Zebra keeps sailing

This boat is called the “Zebra” only because of her stripes. I carved and hollowed her out of  layers of pine some time in the late 1990’s. The reason I gave her colored stripes was to make people think she was Art with a capital A. At the time I made her, I didn’t think a mere model of a boat would be something people would want to put in an Art gallery, hence the colored stripes and the blue sails. To me, my “zebra” meant something more than a mere model of a boat, but I could never find the right words to describe what that meant, but I could feel it whatever it was, I definitely could. 

“Zebra” is about forty inches long, she has a deep ballast keel, and radio control servos for steering and sail control. She’s incredibly fast when the wind blows, 

Link to video-

https://youtu.be/sbWbqXiy3Ns

especially sailing to windward. I’ve sailed her a great deal Since I made her 25 years ago. She has a small persnickety leak somewhere which keeps coming back despite years of trying to zap her with Super Glue and re-paint her. I think the long term solution may be to give her a thin coat of fiberglass.

I’ve done several oil paintings of “Zebra”. The above painting is the fourth most recent. It’s from a photo I took early on when she was newer, sailing on the Boston Christian Science Center reflecting pool. You can’t sail there any more because it’s been re built to a depth of eight inches, but it was the ultimate model yachting venue back then. 

The boat was painted, to become Art, not just to protect the wood, then the painted boat was painted on Canvas to become Art again.