SMALL CRAFT WARNING

Building the Matinicus Double Ender- Part 11

2012-01-30T20:45:00.000-05:00

I've been quite busy working on Mouse, even though I haven't written to the blog recently. Several things have been happening simultaneously, though they are presented here in a linear fashion, so some photos may appear out of synch. The last piece of major structure to go in the interior is the main mast partner, and this has to be installed before the remaining deck framing can go in. I made the partner itself from 3 laminations of 9mm occume. The multi-directional grain makes a very tough partner, resisting any tendency to split or warp, and its 1-1/8" thickness is plenty stiff.

Checking the mast rake with a dummy stick.

I decided to step the mast through a gate, rather than down through a hole, to facilitate easier stepping afloat (we hope). The mast will be square in section at the base, and will pivot up into a three sided enclosure. A pair of bronze straps are bolted to the partner, through which a stout pin will slide, capturing the mast. The partner opening will be lined with leather.

I cut out the mast opening, being careful to get the rake angle correct. I used a lofted measurement from frame #1 to lay out the position of the opening on the partner. I rounded over the top and bottom edges of the opening, to make it easier to pull the leather around. I'd been saving a piece of 1/16" bronze plate for just such an application, and dug this out to make the straps. I laid these out on the plate, and cut them with a hacksaw, then radiused the ends.

The straps are cut out of 1/16" bronze sheet...

...the ends are radiused and the edges filed smooth.

I thought the bronze might be too flimsy for the job, but it proved to be very stiff, and quite tough to bend. I made a little wood jig to bend the plate around, but couldn't make the bend with any tool I had.

This jig for bending the plate was unsuccessful.

I was pondering this problem, and mentioned it to my lighting designer neighbor. He said, "oh, I've got a Diacro bender in the shop, come on down and we'll make it happen". That's one advantage of being in NYC, rather than out in the woods! I had to walk maybe 200 yards to his shop, where we made the bends in about 15 minutes.

The plate is put in the bender, with the correct die...

...and the bender's arm swings around to bend the plate, effortlessly.

The mast partner was saturated with 2 coats of epoxy, and painted (along with the knees that hold it in the boat), before leathering the opening and bolting on the straps.

This is what the straps will look like.

Epoxy saturated plywood.

The leather is another little story. Just across the hall from my shop, a leather artisan recently moved in, and she gave me a nice little scrap of hide for the job. Her outfit is called Kika NY. Check it out. I used up the last of my stash of brass canoe tacks (that I got from Rollin Thurlow, when I took his canoe restoration class at Wooden Boat about 20 years ago) putting on the leather chafe guards. I used the tacks, plus some contact cement to hold the leather in place, wrapping it from the top around to the bottom of the partner.

Leathering the partner.

I next made a stout oak pin to slide in the straps. The pin is radiused on one edge, and flat on the other where it bears against the partner.

Making the oak pin.

I drilled out the top of the bronze straps and the partner on the drill press, but clamped the straps on with the pin in place to drill all the way through. I wanted the fit to be perfect. The pin should slide easily, which it does. The mast will be snugged up in its cutout with a wedge driven down between it and the oak pin. With the partner assembly complete, I installed it in the boat, along with the knees. I used Sikaflex where the parts all bear against the hull, and between the knees and the partner.

The completed mast partner.

While all of this partnering was going on, I was also working on the deck carlins and the fore and aft beams in the center of the end decks. Though the term is not quite accurate, I'll call these longitudinal beams "king planks". The mizzen mast will step through the aft king plank, so a hole must be drilled at the correct angle to account for the mast rake. This is a little tricky, as you will see. I like to use plywood here like I did the main mast partner, for its resistance to splitting. Both fore and aft king planks will support deck cleats also, so they should be strong. There is a shallow curve down the length of both king planks, like the curve in the sheer, so I laminated two thicknesses of plywood right on the boat, fitting them in notches cut in the deck beams, and trimmed to fit the stems and inwales in the ends of the boat. This is also a good way to use up scrap ply left over from the planking.

The deck beams are notched for the king planks.

The king plank blanks are laminated right on the boat.

I took the mast angle right off of the lofting with a bevel gauge, and used it to set up the drill press.

There are a couple of different ways to go wrong here, and I did them both. For one thing, I measured the angle relative to the water-plane, rather than normal to the sheer, for some reason. So the angle of the drill press was not right. The other thing I did was orienting the plank the wrong way on the drill press, so the angle would have been backwards.

A 2-1/2" hole saw is set up to drill the mizzen hole.

I had just started drilling, when something clunked into place in my mind, and I stopped. I went back and re-measured the angle, changed the drill press, and flipped the plank end for end. I had only drilled into it a little way, so I was able to correct the error without having to make it over again!

The correct angle and orientation!

Before gluing the king planks in, I masked off the areas not to receive glue, and put a plastic drop down in the hull to protect the paint from drips.

The king planks are epoxy saturated like the mast partner before installation.

At the same time, I worked on fitting the carlins. These fore and aft members define and support the deck around the inside, along with the coamings (to be fit later).

The carlins are clamped in place.

I use scrap stock to get the compound angle at the cut ends right, before cutting the actual pieces. These have to fit just right at both ends, and to that end I have developed my own method of fitting. I get one end perfect, then mark a reference line on the boat and carlin about midway down. I then fit my scrap piece at the other end, and transfer the reference mark from the boat to the scrap. I then measure from the long point of the cut end on the scrap back to the reference mark, and transfer that number to the actual carlin (works for inwales too). I make the cut a hair long, maybe 1/32" and bend in the carlin. It doesn't quite fit at one end, but I run a saw cut between the faying surfaces, twice if necessary, and it drops right in place. No more shims!

Running a saw blade between the joint for a perfect fit.

At this point, I've epoxy coated the inside faces of the carlins, and I'm ready to fasten them in. The oval deck beams at each end of the boat are next, and I'll cover that next time. Hang in there, we're getting closer and closer!

Building the Matinicus Double Ender- Part 10

2012-01-01T00:14:00.000-05:00

Well I've been working pretty hard to finish fitting the seats and side benches. My idea to laminate some curve into the bench stock worked out very well. I could have shimmed the benches up a little as Doryman suggested, but the curved stock fits the riser curvature for their full length, and the benches fair into the thwarts nicely, so I'm glad I put the time into it. I made a thin ply pattern for the benches, scribing to fit the hull and notching around the frames. There is quite a bevel on the edges of the side benches where they meet the hull, but the bevel doesn't change much, thankfully.

Thin, plywood patterns were made for the side benches.

I fit the pieces carefully to the hull and around the frames, but left the inboard edges wild.

I next sprung a batten around the whole length of the bench, sawed out the curve…

…and cleaned up the cut with a compass plane.

After going to all the trouble to fit the benches tight to the hull, it was suggested by some of the folks on the WoodenBoat forum that I should leave a space, or cut scuppers at the hull to drain any loose water that would collect there in a puddle (think wet butt). I decided that was a smart move, and scribed a fat quarter of an inch off the outboard edges of the benches, but left the notches at the frames snug. I also made the fit a little loose where the benches butt the thwarts. I was afraid of future swelling across the grain of the thwarts, pushing against the frame-heads and possibly doing some damage. I cut a bevel on the undersides of all the parts to reduce their apparent thickness, and finished off the edges top and bottom with a hand-cut round over. I prefer cutting this by hand, rather than with a router. Its faster, quieter, and produces an elegant transition from square to radiused edge. The last piece to get out was the dagger trunk cap, which notches around the dagger opening, and butts into the forward thwart.


