(Reports from 2003)


Messabouts & Raids:

Sept 25 - Texas - John Welsford at Canyon Lake

October 2 - Maryland - John Welsford at Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival

October 9 - Texas - 2nd Annual Palacios Raid

Information

This boat was built in Rostock, Germany in the 1950's. Please let me know if you have any information about it. More pictures at the page below.

https://www.album.ee/alek535

alek lemkov


Chuck,

I just bought a new Ryobi BT3100-1 table saw to replace my 40-yr old Craftsman radial arm saw. While researching what saw to buy, I came across a terrific user's site for this saw: https://www.bt3central.com/
(This site was part of the reason I chose to buy this saw.)

Anyway, this is just in the way of introduction to the real reason for this message. While browsing this site's "Getting Started" forum, I came across a reference to "Bird's Mouth Joinery Bits."

Besides selling these router bits, the site has a very helpful instruction booklet on their use... not just for spars, but for trunk lids, baby cribs, vases, etc.

This is very timely for me since I am finally ready to try my hand at bird's mouth spars for a Bolger Cartopper I am building.

David Farless


Amphicars

(from Gizmo.com.au)


(click to enlarge)

Making serious waves in the burgeoning amphibious car market is the new sleek-looking Camaro-style amphibious sports car which has recently broken the top speed record on water.

The average motor owner might well be inclined to think that watergoing automobiles are the stuff of James Bond movies, but the trend is clear that amphibious vehicles are now viable and practical with such a large percentage of the world's population living close to the water and technology advancing at unprecedented rates. In the past few months we've written about several new and promising amphibious cars such as the Gibbs Aquada, the Gibbs Humdinga 4WD amphibian, the Rinspeed Splash, the Australian Phibicat, and even the amphibious Kiwi boat, the SeaLegs. We even unearthed the German-built Amphicar of the sixties, the most viable mass market attempt to date.


On the Market: Houseboats

Gallery: Rethink your idea of houseboat living. These babies are big, brassy, and beautiful.
September 15, 2004: 1:46 PM EDT
By Les Christie, CNN/Money contributing writer

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - As Americans have taken to the pleasures of boating, it was perhaps inevitable that many would so embrace the activity that they would abandon land altogether -- at least in their leisure time.

One sign of the times: Houseboat ownership is flourishing, with more than 20,000 in use in the United States, according to Tim Gottschalk of Houseboating World, a Web site (www.houseboatingworld.com) devoted to houseboating enthusiasts. Perhaps as many as 1,000 are produced each year.

Click HERE for more....


Seen from the air on a lake just outside New Orleans. Sort of an iffy thing for waterskiers and canoe sailors, I'd say.

Chris Ostlind

Palacios TX Dinghy Dash - Oct 2004

We are having a casual cruise / race where we sail out to a beach and camp there overnight then head 7 miles back the next day.

Everyone is welcome - there is a launch ramp only 1.5 miles away.

Full info about the event here:
https://www.tcboats.com/palacios/ddash.htm

Bill Tosh


Remember the sailcar that was at the Lake Charles Messabout? Here are the plans for sale. Want to get a 'fleet' going?

Ken Abrarhams

https://www.unclejohns.com/landsailer


Team Coast Guard trains local Law Enforcement in Small Boat Handling

Members of the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary, with support and facilities provided by their Active Duty counter-parts will participate in a 10 day training session for the Officers of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department (PAPD), starting 26 July 2004.

The first of a series of courses, the Small Boat Handling Course for Local Law Enforcement, created by the Staff of the Director of Auxiliary, First Coast Guard District, Southern Region is the first of its kind in the New York Metropolitan area.

The Port Authority Police Department is the 24th largest police department in the nation. The Police Officers, who serve at one of the four Airport Commands, are also cross-trained in structural firefighting, emergency first aid and now small boat handling. Both the John F Kennedy Command, at New York’s JFK Airport and the LaGuardia Command at New York’s LaGuardia Airport are surrounded by water.

The first course will take place at the PAPD training center, at JFK, and in the waters of Jamaica Bay, the Narrows and the Atlantic Ocean. This course is utilizing the skills and experiences of over twenty-five members of the Coast Guard Auxiliary as well as the men and women from CG Station New York. Also schedule to participate are members of Air Station Atlantic City. Subsequent courses are scheduled to be run at both JFK and LaGuardia airports.

The United States Coast Guard Auxiliary is the uniformed civilian volunteer component of the Coast Guard, operating both their own vessels and on Coast Guard assets in all missions of the Coast Guard except military and direct law enforcement. The Auxiliary, which was created by Congress in 1941 currently, has over 35,000 members.

All Auxiliary members participating in this course are volunteers, freely giving their time and knowledge to increasing Homeland Security, here in New York City, as well as nationwide.

The Small Boat Handling Course concept was born when Inspector Kenneth Honig, Commanding Officer of the JFK Command, PAPD approached a Coast Guard Auxiliarist, seeking assistance in finding suitable trainers for his men in small boat handling. The idea was then brought to the attention of CDR John Felker, the Director of Auxiliary for the First Coast Guard District, Southern Region, which encompasses the area from Southern New Jersey to Connecticut, west to Vermont and Great Lakes region of New York. CDR Felker enthusiastically embraced the concept, assigning his Operations Training Officer, Chief Warrant Officer Mark Ferreira to assist the Auxiliary with the development of the appropriate course(s).

The Auxiliary tailored the Small Boat Handling Course to meet the needs of this unique Police Department, and their Marine Bureau’s unique mission. What makes the PAPD marine mission unique is that their craft is a “Life Raft Distribution Vessel” (LRDV), with secondary missions as a Patrol and/or Search and Rescue vessel. The PAPD’s Marine Bureau’s primary mission is to distribute life rafts at a scene of an aircraft landing that occurs in the waters around the airport. Their LRDV boats are capable of distributing life rafts that can hold up to three hundred people, in case of an accidental waterborne landing.

In addition to these shallow draft vessels, the PAPD also has jet-ski type boats and air-boats, similar to what is used in the Florida Keys to navigate the large marsh areas that make up Jamaica Bay, the primary waters surrounding JFK Airport.

Other courses that are being developed for both the PAPD and local law enforcement are Cold Water operations, Air Boat operations and JetSki boat operations.

Wayne Spivak, BC-AIG, N-IC
National Press Corps
National Public Affairs Department
United States Coast Guard Auxiliary