Boat Plans Choices Made and Not Made

So it looks like were building a boat.

Not merely throwing a bunch of shit on the deck of a couple pontoons, or strapping a bunch of barrels together, but making a boat.

You know, one of those things that floats in the water and has things like a hull and a deck, not to mention nautical terms Im still learning like bilge, stringers, chines, skegs, and bulwarks.

I checked out a half dozen plans seriously.  I ordered study plans, an abbreviated form of the full plans for study purposes, from a couple of boatbuilders, and looked at reviews of many more.

Retreat Designed by William Atkin, c. 1947 Length: 18 Beam: 7 Atkins Retreat is a sweet boat.  We liked the simple barge styling and how the cabin was positioned.  We ordered the study plans and particularly enjoyed dealing with Pat Atkin, Williams daughter-in-law who now manages Atkin Boat Plans in Noroton, Connecticut.  However this is an old design that suggests cedar planking rather than plywood. We thought William Atkin would be assuming we knew stuff that our generation had long ago forgotten.  More here.
Minnie Hill 20 Designed by Sam Devlin, 2008 Length: 20 Beam: 8 2" We took a look at this boat as well.  It seemed like a fine boat with a simple design inspired by the Retreat.  The scant study plans and coarse lines of the plan did not inspire a ton of confidence.  More info here.
Aqua Casa 20 Designed by Berkeley Eastman, 1990 Length: 20 Beam: 7 3" We liked the look of the Aqua Casa but thought the curved hull would confound us.  We also wanted a covered deck rather than an open deck that could be swamped.  More info here.
Waterlodge Designed by Glen L. Witt, c. 1990 Length: 20 2" Beam: 8 2" We liked a lot of the things about the Waterlodge.  The simple design and construction.  We did wish the cabin was pushed back toward the stern which it is in the 24 version.   More info here.

There were lots and lots of boat plans we looked at,  but these are the ones for which study plans were readily available.  Its worth mentioning that we also looked at the classic Coolwater, but knew that the plans that appeared in Modern Mechanix in the 1940s were sketchy at best and no competent boat designer had made a crack at developing complete plans.

In the end it came down to confidence that the boat designer could adequately communicate to us what we needed to know to build a boat.  Our choice came down to small details.  There were designs that had a centered cabin or one pushed a bit back toward the stern -- we leaned toward the latter.  There were designs that had covered decks versus open decks -- we went with covered decks.  There were designs that called for twin rakes fore and aft, and designs that had very little rake in back -- we were drawn to the latter.  We understood that all these things could be modified in the plans, but were not confident in our ability to freestyle from the designers intentions.

A few boat designers and builders suggested Glen L. Witts Boat Building With Plywood as a great guide to understanding plywood boats.  I picked it up first through inter-library loan at the local university library, read it, and, when it seemed like such an indispensable volume, bought it online.  Step-by-step, every aspect considered.  Sober and serious and refreshingly frank, the tone was perfect for what and how I wanted to learn.  I was impressed by Glen L. Witts ability to describe the nitty-gritty of boat building.

When it came time to shell out money for boat building plans, I was confident that the Glen-L plans would not only feature a great barge-style houseboat, but that the devil in the details would be on our side. 

I ordered the Glen-L Waterlodge plans for just over a hundred bucks.  They arrived promptly.  I opened them with excitement and was not disappointed.  These are beautiful large detailed blueprints.  Gorgeous.

Even if I dont build a boat, I now have beautiful nautical art I can hang.

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Down But Not Out

News travels fast so many of you already know, Belle Starr went on the rocks. That sounds a bit like one of my sly jokes, but its not.

A winter force gale swept through the Pacific Northwest the last hours of August, leaving thousands of homes without power. Belle Starr rode high and secure through the first heavy gusts but chaffed her solitary anchor line as the storm crested.

Two hours after wed made a positive visual check on her position from shore, the Coast Guard called and said she was on the beach. At an extreme low tide, thats where I found her, in sand pocked with barnacle encrusted rocks and only a couple boat lengths from a rip-rap jetty.

After watching the tide come back and the surf rise while assessing all options, I called Vessel Assist. In most cases I would much prefer a self-rescue but it was clear I didnt have the resources this time.




Vessel Assist at first told me the seas were too high and they couldnt approach the wreck. We must wait for the wind to die down, possibly another six hours according to predictions. But barely had I digested this news than their boat appeared just 100 yards off shore. They deployed an inflatable and a diver swam a hawser in-shore. With the boat leaping in the surf, the diver lassoed the bow bits and Belle was towed carefully off the beach. Id been told she was breached, though she made a mighty effort to float, so soon she lowered herself in thirty five feet of water to spend the night on the calm sand below.

The salvage crew told me that while they were working, gusts had been clocked on their boat at 80mph.

Break of dawn the following morning in a calm, flat sea, divers wrapped Belle in a cocoon of air bags until her cabin deck was above water and she was towed to the travel-lift in the boatyard.

Shes on her trailer now. My very good friend, the superlative shipwright Paul Miller from Cowichan Bay, BC,  drove south Wednesday to help me cut away the damaged portions of Belle and prep for repairs. Hes started a thread on his favorite social media, lumberjocks:
http://lumberjocks.com/shipwright/blog/65362

Paul is having way too much fun.