The benches were cut back a little, to drain water.


The front edge is beveled on the underside to reduce the apparent thickness. The screws provide little stands to facilitate finishing both sides of the piece at once.

All of the furniture was finish sanded, and the screw holes were bunged and trimmed. It doesn't seem that complicated, but there were 23 separate pieces of wood to cut, fit, shape, plug, sand, or otherwise caress and cajole into the boat. All for a place to sit! And after all of that, those pieces still have to be varnished, several coats.

This little sander is ideal for working in tight places.

The middle thwart alone has 8 separate pieces!

I put a sealer coat of amber shellac on everything, to give it a little color.

The furniture, with sealer.

The Spanish Cedar I used is quite pretty, though not as dark or as red as mahogany or sapele would be. But it is quite light in weight, which is good because there is a lot of it. It's pretty soft, though, and if it gets dinged up too badly, or I get tired of varnishing every year (more likely), I can always paint it! But for now its varnish time. I like Z-Spar 1015 Captain's Varnish, and have used it for years. I thin the first coat some, and thin the subsequent coats less, but always use a little brushing liquid. It slows down the drying, and enhances the "wet edge". I put on three coats after the sealer, top and bottom, then got ready to install the whole lot. I'll put on another two coats before I'm done, for a net five. Some people say you need a minimum of seven, but I've never managed it!

Nice "plum pudding" figure in this Spanish Cedar.

The thwart knees are cherry.

I decided to bed the knees and thwart ends in a slow-cure Sikaflex bedding compound. Its fussy to do, but I carefully taped off all the appropriate surfaces against the mess to come, and was glad I did. Even so, the cleanup was a bitch. The goop is sticky, and the shapes are intricate. But I managed to do it all fairly neatly. I'll have a little touch-up painting to do around all the furniture.

Sikaflex bedding compound is applied to the parts.

The parts and the hull were taped off prior to installation. The squeeze-out is evident here.

The finished installation.

Another view.

The before mentioned dagger trunk cap.

The fruition of all this work is a beautiful, golden-hued interior, which should look like it just dropped into place, with no evidence of all the labor that went into it. I hope I have succeeded in that regard. But now, thankfully, its time to move on!

Building the Matinicus Double Ender- Part 9

2011-11-24T22:51:00.000-05:00

To view Part 1 click here.

Thanksgiving is traditionally the time that I am able to re-connect with my boat building projects. The sailing season is pretty much done, though I have not put Cricket, my crab skiff, away for the winter quite yet. I look forward to turkey day and the beginning of the holiday season, for the renewed energy and enthusiasm I always feel at the prospect of some real boat carpentry.

Cricket in the marsh, tying in a reef. Photo by Chris Bickford.

Mouse (as I've named the peapod) has been gathering dust for six busy months of fancy interior cabinetry, including two Manhattan kitchens since July, among other projects. I vacuumed her out and started back in where I left off. The interior had been painted, floorboards were installed, and deck beams were fitted. I screwed in the seat risers, and got out the spanish cedar planks that will make up the thwarts and side benches.


A stack of spanish cedar will become thwarts and side benches.

I made patterns for the thwarts from particle board and scrap 3mm poplar ply. I somehow neglected to photograph this step, but the ply is fitted to the side curvature, and bevels were taken at the fore and aft edges of each thwart. I transferred the patterns to the thwart stock and sawed them out square first, then marked the bevels and sawed to the least angle on the bandsaw, then fine-tuned the bevels with a block plane on the bench.

Bandsawing the bevel on a thwart.

After the thwarts were fitted, I installed hardwood blocks (cherry, in this case) underneath to carry the ends of the side benches. I also added an athwartship stiffener, glued and screwed to the center thwart, because the span at that location is too great to go unsupported. The stiffener is not really visible, unless you look under the seat, and that suits me fine. You'll see a lot of steel screws in these photos. These will all be replaced with bronze, and bunged, before varnishing and installing the furniture permanently. The thwarts will be held in with knees, NOT screwed to the risers. They bear against a frame on one edge, and are captured at the other by the side benches. So, the knees hold them down, and the frames and side benches locate them fore and aft. This is traditional construction. I make patterns for each seat knee from scrap mdf or ply, and fit the notches carefully before laying out and cutting the curve that makes these knees attractive. The knees themselves are cut from straight-grained cherry, with the grain running diagonally from seat to rail.


Patterns are made for the thwart knees.

And the knee is sawn from cherry.

A boat-full of thwarts and knees. The aft knees have not been sawn to shape yet.

A finished knee. The small gaps will close up when the knee is fastened in.

When I planed the thwart stock to final thickness, I left the side bench stock a little thicker. I was worried about having to bend in a stiff plank to the riser's curvature. In retrospect, I probably should have spiled the risers from a wider piece, making them follow a straight line from the aft edge of the center thwart to their aft end. Walt Simmons says this should be a straight line, but I couldn't make my riser stock do anything but follow a curve similar to the sheer curve. It was all I could do to get the risers at the correct height (for rowing) at each location. So consequently, there is a bit of a dip along the span of the benches, in profile. The outside curve in plan view, of course, is just sawn to shape to fit the plank's curvature. So I decided to resaw the bench stock and glue it back together with a little curve in it. I don't know if anyone else does it this way, but it makes sense to me. It took me about thirty minutes to resaw the stock, and run it back through the planer.

Resawing a 12" plank. Piece of cake for this Minimax bandsaw.


An extra high particle board fence is slid over the fence casting to facilitate wide resawing projects.

Dressing the resawn plank to thickness.

I then set up a simple form with three sticks, the middle of which was higher by the amount of curve I wanted, and glued up a bent plank for each side bench. That's where we are now, on Thanksgivng Day. I will be fitting the side benches next, and finish up the top of the daggerboard case.


Gluing in a slight curve to the side benches.

Ready for side benches.

Stay Tuned!

Building The Matinicus Double Ender- Part 8

2011-04-03T17:43:00.000-04:00

To view Part 1 click here.

It finally feels like I'm getting somewhere, once the paint starts going on. It provides a temporary welcome relief from the construction, which we'll have to get back to in short order. When we were up at last year's Small Reach Regatta we had a look at Mark Ober's striking Pulsfer Hampton. His cockpit sole was painted a beautiful sand color, and I asked him if it was from Petit paint, and he said he thought it was. I looked at the Petit Easypoxy color chart, and spotted it immediately. Sandtone. I was able to pick all of my colors from the Petit catalog, happily, and ordered the lot from Jamestown Distributors. Easypoxy is a single part polyurethane, similar to Interlux Brightsides, which I've used a lot. Some people advocate painting directly over cured and sanded epoxy with polyurethane paints, but I have always used an appropriate primer which fills small blemishes, and sands beautifully. That is what I did here.

The sanded primer.

Areas to be later bonded to with epoxy are taped off before painting.

I enjoy painting, but it is a lot of work, and somewhat of a marathon. I started on the primer coat one evening about 6:00, and didn't leave the shop until 2:00 am! I was happy the next day that it sanded easily. I then put on three topcoats of Sandtone, sanding in between. The first coat I left gloss, but added a little flattener to the last two coats. Its helps to soften the effect a little, but is not quite as durable as the super high gloss.

The finished interior color.

I did say that I enjoy painting a boat, but the enjoyment is tempered somewhat after going around the boat four times with paint and sandpaper. I can't imagine how someone could get on six or seven coats, though it does get easier as you build up the surface. I keep my boats well covered and protected from the sun, and after four years my crab skiff Cricket still looks great.

