Series - Page 36 of 43 - Small Boats Magazine

Series

At Nubble Beach on Maine’s Butter Island, the tide exposes several hundred feet of beach at low ebb. Here, the anchor was set just beyond the low tide mark, and the extra warp was walked out the rocky promontory to secure the boats. With this adaptation of the Pythagorean system, the boats can be pulled into water even deeper than it is where the anchor is set.

Small Boats Annual 2018November 2016

Pythagorean Mooring

Variations on anchoring

The Pythagorean mooring technique appeared in Roger Barnes’s delightful and informative book, The Dinghy Cruising Companion, when it was published in 2014. It is a simple and clever way to anchor a dinghy without using a clothesline loop or outhaul set up. As described, a Pythagorean mooring, named after geometry’s theorem of right triangles, is most useful in settings where tidal range is modest and where there is fairly deep water close to a shoreline.
The Odyssey is fastest with both harms and legs powering the stroke. The hands need to be used to speed the recovery.

Small Boats Annual 2018November 2016

Odyssey 165

A front-facing rower for touring and fitness

The Odyssey 165 is an unusual rowboat for touring and exercise. It is specifically for use with the FrontRower, a drop-in forward-facing rowing system. With the oars fully supported by the rowing rig, there’s no need to make the boat wide enough to provide a workable span for conventional rowlocks, nor stout enough to take the strain of rowing on the gunwales. The Odyssey has the proportions of a canoe, offers the same view over the bow, and is similarly efficient converting effort into forward progress.

Small Boats Annual 2018November 2016

Seaford Skiff

A versatile thin-water cruiser

Seaford skiffs first appeared in the shallow marshes around the New York town of Seaford, Long Island, in the early 1870s. They are an evolutionary product of skiffs commonly used by local baymen for hunting waterfowl, digging clams, and fishing. Boatbuilder Samuel Gritman is credited as the primary originator of the Seaford type, but other builders such as Paul Ketcham of Amityville, and Charles Verity and his son Sidney of Seaford, built many and contributed their own modifications to the design from its inception through the 1950s.