Doctor at leisure: Dr. Charles Gould, boat builder, world traveller GLENNIS ZILM
When neurologist Dr. Charles G.E. Gould doffs his white coat and leaves his BC Workers' Compensation Board office, he goes home to a life most of us have dreamed of at one time or another. He gets respectful "good nights" from his colleagues, many of them senior hospital staff and top-flight consultants he taught during his years on the faculty of medicine at the University of British Columbia. A few minutes later, he walks down a narrow float, past converted barges and houseboats, amid a forest of softly waving masts. He still gets respectful greetings, this time of the "Hi, Charlie" variety from a couple of young kids squatting on a dock amid mooring ropes. This time it is the respect due an old salt. For Dr. Gould and his wife Ruth have carefully followed that good advice that most doctors only hand out to others: they planned for their retirement. In doing so, they have lived a life that most of us only dream about. They turned a hobby into a way of life. Twenty-two years ago, in his late 40s, Gould decided he should build a boat in his backyard. He did, and he has since sailed it around the world; now he lives on it permanently, sailing away every weekend, summer or winter. "It's quite a different world," he says of his sea life, adding later in the interview, "It keeps you young." Charlie and Ruth Gould had always been interested in boats and had generally owned one when their
Ruth Gould holding a barracuda aboard the Astrocyte.
family was younger. Living in West Vancouver, they got away sailing whenever they could. Then, in the mid-1950s, Gould began talking about building a boat of his own. "We started in 1957 and finished in 1962," he said. "The layout was designed by us with the specifications we wanted." For example, they wanted a boat they could maybe live on - "a comfortable boat that would last a long time." It had to have headroom; he is a tall man and "wasn't going to be stooping over all the time." It had to be easy to handle and easy to get around - "no more than two steps anywhere and no ladders." CMA JOURNAL/FEBRUARY 17, 1979/VOL. 120 489
They started out with plans for a 10 m boat, but ended with one 15 m long. It is a wooden sailboat, single-masted, with a 4 m beam and a 180 cm draft. It can, he said, be single-handed, although it was designed to be a perfect size for two people to handle. When at sea, however, Gould prefers two extra crew members. When fully fitted out for racing, it can sleep six. Gould discussed his dream boat with marine designer William Garden, who at that time was working out of Seattle. It took a year to finalize the plans. Dream come true The boat is built of BC yellow cedar. Gould travelled up the BC coast to a logging outfit and picked out the 14 logs himself, then paid to have them towed to a sawmill and cut to order. Then, working in his backyard, he proceeded to learn how to build a boat, getting advice from Garden and from a local shipyard, where he usually stopped in to talk on his way home from work. He built his own steambox for bending planks and frames. The planking was copper-rivetted on a white oak frame. He even cast the keel himself. "The biggest single job was the casting of the keel," he said. This job usually done by a foundry, was done at home. He built a cement coffin in which to cast the 6750 kg of lead, and it turned out perfectly. Looking back now, he reminisces more easily about the building than about the launch, which might be expected to have been the high point. Getting the boat to the launch pad was a bit tricky, he says, but everything went perfectly. Still, you get the feeling the launch might have been a bit of an anticlimax. "Well, it had been a way of life for 5 years," he says, describing how he had hurried home to work on it, to sand, polish and finish it, to have everything exact. "All our friends had been involved. Anyone who came over usually ended up working on it." And now it was done.
