Thanks, Ray. This is all old news though just a new web host. Appreciate the kind comments.
Thanks, Anthony. I've been giving away plans for the Peregrine. If I thought I could be completely unworried about liability issues I would just publish those on the web. Need to talk to my lawyer about it; but really there's no point; no one has built the Peregrine but me despite me sending out probably 50 copies of the plans, very detailed plans for free. I guess the design is just too complex, and too much like the Gatorboats Duckhunter, a design that is much simpler to build and can be modified to be a planing hull like the Peregrine. I don't know why Gatorboats doesn't publish that mod. It would be quite popular. One day, after I cut back some at work, I'll rework the design for the Peregrine and build a simpler, lighter, and slightly longer version with a higher transom that can accommodate one of the larger mudmotors now available, and have a partner of mine who believe it or not IS a naval architect and a physician, look over them and publish those plans for free. That's years off though.
Hey Eric. The barge works great. It is a very popular spot to be during hunting season and frankly it's a bit crowded for my taste. Wall to wall guys some on the couch, some in the recliners, some sleeping on the floor. We're victims of our own success! Coolest thing is my inverter. Funny that no one down in marsh seems to know about inverters. They come by the camp and see us watching the LSU game on TV, ceiling fans, lights on and no generator noise. Freaks 'em out. Due to issues with work I only got to hunt the first and third weekends. I imagine due to the freaky weather north of us, and that late tropical storm that must have messed up the marsh to the east of us from what I hear, we had a lot of birds down probably a record and as a group had a really good season (for us anyway. Nothing like the folks that hunt flooded cornfields or anything).
Hey Bob. The deal with red oak is that it expands like crazy and cracks like crazy if it gets any moisture in it. I actually did have a piece of red oak that I used to make part of a pushpole, more or less to see what would happen. I didn't glass it but did put two or three coats of epoxy and attempt to seal it. It fell apart after the 1st weekend. It's a pretty wood and very dense but no good around water. White oak is the oak you want to use in boats. You can get all kinds of cheap white oak lumber around Mississippi anyway just look in the agricultural gazette or whatever they call it; the state publishes it. Probably readily available anywhere people harvest pines because it's the tree that's down in the hollers and the lumber companies just leave them, at least around here, little mom and pop operations with portable sawmills come through, take them out and it's not expensive if you buy directly from them.
Ed.