Tom Chipley, a lifelong designer of boats, cars, airplanes and all things whimsical, achieved, while reading an issue of Wooden Boat, a higher state. He reasons thusly:

"If Helen of Troy had the beauty to launch a thousand ships... the beauty it must take to launch one little boat is...a milli-Helen, ...right? I also figure a milli-Helen is not very much beauty... probably on the scale of one Bella Abzug or Madeleine Albright. This could be carried to extremes such as a milli-Bella (ugh!)..."

I figure it may have taken half a milli-Helen to launch Crawdad. From this angle, do you see a resemblance to Bella Abzug?

On her way to launch. Note the fine mahogany stern... well, Phillipine mahogany, anyway... okay, okay it's commonly called lauan and it's cheap but finished bright it sure looks good. It's not finished bright yet but when it is, I'll add a new picture.

Miss Robin and Miss Lillian comfortably ensconced for an outing on SparkyBoat, the prototype Crawdad named for my occasionally-dear and recently-departed cat. Note the sophisticated fore-and-aft seating. Crawdad is 4 feet wide since Georgia-Pacific was thoughtful enough to make that decision for me. Minimalists try to waste as little energy and wood as possible. On a less serious note, the beam makes the boat reasonably stable for such a small beastie. It seems tippier than it is because the 4 foot forward height encourages standing. If you move around, she'll dip a little but then stabilizes. When spring returns, I'll take the motor off and see how much abuse she'll take before she dumps me overboard. I think in the biz they call that "determining a stability profile." But then an old, jargon-laden DOT study also referred to "splash-and-spray suppression devices" or... mud flaps.

Many enterprising souls inhabit fishing and boatbuilding communities in coastal North Carolina. They usually find marvelously minimal ways to get done quickly what needs to be done. This boat was moored in an estuary off Harker's Island near Beaufort. I'd like to have seen the light blaze in his brain when he had the notion that his boat and a pickup truck bed had the same width. An amusing solution to a basic need for shelter. This kind of stuff makes me smile and always improves my day.

Bob Martin is an Ozark minimalist who's a living testament to the inverse proportion theorem; that is, "The amount of fun in boating is inversely proportional to the amount spent." He has promised to send pictures of his haven and I'll post them here. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, here's a part of his letter.

"My Dad bought a falling apart twenty-four foot pontoon boat with a 50hp 1983 Johnson, which he shrewdly noted was a very low hour motor. His treacherous eye also noted the falling apart boat was actually a fine set of logs and framework and that simple neglect had ruined everything wood, plastic or vinyl. He bought the whole schmoo for less than the motor booked. He took it home, had it taken home actually, junked everything from the deck up except the railings, steering and control cables, redecked it, stretched some tarps overhead to thwart the sun and he and Mom enjoyed the dickens out of it for a couple of years, even doing some primitive camping in coves here and there. They enjoyed it enough Dad called me and said he was going to build a cabin on it.

Remembering how long they have both wanted a "houseboat", I couldn't wait to help so my wife and I spent one late winter and early spring helping build it. It is way over- engineered; Dad insisted on 2X4 construction, lots of plywood; Mom needed paneling inside ... two people standing near the old Johnson motor on back get their feet wet to the ankles. But the swamping, African Queen looking contraption is entering its seventh year of serious use, has been the site of hundreds of family domino tournaments, its decks have been blessed by tons of flopping fish and has been a floating motel tied up in the back of coves for uncounted two and three day outings. It's produced more memories than a scandal. It gets a lot of laughs from those on their way to or from their twenty-grand toy. We get a lot of conversation from some really interesting people.

The thing has weathered tornadoes and "damaging winds and hail" from our seasonal storms. It has one caved-in panel and one noticeable scrape when a nearby tornado dragged it across the roofed dock it was moored alongside."