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FAIREHOPE is a 21′ gaff-rigged sloop designed by Nelson Zimmer. In my correspondence with him during the time FAIREHOPE was being built, he wrote, “I designed the little shallop in 1946 for a man in Auckland, New Zealand, as a stout coastwise cruiser.” The design was featured in The Rudder, National Fisherman, and, finally, in the design section of WoodenBoat No. 58, with a commentary by Joel White, which is where I first saw her.

Being boatless at the time and eager to have another boat, as well as the experience of building one, I was immediately taken with her straightforward and strong look, which harked back to less complicated and saner times. The very favorable comments of Joel White completed the process of convincing me. Accordingly, I purchased a set of plans from The WoodenBoat Store and began my quarter-century relationship with FAIREHOPE.

I cannot say that the construction was without significant effort, but it was relatively simple work. The hard-chined sections and sawn frames eliminated the necessity of a steambox. After two-and-a-half years of mostly weekend work, with paid help from an experienced boatbuilder friend and six months of paid weekly assistance from another friend, she was launched in June 1985.

In keeping with her designer’s intent, she is stoutly built with locally sourced live oak for the keel and backbone, and natural live oak crooks for the quarter knees and breasthook. Her design also includes a full set of lodging and hanging knees, which I laminated from mahogany. FAIREHOPE is planked with 7⁄8″-thick juniper, with a 1-3⁄8″-thick mahogany sheerstrake for additional strength. Her topsides construction is batten-seam, using mahogany battens that cover the inside of the planking seams, and copper rivets for fastenings. We also installed 1⁄4″-thick pine ceiling planking, leaving 1⁄4″ between the strakes for ventilation. Instead of caulking the topsides, we epoxied juniper splines between the planks, creating a smooth and stable surface for painting. Below the chine, she is fastened with silicon-bronze screws and caulked traditionally. The decking is plywood covered with Dynel set in epoxy, with a teak overlay for a traditional look.

With Zimmer’s blessing, we changed the design by replacing the deep cockpit with a bridge deck and a self-draining footwell. In addition to improving seaworthiness in the event of taking a wave over the stern, this configuration allowed us to tuck a two-cylinder diesel engine under the deck. The Beta 14 engine, which is offset to port so as not to weaken the keel and dead-wood, has functioned quite well. I am presently using a two-bladed folding prop to reduce drag. Maximum speed under power is 61⁄2 knots with an easy cruising speed of 51⁄2 knots. Another change was the construction of a small bulwark to replace the toerail, raising the sheer height enough to allow us to clandestinely raise the cabin height to allow greater sitting headroom below while respecting the pleasing as-drawn profile.

In addition to the engine weight to port, which is offset by placing her two batteries to starboard, we added about 600 lbs of cast-lead ingots as inside ballast. Although she performed well and was relatively stiff with this ballasting, I eventually removed about 500 lbs of the inside ballast and instead gave the keel a 4″-thick, cast-lead shoe, which was bolted through the floor timbers and centerboard trunk bed logs. This placed most of the ballast as low as possible, but I retained 100 lbs of ingots for use as trim ballast. By blind luck, FAIREHOPE retained her wonderful motion and became noticeably stiffer.

D. Turner Matthews

Thin ceiling planking, spaced for hull ventilation, gives FAIREHOPE a simple, spare appearance down below, and her accommodations permit one or two people to cruise comfortably enough.

Although FAIREHOPE is only 21′ on deck, with a 2′ bowsprit and waterline length of 16′, she sails and feels like a much larger boat. Her motion is steady and solid, with no whip-like reactions in gusts, or bouncy motion such as you might experience in some 20′ fiberglass or plywood counterparts. Rather, FAIREHOPE, in gusts, just buries her shoulder a little more and increases her forward motion proportionate to the increase in wind velocity, continuing to rise and fall to the waves with a steady and predictable motion, easing her rail slowly upward when the gust ceases.

I frequently liken her to the 1955 Buick Super we had when I was a youth. As with the Buick, which gave a smooth, solid, and secure ride, you need to pay attention to the helm, particularly in windy conditions. Also, as with the Buick, FAIREHOPE has none of the stability safety features with which modern cars are fitted to keep incompetent drivers out of trouble—rather, you must rely upon your own skills. Unlike modern fin-keel boats, for example, she will not round up if overpowered by a gust. She depends upon her helmsman to point her in a safe direction and ease her mainsheet in stiff winds, and if you do not direct her otherwise, she will continue to bury her shoulder ever deeper and hold her course to the end.

That having been said, in general, her sailing qualities are impeccable. She will heave-to if necessary; seldom, if ever, misses stays; and is relatively fast given her 16′ waterline length. Being gaff-rigged, she is not particularly close-winded, but if properly trimmed will sail herself to windward, allowing me to leave the helm unattended for brief periods if necessary.

D. Turner Matthews

A great advantage to the 21-footer’s design is that it can be hauled out by trailer, which not only makes maintenance by the owner practical but also allows her to be taken easily to find new and even far-off cruising grounds to explore.

I originally had one moderate and one very deep reef in the main. A friend and I once took her out in storm conditions (gusting to more than 40 mph) to see what she would do. With the second reef in the main and the working jib, we managed to stay in control for the time we were out. On another occasion on the Gulf Coast Intracoastal Waterway between Venice and Boca Grande, Florida, I averaged 4 knots solely under the working jib. On that occasion, I was comforted by the running backstays, as it was a very broad reach in about 30 knots of wind.

I now have a set of Dabbler sails, with both reefs much shallower, making their use more practical in reasonably normal conditions. In a significant test, before a Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival in St. Michaels, Maryland, a friend and I did a double-reefed, 8-mile beat into 20 knots of wind, with higher gusts, down the Miles River to reach the pre-festival camp-out on the Wye River (see page 18). Although it was a very wet ride, we had sufficient sail area to maintain our momentum through the very steep chop, whereas with the other sails I would either have been overpowered with one reef, or too underpowered with the second reef to keep way on into the waves.

D. Turner Matthews

Nelson Zimmer designed his 21’ gaff-headed sloop to be comparatively simple and inexpensive to build.

For the most part, I have used FAIREHOPE for the role for which she was designed. Her simple but adequate accommodations allow for one or two people to camp-cruise in comfort. I have made numerous cruises along the Gulf Coast of Florida both alone and with various friends. I also do a lot of daysailing in the Manatee River and lower Tampa Bay.

FAIREHOPE is at her best in 10 to 15 knots of wind without any reefs, or in 15 to 20 knots with one or two reefs. I usually sail with the full main and working jib, which is club-footed and therefore self-tending. Tacking, then, is effortless, requiring me only to put the helm down and move to the high side. In light winds of 5 to 10 knots, I use a 120-percent genoa, which I had made several years ago, and with this, she maintains a reasonable speed. It does, of course, require retrimming with each tack, and with changing wind directions. With no winches aboard, however, handling the genoa requires significant effort when the wind gets much above 10 knots. As for the main, I rigged it with a classic double-ended mainsheet. With all this leverage, trimming the mainsail has never been a problem.

One of the great advantages of a deadrise centerboard boat, depending on her size, is the ability to launch and retrieve it from a trailer. During the summer hurricane season, I now pull FAIREHOPE out of the water onto her trailer, and using our local yacht club hoist, pull the mast, which stores easily aboard the boat. This also has allowed me to trailer her to faraway places, not only to St. Michaels, Maryland, but as far away as Southwest Harbor, Maine, for the 1994 WoodenBoat Show. The sailing out to the Atlantic through all the wonderful boats in Southwest Harbor remains one of the highlights of my time with FAIREHOPE.

When you sum up all of the good qualities I have mentioned, which have been learned and refined over a 27-year period, you are left with what I consider a timeless classic, regardless of when it was or will be built. I can truly say that for someone seeking a traditional, shoal-draft, small coastal cruiser to build or own, I can think of none better.

Full plans (and also study plans) for the 21’ Zimmer gaff sloop are available through The WoodenBoat Store.

