What would you do if you hit the lottery? (I didn’t so don’t ask, Just a thought of what would I do,,,)
Dunno ’bout you, but ME, I could not stop working, ‘just cuz’,,,, I would have to find something to keep me productive in life,,,
and what would that be?
Thought hard about this(several ties actually, with variations depending on ‘when’ ). I love making things, and the recent evolution of that has been kayaks. And yeah, I would probably start some production process to come up with ‘MY kayak’. I’ve been researching the hell out of what makes a good kayak vs a total turd of a kayak. Been on that for three years now since I first built duh!kee. and Logic has little to do with the design process. Myths abound about things like stability (primary and secondary) and what has become an accepted ‘standard’ is not always the best design. (yeah, I just bashed Valley Nordkapps, A great expedition boat, but could use to be revamped,,, And the side-eyed look you get from some people when you ask them for an opinion of the boat,,, The “standard” has skeletons in its closet but most people are too polite to point them out.)(AND, of the expedition boats I own, the Nordkapp is the hardest to load with those dinky ass hatches(8″ round ). Ghost (Prijon Kodiak) has hatches I could load a kitchen sink into and carries 3 times the gear that the Nordkapp can, while remaining stable and fast. SO, that comparison shows the Standard has had the bar raised over time.)
I read this article. long, kinda sorta technical, but of interest to me since I DO build my own boats. What the author explains drops right in with my own experiences. Following the ‘primary, secondary stability’ myth, led to some confusion in me. My Sealution, BlueJean, is the most stable boat I have ever owned, no matter WHAT the conditions are. and looking at her hull she is danged near flat bottomed. She rolls ok, but I think the trouble there has more to do with her high aft deck than any hull issues. It makes leaning back a real, quite literal, pain, and those lay backs are crucial for some rolls(and the roll I have down pat). I have not tried a storm roll in her, but I would imagine that is the bread and butter of rolling this boat. The biggest drawback to the Sealution is the rocker. She is not the fastest or straightest shooter in the pack. She likes to wander a bit when you stop paddling, and without a drop skeg or rudder (skeg prefered) you will make many corrective strokes to go straight. And she isn’t the fastest hull, though that may also have something to do with “fuzzy Polyethylene” vs silkie smooth gelcoat finish. I would imagine a glass version will be faster, but I can’t see any improvement in the straight line issues without adding that skeg, or extending her keel like Valley did with the Nordhapp HM. (and that might add complications in the sealutions handling in rough water, especially following quartering waves. that extra keel would get pushed around IMO)
See how I get so easily distracted by boat building details,,,,
SO, what would I do if that magical point of “hitting the lottery’ happened in my life.
First off, I would find something to invest in that would generate an income stream, even if I am not there to maintain it 24/7. Rental properties or somesuch. One of the big ones is that whole Storage building thing. Mad money there.
OR, Find some lake front property and section it off for Campsite rentals.(and this is my preferred idea because it goes hand in hand with the second part,,,). I know one guy on Cherokee lake that has 10 acres of lake front. He divvied up the property into 100 camper spots, installed the electric and plumbing to provide amenities for campers (not sewage, they still have to trolly the stool buckets to a dump site) and his income is high enough that he has 4-YEAR ROUND employees and still clears 1/4 million after expenses. (his site has covered sites where some of the people leave their campers year round, hooked up, and rent monthly (or yearly, not sure,,,) Cheaper than a mortgage on a vacation rental, and security is provided, and not just being a ‘gated community’, though it is that as well)
Why that over the others, KAYAKS. I want to build them, and having somewhere immediately available for ‘testing’ would be awesome. Being able to walk a boat to the water whenever the mood struck me,, HEAVEN!!!!
And I could go on and on about the benefits, but what would be the negatives. One negative would be that I would NOT want to iive on site. BUT, thats really not all that much of a negative. If I did hit that lottery, I could buy another home, off site, and I would KAYAK TO WORK,,,, LOL.
And write, Oh, man, if the pursuit of the almighty dollar took hind teat to living, writing would take off too. The only question would be, which would start dominating: building boats or writing? I think it would be a very seasonal thing,, Cold weather being writing time, especially with the shortened daylight hours. (heck, I am writing more now that I have less daylight to play with,,,)
Yeah, pipedreaming again.
“Jacob was a pious baptist, always at church, three times a week, once on Wednesday, twice on Sunday, always paid the tithe and donated extra when the call for help came on. And every week he would pray to God “Please let me hit the lottery this week, lord, I have been a good Baptist!”
One day while helping to clean the Church, he took a moment to repeat his prayer while standing at the alter, and was illuminated by heavenly light. He heard “Jacob, you ARE a good baptist and I would love to help you hit the lottery, but you have to do one small thing.”
“Anything Lord, ANYTHING.” Jacob responded,,,
After a brief pause, he heard God say,,,
“Buy a ticket!!!”
