DEKALB GROUP BUILDS BOAT
Scouts Taking to Water
By ED PEREZ
An 80-pound driver named "Tweety" and a nautical powerhouse named "Hustler" are startling weekenders at Lake Jackson as bay and boat zip across the water at more than 55 miles an hour.
Tommy (Tweety) Atkins, 16, because he is the lightest member of Explorer Fast 6, has captured the jab of "test pilot" on high speed runs of the sleek 270-horsepower runabout which is the result of many months of effort on the part of the DeKalb scouts.
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 Special Photo "HOMEMADE" BOAT BELIES
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"HUSTLER" had meager beginnings with a burned-out 1956 Chevrolet engine and the ambitious dreams of a group of determined scouts. The finished product has a sale value of about $5,000.
The boys have a total of $1,115 Invested in the craft and have earned every cent of the money through such projects as door-to-door sales of light bulbs, magazines, doughnuts and garden fertilizer. For a time they painted street numbers on curbing for home owners in order to raise enough money to continue construction on the boat.
"We earned money as we went along and we tried to stay ahead," said Dayton Johnson, 17-year-old Avondale High junior. He is head of the post, which is sponsored by the Pattillo Memorial Methodist Church.
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THE PROJECT to build "Hustler" officially began an Oct. 20, 1960, when plans for her arrived from a Bellflower, Calif., naval architect.
When Sonny Jakes, post adviser, mentioned the project to his fellow workers at Southeastern Elevator Co. the management offered the boys enough floor space and use of the company's tools to get the undertaking started.
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IT WAS a slow project with a good deal of trial and error on the part of the novice boatbuilders. "Most of these boys didn't know a screwdriver from a wrench when they started but they learned boatbuilding as they went along," said Mr. Jakes.
Several of the members of the post are varsity athletes at Avondale and Decatur high schools and construction was slowed again during football season. The boys said half the fun was building the boat and slow construction was due mostly to the pains taken to insure a first-class jab. The professionally constructed appearance of "Hustler" belies the label "homemade."
After 17 months of boatbuilding by these landlocked Explorer Scouts, they sound like naval architects' when they discuss their "baby."
Test pilot "Tweety" and another lightweight speedster, Ned Lee, are constantly striving to break their own records as the group tinkers and experiments to squeeze every possible mile per hour from the already speedy craft. The goal at present is 60 m.p.h.
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MANY OF THE parts and instruments in the boat are highly ! specialized gear and had to be ordered from California. "We couldn't find a speedometer in Atlanta which would register 70 ' m.p.h. which is the potential of the boat with a larger engine in it," said Tommy Leslie, district! representative for the post.
The unusual design and beauty of the boat attracts attention , wherever it goes. "Every time I they stop at a service station with the boat behind the car it draws a crowd and they have a hard time getting away," said Mr. Jakes.
"Hustler" won a first-place blue ribbon at the Atlanta Scouting Exposition at Lakewood Fair Grounds last week.
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THE SOUPED-UP engine sits completely to the rear of the boat, a design intended to decrease the amount of undersurface which touches the water at high speeds.', There is no windshield on the ' deck because the deck design incorporates features of an airplane wing which give the boat aerodynamic lift.
The craft, a popular type on the West Coast, is one of the first of its type on Georgia lakes and is known in boating circles as a California-type ski racer.
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THE BOYS ARE encouraged by Mr. Jakes not to "pick" racing duels, but they will eagerly accept any challenges offered to them on the lake. So far they have been only challenged, never beaten on Lake Jackson. "As soon as we have made a few more modifications, we're going to take 'Hustler' to Lake Lanier and see what happens," said Dayton Johnson.
Aside from the speed of the boat, it presents a striking picture of aesthetic craftsmanship with its ribbon-grained mahogany deck and white fiberglassed hull.