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Perth, |
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Bob the boat builder
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Bob, who has been an inventor all his life, put his boat-on-wheels to the test in the Swan River this week. At the launch at the public ramp in Matilda Bay, he confessed he had doubts that it would float. But it did, and when the detachable front wheel and trailer were removed, Bob and Jeff sailed off down the river. "It was not a perfect trip," Bob said. "We were out for about half an hour and it was all right when we were going slow but when we tried planing, it nearly filled with water. It needs work. "It has been in the backyard for 20 years," said Bob of Hesperia Avenue, Floreat. He started on it when Jeff and Paul were keen on scuba diving and they spent weekends hauling a boat on and off a trailer. "There was one time at Rockingham when it was caught by a particularly strong gust of wind and I thought, 'why can't we have a boat on wheels?" Bob, who says he has always been an original thinker, set about designing and building an amphibious craft. "Then the boys discovered girls and gave up scuba diving," he said. Bob, who was 81 in January, said: "The time had come when I said to my wife, 'either we take this boat to the tip or finish it off'." It is registered as a boat and Bob said he eventually convinced the traffic department to license it for the road. Bob says he hopes to make a few refinements to the flaps that cover the wheels when they retract into the boat and be back in the water in a few weeks. "I am getting too old to be out on a boat now but I have two sons and a son-in-law who are interested in using it," he said. |
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