Building a 63' Jim Brown trimaran "THAT"

[Tourmaline]

Mark Hassall's epic struggle to build a 62 foot Jim Brown trimaran on the Rio Dulce, Guatemala is chronicled as The Story of "THAT". My favorite quotation from part III is:

Nothing comes easy in a country like Guatemala except sunshine and rain. Anything else requires hard work. That’s why I like it there. It always seemed to me that the “civilized” world misses the point. There, the fruits of labor are highly valued but not the labor, and every man is made poor by that notion. From that standpoint, I was a rich man, and nothing made me richer than the struggle to acquire materials for my boat....like my six barrels of epoxy resin.


"That" entire article is archived at this URL:

http://www.mayaparadise.com/stories/that/thatindex.htm

[imagine2frolic]

GREAT READ!

Thanks for posting. I always love reading of the struggle to accomplish things. Necessity is truly the mother of invention.

It also brought back a fond memory of Artie Mitchell. I was visiting Artie at the Mitchell Brother's Theatre with friends. I had asked him where the bathroom was. He pointed to a door down the hallway. Once I opened the door I was met by 20, or so naked ladies. As I looked over my shoulder there was Artie belly laughing.......i2f

[Maxingout]

A great story of persistence, ingenuity, and the power of a dream. Well worth reading.

[bearflag]

Originally Posted by Maxingout

A great story of persistence, ingenuity, and the power of a dream. Well worth reading.

Fantastic story! Its amazing how much grit he has.

[ColdFusion]

I read 'THAT' some time ago. It's a great story. For those of you that haven't been banned from CF this thread might be of interest for more info on Mark Hassall (from about post 12 onwards) :

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...rans-4163.html

(I assume it's OK to link to the 'other place'? )

[Tourmaline]

Jim Brown wrote a memorial for Mark Hassall titled "To Know the World" in Multihulls Magazine, March / April 2008. Here are several excerpts from it:

..... "We arrived at the Rio Dulce after Mark and Bonnie had acquired a small piece of riverfront land from an Indian and built a whimsical half A-frame home on pilings over the water. Their boat literally an extension of their living room floor.

Our two trimarans were, for a time, the only yachts in the whole Rio Dulce system, a then almost utopian setting of "sweet" waterways and deep gorges surrounded by true Tarzan-type jungle and wide mountain vistas."


..... "Near the end of their stay on the Rio, Mark built his next and last boat, a 62' trimaran that I designed for him to accommodate his wood shop on board. Besides a setup for his lathe, he wanted to be able to pass an eight-foot board through his table saw in the main saloon, which determined the overall size of the boat. He would carry a cargo of Guatemalan rosewood and work his way around the world selling his artful wooden dinnerware and furniture."


..... "On returning to the Rio Dulce he sold the boat to a charter operator and, as old sailors say, "Swallowed the anchor" to move ashore. He chose to live on the shores of Lake Atiitlan, another near-utopian setting in the Guatemalan highlands where a large round lake is cradled among volcanoes. He was alone, but with the help from the local Indians be began to build the first of three small, fantasy-like houses on his very steep lakeside lot near the village bearing his own name, San Marcos La Laguna."

[ka8uet]

That is a remarkable story. I am assuming from the tone of the last post that Mark has died? At least he did accomplish his dream, even if he sailed away with a diffeerent wife than he started with. I'm astonished that Bonnie sayed with him through the whole process of the build! Perhaps she just couldn't see raising Markchito aboard a floating woodshop! I hope that everyone ended up happy and that Marchito grew up with a good character and a strong mind.

[Tourmaline]

Ka8uet: Mark Hassall was 75 when he died of natural causes in Guatemala on December 10, 2007.


Jim Brown also discusses Markito's life in his memoir of Mark Hassall: To Know the World, MM vol 34, No 2, page 12:

..... "When Chung's wife died in childbirth, Chung and his two little daughters were unable to care for the surviving infant. Bonnie stepped in, the boy was named Markito, and eventually she and Mark adopted him and Bonnie saw to his rearing and education in the States. (Markos now works as a financial analyst in Arizona. Chung was given a parcel of Mark's land but was subsequently killed in a boating accident. His daughters still live on the land and are saving a piece for Markos.)"