When I sail WINKLE, my William Garden–designed Eel, people almost always take out their cameras. The 18′6″ canoe yawl was designed as a slightly shorter and much lighter version of the original Eel designed by George Holmes in 1895. Holmes was one of the pioneers of the canoe yawls that became popular in England at the end of the 1800s. Recreational boating was then in its early stages, and canoe yawls, derived from canoes and other small boats meant for work and pleasure, appealed to sailors drawn to longer cruises in more open waters. They were perhaps the first “pocket cruisers,” a category of small boats that have recently become popular once again.Those 19th-century canoe yawls were often sailed on the rivers and estuaries of England and so were typically of shallow draft. The Garden-designed Eel draws only about 11″ with the board up. It can be nosed up to a beach, but its 330-lb external lead keel, about 4″ square and about 4′ long, makes it impossible to drag the boat up on a beach. You can omit the lead keel and use bags of lead shot as internal ballast instead if your sailing regularly brings you ashore.Plans for the Eel consist of five sheets of drawings and a table of offsets that detail how to build the boat using carvel, strip, and cold-molded construction methods. I chose strip-building, as I had previously built a Wee Lassie cedar-strip canoe. My hope that the Eel would just be a bigger version of that project was not off the mark. Its hull is like that of a canoe, the lack of reverse curves simplifies the planking, and it’s built upside down, with the strips glued together over lofted station molds.
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Soda bottles for flotation! The residents of the floating reed villages on Lake Tititaca now use soda bottles for the core of their boats, covering them with bundled reeds so that they look like the originals. Helps solve the problem that reeds become waterlogged and have to be replaced often. The tiny villages, consisting of a handful of little huts, are constantly in the process of adding more reeds to keep the rafts afloat. A family that doesn’t do their fair share in this work can be kicked off the island.
Also: Phil Bolger was long an advocate of the shallow rudder with end plate. Glad to hear it worked for you. Makes a lot of sense.
I’m an avid consumer of Gatorade. My Montgomery 15 has largely inaccessible space underneath the cockpit. I’ve crawled underneath there, with a cramped accessway from the cabin, but I take my cell with me, in case I get stuck! Anyway, I bought ten vinyl gym bags for a buck apiece, and put 10 empty Gatorade 16-ounce containers inside each of them. I then shoved all 10 gym bags, one by one, into the under-cockpit useless area. Just in case.
Randy, congratulations on building a stunning canoe yawl! That close-hauled photo
is worth the price of admission. Even you’re pennant looks just right.
I hope you can come up and cruise Fishers Island Sound and Little Narragansett Bay
some day- there are a lot of neat little coves to see and explore.
Hats off from Mystic- Walt Ansel
I am building an Eel and have the same issues with the tiller. I would love to see some detail (dimensions, drawings, etc.) on the alternative rudder.
I will be sailing a lot of shallow lakes in Australia.
Many thanks.
Sorry that I have not responded sooner, but I just saw your reply. The rudder is 600 mm long with the rudder shaft 100 mm back from the front. The forward edge is 240 mm high. The back vertical dimension is 355 mm. I built it out of stacked foil shaped pieces about 1-1/2″ thick. My bottom plate is flat, but I think Roger Dahlberg’s may have had a slight foil shape in the vertical plane. His has a foil shape in the horizontal plane, but I extended mine straight back from midway.
Hopefully this makes sense and is helpful. Please feel free with any more questions.
Successful building and good sailing
I signed up for Small Boats Monthly just to read this article, as I too am building an Eel—cold molded, 4 layers of 1/8″ yellow cedar. Loved your thoughts on the rudder, but since I’m past that will just settle for “as drawn,” however, I really like what you did with your cockpit coamings and built-up centerboard. The Schooner Creek boats went with a rounded cabin front but I’ll stick with what Garden drew. Could possibly make for a little more room down below. You did a beautiful job!!
Bill Garden is hard to define. Certainly the most artistic of naval architects and seemingly the only architect who could combine oval, round, and rectangular windows in one design and make it look natural. His lighthouses on WINDSTAR are wonderful. And TOADSTOOL was a true delight.
It seems an endless variety of wonderful vessels sailed off his drawing board.
Kudos for the results and the perseverance! Eel is one of my favorite designs ever.
G’day from Australia. Some thoughts on rudder type and functions. An advantage of the horizontal foil at the bottom of the rudder is the damping action on pitching motion as the boat sails through choppy waves. A similar steadying effect applies when the boat is lying to a bow anchor with wave action striking the bow of the boat. An aero foil shape to rudder foil can also contribute to lifting the stern by, firstly damping the rate of the stern being submerged and secondly by the tendency of a broad foil section with greater curvature on the top surface compared to the bottom surface to generate lift as it moves through water. A transom-hung rudder design would also have greater leverage over the boat with respect to these forces and consideration of the forces needs to be given to construction of the rudder bearings, pintles, etc. A foil on an outboard rudder can also provide a handy boarding step. The increased length could be an issue, but overall it’s just another compromise of preferences when we build a boat. The steering system is arguably the most critical control on a boat—it has to stand all demands regardless of what functions it performs.
I own an Eel, in NSW Australia, originally called COCATEEL, now named SELKIE. The rudder arrangement is different from both the original spade and the end-plate version described above. There is a fixed part of the rudder with a stainless-steel fairing on the leading edge, which projects below the hull only the same depth as the fixed keel; within this fixed rudder swings a thinner rudder blade which can be rotated so it is straight down when underway, or can swing up when entering shallow water. Control lines that pull the rudder blade up or down run up to the tiller.
I just received the plans today, now to find time to loft and build. Living in Southern NJ our waters are skinny and choppy, seems like a perfect habitat for Eel.