Designed in 1946, the Zimmer 21’ sloop’s shallow draft—only 2’ with the centerboard up—promises easy access to shoal waters for island exploration and camp-cruising. Her accommodations are somewhat spartan, but adequate for the purpose, and her ample cockpit makes cruising under sail a pleasure.

Zimmer 21′ Gaff Sloop Particulars: LOA 21’1 1/2″, LWL 16′, Beam 7’2″, Draft (board up) 2′, (board down) 4’3″, Displacement 3110 lbs, Sail area 261 sq ft

If you are born with the name “Seaman,” your career path is almost preordained. Somewhere in the past, by definition, there are wooden boats in the bloodline. Dave Seaman may have come by the inclination to build boats naturally, but the lines and construction of his latest boat, ZEEK, are the product of study and experience. ZEEK is a 21′ LOA Alaska Sea skiff specifically designed and built for the short chop and steep gravel beaches of Alaska’s Kachemak Bay.

The south side of Kachemak Bay is a roadless area of snow-covered peaks where the only transportation is by boat. It has some of the largest tides in the world, and the rips and currents are a challenge. The early settlers there used dory-like rowing boats, with lots of rocker and flare—boats designed to survive in tough conditions. As engines replaced oars, transoms got wider and planing boats became the norm, but many of the design characteristics remained the same.

During the first years of his boatbuilding career, some 30 years ago, Seaman was part of a small group of self-reliant men and women who lived in those same remote coves and harbors. Builders like Seaman, Dick Dunn, Jim Landis, and George Hamm built the boats that people needed to travel year-round in the Bay’s sometimes harsh weather. They collaborated on designs, learning from each other’s boats and figuring out the details that make boats fit a particular combination of sea and shore. Materials often came from the Sitka spruce that covers the slopes or the cedar logs that would wash up on the beaches, flotsam from Japan-bound log barges. Logs were cooperatively cut on a one-man mill and sorted into two piles—construction lumber and boat boards.

South Bay celebrations sometimes had a dozen elegant home-built boats pulled up on the beach or rafted out on a running line. Like New England and Puget Sound, Kachemak Bay became a focal point for wooden boats. That heritage survives in the annual Kachemak Bay Wooden Boat Festival, which takes place in the small town of Homer each September.

Will Rice

ZEEK’s V-hull cuts through the chop, while her flaring bow and ample freeboard make her a dry boat.

One of Seaman’s earliest boats was built from a set of Pete Culler plans, and Culler’s influence has continued throughout Seaman’s career. Culler summarized his own design philosophy by saying, “To be successful at sea, we must keep things simple.” Capt. Culler’s philosophy shows in the clean lines and uncluttered structure of ZEEK.

Seaman’s construction details have been developed by years of fixing boats that he had built, restoration jobs on old boats built by old-timers, and keeping up a traditionally built, wooden, commercial fish boat. Fishing is a business where you learn the hard way about what breaks and what works. Fishing boats are built to take a beating, and Seaman incorporated the best of those design strengths into his own boats.

The addition of stitch-and-glue construction into the toolbox, along with customers who have believed in the process, has allowed Seaman to experiment, and usually that ends up back at simple. The hull shape, light weight, lack of appendages, below-decks engineering, and ease in cleanup make for user-friendly service for the long term. This design makes highly efficient use of wood fiber, still recognized as the most resilient of boatbuilding materials.

Kachemak Bay opens onto Cook Inlet, not the hard waters of the North Pacific. Consequently, it rarely produces big seas during the summer season, but the afternoon day breeze means that a 3′ chop is a standard operating condition. Given the temperature of the water, a wet boat is a serious design flaw. Seaman, who now lives in Homer, understands the importance of bad-weather handling. Twice a week, year round, he uses his 24′ boat to deliver the mail to places on the other side of the bay. It gives new meaning to the phrase “through rain and sleet….”

Seaman has built 25 boats, all of them designed for Kachemak Bay. ZEEK is a product of that evolution. Seaman collaborated with the boat’s owner, Kirk Vasey, in the design and construction of boat. Intended as a recreational runabout, she would also be suitable for various other operations, such as a water taxi for carrying up to six passengers.

Once he had the design parameters in mind, Seaman drew the lines on grid paper and generated a table of offsets. He then lofted and corrected the offsets. Patterns and molds were made from the lofting. Six molds were used, plus a stem pattern and a transom pattern. ZEEK is built with a low deadrise—13 degrees from ’midships aft and 25 degrees from the bow for about a quarter of the boat’s length. With a hard chine, a lot of freeboard, and significant flare in the sides, she is a dry boat. There are no skegs or other projections to interfere with the flow of water under the hull, so she is fuel-efficient.

Will Rice

The Alaska Sea Skiff can be built with a center console or a deckhouse.

ZEEK gets her strength from a monocoque design, in which the structural load is carried by the outer skin, much like a modern jetliner. The floor and bottom form a rigid triangle, the most stable geometric shape. She has no cross bulkheads, but instead relies on three longitudinal stringers under the floor. Two stringers run about halfway between the keel and each chine. The third runs down the center and provides direct support for the keel. The stringer configuration helps equalize the stresses and stiffens the hull with additional triangular shapes. The floor sits above the design waterline and, with a pair of 4″ scuppers, it is self-bailing.

The stringers, the hull, and the floor are tied together with double layers of ’glass cloth, providing rigidity fore-and-aft. The construction provides enough torsional give to dissipate the energy that a planing boat absorbs when it is pounding in rough water. The design avoids the popped bulkhead seams that are one of the most common repair problems in the Bay. Seaman says the concept is similar to the natural knees used for framing on the old wooden fishing boats. The roots used for those knees were flexible and resulted in a boat that could take years of heavy use with only minimal repair issues.

Construction is stitch-and-glue, with 1/2″ and 3⁄8″ marine fir plywood. Three sheets of plywood were scarfed together and steam-bent into shape. Every plywood surface inside and out is covered with a layer of 6- or 10-oz ’glass cloth and epoxy. The inwales are open and constructed from single pieces of wood, without scarfs. The rails are an integral design element in an open boat without obstructions for walking about. The inside rail is ironbark—a heavy, dense eucalyptus. The outside rail is fir. The open design means that cleats are not necessary, and the single-strip construction adds strength and rigidity to the hull.

With the huge tides that are the norm in Kachemak Bay, few places have docks (boats are typically kept on a mooring or a running line). Landings at the remote cabins that dot the bay are typically on a gravel beach. During the winter, ice is an issue. Needless to say, the bottoms of boats here take a beating. To protect ZEEK’s hull and provide the necessary strength, everything under the floor, and the bottom of the hull, inside and out, is covered with a double layer of cloth and epoxy. The center stringer provides strength to the keel. A strip of “Keelguard,” a polymer, self-adhering composite, provides additional protection. A bow deck facilitates loading and unloading onto a beach.

The boat carries two 20-gallon fuel tanks, which provide plenty of range. These in-seat tanks have waterproof covers. Wires and hoses are located under the deck in waterproof chases. GPS, VHS, and depth-sounder have waterproof switches and breaker panel. Kobelt hydraulic steering controls the Honda 90-hp four-stroke outboard. ZEEK has a stand-up console, but a sister boat with identical lines is fitted with a house. Seaman said, “All boat designs are a compromise, but there was no compromise on the materials or systems.”

With a displacement of only 1,200 lbs—1,700 with a 90-hp Honda outboard—she can be a bit tender, but fast and comfortable in the typical chop. However, she is also quick and maneuverable, and Kirk Vasey, the owner, reports that in 10′ rollers the combination of light weight and lots of power means that she is easy to steer through the troughs. And in flat conditions, she will jump up on plane and do 30 knots. Her light weight means that she can be towed on a single-axle trailer.

Seaman has built three boats from the design and molds. The construction took Seaman and Kirk about 15 months.

Seaman said that his goal was to build a boat that was faster, prettier, stronger, and lighter than the competition. ZEEK appears to meet those standards.

Will Rice is a widely published Alaska writer and the author of Fly Fishing Secrets of Alaska’s Best Guides, and co-author of Fly Fisher’s Guide to Alaska.

