Just like his name, Peter Harken’s life story is so intertwined with the company he helped to build that I gave up trying to separate the two. And the fifteen-month delay between writing and publication meant I was enchanted all over again when I read through Part I. So many Hall of Famemagaz inductions… yet the humble Peter seemed quite surprised that I (and Seahorse’s readers) might actually be interested in his life story The editor has graciously given me permission to share the PDF with you, but that only covers up to the 1980s. To read Part II, you’ll have to subscribe. Well worth it for all the Rod Davis lessons! Thanks for following along, and let me know what you think of ‘Plodding along dropping white plastic balls‘.
Excerpt from Plodding along dropping white plastic balls by Carol Cronin for Seahorse Magazine:
The most famous of those ideas solved a classic iceboat problem: how to get enough purchase on the mainsheet without adding so much friction that the boom had o be pushed out downwind. ‘Iceboating, your reactions have to be really fast. When you let the sheet out a little bit it has to happen right away – or you’re going over!’ Read here.
The second part of Carol Cronin’s Bill Mattison article in Seahorse Magazine has been published. “Carol Cronin continues her look back at the extraordinary life of a very extraordinary ‘yachtsman’… though such a plain description does not begin to touch the sides.”
The magazine is subscription based and you can purchase the December edition in print or digital format here.
Decades of continuous improvement
An unattributed quote in the book that Bill Mattison’s daughter Lynn produced for him puts the whole sport of iceboating into perspective. ‘It has been rumoured that iceboating is 75 per cent building them, 10 per cent talking about them, 10 per cent waiting around on the ice for the right conditions and five per cent actually sailing them.’ And her father enjoyed all of it. Continue reading.
The November issue of Seahorse Magazine has published the first of a two-part article about Bill Mattison written by Carol Cronin. Despite never meeting him, she genuinely shares her awe about Bill’s unique talents and conveys a real sense of him through Peter Harken.
The magazine is subscription based.
After hearing so much about Bill Mattison’s amazing ability to ‘engineer and build anything’ I would have loved to have met him. And since he never just sat around maybe I could have watched those big meaty hands working away at one of his many skills. Scarfing a damaged iceboat plank. Repairing a carbon mast. Welding up a replacement piece for a photo developing machine. Or decorating a tiny wagon wheel for the model circus he started as a kid and continued to add to for the rest of his very full life. How could one man achieve so much success in so many different mediums, on so many different scales, from larger-than-life America’s Cup boats down to half-inch-to the- foot scale models?
-Carol Cronin