"The question of a large trip hadn't occurred to us until the boat began to take shape in the shed. Then it did. After all, it looks twice as big in the shed." Although it may not have seemed quite as big once it was in the water, Astrocyte proved so comfortable and maneuverable and delightful that the idea of a trip to the tropics and then around the world took shape. "The idea of sailing around the world is getting more and more commonplace," Gould says, although it was certainly less common back in the mid-1960s. "There's not that much difficulty. The problem is allocating enough time to do it. It takes time. Things have to be going for you. You have to have your wife - and children, if they're around - firmly behind you. There are problems of schooling. "After all," he added, "boats have been the cause of more divorces... As well, life permanently aboard a 15 m sailboat, even one as beautifully designed as Astrocyte, is rather different from living in a large urban "Navigating by eye" from high on the house. "It's a different lifestyle. Much mast as the Astrocyte moves among simpler. Much more trimmed down. reefs off some of the islands. We found it suits us perfectly." Apparently it is back luck among sailors to talk about the name of a Around the world boat before it is done. Still, Gould had had a name in mind. The Goulds set out on their round"All your friends ask what you the-globe voyage June 16, 1966. will call her," he says. "I usually said They were waved on their way by I was going to call it Syphilis." friends and members of the press Once it is ready to launch, how- who came to watch the departure. ever, the boat must be registered and Gould said they nearly had a catasthe name approved by the Depart- trophe on the way out of the West ment of Transport in Ottawa. Ac- Vancouver Yacht Club harbour becordingly, Gould submitted the re- cause they were not all that familiar quired two possible names - Syphi- with a new windvane, but then they lis and Astrocyte - determined that were on their way and in retrospect the name of the star-shaped brain it turned out to be surprisingly cell should be chosen. It was. smooth sailing. The Goulds spent the next 4 years The first leg was down the coast or so after the launch in 1962 sailing to San Francisco and Los Angeles. up and down the west coast and Then came the longest leg, a 5280 around Vancouver Island. They km journey to the Marquesas Islands, found a few problems with the first a French group in the South Pacific. mast, but got those straightened out. That trip took 27 days, much of it They were determined that the boat- spent passing through the doldrums. ing life really was for them. Mean- Astrocyte has a 40.27 kW (54 hp) time, he had continued in practice diesel engine, but loads only 272.76 and teaching at UBC. L of fuel, which is used only to get
490 CMA JOURNAL/FEBRUARY 17, 1979/VOL. 120
into and out of tricky ports and rarely used at sea, except occasionally "to look for wind." Gould carries a crew, usually of two in addition to his wife, so that someone is always "on duty" even although much of the sailing is done under an automatic windvane pilot. Most crewing is done by friends, who will fly down and go along on a part of the journey, or there are always young people who are willing to work their passage on to the next tropical port. Astrocyte spent some time cruising in French Polynesia - Tahiti Tonga and Fiji, and then came Christmas and 5 more months in Suva, the Fijian capital and its surroundings. Dr. Gould became friends with the medical staff in Tonga and Fiji and took several neurologic cases. There was more leisurely sailing in the South Pacific - that lazy, sunfilled, Gauguin-like existence we all dream of - then it was off to the New Hebrides, New Caledonia and a run for Australia to miss the hurricane season in the South Pacific. They did not miss quite all the weather, however, and in one storm a particularly heavy sea broke over the boat, bouncing Ruth from her bunk and across the floor, where she
Visit to a New Guinea village landed against a seat and fractured a rib. The Noumea-Sydney leg took 17 days instead of the estimated 9. During the 6 months in Australia, Dr. Gould worked full-time for the Repatriation Board, which was, they said, "a nice 8:30 to 5 job requiring no office, no phone, no car!" The next move was up the Australian east coast and across to New Guinea, then around the Indonesian islands to Bali, to Christmas Island
and into the Indian Ocean. On Rossel Island, off the eastern extremity of New Guinea and at the southwest corner of the Coral Sea, Dr. Gould again was called upon to practise medicine. Just as they were weighing anchor to leave, a native medical man came out in his outrigger to say he had just delivered a woman of one baby, but he was sure there was another to come and he had never delivered twins. Would the doctor please help? "I didn't have the heart to tell him I hadn't either," said Gould. "In fact, it had been some time since I'd delivered any babies!" He went along to help, however, remembering only after he arrived at the grass hut that New Guineans "were only shortly removed from a state of cannibalism." After a wait "the first rule of medicine" - the woman resolved the situation with the relaxed birth of the second baby and the placenta. The two baby girls were named Ruth and Yvonne after the two feminine crew of Astrocyte. Plans to go north through the Red Sea were thwarted when, for political reasons, the Suez "slammed shut in our faces" during the 1967 war. So Astrocyte went south to Portuguese Mozambique on the east African Interior shot of Astrocyte at sea showing cabin and looking forward toward the coast. sleeping cabin. It was then time to cross the South .
