I have more raw footage to play with but these are the latest from this summer. Click on the titles for the story and video,

A bit of ‘white water’ in the PT 11

Sky rowing in the PT 11

Camp Cruising July 2014

or watch all our videos on PTW You Tube !

On June 30th, Cassandra  McDermott and 10 year old Milo arrived to pick up their PT 11 kit. ‘Cassie’ is a young woman who delivers boats, does a lot of sailing, boat finishing, refinishing, and polishing. I suspect she is very good at it, too.
Meeting Cassie and Milo (who also loves to sail) was a real pleasure. It was particularly exciting to have a pre-teen totally into building a PT 11 and that a woman was to be the primary builder. It often feels like building boats is perceived as ‘such a guy thing’ and I like to encourage more female involvement with the kits.

Besides the distinction for Cassie & Milo as the first ‘mom & pre-teen’ team so far to build one of our kits, they did it in record time.
On August 3rd, barely a month after picking up the kit, we received an email, and I quote, “Well we launched last week! I will send you some pictures soon….We are having a blast. She is a great boat!” Then she sent this great photo of Milo in the boat, with it’s shiny blue hull, (in honor of the SEA HAWKS)… Russell and I were very impressed!! 😉

Cassie totally dedicated herself to the project, including setting her alarm clock for 3AM to make a fill coat. They really familiarized themselves with the manual so that while waiting for one thing to cure, they knew what they could begin to prepare and have ready for steps later on. Warm summer weather helped while they had several simultaneously curing parts. This consolidated a lot of the ‘waiting-for-cure’ time inherent in wood/epoxy boat building.”The build went really well. We made a few mistakes-nothing structural and nothing we couldn’t fix,” she told me.

They also had a strong motivation. Milo was going back to school at the end of the Summer and Cassie wanted to be sure he had plenty of time to sail in his new boat before then. Milo wrote us a letter that deserves a frame in our shop. Photos & captions following, (compliments of Cassie and Milo), tell much of the story best.

Building any kit can take weeks, months or years depending on a person’s working habits and available time. We recommend taking your time and enjoying yourself. Our builders have expressed real pleasure in the project and that is as much a part of it as the end result.  The fact that Cassie met her self imposed and pretty short deadline AND had a great time is a testament to her skill and an inspiration for women boat builders! Hats off to you, Cassie and Milo!!

See some recent feedback from our builder’s about our kits:

Robert in MA: It is a fantastic kit, and I thoroughly enjoyed the building project. Honestly, I felt a little intellectually lazy doing the build. Usually there are multiple details that have to be thought through, improvised, fleshed out, etc. Not with the PT11. You did all the thinking for me and didn’t leave out anything. I didn’t mind being lazy for a change. 🙂  I can’t think of a single thing to improve in the kit or manual. I can’t wait to start rowing and sailing. August 2014

Simon in New Zealand: I didn’t really realize how much of a delight to build she’s been until the bumper had been stuck on and I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t anything left to do except go sailing.

On a recent camp cruising excursion to BC, we towed our PT 11 along behind the Water Bug. We did not take the sailing rig but we really enjoyed after dinner rows around the different anchorages. The evening light is so beautiful and on calm, clear summer days, the reflections in the water make you feel like you are looking into another world or floating along on the sky. It was mesmerizing. I put together some clips of these evening rows. I look at my wind swept and bedraggled state with some embarrassment but I had a great time out in the vast wilderness of Desolation Sound. Here is a short video: SKY ROWING

I admit it..I am a bit of a chicken when it comes to some things. I am not a skier, will not go near a roller coaster, and have never been white water rafting. Russell on the other hand… well let’s just say, in reference to THIS VIDEO, a standing wave, big or small, is as good an excuse as any for a little fun.
In any case, I do love a good adventure. Exploring the Toba Inlet in early July brought us to the mouth of the Brem River. At low tide, the river hit the inlet with some gusto to the delight of several seals, and, Russell. Had I not been holding our one, good, and yet very water sensitive camera, I would have been a lot less concerned. We could have played at this spot a lot longer than we did, although the big and biting black flies were a bit of a menace.
Russell insisted that I keep the sound on the first clip (you probably understand why, much to my chagrin) and I did my ‘darndest’ to be quiet on subsequent takes. Being in the boat was a bit ‘knarly‘ AND really fun. The video hardly does it justice. The PT 11 clearly liked it. So I hope this puts a big smile on your face. The PT11 in the Rapids. Cheers, Ashlyn PTW 

I have to sit down and really try to make account of this summer’s first camp cruise. For now, I can offer a couple of videos and notes that can give you the idea. Today’s video is a compilation of clips on the Water Bug.

Since the proa is in the yard, we took our experimental catamaran motor boat up into Canada. It could be compared to a road trip in a Carmanghia convertible … except we probably burned less fuel. 😉  We took camping gear and towed the PT 11 for the better part of more than 400 miles. Our boat of many names.. (Kermit, Grasshopper, Pie in the Sky, Skeeter, Water Bug…) has an old 15 HP Honda outboard and with that, as loaded up as we were, we averaged 2/3 GPH at 11 knots.  Under normal load and not towing, Water Bug can cruise at 11 knots at 1/2 GPH, with a cruising speed of 15 knots. We took advantage of waves to surf and shallow waters to explore since this boat is good at both.  We discovered that finding spots to both safely moor the boat and camp ashore is not so easy. There are lots of places for kayakers to pull their boats up and camp, or for small boats to anchor and sleep aboard. That did not help us much and we learned a lot for next time.

So I hope you enjoy this video.

Happy camping from a happy camper. Ashlyn 😉 PTW