Adventures

May 2019

Zaire, 1986

The Sankuru and Kasai Rivers by pirogue

In 1986, when the country once known as Zaire was under the rule of a dictator, Tom DeVries, his college roommate, and a Peace Corp volunteer rendezvoused in Central Africa country to paddle down serpentine Zairean rivers in a hand-carved dugout pirogue.

April 2019

Roll on Columbia

100 miles upriver by oar and sail

A 12’ skiff is a small boat for a river as big as the Columbia. Torin Lee launched his Salt Bay Skiff near Astoria, Oregon, and worked his way 100 miles upriver, dodging ships, dragging his boat across the marsh, and finishing on the Willamette River in Portland.

March 2019

Downriver, Part 1

Rowing the Upper Mississippi

When David Hudson built a 17’ dory in his back yard last summer, he had in mind to row and sail it the 1,800 miles of the Mississippi River from Minneapolis to the Gulf of Mexico. The journey was not about racking up miles but gathering experience and memories.

Small Boats Annual 2020February 2019

A Superior Circumnavigation

Two women, two kayaks, 1,200 miles

Uma Blanchard and Sophie Goeks, two college students with their final exams recently completed, launched kayaks from Little Sand Bay on Wisconsin’s Lake Superior shore and headed west. When they returned to the launch site 86 days later, they approached it from the east, having paddled the entire 1,200 mile perimeter of the greatest of the Great Lakes.

January 2019

Missouri Breaks

Under solar power in Montana

Rick Retzlaff, an engineering professor, needed a project to keep him happily and productively occupied during a long Saskatchewan winter, so he devised a solar-powered micro-cruiser. The build and sea trials were a success and he set out for a solo cruise on the Missouri River through the Montana countryside.

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December 2018

River People

A Shantyboat on the Sacramento River

Wes Modes spent two years building a shantyboat using salvaged materials and in 2014 he began voyaging America’s rivers. He takes us along on his voyage down California’s Sacramento River.

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November 2018

Sea Trial Part II

A neophyte on the Inside Passage, Part 2

In this final installment, Chris Cunningham continues on his way north along the Inside Passage of the British Columbia coast. As August draws to a close, the channels get longer, the anchorages farther apart, the rains more frequent, and the winds stronger.

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October 2018

Sea Trial Part I

A neophyte on the Inside Passage, Part 1

In boatbuilding, according to Pete Culler, “the experience starts coming the minute you begin, and not one jot before.” Christopher Cunningham found that was indeed the case when he built his first wooden boat, and when he set out in that boat heading north along the Inside Passage, experience kept coming, suddenly and frequently.

September 2018

Fogbound

The Bustard Islands of Georgian Bay

Tom Pamperin takes us back to his Georgian Bay cruising grounds, this time to be trapped by fog among the complex archipelago of the Bustard Islands. The more the visibility diminished, the more he saw.

August 2018

The Voyage of the MARY SAVAGE

Memories of boyhood

Nick Blake was 10 years old when his father launched a 31’ boat reminiscent of a 16th century caravel. Nick, his father, and his mother set out from Vicksburg on the Mississippi River with no particular destination in mind. The family cat, Luciano, caught up with the Blakes in the Delta.

July 2018

TORNGAT

Biography of a trailblazer

In 1979, Dave Getchell bought an aluminum skiff that he could use as a base for a climbing expedition to the Torngat Mountains at the northern tip of Labrador. He never reached the mountains, but the boat, christened TORNGAT, found its destiny along the Maine coast in the creation of the Maine Island Trail.

June 2018

The Canoes of Guna Yala

Panama's sailing dugouts

The Guna people of Panama have been building dugout canoes, called ulus, in the same way since they populated these waters two centuries ago, and still rely on them for their livelihood. When visiting yachties brought a sport-sailing mentality to the islands, the Guna crews took to racing their ulus.

May 2018

LEGOLAS

A great escape

Peter Knape was once stuck behind an office desk in the business district of Arnhem, Holland. He mustered the courage to make a break, sold almost everything he owned, had a Drascombe Longboat Cruiser built, and left home, bound for the Mediterranean.

