Our speaker for July, Skip Johnson, is a semi-retired architect who is also an avid amateur boat designer and builder. Skip has lived in the Houston area for 40 years with his wife Susie (50th anniversary this Fall) and designed and built his first canoe as a teenager in 1959. He played around with boat designs going into the 1980's until personal computers and CAD systems allowed him to pursue his hobby in earnest. Skip is now an accomplished racing canoe designer and has many success stories.
His designs holds multiple records in the solo to six man unlimited racing canoe for the Texas Water Safari. A 260 mile annual race via the San Marcos and Guadalupe rivers, from Aquarena Springs in San Marcos, to the shrimping village of Seadrift on the Texas coastline. Just this year, his new USCA C2 pro boat design won its class.
He designed a 34 foot eight man voyager canoe for the Yukon River Quest. It is the world's longest annual canoe and kayak race starting in Whitehorse and paddling 444 miles down the Yukon River to Dawson. His design set the course record in 2007 and won again in 2008.
And finally, his latest is a 3 person outrigger design that will race in the Missouri American Water MR340 set for July 23-26. A 340 mile race across the entire state of Missouri starting in Kansa City and ending in St. Charles.
Skip will show a short Texas Parks and Wildlife film segment that originally ran on PBS in 2009 featuring him building a wood strip kayak for the Junior Texas Water Safari. He will also bring a paddle that he designed and built and some of the materials that he uses to build his boats.
Registration is recommended (but not required) for this meeting. This will allow us to give the restaurant a better estimate of attendance. The restaurant can then better accommodate us with the room arrangement and sufficient servers. Be sure to register all family members and guest (companions).
Agenda
Social 6:00 - 7:00
Dinner 7:00 - 8:00
Business 8:00 - 9:00 Guest Speaker