Storage space? Hey, this is a revolution

By Tom Snyder
I love my boat and I have promised my wife and kids that I would never buy another boat. This was completely true insofar as any statement of fact can be said by a group of reasonable men to be true.

But what if the universe as we know it were suddenly to change in ways we never could have predicted? What if the laws of nature changed? What if indeed!

What if (and I’m not just yanking anyone’s chain) I were to tell you that marine architects, using new quantum materials and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, could build a boat whose below decks were not constrained by everyday assumptions about the physical world? If such a boat were possible, then all promises to my family would be meaningless. Read below the miraculous details of a breakthrough that, for now, should remain just between us.

First, some math. How big can a boat be down below? We were all taught in school (based on the hegemony of dead white males) that there is a theoretical limit to how big any interior space can be. In mathematical terms, for example, we are taught (“brainwashed”) that a 37-foot sailboat could not be, say, infinitely roomy down below. But just as Einstein (Albert) once freed us from the shackles of Newtonian mechanics, designers have now freed us from Newtonian boats.

The initial hint of a rip in the fabric of the old universe can be traced to the first in a series of accidental discoveries: placing a cockpit closer to the center of a vessel slightly distorts the lines of force that define space/time. This discovery permitted surprised boat designers to replace the after stateroom on a 32-foot sloop with a honeymoon suite plus reading area/conversation nook. At this early stage, nobody was talking.

Once the “continuum” was thus destabilized, strange new discontinuities were unleashed. Discovery no. 2: by raising a “centralized” cockpit just a few meters, both Space and its tricky pal Time strained at their braces. The traditional galley/salon could now easily grow into a conference center/special events staging area.

Suddenly, the race was on to take the final quantum leap into infinite yacht inner space. Bold experiments were conducted such as lowering the temperature of a fiberglass hull to 0 degrees Kelvin before sealing the gelcoat. There were also reckless experiments such as bombarding a hull with a continauous stream of positively charged boatyard executives. Nothing seemed to work.

Then a happy accident occurred in a Miami fiberglass shop. A novice designer who “didn’t know any better,” just a kid, carelessly mocked up a 28-foot sailboat prototype, forgetting to add storage space. Oops! It’s an easy mistake to make. But his superiors nearly fainted upon glancing at the drawings! Lines of force were curving outward and then back in on themselves! You know what that means.

In a hush, a senior marine architect sketched in, on this same 28-foot boat, a movie viewing room. The space expanded in kind. He then added a trophy room below the forward stateroom and a wine cellar below that. The continuum continued. This giddy crew proceeded in an orgy of interior design until they unwisely added a small hanging locker, at which point the drawing collapsed back into what looked essentially like a 28-foot boat interior. It was a mistake they would never make again.

This secret will soon be common knowledge. Boat brochures are already cautiously revealing photographic evidence of designs that exploit the explosive storage space/infinite space paradox. (You can have one or the other, but never both simultaneously.)

So I am now asking Catalina to custom build a boat that reflects my devotion to handball and general physical fitness. For the wife, a pottery studio. For the kids, a mad cool dancing/performance area. What’s not to like? Some naysayers are bound to complain about the total lack of storage space, but to me that’s just yesterday’s thinking.

Tom Snyder lives in Cambridge, Mass., with his wife Anne and children. He sails his Island Packet 350, Bluemoon, out of Hingham, Mass., and Peaks Island, Maine.