the julius: construction

In September, 2001, Brad Dimock joined forces with historic boat modeler Roger Fletcher of Dallas, Oregon to recreate Buzz Holmstrom's Julius F, his masterpiece whitewater boat in which he soloed the Green and Colorado Rivers. Brad's story in pictures follows: On the beach in Bandon, Oregon, I found (as Buzz did) a hunk of driftwood with the proper curve for a bowpost. After manhandling up the cliff at Bandon, I mined the bowpost from the Douglas Fir log. And fit it onto our mold. Here I am chiseling the bowpost to accept a chine strip. Roger Fletcher and I are trying to make the damned thing match the pictures. With a lot of help from a lot of friends, we made the proper shape appear. Two weeks after we began, we loaded the hull on the trailer and I headed back to Arizona. After a few more weeks of sawing and sanding, we assembled the decks. There were a few Brad hair days. But it turned into a boat. A magnificent boat. We gave Julius a test launch at Lees Ferry, on the Colorado. It floated! So then I had to take it down a few rivers... For another perspective on the project, visit Roger Fletcher's website at River's Touch. www.riverstouch.com Or check out this newspaper story.