The Tom Morgan Skiff -- an aside
I'm a boat builder and so too it turns out, was Tom Morgan.
Tom wanted to show me one of the few remaining examples of his boat: the Morganser. I don't think any more than two or three were ever made. A young friend of Tom's up in Helena still had one so we made an expedition from Bozeman. Gerri and I shared the driving duties for Gus, an old white diesel bus equipped with a wheel chair lift for Tom. We visited a printing press museum Gerri was interested in, had a picnic and then went boat oogling. When we got there, unbeknownst to Tom or me, his friend had a Morgan Morganser and one of my boats, a Montana River-boats' Buffalo Boat, a slightly smaller but conceptually similar design. Tom was impressed. I on the other hand, couldn't stop grinning for several days.
Tom was a smart cookie. Tom's design was at least loosely based on the Peter Mac pram shown below. But Tom did make a lot of changes. Tom had two oarlock positions and a sliding rower's seat, so the rower would face one way when fishing with only one passenger, and then face the other way when rowing with two passengers. Tom also had a clever system of stiff but bendable aluminum strips that stretched from side to side when the boat had it's cover on, so it wouldn't cave in downward when it started to snow. I use that system on all my boats now, except I use ash strips instead of aluminum.
I can't remember the owner's name but he did speak highly of both boats. That was a magically fun day.
