Scouting

Yesterday I took a few morning hours off to scout a few possibilities of locations to continue my boat construction.

Requirements are:
- cheap rent (timeframe is about a year)
- close to my home
- covered area
- safety (personal and material)
- acess to specialized labor (carpenters etc...)
- acess to sea (.... obvious, for launching)
- tolerable environment
- if possible other boatbuilders around (for chatting... ;-))

My first option was Clube São Cristovão. It would be convenient beacause it covers most requirements, and is the main gathering place for amateur boatbuilders. Unfortunately, the club has no vacancies. All places are taken. The picture below shows part of the structure...


A couple of friends have built or are building there. One of them is Charles Watson. He is building a Caledonian Yawl, which you can see below. Despite my pleading, the Club was not willing to create some area for me. I even tried creative proposals - considered building a covered space myself. They have the area... But I dropped that...
Next on the list was the Iate Clube de Ramos. I was surprised to see that the Ramos Club offers a pretty complete structure. Even better than S. Cristovão. And is cheaper. It covers all requirements, and is the next probable location of the building. Several boats are being build and/or refurbished. Most are powerboats, but also a nice looking classic sailboat.

I took a picture of an arerial view of the Ramos Club (below). It is surrounded by favelas - the brazilian slums. All the bay area is degradated and surrounded by slums. But the area around the Ramos Club is seems to be safe. Thats what the peolple in the Club told me. Militias have taken over, and have chased drugdealers out. This is our reality. Got to live with it.

During my scouting I also visited some more improbable locations. This one is a fishing community (picture below). The bay water is putrefied. It is sad to see how humans can deteriorate an othervise nice place. But apart from that healthy confrontation with reality, I had a nice chat with a curious character who lives in a sailboat - Augusto. I'll post about him.