One of the things that any boatbuilder gets asked is how long did it take to build the boat, any boat. This is always a bit like asking how long is a piece of string but even a fairly modest boat can run to the hundreds or even thousands of hours. If you are an amateur like me who builds in your spare time then the next question is given that it takes that long to build where do you find the time to fit it in.
The straight fact is that if you build a boat in your spare time then you have to cut into other things that you would otherwise do, after all there is only so many hours in the day. But consider this, the average adult spends four to five hours in front of the TV every day. In other words about 20 hours or more per week. Now this is an average figure so some are spending considerably longer than that. Imagine if you were to spend those 20 hours working on a boat instead in front of the tube and how much you could get done. It took me about 60 hours to build the Eastport pram that I have mentioned here on this blog before and that was to a high level of fit and finish and I was taking pictures as I went along which slowed up the process some. That equates to roughly two and a half weeks of part time work if you forgo the TV, time well spent I would say. Working on a boat with your kids can also be very rewarding, my son Sam and I have been working on a canoe together recently; an hour here and an hour there. It's very rewarding work, we enjoy each others company and at the end of the day we can sit back and revel in a sense of shared accomplishment. Best of all when the canoe is complete we can go places in it further enhancing our shared time together.
Lest you think that the amount of in front of the TV each week is a lot then many teenagers spend anywhere between 1500 to 4000 hours in front of a computer each year playing video games. That is a frightening statistic but just think of the boat you could build in that amount of hours!
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