Boat Plans Bruce Roberts | Men and stuff

Boat Plans Bruce Roberts

Back in the early days of Hells Bay Boatworks while laying on my bed in a hotel room in Atlanta Gerogia in the early morning hours, watching tv I got an idea. I was in this hotel room at 6:00 in the morning wide awake killing time flipping channels waiting to go sell our boats and ideas at the Mark Castlow Shallow water fly fishing and boat show.

These boat show fishing tackle meet the celbrity shows were lots of fun,and a lot of work for me.

Iam not a fishing fanatic like most everybody that comes to these show and buys my boats.

I have worked in and out of this industry for 34 plus years in a world of fishing rods, gear , skiffs and people that I can relate to but look at from an outside view. I have never felt the need to build my own flats skiff, tie my own flies, get up every waking chance to try and catch fish. I have in my younger days really enjoyed sight fishing in my dinghys, never liked trolling or bait fishing. But I do enjoy fishing when I fish. And I like to fish to catch, and to catch to eat. So.. I do fish.

 Watching that morning a fishing show with a couple of guys catching Strippers up north in some basic skiff I noticed that they were using Tibor Everglades fly reels and the two of them were just going on about how they loved these reels. I had meet Ted Jurasick when he had come to us to buy one of our early Whiprays. I really liked his straight way of talking, to the point. He made these reels as a hobby business but being Ted it was a good money making business. His reels were beautiful and really worked well. These two guys were goggo over them.

At the boat shows I met a lot of guys that had over a hundred rod sets in their garages. They bought them slowly so I guess the wives would not notice the $100,000.00 in tackle sitting there .

Lots of guys wanted to buy our boats, they were expensive, most came to the shows to talk to us,get the latest news and would order a skiff a month or so later. At a Castlow show I would be talking non stop for ten hours. 

My idea was this ; what if at these shows I could have a Tibor reel in my hand worth at that time retail 

$540.00 and just say to anyone that walked up , hey buy a boat and get this reel for FREE !

Hal liked this idea. We went to Ted to see how much or how little he could sell them to us. 

Ted liked the idea too. He said he wanted a Guide skiff so would trade them. His price to us for each reel would be $320.00 . To make the reels unique he would machine red handles, and all the parts that were normally black plastic would now be in aluminum like the rest of the reel. To top it off he would engrave our company name and the name of each skiff bought and its hull number. We received if I remember right about 86 reels for the skiff we built him.

At the next show I sold 4 boats with the guy explaining to his wife , "look I got this reel for free and all I had to do was buy this skiff."Guys loved this sales ploy. I say guys here as we only sold a few boats to women.

About three months later we ended up in a marketing deal with Orvis . They approached us wanting to have an Orvis boat available in their catalog. They printed 15 million catalogs a year. They liked our company and boat so much they wanted to be associated with it. They would pay for the photo shoot,

Put our name and phone numbers in a full page ad and all boat sales would go to us. All they wanted was a dark green HBBWs skiff with the Orvis logo on the side. They also would fill our boat up with Orvis fly rods and reels at all the boat shows we went to. The three of us would be put on the Orvis guide plan so could buy their stuff way below cost.

Flip did not like Orvis gear so much. Hal was not a past fan. We recived a bunch of new fly rods which Hal tried out. He said they had gotten their act together . I thought that a company as big and as long lasting as Orvis that was wanting to be associated with us was great. We made the deal. 

We never sold an Orvis boat. 

But tons of averge guys that could afford Orvis stuff came by and were very happy to see us with them.

After this Teds reels were out. Ted understood. 26 of the 86 reels went with boats.

Keep a look out for them. If you have one send me a photo.

Two of mine.

Phil Woodam just sent me these photos of his never used one.

Miguel Morejohn has used his non stop catching fish.

Wish we had fish like this here in the Bahamas.

