• 29th September 2009 - By adventuresofgreg

    Koa: Hawaiian for “Bold

    Thanks for your suggestions regarding a new name for the boat. You had some really great ideas that were definitely responsible for sparking some deeper thought of my own.

    When I sat down a couple of years ago with the intent of developing a keynote speech, I did some pondering about what it is that has allowed success in my life. It occurred to me that the personality traits that worked for me weren’t the typical ones you would expect. I’m not especially smart – I almost failed the 4th grade, my marks were below average in High School and I didn’t go to University. I didn’t have any money – shortly after I struck out on my own and launched my first business when I was 21, the banks took all of my credit cards away from me. I remember having to buy gas for my car at the Hudson Bay parkade downtown because they had a small car rental business and I discovered I could use the Bay credit card that my mom had given me to buy clothes with, to purchase gas from their rental operation. They eventually took that card away from me too. Coincidentally, that’s about the time I started to really get into riding my bike a lot! And, I wasn’t especially physically gifted in any way either. When I decided it was time to lose 50 pounds and get into shape I entered my first triathlon. Of course, it just had to be the long distance Ironman triathlon and I didn’t even know how to swim!

    The simple fact that I signed up to complete one of the toughest sporting events in the world without even knowing how to swim said it all. And it is typical of the kind of attitude that I have had most of my adult life. That is, I just think of something that I want to do, make sure that it is just a bit beyond my comfort level and ability, and I simply do it. And I don’t quit. I don’t think about how to accomplish my goal or what the obstacles are or anything like that. I just start my journey by taking my first step. Jumping into the deep end so to speak. Then I learn a little – enough to plan my next step, and so forth, and so forth.

    I believe that any of us can accomplish some pretty amazing things in life when we just have a little faith in ourselves and we commit to doing something a bit bolder than we think we are capable of. And that is the secret right there. When you are bold about what you have set out to do, you will have the passion, excitement and motivation that you will require on your impossible journey. Anything less, and I think many of us just don’t care enough. I have lived my life by the wisdom of the great German poet Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: “What you can do or dream you can do begin it. For BOLDNESS has genius, power and magic in it”.

    So therefore, I hereby name my boat “Koa” which means “Bold” in Hawaiian.

    Following are some logo ideas. I would love to hear your vote and comments (the tiki dude have chain ring teeth):


    #4


    #5

    Following are some additional ideas I was playing around with. I like the brush script, but the orientation doesn’t really work for the boat.

    Koa building progress

    Ken has been working his arms off sanding, sanding, sanding. The body work is taking WAY longer than we originally estimated which is pushing our Vancouver Island shakedown cruise later into October. Jordan and I don’t want to leave it so late in October because the likelihood of encountering a winter storm increases every day as we progress into winter with the north pacific high pressure zone slowly disintegrating and allowing the storms to blow directly into Vancouver Island.

    Our objective with the shakedown cruise is to circumnavigate Vancouver Island – 1000 km staring
    at Port Hardy near the north end of the island. We will head south down the protected east coast of the island which will give us ample opportunity to get used to the boat, living conditions, pedaling conditions, switching positions without capsizing the boat, etc. It will also give Jordan and I an opportunity to slowly nose into more advanced ocean conditions as weather permits to feel out general stability in waves and wind as well as how effected we are by high winds.

    We are planning on stopping off in Victoria for a couple of rest days, some media interviews, wait for a good weather window, then tackle the exposed wild west coast. The reason we have chosen a clockwise direction is that prevailing winds starting about mid October tend to veer from Southerly to Northerly and it would be better to have the wind at our stern as we make our way up the west coast.

    http://wanimoto.clearspring.com/o/4805fc0db4a3562c/4ac11ab97ceb3cb7/4805fc0db4a3562c/9045a330/-cpid/d46161dae6a8cd39/-EMH/240/-EMW/432/widget.js”></script>

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