Sailing

My wife works in downtown Chicago, literally above the clouds.  Yesterday, she could see the boats practicing on Lake Michigan for the America’s Cup sailboat race, which is going freshwater this year.

Despite my fear of water, I’m fascinated by the things that float on it.  I’ve been on the USS Constitution and within a stone’s throw of the USS Texas, older even than the Arizona.  A few years ago, we went on vacation to Lake Geneva, where the rich folk like to show off their vintage motorboats.  Step in one, and you become the Great Gatsby.

There’s a sensuality to sailboat design, or at least there used to be.  Everything was curved—the hull, the sails, the wheel.  Now, the boats aren’t so much designed as engineered.  The ones I saw on the news last night looked like floating garbage disposal units—functional, perhaps, but hardly appealing to the eye.  The same goes for materials.  Various hardwoods once went into vessel construction; now, it’s a matter of composites, like the latest jets and softball bats.

Composites will be the end of us all, I tell you, and function as design.