For Zeek plans and information about other designs from Dave Seaman, email him at [email protected].

Alaska Sea Skiff Particulars: LOA 21′, Beam 8′, Displacement 1700 lbs, Power 90 hp, Maximum speed 30 knots

In the year when Finland celebrates its position as design capital of Europe, the issue of how to preserve tradition in the face of ever-challenging technology is as topical as ever. In a country once economically dependent on processing its “green gold,” woodcraft comes with mother’s milk. At the annual gathering of “traditional wooden rowing boats” in the eastern province of Savo every summer, the Sulkava rowing event attracts between 6,000 and 7,000 rowers, with three main categories of small boats, comprising several hundred craft.

Along with Finnish naval architect Terho Halme, a former Dutch marine engineer, Ruud van Veelen, is doing his level best to infuse modern design and construction techniques into these categories while still adhering to the less-than-precise rules of the competition. While basic dimensions such as the height of the sheer at the stem and stern are specified, builders also are obliged to maintain “traditional features,” such as raking the stem slightly and fitting oarlocks so that their pins do not extend over the gunwales.

The adoption of plywood in traditional boatbuilding predated the establishment of the Sulkava races, although originally even the 40′, multiple-oared “church boats” that have a long history in the region and were usually built from hand-sawn pine. The use of multilayered veneers for light weight has improved performance, and today finding any sawn-timber boat at a rowing gathering is rare indeed. Van Veelen has introduced non-local plywoods, such as okoume, which particularly challenged the race committee tasked with guarding “traditional style.” More particularly, he has pushed for the use of ultra-light construction, using epoxy resins and glued joints instead of tar, glue, and copper rivets.

Anthony Shaw

Ruud van Veelen, a marine engineer from Holland now living in Finland, was inspired by the popularity of rowing to develop epoxy-plywood boats of light weight and high performance.

Hence the birth of the ultralight and fairly easily reproduced craft featured here, the Savo 650S rower. Living so near the venue of the Sulkava race, van Veelen had the demands of the local environment in mind: 60 kilometers of mainly sheltered inland waters where shallow draft and a long waterline are obvious advantages. His original design was a 21-footer that can be rigged for either single or double rowing, with the extra displacement adding only fractions of an inch to the depth of the load waterline. The Savo 650 is broader than his other design, the idiosyncratic “shift-rower,” in which one of the crew sits aft, wielding a long-handled paddle, and the two exchange places regularly to bring fresh energy to the sculls.

Apart from their sweeping chines, these two designs also share innovative hardware. Under the racing rules, the oarlock pin for the non-feathering oars cannot extend outside the line of the gunwale, but van Veelen developed a hinged pin that can be conveniently folded away during transportation. The sliding seat is of equally radical appearance when compared with traditional wheel-and-groove systems used on all other craft at the Sulkava gathering. Wheels are still required under the seat, but they have a pulley-like concave shape and run on top of two 7⁄8″-diameter stainless-steel tube rails running full length between beams attached to the two centermost frames. As well as looking very trim, the system is easy to adjust, since the footrests slide along the rails and are fixed in position by set-screws.

Anthony Shaw

A simple sliding seat runs on stainless-steel tubes; the footrests are adjustable with set-screws.

Apart from the strictures of the race handbook, the Savo 650S is also very adaptable for non-competitive rowers. The longest major rowing event in Finland is actually the 200-km (124.3-mile) Karelia Marathon Row, held annually in the same lake as Sulkava at its northern extremity and finishing near the town of Joensuu. This also attracts a wide variety of craft and includes five overnight lakeside stops. Two of van Veelen’s customers use this design not only for the five-day event, but also for the 350-km (217.5-mile) round-trip there and back to Imatra, their home just 35 km (21.7 miles) from the Russian border. Although van Veelen is quick to insist that this design is not a cottage “runabout,” he points out that any rowing trip is easier when the craft has better hydrodynamic and steerage features, giving greater reward for energy expended.

My short outing in the four-strake version of the Savo 650S underscored these features. Given that most recreational rowing takes place under reasonably fair weather conditions, the disadvantages of light construction are somewhat relative. One keenly competitive customer even found that removing the 1.5-cm (0.6″) external “keel,” which runs along the whole length of the hull, did not radically affect the craft’s tracking characteristics, but reduced the wetted surface by 5 percent and saved an extra 1 kg, or about 2.2 lbs. Weighing less than 40 kg (88 lbs), the boat that I rowed got up to cruising speed very quickly, and even in a steady side wind held her course surprisingly well. She is less responsive to radical course changes, but with such low displacement can be maneuvered quite easily. My only surprise was the considerable overlap of the oar grips when in the resting position, about 30 cm (10″). This rowing overlap takes some getting used to, but this is actually a feature of all Sulkava racers, all of which are slender craft that do not use outriggers.

Anthony Shaw

In Finland, competitive rowing events are taken seriously. At Savo, the namesake of Ruud van Veelen’s design, races draw as many as 8,000 competitors, in a wide variety of pulling boats.

Construction of this model has so far been a professional task. “This is not a multiple-piece jigsaw puzzle to assemble, but it does require accurate initial cutting,” says van Veelen, who is so far the sole builder. He uses CNC, cutting from two-meter plywood sheets (6.6′) to precisely shape pieces that are then scarf-jointed to their full length after the initial cutting. Van Veelen also recommends the use of jigs for precise alignment, especially along the centerline. This enables creation of the simplest of lines without any chine battens and even without stitching, relying instead solely on epoxy gluing, using clamps every 10 cm, or about 4″. “Most home builders probably won’t have 120 clamps at their disposal, but there are ways around that, like temporary screwing and then filling,” he says.

Inspired by a comparatively small and light female customer, van Veelen has developed a slightly shorter version of his basic design. At 19′, this Savo 575 has proved quite maneuverable both on and off the water, yet it has retained good directional stability. She has proved that, like her forerunner, good handling qualities and minimum weight can be achieved by shrewd design and a construction technique that is simple but secure—and without using any fiberglass at all!

Contact Puuvenepiste in Finland for more information on the Savo 650. Old Wharf Dory in Wellfleet, MA, is an authorized builder of Puuvenepiste boats.

The Savo 650S is a lean and efficient machine designed for competitive rowing. Its construction is all modern, using lightweight plywood-epoxy techniques. However, its inspiration goes back to the Scandinavian “church boats,” so named because they were used for Sunday racing to and from church. In fact, one of designer Ruud van Veelen’s boats, similarly built, accommodates 14 oarsmen and a coxswain. Particulars: LOA 21’4″, Beam 4’2″, Draft 3″ (at a combined boat and crew weight of 265 lbs)

There is no such thing as a short conversation with Tom Wylie. A ten-minute conversation with the yacht designer will last an hour and a half and will range from sail airflow to carbon-fiber mast construction. Along the way, the conversation will drift past the economics of small boats, touch upon the maximum curvature of the bilge that is consistent with laminated frames, and linger on his passion for ocean conservation.

On this day in September 2010, Wylie is describing the design considerations behind the Spaulding 16, a boat originally sketched by Myron Spaulding in 1923 but reinterpreted by Wylie in collaboration with naval architect Doug Frolich. The new design is not only a tribute to Spaulding, one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s premier yachtsmen, boatbuilders, and sailors, but also the signature craft of the youth boatbuilding program at the Spaulding Wooden Boat Center in Sausalito, California.

The design brief called for a boat that would be moderately challenging to build, fun to sail for both experienced and less-experienced sailors, and a good boat to introduce neophytes to the sport. It would introduce 10- to 18-year-olds to Spaulding’s boats and the history of wooden boat building in Sausalito.

Craig Southard/Spaulding Wooden Boat Center

In keeping with the mission of the Spaulding Wooden Boat Center, the Spaulding 16 was built with traditional lapstrake planking of Alaska yellow cedar, fastened over laminated frames of the same species.