I've been hanging on to some salvaged redwood boards for quite a while, thinking I could use them in a boat somewhere, and decided the MDE floor boards would be the perfect use for them. I had a few pieces of dressed 5/4 stock, with a few nail holes from some previous, unknown application (I can't even remember where I got them), and I found an old picnic table top in the dumpster down by my loading dock. I also salvaged a dozen old growth fir 2x4's, vertical grain and virtually clear, from the same dumpster. I've set those aside for a later project, like frames for a dory maybe. I pulled out the floorboard patterns that I had previously made, and laid out the lengths on my redwood stock. I resawed the boards on the bandsaw, then dressed them down to about 7/16". I was concerned that they would be strong enough, but the spans are not over 15", so I think they will be adequate.


The redwood stock is laid out with the floorboard patterns...

...and split open on the bandsaw.

I whittled out about 50 little plugs from the redwood rips, and drove them into any old nail holes that remained after cutting the floorboards out. I love the feel of oiled floorboards under my bare feet. Cricket has a cedar sole that is comfortable, and that I renew with oil every season. I used the old pinetar-linseed oil-turps concoction on Cricket, but I didn't have any on hand in the shop. I did have a bottle of so-called "teak oil", which I put on the redwood, and it is beautiful. The old wood has a lot of character, and looks great in the boat.


The oiled redwood looks pretty against the painted hull.

I screwed the floorboards down with bronze screws, which will age nicely. Its a good thing the redwood was free, because a box of bronze screws is about $25! So now its on to the rest of the interior, which I've already worked out (see previous post). I'm going to use Spanish cedar for the seats, because of its weight savings. The knees which hold the seats down will be cherry. But more on that later...

Building The Matinicus Double Ender- Part 7

2011-02-20T10:37:00.001-05:00

To view Part 1, click here.

With the boat framed up and the sail plan finalized, it is time to nail down the interior layout. There are two givens; the forward and the aft rowing thwart positions, which I laid out to plan. Starting with these two thwarts, I drew up the deck plan and furniture arrangement.

Deck plan and interior arrangement.

I've always known I would deck the boat. Washboards (side decks) and coamings do a wonderful job of keeping the water out, and will allow us to sail the boat a little harder than we might with open gunwales. On the other hand, a large deck area can choke up the interior, particularly if side benches are to be fitted, as I am doing here. I had initially intended to step the main mast through the deck, but after thinking about this, I decided to keep the end decks short, and step the main mast through a thwart. This would allow me to fit a mast gate so that I might more easily step or ship the mast afloat. The heel of the mast is set into the step mortise, and the mast is pushed upright through the open gate. Once in position, a heavy pin will be slid into place behind the mast, closing the gate. This is all quite a bit easier than standing up with a mast held high, and trying to get it down through a hole in the deck and into the mortise in the step, with the boat rolling and pitching to boot. The substantial lever of a flailing mast can tear up the whole front end of the boat! So I laid out the deck to stop just short of the mast forward. The mizzen, being a much smaller and lighter stick, will pass through the aft deck.

I cut the main mast step from more of my dumpster fir, notching it around the stem knee and butting up tight against the forward frame. The mizzen step sits right on top of the aft stem. I glued and screwed the steps down with epoxy and bronze screws.


The main mast step notches around the stem knee...

...while the mizzen step sits on top.

Next, I got set up to fit the seat risers. At the forward thwart location, I leveled across to the side of the boat from the dagger trunk (I double-checked that the boat itself was still level athwartship). I tacked battens in the boat port and starboard, temporarily nailing these into the frames when they were pulled up level. To make this easier to do, I cut out temporary flake board thwarts, resting each end on the riser battens with a spirit level on top (I'll use these later to make patterns for the real thwarts).

Leveling the riser battens.

At the aft rowing thwart, I nailed the battens in a set distance below the sheer (at proper rowing height), again leveling across the boat. I then hauled the battens into place at both ends of the boat, pulling the forward end as high as I could to maximize the bury of the mast (the mast partner rests on the risers). This all took quite a bit of fiddling to get right. There is a lot of twist in the riser, and the battens don't want to lay flat on the frames, compounding the difficulty of accurately determining the correct height. I was afraid the risers themselves would be hard to bend into the boat, but they were relatively easy to get in, and I clamped, then screwed them without glue to the frames at the correct height. They will be removed again to paint the interior, then re-hung with glue later. Finally, I fitted the aft most thwart pattern, set just forward of the end deck, and some rough approximations of the side benches.

The 'midship side benches are quite long, so I fitted a knee in the middle of their span, to help support them. With these all in place, I was really able to get a feel for the interior structure of the boat, and I like it! There are plenty of seating options available to trim the boat, depending on crew. The push-pull tiller will have a screw-on extension for solo sailing, allowing me to move close to the middle of the boat. It can be removed for the skipper to slide aft when more crew come aboard. I have to say that I quite like this type of steering, having used it for years in my sailing canoes.


The actual seat risers are fitted, and knees are added to support the side benches at mid-span.


Close up view of the side bench knee and riser.

Now, its on to the deck beams. Once the extent of the end decking was known, I installed the full length beams in the end of the boat. I glued little short blocks to the inwale, to which I would glue and screw these frames. The frames could also be let into the inwales, but I chose not to do it that way. The compound bevels on the beam ends were cut quickly with a hand saw. I left the beams wide until they fit snugly, and were screwed in place. I then scribed them to the deck camber with a template, removed them and cut them to shape, and glued them back in permanently.

Deck beams are fitted, then marked out to the camber and cut out.

The little short washboard beams, or knees if you prefer, were a little trickier to fit, notching over the inwale and extending down along the inside of the sheer plank a couple of inches. This shape gives them enough strength, when glued and screwed to the frames, to stand alone without angle braces of any sort. Like the full length beams, I left them over size and temporarily screwed them all to the boat. To determine their exact length, I sprung in a batten from end to end, terminating at the full length end deck beams. At the same time, I put in thin ply template stock at each end, and bent a drafting spline to the shape of the oval deck ends, fairing this into the batten. This gave me the exact shape of the complete deck.

Carlin batten and oval coaming template.

I marked all of the knees, then removed them and laid out their shapes. There is a longitudinal timber called a carlin, which defines the outer cockpit edge and supports the decking, much like the inwale does out at the sheer. I like to rest the carlin in a notch cut into the knees. I cut this notch in each knee, using the layout line that I marked from the batten. I then marked and cut a curve in the underside of each knee. When the knees were all cut, I glued and screwed them into the boat.

The deck knees are all glued in.

Knees are notched for the carlins.

Before going any further, I need to stop and paint the interior. Any other structure in the boat will make it too hard to paint around. The carlins in particular would be in the way, and I'll also wait on the oval deck framing and the king planks for the same reason. I can't wait to paint the inside!

Building The Matinicus Double Ender- Part 6

2011-01-09T19:43:00.000-05:00

The lug yawl sail plan is finalized .

