I've been saving this for you for a while. It seems fitting with the other current sailing events going on. Hang on! Here we go...

I was loading the truck with some old hulls for a dump trip. When this 'Santa Cruz' type guy comes up and asks what I'm doing with them. I told him that I was taking them to the dump, and he expressed interest. I let him have all 6 of the hulls. I drove them to his place waaaay up in the Santa Cruz mountains, where he lives in an old school bus. I didn't ask what he wanted to do with them, as I figured he was going to use them for planters or art, and didn't much care anyway.

Several months later I see this trippy craft being towed into the Harbor. To make this looong story short, I'll let the pics explain the rest.

Several 16's glued together with Styrofoam blocks, painted with recycled paint from the dump, ready for a short jaunt to Hawaii! He was leaving in a week, and it should only take about 6 days at 20 kts!!! Right?




Glued in Jaguar head light. Not currently hooked up...there is no electrical system. See the Jacuzzi cover? Extra flotation!



If there's no wind, no problem, just fire up the Ultralight motor! You don't need a guard on that thing. Your long hippy hair won't get sucked into the prop, the seat is at least 12" from the blades.



The boat floated on its lines and was very stable. Unfortunately, the tiller didn't have clearance between the tips of the prop blades when the rudders were put in the down position. Worked fine with the rudders up. See that chair on the front? It swivels. You sit there to control the 24M kite that drives this machine!



The motor was so loud that all of the neighbors called in to the harbies and they made him shut it down. Who knew it was illegal to use airboats in California harbors?!

He paddled it out of the harbor, then fired up the motor and sailed over to anchor off the wharf. All loaded up, the tips of the prop grazed the water and whipped up a fog of atomized water. It did about .5 knots and made a huge commotion like it was going warp speed. He anchored off SC main beach and swam in. The following week giant blocks of styrofoam were floating onto the beach. It turns out that the glue he used was water soluble. The Oneill Sea Odyssey, Jack O'neill's environmental educational 65' cat had its students plucking boat parts from the sea. The coast guard was notified.

Turns out that sea lions love lounging on nice soft Jacuzzi covers, and about 6 of them were seen on board. More parts drifted away, and the boat was awash under the weight of the sea lions. The motor was submerged.

The coasties made him tow it in, and as he was trying to get it back on his trailer, the waterlogged vessel crushed both of the trailers crossbars. He tied it on and tried to drag the whole mess up the ramp with his minivan, and blew out the tranny. Apparently, the boat was slightly over the towing capacity of the poor van.

He finally got his friends van with a V8 and drug that sucker up to a parking spot in the launch ramp plowing giant grooves in the parking lot. Millions of styrofoam beads were blowing all over the harbor, as he chopped it up with a chainsaw. He didn't quite make it to Hawaii. Maybe next time.

There's a picture of me in the captains chair of this bad boy, but I don't want things like that on the internet in case I want to run for president someday. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />