There is a lot of love and patience in the FISH Boatworks in Cortez.
You need it when repairing wooden boats that are old and have seen better days.
Their volunteers spend hours, even years, building and repairing wooden boats mostly by hand. It’s a labor of love for folks like Rick Stewart.
“I don’t work a day in my life,” he said. “I do what I love and I love what I do.”
At the FISH Boatworks most of the volunteers like Doug Calhoun are retired. Before becoming a volunteer he knew nothing about fixing boats.
“I had no trade at all. I was a college English teacher with a PhD,” he said.
Now, he is a pro. He has worked on about 15 different boats. Boatworks teaches all of their volunteers old and new how the job is done. So passing on their knowledge to the younger generations is very important to the boat builders said Rick Stewart.
“You need to slow down a little bit and you need to build things that mean something. The things that last. Things that you just can’t buy off the shelf.”
That’s why Jeremy Thomas, Boatworks’s youngest volunteer decided to jump on deck and learn the art of repairing wooden boats.
“It’s like it’s alive. A fiberglass boat, steel boat, aluminum boats it’s not really like you’re a part of it,” he said.
Rick said there needs to be more enthusiastic young people like Jeremy or the century old trade will die off and be lost forever. So they are encouraging young people to head on over, pick up a tool and learn from the generations before them.
If you’re interested in becoming a volunteer call Rick Stewart at 941-580-1036. The facility is open Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.