Its hard to believe that almost a year has passed since the last post. Once spring comes around, there is so much work to do at the club in preparation for the sailing season, and then the season itself (which this year continued on until nearly Thanksgiving). Six months go by without any progress on the peapod! And so I look forward to the holidays as a time to re-connect with boat building.I had always intended to rig this boat as a lug yawl, and finally got around to drawing up the sail plan. I also decided to substitute a dagger board for the pivoting centerboard. The dagger board is lighter, simpler, and takes up less space than a centerboard, and when rowing, a plug can be dropped in the slot to eliminate speed robbing turbulence in the trunk. This conversion is not as simple as it might seem, as any changes to rig or underbody can affect the balance of the boat, producing a heavier than normal weather helm, or a possibly dangerous lee helm. The thwart layout and rowing positions determine, to some extent, the position of the dagger trunk, as thwart and trunk are mutually supportive structurally. Once the balance point of the hull is arrived at (by balancing a scaled cutout of the underbody on an awl and marking the point), the rig is drawn and its geometric center is found. I played around with mast placement, rake, sail shape, etc. and made many back and forth adjustments with the sails and the dagger board until I arrived at what I hope will be a well balanced boat.

So its on to the interior! I built the dagger trunk first, and made it a good four inches longer fore and aft than the board itself, still hedging my bets as regards the balance until the sailing trials. I'll fill in the excess slot once I determine the exact position of the board. The trunk is so simple! Just two posts, which extend through the plank keel, two sides, and two bed logs cut to the slight curve of the inside bottom.

The completed trunk, upside down. The posts will extend through the keel.

Slot pattern for a long top-bearing router bit.

I made a router jig to cut the slot from inside the boat, and I left the ends of the slot plumb even though the posts are raked to avoid chiseling the angles through 1-1/2" of keel. A wedge will be epoxied in (one from inside, one from outside) to close up the gap. Very simple.

A wedge will be epoxied in to fill the gap.

I blue-taped the parts of the slot that must remain clean, and then glued and clamped the trunk into the boat, being careful to keep it plumb athwartship.

The area of the slot to remain clean is masked off.

The trunk is clamped to the boat through the slot.

The frames are next, and I chose to use a futtock style frame of spanish cedar, glued up in halves with short pieces to optimize grain direction. I settled on 5 frames, built to span sheer to sheer and set perpendicular to the centerline like a bulkhead, and joggled to fit the laps.

The first layer of the spanish cedar frame-halves.

Layer two spans the previous butt-joints.

I'll confess right up front that the bevels eluded me. It would have been much simpler to set the frames square to the planking, but I wanted a continuous frame, dory style, and so paid the price. My method of finding the frame shapes is quite simple, and avoids spiling. I cut a scrap of thin (1/8") ply close to the inside shape, but ignoring the laps. I then hot-glued a few small blocks in the hull, and tack welded the rough pattern to the blocks with more hot glue.

A thin ply pattern is hot-glued to small blocks exactly in the frames intended location.

I next ripped up strips of the same thin ply, cut them to length, and hot-glued them to the pattern board at each plank. This is very fast, and extremely accurate. As long as the pattern is set exactly where you want the frame to land, then the frame will fit every time.

Straight-edged strips fit snugly to the planks.

The shape is traced onto the glued-up frame blank, and sawn out.

I use the same pattern for both sides of the hull, but I do try it out on the other side and make notes of any slight discrepancies. Now for those tricky bevels. I cut the frames square, tight on one edge, but leaving a gap at the other.

The frame fits tight on one edge, bust is open in way of the bevels.

I ripped up a pile of variously beveled strips on the bandsaw, and used this stock to add the bevels to the frame, rather than cutting the bevels away. I release-taped the hull under each frame half, and glued these bevels to the frame halves right in the boat.

Beveled wedges are glued in.

When the glue cured, I removed the frames and cleaned everything up, before installing the frames permanently in the boat. The end result is structurally identical to a sawn bevel, even if the method is somewhat unorthodox. I will admit to being a trifle sheepish about it, but I'm quite satisfied with the end result. The frame halves are connected together across the bottom with a final piece, then the inside curve is sawn to shape and beveled in one piece before installing in the boat. Don't forget to cut the limbers!!

Before the frames are glued in, the hull is taped off for easy clean up.

The frame spans are too large to adequately support a 3/8" thick floor board, so I fitted short floors (timbers) between each frame. I went ahead and made patterns for all the floorboards while I was at it. The floors were glued in just like the frames.

Floor board patterns were made at the same time as the timbers.

A finished floor timber, ready to install (note the limbers).

Floor timbers are glued into the boat. This completes the framing!

I installed the sheer clamps (inwales) after the frames, notching the frame heads before they went in the boat.

The inwales (sheer clamps) are scarfed to length.

I scarfed up a plank of spanish cedar to length, ripped out the pair, and fitted them to the boat. I did this by myself, and it is a bit tricky with epoxy all over a 16 foot long noodle which gets surprisingly stiff and contrary when forced into a deep compound bend. But it worked out well. The notched frame heads really help hold the timber in place.

Inwales are clamped to the sheer. It takes a lot of clamps!

There are no breasthooks in this boat. She will be half decked, with an oval coaming. I like to fit a longitudinal beam (like a deck king plank) let into the deck beams and going all the way to the stems, taking the place of a breasthook, and strengthening the centerline. This longitudinal beam can also double as a mast partner like on my crab skiff Cricket.

Different boat! This shows the deck framing I like to use on Cricket.

We'll end here for now. I'm working on the final deck and furniture plan now, and fitting the seat risers. By next time, the interior should be shaping up well. Stay tuned...

2010-02-14T16:26:00.001-05:00

Building the Matinicus Double Ender- Part 5
To view Part 1, Click Here.

Rollover!
One of the more gratifying aspects of boat building, amidst all of the hard work, is the much anticipated rollover. But first, some thought has to be given in preparation for the event. I decided to build a luxury cradle for this boat, on wheels so that she can be rolled around, and as nearly level both fore and aft and athwartship as I could make it. I fitted female molds at two stations, joggled to fit over the laps, and carpeted. This took a little fiddling to get right, but once they were fitted and sitting astride the hull, I set up my laser and shot a level reference line on both molds. I cut the mold bottoms parallel to this reference, pulled them off and built the cradle, adding nice wheels with brakes. Before freeing up the hull from the building jig, I made sure that all of the stations were marked off inside for future reference, and while I had the laser out, I shot the load waterline on the outside.

I decided to flip the boat with three molds left in, but unscrewed the rest, and made sure the boat wasn't stuck anywhere! With help from my assistant, Ashok, plus Robert and Eric from neighboring shops, we lifted the boat up and flipped her onto the cradle. I had not thought the cradle all the way through somehow, and consequently the boat's amidship depth was too much for the cradle.

Ashok and I quickly cut the cradle down, and lifted her back on. Nice! the ability to roll the boat around is a real plus. I temp-screwed two of my lining battens around the sheer to even out any local plywood humps or flats, and added braces across the boat to hold the beam and shape intact, then removed the rest of the molds.

I was finally able to see the whole shape, and this really is a sweet hull! As I was looking over the hull that evening, it occurred to me that there is much more interior volume than I had imagined there would be.

I also realized that I was looking at a potentially blank canvas, and that I can really do anything with the boat that I want. I had fully intended to finish this boat out as traditionally as possible, with frames and solid thwarts, etc, but I may play around with the interior some to create a solo camping beach cruiser. This might entail an off-center board and a level, flat sole, with enclosed side benches for stowage, and bulkheads in the ends. A very different boat on the inside, with perhaps more potential for cruising than the traditional layout affords. Maybe not... There is time to consider all of this as I work out some rig details. Stay tuned.

2010-02-03T18:28:00.001-05:00

Building the Matinicus Double Ender- Part 4
To view Part 1, click HERE.

