Three years ago with just a vague notion of building a boat, I stumbled across Sam's website. After looking at some of these boats, I felt sure this is what I wanted to build. I wanted to build the biggest boat that was logistically possible given the dimensional limits of my garage and that would also be trailerable. I didn't want to finish it and then regret it wasn't bigger. I wanted a boat that was capable of overnight stays and longer vacation cruises with my wife. I wanted to be able to take friends for picnic cruises and could also be used for fishing and skiing. When I asked Sam his advice, his reply was, "Do you realize how big a boat that is?

My garage was long enough and wide enough, but I could buildup only the sheer line in order to get it out of my garage door (and as it turned out, just barely at that). What a leap of faith, I figured I'd find another location later to finish off the pilothouse and install the motor. Fortunately a friend loaned me his barn to do this. One major miscalculation was the ceiling height of the garage, which at 9' would seem adequate for the rollover of a boat with an 8' beam. Wrong. The dimension you need to use is the diagonal, which was greater than 9', so the rollover wasn't possible. I had to suspend the hull as far on its side as I could. This made the cold molding, keel structure, and bottom painting considerably harder, but it got done.

Instead of scarfing which I wasn't that confident about, I made the hull panels with overlapping 1/4" plywood laminations. This made for very strong panels but stiffer and harder to bend at the bow, so the width at the first bulkhead was around 2" narrower than the plans.

A significant departure from the Devlin design was the choice of engine. The design called for a Volvo diesel sterndrive, but this engine hardly exists in this part of the world. When I finally found someone who might carry one. It turned out to be enormously expensive. I decided on a Mercruiser gasoline sterndrive, the common engine around here, which was less than half the price. It was necessary to redo the engine bed to accommodate the different engine.

Installing an engine is a pretty daunting task for an amateur, but turned out to one of the most satisfying parts of the project. When you install the engine, do the wiring, plumbing, fuel lines, steering, instrumentation, etc., you pretty much know where all the dead bodies lay.

In July, 2003, Morning Glory was launched on beautiful Lake Cumberland in Kentucky. It floated, no leaks, the engine started, and with the exception of a few minor glitches, all systems worked as expected. Amazing.

Frank McBrayer
Richmond, Ky.
859-624-5328

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