A Brief Lesson in Marine Engineering This little memory just popped into my head this weekend while watching efforts to recover a Fire Department air boat in a nearby town. It's a short tale with a bit of a cautionary message to any aspiring marine engineers or designers. This would fall into the "lessons learned the hard way" school of thought. The photos above show a little of the building and operating of a small "hydroplane" style boat that is fairly easy to construct and operate. Usually. When I was about to go into high school, uncle R let up a little on the chores and allowed me to do a couple jobs away from the farm to earn some pocket money. At that time, labor laws were really non-existant or loosely enforced. I was already delivering a number of daily papers every morning while my aunt delivered milk. As soon as R told me I could look for an additional part-time job for the summer if I so desired, I was off and running. By the evening of the first day of job hunting I'd secured a job in a local hot dog stand that was regionally famous for its meatball style sandwiches. These consisted of a sausage-shaped meatball in a hot dog bun with spaghetti sauce and cheese. There was also the usual variety of hamburgers, hot dogs, etc on offer. That, however, is unimportant to this story, other than the fact the stand employed another lad who was a friend of mine. This other lad lived on the lake we had our summer cottage on, only he was a bit farther down in another part of the lake and lived there year-round. He and I had known each other for years in school, although we were never close as we were a year apart in grades. As a result of his living so close to the farm and working with me, we struck up a close friendship and started spending a lot of the few free hours we had together. One thing led to another, and soon he was helping me on the farm and with my paper route in exchange for guaranteed transportation to and from town to work in the food stand. The pay wasn't high, but we had simple tastes and it included all the food we wanted to eat at work. One neat rule was that you "ate your mistakes". After work and on days off, we found ourselves spending many hours together. One thing about two young fellows with a combination of spending money, access to a machine shop, access to a garage with a woodworking shop, and free time, is that they will eventually find a way to combine all these factors to amuse themselves. We were no different. As I started spending some time at his house, we got nosing around his dad's woodshop. His dad was a truck driver and often gone for weeks at a time earning a living. This left the woodshop at our mercy. Eventually, while poking around in the stack of magazines in the shop, we stumbled across an article that detailed plans for constructing a hydroplane. What a great idea. We had a lake, woodshop, time, and ability. What a wonderful thing we'd decided to do, construct a hydroplane and use it with his dad's little outboard motor. The plans called only for things we had at hand, and we felt we were blessed with more than adequate building talent. As luck would have it, his dad had a generous supply of marine quality plywood sheets of various thicknesses. Uncle R had all the raw materials required to construct the engine mounting fittings, steering components, and other assorted metal parts in his machine shop. He even had the steering wheel of an old tractor somebody gave him hanging on the wall. My friend's dad had glue, fasteners, caulk, clamps, work benches, etcetera. We were good to go. Over the next two weeks or so, our desires, energy, talents, and a lot of trial and error, resulted in the completion of a small hydroplane similar to the one shown above. We were walking on air and filled with excitement as late one evening, having determined the craft was water worthy, we wheeled it on his dad's utility trailer across the lawn from the shop to the dock. His mom, sisters, cousins, and uncle were all there to see the launch. Actually they were simply swimming, but we took their presence as a ready-made cheering section as we manhandled the little boat to the edge of the dock and into the water. Success, it really floated. Having this good fortune buoyed our egos and we decided we'd tie it to the dock and wait until the following day, a Sunday, to add the finishing touches and give our little marvel a proper test run in the daylight. It being a Sunday, and himself in a really good mood, uncle R and F decided to come see the terrific little boat I kept going on about. As soon as morning chores were completed, we were off in the old farm truck. My pal's dad had a small aluminum fishing boat with a gas tank and ten horsepower outboard motor. Just the exact thing our creation was designed to have as the maximum sized power plant. We put the gas tank full of fuel in its holder first. Still afloat. Add driver, still good. Last touch, uncle R helped me transfer the outboard