Work continues on the boat, albeit at a snail's pace, it seems. I finished the planking (!) and then set up a form to laminate the outer stems. I keep a stash of "L" shaped blocks for laying up curves. I've used these same blocks to laminate curved, half-wishbone booms for a Herreshoff 31 (cat-ketch), and also for curved outrigger cross beams on my sailing canoe, and now for the peapod stems. They were just hot-glued together, but have held up well! I used the original mylar stem loftings to generate the curves, and screwed the forms down to my bench along the curve. Plastic keeps the layup from sticking to the bench.

I dug around in my scrap piles, and found some nice rips of Honduras mahogany which I re-sawed into strips about 3/16" by 1-1/2". I dressed these down to a tad less than 1/8", and bent a stack around the form dry, to make sure the whole lot would take the bend. Each stem required 7 strips, to finish out to 13/16".

After laminating, I dressed the blanks down to the stem siding of 1-3/8", and tried them out on the boat. I had to tune up the inner stem and plank hood ends slightly to get a good mate with the outer stems. I left the outer stem blanks un-tapered until after gluing and screwing them onto the boat. I should have done it before glue-up though, because it was much harder to do in place than it would have been on the bench! At the same time that I was fitting the stems, I also fitted the outer keel, and glued that up as well.

With all the planks, stems, and keel now in place, I gave the whole boat a coat of epoxy. I will still have a little fairing of the scarfs to do, and I want to run small fillets at the plank laps. A coat of epoxy will help when sanding and fairing, because it hardens up the wood, and keeps the sander from dishing out hollows in the softer wood around the filled scarfs, and screw holes.

The next time I post, will be the turnover! Stay tuned...

2009-12-14T14:33:00.001-05:00

Steven Clancy's Matinicus Double-Ender

Last Year, I wrote an article for the "Ash Breeze", the quarterly journal published by the TSCA (Traditional Small Craft Assoc.) desrcribing the start of my MDE boatbuilding project. I got a nice email from Steven Clancy who built the same boat 20 years ago out in Bellingham Washington. Steven sent along some nice photos, and I'd like to share them here!

Steven built his hull from 6mm occume and framed her up with laminated, sawn frames, instead of steamed ribs. This will be my plan as well (the frames, that is). His thwarts and stern sheets are cherry.

Steven did a beautiful job with his peapod, and Matty, as she is called, now belongs to his daughter Brenna, and son in law Ben. Its time for me to get to work! Can't wait.

2009-12-11T18:11:00.020-05:00

Building The Matinicus Double Ender- Part 3
To view Part 1, click HERE

It has been quite a while since the last post. I should have been planked up, flipped over, and well into the interior by now, but I have been very busy elsewhere for the past six months with work and sailing, not to mention the time spent re-powering the Sebago Canoe Club Boston Whaler; all good things though, and all necessary.

Sebago acquired a classic 13 foot Whaler to serve as a new safety boat/club launch. I had the job of selecting a new motor for the boat, and having it installed. We hung a beautiful new Honda 30, with power tilt and trim, on the transom. "Seagull" has already served race committee duty this fall.

In the last post, I had the garboard planks hung. They were difficult, ornery things to twist into place and fasten, but as they are typically the most difficult of the seven pairs of planks to hang, things have gotten easier as I planked around the bilge and up the topsides. The garboards, (and each subsequent plank as well in their turn), must be beveled at the laps so that the next plank has a place to land, and will lie flat to the next mark on the mold. Lapstrake planks are like facets cut into the round shape of the boat, and each plank overlaps the one below it by a set amount (3/4” in this case). The bevels are cut with a block plane, and checked frequently with a straight edge against the mold.

Checking the bevel with a straight edge.

Also, gains must be cut into the hood ends of each plank so that the edge of the next plank disappears, or lies flush with the one below. I like to use rabbeted gains, possible only with glued laps in plywood. Solid wood planking would have to be treated differently, because the wood would split along the weakened rabbet line.

Rabbeted gain at the stem.

To find the shape of the next plank, a pattern board, or spiling board is bent around the molds, making sure to overlap the bevel planed onto the previous plank. Care must be taken not to edge set the pattern board. It must lie perfectly flat at each mold, or the plank shape will be off when the pattern springs back. Any attempt to force an untrue plank edgewise will create a bunch or wrinkle in the plank, and no amount of coaxing will lay it flat. The pattern is marked from underneath at each mold, and along the upper edge of the plank above, then removed, laid on the planking stock, and all of the information transferred. I like to play it safe, cutting outside of the lines by 1/4" or so and putting the actual plank on the boat for final marking. I use a single, washer-head screw through the lap at each mold. this guarantees that the plank will go back on the boat in the same place when the glue is on. I then take the plank off again, cut the scarf, snad the inside, and mask off below the lap lines with tape to keep the epoxy drips at bay. I use simple clothespin type lap clamps to squeeze the laps together between molds.

The planks twin is then hung on the other side of the boat, then another plank is patterned and gotten out. There develops a rhythm; bevel the lands, cut the gains, pattern the plank, cut it out and glue it on. One thing that I noticed, at about plank four, was that I was getting a little unfairness in the region of the scarf, due to fairing only one half Of the plank (either forward or aft) at a time. I decided that I would be better off scarfing up long lengths of ply, then laying out the entire plank at once. By doing that, I was able to fair out a small hump in the run of plank five, letting my batten sweep the entire length of the boat. Plank five is what transitions the turn of the bilge to the topsides, and is the straightest plank in the boat. I also decided to hot-glue up long lengths of cardboard to use as patterns. By plank five, most of the twist is gone from the shape, and the cardboard lays nicely on the molds, being simply push-pinned on and marked out.

The pattern for plank six is laid out on the planking stock.

I've just finished hanging plank six at this point, leaving only the sheer plank to go. I will still need to fit the outside keel and stems before I flip her over. I'm really hoping to see her right side up by Christmas!

One more plank to go!

Inboard Profile- I'm a little ahead of myself here, but I like to think about what the interior will be like (sometime in the future). This arrangement is exactly like what Walt Simmons has shown in his drawings. I may change things around a little to suit a different rig, perhaps, or put in some minimal decking. We'll see...

2009-02-18T12:29:00.006-05:00

Building The Matinicus Double Ender- Part 2
To view Part 1, click HERE

The keel has been finished, set up on the boat, and bonded to the stems. I have checked and adjusted the sheer marks on the molds with my batten, and will measure the girths at each station in order to determine the plank widths. Walter Simmons recommends hanging the garboard plank first before final lining off of the remaining planks, and this is the way I approached the job. I made the garboard a little wider than the rest of the planks, and let it climb the stems as high as I felt was reasonable. I let the hood ends land above the load water line at both ends. I checked the run of the garboard with my batten as well.

Checking and adjusting the sheer curve.

Each end of the garboard was spiled to rough shape, then clamped to the boat and marked at the molds. I decided I would glue up the plank scarfs right on the boat, rather than pre-scarfing the plywood. This proved easy to do, and saves a bit of material as well because the tapers can be flipped end to end on the sheet of ply. I should mention here that I had quite a rough time with the garboards up forward. I cracked the first plank that I tried to twist around the forefoot, and thought I might have to resort to boiling the ends. I had scrimped a little on the plywood, buying 5 ply, 9mm Joubert instead of the much more expensive 7 ply Shelmarine from Greece. I had only bought two sheets though, so I broke down and ordered the good stuff for the lower planks. This 7 ply material and a closer attention to my clamping methods was a success!

The aft port garboard, cut to shape and taped off for easy cleanup of the epoxy.

