Here's a give away boat that you don't need.

Howard finished the "Mega Yacht" and it turned out to be too big for us to use. It's draft makes it unrealistic to get up and down our river to get out to deep water and we sure aren't going to trailer it anywhere. It has a new Chevy 300 hp 350 cubic inch V8 and outdrive that have never been in the water, 100 gal SS fuel tank, hydraulic steering and trim tabs, trailer with new tires and springs and custom interior. The cost of just these things not counting the hull and cabin is about $12,000. We're giving it to our car mechanic tomorrow for $5000 just to get out of here. No you don't need it, what would you do with it? All of us are way too cheap to pump in a hundred gallons of gas into this thing at some marina just to go out and run around in the bay. Some things seem like a good idea till you've got it.

Laylah, Norma Ann and Cessna spend every hour they can in the water playing with the Manatees. Our river lagoon here has a sand bottom only about four feet deep with clear water and animals to play with. Our boats are open to any of you who want to come by and play. This foam board that Steve made is the most popular.

Cornie's sub; he sent this picture of a rubber band sub that he made a million years ago and it still works. It looks just like the one I was on back in the old days, or maybe that was Whalen. I was on the LAFAYETTE SSBN 616 back in the late '60's. After a few patrols the saying "long and black and never come back" was really appropriate. Months under the ocean sucks.

Here's Dan Houston with the giant John boat I told you about last time. Here's a man who knows exactly what he wants. Check out the controls on the pedestal next to his cooler seat. A large outboard with tiller steering. You notice that there are a lot of us who think like this. Pat Johnson with his covered launch, Stan and his Junk, Chuck and his no telling what boats; in fact most of you on this list are like that. We like boats that are somewhat unique to say the least.

Just when I start to think that I may be smarter than a stump something like this comes along. This is Sandy, one of the Tiki Hut bums I've known for years. He's "just" a boat builder like the rest of us. And like the rest of you he has a secret life beyond this place. Sandy's a poet and knows and uses words that I have to look up to understand. I've found that if I read just one of these at a time and think about it and read it again it has meaning deeper than I could have imagined. How does he do it? I don't know if you can find this book but it's worth a try if you want to challenge yourself. I warn you that it may show you just how much you don't know. Hell, I don't even know what the title means. Red belongs to a high falootin reading group and they took one of these poems and analyzed it in detail, having to look up half of the words and discovered that it went from being a jumble of words with incomprehensible meaning to a master work of deep meaning and emotion, and these people thought they were literate. Never underestimate old guys.

I bet you thought I forgot Washington Dan when I mentioned strange boats. Dan is the master of custom boats. This is a little sailboat he's had for a long time and got tired of the outboard hanging on the back so he just cut a hole in the bottom to stick it through. Like me he knows that he can always put a patch over it if it doesn't work but he says that it does indeed work just fine so now he has a powered flag pole. Enjoy it while you can Dan, I think I see ice forming in the distance.

Judy Blue Eyes packed up her boats and moved from Charleston to Apalachicola and says that she loves it there. The big one is Sweet Pea, the Fenwick Williams 18 Catboat that Howard made here at our shop. Judy has done a ton of work to put it in tip top shape, way better than we ever did. The small Melonseed is "Freedom" the one that master builder Mark Bayne built for her and I modified so she could handle it easier in shallow water and from a dock. A sprit rigged dagger board boat is not what she needed in these waters so I turned it into a gaff rigged centerboarder with all lines running back under the deck to the cockpit . She says that she goes sailing at least twice a week and has made lots of friends there. Sweet Pea always looked big but this shot of it on it's trailer shows that she's really only 18 feet long.

I'll end with this. Jim is looking for his next build and it has to be something to really challenge him to the limit. We all start out making little plywood box boats and get progressively more complicated and challenging to keep our interest. How's this for complicated? It's 36 feet long, 4 feet wide and has a hull that's not the same shape on each side, asymmetrical; it's a Gondola. Even the oarlock thing that sticks up to push the oar against (the forcola) has a complicated shape that probably takes a month to carve. Our friend Richard up in Apollo Beach is doing the design work for him. I love to see these guys doing stuff like this.