down to the sea in boats..

A friend would like a boat just like the one at the end of the film "The Great Gatsby"

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
(Fitzgerald, 180)

All of “The Great Gatsby” is about how life is an unceasing struggle forward.
We are forever to fight against our past choices and what we may regret.
Life is never easy or nonchalant. It is meant to be an unceasing challenge we take on every day. We are never free from what we have done because they shape who we are.
We are a collection of our actions and influences. We are forever going to be beat back into the waves of our past, they only change when we change ourselves, our choices.

I've never seen the film and could not find any pictures about the closing scenes,
so I have no idea what sort of boat he means......
could be anything from a canoe or a viking war ship to a full blown three masted Galleon !

but knowing his fiances at the present time,
he might have to build his own paper boat