"Instant Boat" Surprisingly Fast & Able
You take four sheets of 4' x 8' x 1/4" plywood, cut it up according to the pattern and glue and nail it all together to strips of 1" x 3/4" or so of any wood that's handy and in a short time you've got the latest Phil Bolger-designed ' instant" boat.
The others in Bolger's instant boat series so far are a small punt, a kayak and a little schooner that folds up...all built of plywood and requiring no lofting nor jigs to build.
Whenever the shiney-eyed Bolger comes up with a new design for a plywood small boat, he sends the lines and building instructions to Harold (Dynamite) Payson in S. Thomaston, Me., in hopes Dynamite will build the thing and see if it works. Usually Bolger's boats are sort of odd-looking and equally as usual, they work rather well.
A few weeks ago I stopped by the Payson place when Dynamite was building this boat Bolger calls a crab skiff and Dynamite calls Surf. It didn't look like much and I figured Bolger had finally designed a real dud.
But a week or two later we got a call from Dynamite on a slow Friday afternoon with an invite to sail Surf, so News Editor Steve Saft and I tried it out. Well, we were amazed.
In an informal race with a Thomaston Galley, another Bolger-Payson boat of about the same size and sail area. the Surf won on all points of sail. We didn't try it, but I suspect the Galley is much sweeter to row than Surf, though with any air at all there's no need to row either boat.
Brooks Townes
Reprinted by permission of National Fisherman, Camden, Maine, September 1975 Issue
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photo by Steve Saft |
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