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Plywood Boat Plans Australia | Todays motor home on the water

Plywood Boat Plans Australia

I like to sail on boats that I can see and feel the wind. By seeing the wind I can see the ripples on the water, by feeling the winds I can tell when running down wind at night how far the wind has veered by the feel of it against my ears and neck. I also sail to see and enjoy the pure energy of how a vessel moves along by the force of the wind. When entering a Harbour under sail all my senses are on alert to avoid shoals ,other boats and to see a possible wind shift.

So my sailboats are very clean of gear on deck and around the cockpit. At sea I can rig in a second a nice sun awning from the boom gallows to the aft railing supports that were made for this. When its blowing hard I take this awning down and now have a clear view. When going to weather in rough going the wind vane steers the boat and I can just sit in the doghouse and watch the world go by. 

Coming into port in nasty weather I done foul weather gear and just deal with it. At anchor we have a very nice awning setup.

Todays group of sailors think in a different way. These people were raised on tv , computers , video games and commuting by car long distances while talking on the phone and listening to talk show hosts that are bitching about something. These people are used to being in enclosed areas on the way to work, at work and when they get back home. One day they decide to become a sailor - cruiser and start on the computer looking up what they need to live on a boat that will make them feel at home.

This trend has brought us the Island Packet crowd, the huge Room-Ma-Ran catamaran crowd and all the other group of sailors that want to stay under cover till the last instant when one of them has to go forward and lower the anchor. Otherwise they want to stay in what is the equivalent of a sailing motor home. In the typical cockpit of one of these vessels you will have a steering wheel that is over shadowed by a huge GPS system flanked by the VHF and loud hailer . To see around this getup one must stand up on tip toes to see over. Now the compass is in there somewhere but this crowd has the GPS full map system so who needs to look at that , all i need is my waypoint book .

Sailing under a fully enclosed Florida Room like you see on the intra costal where they enclose half the property and pool area under a huge screen cage . Side flaps down , the little window to maybe look up at the set of the mainsail but who does that and the sun might find me so its closed.

What the whole sailing experience comes down to is seeing the goose neck of the main boon and maybe the genoa tack at the bow.

Sensory deprivation at its best. But hey the sun cant find you under  all this crap.

At night with the GPS TV show going on all night vision is gone . But the good this is theyre in the safety compound of the FLORIDA ROOM.

Id rather experience the sea that I sail on. 

Todays floating CARAVAN-MOTORHOME at rest . They have missed the channel completely . The wind is in the east coming from their stern . They have set the anchor to leeward in the channel they should have been in. Three more of their tribe are consoling and trying to figure out what to do. 

In passing by in our dinghy going home I suggested to put a kedge out to windward and put a strain on it so when the tide floats them they will be heading into the wind and not drifting into the channel and onto the leeward rocks. They got off fine.

But iam sure they missed the channel because they were not looking at it but at their GPS TV show

Enclosed in the saftey of the FLORIDA  ROOM.

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Boden Boat Plans Australia | Building skiffs in the Bahamas

Boden Boat Plans Australia

27 years ago my marriage to Lawanda ended. Quite simply we grew apart. She wanted a more stable life and I just wanted to keep on looking to see what was around the next point of land.

We had that year finished building the Hogfish and had sailed to Spanish Wells in the Bahamas to start a boat building company there to build out board powered skiffs to be used in the lobster and scale fish industrys there. Spanish Wells is known for their great fishermen, and farmers but had never had a boatbuilding economy. Boat building in the Bahamas was done in the Abacos mostly in Cherrokee , Man O War Cay, and sporadic one off boats in the out islands by individuals. In Man O War cay the Alburys had been building dinghys, skiffs, power skiffs and large custom yachts for several hundred years. All in wood. In the last century the Alburys in several different familys had moved into fiberglass 

Boat production . Willard Albury had the most sought after hull in fiberglass at this time. His main market was in Spanish Wells for the Crawfish industry. Tourism in rental boats had not been started.

