Boat of the Week 6

Seen everywhere.

My favourite kind of boat: one thats for sale.

Other peoples boats are lovely but none are quite as full of spine-tingling potential as one that could be yours.
This particular ray of sunshine is in Port Townsend, Washington. Shes well-loved and comes complete with trailer at a very reasonable $4,000.
Im delighted that I cant get her in my luggage as otherwise I might be tempted.
Eleven narrow strakes per side, no clench nails, just roves.

Shes planked in an unspecified cedar over oak. The various types of "cedar" are used a lot in planking American boats. Ive used Western Red Cedar and Yellow Cedar (neither of which are "real" cedars) and compared with Larch they seem soft. I have to swallow my prejudices though because Nip N Tuc was built before the end of the Second World War and shows only a few signs of wear to the planking.
If I look that good at 68 Ill be delighted.

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By Their Ropes Ye Shall Know the Measure of the Sailor

As an on-going project here on DoryMan, Ive tried to mitigate some of the confusion about nautical terms with the glossary found at the top of the sidebar to your right - spent much of today filling in new entries. In fact, until Im dazed and confused myself. If you find any mistakes, let me know.

How often have I seen that glazed look on the face of a passenger or crew, the blank stare of one who hasnt understood a single word uttered? In mutual desperation, I have even found myself lately referring to the right or left side of the boat and "that green rope near your right hand". (incidentally, Belle Starr has color-coordinated lines to facilitate communication. Im trying, really am.)

Like I said, this is a project with no end. Every new entry begs another. Not one definition is self-explanatory. A lexicographer must be a very special species indeed. Please, if you have something youd like to contribute, dont hesitate. For now well stick to English, though nautical language the world over is a beautiful flower, music of the sea.

Your friend, Michael
mbogoger (at) gmail

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The Story of a Jib and a Balanced Lug

With Musings on a Lateen.

There was once a lonely Lug who didnt know what he was missing until he met Jib. He sailed to windward, off the beam and dead down, all with apparent equanimity.

Then one day Jib came along and spiced up his life. Now he had someone to get hung up on. Jib liked to languish on his yard and get tangled in his boom. Just the life for a Lug.
Jib had many fine qualities, but fast tacking was not one of them. More like a perpetual holiday for Jib.

Doryman has gotten used to having both of them around. Jib and Lug work well together. The occasional tangle of sheets, boom, leach and yard bother no one.

"Faerings arent suppose to have Jibs". "A balanced Lug and a Jib wont work on the same Boat.".

Let people talk. They are just jealous.

Thanks to Jamie Orr for the photos.

The inspiration for this sail combination came to me from David Oliver of the excellent blog, Lutes which celebrates the traditional fishing vessels of the Balearic Islands. The Balearic sailing rigs developed as a way to facilitate work on deck, while offering performance for navigation. David reminds us it is important to view these rigs as a tool for fishing to understand how they are used. There are types of working craft from around the world with provision for the same or similar sail combinations.

The lutes employ a lateen rig, yet by adding a jib far forward, windward performance is improved.

The addition of a mizzen on a retractable boomkin gives more sail options, not the least of which is the ability to strike that huge main, allowing more room to work. 

While the lateen can be mounted far enough forward to act as a jib and main combination, the option of a jib plus main is more versatile.


The balanced lug rig is very similar to the lateen in function. The ancient lateen is possibly the most beautiful sail in the world.


Davids blog is written in Catalan, but for those of us who have trouble with that complicated language, he offers a translator and we thank him for that! He owns a beautiful lute and its a treat to see one under sail. I recommend a long visit to Lutes.

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The Year of the Boat

Beauty, Imperfection and the Art of Doing It Yourself
By Lawrence W. Cheek

I was recently gifted a copy of The Year of the Boat, by my good friend Claire Acord. The author, Lawrence W. Cheek, is the architecture critic for the Seattle Post Intelligencer and is a neighbor of Claires on Whidbey Island, an artistically inclined suburb of Seattle, Washington. My hardbound copy of his book is signed and addressed to me. I feel a kinship with Lawrence, not just because of the personalized signature, but also since he understands the travails of building a handcrafted boat.




Lawrence had built a boat before, a kayak kit. He’d also taken a class in strip-planking another kayak. He was possessed of confidence and a romantic dream when he ordered plans for Sam Devlin’s Zephyr. The Zephyr is a simplified plywood version of a Delaware duck hunting boat called a melonseed. Sam designed it for the amateur builder and Lawrence insists he is just that person.

The culture of wooden boats has instilled on our imaginations a romantic vision of fine craftsmanship, which allows little room for error. Thus, amateur builders often fall in a trap constructed of their own expectations. Lawrence runs headlong into this cul-de-sac when he, early on, names his creation Far From Perfect.

