Reflections on building and maintaining something while moving forwards...
What does it mean to maintain something while you’re actively using it?
I've been reflecting on this. It reminds me of a winter I spent as an assistant project manager at a boatyard here in Maine. I'd watch boats come in for scheduled layup—owners who could afford to take them out of the water for months, do the deep structural work, refinish everything.
An incredible opportunity, but a luxury most sailors don’t have. Most are patching while sailing. Maintaining what they can. Making it work. Keeping on moving.
And here's the rub: those boats who can't take a whole winter to refit still need to pull into harbor sometimes.
Drop anchor. Get out of the wind. Check the rigging. Tighten what’s come loose. Not a full overhaul. Just a pause.
This resonates for me. I feel like I'm building Bay Consulting while trying to sail it.
There’s no pause button on client work. No off-season where I can redesign everything from scratch. I’m figuring out and improving service offerings while delivering them. Refining positioning while having conversations. Testing pricing while closing deals. That’s how most small businesses get built. You don’t get to stop completely and perfect everything before you launch.
But I’m learning the value of pulling into a bay occasionally. Not a full winter layup. Not months away from the work.
Just time out of the wind.
A deliberate pause to ask: Is this boat still configured the way I actually want it? Are the systems serving the sailing, or am I just maintaining what I built six months ago because it’s there?
The boats I remember most fondly from my days at Lyman Morse weren’t the ones in crisis—limping in with something broken, owners exhausted.
They were the ones whose owners understood: you don’t have to wait for catastrophe to pull into harbor. You can choose the pause. You can tighten or loosen your rigging, before something fails.
Time on the hard is a luxury.
But time out of the wind? That's just good sailing.
