Hi All,

Gee, I don't know if I'm going to get an offer here, but let me provide some
more info...

I grew up in a family of wood-workers and all-around handy people, so I'm
not alien to building something with my own to hands. Hammers, several
types of saws (including a table saw for making raised panel doors that fit
together with slots,) laying concrete, painting... It's an extensive list
with a mother as a woodcarver, and a father who grew up on a farm in the
1920's, when you had to be self-sufficient and know how to fix/build about
anything. (I followed him closely when he built his barn from casting the
foundation up.)

So tools are so stranger to me.

"Jacques Mertens" wrote in message
.. .

We don't expect anybody to work for free, we pay a salary,

Actually, I want to work for free. If you want to chip in 50 bucks or so,
fine. I could use it. Why? I'm not doing anything right now, probably
won't for quite awhile, so have nothing but free time on my hand. Why is
that? I'm coming back from being incredibly weak, and doctor's orders are
that I get busy. I've built up a little bit already with exercising, so I
think I'm up to something part-time, or going to someone's place on the
weekends to help them build their boat if they'll accept me.

The kind of boat I want to eventually build? A proa, a Polynesian boat.
I'm not looking to build boats that are fancy and up to edge of comfort with
huge cabins and seats and steering wheel... Of course, this also means I'll
need to learn to sail when I can't paddle fast enough for the current.
(Sailing I do admit to knowing nothing about.)

There are problems however:
- we are on the East coast of Florida (Vero Beach)

That's a problem. I've got to stay in the Tampa Bay area.

- while we use plywood in most of our boats, we are not wooden boat
builders. The accent in our place is on composites.

I figure that I'm going to have to cover the hull of my proa with
fiberglass, though I'd like to know how to put all the wood together.

Besides that, it is a great position for somebody who wants to learn
because
we experiment a lot.

Great! One thing that drives me nuts is staying stuck in a rut.

Last month we tested a new kit assembly system on a 12'
boat, last week and this week we test paint methods and equipment. In
January we will test a new method to build carbon fiber masts. Later we
will
build a simple vaccum bagging table and build a 25' CoreCell hull to take
pictures used in our online tutorials.
All very interesting but not true wooden boat building.

As long as it *involves* building a wooden boat. One thing that was
dissapointing to me was to find that a lot of modern pleasure boats have a
hull that is simply cast in a mold, then worked on from there. Where's the
satisfaction in that? I might as well carve out a mold if that's the way
it's going to be, and train a monkey to lay/spray the compound in there,
after which I have my hull. No offense to anyone, please.