pASHions
In this edition of pASHions, Joseph H. Antin, MD,
discusses his lifelong interest in boats – from read-
ing about adventures at sea when he was younger
to building boats with his wife as a shared hobby.
Dr. Antin is chief and program director of stem cell
transplantation and physician at Dana-Farber Cancer
Institute, as well as professor of medicine at Harvard
Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.
If you have a skill in the arts you’d like to share
with ASH Clinical News, we invite you to submit
your work – whether it’s photography, essays,
poetry, or paintings. Please send your submission to
[email protected].
“The runabout (our biggest project to date).”
B.Y.O.B.
(Build Your Own Boat)
When did you become interested in boats?
Boating has been an important part of my life for many years. My father
always had boats, and I remember boating around the Long Island Sound
in a wooden Chris-Craft when I was young. Also, my parents made me
go to bed before I was ready to fall asleep, so I read. Some of my favorite
books were from the “Tod Moran” series by Howard Pease. The stories
were about a boy who shipped out on tramp freighters in the 1920s and
had many seafaring adventures.
During medical school, I became interested in the history of whaling.
(Now, of course, I’m against the practice.) I started collecting artifacts, like
scrimshaw carvings, from the two decades when whaling was at its peak.
My wife, Jane, and I have a decent collection of these carvings, which were
made by sailors who grew bored on long whaling trips. They engraved
whale teeth, cribbage boards, and frames for winding wool.
How did you transition from reading about boats to building
them?
I’m not exactly sure where the idea to start building my own boats – rather
than using fiberglass boats – came from, but around 2000, when our son
graduated college, I suggested it to my wife as an activity we could do
together. She wasn’t convinced at first.
She said, “I don’t know anything about tools and woodworking.” I
reminded her that she had all the necessary skills from making quilts for
our children and nieces and nephews for years. Quilting is an intricate
70
ASH Clinical News
“The baidarka, or Aleutian kayak, is an 18-foot kayak made of Western red cedar, which is impossible to buy
because of deforestation. Fortunately, our lumber supplier had some recycled wood: A winery in upstate New
York had recently gone out of business and was selling off their property, including a disassembled, 20-foot
wine-aging vat made of Western red cedar. We converted one of the barrel staves into the panels of this boat.
It smelled like wine when we first built it, but the smell faded by the time we sanded and finished it.”
September 2017