Pipefitter

Long time since I posted here but it sure is nice to follow the progress of this boat, Mike. Going to be a sweet ride for sure. Of course, this is why I don't need to post to forums much because Oyster keeps my mail box full of cool boat stuff. :grin:

Geesh. . . I thought this thread only had one page. Great pictures and all around great thread.

Wow, Mike. Great pics of a sweet looking job. Do you know what it gets for decking?

Does he still have fingerprints?My kids are the same way. They rat me out for my seeming parental injustices against them.Sanding is the pits though.

I come from down around close to Charlotte County and also lived in Lee County by way of Englewood/Boca Grande area. Thanks for the thumbs up. As a young teen,I used to pound 20D stainless ring shanks thru the carvel planks on some shrimpers,scraped and painted quite a few boat bottoms and caught and stocked bait for the tarpon charters for spending money. Reds are my favorite fish to catch. I remember catching Snook while night fishing the Boca Grande tressel with fish commonly to 30+ lbs.Down that way is where I learned to fish and my mom's freezer was always stocked to capacity with tupperwares full of shrimp frozen in water that I used to dipnet from the Englewood Bridge with aid of a lantern. Avg night was 4-500 shrimp in season with a personal best of 100(nearly 2-5gal buckets full) dozen. That used to be such the little paradise down that way. I used to get the commercial fishermen's throwaway pole skiffs and repair them for tidal drift fishing in Lemon Bay. Sometimes drifting up to around 8 miles and catch the tide back and just beach them at the end of our street at the bay. What a cool way to grow up.Now I have traded the 18ft bamboo push pole for an outboard and shiney paint. I still haven't lost my eye for good fishing places on this coast anyways. This humble little boat has put me right back where I belong. Thanks again.It has turned out to be one of the best things I have ever done.Building one's own is so much better than building or working on someone elses. I know some good places around Ancelote,Jack. I need bottom paint and a tach and some cleats to complete the project now that sea trial is out of the way.When I get finished,we will have to make a trip. Catching 3 decent reds,a nice trout and a sizeable mangrove snapper was a great way to launch the boat. I had sworn off fishing until the boat was done and these were the first I caught in over 3 years. I still haven't lost it. All but the trout and snapper were released. Those my buddy kept.

Congrats on the launch and the project. Good stuff.

Congratulations on a job well done.

It's been a long time coming. This boatbuilding stuff is kinda fun.

You may try a heat gun and one of those right angle carbide scrapers. After you remove as much paint to where you have mostly wood,you can rough the surface good with coarse paper and get it to stick. Problem with RO's on paint, is the paper gets hot too fast and gums up almost immediately. Anything coarse enough to not gum up is going to leave heavy circle marks and divots.The more fair the surface to start with,the less epoxy fill coats and fairing after. I just saw a repaint on a hull that was machine sanded by "pros" and I wouldn't have paid them. Nothing short of a rape job.It would take many hours of filling and long board to get that surface even close to right again.The whole hull would have to be skimmed with putty.

I bet your dad is pretty proud/amazed at your achievements. Great pics

Simmons Sea Skiff Hello everyone. My boat is so close. They sent me the wrong steering parts and thats all that's holding me up for wetting it. Motor is on,wiring is done,bow eye/stern eyes are installed. Oh and the upholstery I am still waiting on.If not for the delay of others,I would have been done by this past weekend. 4 days off in a row and I couldn't do anything but look at it.

A gheenoe is a wide bottomed canoe with a flat transom for an outboard. Great little fishing machines actually. You can stand up in them with more confidence than standing in a standard canoe. I actually had an idea for a boat like the east cape canoes but with a different idea for a bottom.But then I found the Simmons, offering the best of both worlds. Better yet would be Atkin's Rescue Minor adapted to work with an outboard, although, I like the diesel that gets 20 something odd miles to the gallon. I also like diesel engines in boats if there was a good workaround for the vibrations. Ok Ken,you can stay but a good act of contrition would be to convince 2 snow birds to move back north. Just kidding,snow folks. Y'all are welcome but I'm still gonna talk funny to ya. And the spinning reel hangs under the rod and you have to flip the bail to cast. That isn't a push button on the back.

Great pictures JCSOH. I bet you have more time logged on that boat than it's first owner already. And the thing about being fond of the greenery up in snowville is it gets taken away every year to what looks like death after all the trees have shed. Down here in the south,it stays green all year. If we were designed to live up in those parts,we would have been born with fur.

We fished gheenoes alot. To me the gheenoe is a stable boat after fishing in canoes. It just takes a little consideration and balance. Small boats of old were not very wide in comparison to modern planing hulls. I think this is where comparitive stability attributes or the lack of gets lost a little.Coming from a canoe to a gheenoe, makes the additional stability apparent then from coming from a 17ft Mako down to it. Jet ski's are tippy,kayaks are as well. But once you get to using them,they in effect become part of you from familiarity. Seems like one's body involuntarily compensates after a spell. If one thinks about it,the same could be said for, lets say, "rollerskates".

I saw these and was wondering if there is a pirogue type canoe plans similar to this idea anywhere. This is a good way too point out why I don't believe the Simmons too tippy. I had close to this in mind as far as poling it in shallow water. Look how high these guys are up in the air on this skinny little thing. I know it's plastic but it has a cool shape and function to it. http://www.eastcapecanoes.com/