April 2018

From Father to Son

Five generations of boatbuilders

Nick Blake is a boatbuilder living on a plot of Mississippi land that has been in the family since the 1830s. Nick built a modified version of a Chapelle Whitehall with the help of his father, tools passed down from his grandfather, traditions established by his great-grandfather, and lumber milled from trees grown on his great-great-grandfather’s land.

March 2018

From the Channel to the Med

Rowing the canals and rivers of France

Polly and Mat Hilton left their home in Devon, England, rowing and sailing a lapstrake skiff that Mat had built. Fifty-six days and 870 miles later they had crossed France by river and canal and reached the Mediterranean Sea.

February 2018

Uncertain Ground

Tide flats and sloughs

When you have a canal boat but no canals, sloughs will have to do. Our editor spent three days cruising the tidal waterways that surround Everett, Washington, and took his chances anchoring at night on falling tides in unfamiliar places.

January 2018

A Boat for the Summer

A quick-and-dirty build for a British Columbia cruise

A father and his son took the summer off, built a boat in a month by forgoing the fine finish work, and sailed north with a plan to do little planning, leaving their adventure to chance.

Small Boats Annual 2019December 2017

Wolf Rock Light

Eight miles out to sea in a dinghy

Will Stirling set a goal for himself to sail around every one of Britain’s 50-plus offshore lighthouses. Nic Compton joined him for an 8-mile passage from Land’s End to the Wolf Rock Light. They sailed a 15’ dinghy, anchored near the wave-washed rock, and swam to the lighthouse in dry suits.

November 2017

Back Door to Georgian Bay

A Sail and Oar Journey

Tom Pamperin takes us aboard his newly-built Kurylko-designed Alaska for a shakedown cruise among the islands clustered between Ontario’s North Channel and Georgian Bay. Both the boat and the landscape lived up to his expectations.

October 2017

A Faering for New Zealand

The Craft of Ulf Mikalsen

Two New Zealand filmmakers travelled to Norway and made a short movie about Ulf Mikalsen, a builder of traditional Norwegian boats. Three years later they brought Mikalsen to New Zealand to build a faering for their coastal community.

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September 2017

The Texas 200

A trial by water

A heavy lump had settled in my gut, and I wondered then if I might have misjudged myself and my boat. I tried to reassure myself that the forecast for the week was favorable, only fair and following winds at 10 to 15 knots. The lump wasn’t going anywhere, though, and I wondered if I should pull the boat out and drive home.

August 2017

Drawn to the Islands

A voyage among the Southern Gulf Islands

Bruce Bateau, one of our regular contributors, usually cruises in the company of other small boats, but British Columbia’s Southern Gulf Islands inspired him to sail solo. “My travel would be limited only by the tides and winds and my goal was to shake myself free of electronic leashes, bolt from thoughts that tie my brain in knots, and find my freedom in the present moment.”

July 2017

Rowing the North Sea

Norway to Shetland by Faering

In the autumn of 2011 Erik Schouw-Hansen and I were discussing our next adventure. In 2010 we had sailed together to the Shetlands—Erik crewed aboard my 31′ sloop on the first leg of a voyage from Norway to the Caribbean and back. We were both born and raised on the west coast of Norway, so for our next trip it was natural to look westward across the North Sea to the Shetland Islands. We wanted to try something new and settled upon rowing a small, open boat across the North Sea the following summer. We set mid-June as our deadline to be ready for departure, and from that point we would wait for favorable weather conditions.

Small Boats Annual 2018June 2017

Four Oars and a Sail

A 2,000-mile river voyage through the American Heartland

A young couple with an abiding thirst for adventure built a cedar-strip version of a faering and traveled 2,000 miles under sail and oars from Wisconsin to the Gulf of Mexico. Their boat took a bit of a beating along the way and almost sank on the Mississippi River, but the partnership stayed afloat and the bonds between the two only grew stronger.

Small Boats Annual 2018May 2017

Lake Tanganyika

Rowing Africa's Great Lake in a leaky boat

An adventurer in Africa traded his bicycle for a sad-looking wooden boat and set out to explore Lake Tanganyika. With gaps between planks big enough to slip a pencil through, a map bereft of detail, and a remote and unforgiving coast ahead of him, what could possibly go wrong?