There's almost nothing as fun as working with foam, it's so easy to cut and shape and sand. I've been after the holy grail of kayaks for years; light weight and durable. You can make light boats out of thin wood but since they're wood you need to take care of them or they'll rot and fall to pieces and if you glass them too much they're too heavy. You can buy plastic kayaks that will last forever no matter what you do to them but they weight too much. What I'm looking for is a 14 foot kayak that weights under 15 pounds and will hold up forever no matter what the level of care you give it; I'm talking about really bad care like being buried in a wet marsh for a year or sunk in the mud, something I can leave out in the weather and have it ready to go any time. I want it light enough to be able to throw it up to you on the cabin top or wear like a hat when it's raining. I believe that all this can be done and here's my first try and it would have been successful except for a slight miscalculation in some of my numbers, the next one will fit the bill. Steve was there to record my maiden voyage and Lenna got some more that afternoon. Here's a youtube video, I know you'll enjoy it because it's of me screwing up.

I took an old wooden boat that was starting to rot and cut it up to get the basic shape and drew it out on two inch foam, you know the white stuff you get at Lowes for about $25 a plank.

I made some patterns and cut out the foam. At first I was going to make it like a real boat with a top, bottom and sides until Howard suggested to just cut a bunch of layers the same size and shape and carve them to look like a boat. This way is a whole lot easier. My design problem occurred at this change point. I had already cut out the top deck and had made it two inches smaller all around because I was going to have the sides come up on the outside of the top for some reason. I got distracted and cut five more layers using this smaller shape which resulted in a boat four inches too narrow. Instead of 28 inches wide I got 24, a world of difference it turned out.

I even had a seat built in to keep my rear dry. The top layer had been pre cut and tapered, oh never mind, I screwed up.

And a custom back rest. At this point the boat weighted about nine pounds. I then glassed the bottom, sides and cockpit floor with 6 oz cloth but just epoxy coated the deck to save weight. Solid foam is surprisingly strong all by itself.

This stuff is really easy to work with if you don't mind the huge mess it makes. Before I painted the top I took it down to the river to try out, Tuck was a little skeptical. I could still easily pick it up with one hand.

This is when I discovered my slight engineering error; a skinny boat with top heavy people won't stay upright, no matter how hard I tried I couldn't stay out of the water, you can see in the video that shorter or smaller bodies can make it work but not us large size guys, our center of gravity is just too high. Cessna helped me bring in the paddle I broke in the attempt, Tuck stayed on the beach laughing.

A picture of defeat, the next one will work perfectly; or maybe the one after the next one. Make all the suggestions you want but remember that the goal is 15 pounds max and be pretty much indestructible so you skin on frame guys need not apply.

These are a couple of boats built by our friend Mike Jones. I want to mention Mike because he's the construction supervisor of an old timey boat shop they're building up in St Petersburg, Fl at the big historical park there. This place is really neat, they're going all out to made it as true to life as it was back in the day. Well worth a day trip for you local guys.

The Mega Yacht and Stan's Junk are really taking shape. These boats really need to be named. Howard is experimenting with colors on the M/Y and Stan is up to his usual innovative tricks with the fold down side to make the boarding ladder. These two have to be out of the shop in two months to make room for our usual giant Thanksgiving party and pig out.

Helen Marie is out of the water for a bottom job right now, I'm going to try some of the new water based bottom paint this time. I've noticed that no matter what they claim or how much it costs I still manage to get stuff I don't want on my boat bottom. This is a good time to pull her out because the other Helen Marie, the one I sleep with is out of commission with a broken shoulder right now. She slipped and fell on the tile floor cracked the upper ball of her arm bone where it goes into the shoulder. I think it was just a ploy to get me to take care of her. Don't you love this reflection of the hull in the calm water under Steve's boat lift? You can see why she slips through the water so well. For all of you with Melonseeds, this is what your hulls would look like if you blew them up by 25%. Well all of you with Roger Allen designed melonseeds that is.

Steve Lansdown sent these of some of the guys who took part a while in Washington Dan's "movable messabout" up in northern Idaho and Washington. You can see that the weather is cooling off up there and it won't be long before this water turns to ice. They visited several different lakes over a period of a couple of weeks and had a great time. Too bad it's so far away for me to go next year.

The boys up at Crystal River have started their next big build, this time a Mullet skiff. When you say the word "skiff" to me I think of a little row or even pole boat as I'm sure you do. Since these guys aren't especially known for their brilliance they're calling this one a "skiff" but it's going to be something like 30 feet long with an inboard engine; these are the same guys who took a simple Puddle Duck Racer and blew it up into a monster 30 foot civil war scow sloop complete with it's own little tug boat and moonshine still. You do have to give it to them, they do think large. They always build a large scale model of their project first so everyone can see what it's going to look like.

I'll have to make a trip up when they start planking this transom, I can hear all of the bitching and moaning now and see Whalen and Steve cracking the whip to keep their rats on the job.

I'll finish up with a picture of the newest little Lucas, this is Jouji James Lucas laying on a quilt his grandma make for him.