Madisonville WoodenBoat Festival
by Ken Abrahams
Had a great time today. Very good festival. Attached is a sampling of the activities. The Quick and Dirty BoatBuilding Contest does the building on Saturday and races them on Sunday. Thousands of people show up for beer drinking and enjoying the wood boats. |
Nice Planked Skiff
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Old Lap Strake Runabout
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Old plywood runabout |
Old racing engines and raceboat |
Hot old racing hydro with Merc. |
Beautiful strip planked sailboat, from Dallas area. |
Small lap strake by same builder as 06 |
Nice Sloop with motor in well |
Runabout, River in background is lined with big wooden cruisers and sailboats |
Huge skiff |
Misc |
Misc |
More Misc. boats |
Strip Planked Canoe |
Runabouts on a trailer |
Misc. in the water |
Another NICE Canoe |
Racing Shell |
Mahogany Runabout |
Guideboat and canoe |
Punt |
Old Runabout |
Racing boat again |
Lapstrake runabout |
Kayak for south Louisiana |
same, overall view |
Another Nice Canoe |
Higgins Runabout, Higgins of New Orleans built the thousands of Higgins Landing Craft used in WWII, Supposedly won the war for US |
Misc boats |
Ditto |
Another Higgins |
Motorbikes and Vespas |
Shane Wallace on left |
South Louisiana Swamp boat, Old engine, water cooled, big flywheel, reverses by changing timing and running backwards |
More swamp boats plus an ancient 'Go-Devil' motor |
Closeup |
underway |
Son in Law behind his favorite, Asking $900,000 |
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These pictures were taken Sunday. The building was on Saturday. They were rigging sails etc.. Parade at 1:15, race at 1:30.
I think there were 15 entries allowed. Limited building space. |
Cat |
Long and slender |
Most boats had Patriotic themes |
Double rowing stations |
A flag |
Tiny sail, I think they finished last |
Really nice boat |
Start of the Party |
Eagle Head, First to finish I think |
Work of art |
Another nice one, look at the sail decoration |
Swamp Rats boat, notice the Spanish Moss, These guys and girls put on costumes later, they had the MOST fun |
Salty Dog, a nice dory. They were my favorites but finished 4th in the race |
Jazz band led the parade, boat numbers in order |
No. 1 boat |
Parade action |
Eagle Head |
Beer Can forestay |
Costumes, masks and eared caps, they were wonderful |
Mr. Swamp Rat himself. |
The entries paraded to the race start, which was up river from the bridge, and launched their boats. The wind was downriver. They sailed to a turn location below the bridge then had to paddle back upriver to the finish line.
The parade and race were really fun to watch. The boats actually sailed downwind well. None had centerboards and all had to paddle upwind. |
Eagle Head nears the bridge in the lead |
Eagle Head again |
The next boats |
Then came the masses |
And more masses |
Tailers |
More Tailers |
Swamp Rat boat, small sail, last place, but had the most fun |
Eagle Head finishes first |
'We're coming to get ya' finished 2nd |
016 finishes 3 rd.
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