Hi. My name's Fred, and I build boats.
I built my first drift boat about 12 years ago. My wife and I had a couple of near misses on the South Fork of the Snake River while fishing in a vinyl raft, and she wouldn't go fishing with me any more. So I looked at some wooden drift boats, took some measurements, bought some 1/8-in. interior-grade birch plywood and Raka epoxy, and built Gus.
Gus was 
a great boat (even though I didn't end up with a lot of pictures of him), and with the unique good looks of the furniture-grade birch veneer, he turned lots of heads on the South Fork of the Snake. I kept him for about ten years and caught a lot of fish from him. As my boys got older, I taught them how to row, and we had lots of good times in good old Gus.
I made 
some mistakes on Gus. The worst mistake, however, was not the interior-grade plywood, even though the plywood wasn't sheathed with glass. (Raka epoxy cures a multitude of sins.) The worst mistake was the 1/4-in. UHMW (ultra-high molecular weight) plastic bottom and chine strip I thought were going to protect the boat. The plastic had a very high expansion and contraction rate with changes in temperature. When Gus was out of the water and the sun was shining, the plastic would expand and buckle slightly. Then when I put the boat in the water, it would contract. This constant movement was alternately pushing and pulling on the screws that held the plastic on. The constant movement allowed moisture and minor rot to get into the bottom. I'll NEVER put a plastic bottom on a wooden boat again.
Another 
problem with Gus was his weight. I don't have a lot of fishing buddies, so I go fishing alone a lot. Even though Gus only weighed about 250 lb (a lot lighter than most drift boats), he was a bigger boat than I could comfortably load and unload single handed. So, shortly after I found the rot in the bottom, I stripped off the plastic, put on a couple of layers of fiberglass, gave Gus a coat of paint, and sold him.
I have tried for several years to draw up a set of plans for Gus (or for any of my boats for that matter). Unfortunately, I haven't been able to come up with a decent set of plans that can be built by a woodworker with average skills. I can build them, but I can't tell you how to build them. Sorry about that.
Even 
before I sold Gus, I had wanted to build a lighter boat so I could fish alone more easily. I built a kayak from the plans in George Putz's book, Wood and Canvas Kayak Building (International Marine, 1990). It turned out OK, but it was way too tippy for fly fishing, and the canvas tended to weep, despite several coats of polyurethane primer and paint.
After the trouble I had with Gus and the kayak, I decided to build the perfect boat. I wanted a boat light enough to load single handed, stable enough to fish from standing up, and pretty enough to satisfy my sense of aesthetics. The result of this effort was the Mahogany Dun.
The Mahogany Dun was a beautiful little boat. With a hull weight of only 150 lb, I could load and unload her single handed. The rower's seat was adjustable to trim the weight, depending on how many people were in the boat. There were dual oarlock blocks for whether the rower's seat was in the front or rear position. With the genuine mahogany brightwork and automotive enamel on the hull exterior, she was a delight to look at, to row, and to fish from.
Alas! In September 2003, I was laid off my job with Bechtel. I can't say much about that, since the lawsuit is still pending, but with the loss of income I felt the need to sell the Mahogany Dun. I put her on eBay, set what I thought was a reasonably attractive starting bid, and took a beating. She sold for less than the cost of materials.
You can see a sales brochure I made for the Mahogany Dun here.
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