"Starting the tunnel installation...."

"This Laker 14 tunnel racer will be powered by a reconditioned 1964 Mercury inline six Tower Of Power from Owen Marine, Manchester NH."

"Another view of the tunnel plank installation."

Bob is building his Laker 14 in Royal Palm Beach, Florida, USA.

"Tunnel plank is complete. I doubled sealed the plank to the tunnel side area with a bead of epoxy and then a piece of inside corner cove molding to ensure there will be zero chance leaks, If you look closely you can see I even got the hull spray rails installed."

"In the process or assembling one of the sponsons. I got a piece of 3-inch PVC pipe, put a cap on one end, put the sponson pieces in and filled the pipe with water.... 2 1/2 days later bending into position went without much problem. Will now wait a couple of days for the glue to dry and the sponson battens to take a set before completing the assembly."

"Sponson batten assembled now waiting for the glue to dry."

"Have been rough scuff sanding most of the day in preparation of putting on the primer tomorrow. I'll wipe it down for dust one more time in the morning and if it isn't raining, I'll start applying the priming coats. Hopefully I'll be able to get two primer coats on and then let it dry for a couple of days before putting on the first coat of paint."

"Three years in the making and the day my Laker 14 was ready to move out of the garage and onto the driveway had finally arrived. I had to move the boat outside to get enough headroom to hang the motor, but how in the world was I going to do that with only my wife and daughter to help."

"Well, they say 'necessity is the mother of invention'"

"Thanks to a couple pieces of 4-inch pvc tubing and a flatbed trailer the task proved not to be that difficult, except the boat now sits backwards on the trailer preventing the motor from being mounted."

"However, a short trip to the lake will remedy that problem and I will hang the motor and rig the steering cables and connect the throttle and shifter."

"And then it will be off to the races!!"

"Getting ready to install the motor for the first time.

"All lined up... lets get this motor mounted into position."

"Okay, motor in position and bolts torqued. I’ll call this task a wrap and move on to rigging the steering cables as soon as the stand-up lead block pulleys arrive from Rhode Island in a few days.

"After that I need to do some electrical testing and start up a motor that has sat idle in the garage for 2½ years waiting on me to complete the boat."

Purchase Laker 14 plans