Great Houston Boat Tour, pt. 1

A couple weeks ago, I had to make a run to get more marine plywood for the boat. Unfortunately for me, that means a 200 mile drive from Denton to Houston. Does that seem odd? Yeah, I think so too, but it turns out that NOT ONE lumberyard in the entire Metroplex carries any form of marine-grade plywood with the exception of one or two that occasionally carry marine fir, which is pretty much useless unless one plans to fiberglass every bit of exposed plywood. This is because the fir panels check badly even when coated with multiple layers of epoxy coating. The only way to stop it is to encase it in fiberglass which makes it unnecessarily heavy and negates any cost savings you might have gained by buying cheaper plywood.

So, off to Houston I went. Sure I could have had a load of wood shipped to me for about the same amount I was about to spend on gas, but there was more to this trip than just shopping. There were boat projects to see. There are several people in the Houston area who have recently built boats and my plan was to see them all. So I made my way to Houston Hardwoods to pick up my plywood, then continued down the highway to Lake Jackson to see my friends Kevin and Joy. Kevin is one of the founding members of the Texas Proa Mafia. For some reason, the Texas gulf coast has become a bit of a hotbed for proa design and sailing. If you are not familiar with the concept of a proa, I won’t go into it here. Instead, Kevin’s Wikiproa webpage is probably the most complete web resource on the subject. You can find it here.

So, boat number one in the Great Houston Boat Tour was Kevin’s lime green schooner rigged proa, Skate. This boat has been through a number of modifications and rig changes over the years, all of which I have seen up close. In fact, I like to claim some design consultation credit for a few of the mods. And for as much crap as I give him about the odd design, I will be the first to admit, he has got that sucker worked out nicely. It’s fast, easily handled in a wide range of conditions and just plain fun to sail. But that color...




Next, we went a few miles from Kevin's to see the Laguna built by Gordo. The Laguna is a Jim Michalak design of 23 feet with a narrow beam of about 4 feet. It was commissioned by Chuck Leinweiber of Duckworks as a special desing for the Texas 200. It has a flat bottomed hull and carries two masts but can be sailed with just one of them stepped in a center position. But the really cool thing about Gordo’s boat came from his storage requirements. He needed to be able to store the boat on a trailer in an apartment storage shed which to my eye looked to be about 18 feet deep. So, how do you make this happen? Well, by building the boat with detachable sections. Several feet at the bow and stern are built as self-contained sections fully bulkheaded with fittings that allow them to mount onto the central hull section. So for storage, each of these sections are detached and simply lifted into the main hull for storage. Pretty cool, huh?







Gordo also did something on his build that I greatly admire. He built it quickly and then went sailing. I seem to be incapable of doing this myself. I have a tendency to agonize over small details, and I’m sure I’ll be happy with my boat when I’m done. But while I’m fretting, Gordo is sailing, a lot. He built the boat several months ago and I guarantee has already sailed it more than most people sail their boats in ten years. Hats off to ya, Gordo.



Our next stop was back into Houston to see Laurent Coquilleau’s white proa. The trip from Lake Jackson takes you up highway 288 past the statue of Stephen F. Austin and his giant, uhhh, scroll.



I won’t go into this in any more detail other than to say that I can never drive this stretch of highway without giggling like a fourth grader. I like to think the sculptor knew exactly what he was doing when he placed the statue that way.

More boat tour stuff soon…