The tennessee riverboat design is one of many from the prolific usa designer phil bolger (google for sites, including five ones on yahoo.groups). it is designed for the home builder, using simple shapes in marine ply to create an effect reminiscent of the 1930s.. In the 1970s, phil bolger began a long and successful collaboration with harold 'dynamite' payson with bolger designing the boats and payson building them as well as selling plans and writing books about how to do it. 'dynamite' called the first series of easy-to-build plywood boats "instant boats".. Bolger plans the woodenboat forum is sponsored by woodenboat publications , publisher of woodenboat magazine. the forum is a free service, and much like the "free" content on public radio, we hope you will support woodenboat by subscribing to this fabulous magazine..
The original 30ft tennessee was designed by innovative american designer, phil bolger a few years back. picked up in this country by duck flat in adelaide, over a dozen have been built, each slightly different for use on the murray river, the gippsland lakes and similar areas.. Going thru the stack of plans i’d bought over the years we settled on “tennessee” , another bolger design. i’d had an eye for her for years since i saw dick welch’s photo spread on the net and read chuck leinweber’s article on building.. Sneakeasy is a 26 foot phil bolger "power sharpie", a simple flat-bottomed craft (at least in it's initial conception), which phil advances as a very efficient power boat, but which also retains essential elements of the period elegance of some early 20th century speedboats..