I like to use temporary washer-head screws to fasten the garboard to the keel and stem. There are a lot of holes to fill later, but it saves fiddling with all those clamps. The screws put the plank right exactly where it was hung dry, so there is no chance for slipping. The subsequent planks will be screwed only through the laps at each mold, and clamped elsewhere, so there are fewer holes to fill. I will leave in the temp screws in the hood ends, and replace them later with bronze screws.

The first plank is hung!

A close-up of the scarf. I made these 4" long, which is a little better than a 10:1 ratio.

A lot of clamping pressure, and careful placement of the clamps and pads are needed to twist the garboards around the forefoot.

Both garboards are complete!

Now it's time to do the rest of the lining off. Lining plank for lapstrake boats is a real art, and an otherwise good boat can be spoiled by a bad job. I felt that I really needed to see the planks shapes on the boat, so I made a set of lining battens from poplar dressed to the width of the lap, 3/4" in this case. It is common practice for the next plank up from the garboard to be a little wider than the remaing planks, to offer a transition from the wide garboard to the narrower bilge strakes. Also, some thought must be given to the width of the rub rail at the sheer, because that will reduce the apparent width of the sheer plank. I re-measured the girths from the garboard to the sheer, subtracted the width of the rubrail, and divided this by the number of remaing planks. A set of dividers set to this width was then used to step off the planks around each mold and at the stems. I then put on all of the lining battens to these marks, and had a good look at the boat from all angles.

Rather than slavishly following all of the width marks, I adjusted the battens up and down slightly for a sweet flow around the boat, and for reasonably similar apparent plank widths. When I was satisfied with everything, I marked the top edge of each batten at all of the molds and stems. Also, any surface that needed further beveling was noted, and I tuned up the lands on the stems. The next step is to bevel the plank lands on the garboards, and cut the gains in the hood ends. Stay tuned...

NEW BOATBUILDING PROJECT!

2009-01-03T13:00:00.017-05:00

The Matinicus Island Double Ender
Matinicus Double Ender- Traditional Sprit Rig -
Drawing by Jim Luton from plans by Walter Simmons

I’ve been thinking for some time now about building a boat for myself that is light and easy to handle solo or with crew, both on shore and in the water; a boat that rows beautifully as well as sails, that is seaworthy, and of course beautiful. Arguably the quintessential Maine traditional small-craft, the double ender, or “peapod”, as the type is commonly known, was once found all over the rocky islands and ledges of that state’s rugged sea coast. Dating back to the late nineteenth century, the peapod was used in the lobster fishery, primarily to haul traps, but some also served as lighthouse keepers boats, and of course were used for other tasks around the water front as well. Judd Young, Matinicus Is. lobsterman, circa 1904.
Photo courtesy of Walter Simmons

Photo courtesy of Walter Simmons

A beautiful Jonesport (Washington County) peapod. I photographed this boat at the 2008 Small Reach Regatta. The owner, Charles Chamberlain, told me that this boat was built by the late Alan Vaitses, to lines found in Chapelle's American Small Sailing Craft, page 219 (fig. 83) . She is gaff rigged with no centerboard.

Each region produced it’s own model, peculiar to the area and the builder, and the builder’s molds would often be passed down through the generations. The double ender in general, and this model in particular, were extremely seaworthy, and rowed or sailed beautifully. The boat I have chosen to build is a historically significant one, having been built by a prominent family, the Young’s, on Matinicus Island for many generations. This model dates back at least to 1900 or so. Walter Simmons, a Lincolnville (Maine) boat-builder, acquired the molds from Merrill Young in the early 1970’s, and set down her lines to paper so they could be preserved. Walter himself has built many boats from these molds, and also offers the design for sale to other builders (he also offers a wonderful Matinicus Double Ender CD, which is both historical record and building guide). So I bought a set of plans for myself, and have started building her.

Before the first piece of wood can be cut, the boat must be “lofted”, that is, her lines must be set down full size in three views and faired or “proved”. Long, fair strips of wood called battens are used to draw the longitudinal curves, while splines and spline weights or ”ducks” are used to draw the tighter body plan and buttock end curves.

Lofting the buttocks up forward.

There is a lot of drawing and re-drawing to get all the views to agree. Move a waterline here, it affects a diagonal there, or changes the body curve somewhere else. In addition to the lines, many construction details such as stem profiles, keel widths, and bevels are generated.

The finished full-size lofting.

Once the lines are fair, and all views are correlated, the building molds can be lifted from the full size body plan, and the backbone can be built. The lines for this boat show a hull with fairly slack bilges and a moderate rise of floor, which coupled with her hollow lower waterlines, will produce a form that is very easy to push through the water. She will be tender, though, particularly when lightly loaded, and will not have a high top end speed. But she should row effortlessly, and her flare will provide a healthy range of secondary stability. I should point out here that I've added a mold station forward and aft of amidship, as I felt like the original spacing was a little far apart for the Occume planking that I will use. This is not as simple as just erecting new stations within the lofting. The original stations are fair to each other, but not neccesarily fair to the new ones, so I had to go back in and re-check everything, refairing some of the waterlines and diagonals as needed. In the body plan view below, the new stations are shown in blue ink, and extend up to my construction baseline.

The body plan.

One interesting note about peapods is that they were often rowed with the rower facing forward and standing up! It is much easier to navigate rocky ledges while looking where you are going rather than where you’ve been. And when it comes time to haul a trap, you’re already on your feet. This requires a long and very strong oarlock, quite different from the normal variety.

Walter Simmons made new patterns for these locks, and is having them cast in limited quantities at a foundry in Maine. He sold me a pair, and I’ll be very interested to try them out when the boat is done. I can see myself on some misty, winter morning, pushing through the marsh along with the buffleheads and mergansers.

These boats were traditionally built of cedar on steam bent oak frames. The keel and stems were also oak. While many of the double enders were smooth-planked or “carvel”, some were also built lapstrake. The lapstrake boats were quite a bit lighter, though they all were rather heavily built for long service. I am building mine lapstrake, but with glued occume ply instead of riveted cedar. I may still use the steamed frames, but I might choose to use more widely spaced sawn frames, joggled to fit over the laps.

There are two keel types to choose from as well. In one type, the keel is set vertically, with the rabbet for the garboard plank land chiseled out by hand. This is sometimes called a “scantling” keel. The other type is the flat plank keel. This type of construction is typical for wherries, but was sometimes used for the double enders as well. The flat plank keel is much easier to fit a centerboard to, being quite wide on their inboard surface amidship. I will use the latter, built up from two 12- millimeter layers of occume ply laminated together. There is additionally, another 12mm external shoe, which sets proud of the garboard plank, and brings the backbone structure to a little less than 1-1/2” thick. This applied shoe creates the rabbet that would be chiseled in on the vertical keel.

Gluing up two layers of 12mm occume for the plank keel.
It takes a lot of clamps!

Laying out the keel shape.

Once the keel has been laminated, its shape must be layed out on both inboard (top) and outboard surfaces. There is quite a rolling bevel to be cut down the length of the keel, with a lot of wood to be removed. I used several different hand tools in the process, but the bulk of the wood was removed with a power plane.

Full size stem loftings are transferred to mylar.

The stems and their knees are quite hefty. I got mine out of some old construction grade fir that I salvaged from a dumpster. I first made thin ply patterns picked up from the mylar stem profiles, and arranged them on the stock to best advantage, working around knots or other defects.

Aft stem and knee are cut to shape on the bandsaw.

The knee notches into the stem, and I glued this joint with epoxy. The two pieces are also bolted together with bronze carriage bolts, and the whole assembly will be glued and bolted to the keel as well.

