Where do home built boats go in the afterlife? I hope
someplace nice.

About eight years ago I built a variation of Bolger's
Shoebox pram, a very simple and functional dinghy. It was 6'
loa and straight sided, would hold two people for a quick
row ashore; one person and some dunnage. One sheet of
plywood, about 30' fiberglass tape, white porch paint, and
that cheap spray-in foam. The most expensive part of it, by
far, was the oars & oarlocks.

The real benefit was that it would fit inside my minivan or
down the companionway of a 28' sloop to be stowed out of the
way. It was kind of cute ...one of my innovations was making
side decks out of the scrap from cutting out the bottom
rocker, so it looked like it had some shape to the hull.
made it more rigid too. Had lots of advetnures in this boat
including running some rapids, surfing, open water rowing in
about 6' chop... this dinghy was towed & rowed across many
bodies of water between Hilton Head & Cape Cod.

Well it was made out of lauan underlayment, and another of
my innovations was to thin the epoxy as I painted it onto
the raw wood. I don't know which of the above two is the
cause, but after two seasons the boat developed dime size
rotten spots on the bottom. I just ignored them for another
year, then it began leaking where a couple of soft spots
intersected the chine, so the boat got moved to the side
yard, where it sat upside down for at least a year.

About 3 years ago I flipped the boat right side up and
decided to use it for a yard waste storage box. I figured
the whole thing would eventually compost. I thought it would
take longer than 3 years, but we did a big yard clean-up
project this weekend and the mulch pile was moved. I found
the spray-in foam, looking pretty much the same as when it
came out of the can. I found about five or six feet of
fiberglass tape, still painted white. I found about a dozen
random looking pieces of spongy wood, painted white. I found
the bow line, which will probably be re-used once it gets
run thru the washer.

Still got the oars & oarlocks, which are being used on our
new dinghy. The mulch (very rich & black) is raked into our
front side yard where we have some flowers.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King