Boy Scout Boat Building

Boy Scout Boat Building By ZACK CINEK The Daily Journal
Updated: 04/20/2009 12:00:02 AM PDT

Boat will accompany scouts on future adventures. Hands, 12 of them, and six boys, were at a north Ukiah Main Street building working to finish a wooden boat that they have been working on as a Boy Scout's project Saturday.
When the boat is finished, the boys will hopefully be able to teach other area children how to make the same wooden kit boat, ringleader of the project, Dusty Dillion said.

The boat building kit is designed to take the shape of a boat during the first hours of its construction.

"It is like a boat on noon the first day," Dillion said. Dillion belongs to the Lost Coast Traditional Small Craft Association which produces a kit for building the boat.

The Small Craft Association, Dillion said, has also placed 10 "Building the Weekend Skiff" books as included in the kit into libraries.

Supported by a stand on each end, boy scouts and their adult counter parts worked side by side to smooth up rough edges and fasten new pieces of wood.
Some tightened wood screws, others used carpentry tools to take off rough edges and to cut off excess material. Bending straight pieces of wood to follow the boat's contour took a special touch.

"Wood does not bend well under tension," Dillion said. "It breaks."

The floor of the North Main Street building donated by Dick Seltzer had black and white checkered flooring like that of a high-end workshop.

Donuts and soda were available as refreshments to keep the crew going that had arrived at 8:30 a.m. Saturday.

"That was the first spark of enthusiasm when the donuts came out last week," Tom Force said. Last weekend, the group had worked until about 5 p.m., but the first hours of construction were busy.

Force said it is part of the project's psychology for the project to resemble a boat by noon on day one.

"The enthusiasm slowly became contagious and that will see the project through easy," Force said. "This is the first time we have actually built one from scratch with kids."

"Just cut those in half and we can put some sandpaper on them," Brian Cahill said. Cahill, unit commissioner of the Boy Scouts, was waiting for batteries to charge so he could halve a block of wood to make sanding blocks.

Presiding over the work Saturday were assistant scout masters Antonio Rodriguez and Larry Thompson in addition to Dillion, Cahill and Force.

Force said that the scouts here have a motto of "scouting is outing," and they take trips to places like Point Reyes and Mt. Lassen, for example. "This boat will join them," said Force.

The boat coming to life Saturday was a first for the scouts of Troop 75, but it is one of many built from similar kits. Developed in part at the University of Pennsylvania, about 2,000 have been built.

"The boat can be made to row, sail or power," Dillion said.

It is likely Lake Mendocino, if there is anything left of it, will be the first water that the scout's boat will see.

On the Internet: http://www.tsca.net/LostCoast/