鈥淗aven鈥檛 had an ad in the paper since before I was born,鈥� says Christian Langendal听of his family鈥檚 boatbuilding and restoration company, with a tinge of pride. 鈥淎ll word of mouth.鈥澨�

Christian, 35, was literally born into the business. He鈥檚 the youngest in a lineage of boat lovers and repairers who run the business his father started and that bears his name,听. Anders, Christian, and his brother, Erik, 39, work at the shop on a quiet gravel road off Carpenter Street in Greenport, New York. It鈥檚 a unique dichotomy for the family鈥攂oating as sport and vocation, the latter often wearing on the former like a tear in a sail. Especially during these summer months, when the workload is heavy, the shadows are long, and the phone calls for business are frequent. 鈥淚t鈥檚 almost overwhelming at times,鈥� Christian says.

Maybe without realizing it, he鈥檚 touched on the single most听important fact of this business: it鈥檚 consistently hard, dirty work. Boating, and sailing in particular, often has a clean fa莽ade, replete with bleached white polos and Dockers and martinis spilling into Nantucket Sound. What鈥檚 often underappreciated is how the boat itself materializes in the first place: the small Langendal team sacrifices summer days to serve others鈥� pleasure, all with a smile. Sometimes Christian has to call off dinner plans with his fianc茅e听because he gets a call to repair a Doughdish that鈥檚 set to race off Shelter Island the next day. 鈥淚 always cringe when I hear the phone ring on Fridays,鈥� he says.

August, when I visit, is slower than June and July, but just barely. For the four-person operation that comprises the 57-year-old business, it鈥檚 never quite slow enough. Anders and Erik have traveled to Sweden for the week, leaving Christian and their sole nonfamily employee, Maria, here to watch the shop. Anders and Erik鈥檚 sojourn is a yearly trip to pay respect to the boathouse Kungs枚rs, which inspired Anders to build his business.听

Anders was born in Sweden and, in his teens, wanted to be an officer on a merchant ship. After a broken arm delayed his career, he started working on wooden boats upon the suggestion of his uncle. He became an apprentice under Oscar Schelin, owner of Kungs枚rs, and developed into a skilled carpenter seemingly overnight. When one of the boats he worked on won a prestigious award in 1965, Anders emigrated to Greenport, where his sponsor lived and . During World War II, Greenport听employed close to 6,000 workers who were rapidly producing minesweepers鈥攕mall naval warships used to evade mines planted in seas.听

Anders started out as a third-class carpenter and quickly climbed the ranks听to the chagrin of many older guys who had taken years to earn their spots. Andy the Swede, as locals called him, would eventually build the last boat ever started from scratch and completed in this current boatyard. 鈥�痴谩尘辞苍辞蝉, that鈥檚 the boat鈥檚 name,鈥� Christian says, pulling a dusty picture from an overcrowded shelf in his office. Today, the Anders Langendal crew fixes up wooden and fiberglass boats of all kinds,听from small, one-design, sailing-fleet听Etchells to 12.5-foot Doughdishes to larger, more intensive work on signature models.听

The 7,000-square-foot Fleetwing building from which they operate sits in a marina alongside several other repair and storage buildings.听Boats and parts and cranes and trailers stretch听across the property as far as the eye can see. Inside the Fleetwing is the Langendal鈥檚 鈥渙ffice,鈥� with a desk, couch, and computer,听but it also serves as a workshop, with tools, benches, and a skiff peeking out from the back, temporarily sidelined because its owner has discontinued work on it. A couple steps down from the office is the building鈥檚 main hub, crowded with various tool benches, table saws, wood, and, of course, boats.听

国产吃瓜黑料 the building and across the harbor is Shelter Island, where Christian lives on a houseboat with his fianc茅e and her kid during the summer months, and where his parents met at a local dive bar, the Dory, many moons ago. Every day, Christian takes his small motorboat to work and docks it next to the building. This is part of the circadian rhythm of these maritime guys. Repetition day in and out.听

Patience is the key to Anders Langendal鈥檚 success, Christian tells me. In general, building and repairing boats is a measure-twice, cut-once type of job.听

