Series

May 2019

Sharpening Files

Putting acid to work

A file is like any other boatbuilder’s cutting tool: its edges get dull with use and eventually need to be sharpened. Chemistry has a solution for putting the bite back in a file’s countless tiny teeth: pitting acid against iron.

May 2019

BLUE PEARL

Time and money well spent

Mark Bonnette’s grandson, Henry, asked if they could go fishing. When “Grampy” replied, “We don’t have a boat,” Henry said, “Well, let’s build one.” With the design criteria established—two seats, an anchor, oars, and a motor—the pair went to work.

Small Boats Annual 2020April 2019

Jumbo

A Tolman Alaskan Skiff for cruising

Renn Tolman designed three skiffs that have become quite popular in Alaskan waters. The largest of them, the Jumbo, offers economical motoring and comfortable cruising almost anywhere.

Small Boats Annual 2020April 2019

The Cosine Wherry

A strip-built pulling boat

The Cosine Wherry was designed on a computer by an engineer using a trigonometric curve as a starting point. The result is a strip-built pulling boat that is as easy on the eyes as it is at the oars.

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.

April 2019

Knots and Toggles for Bungee Cord

The Zeppelin Bend and the Angler's Loop

Bungee cord is useful stuff but it doesn’t take kindly to the most commonly used knots. We take a look a couple of very old knots that do work, one anglers tied when fishing line was made of gut and the other used for mooring Zeppelins.

April 2019

A High-Thrust Caulk Gun

The Newborn 250

If you’ve squeezed hard on the grip of a caulking gun and couldn’t get a bead of thick caulk or adhesive flowing from the tip of a cartridge, it’s not you, it’s the gun. The Newborn 250 puts the mechanical advantage in your favor.

April 2019

Pocket Chainsaws

Making the cut without the motor

Where there’s shoreline, there’s usually driftwood that can be useful around camp or worth taking home for woodworking projects. When it’s too big to move or carry, a pocket chainsaw can cut it down to size.

Small Boats Annual 2020April 2019

CHIPS

Carl Kaufmann’s Block Island 19

Carl Kaufmann’s CHIPS is a Block Island 19, a handsome daysailer that he designed and built on Rhode Island’s Block Island. Carl makes guitars and other stringed instruments and brings that level of craftsmanship to his boatbuilding.

March 2019

Sei

A Welsford double-ender

For the Sei, a 14’ 7” double ender, John Welsford found inspiration in the workboats of Norway’s southern fiords. He took away the keel, gave the hull a flat, beach-friendly bottom, and kept weight to a minimum with glued-lapstrake plywood construction.

March 2019

Whitehall 17

A classic form, strip-built, from Glen-L

Glen-L is well known for designs for plywood boat building, but their 17’ Whitehall is designed to be strip planked. The lightweight cedar hull is easily driven, runs straight, and can easily sustain 4 knots with a solo rower at the oars.

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.

March 2019

Fender Washers

Beyond the reach of clamps

You can never have too many clamps, but there are some jobs that clamps simply can’t do. Screws and fender washers put the pressure on those places where clamps can’t reach.

March 2019

Resp-O-Rator

Better breathing for the bearded

Airborne dust in the shop poses a real health threat, but bearded boatbuilders won’t get adequate protection from a face mask if it doesn’t provide a good seal. The Resp-O-Rator solves the problem with a mouthpiece like that used with a snorkel.

March 2019

Portable Running Lights

LED lights from Innovative Lighting

A lot of small boats aren’t wired with electrical systems, so battery-powered running lights are in order for traveling at night. We take a look at a set from Innovative Lighting.

March 2019

Craftsmanship and Courage

Peter Sibley

Peter Sibley is an Australian boatbuilder who revels in all of the tasks and tools that go into a boatbuilding project. His Jim, a canoe yawl design from Selway-Fisher, give us a look at the work Peter does, with a little help from his friends.

Small Boats Annual 2020February 2019

Belle Daysailer

A 16' daysailer

BELLE, a 16’ daysailer, was drawn up by Daniel Gonneau for his own use, but the lightweight glued-plywood lapstrake hull, combined with classic steam-bent coamings and gaff rig, commanded the interest of small-boat aficionados, and there will no longer be one BELLE but many.

Small Boats Annual 2020February 2019

Parker Dinghy

A shapely mid-century workboat

In the 1940s, Lindon Parker designed and built a carvel-planked boat for tending the herring weirs around Deer Island, New Brunswick. The design would have been lost if the last of the shapely carvel dinghies had not caught the eye of Harry Bryan, who cleaned it up and took its lines.

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.

Small Boats Annual 2020February 2019

Fillet Brazing for Custom Boat Hardware

DIY custom fittings

Mark Kaufman wanted deck fittings that were a good match for the runabout he’d built to plans published in 1938. There were no suitable fittings he could buy and casting them was not in the cards. He shows us how he made his own with brass, bronze, and brazing alloy.

February 2019

Oscillating Multi-tools

DeWalt’s DWE315

The first oscillating cutting tools were created for cutting plaster casts off the limbs of patients who had broken bones. That was in 1967. Today they’re known as multi-tools and they can take on jobs that are impossible for other power tools or painfully tedious to do by hand.

February 2019

Bernzomatic’s TS 8000

Serious heat made simple

The ordinary propane torch is a useful tool but somewhat limited in what it can do by the amount of heat it can create. The Bernzomatic TS 8000, with its larger flame, faster fuel consumption, and the ability to use both propane and hotter-burning MAP-Pro gas increases the range of possibilities.

Small Boats Annual 2020February 2019

Flat-Bottomed Skiff HERON

A new Blake-built boat

Nick Blake, a popular SBM contributor, designed and built an outboard skiff with the help of his father, Daniel. As they have done with the other boats they’ve built, they started with logs from trees grown on the family woodlands and slabbed with a mill only yards from their shop.

Small Boats Annual 2020January 2019

Classic 17

A snug outboard from Bateau.com

The Classic 17, a design for homebuilders from Bateau.com, is a compact outboard cruiser with a 1950s vibe and contemporary stitch-and-glue plywood construction.

Small Boats Annual 2020January 2019

Morbic 11

A new Vivier design

Gary Brown asked François Vivier if his Morbic 12 could be built strip-planked rather than lapstrake plywood, and he replied: “Yes, with some modification.” The simple question inspired a thorough redesign and the creation of the Morbic 11.