Chuck Merrell
sloggingtowindward@hotmail.com 

Funny how the smallest of small random incidents can make big changes in your life forever.

There I was, almost thirty years ago, sitting in an airline boarding area dozing. I was waiting for yet another jet ride in biz class to yet another somewhere in a long list of somewheres and had an hour to kill before my flight was called. Two guys were walking and talking their way down the concourse and passed close behind where I was. I overheard only one sentence of their conversation before they moved on by and were out of earshot and gone forever: "Well, ya know, I've always wanted to build a boat and live aboard, maybe quit work and sail away to Mexico or somewhere and just hang out . . ."

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Strange how those words came through all the airport hubub and crowd noise clear as a bell; "build a boat, live aboard, sail away"! Right there an obsession was born, and over the last three decades I've pretty well done most of it--cruising, racing, designing, building, living aboard and now spend most of my time in the design loft over my boat shop located in a medium sized river marina.