Toronto International Boatshow Ahoy!

the RED SKIFF gets some final touch-up
before showtime

What a mad scramble the past week or so! K&C has been given a booth in the foyer of the TIBS right next to our friends ACBS. Your team in the Boatshop has been looking for ways to reach more kids and keep them around longer. To this end we have reinvented our Boats 4 Folks event into a programme in three stages.

Stage One you have seen many times on the blog, "4 kids build a 12' skiff in 2 days - then get in it and row it". While this is a memorable experience and from the feedback we recently had with our Youth Justice Award, occasionally transformational, overall we'd like to see kids back more and longer.



looks like a boat...

and it floats like a boat!

Step Two will be to get these kids out in Bolt, our just restored Lightning Sloop. She is big enough not to scare them and we intend to rig her for full crew handling so everyone has something to do on board.



after more than three years of work, the final touches...

Chris and Anton polish the gudgeons
on Bolt's beautiful rudder.

Step three will be to get them out in a Sea Flea where they are at the controls of a real "race" boat - even if it with just a few horsepower at first. To this end two of our volunteers cut out the parts for a MiniMax Speedboat and will be in tomorrow to assemble it. this will be our Pattern Boat on which we will work our details of kitting and fitting. It will be in our booth at TIBS!

measure, measure, measure - actually read the instructions...
Mike and George begin the MiniMax pattern boat.

then start cutting...and cutting and cutting.

then 3 hours later, a very serious and mature reaction....
you can almost hear the engine scream! Oh wait - that's Anton.

Monday Jan 6th is our only day to get the big stuff into the foyer of the Energy Centre at TIBS so here is your erstwhile team, Wayne, Mike and Jim ready to head off into the second worst weather forecast of the year yet!

Wayne, Mike and Jim, "let's go boating!"