The drill press is set up to countersink and bore for
the bronze bolts that connect stem and knee.

We're ready now to transfer the lofted sections to our mold stock. I used mylar again for the transfer, pricking through the lines at intervals with a sharpened awl onto particle board, and then connecting the dots with a batten. I sawed out the molds and trued up the edges with a block plane. I built my strongback from 2x6's jointed carefully and squared up, then screwed to three saw horses spaced about eight feet apart. I use a laser for this procedure, and I like to get the tops of the strongback pretty true before setting up the molds. The vertical centerline and load waterline is marked on all of the molds, and they are then carefully leveled and plumbed, then screwed down to cross spalls set up at the proper spacing on the strongback. There is a string line stretched down the center of the strongback, and the mold centers are brought in line with it as well.

The laser dots can just be seen here on the waterline.

Some builders carry their stems down to the floor, or otherwise extend them so they can be centered, but I've always used a stem mold screwed perpindicular to the first station mold (and last too in this case). I find it more convenient to set up that way, although the stem mold is in the way somewhat.

Molds and stems are set up, ready for the keel.

Holes are cut around the mold perimeters with a hole saw to facilitate clamping of the planks. The next step, after the keel is shaped and glued on, is to bevel the molds and check the overall fairness of the set up. Then its time to line off for planks!

Stay Tuned....

Small Reach Regatta, 2008

2008-08-30T11:41:00.020-04:00

This photo of Hog Island courtesy of Douglas Oeller.

Sponsored by Wooden Boat Magazine, and organized by senior editor Tom Jackson, the third annual Small Reach (as it is affectionately known) was a huge success! Not really a regatta at all, but closer in spirit to the European raids, this year's event attracted over fifty traditionally inspired and mostly hand-built small craft. Attendance is by application only, and we (myself, my crab skiff Cricket, and crew Holly) were happy to have been included.

Situated on a beautiful old former dairy farm in Maine, Wooden Boat's spectacular property includes a floating dock and several hundred feet of waterfront, plus a large mooring field on Eggemoggin Reach, approximately east of Deer Isle, and southwest of Mt. Desert Island. Camping was generously provided free of charge in the old pasture and apple orchard overlooking the reach.

Most of the sailors arrived on Thursday afternoon, parking their trailers on the grassy lot adjacent to the launching ramp. Geoff Kerr of Two Daughters Boatworks served as launch coordinator and did a spectacular job organizing all the boats, trucks, and trailers. That evening we enjoyed a downeast chowder dinner in the pole barn next to the ramp, the first of three dinners provided by Wooden Boat's caterers for a very reasonable price.

Geoff Kerr's own Caledonia Yawl, Ned Ludd. Geoff is a well known builder of this Iain Oughtred design, and several of the CY's in attendance were built by him.

Another CY. This one built by owner, Chris Drouin.

Each morning in the pole barn, Tom Jackson would lay out the day's course and give us an idea of what sort of conditions we might expect. It is up to each skipper to familiarize him or herself with the course, and the prudent mariner will plot a few quick compass bearings and make a note of distances to be covered. Navigation is all line of sight... until the fog rolls in! It is amazing how quickly that can happen in Maine, and how short the field of view can become.

All boats were required to have a vhf radio, the appropriate charts, a compass, and a fog horn. We on Cricket were happy that we complied.

A typical course might take us around several islands, landing on one for a rendezvous and lunch (photo op), then to another location before turning home.

Island Lady, David Wymans lovely Canoe Yawl. David was responsible for running safety checks on each vessel.

A sloop rigged Swampscott Dory, here sans jib.

A beautiful Washington County Peapod.

Cricket on the beach.

An Exploration 18, one of the two or three non-wood vessels in attendance. Jack Rabbit II came all the way from Ontario to sail.

There were several outboard powered escort vessels in constant radio contact with the fleet, ready to lend a hand if the need should arise. In the evening, most of us chose to anchor our boats out in the mooring field to avoid having to haul and re-launch from the steep ramp. I learned several things about Cricket over the weekend. For one thing, she rows beautifully. I was afraid that all of those double-ended beachboats and peapods would leave us behind if we were forced to row, but not so! We rowed several miles all told, maintaining a very easy 2 mph speed, and stayed in position with the fleet.

This Dory is a great sail and oar boat.

Also, Cricket rode to her anchor quite well. She has been known to sail around it, but with plenty of scope, she sat happy as a duck. Some folks made fun of my extra heavy anchor and chain, but I slept well at night. Launch service was provided by the saltiest outboard semi-dory I've ever seen, complete with bow pudding and yard dog. John, the operator of Fetch, was an amazing boat handler, and atypically, not grumpy or taciturn at all (and neither was the dog)!

John, with Fetch and Yard Dog

On Friday afternoon, the fog rolled in along with some good wind, so the reach down into the moorings was very interesting, indeed. That night at dinner, Tom Jackson showed slides of his just completed voyage aboard the 98 foot viking ship Sea Stallion from Glendalough. His presentation of that extremely rigorous and daunting voyage in the North Sea made us all feel a little sheepish in our Helly Hansens and wellies.

By Saturday morning, the fog had thickened to the proverbial pea soup. I wondered if we would actually set out into the murk, but we did, hoisting sail and rowing with the rest of the fleet.

Pea Soup!
Another Oughtred design, the Ness Yawl Little Otter.

Only a very few decided to stay ashore. The going was pretty slow, and we on Cricket thought we might cut the course short, eliminating one island rounding to land at the lunch spot. By that time though, the breeze had filled in, and we were reluctant to sail away from the small mini-group that we could still see close by. One boat seemed to be heading off determinedly in the direction of the original island rounding, so we thought we might change our plans. Then, the boat we were following capsized, and immediately turtled! We now had a very serious situation on our hands. I immediately radioed the committee to advise them of the situation, and one of the other boats, a Norseboat picked up the very cold crew. Our last known position was a nun buoy, which we could no longer see. I have to admit to being a little disoriented after circling around in the near zero visibility, but tried to give John on Fetch an accurate fix. John quickly told me over the radio to forget the lat/long, and blow my foghorn when I heard his engine. I had given him the recent buoy sight, and soon heard him to the east of our position. He then quickly found us and got the crew on board. John was able to get a grappling hook on the turtled boat's shroud, and pulled her up, putting a mooring float on her masthead. By this time, we had worked out a bearing to the rendezvous point, and sailed on in. Hog Island emerged out of the fog only about a quarter mile away! It all ended well, but to think of the consequences, had no one been there to assist, was very sobering. Everyone involved learned quite a bit from the experience, a cheap lesson as they say. We on Cricket resolved to trust our boat, and our navigation, and to sail our own course. I think that in the end, our instincts had been pretty good.

Harrier off the port bow.

At lunch, the afternoon sun broke through the murk, and we had a lovely warm sail back to the moorings. We found ourselves trading tacks with Tony Dias aboard Harrier. Tony and I have done a bit of sailing together over the years, and he invited me to jump in Harrier, putting his crew, Keith, in Cricket with Holly.

Harrier, designed by Tony Dias, and built by the Rockport Apprenticeshop for Owner Ben Fuller. Harrier is a very fast and able beach boat.

This was great as I had really wanted an opportunity to sail Harrier, and as a bonus I would be able to photograph Cricket under sail.

Cricket, off Babson Island, with Holly at the helm.

Dinner that evening in the pole barn was a classic downeast lobster feast, with corn, salad, and grilled sausage. The night sky cleared completely, and we were treated to a nearly full moon, rising huge and orange over the festivities.

