I have loved the water since I was just a kid. I have also been fascinated with wooden boats for about as long. I still remember the first Chris Craft runabout I saw. We had moved the lake when I was 8 years old. We had one of the new fiberglass boats with a huge 40 HP outboard. It was one of the fastest outboards on the water at that time.

One day a neighbor came roaring up the lake in his Mahogany inboard Cris Craft.  This was the first wooden boat I had ever seen and I instantly fell in love! That was the coolest boat I had ever seen!!  I have been in love with them ever since.

I rebuilt a Chris Craft Sea Skiff, ‘Makin’ Waves’ in the 1980’s. Then I built a small DK-13 kayak that I really enjoyed but it was an awfully small boat. When I sold my lake house to a friend of mine, I gave him the kayak. I also sold my fiberglass sail boat with the intention of building a CS-21 just as soon as my shop was in order.

After roughly 3 years of work, the house was finished and it was time to turn my attention to building my new boat. While planning the new sailboat I decided to build another kayak. The sailboat build would be a big project and would take a long time. A kayak would give me a chance to get out on the water while I worked the sail boat.

The search for the ‘perfect’ kayak lead me to modify an existing design. That boat paddled so well that I decided to try my hand at another one.

Of course a custom builtt Kayak needs a paddle. I wanted to try a Greenland style paddle so I built one, then another, and another. Then I read about hollow shaft Euro style paddles and wanted to try that. I got interested in Skin on Frame boats and read everything I could find on them. I tried my hand at designing one and built it, then another one. One thing lead to another and with the encouragement of some friends I started a business, Kudzu Craft.