8/26/08 Random Thoughts, a description of the hoops a builder needs to jump through to get EU Certification for a new boat. It ain't easy but it pays off for the buyer because you know for sure what you're getting.. What's New two new versions of the NW Cruiser 39 and preliminaries for the first of a new DUCK line. Since these boats are more "family" types even though they are fully capable of coastal use, even passages if you watch the seasons, I call them MOTHER DUCKS. For now anyway. Already I hear some people don't like the name and read more things into the name than there is, which is just what I said above.... I'm sticking to it for now anyway!

Building ELLEMAID in Izmir Turkey New Photos added 6/18/08 "Click" Here to follow progress of the construction!

In the 1990's Reg Townsend designed a ship. I did some computer fairing on it and arguing with him and we did his design. Reg went to Malaysia and built her. Here's a series of photos documenting something few of you will ever get a chance to see in this Brave New World; the building of a real wood ship!

Hello. Thanks for checking in on my site here. I wish I could take credit for building it but I can't. My pal Cheryl Thompson who is, if you'll forgive me sounding like a sexist pig, that delightful combination in some women of being both gorgeous and clever, built the original of this and laboriously taught me how to maintain and add to it. Since those days "the net" has exploded and now my sites are more read than my catalogs, and over the last couple years we've added all sorts of stuff. And now this year the sites have evolved into a very new look for this, "Our Main Site," and the spin-off Diesel Ducks site. And even though there's been such changes since the original, I am still in awe of the whole thing and think it's incredible. I mean look; here you are wherever you are; Iowa, Pogo Pogo, Egypt; wherever, and you're reading this! It still overwhelms me......

I absolutely hate slow loading sites loaded down with all sorts of PR. So we laid this out with plenty of PR about my stuff all right, but did it so should load rapidly, and be easy for you to skip about and read only what you want to read about. You see a Menu Bar somewhere close to here that gives you subjects you can read or see some detail about. Feel free to print them out if you'd like.

Another thing I hate is big sites like this that I look at now and then to see if there's been any changes. Usually there hasn't been.... So, what I've done here is note at the very top of the page the date of the last edit or addition. These will almost always be in the Photos & Drawings, Random Thoughts, or What's New section. If you flip there you'll see a date saying when the last change happened, starting with the next change I do to it. Seems this will make it easier for you to check back now and then if you're interested in what we're doing around here.

Anyway, scattered throughout this site you'll see some drawings and photos of boats of my design. If you 'click' on them they'll get bigger. I like all kinds of boats; there are no absolutes I've come to realize, and more important, no boat is 'practical'. So lets not pretend; a boat is a toy, a fantasy, a thing to have fun with. If your fantasy is a 60' gaff rigged schooner or a 12' skiff or a cruising powerboat, that's OK. Each is perfectly valid. That's the bottom line, you see. Being valid for YOU. A boat is a statement of expression. Are you a rather timid, rigid, uptight, unimaginative and careful person with a new plastic production boat, or, are you a rugged individual, hair flowing in the breeze, billowing shirt, knowing deep inside that had you but been born 300 years ago, why, you'd be a swashbuckler, with a 'one off' boat. I'm sorry; but look. After experiencing my 50th birthday and watching several people I am close to go through some awful medical problems, I now concentrate on things that amuse or interest me. This site is written with that in mind. I'm very serious about some things, but being alive, well, it's so brief, and fragile too, you know. Enjoy it! This site is about boats, boats that you can, while around them at least, simply tune out the stark unpleasantness that is lurking just around some not to distant corner.

There are of course some fine production boats out there. But the world of custom design is infinitely wider; not just my designs but many people's designs stretching back for over a hundred or more years now (WOW have you ever stopped to ponder just how NEW 'civilization' and most technology and things we take totally for granted, actually IS???? I mean, how's this; my dad lived in a sod house, until the family could afford to build the "real" house, on the ranch in North Dakota that his dad, my grandfather, homesteaded) .

Here's my father on Comet, back in the 1930's, on my grandfather's farm. At it's prime the ranch was 24,000 acres, and the family did cattle drives "to the rail head" just like a John Wayne movie. Dad was in his 30s when this was shot. He always was a gay blade!

This of course is a 'commercial' site in that its purpose to show, and hopefully sell, you on my yacht designs. No sense in pretending otherwise. So keep that in mind as you look over my stuff. I'm talking about my design services here. And, by the way, thanks! I appreciate your interest in my designs. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to write or email me! You can telephone but I have very sporadic office hours although if you leave a message we'll try to get back to you. Please, don't ask me to define my business approach. But at least, we do have a lot of fun around here!!

If you telephone here you'll frequently be answered by The Lovely Susan who works here and who absolutely holds the place together. She keeps track of orders, makes sure we have whatever we need; books, paper, mailing supplies, meanwhile doing all the other things that simply overwhelm me but she can deal with. There's an old saying that goes something like; "behind every successful man is a strong, smart, pushy woman." I always thought Ronald Reagan was proof of that until one day I realized that without Gail I'd likely be in cut-offs laying about on a beach somewhere hyther & yon, and without Susan my office would be a disaster. So I'm proof of it too.

Oh; if you're not to familiar with navigating cluttered web sites, when you see a word or sentence underlined and/or in bold print it usually means it's a link to a photo or story and if you "click" it, you'll magically see whatever it is appear!