Make Life Better with a Sailboat-in-a-Closet

Step 3 Build ama (float) poorly so that you can get to the water soon!

In step three you have noticed that the project has taken too long. Perhaps like me you have worked furiously during some weeks, and then gone for weeks with hardly doing a thing. Two years have gone by since you started, you are in your second apartment, the divorce lawyer has invented new ways to take your money, and you have engaged a child therapist because the ex-spouse is messing with your children's minds (an insidious crime now popuilar enough to be given a name -- "parental alienation syndrome" -- and would deserve a future 'instructable of diagnosis and defense' if this excellent web site were also devoted to solving social issues as well as engineering issues) .... and Death has visited. Life still sucks but could be way worse because Death only leaned into my doorway, then paused to think about what to do with me.

I like the way Tristram Shandy postponed Death (in both the book and the film of that name); when Death visited me in the form of a stroke (TIA) I was not given any warning. I couldn't say, "I haven't finished my boat yet; I have a novel in progress, you could come back later if you want." I couldn't speak at all in the paralysis, or I could, but it sounded like Klingon, I'm told. So I thought very, very loudly, 'OK, here's one: the tax year is ending, and I owe the federal government a lot of money.' Death nodded and said telepathically, 'Later, then.' Death speeded the ambulance to a hospital that had recently adopted TPA therapy (get a list of hospitals that do, and always go there), and here I am typing this. Science, I love you!

So at year 2, fill in your own specific issues, and then admit that you really want to get into the water NOW. The ama (float) remains. Amas ought to be graceful, but build a pointy box, which is easy, try the boat, and start building a better ama later. Here's the junk ama in process; it held my weight when I sat on it in the water, which can be useful. I filled it with pink-foam blocks in case it was swamped (decking over would take too much time for a junk ama).