m
CMA JOURNAL/FEBRUARY 17, 1979/VOL 120 491
boat although the Goulds and crew were aboard. "We slept throughout. I just wakened to see the last of them slipping overboard - probably luckily for . It was then on through the Panama and to the Galapagos for a couple of weeks, then on to the Marquesas again. That completed the circumnavigation, so it was time for a cruise north to Hawaii, then home to Vancouver. "It was the best five years of our lives." Living aboard
The Goulds have settled back in / Vancouver and the doctor has gone Dr Gould taking a "noon sighting" in back to work, but they still live The Goulds celebrated their 25th wedaboard Astrocyte and like it. He has ding anniversary during their round-themid ocean. chosen a kind of work that allows globe trip. Atlantic to Rio de Janeiro, then there him to live on the water and mix a few mementos of the round-thewas more leisurely cruising in the blue-water cruising with city living. "We live in Vancouver 5 days a globe trip. It's trim and simple and Ilya Grande area and north again along the coast of Brazil to the trop- week and go out to sea for 2. Then uncluttered, looking shipshape and ical islands of the West Indies, we only tie up to take the cat ready to go anytime, especially when you step further aft to the busithrough the Caribbean Sea north of ashore." Astrocyte has been adapted slight- nesslike cockpit and steering area. Venezuela to the Dutch West Indies Even the Siamese cat, Pele, enjoys ly for permanent living - for exand finally, to Columbia. There they faced the most serious ample, there is an acorn fireplace boat life. And the Goulds enjoy the incident of the trip; Astrocyte rolled in one corner. The large double- visits of friends on boats from around over and, although the damage was bedded cabin forward has the look the world. "The average age of everyone here essentially minor and they were of a tiny bedroom. Then there are quickly aided by others, 3 weeks the small galley and the head, where is about half ours," Gould says, lookof salvage and work were needed. everything is within armsreach. There ing out at the waving masts surroundOnly just recovering from that, they are two steps up to the spacious, ing him at the downtown Vancouver were boarded by river pirates one comfortable living room, decorated marina. "Its s very refreshing." Yes, they would do it again.u night these cat thieves looted the in hand-rubbed teak and brass with
I
The daybooks of Robert MacLellan: a comparative study of a Nova Scotia family practice during World War I J.M. CRUMMEY, CCFP
Robert MacLellan was a Nova Scotian physician who began practice in rural Nova Scotia in the early part of this century. His daybooks provide a detailed account of aspects of his day-to-day practice. Their principal function was to serve as his account books, and as such they provide a detailed account of the financial side of his practice. Reprint requests to: Dr. J.M. Crummey, 94 Guestville Ave., Toronto,, Ont. M6N 4N6
They also served as his clinical notebooks and contain much interesting medical data. Using them as a source, it is possible to get an accurate idea of the financial situation of one rural Nova Scotian family practitioner. His average financial picture can be compared to present-day rates and some idea of the relative financial position can be obtained through this comparison. For a number of reasons this comparison should not be interpreted too
492 CMA JOURNAL/FEBRUARY 17, 1979/VOL. 120
heavily as a direct comparison. Estimates of the relative value of the dollar then and now add an undeniable element of vagueness to the comparison. Furthermore, the comparison between one individual and a generalized set of statistics leaves no accounting for differences due to individual variations alone. Beyond strictly financial concerns, the daybooks provide an interesting glimpse into the social patterns of a physician of his day, which can as
