Failed Again

Failure is a word that can strike despair in many young minds. And yet, now that I am older I’m proud to admit that I’ve failed several times. My first failure was a boat I built which simply would not float. It was suppose to be fast, so I thought it had to be sleek and narrow. But, while sketching its design, I realized I’d never built anything. Never used fiberglass, never made a mold nor knew anything about sailing. But building that boat changed my life forever.

As a young boy I remember traipsing back from the beach late one day and passing these two large open doors where a great hubbub was erupting from the room’s smoke filled interior. Peeking in, men were shouting, and a fellow at the front was waving a wooden hammer as if stirring a hornets nest. For awhile I watched amused, and then became transfixed by a rough timber box banged down upon the auctioneer’s desk.

“What will you bid for this mystery box,” the auctioneer called to the crowd who laughed while a few elbowed their mates.

I had seen boxes like that one in my storybooks and knew lost treasure could be in them. So when the man at the front called for bids, from the back, I blurted out, “A dollar! I’ll give a dollar for that box.”

Heads turned and searched the room. Those around me looked down and emitted a chuckle. One slender old man gave me a wink and called out, “The boy bids a dollar.” And again the room buzzed like that hornet’s nest had been given a kick.

When I brought that trunk home and opened it up, it wasn’t filled with old treasure – no gold or pieces of eight. In fact, it contained nothing more than a loose roll of smelly stiff cloth, tarnished off-white with a rope sewn around its edge. But as I pulled it out, I recognized it as ship’s sail.

Fingering the coarse cloth with my soft little hands sent my mind wandering. Where had this sail been, I wondered. Maybe to the far side of the ocean that stretched away from the end of my street. And in my mind I saw a ship sail past the pyramids of Egypt. Maybe this sail had cruised along a coconut coast with wooden dhows manned by dusky men.

Or had it sailed around the world and withstood vicious storms? Fingering a ragged hole I was sure that was so. Then and there I decided to build my own little ship so my tarnished white sail could fly in the wind once again.

As I said, I didn’t know anything about making boats. So I started by looking through all my books, and from what I could see, that fiberglass material was the best stuff. With my father’s hammer and some of his nails, a few burlap sacks and a big bag of plaster lugged back from the hardware shop, I built myself a mold. Gosh, it had more ripples than swells on the ocean. But that didn’t matter. There were more problems to come. Like applying the fiberglass material, which proved kind of tricky. More than half ended up on our garage floor. But that didn’t matter either. My poppa never barked. He just watched over me with a great big smile. You see, he was just as keen, but knew just as little.

Then the big day arrived. Father and son took their new boat to the beach, where surrounded by a big crowd, she was dragged into the surf. Pity my poor pop, he couldn’t swim a stroke, and yet he stood neck deep in the frothy stuff, pushing his son and his lop-sided boat out to sea. A bit of a shame it wouldn’t stay afloat.

If there’s one thing good about failing, it’s that we learn what doesn’t work. So you see, from that first major defeat I realized I never knew why some things float. Never knew anything about displacement. So, from that one failure, I learned heaps.
By Cap’n Jack

© Jack Binder 2010