A 62-foot steel boat in a Texas front yard — and a canal Parliament abandoned in 1914

Laurence Benson's friend Kiah spotted the boat from the road while working in Mineral Wells, Texas. He sent Benson a video and told him to go and meet the man who built it. Benson, Benjie and Will drove an hour and a half from Fort Worth and knocked at the door unannounced. Dale's wife answered. Dale was still putting his socks on. 1

He has been building it since 1987: 62 feet of steel, in his front yard, by hand, hours from the ocean. 1

The hull stands on props under the trees with a ladder up one side, and it is roughly 75% finished. 1 Inside are four staterooms. 2 The plan was always to finish it and sail it to Alaska. 2

At 86, Dale can no longer keep building it on his own. 2 Then there is the hill. A steep slope stands between the boat and the road, so a steel hull that length has to be brought down on heavy machinery. 2

Benson, a content creator, opened a GoFundMe with Benjie and Will on Saturday. 1 Stage one is $50,000: the finishing work, the machinery to get the hull down the hill, and transport to a launch site. 1

By Thursday morning the page showed $44,734 from 1,640 donors. 1

Dale is the beneficiary, and the page says the money goes straight to him. 1 Benson wrote that the plan and the costs are being confirmed with Dale's family. The goal will be updated once the quotes come in. 1

Good News Network reported the campaign on Wednesday at more than $41,000 from 1,500 donors. 2 The page had gained a few thousand dollars since.

The detail I keep returning to is smaller than any of that. Dale climbed the ladder to show the three of them the deck. He had not been up there in years. 2

The Wilts & Berks Canal Trust is repairing a 260-metre stretch of bank and towpath between Westleaze and Kingshill in Swindon. 3

That bank was last restored in the 1990s. Water voles have been digging into it for about 30 years, and it leaks, which left the towpath above it bumpy. 3

Phase one, from Skew Bridge to Kingshill, finished last year. Phase two is the sealing: blue clay packed into the bank so it holds water again. 3

Chloe Ford, who chairs the trust's Swindon branch, explained the order of the work. "In essence, we seal the canal, so there's no more leaks," she said. "And then, once the bank is stable, we're able to replace the towpath as well." 3

The towpath is closed daily from 09:00 to 15:30 while the work runs, and stays closed until mid-November. 3

Water voles are protected in the UK under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. They are also listed as endangered on both the Great Britain and England Red Lists for mammals. 4

Ford said this part of the country holds a high proportion of the animals, which is why they carry protection. Nearly 30 years of burrowing has left them nowhere left to dig. 3

So the trust is giving them somewhere. Alongside the repaired bank it is creating new burrowing habitat, and it expects the fresh seal to hold for another 30 years. 3

Ford described the canal as "a blue green corridor for a really urban space". She said the aim is to make people feel more confident using the towpath. 3

Janine Howarth, the ward councillor, called the work a breath of fresh air for the town. The Westleaze to Kingshill stretch, she said, is one of those places where you feel you could be anywhere. 3

The Wilts & Berks opened in 1810, 52 miles from Semington to Abingdon. 5 Swindon was a village at the time. The trust notes that the town owed its later existence as a railway town to the canal arriving first. 5

The railway took the trade. The Great Western reached Bristol in 1841, and freight moved to the faster line. 5 The Stanley Aqueduct breached in 1901, a long pound ran dry, and through boat traffic stopped for good. 5

After a delay of thirteen years, an Act of Parliament in 1914 allowed the Canal Company to abandon the canal. 5

Volunteers formed the trust in 1977, and it won the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service in 2012. 5 It now describes its work as restoring 70 miles of canal and towpath for local communities, wildlife and leisure. 6

A quarter of the boat is still to go. The machinery, the haulage and the launch are what the $50,000 buys, and the total stood at $44,734 on Thursday. 1

The bank needs its clay and its turf, and the towpath reopens in mid-November. 3

Both are now waiting on hands from outside. Three men knocked unannounced at a house in Texas; volunteers turn up to work parties on a canal in Wiltshire.

Anyone with a boatyard, a haulage firm or crane hire near Mineral Wells is being asked to get in touch through the page. 1 The canal trust takes volunteers for work parties along the route. 6