When neurologist Dr. Charles G.E. Gould doffs his white coat and leaves his BC Workers' Compensation Board office, he goes home to a life most of us have dreamed of at one time or another. He gets respectful "good nights" from his colleagues, many of them senior hospital staff and top-flight consultants he taught during his years on the faculty of medicine at the University of British Columbia. A few minutes later, he walks down a narrow float, past converted barges and houseboats, amid a forest of softly waving masts. He still gets respectful greetings, this time of the "Hi, Charlie" variety from a couple of young kids squatting on a dock amid mooring ropes. This time it is the respect due an old salt. For Dr. Gould and his wife Ruth have carefully followed that good advice that most doctors only hand out to others: they planned for their retirement. In doing so, they have lived a life that most of us only dream about. They turned a hobby into a way of life. Twenty-two years ago, in his late 40s, Gould decided he should build a boat in his backyard. He did, and he has since sailed it around the world; now he lives on it permanently, sailing away every weekend, summer or winter. "It's quite a different world," he says of his sea life, adding later in the interview, "It keeps you young." Charlie and Ruth Gould had always been interested in boats and had generally owned one when their
Ruth Gould holding a barracuda aboard the Astrocyte.
family was younger. Living in West Vancouver, they got away sailing whenever they could. Then, in the mid-1950s, Gould began talking about building a boat of his own. "We started in 1957 and finished in 1962," he said. "The layout was designed by us with the specifications we wanted." For example, they wanted a boat they could maybe live on - "a comfortable boat that would last a long time." It had to have headroom; he is a tall man and "wasn't going to be stooping over all the time." It had to be easy to handle and easy to get around - "no more than two steps anywhere and no ladders." CMA JOURNAL/FEBRUARY 17, 1979/VOL. 120 489
They started out with plans for a 10 m boat, but ended with one 15 m long. It is a wooden sailboat, single-masted, with a 4 m beam and a 180 cm draft. It can, he said, be single-handed, although it was designed to be a perfect size for two people to handle. When at sea, however, Gould prefers two extra crew members. When fully fitted out for racing, it can sleep six. Gould discussed his dream boat with marine designer William Garden, who at that time was working out of Seattle. It took a year to finalize the plans. Dream come true The boat is built of BC yellow cedar. Gould travelled up the BC coast to a logging outfit and picked out the 14 logs himself, then paid to have them towed to a sawmill and cut to order. Then, working in his backyard, he proceeded to learn how to build a boat, getting advice from Garden and from a local shipyard, where he usually stopped in to talk on his way home from work. He built his own steambox for bending planks and frames. The planking was copper-rivetted on a white oak frame. He even cast the keel himself. "The biggest single job was the casting of the keel," he said. This job usually done by a foundry, was done at home. He built a cement coffin in which to cast the 6750 kg of lead, and it turned out perfectly. Looking back now, he reminisces more easily about the building than about the launch, which might be expected to have been the high point. Getting the boat to the launch pad was a bit tricky, he says, but everything went perfectly. Still, you get the feeling the launch might have been a bit of an anticlimax. "Well, it had been a way of life for 5 years," he says, describing how he had hurried home to work on it, to sand, polish and finish it, to have everything exact. "All our friends had been involved. Anyone who came over usually ended up working on it." And now it was done.