The story of Far From Perfect is mostly about how imperfect the boat really is. The word “perfect” crops up too often for the name to be off-handed humor. I silently begged Lawrence to not belabor the subject, but he can’t help it. The dinghy becomes an obsession with perfection and a chronicle of errors.

The Year of the Boat is written for the first time builder. Lawrence Cheek wants a novice to understand that the process of becoming a craftsman is not simple or easy. With his elegant prose, I wish he’d spent more time explaining the pure joy of the process.

Wooden boat building can be a metaphor. We often attach meaning to a beautiful vessel, well beyond it’s practical worth. But, after an exhaustive search for meaning, Lawrence finally comes around to dollars and cents. He tells us his hours spent on the project are four times those projected by the plans, which I can understand, but his material expenditures are a whopping $4175. He could have built four Zephyrs, there must be a clerical error.

In my photo archives, I have a picture of Far From Perfect. My friend Joel Bergen also built a Zephyr and he and Lawrence launched their boats together one afternoon. Far From Perfect is the red hull with the varnished decks. Looks pretty darn good from here.

If you were thinking of building your first boat, I would recommend reading The Year of the Boat. In this book, you will find wisdom, frailty, humor, despair and beauty.

A metaphor for life, if you will.

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Its That Time of Year

If you want a good deal on a boat, shop during the winter. Follow this link for some incredible boats at unbelievable prices! The boat-horders around here are giving them away. Just look at this:

The link takes you to the Pocket Yachters For Sale page, a good place for great deals.

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Boat of the week 10

Seen at the London Boat Show.

A brand new Stirling and Son 9 clinker dinghy built by Will Stirling over the last 7 days. I left my visit to the boat show until nearly the end hoping to see Will finishing the planking. It seems he was much too quick for me! He wasnt even there when I visited the stand so I just took photographs and inspiration. The boat is timbered out and a stringer riser installed for the thwarts (I must find the name for this). This boat, and the gorgeous 14 sailing dinghy next to it, were rare treats at the boat show this year. Despite the economic crisis the show was once again dominated by enormous plastic motor boats. Its been a while since I went to the London show and it will be a few years until I go again. More power to the Stirlings elbows.

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On the Eve of the Secret History of American River People Expedition

As you may have heard, the shantyboat nears completion and we are readying it for the Secret History of American River People expedition on the Upper Mississippi starting in a few days.

This is a research journey to gather and present the lost stories of people living on or adjacent to the river. You can read all about it at the project website.

You can follow our progress on our voyage. You may want to hear about our triumphs and travails and the cool people we meet. If so, you can get automatic updates via email (or Twitter or Instagram and so on) right here: http://peoplesriverhistory.us/contact/

I also hope you will keep in touch with us and send us contacts of amazing people we want to talk to on the Upper Mississippi.

Thanks for all your support that has made this project possible.

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Chapter 9 A tale of 2 planks

It was the best of planks, it was the worst of planks...

Sorry Charles.

The garboard plank on the Navigator is in many ways the easiest plank, and also the hardest to install. The aft half of the plank is quite flat. It is spliced together with nice friendly butt blocks - no scarfing is necessary. The plank is quite uniform in width. The entire lower edge of the plank is attached to the lower panel using the ever popular stitch-and-glue technique.

The forward half of the plank is a another story. It makes a near 90 degree twist while curving around the bow and increasing in width, culminating with an attachment to a contoured stem with a rolling bevel.

Lets start with the easy part.

Here is a section of the garboard plank from the transom through bulkhead 7. To make the plank, first we measure the greatest width between the bottom panel and the stringer and add about 50mm. Measure the length and add about 50mm. Cut a rectangular piece of plywood to that size. Clamp it to the boat. Trace the profile of the lower plank and stringer onto the panel. Cut the panel to the profile. Epoxy the panel to the boat. The joint between the lower panel and the plank gets stitch-and-glued, which means it is temporarily stitched to the lower panel with wire ties or bailing wire, dabs of epoxy are applied between the stitches. When the epoxy dabs cure, the stitches are removed, a fillet of epoxy/wood flour is applied over the joint, which is then covered with fiberglass tape and epoxy. There are two splices in the panel. Both splices are hidden under the seats, so there is no need to bother with scarfing the plywood joints. Simple "butt blocks" are glued over the top of the joint, held in place with temporary screws until the epoxy sets.


At the bow, the panel has to twist from near horizontal to vertical

Its hard to believe that plywood can actually do this, but it can.

