Michael Burwell tried to convince me that this basket is a boat but I didn't bite, I think I saw him carrying flowers in it earlier. The thing is called a Coracle and I've seen him paddling it in circles. He's going to give a class at Crystal River on how to make these. Ever notice how all of us old boat guys dress the same.

Here's the "smelling like a rose" award of the year. This boat was out in the woods behind a run down shack completely overgrown and blocked in by small trees. Fland's friend told him that he could have it if he could get it out. After lots of chopping and chain sawing here it is all cleaned up. This is a Marshall Sanderling, for the last 50 years one of the prettiest 18 foot catboat around. I thought Texas Jim got a super deal when he stole his from a little old lady but this one takes it, unless there were snakes involved in getting it out.

You guys had a lot of questions about the foam boats so I'll answer some more. We've had some experience now and have learned some things we'd change. We'd use 2 layers of glass instead of 1. It wouldn't add much weight but would give more than twice the strength and they could use the extra puncture resistance. It's also hard to get the weave filled with a single layer of glass. It has something to do with glass on foam and it's a total pain in the butt to get it filled. A single layer, no matter the weight of cloth just won't fill easily and leaves tiny pin holes that water can get into. Stan found a innovative way to fill and smooth the finish. You can't use the usual fillers so he mixed some cabosil with the same latex paint used to paint the boat. It makes a smooth creamy filler that dries really fast.

How do we attach handles and foot pegs and such on foam? PL premium 3X of course. You just make a hole larger than needed, fill it with PL, stick in the attachment and let it harden. This stuff expands a little and makes a really solid connection. As I've told you before, we use this stuff for ALL of our gluing applications. We never use epoxy to attach anything to anything. Epoxy is for glassing and fairing.

Tana Rose did finish her 16 footer and it is a Mermaid; what the hell, if you're making your own boat why not go all out and really make it your own. It takes a tad longer to finish one like this.

I'll finish up the kayaks with Stan's little boat. It worked out pretty well, not as fast as the longer ones but good for 13 feet and he can flip it up in top of his car with one hand.

Since we use water based paint for all of our boats you know that I had to give Pettit's new water based bottom paint a try. It still uses copper and the antifowling agent but cleans up with water. It's really easy to apply. I had no expectations of this stuff working, in fact I've never been real happy with any bottom paint. I pulled her out after three months in the salt water expecting to have to do some major scraping and repainting and here's what it looked like. Can you believe it? Not one single barnacle, none at all. All I did is give her a quick brush down for the scum line and put her back in the water. This is the cheapest of the three levels Pettit offers. If any of you try this paint let me know how it works for you.

Howard ripping something and Wally wondering what to do next. As I've said before, how do you offer advice to someone who doesn't know what it's suppose to be.

This beautiful black boat is Kevin's Cortez melonseed. He tells me that the whole boat will be black and even have a black sail. This is a great view of the shape of these boats. If you could look straight down on my "Helen Marie" you'd see exactly the same shape since she's this same hull blown up by about 25%. Steve got this picture of us launching her at the local ramp. All I do is crank up and back off the trailer.

I got the idea to send you the story about our Star rebuild after seeing these pictures of some boats that Mike Corrigan works on. Mike may be the best wooden boat fixer upper in the world but I bet he don't know nothing about foam boats.

And I bet Mike doesn't use water based anything on the boats he works on. I'll show him how it's done when he stops by the shop for a refresher course in beer drinking. The water under these boats is probably solid ice right now. Clayton NY is on the St Lawrence river.

The only ice we have here at the Tiki hut is in the ice maker. How come I'm getting more funny looking and Helen stays young and pretty. I keep expecting her to replace me with a younger more up to date model. This name plate was a present from Richard Honan, another master builder and perfectionist. It even has an engraved image of my melonseed "Laylah". If I weren't so cocky I'd feel really intimidated knowing all of you geniuses out there who do such fine work.