As the first Spaulding 16, AVATAR, hangs from a crane in anticipation of its official launching, Wylie tells me about turning a simple drawing into a boat. “We aren’t really sure what Myron intended, so I had to improvise. There is no way that sheer is Myron’s sheer, but I think I have captured the spirit of the boat that Myron was sketching.”

As we are speaking, Andrea Rey, the Associate Director of the Spaulding Center, starts the official launching ceremony for AVATAR, built by 25 teenaged apprentices over the course of 12 months. This was not the first boat built in the youth boatbuilding program, but it is by far the most complicated. The round-bilged, lapstrake-planked hull provided the challenges of shaping the curved stem and carving the rabbet, spiling planks, cutting “gains” at the ends so that the planks meet flush at the stem, and fitting deckbeams and carlins to support the deck.
I study the sheer as the boat is lowered into the water. I do not know much about Spaulding’s work, but it looks like a Wylie boat to me. The boat floats high in the water, and it looks fast with its carbon-fiber mast and the square-headed mainsail. Wylie is known throughout the West Coast and the world for designing high-performance sailboats that are fast and handle well, and AVATAR is no exception. Wylie started his long career in boatbuilding and design as an apprentice under Spaulding himself, and to this day he has the same restless inquisitiveness and willingness to try new things that Spaulding was known for. Some of his designs, most notably RAGE, which was built by Steve Rander in Portland, Oregon, and set records for California-to-Hawaii Transpac races in the 1990s, are cold-molded. However, he has enthusiastically pursued composites in his yacht construction, so the Spaulding 16 represents a nod to his roots at Myron Spaulding’s boatyard.

Craig Southard/Spaulding Wooden Boat Center

Students in the Spaulding Center’s youth boatbuilding program built the prototype Spaulding 16, which they christened AVATAR. The boat was launched in 2012.

Seeming larger than her 16′, the Spaulding 16 has seating on the side decks or on the floorboards. A single thwart straddles the daggerboard trunk. Because of its beam and high freeboard, its single rowing station will require long oars and tall oarlocks. A single scull mounted on the aft deck might be a reasonable alternative.

The boat weighs about 350 lbs and was designed to float on its lines with 450 lbs of crew weight and gear. The relatively slack bilges make the hull initially tender, although it stiffens up as it heels. Sailed light, she will reward experienced sailors with a fast and exciting ride. But to make her more forgiving for education and training, which are central to the Spaulding Center’s mission, ballast may be necessary. Wylie is examining water bags or a weighted daggerboard to add ballast without permanently altering the boat’s sports-car-like performance.

AVATAR was built of 7⁄16-inch-thick Alaska yellow cedar planking screwed to laminated frames. The plank laps are fastened with copper rivets backed up with a bead of poly-sulfide caulking. Plywood was used for the transom and decks to simplify construction and prevent leaks. The daggerboard and the rudder were traditionally fashioned from solid wood, edge-glued and drift-bolted.

Two decisions made early in the building process came back to haunt the builders. The first was to cut out full-sized paper templates rather than lofting the boat, and the other was to use eight strakes per side instead of ten. Jim Labidoa, a cabinetmaker and adult volunteer, said the apprentices had to engage in a full-scale wrestling match to get the paper half-templates to lie flat and true while their outlines were traced onto plywood mold stock. Making them symmetrical proved nearly impossible. I had to laugh as Jim was waving his arms and describing the unruly templates, because I have had the same experience myself, which is why I now loft every boat I build.

Reducing the number of strakes made each of them less flexible than the narrower ones would have been, and as a result the planks would not lie flush to the mold at station No. 1 forward. Craig Southerd, the Youth Program Director, noted that the crew broke several planks trying to fit them to the slender bow. Lofting could have exposed this problem earlier. As it is, the boat is a little fuller in the bow than the plans call for, but nevertheless the plank lines are fair and the shape of the bow blends in beautifully with the rest of the boat.

Traditional materials and techniques fit the Spaulding Center’s mission. But if I were to build this boat, I would likely strip-plank or cold-mold the hull and sheathe it in fiberglass so it would be light and perpetually tight. A few broken strips during construction would not be a financial burden.

The carbon-fiber mast and the square-headed rig, though not traditional, are in keeping with Wylie’s thinking about rigs. The sail is controlled by a single sheet and is easily reefed. These are important elements for a sail-training boat that will also take some Spaulding Center visitors daysailing. The slender, unstayed mast is designed to bend off to leeward in puffs, spilling wind to keep the boat on its feet. The square-headed rig carries quite a bit of sail, 111 sq ft, with a single halyard on a relatively short mast. Reefed, the sail is 80 sq ft. The mast is made of the top of a windsurfer mast joined to a custom-made carbon tube. A wooden mast would work, but at the cost of additional weight aloft. At the foot of the sail, where weight is not as critical, wood is used for the boom.

Craig Southard/Spaulding Wooden Boat Center

AVATAR is a handsome addition to the Sausalito waterfront, bringing Myron Spaulding’s youthful vision into life and providing an exciting sailing option for the Spaulding Wooden Boat Center.

Rides were hard to come by on launching day, so I had to content myself with secondhand performance reports. Craig Southerd, smiling broadly, said that on the first sail, the boat planed out of the harbor with two people aboard and a reef in the main in 15 knots of wind. The sailors were Gordie Nash, a Bay Area boatbuilder and one of the best racing sailors on the Bay, and Frolich, the architect and an accomplished sailor in his own right. “It’s typical of a Tom Wylie boat: lively, easily balanced with a light helm, quick to tack, and responsive in fluky winds that ranged from 10 to 25 knots,” Frolich said. Even with two aboard, he would not have added ballast. “This boat is really fun to sail. Extra weight would just slow it down. I wouldn’t hesitate to take my wife and two young children out on day sail around Angel Island right now. That would be a great ride!”

The Spaulding 16 would be a challenge to build but would reward the careful builder with an exciting boat that will be a delight to sail. Although building times are highly variable, I estimate that 1,100 hours would be required to build a cold-molded version, which is a substantial investment of time and effort. But very few of Wylie’s designs are suitable for an amateur builder, and the Spaulding 16 might very well be the quickest and least-cost way to get into a Wylie-designed boat. Also, the Spaulding Center can build completed boats for paying clients in traditional, cold-molded, or strip-construction.

As I watch AVATAR sail out of the harbor with the first group of young apprentices aboard, I am impressed by the way the boat slides through the water, even with five people aboard. I hear nervous laughter from a couple of students who helped build the boat but have never been sailing. AVATAR is a tangible tribute to Myron Spaulding, the realization of a project begun in 1923. But an even greater tribute is the way this little craft has united four generations of Bay Area boatbuilders. It is an impressive piece of work, and the students are justifiably proud. John McCormack, the lead instructor on the project, summed it up best: “The kids did a really fine job.”

The Spaulding Wooden Boat Center no longer offers plans or finished boats for the Spaulding 16. The review is presented here as archival material.

The Spaulding 16 design builds on a sketch that Myron Spaulding drew, and her traditional plank-on-frame construction pays homage to the legendary Sausalito designer’s aesthetics. At the same time, especially with its square-headed, unstayed rig, designer Tom Wylie brought a modern sensibility to the design, something that Spaulding himself may well have appreciated in a boat by—and for—youthful sailors.

Spaulding 16 Particulars: LOA 16’3″, LWL 14’7″, Beam 5’6″, Draft (board up) 6′, (board down) 3’3″, Sail area 111 sq ft, Weight 350 lbs

Gil Smith designed and built around 400 boats for the shallow waters of New York’s Great South Bay between the 1860s and 1936. In his early years he mostly built working craft, such as oyster-fishing boats. Speed was an advantage for these craft, as beating competitors to the market might ensure a higher price. These working craft typically had a generous beam to provide form stability, plenty of room for the catch, and low freeboard aft for ease of landing that catch.

