: I can do better. I know I can. Tighter strips, more interesting patterns.

Yeah, when I finished Geyrfugl (a scaled down Great Auk for my small
daughter) I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever made,
and perhaps that I ever would make. But I knew there were mistakes -
I wouldn't build the same boat the same way again. But I wouldn't want
to build the same boat again just to make it a little better, when I
could make a new boat to serve a different need. And make new mistakes
and learn new things from that. The first boat was all-strip, round hull,
pitch deck, flush hatches. The second boat was chosen to create more
opportunity to try new things - S+G hull, hard-chine, rounded deck,
rolling recess, VCP hatches, bulkhead hatch, curved bulkheads, milled
sections for cockpit coaming, a mix of hard and softwoods on the deck.
About as much scope for making new mistakes as I could arrange. So there
are lots of mistakes on the new boat. But it is the most beautiful thing
I ever made - and now I _know_ the next one can be better. The first
boat was someone else's design, almost unchanged (just scaled), the
second boat was someone else's design for the hull, but with my own
design for the deck and cockpit (less critical than hullshape:), the
next boat should be all my own design. Every mistake I already made
will make the later boats better, and if I had not finished the first
boat, some of those mistakes would not have been there to add to my
experience - or they would have been made on the second boat which would
not have been as good.

It's human nature - we learn rather porrly from other people's mistakes.
We need to make our own. The fault in your first boat may be glaringly
obvious to you - that is good, it will make you try much harder - but
almost no-one else will see that mistake at all. Twice the effort and
experience will make a boat that *you* know is better, but the difference
to all but the most discerning observers will be minimal. Finish your
first stripper and be proud of it - you can bask in the glory from its
admirers (or get paddling to avoid the embarassment:) whilst *you* know
how much better you are building the next.

After all, the thing that makes a boat least perfect is trying to make
it do everything - one boat for all purposes ? No way ! You need a dayboat
and an expedition boat. You need a rock-hopping boat and an open ocean
boat. You need a double to take a friend. You need boats you know you
can rely on, and you need boats you designed yourself to push the
envelope and see what styles really suit you. You need a *lot* of storage
space :-) But don't waste time redoing one boat - not even a few weeks.
You need to get on to the next boat, and the next ...

Andy