Jaguar, Ferrari, Porsche. Names that pass through my head at least 50
times a day without a doubt. So of course when I set out to build a boat I wanted it to be
sleek, sporty and with a little edge like these cars. It all seemed attainable until I got
to the motor when I realized that a motor with that much power on a 12 ft John boat would
sink the boat before you could ever get it running. So the boat which was going to be
designed to pick up chicks... was demoted to only being able to pick up fish.
In January of 2000 I was faced with a challenge of
building a project in one of my shop classes at Harper High School. My friend Dan Ellis
and I decided to do a project together, but we were shooting for something more than a
wooden toolbox. We were talking to my dad one day when we tossed around the idea of how
cool it would be to build a boat. We weren’t very sure of how serious we were about
it but about 2 weeks later we had most of the materials and a set of plans for a Jon jr.
by Jim Michalak. We worked only on Sunday afternoons, just me, Dan and my dad. The
first Sunday we got the bulkheads put together and lined them up along the floor to get a
look at how the boat would be set up.
The next weekend we positioned the bulkheads to where we
could attach the sides. We swapped bulkheads around for what seemed like forever until the
boat had the symmetry of a finely cut diamond.
A few weekends were skipped due to conflicts but the next couple
of weekends we did little things like sanding and finally we put the bottom on during the
last Sunday we worked on the boat. The next step was to move the unfinished boat from my
Dad’s shop to our shop class at the school. We did a portion of the complicated work
at my dad’s shop with his help, but who wouldn’t. This was our first boat and I
have a father who has built 5 boats and going on his sixth, we would have been idiots not
to use his help. Of course we did most of the work. He was just there to make sure we
didn’t make the mistakes that beginner boatbuilders make. Everyone was amazed at our
project. Our own shop teacher, Doug Townsend had little faith
that we would even bring a boat to the shop, but the look on his face when hw saw it was
priceless. We worked on it slowly due to the fact that we only had an hour and a half
every other day but we finally got to the painting stage. We used a navy blue for the
sides and bottom, but we used a primer gray color for the skids, gunwales, inwales, the
breasthooks, and the rest of the trim. Everyone at school doubted that it would float and
we didn’t find out until a few days ago. I brought the boat home the second to last
day of school in late May and it sat there until late July. Dan has been getting ready to
go to college and we have both been working every day so this was our first real chance to
take the boat out. We took it down to the
Ingram Dam which is about 30 miles from where we live. My dad let us use his brand new
motor which is a 4 stroke 4 horsepower Honda and lucky for us, the boat didn’t sink.
He would have killed us if we lost his motor. We cruised around for awhile and he snapped
the pictures that you see and then he left us on our own... Big Mistake. There was a store
right up on the road next to the Dam and we decided to go pull up to a dock and go get
something to drink. As we cruised up to the dock Dan shut off the engine and were heading
straight for the corner of the dock. I thought to stick my foot out but we both figured
the boat would withstand the blow. Sure enough, there was no bump. The corner of the dock
cracked the bow transom right in half. No water came in the boat so we cruised around for
another 20 minutes laughing the whole time. We went back to Dan’s truck, loaded it up
and left. I’m kind of disappointed that Dan is leaving in about a week and we might not get to do that
again for a while. One of these days I would really like to build another boat, but
hopefully a faster one. But we night have crashed a faster boat even worse.
Either way, driving a boat that I helped to build, and building
it are two experiences that I’ll never forget. The waters are only safe until next
time.
Jaguar, Ferrari, Porsche. Names that pass through my head at least 50
times a day without a doubt. So of course when I set out to build a boat I wanted it to be
sleek, sporty and with a little edge like these cars. It all seemed attainable until I got
to the motor when I realized that a motor with that much power on a 12 ft John boat would
sink the boat before you could ever get it running. So the boat which was going to be
designed to pick up chicks... was demoted to only being able to pick up fish.
In January of 2000 I was faced with a challenge of
building a project in one of my shop classes at Harper High School. My friend Dan Ellis
and I decided to do a project together, but we were shooting for something more than a
wooden toolbox. We were talking to my dad one day when we tossed around the idea of how
cool it would be to build a boat. We weren’t very sure of how serious we were about
it but about 2 weeks later we had most of the materials and a set of plans for a 
The next weekend we positioned the bulkheads to where we
could attach the sides. We swapped bulkheads around for what seemed like forever until the
boat had the symmetry of a finely cut diamond.
Townsend had little faith
that we would even bring a boat to the shop, but the look on his face when hw saw it was
priceless. We worked on it slowly due to the fact that we only had an hour and a half
every other day but we finally got to the painting stage. We used a navy blue for the
sides and bottom, but we used a primer gray color for the skids, gunwales, inwales, the
breasthooks, and the rest of the trim. Everyone at school doubted that it would float and
we didn’t find out until a few days ago. I brought the boat home the second to last
day of school in late May and it sat there until late July. Dan has been getting ready to
go to college and we have both been working every day so this was our first real chance to
take the boat out. 
We took it down to the
Ingram Dam which is about 30 miles from where we live. My dad let us use his brand new
motor which is a 4 stroke 4 horsepower Honda and lucky for us, the boat didn’t sink.
He would have killed us if we lost his motor. We cruised around for awhile and he snapped
the pictures that you see and then he left us on our own... Big Mistake. There was a store
right up on the road next to the Dam and we decided to go pull up to a dock and go get
something to drink. As we cruised up to the dock Dan shut off the engine and were heading
straight for the corner of the dock. I thought to stick my foot out but we both figured
the boat would withstand the blow. Sure enough, there was no bump. The corner of the dock
cracked the bow transom right in half. No water came in the boat so we cruised around for
another 20 minutes laughing the whole time. We went back to Dan’s truck, loaded it up
and left. I’m kind of disappointed that Dan is leaving 
in about a week and we might not get to do that
again for a while. One of these days I would really like to build another boat, but
hopefully a faster one. But we night have crashed a faster boat even worse.