Belle Starr now looks like a cut-away view of herself. There is a very good chance she will be back together and weather tight in a month.

Please stay tuned..........

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How NOT to Pack a Kayak Part II

A couple of months ago I posted this short Youtube clip about a fellow that exercised poor judgement in their approach to kayak packing. Well, after seeing a photo on Lees blog, apparently they are in good company. Head over to the link for the second instalment in the developing series of how not to pack your boat.

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Tips on how not to die in a fiery ball of twisted metal on the highway

Anyone know anything about trailer tow hardware like sway bars and weight distributing whohaws and whatnots?

The shantyboat were planning will be trailer-able.  So if Im gonna be towing a heavy-ass boat on a trailer down the road with a 20 foot double axle trailer with electric brakes, I want not to experience the sheer shit-in-your-pants life-flashes-before-your-eyes terror of a swaying trailer that I remember from my years hauling my theme camp out to the Black Rock Playa back in the day.

The weight of the boat, will be maybe 5000 lbs and change (but maybe as high as 7000 lbs). Ill be towing it with a 1970 Ford 3/4 ton F250. My old work truck.  God, I love that thing.  500 bucks ten years ago.  This is the only vehicle Ive shown the commitment of purchasing a stereo for.

Chicken John whos towed big stupid heavy things around for years says:

So that truck probably weighs about 5,000 pounds. If its a 3/4 ton, itll have a heavy duty front end, more springs in the back, bigger drums/calipers, beefier suspension all around and should not sway. If it does, I would look to a repair in the truck or changing the weight of the trailer around... maybe move the boat up or back a foot or two. you want like 400 pounds of tongue weight or so.

Swaying is death on wheels. Back in the day, with my smaller 64 F150, if we kept is slow, like 50 and under, all was okay, but if we went faster than that, terror.

I hear there are nifty things called sway bars and other fancy hardware that can allow my life to feel more secure. What do I need to look at if I want to maybe go 55 without dying?

Some helpful webpage about truck and trailer towing says:

1. Chronal circuitry.  2. Mr. Fusion.  3. Flux capacitor.  4. Geissler tubes.  5. Plutonium-powered nuclear reactor

The Weight Distribution Hitch

The weight distribution hitch allows the Ford 250 to tow double the weight of the simple hitch. This hitch uses the same ball attached to the back of the truck. It adds two bars or tubes, stretching two feet back, under the frame of the trailer. Each tube connects with a chain to the trailer frame above it. When the truck slows down and the trailer wants to dip down, the tubes and chains prevent it from doing so. With this type of hitch, the trailer and the truck stay in the same plane. The trailer cant tilt forward and press the back of the truck down.

Im down with that.  There are all sorts of variations apparently, sway controls, and weight distribution styles.  I read about this until my head spun.

But again from Chicken:

Weight disribution or anti-sway bar... same same. I dont recommend them, but they are useful in over 8,000 pound applications. For you, with your 3/4 ton truck, it would be best to only tow inside your "towing capacity". Which I think you can do. However, if you find that your rig is not right after you hitch up and go on a trial run, you could try something like that. But as I said, if you are towing 5,000 pounds and you start to sway, its probably the truck needing a repair.

So I like to hear those soothing words, like "Youll be okay," and "You can do it," and "You probably will not die on the highway in the wreckage of your shantyboat."  They warm my chilled little heart.

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Organization How To Make Boatbuilding Not Suck

Boats are made of lots and lots of funny precision parts that all look more or less the same but are subtle different.  A bow skeg stringer end accidentally exchanged for a stern skeg stringer end and its all over.

The previous build day, in my excitement I threw together the dead simple building form, and assembled it wrong.  The building form is just made of 2x4s nailed together, but the boat members will be screwed and epoxied.  Theres no going back on wood parts epoxied together.  A serious error could mean having to start completely over on that member. 

 

So the previous build day was a lesson in the need for precision.  Before going further, I created labels for every piece of every member of the hull.  As I ripped pieces and then cut them to length, I stapled my sturdy cardboard labels directly on to the boards.

This way, when it came time to assemble, say, the starboard skeg stringer, I would only have to gather up all the pieces that said SKEG STRGR 1 (top, bottom, fore post, aft post, fore end, aft end) and bring them into the barn for assembly.

I also got a quad-ruled comp book and started taking detailed notes.  All the things youd normally scribble down on scratch paper as you were calculating angles and measurements and offsets went into the notebook.  All my little sketches of what pieces should look like before I cut them, lists of procedures, materials I needed to get, and a detailed journal of each day of work went into the comp book.

Along with a place in the barnyard to build the boat, Lawrence let us use an unused horse stall in the barn.  This made a perfect build office, a place to layout the plans, organize all our tools, and most importantly keep snacks and beer.

Having the right tool at hand when you need it, is not only convenient but can be critical during the stressful build process, especially when you are dealing with epoxy.  We spent time making sure that every tool had its own place.  This also had the benefit of making daily clean up more fun.  It felt good to do a lot of hard work and then have everything all neat and tidy at the end of the day.

Here Kai, one of my co-builders, in a goofy moment, models the first photo for our Little Shantyboat Pinup Calendar.  This also helps make boatbuilding not suck.

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