Good things just seem to happen at the appropriate time! Let me illustrate:

There was Sarah who visited from Tasmania and stayed for several days to work on Reliance.

And there’s Chuck. Last winter the two of us were pondering over drawings on how we’d make about 250 sail slides. We looked up to find Chuck reading our drawing upside down faster than we could right-side up! He quietly said that he had our solution and with pencil and paper showed us how-then announced he had to leave to return to his ill wife. Several months later, I was bent over a drawing of the mast spreader trying to figure out how to marry metal and wooden parts; feeling a presence behind me, I turned to find Chuck. He quickly gave me the solution and announced he had to leave to return to his ill wife. Last week I was again stumped by a drawing and looked up to find Chuck with his practical solution. This time before he left for his ill wife, he asked if we’d like his basement workshop!

A month ago, I was giving a tour of RELIANCE, showing this couple the spars when for some reason I mentioned that all we needed was a thin sheet of leather for the saddle. The husband then mentioned that he had a custom shoe business in NYC. Several days later we received a FED EX with thin strips of beautiful custom shoe leather complete with instructions!

Several weeks ago a couple came in for a visit, and I casually mentioned that they could follow our progress on our blog site. They then pulled out their iPhones, and suddenly I was getting advice on internet marketing- they being in the marketing consulting business.

This weekend I had a visit from a sculptor who said he’d make a couple of heads of the RELIANCE crew for our GI Joes. So, we’ll have Capt Barr and his mates with their real visages! Now, to convince him to do the other 40 GI Joes!

And the list goes on…