West,

I think the first article that I had published was about building a small boat. I saw an ad for plans in a mag. The headline read something like, "Build this boat for $600.00". Looking at the long bowsprit, and shape of it, I fell for it. I was also learning Lotus 123 at the time so it was an easy job to track costs. When I finished I was well over $2,000.00!

What I didn't talk about in the article was the valuable lesson it taught me on how to manage engineers.... and myself doing projects. AND, in the end, if I had built it for the lower cost I most likely would have had it in the water sooner, and had just as much fun with it.

We have lived with the current setup for many years with no problems and through a lot of bad weather and deep water miles. Including a couple unexpected knock downs, one with the spreaders in the water. So I think if I do decide to replace them with the same type I will put them in a scheduled replacement list. The current ones are about 35 years old, so I may add them at a replacement period of 10 to 15 years.

Greg