, how impermanent by comparison are the things we do today? What’s the life of a power point presentation? A new piece of code, a new gadget? Will anything we do now in this online world stand the test of time as have these scantlings? Somehow I don’t think a print from autocad, or a file on a disk would hold the same flavor for generations to come. It’s really cool that you have these – thanks for sharing.