Sunday was to be the last day of sailing, and Tom set a shorter course so that we could all get our boats hauled in the afternoon.

An Alfjords Faering, another beauty in Ben Fuller's quiver.

Pepita, Mike Wick's beautiful, gaff-rigged Melonseed.

Peggy Bliss, an Ipswich Bay 18.

A frequent sight heading down Eggemoggin Reach.

With everyone lending a hand, all fifty boats were pulled and packed up, ending what was a very memorable event. I would like to express my sincere thanks to all of those that organized and helped run this truly splendid event! Thanks for sticking it out to the end of this post. To reward those who did, here is a link to Tom Hill's video.

2008-07-15T18:53:00.014-04:00

CANOE SAILING

SPY sailing in the Miles River near St. Michaels, Md.

I was introduced to canoe sailing when I joined the Sebago Canoe Club back in the early nineties. I had been sailing for a while by then, and had built a few boats, but I didn't really learn to sail until got into canoes. I met Gus Schultheiss and Duncan Mooney, at that time the two most active sailors at the club. Both of them had decent ACA sailing canoes, and with their help I rigged up one of the club Grummans with the ACA rig. The boat was fast, but less than perfect with a mast stepped way forward in the boat, and no vang, so she was cranky off the wind, with an alarming roll. I quickly learned not to let the sheet too far out on windy runs, but if I stayed powered up, and moved well aft, she'd really fly.

After a season with the Grumman, I felt it was time to find my own boat. So I bought a used Mowhawk Blazer with an ACA rig (named by Duncan, the Beast), and sailed her for a season before completely stripping and rebuilding her from the gelcoat up that winter.

The BEAST- South Edisto River, S.C.

I was basically starting from a clean bare hull, and put in watertight bulkheads, decks, and built a completely new rudder and leeboard assembly. At that time, Gus was working on a new leeboard pivot system using a piece of stainless tubing which spanned the boat from gunwale to gunwale and was rigidly fixed to the leeboard via a tubing stanchion and bolt. The whole business pivoted within a pair of plastic pillow blocks which were mounted on the gunwales. The bolts that fastened the pillow blocks to the gunwales also adjusted the friction on the tube, and once set, never had to be touched again! (The more typical angle iron leeboard bracket with pivot bolt always either tightens or loosens as the board is pivoted up and down.) And, all of the parts for the pivot system were stock items from west Marine. This design has proven itself over many years to be excellent.

Leeboard Pivot

The new canoe, repainted and sporting a graphite/epoxy bottom, was christened SPY. I now had a boat that balanced well, steered effortlessly, and was a truly comfortable boat.

SPY- Cedar Island, N.C.

At about that time, we decided to get back into racing which was once a major part of the club. I bought an old used C Class sail, and entered my first regatta at Oquaga Lake for the Northern New York Divisionals. So began several years of attending and hosting ACA and C Class races. These regattas were always challenging and always fun, and just about the best way I know to sharpen sailing skills.

My first regatta. SPY is number 37

Oquaga Lake, N.Y.

A lot of the canoe sailors that I met at this time were sailing the Mohawk Ultima hull design. I was really keen on getting a faster boat, and a brand new, bare Ultima hull was going for around $500, so I bought one. This really was a slick, beautiful hull, and I spent another winter building ALIEN. I refined the bulkhead and deck design, and built more efficient, NACA section foils.

Fitting bulkhead and mast step into the Ultima

Shaping the rudder blade

Alien's completed rudder

I also had a new, full batten, C Class sail built for me, and bought new spars. Alien was initially more tender than Spy, but I quickly grew to appreciate the speed and grace of the new hull. With hiking straps, I could virtually wear the boat, and it is still the most perfectly balanced boat I've ever owned. In moderate wind with the sheet cleated, I can set the tiller down on the rail, and read, eat lunch, or generally gather wool on the long reaches between the islands of Jamaica Bay, NY.

ALIEN (left) and SPY- Jamaica Bay, NY.

I was caught, early on, by the lure of multihulls, and I felt a particularly strong attraction to outriggers and proas. In '94, we were car-topping the Beast down through the Carolinas when we dropped in on Mark and Sam of Balogh Sail Designs on Cedar Island, having just come from Ocracoke via the ferry. We had a pleasant afternoon talking about kayak and canoe sailing, the trimarans of Dick Newick and Jim Brown, and I heard Mark's story of sailing with Russell Brown on the proa Jzero down in the Caribbean. Later that year, I began fiddling with an outrigger design of my own, and built models of a tortured ply ama from info I found in the Gougeon Brothers excellent boat building book. I wasn't to build my full size outrigger for a few years yet, but the seeds were sown.

After designing and building a sailing kayak with a beautiful, BSD full expedition BOSS rig (that's a whole other story for a different chapter), I began work on the single outrigger One Legged Alien. I built hollow, box beam akas which proved to be really light and stiff, and a tortured ply ama from 4 mm occume. I added a roller furling jib, and replaced the leeboard pivot tube with a much heavier one to better deal with the much higher loads that the new rig would impart.

ONE LEGGED ALIEN on the beach- Jamaica Bay, N.Y.

The new outrigger was a blast to sail, very fast and very wet! It was not a perfect design by any means. The ama should be longer, and set further forward. And the leeboard should be replaced with a dagger board. But I had a lot of fun with the boat, and learned a great deal from it as well. And if I ever build another outrigger, I'd like to try out Gary Dierking's T2, a real proa.

ONE LEGGED ALIEN and SPY on the beach- Jamaica Bay, N.Y.

We have since moved on to other boats. There was a Hobie 16 for a while, and then a much larger cruising catamaran, and now I primarily sail my Windward Skiff CRICKET. At Sebago, our focus is on teaching dinghy sailing and racing the Laser and Sunfish. Our sailing program there has really grown as a result. I still however, sail the monohull ALIEN quite frequently, and it's still the best balanced boat I've ever owned!

BARNEGAT BAY DAYTRIP

2008-07-08T15:39:00.005-04:00

Recently I met up with an old sailing acquaintance of mine down in Barnegat Bay, NJ for a group sail with some members of the TSCA (Traditional Small Craft Association). My friend Kevin was launching his newly completed Welsford Navigator Yawl, built in his Maryland home shop last winter. I was very curious to see the boat, because this is a design that I am considering for a future building project of my own.

We launched from the Ocean Gate Yacht Basin at the mouth of the Toms River, sailed out to the barrier island before a light westerly, and anchored for lunch. There were ten boats in all, including several Joel white designed Marsh Cats, a Melonseed, and recent version of an Ed Monk sloop design
from the 1930's.
During lunch, the southerly filled in, and we had a lively thrash towards Barnegat Light in a good 15 knots of wind, with a steep chop. The Navigator acquitted herself well in these conditions, carrying full sail without alarming her crew in the least. She's a full-bodied boat, with a ton of interior space on a relatively short waterline, but with bow sections fine enough not to pound unmercifully.

We again joined the other boats at anchor behind Island Beach State Park.
This is a popular anchorage with the power boaters as it allows access to the ocean beach and bathhouses. Some of the group crossed over to swim, and some hit the heads facilities. We tucked a reef into the Navigator's main for the run home, jibing frequently (planned and otherwise) without incident. The other boats were reefed down as well.

Barnegat Bay is an excellent destination for sailors or kayakers, with a lot of challenging, open water, and excellent beach access. The marina at Ocean Gate charges $10 to use their ramp, and parking for boat and trailer is available. This is probably a better weekday destination, as I'm sure the area fills to capacity on the weekends.