Smith transferred these basic characteristics to the pleasure boats he later designed and built, when the decline of the oyster fishery coincided with a boom in local tourism. These boats have seen a resurgence in popularity in recent years, thanks largely to the efforts of Donn Constanzo of Greenport, New York, whose company, Wooden Boatworks, recently built a replica of Smith’s 36′ 9″ sloop KID—an evolution of the signature Gil Smith hull shape. Costanzo has described Smith as “the finest designer of shoal draft yachts ever.”
Smith produced his 21′ 6″ catboat LUCILE in 1891, when he was at the height of his popularity. This boat’s raked elliptical transom, plumb stem, and generous beam were typical of his designs of that time. The boat under consideration here is a scaled-down interpretation of that boat—a 14-footer built by a student at the U.K.’s Lyme Regis Boatbuilding Academy.

Nigel Sharp

Tyler built his new boat in strip planked cedar, sheathing it inside and out in biaxial fiberglass cloth. The backbone is of laminated sapele.

When Michael Tyler, a former art student and bank manager, began his boatbuilding studies in March 2011, he knew he wanted to build something “a bit different.” While casually thumbing through one of the boating magazines at the academy, he saw a very small photograph of a replica of LUCILE. He knew he’d found what he was looking for.

Tyler talked to his instructors about LUCILE, it soon became apparent that to build so large a boat would not be practical, both in terms of budget and shop space. “I might have been depriving someone else of the opportunity to build a boat,” he said of the prospect. A smaller version was considered, but as scaling a boat down while keeping the original proportions simply doesn’t work, this would not be as straightforward as Tyler had first hoped. However, the solution came from instructor Mike Broome, who offered to carry out the necessary design work, in his spare time, for a 14′ interpretation.

Broome’s priority was to ensure the boat would be “visually in keeping with the original,” with the sail plan being one of the main considerations. Smith’s boats were already considered to be overcanvased, and if LUCILE’s mainsail were simply scaled down it would have measured 163 sq ft. Broome realized this would be absurd with the reduced weight and beam of the hull; he initially considered reducing it to 153 sq ft, and ultimately settled on 120. On the other hand, the new boat’s freeboard was barely scaled down at all. “I was trying to recreate the same kind of useful performance without restricting the boat to light winds only,” Broome said. “I hoped the result would be majestic but usable.”

Athough LUCILE was of traditional carvel construction, Tyler didn’t want to follow that path, as he expected that the new boat would spend long periods out of the water; if carvel planked, she would have to swell tight every time she was launched. So it was decided that the hull would be strip-planked with 3⁄8″-thick western red cedar, and sheathed inside and out with a biaxial cloth and epoxy. After the lines were lofted, the backbone was laminated in sapele, the building jig was assembled, and it was time to start planking.

The planking provided a challenging lesson for Tyler. In carvel construction, planks are tapered to accommodate the varying girth of a boat at various sections along its length. On the other hand, strip planking normally uses parallel planks with pre-machined concave and convex edges to provide an easy and effective gluing surface. Tyler was attracted by the potential speed advantage of this technique, but he was disappointed to find that the marked twist in the stern sections of the hull meant that he had to individually taper a number of planks over about 5′ of their lengths, reducing the width from 7⁄8″ in some cases to as little as 1⁄2″. This fussy fitting slowed the work considerably.
Before the planked hull was turned right-side up, it was sheathed and then faired with an epoxy compound—a process that took Tyler and fellow student John Bicknell more than a week. It was then painted with a two-pack polyurethane paint. The deck is built of 6mm ply over sapele and Douglas-fir deckbeams. Tyler intended to lay swept western red-cedar planks over the plywood, but he ran out of time. The mast and gaff are hollow, and are built of eight Sitka-spruce staves joined along their edges with so-called “bird’s-mouth” joints. The boom is of Douglas-fir.

Nigel Sharp

LUCIE has a generous sail plan, and feels tender initially. But once her angle of heel reaches about 15 degrees, she leans on her leeward bilge and firms up considerably.

Launch Day is a fixed date on the calendar at Lyme Regis for all the students. “If you couldn’t launch on Launch Day,” Tyler said, “that would be a travesty, so you have to push yourself just to cross the finish line.” Although he often worked until nine or ten at night throughout the course, as Launch Day approached he increasingly found himself still at work at 2 a.m..

Although there were still some finishing touches such as sole boards and deck varnish to complete, Tyler’s new boat, now named LUCIE, was ready to sail on Launch Day. With her rig in place, she took her turn among the other seven student-built boats, and was launched into Lyme Regis Harbour to great cheers from the assembled crowd. It was a cold December day with a squally offshore wind, and so Tyler wore “two wetsuits and a raincoat.” LUCIE’s sail, made by Elvstrom’s Jerry White, was hoisted with a reef in it. Bicknell, by Tyler’s own admission a much more experienced dinghy sailor, took the helm initially.

“I was a little concerned about the conditions,” he said, “and so I pushed for a reef to give us more of a chance of staying upright should something jam or should the boat turn out to be difficult to handle. But as it turned out it was fine, and if we hadn’t been enjoying it so much we would have come back in and taken out the reef.”

The conditions were considerably more pleasant when I took LUCIE out for her second sail four months later on a small lake adjacent to the River Thames at Pangbourne, where Tyler has taken a job as curator of a new maritime museum. It was a beautiful spring day with a light breeze occasionally rising to about a Force 3 (7–10 knots). However, just before we launched LUCIE, it was clear that I would have no choice other than to sail away from the slipway on a broad reach and immediately jibe. This was not an ideal prospect in a boat of unknown performance.

But I needn’t have worried. The maneuver went without a hitch, and I was then able to enjoy the delights of this lively little boat on all points of sailing. She felt very stable thanks to the stability afforded by her generous hull sections and her 812 lbs displacement. She accelerated nicely and tracked well, and didn’t need much steering thanks to the large galvanized steel rudder swinging from the trailing edge of her long keel. However, she did heel more than I expected in the gusts, albeit not suddenly, and initially it occurred to me that perhaps Broome should have taken his sail reduction a little farther. However, as I got used to the boat, it became apparent that, as she heeled to about 15 degrees and the leeward bilge dug in and the leverage of the centerboard, ballasted with 58 lbs of lead, took effect, it would take a lot for her to go any farther. I later discovered that Bicknell had come to the same conclusion on LUCIE’s first sail.

There were some inevitable teething problems. The peak halyard needs the addition of a purchase to eliminate the crease between the throat and the clew, and the halyard falls must be relocated to avoid the boom jaws pressing against them when off the wind. But Tyler now has the time and opportunity to attend to these matters and will then be able to get a lot of enjoyment out of this great little boat. He’ll also turn his attention to the possibility of building other versions.

This article appears as archival material. There is no known source for plans.

LUCIE, with her wide beam, wineglass transom, plumb bow, and firm sections is unmistakably inspired by Gil Smith. Mike Broome, who drew these lines, set out to retain the aesthetic qualities of the 21’ Smith original, while creating a safe and seaworthy 14’ interpretation of that design.

LUCIE Particulars: LOA 14’1″, LWL 12′, Beam 4’10 1/2″, Draft, board up: 1’1 1/2″, Draft, board down: 3′, Sail area 122 sq ft, Disp. 812 lbs

TROUT is a 23′ outboard-motor-powered garvey designed by Harry Bryan. She was commissioned by a client whose access to a new family fishing camp was to be principally by water. The design mandate was for a boat that could carry not only 12–14 people, but also propane tanks, aviation fuel for a sea-plane, an all-terrain vehicle, and a wheelchair-bound passenger. The boat would not be fast, necessarily, and it had to fit a particular “distressed” aesthetic. Specifically, it had to look like it was a century old.

The camp would be designed to appear as if it sprung from the surrounding landscape. The boat was to have no garish features that would destroy its harmony with this backdrop. The 20-hp motor was to be hidden away in a covered well, and its controls carefully concealed but accessible. “I had to argue with the clients,” said Bryan, “to put some oil on the cedar deck.”

Eventual road access to the camp diminished the necessity of TROUT’s original mission, and soon after she was completed Bryan was asked to find a good home for her, which he did. Today, the boat serves a family compound on a remote Maine lake. Although we didn’t see her in her intended home, she indeed appears to have grown from this adopted landscape of spruce-fringed granite outcroppings.