"The question of a large trip hadn't occurred to us until the boat began to take shape in the shed. Then it did. After all, it looks twice as big in the shed." Although it may not have seemed quite as big once it was in the water, Astrocyte proved so comfortable and maneuverable and delightful that the idea of a trip to the tropics and then around the world took shape. "The idea of sailing around the world is getting more and more commonplace," Gould says, although it was certainly less common back in the mid-1960s. "There's not that much difficulty. The problem is allocating enough time to do it. It takes time. Things have to be going for you. You have to have your wife - and children, if they're around - firmly behind you. There are problems of schooling. "After all," he added, "boats have been the cause of more divorces... As well, life permanently aboard a 15 m sailboat, even one as beautifully designed as Astrocyte, is rather different from living in a large urban "Navigating by eye" from high on the house. "It's a different lifestyle. Much mast as the Astrocyte moves among simpler. Much more trimmed down. reefs off some of the islands. We found it suits us perfectly." Apparently it is back luck among sailors to talk about the name of a Around the world boat before it is done. Still, Gould had had a name in mind. The Goulds set out on their round"All your friends ask what you the-globe voyage June 16, 1966. will call her," he says. "I usually said They were waved on their way by I was going to call it Syphilis." friends and members of the press Once it is ready to launch, how- who came to watch the departure. ever, the boat must be registered and Gould said they nearly had a catasthe name approved by the Depart- trophe on the way out of the West ment of Transport in Ottawa. Ac- Vancouver Yacht Club harbour becordingly, Gould submitted the re- cause they were not all that familiar quired two possible names - Syphi- with a new windvane, but then they lis and Astrocyte - determined that were on their way and in retrospect the name of the star-shaped brain it turned out to be surprisingly cell should be chosen. It was. smooth sailing. The Goulds spent the next 4 years The first leg was down the coast or so after the launch in 1962 sailing to San Francisco and Los Angeles. up and down the west coast and Then came the longest leg, a 5280 around Vancouver Island. They km journey to the Marquesas Islands, found a few problems with the first a French group in the South Pacific. mast, but got those straightened out. That trip took 27 days, much of it They were determined that the boat- spent passing through the doldrums. ing life really was for them. Mean- Astrocyte has a 40.27 kW (54 hp) time, he had continued in practice diesel engine, but loads only 272.76 and teaching at UBC. L of fuel, which is used only to get
490 CMA JOURNAL/FEBRUARY 17, 1979/VOL. 120
into and out of tricky ports and rarely used at sea, except occasionally "to look for wind." Gould carries a crew, usually of two in addition to his wife, so that someone is always "on duty" even although much of the sailing is done under an automatic windvane pilot. Most crewing is done by friends, who will fly down and go along on a part of the journey, or there are always young people who are willing to work their passage on to the next tropical port. Astrocyte spent some time cruising in French Polynesia - Tahiti Tonga and Fiji, and then came Christmas and 5 more months in Suva, the Fijian capital and its surroundings. Dr. Gould became friends with the medical staff in Tonga and Fiji and took several neurologic cases. There was more leisurely sailing in the South Pacific - that lazy, sunfilled, Gauguin-like existence we all dream of - then it was off to the New Hebrides, New Caledonia and a run for Australia to miss the hurricane season in the South Pacific. They did not miss quite all the weather, however, and in one storm a particularly heavy sea broke over the boat, bouncing Ruth from her bunk and across the floor, where she
Visit to a New Guinea village landed against a seat and fractured a rib. The Noumea-Sydney leg took 17 days instead of the estimated 9. During the 6 months in Australia, Dr. Gould worked full-time for the Repatriation Board, which was, they said, "a nice 8:30 to 5 job requiring no office, no phone, no car!" The next move was up the Australian east coast and across to New Guinea, then around the Indonesian islands to Bali, to Christmas Island
and into the Indian Ocean. On Rossel Island, off the eastern extremity of New Guinea and at the southwest corner of the Coral Sea, Dr. Gould again was called upon to practise medicine. Just as they were weighing anchor to leave, a native medical man came out in his outrigger to say he had just delivered a woman of one baby, but he was sure there was another to come and he had never delivered twins. Would the doctor please help? "I didn't have the heart to tell him I hadn't either," said Gould. "In fact, it had been some time since I'd delivered any babies!" He went along to help, however, remembering only after he arrived at the grass hut that New Guineans "were only shortly removed from a state of cannibalism." After a wait "the first rule of medicine" - the woman resolved the situation with the relaxed birth of the second baby and the placenta. The two baby girls were named Ruth and Yvonne after the two feminine crew of Astrocyte. Plans to go north through the Red Sea were thwarted when, for political reasons, the Suez "slammed shut in our faces" during the 1967 war. So Astrocyte went south to Portuguese Mozambique on the east African Interior shot of Astrocyte at sea showing cabin and looking forward toward the coast. sleeping cabin. It was then time to cross the South .
