Inspired by Thoreau,
Ericsson family ready to sail away on catamaran they’ve spent the last seven
years building
by Tesha M. Christensen
What can you build with 150 gallons of epoxy, 700 pounds of
fiberglass, some marine plywood and Corecell™ marine foam?
A catamaran.
What can you do with such a boat?
Sail the world and live deliberately, the sort of life that
Henry David Thoreau would be pleased with.
That’s precisely what Jeff and Heather Ilse of Ericsson
intend to do with their 10-year-old son Ethan. Sometime this summer, their
seven-year boat-building project will end and they will sail away on the
Meadowhawk, living a life inspired by the author of “Walden.”
INSPIRED BY THOREAU
It was after reading “Sensible Cruising: The Thoreau
Approach” by Don Casey and Lew Hackler that Jeff, who has been sailing since he
was a boy, told Heather, “This is what we should be doing.”
While it seemed to her that he’d made the decision overnight,
for him sailing was the answer to a larger question he’d been asking for years
about the life he wanted to lead.
He was tired of sailing only on the weekend, rushing to get
to a beautiful place, spending only a few days there and then rushing back
home. He wanted to be able to enjoy the journey. He wanted to stop chasing a
collection of material possessions that don’t improve happiness. He didn’t want
to spend his time going from day to day working and buying and working and
buying. He wanted to see his son more. He didn’t want to miss out on his own
life, just for the security of a safe life. “My feelings are stated more
eloquently by Thoreau, ‘and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not
lived,’” said Jeff.
LOOKING FORWARD TO...
Jeff, a software designer at Four51, can’t wait to spend so
much time outdoors. Ask him what he’s most looking forward to and he’ll tell
you he wants to find beautiful places and spend time there.
Ethan, who will continue to be homeschooled, thinks it’ll be
pretty cool to be both outside and at home at the same time.
Heather is excited about being more connected to natural
cycles and rhythms. They’ll be able to spend time in the wilderness and also
cities. “I like that we’ll get to see a lot of diversity,” Heather stated. “I’m
looking forward to seeing a lot of different places.”
They plan to engage in the sort of travel that gives them a
chance to be part of the communities they pass through, rather than merely be
tourists. “We will go to a port, get to know locals, eat local food and go to
fairs,” said Heather. “We’ll immerse ourselves in a community instead of just
popping in as tourists.”
“We will travel to an area and live there awhile,” said Jeff.
Learning different languages will be part of their homeschool
curriculum.
A SECOND JOB
For the last seven years, Jeff has essentially been working a
second job building the catamaran. At the start, he spent long weekends and all
of his vacations up in Finland, Minn. where they have relatives. In the fall of
2012, they moved the boat down to the Watergate Marina in St. Paul.
The boat building part has taken longer than either of them
foresaw when they began. “Everything takes longer than you think,” observed
Heather. Jeff agreed, pointing out that it has taken about double the 25,000
hours the designer estimated.
“Working outside in Minnesota is the biggest challenge I’ve
had to deal with,” remarked Jeff. “If I would have had shop space, I bet I
would have finished in half the time.”
“You have to want it really bad. Jeff really wants this bad
and he is very determined to make this boat and the traveling a reality,”
observed Heather about the man she’s known since he was 16 years old.
HOW DO YOU BUILD A
BOAT?
“Piece by piece,” according to Jeff. He’s built smaller boats
and the past and discovered that building a 34-ft catamaran required the same
techniques.
Jeff hadn’t intended to build his own sailboat. Instead he
planned to buy one, but when he realized he couldn’t afford to buy what he
wanted, he opted to build his own. Catamaran design has advanced so much in the
past decade that an older model in his price range didn’t offer what he wanted.
In fact, the design he wanted isn’t even available as a production model. Plus,
Jeff decided he would feel most confident about taking the boat to parts
unknown if he knew exactly how everything had been put together — then he’d be
able to recognize any problem and fix it.
After extensive research, Jeff selected a catamaran design by
the English designer, Richard Woods.
He opted for this particular design because it offered greater
stability. While a monohull will sink if it gets a hole because of the lead in
its keel, it is nearly impossibly to sink a catamaran because of the air
pockets in the design. He will be doing most of the sailing while Heather and
Ethan learn, and so the design had to accommodate that. Seven years of boat
building labor has left Jeff feeling little like a sailor anymore, and so he’ll
also need time to get back into the swing of things.
FINISHING TOUCHES
As Jeff works on the final touches on the boat, Heather is
prepping their home for sale. She’s hoping to find a buyer interested in the
permaculture and pollinator-friendly home she’d worked hard to develop, and
hoping that perhaps they won’t even have to put it on the market but will find
a buyer through word of mouth.
Heather has lined up a friend who will store her large
collection of books and ship them back and forth to her. Ethan will bring his Legos,
his Kindle and his laptop. “I’m not worried that he’ll break ties with his
friends,” noted Heather. They already keep in touch via computer. Because Jeff
plans to continue working at his current job while they are sailing, they will
never be long without an Internet connection.
THE ADVENTURE
The family hasn’t yet mapped out exactly where they will go
on this grand adventure. They’ve been so busy the last few years getting the
boat ready, fixing up the house, and shedding their possessions. They do know
that some time they summer they will take off and follow the river system. They
will go down the Mississippi River to St. Louis and then head back north on the
Illinois River to Chicago. From there they’ll traverse Lake Michigan to Lake
Superior and winter in Duluth, where they have an apartment lined up.
“Once the boat is in the water, then we’ll know where we want
to go,” said Jeff. He’s looking forward to exploring all the parts of Lake
Superior they never got to spend enough time at. Ethan is excited about Duluth.
Heather daydreams about Australia and New Zealand.
Follow the Ilse family on Twitter (svmeadowhawk) or browse
http://zambonidriver.com.
Story published in the June 2014 edition of the Longfellow/Nokomis Messenger.
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