The boat has stick steering, like a yacht club launch. This system involves a vertical tiller swinging fore-and-aft about amidships on the boat’s starboard side. Push the tiller forward, and the boat turns to port; pull it aft, and she turns to starboard. Bryan chose this arrangement both to avoid having a visible contemporary steering wheel, and to free up cargo space in the center of the boat. (One of his earlier garveys, built for a similar purpose but meant to carry less of a load, has a center console.)

Matthew P. Murphy

TROUT’s flip-down ramp is meant to mate with a dock, though with some modification it would function well for beach landings, too. It also makes a good slide.

Matthew P. Murphy

A pair of adjustable ramps allow heavy, wheeled objects to be rolled from the raised foredeck down to the boat’s sole.

The raised foredeck platform is bounded by short, painted, black-iron pipe stanchions capped with oak plugs on top and threaded into flanges at the bottom; the flanges serve as bolted-on bases. The oak plugs are drilled for rope lifelines. A pair of removable ramps stows underneath this foredeck; they can be slid out and mounted in position, their distance from each other adjustable, to allow heavy gear on the foredeck to be rolled onto the lower main deck. A short hinged ramps folds back onto the raised deck when the boat is underway. This ramp was designed to mate with a floating dock: Nose the boat into the float, flip down the ramp, and you have an effortless connection to the shore for loading or unloading of all that gear.

I’ve come to think of this boat as an outboard-powered pier. Imagine a situation in which a larger, deeper-draft boat were moored off of a sandy or fine-gravel beach with no pier facilities. This garvey, with a longer bow ramp than the boat I tested, could be brought into that beach, and the ramp flipped down to the beach. Passengers could be easily loaded, the boat poled into safe water, and the motor started.

This garvey is built upside-down over oak or locust frames whose heads, for building purposes, extend all the way to the building baseline. They’re trimmed to their proper heights once the hull is inverted. A keel batten and two chines are sprung along the frames, and the outboard motor’s transom is fitted and fastened into place. The keel batten is beveled to receive the bottom planking, and it comes to a point along the centerline.

Two layers of 5 ⁄8″ cedar planking, laid on opposing diagonals, make up the bottom. Thickened epoxy joins these layers, and they’re clamped the old-fashioned way, with temporary drywall screws. Not only is this bottom strong and watertight, but it also makes good use of short stock. “The secret to such a bottom,” says Harry Bryan, “is to remember that epoxy is cheap compared to the price of a repair.” In other words, don’t starve the joint between the plank layers of glue. When this planking is completed, a flat is planed into it along the center-line to receive an oak shoe. The topsides are planked in conventional lapstrake cedar, copper-riveted along the laps and screw-fastened to the frames.

There’s no denying the benefits of contemporary out-board motors: They are quiet, efficient, and lightweight. But when you’re designing and building a boat of a certain timeless aesthetic, they do present their challenges. Aside from the blaring graphics, even the simplest motor has a throttle, a shift, a kill switch, and a key. All of these features are studiously hidden away in TROUT. In fact, when I stepped aboard to test the boat recently, I was stymied for several minutes in trying to start the engine. I’d pumped the fuel bulb and priming lever, then turned the key, which is mounted on the console. The engine just cranked without a hint of firing. “Kill switch…,” I thought. “Where’s the kill switch?” After some searching, I discovered the button artfully hidden away in a locker to star-board of the engine. A nondescript-looking lanyard led through a hole in a bulkhead, allowing the switch to still function.

Matthew P. Murphy

Two simple oak sticks control the boat’s direction and speed. The inner stick is the gearshift lever.

I‘ve been aware of Bryan’s camp utility garveys for years, and have been eager for all of that time to try one of these boats. I finally got the chance last August. On my outing, I was joined by a friend of TROUT’s owner, who followed next to me in another boat. “I can’t even hear that boat running,” the friend said when I finally did get the engine started. There are two oak sticks handy to the driver’s right hand: one controls both the shift and throttle, and the other is the tiller. TROUT backed easily away from the dock, and was quite steerable in both directions, thanks to the directional reverse thrust of the outboard motor. Drivers of inboard-motor-powered boats steered by rudders will appreciate this quality, as their boats often turn in only one direction when backing up, and require special handling skills.

Once clear of the dock, I throttled up. The bow rose a few degrees as the hull settled onto its after sections, just as it’s meant to do. This is a planing hull with a displacement heart; while a bigger motor could push it onto plane, that’s not what the owners or the designer had in mind. Bryan’s earlier garvey, mentioned above, was meant to plane and attain some speed. But this one is for carrying a load. In fact, Bryan made some shop-floor changes to his drawings, to enhance the load carrying even more: He added 6″ to the boat’s beam during lofting.
I didn’t test the boat’s load-carrying ability, but I think I would have been hard-pressed that day to gather together enough stuff—or enough people—to test it to its limit. But that’s of no consequence, because the boat’s abilities are transparent. I have no doubt that the specified party of 12–14 people would remain comfortable, safe, and dry in modest lake conditions—or that the drum of aviation fuel would arrive intact at its camp-side destination.

Matthew P. Murphy

With her subdued paint scheme and lack of graphics, TROUT is meant to blend in with a lakeside landscape.

We took TROUT to a beach not far from the camp, and folded down the bow ramp. This ramp, recall, is meant for a dock, so it’s shorter and thus steeper than it might be for a beach landing. But it still proved handy, and was great for my two-year-old son, who found its pitch perfect for sliding onto the beach.

The boat beached easily, with the electric trim drawing the propeller clear of the bottom as she glided to a gentle grounding. It was easy to imagine a load of camping gear piled into the boat—or a large barbecue grill and several coolers. TROUT really opens up some otherwise-off-limits terrain, while leaving a very small footprint and making little noise.

The return to the camp’s dock from the beach was meditative. Upon arrival, though, I found that the launch-driving skills I’d honed over several summers more than two decades ago had atrophied: Coming alongside with stick steering is easy once it’s mastered, but the movement of the tiller—remember, forward for a turn to port, and aft for a turn to starboard—must become second nature. You can’t think about it too hard. Practice makes perfect; despite my initial awkwardness, I wouldn’t trade this simple and elegant option for a wheel on this boat.

After the owner’s friend and I secured the boats, we made our way up the gangway smiling at the sheer ingenuity and level of thought in this able and easy little barge. He summed up the experience perfectly: “This is a very relaxing boat,” he said.

Plans for the Trout are available from Bryan Boatbuilding, Letete, New Brunswick.

TROUT’s hull form is that of a traditional V-bottomed garvey—a small scow-shaped boat meant for any of a variety of tasks. TROUT’s principal job is to haul a load of gear at modest speed—and to remain stable while doing so.

TROUT Particulars: LOA 23′, Beam 6’6″, Draft 13″, Displacement 1500 lbs

The line of Kaholo stand-up paddleboards (SUPs) from Chesapeake Light Craft merge a trendy new sport with the world of build-it-yourself wooden boats. These kits are thoughtfully developed, and they yield a state-of-the-art wooden SUP. For those wishing to scratch-build, plans consisting of instructions and full-sized patterns are available as well.

In just a few years, the CLC boards have already evolved through several generations, refining their dimensions, strength, and ease of construction. The hulls are beamy and stable, with a flat run aft, reverse transoms, and a very pronounced V forward. The boards have an actual boaty-looking, wave-cutting bow. Two models are offered, at 12′ 6″ and 14′, to accommodate smaller and larger paddlers, respectively. The newer 12′ 6″ model was also developed to conform to class-racing rules.

As we all know, two boats in sight of each other automatically means a race, and SUPs are no exception. Classes and events have developed, as have different SUP tribes. The various denominations include surfing, open-water races, flat-water racing, whitewater paddling, and touring. There’s great potential for paddle-board expeditions, too: Two evidently unemployed 20-somethings paddled the East Coast from Key West to Portland, Maine, last year. Less ambitiously, I have added picnics and evening cocktail cruises to the list of SUP pursuits, deftly strapping a cooler to the aft deck.

