However, simply knowing about wooden boating does not make the boater a capable practitioner. Crucially, boaters develop practical, bodily capabilities of performing wooden boating. To establish a glossy and evenly varnished surface or to fit in a piece of new wood are highly demanding practical tasks that require the training of the body. For planing, carving or cutting, this bodily learning entails sturdy hands and a tight grip,but the touch of the paint-brush is different. Varnish requires a correct sequence of application on different surfaces, and a human arm accustomed to the controlled dipping and applying of liquid in unhurried rounds of thousands. In sum, skills imply an increased ability to plan, perform and judge the acts of wooden boating.
The accumulation of such knowledge and bodily skill establishes boaters as parts of a network of things, skills and images. For, example a male practitioner ‘V’ states in an interview that: ‘There is nothing better than to be out with a boat, which is in good condition and which one has thoroughly renovated oneself … of course the best would be to have built the whole boat oneself.’ ‘V’ is thus a carrier of specific skills and has an identity that only becomes available once relevant objects and evaluative criteria are also present. His statement echoes ideas of ‘good condition’, of ‘renovation’, and an appreciation of boat-building as a craft. The complex that is formed by boats, and by relevant skills and understandings is strong enough to force ‘V’ to undertake hundred-kilometre journeys to acquire materials, draw on his friends and spend his holidays, unwillingly, repairing his boat.
Boat Sensations
Writing on car cultures, Mimi Sheller argues that feelings about driving provide insight into the relation between humans and the material objects of driving. She argues that such feelings merge aesthetic appreciation and kinaesthetic sensing of the object. In her words, ‘an emotional agent is a relational entity that instantiates particular aesthetic orientations and kinaesthetic dispositions toward driving. Movement and being moved together produce feelings of being in the car, for the car and with the car’ (Sheller 2004: 222).
Making Time
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