WOW!  That about sums it up.  I have worked my entire life for someone else either it be the USMC, Northrop Worldwide Aircraft Services, Inc., Beech Aerospace Services, Raytheon Aerospace, SEMCOR, ACS, Technology Transformation, L3, etc. The list goes on and on.  All of this time supporting our warfighters and at the same time, they supported my family.  Now, I think I am about to retire.  WOW!

What next?  Well, I have been thinking for quite some time now about what I (or we, the family) was going to do when I/we do retire.  That’s where Webb Punt Boats comes in.  What is a punt boat, you may ask?  A punt boat is a small protected water utility boat.  It has been around for a very long time.  It’s a working man’s boat that is (at least for my style) perfect for shallow water swamps, creeks, ponds or lakes.  It really doesn’t need a motor, you propel it with a push poll, paddle, or oar.  But you can use a motor, if you want.  Anyways. Let me get back on track.

Oh yea, back to Webb Punt Boats!  Like I was just saying, I had been thinking about this boat I had when I was a teenager.  It was a blast to be in the swamps of Florida.  My best friend, my brother and myself would go out in this boat.  Here I go straying again.  Let me get back on thought.  Back when I was a teenager, we would run around in the swamps where we lived.  One day while walking along the bank of one of these swamps we found a derelict boat on the shore.  It had been there for a long time but was still holding together.  It wouldn’t float but it was still holding together.  Anyways, we drug it out of the swamp and took it home.  My best friend’s father was a carpenter and seen the boat.  He like the style and said he would make us one just like it.

He did.  He made us one just like the one we found.  It was a flat bottom, rectangular boat with both the bow and stern angled up at the same angle.  This allowed you to raise one end of the boat onto a log by stepping to the back end of the boat, push it slightly over and then walk to the other end and push yourself over the log.  Great for the swamps where we lived.

We would take the boat out and on one of our journeys, we took the boat for a 5 mile trek to go to a fish fry.  On our way back, we stopped on a hill to look around.  Off to my side, I heard some rustling in the leaves.  It was a rabbit.  Rabbits are delicious.  We didn’t have a gun but we did carry knives.  I took out my knife and threw it at the rabbit.  I know, it was a long shot (pardon the pun) but I hit the rabbit between the shoulder blades.  AMAZING!  We will have fresh rabbit.  We picked up the rabbit and put him in the boat to take home and clean.  We pushed off from the shore and headed for our landing area.  The rabbit came back, apparently the knife only stunned it.  So here we are in the boat with one mad and scared rabbit.  We won.

On another journey, we went frog gigging at night.  We were polling the boat through the slew and seen a pair of eyes glowing.  We got ready to ease up on the frog but it wasn’t a frog, it was a baby gator.  That was cool, this was the first time that we had encountered a gator out here in this swamp.  As we looked upon the baby gator in amazement, we realized something.  This is a baby, where’s the mom?  We slowly raised our heads and flashlights up away from the baby and seen two really big glowing eyes just off to the side.  Time to go!  As two of us watched the big gator, the other polled us out of there quickly.

That’s the story behind the boat I want to build and hopefully sell.  It’s not for me to relive my childhood but rather to help someone build their own memories.  A boat that is capable of getting into places most boats can’t.  More stable than a canoe, kayak or paddle board.  A boat that can carry your camping gear, take you out hunting in the swamps, fishing, gigging or just exploring.  That’s the Webb Punt Boat!

Guy M. Webb, Jr.

Webb Punt Boats LLC