m
CMA JOURNAL/FEBRUARY 17, 1979/VOL 120 491
boat although the Goulds and crew were aboard. "We slept throughout. I just wakened to see the last of them slipping overboard - probably luckily for . It was then on through the Panama and to the Galapagos for a couple of weeks, then on to the Marquesas again. That completed the circumnavigation, so it was time for a cruise north to Hawaii, then home to Vancouver. "It was the best five years of our lives." Living aboard
The Goulds have settled back in / Vancouver and the doctor has gone Dr Gould taking a "noon sighting" in back to work, but they still live The Goulds celebrated their 25th wedaboard Astrocyte and like it. He has ding anniversary during their round-themid ocean. chosen a kind of work that allows globe trip. Atlantic to Rio de Janeiro, then there him to live on the water and mix a few mementos of the round-thewas more leisurely cruising in the blue-water cruising with city living. "We live in Vancouver 5 days a globe trip. It's trim and simple and Ilya Grande area and north again along the coast of Brazil to the trop- week and go out to sea for 2. Then uncluttered, looking shipshape and ical islands of the West Indies, we only tie up to take the cat ready to go anytime, especially when you step further aft to the busithrough the Caribbean Sea north of ashore." Astrocyte has been adapted slight- nesslike cockpit and steering area. Venezuela to the Dutch West Indies Even the Siamese cat, Pele, enjoys ly for permanent living - for exand finally, to Columbia. There they faced the most serious ample, there is an acorn fireplace boat life. And the Goulds enjoy the incident of the trip; Astrocyte rolled in one corner. The large double- visits of friends on boats from around over and, although the damage was bedded cabin forward has the look the world. "The average age of everyone here essentially minor and they were of a tiny bedroom. Then there are quickly aided by others, 3 weeks the small galley and the head, where is about half ours," Gould says, lookof salvage and work were needed. everything is within armsreach. There ing out at the waving masts surroundOnly just recovering from that, they are two steps up to the spacious, ing him at the downtown Vancouver were boarded by river pirates one comfortable living room, decorated marina. "Its s very refreshing." Yes, they would do it again.u night these cat thieves looted the in hand-rubbed teak and brass with
I
The daybooks of Robert MacLellan: a comparative study of a Nova Scotia family practice during World War I J.M. CRUMMEY, CCFP
Robert MacLellan was a Nova Scotian physician who began practice in rural Nova Scotia in the early part of this century. His daybooks provide a detailed account of aspects of his day-to-day practice. Their principal function was to serve as his account books, and as such they provide a detailed account of the financial side of his practice. Reprint requests to: Dr. J.M. Crummey, 94 Guestville Ave., Toronto,, Ont. M6N 4N6
They also served as his clinical notebooks and contain much interesting medical data. Using them as a source, it is possible to get an accurate idea of the financial situation of one rural Nova Scotian family practitioner. His average financial picture can be compared to present-day rates and some idea of the relative financial position can be obtained through this comparison. For a number of reasons this comparison should not be interpreted too
492 CMA JOURNAL/FEBRUARY 17, 1979/VOL. 120
heavily as a direct comparison. Estimates of the relative value of the dollar then and now add an undeniable element of vagueness to the comparison. Furthermore, the comparison between one individual and a generalized set of statistics leaves no accounting for differences due to individual variations alone. Beyond strictly financial concerns, the daybooks provide an interesting glimpse into the social patterns of a physician of his day, which can as