The Alburys had been building for many years one off carvel planked skiffs . The wood crooks and knees they needed had become scarce. Also good planking pine was hard to find. They made the move to fiberglass.

I had been coming to Spainish wells since 1977 . Lawanda and I had bought a piece of land there in 78 . I loved the people and fell in with them easily as I loved spear fishing and building boats. They always had boats to repair and fish to kill. We settled into a routine of sailing over from the Florida keys in June and I would work on skiffs to get them ready for the August Crawfish season. I was able to go away for several August fishing trips that would last for 3 weeks. In doing this I was able to spend lots of sea time in all the Abaco skiffs, from wood hulls to the 3 models that were built in fiberglass.

 The Alburys are excellent builders. Their fiberglass boats will last forever. Just beautiful.

My buddys in Spanish Wells were always after me to come over and build skiffs for them. The Alburys were a year behind in orders. Every year boats were lost and the wood boats were dying off.

The year before Lawanda and I had lost our Morgan 34 at sea .( another story) . We had built the Hogfish so this seemed like the perfect job to get us back on our feet and in the Bahamas full time.

Work permits were not a problem. 

When Willard Albury went from wood to glass he picked what at the time was a big hull at 183" long with a nice vee. These boats had when built in wood a spray rail that ran the length of the boat that was 11/2 " wide the whole length. In going to glass he tapered it as it neared the bow. These skiffs also had very tight radiuses on all edges. The boats have a very distinctive look. They are built in solid glass to massive dimensions.

What the locals asked me to do was come up with a bigger longer skiff. More vee as Willards skiff at certain angles would " spank" . The boats slid in a turn, make a mold for a center console , do each boat as a custom order to fit the client ,make it look the same and could I soften the edges a bit.  

Having been in many skiffs at that point fishing and traveling around in up to8 seas for days on end I had a good vision.

The new boat was194" long , deep vee with lifting strakes, freeboard the same as the smaller skiffs, but the spray rail was wider and ran all the way to the bow.

During the start up of this project my marriage ended with Lawanda. She moved to the states to do her thing. I ended up with the Hogfish and all our dept. 

While building the plugs for this skiff I looked up one day to see Rachel looking over the sheer in the skiff hull I was fitting the stringer plug in. 

Long story short it was love at first sight. 26 years later and lots of adventures we are now getting ready for our next cruise. If you do things well in life you get to live many different lives.

After launching hull number one it went off to sea the next day for 23 days. When they came back the word was this was it. The next day we had orders for 29 boats with deposits.

Willard Albury switched to building rental skiffs .

153 skiffs were made from the molds I built. Today half the skiffs in Spanish Wells are these boats and the other half are the modern Panga boats which are better suited to the industry now.

Rachel and I stayed there for 2 years, had our daughter Kalessin and when she was 6 months gave notice and sailed away for ten years. 

We eventually came back and built our home here. I like it here because every one has at one time or another been to sea in my skiff. If you sail into the harbor here just ask anyone for Chris the boat builder. Theyll tell you whats up with my life .

Putty on the plug.

Spraying primer on for final fairing.

Plugg mover around for more space. Waxed.

New shop built. I built all the plugs and molds on a sloping shop space at the water front as they took forever to build the shop. Was a pain to level every thing up.

Mold ready to pull. I like to core my molds. Nobody would belive that it would come loose.

Made my day!

 

My young workers 15&16 years old. Spanish Wells is a white community of Bahamaians that have lived on this island for 350 years. The young boys at the time would finish school at 15 . By 16 or so they would find a fishing boat to go away on. 

Moving into new shop

Laying up hull # 1

# 1 going in 

Production going on. The young Black Bahamians that worked for me were 16 years old when they started. After I left they went on to build 143 more boats with my training over a 14 year period.

Rachel Married me on the beach here. Her only request was that I wear a belt. We were bare foot when married. In cutting the first piece of cake her mom had brought this small wedding cake knife for me to use, I pulled out this cutlass and  did the job the proper way.

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