Back 3 or 4 years ago, a friend at work and I tried really hard to think of any way to work the price of that boat into an NSF or ONR grant. No amount of beer led us to any enlightenment of how to finangle a budget for it. Plus, then we'd have had to share it with other people without our say, and that would suck.
My friend has since retired from academia, and works as the biologist at a venture capital bio-startup (he's one of the 3 founders) - he still talks about somehow
appropriating company funds to order it built, for, errr, corporate retreats and such
legitimate uses
