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/

Absolutely stunning. I love seeing bright rich colors on boats. That thing has class painted allover it.

I never agreed with him or disagreed. I have known others like him.What they did or how they did it,worked for them and that was good enough. I had been reading his words as of late and it had prompted my bow skiff thread.I had read the fishermen sinking the mullet boat and it reminded me of people I had known with similar circumstances. I didn't know him beyond a thread or 2 and his own website but somehow it just seems fitting to say so long and with that in mind,I am not looking forward to saying it to anyone else here anytime soon.So y'all take care of yourselves,ya hear? and to you Robb White, RIP

Well ofcoarse there is other factors that designate a boat's size beyond ideal. Crew holding capacity,cargo/fish holding capacities,fuel efficiencies and range etc. His statement was as a general rule for best all around size of non commercial vessels or utility use.As in boats avg Joe might have. I know my buddy's 23 grady white is alot nicer ride than another's 29 proline and then we get back into beam to length ratio considerations. I guess it would be safe to assume,given his experience as a native of this state, his findings via vocation and reputation,of choosing a moderate offshore size of affordable ranges of people in his class. With 24ft being his ideal,20ft was his choice for the worst.

A Florida boat builder I know,always said,the most ideal waterline length for this Gulf coast is 24ft. This was for power boats and I am not sure if this is planing or displacement,round bilge or hard chined. I am thinking he was referring to outboard powered planing hulls. If this is the case,do these dimensions hold true for most all boats in a given area whether it be sail,outboard,inboard etc? Something to do with wave timing after 8 miles out on average and again when we get our winter season northeast 30's. Anything over 30 mph here is a rarity other than hurricanes and I don't think that counts for obvious reasons. When asked what would be the best small boat to be stuck out in when the freak storms pile up on ya he says,"anything built like a surf board."

Ahh well,Oyster. I hope you have a great summer as well and thanks for all the Simmons info and pictures and tips. I guess we'll catch you on the flip side of whenever, so you take care. I loaded that merc into the truck tonight to get it serviced and checked out tomorrow(new water pump and pump housing whether it needs it or not). Soon as the motor comes back,the boat goes in for wiring and steering.I should be on the water in June. Will send pics your way including the monster reds and snook.

Didn't the hull weight in some of these older craft offset loose ballast requirements being they were knowing that there was going to have to counterweight a certain amount of sail,mast and wind conditions? Seems if the hulls are made lighter,more external or inernal ballast would need to be added to the hull. Maybe raw lead wasn't as easy to obtain and room for a bunch of stones in the bottom might have been out of place on a working boat. Seems that whatever is taken off,has to be put back somewhere else. I do agree with the scarcity of good wood. It's a never ending quest for the magic boards set ideal for boat building. A frustrating search having to make do with this or that and the crap available now,which is why I am quick to argue traditional vs. modern construction practices or which is better. I don't know of anyone in my peer group that could afford waterside storage for traditionally constructed boats nor to have them hauled for maintenence. Nowadays,one never outright owns their traditional craft if they have to pay slip and related fees to it's upkeep and keeping one on a trailer,although possible,still isn't the best world for it. I do like alot of the older styles and the looks of the work boats but I sure don't see the practicality of old world construction and scantlings compared to modern. I feel my glued boat can virtually last me forever with less maintenence than the work involved in building it or rebuilding it every 10 yrs. Traditional construction and materials are charming and nice to be in awe of but I can't spend the rest of my life building and rebuilding the same boat as if my life depended on it. I am all for the development of modern, hand crafted boats ,with the best materials and schedules available and affordable. Traditional is of the mind,eye and hand, moreso than the materials.

I found a net skiff (poling version with no well or place for an outboard) and it was about i the state of the blue one pictured above with paint missing though. The frames were bolted to the floor timbers with galvanized carriage bolts (still quite galvanized despite the skiff's age) and although heavy,I could run out 300 yrds of net with an 18ft bamboo push pole. After not being claimed for 30 days,the marine patrol let me keep it. Crude,heavy boat but what a fishing machine. That boat had me in the best physical condition of my life especially when the noseeums where in persuit. And where the heck you going,Oyster?

On the above picture of the blue boat,I dont see a place for a rudder. Is this a row boat?

Why thank you Craig. The green mullet boat was typical from where I came from. That one seems it has seen some use. Lots of good pictures on that site. I remember when knowing people that fished for mullet that sometimes the market would be full,forcing the fish houses to put the fisherman's catch on consignment. A good price for mullet back then was around .60/lb. They did alright until alot of people started coming from other places jumping on the enterprize. There came a market for the roe and the fish would be thrown away by the dumptruck loads. We would get a call from the place we bought mullet from for smoking saying we could have as much as we wanted for free. The fish were in mountains with their bellies sliced open about to be taken to the landfill. With smoked mullet they are cut down their backs with their heads left on to keep them from curling up in the smoker and to keep the fat from running out. I remember being amused by the fact that the mullet was the only fish around here to possess a gizzard so we used to remark that it was the true chicken of the sea.A true Florida smoked mullet will melt in your mouth compared to the shoe leather fish jerky some places(mostly restaurants)peddle. Thanks for the link.

Ok,Sorry about that. I have a hard time keeping up with who has what boats and some of you(Oyster) have one for every season and purpose. I am going to build my next trailer out of anodized pipe just to be different. And no,I dont guess you will be driving a sailboat on a trailer atleast without a good run at it.