Actions and words matter, worth reading, and in the "This really makes me want to pee in my pants" department...
"I have a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel".
-Black Adder
I often tend, when working out boat projects, to dismiss my first thoughts. For example, I'm building a new boom for "So It Goes" and my initial plan was to just do a T-section boom because it is dead simple, strong, quickest to build, and cheap. What's not to like?
Of course, just to make sure I'm not doing something I'll regret later, I do a bit of research and see if anyone has come up with a better sort of boom or spar that might be even easier/stronger/cheaper. Then lo and behold before you can say "Cunning Plan" I've somehow managed to lose focus and find myself doing research on exotic composite layups, interesting ways to attach a boom to a mast, and just generally losing touch with the whole point of the exercise.
Maybe I should build a wingmast?
All in the hope that I'll somehow or other come around to the perfect Cunning Plan or something close enough to it to do the happy dance.
While this is all going on the boom, or whatever project is in the mix, is not getting built now is it?
More often than not, I do this circular logic thing a couple of times before I have to sit myself down and tell myself that, in point of fact, that the initial idea/plan actually makes a whole lot of sense and that I should just got to doing and if I had I'd have already finished the project. Face it, tough love is often a 2 X 4 of logic upside the head.
That said, the whole quest for the cunning plan does often result in small improvement to the original simple plan so it is not without its advantages. In the case of T-section booms and gaffs I now routinely add carbon and Kevlar when I'm gluing it all up which results in a stronger and stiffer spar with just tiny increase in cost.
Still, there is a whole lot to be said to simpy just build the frelling thing and save the overly cunning plan for the Mark 2 version.
Listening to the Mavericks
So it goes...
