Upcoming Event The North Idaho Eastern Washington Movable Messabout

This is going to be an awesome messabout.  Join us if you can! 

North Idaho/Eastern Washington movable messabout
  10-17 September 2014

The 2014 Eastern Washington Moveable Messabout will be held Sept. 10 - 17 starting in Idaho and moving to eastern Washington. This is an 8-day event which includes several locations in Idaho and Washington which we visit in sequence to camp and sail/motor/paddle/row. The general plan is to offer a spread of places and types of “accommodations”. Each launch ramp will have a regular state or private campground handy for people who either don’t want to spend every night on the ground or who may be traveling with somebody who would rather stay behind. There are overnight beach camping spots at each location, with either “destination/turn around” spots or stops-of-opportunity for folks who choose to go less far by boat that particular day. More specific information is available at

Yahoo Group:   https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ewmm/info

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/786628758038519/

"Think of it as a raid, with the option of sleeping in your camper. A messabout, with a changing set of scenery. A race, where everybody finishes a winner. A cruise, with no trailer shuttling. A wilderness adventure, with close access to the freeway. Like that.
Somehow, the interior Pacific Northwest has been kinda passed on by when it comes to organized small boat events. The TSCA folks and Pocket Yachters, over on what they call the Wet Side do an extraordinary job of bringing messers, builders, and armchair types together for some spectacular events. But between places the likes of Lake Pepin, Eufaula, Havasu, and Matagorda, and Puget Sound, there seems to be only Andy Linns tour dforce on the lower Columbia and what his fellow COOTS offer up in and about northern Oregon. That leaves just about a bazillion cool places to put paddle to puddle, or just about any other boat-propulsion method you might care to bring.

A chance to meet new people.  Experience new scenery, and new places to take your boat.  The plan is to start in some of the most rugged and pristine country the Idaho panhandle has to offer...

... move on to the canyonlands and semi-arid country of the upper Columbia watershed...

... and wind up in the prairie-lakes amid some of the most productive grain fields any where on earth.  Our last stop will also be at the edge of the dramatic scab lands formed by the multiple pre-historic Lake Missoula floods that also scooped out topsoil from as far upstream as Montana, and left it piled up where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean.

Think of it as just a sampler of what this part of the country has to offer small boat folks.

What I mean to tell you about is an idea for fun-on-the-water, with admittedly toned down heroics. Maybe, even balmy temps in the 70s or 80s. No crowds. Maybe, no people at all.

 I hope to see you in September, 2014."

-Dan Rogers

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Boating errand in the flattest dryest spot in North America

"Ha ha," said Alex when we took off with the 20 foot flatbed, "We were worried about the trailer, but just think, my tow kit is only being held on by four bolts." Ha ha, I said.

An hour later we were heading back to Reno after a dramatic bumper removal and whiplashing trailer on a high-speed mountain highway, a situation that Alex who was driving barely snatched out of the jaws of disaster. When we wrestled the truck off the highway into a narrow turnout, we discovered that two of the four bolts holding the tow kit to the truck backed themselves out, and a third was mostly out. "Ha ha," we said weakly, not quite so funny anymore.

(This was not us, except in a scary imagined possible alternate timeline.)

I think Alex was a little more shaken than I was. Though somehow still in decent spirits, I could see stress in the grim straight line of his mouth. (In fairness he was also worried about his differential which was splattering oil across two states.)  For me, though harrowing, I suspect this is just what happens when I take this trailer out, or hop a train, or float down a river on a raft made of trash, or have an open-ended adventure.

My friend Hobo Lee always said "Adventure is never fun when youre doing it."  If adventure leaves room for the unexpected, the unplanned (or poorly-planned), the death-defying near disaster, perhaps that may be true.



Though it is entirely possible that I might have been able to find a 20 foot long flatbed trailer much closer to me in the state of California, there was this trailer waiting for me, abandoned more or less, in a storage yard in far away and remote Gerlach, Nevada.  I think it was the shared history this trailer and I had, the terrifying moments careening down the Altamont Pass when I thought it would be the death of me that made it so attractive.  It is to Alexs eternal credit that he puts up with these quixotic impulses I have.

When we saw the trailer sitting forlorn on a cluttered desert storage yard, for me, it was like seeing an old friend.  Sean and I bought this thing for like $400, a steal really.  I dont even remember who from.  We took the overloaded trailer every summer over the Sierras for a bunch of years, towed by my underpowered 64 F100.  It got stolen at one point and we recovered it through sheer coincidence.  Then we found we could store it in the desert for cheap and avoid the hazardous mountain crossing.  There it has stayed for over a decade.  Until now.

We picked up the trailer and spent the night drinking Jameson and smoking a cigar on the Black Rock Desert while the Lyrid meteor shower whirled overhead and the dogs ran around confused by the featureless immensity of the place.  

When we measured it, we found the trailer is longer than 20 feet.  More like 25 feet tongue to tip.  But the bed is rather narrow, maybe about 6 foot.  We really need 8 foot minimum for the shantyboat.  We were talking about ways to widen the bed.  Do we know a good structural welder?  Alex said, "After all this trouble, we have to use this trailer.  No matter what it costs."

I dont know.  I just like the ridiculousness of the thing.

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St Ayles Skiff North American Championship

The St. Ayles Skiff North American Championship race will happen July 1, 2012 at the Mystic Seaport WoodenBoat Show.

WoodenBoat’s Boatbuilding And Rowing Challenge (BARC) is sponsoring a Maine State Championship race in Belfast, Maine May 30 @ 10am.

For information on each of these events, visit WoodenBoats BARC site.

There are currently sixteen St. Ayles Skiffs built or being built in the US:

Mount Desert Island High School, ME
George Stevens Academy, ME
Belfast Alternative High School, ME
Deer Isle Stonington High School, ME
Sumner Memorial High School, ME
Washington Academy, ME
Vinalhaven High School, ME
Peekskill, NY
Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, VT (two)
Renbrook School, CT
Chariho Tech School, RI
Moravian Academy, PA
Wind & Oar Boat School Womens Rowing Club, OR
Florida Institute for Saltwater Heritage, FL (two)

In addition there are twenty-five St Ayles already built in Scotland with twenty-three on the way.

Four boats are under construction in the Netherlands, one in England and I hear the Australians are getting in on the action.



The competition is heating up and you dont want to be left out, so submit your order for a Skiff and get to work!









If you wish to see more photos of these sleek rowing vessels, visit the website for Scottish Coastal Rowing.

For previous DoryMan posts on this topic, please click here.

Jordan Boats, in the UK, is the source for the St Ayles Skiff.

Hewes & Company Marine Division, the North American distributor of St Ayles Skiff kits, can be found on Facebook.
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