Yes, stand-up paddleboards have spread across the water sports world like the flu in a college dorm. I can judge by the fact that there are now paddleboard yoga classes in Burlington, Vermont, that the boards and their believers are ubiquitous. I’m in my second season of joyfully paddling my board, so I understand their popularity, but I admit that once I agreed to write this review I had to do a little web surfing to figure out their origins.

I first noticed SUPs a few years ago, when the big-wave surfer Laird Hamilton was having his 15 minutes of fame and appearing as an American Express “It” boy. Stand-up paddling was striking, looked cool, and was easy to imagine as a “no waves day” kind of cross-training way to get out on the water. Turns out that that is just about the complete story. Ancient SUP history cites beach-boy surf instructors in 1960s Hawaii resorting to canoe paddles and the era’s long surfboards to take pictures of the tourists taking surfing lessons; standing up to paddle kept their cameras out of the water.

Jeff Meyers

Chesapeake Light Craft estimates the build time of a Kaholo to be 60 hours. Numerous options are available for customization; the deck pattern seen here was accomplished by embedding Hawaiian shirt fabric under epoxy.

The contemporary SUP was developed in Hawaii a little over a decade ago, and has only recently spread to New England—and circled the globe in the other direction just as quickly. The jump to the East Coast from the West may well have been expedited by, if not at least coincided with, the teaming-up of California SUP guru Larry Froley with the boffins at Chesapeake Light Craft for the design of the Kaholos.
The appeal of the sport is rich and complex. First and foremost is simplicity: It’s just you, a board, and a paddle. Second is the easy learning curve. Turns out the instinct not to fall in the water is pretty primal. One of my kids and I recently spent a day watching beginners try out SUPs, and came to the conclusion that if you are the least bit active and have ever done anything requiring balance, like riding a bike, skiing, or even climbing stairs without clutching the handrails, you’ll be fine. I’ve been paddling frequently for two seasons and have yet to fall in. A third appeal is that paddling a SUP can be as physically demanding as you want, again much like cycling. One can indulge in a leisurely drift around the pond, or jump on for an all-out aerobic workout. You can pick locations and conditions to suit your mood and skills. The muscles involved relate most closely to Nordic skiing, in my experience. After a long paddle my calves and the balls of my feet are the first constituencies to report, then the next day I hear from my shoulders.

The fourth reason for the SUP craze is a board’s transportability. They are just about the easiest cartop load imaginable, and their minimal accessories leave the rest of the vehicle free for whatever your real reason for traveling. Thus it is easy to keep the board handy for spontaneous outings, or to plan a paddle at the end of the day on the way home. Mine lives on top of my truck for the summer. Finally, let’s acknowledge the surreal, giggling fun of standing up as you essentially walk on water. It is hard to describe, but is a very commonly expressed feeling among SUPaddlers. The water, the scenery, the bottom of the ocean, even wildlife are all crazy different and better from a stand-up perspective.

The structure of the boards will seem familiar to anyone who has seen or built a plywood kit kayak. The hull and deck are 3mm okoume plywood, stitched around a complex but ultralight grid of transverse web frames and longitudinal stringers. The underside of the deck is sheathed with fiberglass cloth before assembly, then the completed hull and deck exterior are sheathed in 4-oz ’glass as well. Epoxy is used both as the construction adhesive and for sheathing. Dual skegs are required for reasonable tracking, and they are provided with the kits, already shaped and epoxy armored. An interesting quirk of the Kaholo’s light construction is the necessary fitting of a vent or breathing tube in the finished boat, allowing the completely sealed hull to equalize air pressure when the air inside it expands. Along with the vent fittings, carrying handles and nonskid deck pads are included in the kits. Indeed, a Kaholo kit comes complete with all materials needed, less paint, varnish, and paddle. The most important thing in the kit is the excellent instruction manual, which leads you step by step with clear, concise explanations and key photos demonstrating the techniques and standards.

The completed boards are light (officially 29 lbs and 32 lbs) and very stiff. They are structurally strong and durable, but they must be treated as wooden boats—which is to say, with some care. Losing one in the surf on a rocky shore won’t end well, nor will parking-lot falls or unruly jumping about. Skegs stick out, and as they teach you at boot camp, things that stick out get broken. The best practices for long Kaholo life are to remember to strap them down and to mount and dismount in a foot of water. In my learning to paddle and adventures to date, the only indignities my Kaholo has suffered are a few paint chips and scratches.

While on the topic of best practices, let me offer a few of “novice beware” warnings: Paddling into a wind of any strength while standing is next to impossible. Kneel or even lie down as necessary. Second, keep in mind that cold water is dangerous and dress appropriately. Paddle where you can walk home until you are confident. Make adult decisions about PFDs (the Coast Guard considers you a vessel), and contemplate an ankle leash, as your board may well drift faster than you can swim.

Jeff Meyers

Author-builder Geoff Kerr explores the thin waters on the edges of Vermont’s Lake Champlain on a 14’ Kaholo stand-up paddleboard. The board is available as a kit from Chesapeake Light Craft in Annapolis, Maryland, and plans are available for scratch-builders.

Prices for the kits make the Kaholos competitive with manufactured boards as long as you only pay yourself $1.89 per hour to build it. The performance of the finished product makes them a bargain, as of course does the personal satisfaction of building it. Perhaps the most fun is the joy of customizing the finish of your SUP. The newly popular practice of applying decorative fabric under the deck glass makes every home builder an airbrush artist without the health and social risks of smoking all that inspiration. The project s officially thought to take about 60 hours. The company’s estimates are a good-faith effort to represent the time required, and are especially valuable relative to their other boat kits. While I agree with this estimate, suffice it to say that results may vary. Nevertheless, the Kaholos are the easiest kit in the CLC quiver, and very simple to build. For some context, students can complete Kaholo kits in a one-week class with no strain or panic, driving home on Saturday with a board that is ready to sand and paint. Tool requirements are minimal, limited to a few simple hand tools plus some spring clamps, a drill, a block plane, and a sander. Shop requirements are also easy. Some floor space (maybe 5′ × 18′ ) and a pair of sawhorses will do nicely. I banged my first Kaholo together in a corner of my shop over the Christmas holidays one year, a few hours a day here and there between family visits. A project like this lends itself well to a routine of an hour or two after work each day ’til you are done.

A Kaholo is a great introductory boatbuilding experience, the sport is a “good for you” hoot, and it may well be the one boat on your beach that everyone in your family can use. That’s a hard-to beat-proposition. Try not to giggle too loudly.

A series detailing the construction of the Kaholo begins in the November/December 2012 issue of WoodenBoat magazine (No. 229). Order Kaholo plans and kits from Chesapeake Light Craft.

CLC offers two models of Kaholo: a 12’6” board and a 14-footer. The smaller board is intended for smaller padders; the larger one for larger paddlers or for those wishing to carry a companion or a cooler. The smaller board qualifies for several racing classes, while the 14-footer is meant for touring. Kaholo 14 Particulars: LOA 14′, Thickness 4 5/8″, Beam 29 1/2″, Waterline beam 27 1/2″, Weight 32 lbs. Kaholo 12-6 Particulars: LOA 12’6″, Thickness 4 1/2″, Beam 29 3/4″, Waterline beam 28″, Weight 29 lbs

The beauty of the plastics and composites that are mainstays of modern kayak construction is that they can be molded into almost any shape imaginable, but that doesn’t assure that kayaks made from them are beautiful. Plywood is nowhere near as versatile; it can’t be shaped into a compound curve or bent around a tight radius. But just as poetry is beautiful because of and not in spite of the limitations imposed by meter and rhyme, a plywood kayak like Pygmy’s Murrelet may well owe its beauty to what plywood can’t do. The four strakes of the hull are lined off in simple but sweet curves, and the chines between them underscore the sweep of a well-defined sheerline. The small panels that provide the transition between the deck and the cockpit coaming are like gem facets. They would have been lost had the kayak been modeled for plastic or ’glass with complex curves blended one into another. The Murrelet is a boat that I won’t soon tire of looking at.

