Series - Page 42 of 43 - Small Boats Magazine

Series

The garboards are built up of three planks joined with flush dory bevels and rivets. The seams between them are visible here with one running out at the transom and the other at the garboard's upper edge. To the far left is one of the butt blocks on the broad strake.

Small Boats Annual 2016February 2015

The Mower Dory

Sailing again after a century in hiding

One day in the early 1990s, a local contractor visited my boatbuilding shop in Marblehead, Massachusetts, telling me he’d been hired to convert an old boatshop into a playhouse. “The museums and antique dealers have been through it,” he said, “Take anything you want or it’s going to the dump.” The building was mostly empty but in the long back room there was a planking bench with odd parts scattered around. Above the bench, tucked under the eave, the blackened end of a tight roll of paper caught my eye. I took the roll down, dusted it off, and put it in the truck. That evening, I unrolled my find.
A bend in the river surrounded by farmland and forests provided me a place to camp. With little current and minor tides in the Mutlnomah Channel I could leave MAC overnight only slightly aground. A line from her bow to my wrist as I slept was all I needed to assure me that she'd not leave without me.

December 2014

Rowing the Columbia

Seeking serenity on a busy river

At Cathedral Park in Portland, Oregon, the Willamette River was flowing gently, leaving barely discernible eddies around submerged pilings a few yards from the beach. Skamakowa was 75 miles downstream and I had five days to get there relying on the current and a pair of oars. As I swung into the Willamette's current under the long shadow of St. Johns Bridge, I pulled hard to get away from diesel and car exhaust, ski boats, and boom boxes, and headed to the other side of the river.
The inner tube has more than enough length to get water out of a boat with 6' beam. The hose is set up without twists to assure the unimpeded flow of the water.

December 2014

A Hose for a Bilge Pump

Repurposing a bicycle-tire inner tube

The manual bilge pump that I use for my kayak isn’t very useful aboard my other boats. Without a hose it can’t get the water from the centerline some 3’ to the gunwale and overboard. My other pump, the one with a hose attached, went missing one day and I came up with a way to add a nice long hose to my kayak pump. I had an old bicycle inner tube that was just the right diameter to stretch over the spout of the pump. As a hose, it worked like a charm.
BUNDUKI, built to John Georgalas’s Deep V 16’ design, is a descendant of WYNN-MILL II, a legendary raceboat that gave rise to the speedboat company Donzi Marine.

Small Boats Annual 2015December 2014

BUNDUKI

In the spirit of a classic Donzi

BUNDUKI is a sport boat built to Australian John Georgalas’s Deep V 16’ design. That boat was raced with great success, including a victory in the six-hour Paris Race. Wynn subsequently collaborated with Walt Walters and Don Aronow on a production version, the Ski Sporter, which was later dubbed, and became much better known as, the Sweet 16. That was the first boat built by Aronow’s company, Donzi Marine, after it was formed in 1964. BUNDUKI, the latest incarnation of the Deep V, is powered by a two-stroke, 130-hp engine harvested from a Kawasaki Jet Ski.
Bevin's Skiff

Small Boats Annual 2015December 2014

Bevin’s Skiff

A study in simplicity

Joe Youcha wants you to build a boat. He and his shop crew had built 100 different boats with members of the community, but none that he considered perfect for introducing the public to the joy of building, and the math that goes along with it. He wanted a boat that could be built anywhere by anyone. He decided on the most unassuming of American traditional small craft forms, the humble flat-bottomed skiff. When he found a design he liked he wanted to name the boat UBIQUITOUS, but the shop crew insisted it be named after the Shop Supervisor: Joe's dog, Bevin.
Without her beach legs, this Caledonia yawl would be resting on her planking and heeled at about 10°, the angle of her deadrise. With the legs she's level, supported by her keel and gunwales and fit for habitation.

November 2014

Beaching Legs

A simple way to keep your boat upright

I prefer to anchor out when we are camp-cruising, but with Alaska’s 20’ tide range that isn't always an option in some of the shallower coves. Boats with flat bottoms wide enough to keep them upright will ground comfortably on a falling tide, but our Caledonia yawl, with its narrow keel, will come to rest heeled over. This is where beaching legs, also known as sheer legs, come in handy. This decidedly low-tech gear is just the thing to keep your boat upright on the beach, allowing the continued use of your boat as a base camp between tides.
I arrived at the finish smiling at the sight of my three girls waiting for me. It was the first time I’d seen them since the race started. One of the great gifts of the EC is a fresh perspective on what truly matters.

November 2014

The 2014 Everglades Challenge

A solo sail-and-oar adventure race

The Everglades Challenge begins at Florida’s Fort Desoto State Park in Tampa Bay and runs roughly 300 miles south to the Sunset Cove Hotel in Key Largo. How boats get there is up to their crews as long as they sign in at each of the three checkpoints along the way within the allotted deadlines. The boats are all small because each solo racer or team of two must drag their boats from the high-water mark to the water’s edge without assistance. The race is unsupported; you’re on your own.

October 2014

Stowing oars and spars

Clearing Clutter from the Cockpit

Oars, masts, and spars get you where you want to go in a small boat built for rowing and sailing, but those long sticks are awkward to stow when they’re not in use. I saw one interesting solution to the problem when I was kayaking the coast of Croatia. In the island village harbors there were lots of small fishing boats equipped with natural crooks set in the gunwales. Some crooks had more than one branch, providing two places to set spars or oars.

October 2014

Standing up to the Big Muddy

2,300 miles on a paddleboard

I secured my gear on deck. With my quick-dry pants rolled up and water shoes tied tight, I set a foot on the board, planted my paddle on deck for balance, and pulled my other foot out of the icy water and splashed it down on the deck pad. The water ahead was streaked with white. When a cowboy lingering outside the motel the night before said, “You know there are rapids on that river?” I’d brushed him off. Now I was fighting the urge to kneel on the board for balance.