Alone On a Wide Wide Sea
“One or two came and went, but for the most part, people liked it and stayed. And that was largely because Mr Dodds treated everyone right. The money wasn’t great – you could certainly earn more elsewhere in the fancier boatyards – but with Mr Dodds you got to build the whole boat, and best of all you got to sail it too. We had job satisfaction – that’s what they call it these days.
Once a boat was finished, Mr Dodds would ask two or three of us to take her out on sea-trials. He would often come along too. Everyone got his chance, but not everyone wanted to do it. Marty and I did though. Any opportunity to go out on sea-trials, and we’d take it. We were seasick of course, but after a while we’d find our sea legs and our sea stomachs, and once we’d settled into it, it was raw excitement – hard work we discovered – but always a pure pleasure.
So, thanks to Mr Dodds, both of us got to know boats from the keel up, from the inside out. We built them and we sailed them too.
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