Betty Boop's back

Marieke, Betty Boop's new owner, let me take her downriver on a test run in September. Holy cow. What a sweet boat she is. I can honestly say I've never rowed anything lovelier. Here she is at Lee's Ferry. Jim Hall brought up Betty's old traveling mate Tatahotso, to see her off. Gary Ladd, Tatahotso's original owner and a man who has known Betty Boop for more than forty years, came to add his good wishes (and take the Tat for a spin).

Betty held two passengers really well. Gary Ladd's idea of handles for a rear rider were enormously popular.

She carries a tremendous load as well

And rocks out in the rapids

And has a really cute butt

Billy and I are taking time out to repair the guitar with boatbuilding supplies. It took us three tries to get it right wrong. But Billy swears it plays better than ever now. We call our new business the No Account Luthiers.

The Lava Falls team took her out in the eddy the night before for a couple practice flips. Just like when we tried her with a minimal load this spring, the high arched turtle-decks make it almost impossible for even one person to get atop her before she rolls up again. She just hates to be upside-down. 

She made it through Lava just fine, surviving the trip without a ding. What a fine craft she is, at 45 years old. Betty's only drawback is she is not set up for sleeping, but a new deck arrangement could fix that. I reckon we'll be building a few copies of this hull style shortly.

AlumiWoodie

AzRA is building up a small fleet of aluminum dories and I get to help design and construct them. We had raw hulls built in Oregon of the old Briggs AlumiWeld design and shipped down for us to deck. Here is Jim the welder at Mayorga's Welding in Flagstaff, talking to Fred about what we want. Jim is an awesome welder. We pushed quite a bit more rocker and bow breadth into her.

Here is Jim's awesome welding

We are going with AquaGard, a water-based roll-on marine paint, for low toxicity and ease of the inevitable touch up. Decks are the color of sand.

Gunwales are of Modesto Ash, courtesy of Pacific Coast Lumber, transport by Jim MacKenzie, milling by Dan Dierker

Roy and Jim attaching deck hardware

An adjustable seat

And an adjustable foot brace

And seven oarlock positions for dwarves, giants, and those between

Umbrella holding handrail, inspired by Kelly Neu's Zizumara

She floats

And boats

And has nonskid decks

Plays well with others

But responds poorly to hitting the Whale Rock in Hance Rapid at 20 mph. My bad.

More river adventures

I am finally home after the longest season of commercial boating I have done in more than twenty years. Yikes. Here are a few shots from the rio.

Redwall Cavern in the morning

LSD for lunch

Upper Buck Farm in the evening

Old Ben Beamer's place

Jupiter at noon at Tuna Creek

Waterfalls and rockfalls at Silver Grotto

Slot Canyon hiking in the rain--Tom Myers calls these "casinos of stone."

The new version of Hance Rapid, with the old left run fully closed out by a debris flow

And the far bigger debris flow at National Canyon; YouTube search: "national canyon flash" to see Joe Clark's video of this happening

AzRA caught OARS at Deer Creek and had more dories than they did; our five are on the left

Morning at the office

Leaving Blacktail

Fern Glen with a running falls and a pool--never seen it like that before

Dan running Lava forward

Dennis running it backward--hey, whatever works

Evening light at Tequila Beach

Storm in the Hurricane fault zone

More acid

River adventures

I am back in town for a few days after three back-to-back Grand Canyon trips. Here are a few highlights.

A floating banquet finale to our first trip--a one-boat motor excursion:

That went on into the night:

My birthday party at Poncho's--which involved crocodile swims, throw bags, back-flips, and a late night raging dance and song-fest on the J-rig. My favorite birthday (that I can remember). 

Corrupting Marieke to the evils of being a motorboatman. She loved it.

Kuhl.com outfitted the almost-all-female crew for my last row trip. I had to represent the male species. It was difficult, but I received no sympathy.

A cloudburst with thunder, lightning, and hail caught us as we entered Hance. A few miles below this showed up to reward us.

The requisite critters:

And a visit to the newly-demolished National Canyon delta. This must have been some kinda flash-flood.

Off next week for another two in a row. But first, a week of boatwork in the shop. My life is so hard.