鈥淏iggest thing we鈥檙e learning is that if you want to find an employee that can replace you, you gotta pay them a lot of money,鈥� Christian admits. It鈥檚 self-congratulatory but also self-motivational to be irreplaceable, and perhaps is why he鈥檚 taking online naval architectural classes at night. (His brother, Erik, is already a professional civil engineer.)听鈥淚f you have good employees, you keep them. You take good care of them,鈥� he says. Christian knows other shipyards have trouble keeping good workers or replicating the good ones they have.听

Enter Maria Carranza, 32, the second nonfamily employee to work for Anders Langendal. (The first was a male carpenter who has since left.)听If it鈥檚 strange that the family has hired someone from the outside, it鈥檚 even stranger that she鈥檚 a woman, not a common hire in the boatbuilding and repairing industry. But Carranza is focused and resilient, a natural choice for the job. 鈥淲omen are taking over the world while men drink beer and watch TV,鈥� Christian says, which makes Carranza laugh.听

She鈥檚 the resident boat sander and varnisher, an exhaustive skill she learned from Christian himself, even though, he admits, she鈥檚 much better at it now than he is. Much like everything else in this shipyard, varnishing is about persistence: prepping and cleaning, applying multiple layers of varnish, looking out for bare spots in the wood, constantly rechecking to make sure the consistency is just right.听

Watching Carranza work does not relay the quality of detail that鈥檚 required.听She works assiduously but effortlessly, often while listening to her iPod (she doesn鈥檛 like the reggae music the 鈥済uys鈥� blare from the portable radio, she says) or while talking on her phone. Today, she鈥檚 putting the final coat of varnish on a Doughdish that Christian will paint the next day. They鈥檒l drop it in the water the following day.听

鈥淭hey look a fraction of the size when they鈥檙e in water,鈥� Christian says, seeing my awestruck expression as we walk among the boats inside. He leads us past the woodworking part of the shop, lined on both sides by white oak, a common wood for structural work, and to the middle, where several boats are propped up, like centerpieces in a naval gallery. There鈥檚 Valkeryie,听a 35-foot boat designed by Jon Anchor in Norway in 1917, given to them in its current shape, for which they have major plans. There鈥檚 Kings,听a King cruiser built in 1957 that hasn鈥檛 been in the water for several years. Then there鈥檚 his brother Erik鈥檚 boat, Anders鈥� piercing blue boat, and Christian鈥檚 folk boat that he compares to the 鈥淰olkswagen Beetle鈥攊nexpensive to buy and fun to sail.鈥�

But these are just the boats the family owns; many more pass through the shop weekly.听

Theirs is a full-service yard, which means they don鈥檛 just work on wooden boats but offer services of all kinds,听from electrical to mechanical to routine maintenance. It鈥檚 what keeps the Langendals afloat. Their clients range from the exorbitantly wealthy, including a former NFL president, to the everyman sailor. All kinds come to Greenport with boats in tow; it鈥檚 a popular summer destination as well as a staple of maritime culture.听

Christian sees all of that changing, though. 鈥淕reenport isn鈥檛 what is used to be. When the hardware store became a pet shop, it really pissed me off,鈥� he says. 鈥淯nfortunately, our yard is getting a lot of heat from the village. People come here for the summers and are giving the yard a hard time听since it鈥檚 the largest waterfront property in this town.鈥� He talks about how tourists drive onto the premises and assume they can take a self-guided tour during the workday.

It鈥檚 no surprise. The property is full of fascinating relics of the seafaring life: the rust-colored听prewar buildings, the rows of used and deserted boats, the marina where Ted, the local oysterman, harvests, and the neighboring building that is the largest indoor boat storage building on Long Island. Inside? None other than a boat built on the Langendals鈥� favorite shipyard in Sweden, Kungs枚rs, where it all started for Anders.听

Back inside the Fleetwing building, Christian replaces the spars on a boat鈥檚 mast while Carranza varnishes the Doughdish. Christian takes his time investigating the spars, explaining that these little pins are the make-or-break difference between a sail working or not working. I ask if family members check each other鈥檚 work, like issuing a joint Langendal stamp of approval.听

鈥淚f I do 99 percent of the boat and Erik just launches it, he鈥檒l still go through everything I鈥檝e done,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 good to do this鈥擨 do it, too鈥攂ut it鈥檚 just funny.鈥�

The post Meet the Boatbuilders Doing the Dirty Work That Makes Sailing Beautiful appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

