From the Boatworks.........

2009 MBB Kingfisher

The Kingfisher Finds a New Home........ It was with mixed emotion but the sale of my beloved 2009 MBB Kingfisher was completed last Friday. The boat will be moving north to Canada to be enjoyed by a young fellow and his two boys in April following re-painting and re-varnishing.

I hated to part with this boat but I needed to do so in order to finance a new project. That's the painful reality for us small recreational wooden boat builders.  The joy for me is in the building of these boats and looking at the creation floating on water. There's just something about taking flat dimension lumber and turning it into something functional with smooth curved lines that appeals to me.  But unless one has plans of starting a private drift boat museum, sooner or later you have do something with what you build.

Construction photo from May 2009

These are exciting times for drift boat building with a lot of new and innovative designs out there on the commercial front. While the commercial market for mass produced drift boats has been taken over by fiberglass skiffs, my passion is still with the traditional dory-style wood drift boats.  Comparing and debating the two schools is pointless in my opinion.

 They are apples and oranges.

 Wooden dories have their place in history. So do vinyl records and although vinyl recordings are currently making a bit of a comeback, they'll never supplant the electronic media/computer download as the primary method  of sharing music to the masses.  Building boats with wood is the same deal.

Just as there is a small but fervent group of vinyl lovers out there, there's a bunch of us dinosaur's that still dig wood.

For those of you that share the love, stay tuned for future projects..........