balsa wood for a scaled down model boat

My good friend Roddy from www.acquafilms.com has always wanted to build a boat and is very interested in my project of building a 14 foot power boat. I built a model out of card and will show that soon, but i wanted something a little more robust. Roddy had some old model plane balsa and hooked me up (after sushi last night). I will build a 1/2 model of the boat this weekend and show by monday. I hope to start building the real thing soon as well.