When someone I have known passes on, I usually find myself at a loss for words. In this case I thought I should say a few about Gil Iwamoto, proprietor of Gils Catamarans in Costa Mesa. What does the passing of
a builder of catamarans have to do with Ericson Yachts? Quite a lot, actually. Gil built many of the plugs (forms) from which Ericson could take off the molds. He also built most of Unicorn, my dads personal boat, during
which I worked with him for a couple of summers. To say he was a very skilled shipwright isn't near enough. He was self-taught and had that gift of being able to take a lines drawing and convert it into real object in
the shortest possible time. Part of that was his legendary work ethic. He was always saying to me in his broken english, "no time, talk tell story!". But when he did make time, he always had jokes at the ready. My
dad told me that he singlehandedly built the 46 plug in 6 weeks! He was working right up to the last couple of months at age 90, though legally blind by then, he so loved building boats. Beam winds my friend, you
will be missed.
Here's a link to an article about him:
http://www.dailypilot.com/news/tn-dpt-0726-iwamoto-20110725,0,7899810.story
a builder of catamarans have to do with Ericson Yachts? Quite a lot, actually. Gil built many of the plugs (forms) from which Ericson could take off the molds. He also built most of Unicorn, my dads personal boat, during
which I worked with him for a couple of summers. To say he was a very skilled shipwright isn't near enough. He was self-taught and had that gift of being able to take a lines drawing and convert it into real object in
the shortest possible time. Part of that was his legendary work ethic. He was always saying to me in his broken english, "no time, talk tell story!". But when he did make time, he always had jokes at the ready. My
dad told me that he singlehandedly built the 46 plug in 6 weeks! He was working right up to the last couple of months at age 90, though legally blind by then, he so loved building boats. Beam winds my friend, you
will be missed.
Here's a link to an article about him:
http://www.dailypilot.com/news/tn-dpt-0726-iwamoto-20110725,0,7899810.story
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