It's not that I'm paranoid it's just that I read the news,
this will surprise you,
and, it would appear, we're in a really bad place...
So, about that short list...
The other day it came to me that current guitar fashion and boat design
have an awful lot in common... And yes, the operative word in that
sentence is "awful". In the current guitar market there is a cornucopia
of guitars but, when you look at them closely, it really boils down to
mostly clones of the Fender Stratocaster and the Gibson Les Paul with
maybe 10% something a bit different. What that means in real terms is
you have a real bugger all chance of any real innovation creeping into
the mix.
Been to a boat show lately? Last time I crawled around boats at a show I
found myself often wondering what boat I was actually on as they were
all so very much of the same design brief you really couldn't tell and
the best you could ascertain was that you were on a 30-foot something or
other. An experience not unlike going to a guitar store and picking up a
Strat clone off the rack and playing it. It might be a very good guitar
but, when all is said and done, it is simply a rehashed copy of a
guitar that Leo Fender cobbled together in his garage in the 50's...
Which, I guess, is the world we live in.
That said, there are a few exceptions which give me hope like the Souriceau and Aviateur designs by Eric Henseval which seem to be doing quite well both as home buildable designs (there are already finished home built boats sailing and more in the pipeline) or a boat you can buy ready to go at the boat show.
Which brings us around to the short list and the idea of a scow design (bet you thought I'd never get here) because every time I think about the scow in my head, I keep coming back to the interior of the Souriceau.
Which, I expect, is as far away from anything you'd expect if someone whispered scow schooner in your ear...
Listening to Dolapdere Big Gang cover the Animals
So it goes...
