Over the summer, Michael built a sailboat. He ordered the plans, bought all the wood, hardware, a sail and lifejacket, with the intention of setting sail in the Hudson river. Last Saturday, he accomplished his goal. He launched from a small beach off of Dyckman Street in upper Manhattan. I documented his excursion, starting in his studio earlier that morning, as he finished building the mast, and attempted to help him move the boat into a van to transport it to the launch spot. Unfortunately, halfway through getting the boat into the vehicle, I experienced a relatively bad (and recurring) back injury, and had to spend the rest of the day limping along, using the tripod for support.

I plan on creating a short video documentary about Michael and his boat project (which somehow relates to his MFA thesis and his painting practice). I shot almost 3 hours of footage (using Ben’s thankfully borrowed digital camcorder), detailing the various difficulties (carrying the damn thing, my back going out, the rain that threatened to cancel the whole thing, trying to find Michael after he disappeared up the Hudson), and plan on shooting a debriefing of sorts sometime next weekend. Hopefully, I’ll have a working edit done in about a month.

We were welcomed at the beach by a friendly group of Dominicans (and a curious Polish guy named Robert), who were having a great time getting drunk and high as they played maracas and other noise makers to music blaring on a portable CD player. We were also helped by a woman named Nan, who employed her Rascal-type scooter to go up the trail and keep us posted about Michael’s whereabouts after he sailed out of sight.

It was a very interesting and difficult experience - but not nearly as hard as it’s going to be to not somehow incorporate Michael, Row the Boat Ashore into the documentary.