Once upon a time, back in Marstrand during the 1990's I had a wooden boat, Orust snipa, built at the island Orust in the late 1960's. My parents gave us children gifts one year, my gift was to inherit my mothers boat. Boats usually have women name, but when the skipper is a woman the boat name can have a male name. So I inherited both a boat and its name: Karl-Åke. The history of the name is a combination of her son (me) and her grandson (Åke). Every Spring, after every Winter I only not had to fix the boat, I also had to "watery" the boat so the dry wood should soak in water and expand, get tight again. Every Winter but one we I had the boat in a boat house, that year when it was outside under the sun I had 1-2 centimetre cracks - with enough water it got tight even if I was very skeptical at first. The places inside the boathouse (a barn) usually was inherited in a family, how I could get one spot there is still a mystery. I remember one year when the boat refu...








