Tar Devil
11-03-2002, 09:00 PM
Another rare and wonderful opportunity to fish with my Dad this weekend on the river near my home. Being November instead of June, we opted to dump my little 12' fiberglass outboard in a deeper, slow section up river near the dam.
I stood up scouting for rocks and my Dad commented that his end of the boat had about 3 inches of water sloshing around. I thought this strange since I had just put some epoxy/glass layups over some cracks I had found in the stem. Momemts later when I shifted my weight, I discovered the leak... it started at the transom and was flowing in all along the keel up to about mid section. When I sat down on the thwarts it stopped. I sat a lot. Bumped into some rocks, too.
Anyway, after boring you with all that, I think I'll have to build me a little river boat along side the surf dory. I've already decided on a drift boat, no more than 14' in length, and I don't care if it's ply on frame or stitch and glue. I visited Spira, Glen-L, Hankinson, O'Brien, Don Hill, and DataBoat web sites and they all have boats that fill the bill. Just wondering if any of you have built drift boats from any of these designers, what you thought about the quality of plans and customer support.
Currently I'm leaning toward Jeff Spira's Canadian, with Don Hill's model 14ST a close second.
As always, your esteemed wisdom and experience is GREATLY appreciated!
Later,
Phil
[ 11-03-2002, 09:02 PM: Message edited by: Tar Devil ]
I stood up scouting for rocks and my Dad commented that his end of the boat had about 3 inches of water sloshing around. I thought this strange since I had just put some epoxy/glass layups over some cracks I had found in the stem. Momemts later when I shifted my weight, I discovered the leak... it started at the transom and was flowing in all along the keel up to about mid section. When I sat down on the thwarts it stopped. I sat a lot. Bumped into some rocks, too.
Anyway, after boring you with all that, I think I'll have to build me a little river boat along side the surf dory. I've already decided on a drift boat, no more than 14' in length, and I don't care if it's ply on frame or stitch and glue. I visited Spira, Glen-L, Hankinson, O'Brien, Don Hill, and DataBoat web sites and they all have boats that fill the bill. Just wondering if any of you have built drift boats from any of these designers, what you thought about the quality of plans and customer support.
Currently I'm leaning toward Jeff Spira's Canadian, with Don Hill's model 14ST a close second.
As always, your esteemed wisdom and experience is GREATLY appreciated!
Later,
Phil
[ 11-03-2002, 09:02 PM: Message edited by: Tar Devil ]