The Instant Boatbuilder
(1987-1988 Newsletter Archive - .pdf files appx 500K each)
While cleaning out some of the twentieth century
debris to make room for the twenty-first century debris, I ran across a file of
pre-Internet newsletters of twelve years ago, called "The Instant Boatbuilder".
It was sort of like discovering "The Dead Sea Scrolls" of our group, and was
published by a boat dreamer named Jeff Hull (in real life a pediatrician) in Corpus
Christi, Texas. He’d bought a set of "Martha Jane" plans from Elrow, and
caught up in the wonder of his new obsession decided to put out a monthly newsletter. The
effort lasted a total of nine issues and died. Apparently after the newsletter was about a
year old, he came up for air and realized that he could either be a kid doctor or
publisher/boatbuilder, but not both.
The historically significant thing about the seventy some pages that were contained in the
nine newsletters was that Jeff went out and solicited material for content from other boat
nuts and guru’s around the country. In the pages are contributions by Phil Bolger,
Dynamite Payson, Yours truly, Bernie Wolfard, Jim Michalak (before he was in the boat
design business, about the time he built the prototype Birdwatcher, also an interesting
article by him of how to build a Gloucester Light Dory using Instant Boat Techniques, see
issue #7), Dave Carnell, Bob and Sheila Wise, et al. There’s even some deathless
prose from Charles Stout, of long-micro fame. The pages contain some sophomorictreatment
of various subjects and some inaccuracy too, but there are a few good tips along the way,
a good bit of content of interest to Micro builders and from a historical standpoint,
it’s all quite interesting if not valuable (and like all efforts of this nature, it
gets better as the publication got older).
Instant Boatbuilder - Issue #1
Instant Boatbuilder - Issue #2
Instant Boatbuilder - Issue #3
Instant Boatbuilder - Issue #4
Instant Boatbuilder - Issue #5
Instant Boatbuilder - Issue #6
Instant Boatbuilder - Issue #7
Instant Boatbuilder - Issue #8
Instant Boatbuilder - Issue #9