August 2016 A Little Big Horn As I was working on our review of sound signaling devices in our August 2016 issue, I took a look on the web for homemade foghorns. I found quite a number of websites and videos that showed how to make foghorns and train horns out of common plastic pipe and fittings.
July 2016 The Inside Passage When I read Quill Goodman’s account of his Race to Alaska in 2015, I was amazed at how difficult the conditions were. He, Dylan, and Mitch were always working against headwinds and often sitting out storms. I’ve been up the Inside Passage twice, and my two experiences were so different from each other and from Quill’s that you wouldn’t guess it was the same place.
June 2016 Air lift I needed to pull the centerboard out of my Whitehall and make it a bit thinner so it would operate more smoothly. I wasn’t looking forward to dragging the boat off the trailer, setting it on the lawn, and rolling it on its side to get at the centerboard. That job really needs one person handling the boat and another managing the trailer.
May 2016 The Mast and the Music Stand When I made the spars for my Caledonia yawl in 2005, I decided to lighten the largest of them by making them hollow and give the bird’s-mouth method a try. It was a lot of work milling eight staves for the two masts and the yard and the boom for the lug main spar, but I was pleased with the results. They were quite light, most notably the mainmast, which I had to lift high to slip though the foredeck—it was a cinch to step.
December 2015 Joshua Slocum I trust Joshua Slocum's Sailing Alone Around the World needs no introduction here. I have three copies of it: the paperback volume I read in seventh grade, my father’s 1950 hardback, and a 1905 edition I received as a gift from my friend Paul Thomas. Every time I pick up that oldest book, I think of the hands that opened the cover over a century ago to sign it.
April 2016 Galling I had to take the Forward-Facing Rowing System apart to make a change before I fit it to my Whitehall, and in the process of removing the 8 stainless-steel nuts and bolts, I found that seven of the nuts wouldn't budge, and the only way to remove them was to twist until the bolts sheared.
March 2016 GoPro as a Trailer-hitch Cam Harris Bucklin, a Small Boats Monthly subscriber, sent me this note after he had read our review of the iBall back-up camera in the January 2016 issue: “You gave me a great idea for using my GoPro with my cell phone.” If you have one of those little waterproof action cameras and a wireless connection to connect it to a smartphone, using it as a back-up camera is indeed a great idea.
February 2016 Make Way Ron Frenette of Canadian Canoes emailed me after he’d seen the Dragonfly rowing shell featured as the Reader Built Boat in our January issue. He elaborated on the reasons the Dragonfly wasn’t developed more for home builders: “At one time we thought this would be a great project for many, but I suspected the amount of space required would be a deterrent.”
4 January 2016 The Wagner Education Center I met Dick Wagner in 1976. I was fresh out of college, living in Seattle, and boatless; Dick and his wife Colleen ran a boat livery out of their home on Lake Union. Their home is indeed on Lake Union: It’s a white clapboard-sided houseboat afloat on a raft of western red cedar logs.
