When I was younger the guy down the block had a boat yard and I would help him and we would talk. One of the things he did was build a 45 foot Ferro cement sail boat. Yes cement, had to build a building for the boat built all the frame work and then cemented the thing, I was one of the shovelers for the cement but it was a real experience. I knew how to work on boats but to build one from scratch was a real experience. He made the hatches out of wood he bought mahogany and teak birch and layered them and made it so you could see the different colored woods it was really beautiful. It looked like fiberglass till you taped on the hull and then you knew it wasn't fiberglass. Of course it had all the electronics and a diesel engine it was really a pretty boat. It was built upright because the building helped hold the frame work or basic structure of the boat. After it was to the point it needed to come out of the building he supported the boat and tore down the building and got a crane to launch it. When I look back on that time I was really fortunate to have things to do like work around the boat yard when I was growing up. I was a help not a pest I think thats why he and I got along so well. We did things like we redid his whole dock sunk pilings and dug out the old ones put in dead men. Come winter time there was always winterization to do on the boats and get them ready for storage. Well got off topic a bit but thanks it was enjoyable to go back and to remember the time I helped build a boat.
When I was growing up on the shores of Lake Ontario there was a guy in a little town called Texas, yes Texas NY it is right down the road from Mexico NY and Phoenix NY, was building a large 50-60 feet long cement ship. He planned on using it to go from Lake Ontario out to the Ocean and on. I remember when they dragged it out into the Lake, it was quite a big deal. I do not know what happened to it after that.