In the winter of 1844, Captain Halvor Michelsen embarked on a routine 鈥減acket鈥� shipping route between Norway and Germany when his ship foundered in a snowstorm. Halvor ran back to rescue the ship鈥檚 log in the cabin and became trapped as the water rushed in; he went down with the Stavanger Paquet. In 2015, Halvor鈥檚 great-great-grandson, author George Michelsen Foy, made his way to the place where the ship was thought to have sunk. He also attempted to recreate part of his ancestor鈥檚 journey, on a much shorter trip from Cape Cod to Maine, using the same technology that would have been available to his great-great-grandfather.听

Foy鈥檚 new book, (Flatiron Books), uses his own family history as a way into the larger narrative: how humans have honed their innate navigational skills since the beginning of time, for both survival and exploration. Foy focuses much of his exploration on the connection between memory and sense of听place (a link that has him making a strong case against GPS dependence).听As such, the book is part memoir, part historical and anthropological lesson, and part travel journal. Early on, Foy discusses five stages that represent the archetype of human exploration: 鈥渇orsaking familiar territory, accidental discovery, return, telling the story, and embarking on a new expedition.鈥� He wants to understand how we equipped ourselves to explore the unfamiliar, but also how we create internal maps of the places we鈥檙e most familiar with.听

He first ventures across the world to explore our greatest, or most mysterious, navigational accomplishments. This includes visiting a Greek temple that might鈥檝e been the headquarters of a secret navigational cult and sailing on an overcrowded Haitian cargo sloop to observe the use of old navigation techniques he鈥檒l use on his own journey. In one chapter, Foy travels to London to try and understand the , who have to memorize over 23,000 streets, and every practical route to and from each one. His interest is so piqued that he enrolls in a taxi training class. While navigating the streets himself, Foy recalls living in London as a younger man, eating kidney pie in the cafes and watching people rush by. 鈥淵ou learn that our navigation centers are also our memory centers,鈥� he told me. 鈥淪ince our memories are tied to feelings, they plot the position of emotions.鈥澨�

Some of Foy鈥檚 strongest moments happen when he taps into that internal map, through听his own personal, sensory-based history with a particular place. He鈥檚 a great storyteller, which comes in especially handy when he sets out to learn what happened to his great-great-grandfather 171 years ago.

The logistics of Foy鈥檚 Stavanger Paquet trip are sometimes exhaustively detailed: learning to use instruments like a sextant, preparing his boat, Odyssey, for possible inclement weather, explaining Odyssey鈥檚 history. But these come together with the book鈥檚 anthropological and scientific details to bolster Foy鈥檚 own narrative about reclaiming family history, drawing a new line from his ancestor鈥檚 less-than-clear final location to where he stands now. 鈥淪eeing the tiny island where his ship sank, and figuring out what probably happened, I felt this weird bond with him,鈥� he told me. 鈥淲hat he was doing鈥攚hat I was doing鈥攚as exactly what humans are good at: trying to understand what happened, how stuff works, in a real place, with real evidence鈥攚hich always, ultimately, comes down to understanding more about yourself.鈥�

Foy later travels through skerries and islets to the small Norwegian island of Kalven, near where Halvor Michelsen Foy鈥檚 ship most likely went down. He imagines Halvor鈥檚 last minutes, the disorientation he must have felt. 鈥淲e cannot live without loss,鈥� he writes. We cannot live without being lost.

国产吃瓜黑料 Also Reads:听Into-the-Unknown听Edition

听by Greg Milner (W.W. Norton & Company)
This could have听been a crotchety takedown of everyone's favorite tool (“GPS is turning our brains to mush!”). But Milner turns out听a compelling exploration of how GPS became so ubiquitous鈥攁nd what we lose when it's all we know of navigation. (We didn't say it would make听you听feel crotchety.)

Best for: Navigation nerds; your friend who trusts Siri's directions a little too unquestioningly听听

听by Susan Marie Conrad听(Epicenter Press)
After Conrad's father lost a niece听to a strong river current, water became taboo in her family. In 2010, Conrad, now a kayak instructor,听spent 66 days and 1,200 miles in a wetsuit and an 18-foot sea kayak, traveling the famed听Inside Passage that runs along the Pacific coast of North America. Expect bears, whales, and in-depth descriptions of feeling cold and soggy.

Best for: Anyone with a Paddling Bucket List; anyone who needs a new Wild听or听A Walk in the Woods听fix

The post Exploring the Innate Art of Navigation, from Ancient Cults to London Cabs appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.