The drill starts out much the same as before. Cut out an oversized panel and clamp it to the boat, slowly and carefully bending it into position so it can be traced to actual size and then be installed.

So first we clamp it in place at the aft end, making sure we overlap the lower panel, stringer, and the aft panel.

Then we work our way forward, applying more clamps and carefully and evenly apply pressure to the panel.

At this point I noticed that the panel was riding quite hard on the front, lower edge of the stem. I forgot to take a photo, but you can see what Im talking about in this diagram. I had to remove the panel and plane off some additional material in this area until the panel fit properly.

Keep working your way forward. Avoid using clamps between the panel and the stringer. Quite a bit of force is required to bend the panel. The stringers will deform under that much force. I mostly used spreader clamps between the building jig and the panel to press it into place. Once the panel was in place, I added clamps to the stringers to pull the panel in the final fraction of an inch.

Another shot of the spreader clamps.

Finally the panel is in position.  Now trace around the lower panel, the stem, and the stringer onto the garboard panel.

Remove the panel and cut it to the traced profile.

Re-install the panel and re-clamp it to its final position. Stitch the garboard panel to the lower panel. Bailing wire or copper wire stitches work better than plastic ties in this area.

Glue the panel in place and repeat for the other side.

All I have left to do is finish the stitch and glue fillets and tape, and add the butt straps.

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The Strait of Georgia

Let us resume our voyage to Desolation Sound. On June twenty-third, this year, we left Silva Bay on Gabriola Island, headed for Halfmoon Bay on the Sechelt Peninsula, on the mainland of British Columbia. This meant crossing the fabled Strait of Georgia.

For small boats, the San Juan Islands in the US and the Canadian Gulf Islands to the north, form a safe archipelago of protected waters. Though the islands, reefs and shoals offer the mariner a plethora of challenges, the winds, in summer, are likely to be light and variable.
After traversing the maze of islands off the southeast shore of Vancouver Island, eighty nautical miles north to Nanaimo, our protected paradise gave way to the vagaries of weather and tide, in the open waters of the Strait of Georgia.



Silva Bay, on the south end of Gabriola Island, marked our last night on the west shore of the Salish Sea. From there, we would chart a course east and north, to a landfall in Halfmoon Bay, on the Sechet Peninsula, mainland British Columbia, Canada.
The day we left, the potential threat of the large open body of water was tempered by a calm and smooth Strait of Georgia, to the east. The day would prove a challenge, regardless - our GPS was sporadically reliable and eventually failed completely. This might present few problems on a calm day under clear skies, where the distant shore was visible, but navigation is complicated in this area by a large geometric rectangle marked on local charts with an imposing WF, which proves to be a Naval torpedo test area. Some days the area is restricted to traffic, others it is not. On this day, it was. Though the chart might suggest there is a large fence surrounding the restriction, there is nary an empirical indication the boundary exists.

Our mate, Paul, an area resident, told us the restriction was strictly enforced and wed be best advised to stay clear. Then, he and the others motored off, in their own boats and left us to our own devices. We did the best we could with our little outboard engine, by taking a heading off our departing friends and dead-reckoning our way into the Strait.


Aside from having to motor most of the way (you know how Doryman despises motors), it was a succesfull crossing of a potential challenging body of water - With an overnight stay in Halfmoon Bay - a wonderfully friendly place (unfortunately plagued with large mosquitoes).

In counterpoint, consider our return two weeks later, over the same stretch of water... A day that started with clouds, rain and fifteen knots of wind and deteriorated to thick fog with rain and twenty five knots of wind.
On that day, we traveled blind. Our GPS had failed and there were no landmarks visible. We made the crossing in the old-fashioned way, by dead-reckoning.




The hazards of such a system of navigation were evident to Captain Vancouver, who, in the log describing his exploration of this treacherous inland body of water, was despondent of his endeavor to the point of naming our beautiful and remote destination, Desolation.

Next installment, Desolation Sound and the Sunshine Coast.
 

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The Boats of Paul E Luke

Here is the definitive list of all S&S designed boats built by Paul E. Luke of East Boothbay, Maine. They are listed by year, LOA, design number and name. All are active hyperlinks.

1957, 45-8", 1230, Mermaid

1957, 38-6", 1054, Delight

1958, 46-0", 1330, Madrigal

1961, 37-5", 1641, Nancy Sue

1964, 47-5", 1766, Duster

1970, 49-3", 1995, Challenge II

1972, 58-8", 2081, Shohola

1974, 45-6", 2192, Peregrine

1975, 55-5", 2100, Southerly

1977, 58-5", 2269, Sirona

1979, 50-10", 2365, Zimba

1981, 50-0", 2373, Palawan V

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