from one boat to the other. Miracle of miracles, still on top of the water with driver, fuel, and motor. What a coup this was. My friend started the motor, sat at the wheel, reached back and shifted into gear, and slowly added power. The little craft moved smartly away from the dock. Now gaining in confidence, he gradually put the boat through its paces, testing its limits and agility. Everything was a great big success. After zipping around the cove for about ten minutes he pulled up to the dock grinning from ear to ear. He gave me a quick rundown on the finer points of the handling aspects and I was aboard and off. What a sensation! This thing was a true marvel of marine construction. We spent the rest of that day playing with our new toy and showing off our expertise. All was well with the world and all things in it. Monday was a work day with no time to play on the lake. We still went to his house in late evening to admire our little vessel. On arriving at the dock, we found our boat had been joined by another, larger craft. Seems my friend's uncle had just bought a sixteen foot run-about with a forty horsepower Mercury outboard. We checked it all out, started the motor, and generally ignored our own smaller toy. The following day we both had free time after chores and decided to resume playing with our new gadget. On arriving at his house we found a note from his mom saying they'd all gone to the city and would return the following day. This set the stage for the disaster that was soon to befall us that sunny day. After playing with our boat and discovering we could operate it at its maximum limits of power easily, we started doing that most dangerous of all things for young boys to do. We started speculating and theorizing about how to get more performance from the little boat. We discussed and discarded several ideas before hitting upon the obvious solution that stared us in the face. Bigger motor, more performance, maximum fun! His uncle's boat with its slim, sleek, enticing, forty-horse Mercury was just begging us to notice it. As it was, we both hit on the idea simultaneously. A few quick calculations, completely ignoring the instructions about ten being maximum horsepower for the hydroplane, and we were all set. The motor would fit, it didn't seem much bigger than the bulky motor with less power, and we were certain it would be fine. Having convinced ourselves of our genius, we quickly made the motor swap. This was a true stroke of genius! The first thing we noticed, which would have tipped off wiser heads to a problem, was that the little boat was a tad rear-heavy. As my friend started to assume the driving position, the back of the boat crept perilously down in the water. He promptly exited the boat and we started brainstorming how to solve the problem. After a few minutes of discussion, we decided the solution was for myself to carefully hold up the rear of the boat until sufficient power was added to propel it forward. We had decided, correctly as it turns out, that once in motion the plane blades and propeller would eliminate the sinking tendency caused by the heavier motor's weight. We were true mechanical and boatbuilding whizzes! The best! Sure enough, as he started the engine and gradually added power in gear, the weight lessened on my arms from supporting the thing. As I felt it safe and let go, the little boat smoothly pulled away from the dock. Soon my pal was having the time of his life guiding our now high performance craft about the lake. After about ten minutes of watching I signalled for my turn at the helm. Seeing my signal, my friend abruptly swung the boat about to return to the dock. As he did this, he hit the waves from his own wake at an angle, allowing a large quantity of water to enter the craft. This in itself wasn't fatal to the little vessel, but my pal's inexperienced reaction was devastating in its effect. He abruptly pulled back on the throttle lever, thinking to slow down & recover control. Unfortunately, this, in combination with a sudden sloshing of water over the engine, was enough to cause a sudden stoppage of all motor activity. And yes, fifty feet from the dock, in about thirty feet of clear blue water, our little jewel found its way under the surface of the lake. My pal, wearing his bulky life preserver, slowly made his way ashore, and there we sat. Two shell-shocked young boys, with absolute knowledge that when the uncle returned we were goners. That was one of the most miserable afternoons in my memory. We were so totally devastated that we sat there long past evening chore time. When I failed to show for chores, F came seeking me out. When we told him what had happened he abruptly sat down on a lawn chair speechless. My pal's uncle had much the same reaction. Although we recovered the little boat and paid for repairing the engine, neither of us recovered enough from our mistake to resume our budding careers as marine designers. Until next time, take care.

