Hi, all. I just discovered this forum and am looking forward to reading a lot of the older posts, as well.
My grandfather loved wooden boats. When I was a kid, we had 5 of them: two Adirondack lapstrake rowboats, a 1924 Old Town wood/canvas canoe with mahogany trim, a Barnegat Bay sneak box (short, broad-beam, shallow-draft sailboat with a gaff rig) affectionately named the Doodlebug, and a car-top runabout used for a fishing boat. He also had an antique Lawson 4-stroke outboard that probably weighed more than the entire runabout to make 10 HP, but it you were small enough, sat in the middle seat, and used a bamboo extender for the throttle, you could (barely) get it up on plane.
The sailboat was gone before I was out of grade school -- too much for him to maintain. But my grandfather refinished the other 4 boats on a 4-year cycle, one every summer. Of course, as a 13-year-old kid I wanted nothing to do with it -- too busy hanging out with friends. Now of course I wish I'd paid attention. We still have the canoe, the 16-foot rowboat, and the runabout.
I've lived in that canoe summers my whole life. I'm generally alone in it, so I sit in the bow and paddle backward and I have the bow thwart out, but I still have it. Hope my kids will love the canoe as much as I did. Besides, it makes me feel good because it's older than I am and still hanging in there.
My grandfather loved wooden boats. When I was a kid, we had 5 of them: two Adirondack lapstrake rowboats, a 1924 Old Town wood/canvas canoe with mahogany trim, a Barnegat Bay sneak box (short, broad-beam, shallow-draft sailboat with a gaff rig) affectionately named the Doodlebug, and a car-top runabout used for a fishing boat. He also had an antique Lawson 4-stroke outboard that probably weighed more than the entire runabout to make 10 HP, but it you were small enough, sat in the middle seat, and used a bamboo extender for the throttle, you could (barely) get it up on plane.
The sailboat was gone before I was out of grade school -- too much for him to maintain. But my grandfather refinished the other 4 boats on a 4-year cycle, one every summer. Of course, as a 13-year-old kid I wanted nothing to do with it -- too busy hanging out with friends. Now of course I wish I'd paid attention. We still have the canoe, the 16-foot rowboat, and the runabout.
I've lived in that canoe summers my whole life. I'm generally alone in it, so I sit in the bow and paddle backward and I have the bow thwart out, but I still have it. Hope my kids will love the canoe as much as I did. Besides, it makes me feel good because it's older than I am and still hanging in there.
Can anyone tell me what the capital cursive letters before "ends" mean?