A Short Account of My First Money-driven Enterprise Although I worked long hours around the farms, I received no wages. I think it was assumed it was in exchange for my room and board. What I now know, is that the most valuable thing I earned there was a set of life lessons that have served me exceedingly well over the years. I did, however, wish to have some money of my own, other than what I got sporadicaly from Dad or my uncle. It was this desire for financial freedom of a sort that led to my devising many ways of generating income over the years. I've been lucky in that the very worst of my efforts and ideas have resulted in breaking even. Some have provided a good return, and most a modest return. To this day I seem to always be on the lookout for a "project" of some sort. My first effort took place in the winter of my first year on the farm and, as much as I hate to admit it, my cousin "the princess" was the inspiration. She was in her early teens and had just been "discovered" by the local boys, who came in an endless line to take her places now uncle R allowed her to go on dates. One factor of these outings seemed to be more beneficial to myself and my aunt, both chocolate junkies. All these young men arrived bearing a gift, and it was invariably the same every week, a box of chocolates. This was, in my eyes, a wonderful thing, as "the princess" didn't care for chocolate and my aunt and I would have a good supply until the next "date" arrived. It got me wondering though, what else was there suitable to give a girl? On the next few trips on the milk route with my aunt, I did some quick investigating in all the local stores. They all offered the same gifts, chocolates and flowers. The flowers were far more expensive there in winter, so the chocolates were the obvious choice of those of meager means. After running it around in my head for a bit, I settled on a plan. I would offer a treat "the princess" loved in hopes others would feel the same, or want something different. I also had observed the prices of the gifts on offer and thought I could at least equal them. The first step of my plan took me to the woodpile by the sugar house in search of the right material. I finally located a good-sized log of ash, a very hard and durable wood. Then to the workshop in back of the barn to see if I could fashion what I needed. The result was a wooden knife/spatula similar to the wooden knife pictured. Mine was a bit thinner with a fairly sharp edge. I then tested my knives on a few apples from F's storage cellar below his barn. Finding them up to the task, I proceeded to produce as many as I could get from the log. Step two involved bargaining with F and Mrs F for materials. From F I got an agreement to buy, on installments with immediate delivery to me, a quantity of McIntosh apples and honey. With Mrs F I struck a similar bargain for some jars she used for selling jams and the pretty boxes she sold the jams and jellies in. Then on to my aunt for a number of leftover bows of the type used for Christmas presents. I also got some old wrapping tissue and a bottle of glue. My operation was almost complete. The boxes, having dividers splitting them into four equal parts were perfect, that, and that they were in pinks, reds, and yellows. Into each box I placed three juicy, red apples, each wrapped in tissue. Then I added one of the small jars about three-fourths full of fresh honey. Lastly, I added a wooden knife to slice the apple and spread the honey along with five paper napkins appropriated from my aunt's picnic supply chest. Then on went the box lid with a pretty bow glued in the center and tied nicely with white string "borrowed" from my aunt. Once I had fifteen of these packages ready to sell, I figured up all my expenses for the whole of my materials and arrived at a sum of $2.25 per box for the fifteen initial boxes. Then I added in fifty cents for the store owner and seventy-five cents for me. After discussing this with my aunt and Mrs F, they smiled and said it was a good idea, all the while exchanging those looks with each other that said I was a cute but silly eight-year-old boy with daydreams. This made me even more determined than ever to succeed. So, the next morning I loaded all fifteen of my "gift" boxes in the station wagon to distribute while on the milk run. My aunt was confused when I said I didn't want to go to the grocery stores to display my goods, directing her instead to the drug store of the first town on our route. After a bit of haggling and receiving even more bemused smiles, I managed to talk all the drug stores, general stores, and most importantly, beer stores, to display my boxes , one opened for display, beside their candy boxes. The next day, much to my aunt's amazement, all of my boxes, even the display boxes were sold. It seems I figured rightly that folks wanted something different, many liked apple slices and honey, and my most important calculation, it had been payday when I first displayed them. I knew from my friends that many of their fathers stopped in the beer stores payday on the way home and most got something for their moms as well. This was probably to mitigate the anger received from the moms over the beer purchase. Whatever the reason for the success, I was elated, the store owners were happy for a quick profit for almost no work, and I was planning how many boxes to place the next week. I figured that by only putting them out on paydays and special days, they'd seem more special. As I'd bought a fair quantity of materials and figured all my costs into the first fifteen boxes, it was a long time before all the sales weren't pure profit beyond the store's cut. I continued this into the late spring when I put it on hold until the next winter, when people were again cooped up in their houses and looking for something special. I think the most satisfying part was when I went to the local bank with my profits and asked, very business-like, to speak to the bank manager. He, like my aunt and others had, treated me to a bemused smile when I said I wanted to open an account. I'll never forget the look on his face, after he explained how I needed at least one dollar to open an account and asked me in a condescending manner if I had that much and ended calling me "little fella", when I pushed $312.50 across his desk and asked if this was "enough". I got my bank account and gained a bit of self esteem for being able to show people I could really do things. I'm not sure what course my life would've taken had this venture been a big flop. Thankfully, it proved to me that careful planning and attention to little things about people's behavior pays dividends. Until the next time, take care.