The Murrelet that I describe here is one of several versions available from Pygmy Boats in Port Townsend, Washington. You can choose a hull with a gently curved keel line for strong tracking characteristics or with a bit more rocker for greater maneuverability. There are four options for decks, each with a different balance between capacity for cargo and clearance for rolling. A choice of two cockpit-opening configurations will accommodate paddlers of different sizes. The version here is the Murrelet 2PD (two-panel deck) with the rockered hull and the longer cockpit.

The stitch-and-glue construction used for the Murrelet is straightforward and very well suited to amateur builders, even those first-timers who’ll find themselves gathering skills and tools. The building begins with joining the kit pieces that compose each full-length plank. Butt joints do the trick here and are much less fussy to work with than scarf joints. I’ve cut a lot of scarfs in the three decades I’ve been building boats, and I’m rather proud of those that I’ve done well. They can be nearly invisible under varnish, and I’m sure the countless hours of running a hand plane down stair-stepped plank sections has made me a stronger paddler. Butt joints sandwiched between fiberglass and epoxy, however, save a lot of time in the making, and they are more than strong enough. Copper wire temporarily joins the planks and deck panels together. Epoxy and fiberglass form the permanent bonds.

The Murrelet kit includes foot braces, thigh braces, hip pads, and a back brace that are all adjustable, so it is easy to get a good custom fit in the cockpit. There are two options for seating: a self-inflating foam pad and a molded closed-cell foam seat. I prefer the molded seat because it gives me a more positive connection to the kayak. For those planning to make long passages in the Murrelet, I’d recommend sculpting a custom-fit seat from a 3″-thick block of closed-cell foam. The deeper contours will relieve pressure on your “sit bones,” and making the seat’s forward edge high can support the weight of your legs. That will relieve some of the isometric tension that’s otherwise required to keep your legs locked in the thigh braces.

The Murrelet has two bulkheaded compartments for coastal-cruising gear stowage. The hatches have foam gaskets to keep the water out and three straps with anodized aluminum tensioning levers for a tight fit. The early versions of these levers used by many kayak manufacturers were prone to releasing accidentally. An errant paddle stroke or a paddler climbing back aboard after a capsize could trip the slider that secures the lever. Pygmy solved the problem by shaping the lever to keep the slider from slipping off. The Murrelet’s hatch covers will stay put and tightly sealed.

Photographs by the author

The adjustable backrest and thigh rests, together with options for the seat, make the Murrelet easily custom-fitted to the user.

Blocking under the stowage compartment bands puts pressure on the edge gaskets to help keep water out.

A finished Murrelet should weigh about 36 lbs. That’s roughly 20 lbs less than a composite or plastic kayak of similar size, so the Murrelet is much easier to lift onto your vehicle’s roof rack. The balance point of the Murrelet happens to fall right at the thigh-brace flanges, so the common way of carrying a kayak—slinging the coaming over one shoulder—is rather uncomfortable. But there’s a better way to carry a kayak. Face the stern and flip the kayak upside down as you lift it over your head. The Murrelet’s coaming will rest on both shoulders, evenly balanced over your spine, and you’re ready for a short haul from your car to the beach and even a long portage between lakes.

Afloat, the Murrelet has very good stability. On one of my outings, I’d been surfing some modest wind waves where they steepened over a sandy shoal. I saw a freighter traveling upwind in the shipping lanes and waited for its wake to hit the shoals. When the wake and waves collided, the crests shot straight up 5′ or 6′ and exploded into spray all around me. Even buried in whitewater, the Murrelet kept its footing with very little help from me.

The secure fit I had in the cockpit allowed me to edge with confidence and get the Murrelet to carve through turns with ease. I should mention that having a rudder on a kayak does more to help you go straight than to turn. Setting the kayak on edge by lifting the knee on the inside of the turn brings the ends of the hull closer to the surface so they can more easily move sideways as they must when you turn. A rudder, even when angled for a turn, keeps the stern from swinging laterally and the kayak can’t respond well to the steering strokes you make with the paddle. It’s when you’re paddling across the wind that a rudder earns its keep. The stern, traveling through water “softened up” by the passage of the hull, will yield more than the bow to the lateral force of wind on the beam; the boat therefore veers into the wind. A rudder or a skeg can prevent this weather-cocking by keeping the stern from slipping downwind. There are, however, a few kayaks that can keep a steady course across the wind without requiring additional lateral resistance at the stern. They are exceptional (and to my mind, somewhat mysterious) combinations of hull design, windage, and trim. The Murrelet, in the conditions I paddled, was among them.

On a downwind heading, the Murrelet surfed well in following seas. As long as I got the bow properly squared up to the wave faces, the Murrelet accelerated easily to catch some good rides. On several waves, it cut through the water so cleanly when it was at speed that it suddenly went silent. I expect a lot of drama when a kayak is moving at flank speed, but the Murrelet threw no spray and uttered not a peep.

The author chose this Murrelet 2PD, which has a slightly rockered hull to improve maneuverability, together with the long-cockpit option, and found it fast, steady, responsive—and lovely to look at.

To gauge the Murrelet’s speed on still water, I ducked into a marina and fired up my GPS. It showed I could maintain 41⁄2 knots at a relaxed pace, 51⁄2 knots at a workout pace, and could do 6 knots in a short sprint. That efficiency under power should keep you from falling behind your paddling partners.

The Murrelet was designed for rolling up easily after a cap-size. If you haven’t learned to roll a kayak, you should—and not just for the margin of safety the skill offers, but also because with a boat like the Murrelet you’re missing out on the fun. The low after deck makes roll-ing a breeze. The aft end of the coaming sits a mere 71⁄2″ above the bottom, and I could lean back and lie flat on the after deck. Bringing the weight of your head and torso so close to the kayak substantially reduces the effort you have to put into rolling. Rolling using only my hands isn’t a skill I practice regularly, but I hit my first attempt at it in the Murrelet. After that, it was no surprise that many of the roll techniques I can perform in skin-on-frame Greenland kayaks I’ve built specifically for rolling translated well to the Murrelet. You could have a lot of fun in the Murrelet without ever paddling away from your launch site.

The Murrelet is a kayak that you could easily manage as a novice paddler and yet never outgrow. As your skills improve to include longer passages, rougher water, and rolling for self-rescue and for fun, the Murrelet will not come up short. And when you’re not paddling it—if you have a living room wall long enough—you’d have good reason to put it on display. It’s a work of art.
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Update: Pygmy Boats is no longer in business and kits for the Murrelet are not available. This review is presented as archival material.

The Murrelet, a plywood-epoxy kayak kit designed by John Lockwood of Pygmy Boats in Port Townsend, Washington, uses multi-chined construction, emulating round-bottomed handling characteristics and enhancing the lovely lines of the hull. Murrelet Particulars: LOA 17′, Beam 22″, Depth 12″, Weight 36 lbs

FILO is a winsome gaff-rigged sailing dinghy reminiscent of catboats first seen along the New England coast in the 1840s. At 11′ LOA, with a 5’0″ beam and 8″ draft (daggerboard up), this beamy daysailer—designed for protected waters—combines characteristics of a Cape Cod cat with elegant features of the classic Whitehall. She is charming and graceful under sail.

FILO’s saga began when her owner, Tom Darnton, replaced his old, leaky waders with a new pair, seeking comfort during the annual spring ritual to install the dock at the family cottage on Lake Charlevoix in northwestern (lower) Michigan. Snug against the elements, he stood hip deep in frigid water, as a zephyr skimmed the surface under azure skies—a beautiful day to sail. Gazing across Oyster Bay, he imagined himself tacking a small wooden daysailer with traditional lines, a boat that he could put on a cart, roll to the water’s edge, launch, and sail alone.

After considering various designs, Darnton was smitten with designer Charles Wittholz’s 11′ catboat dinghy, with its round bottom, nearly wineglass transom, sweeping sheer, gaff rig, eye-catching details, and versatility under sail, or, unrigged, under oars or outfitted with a small out-board engine. Relatively large for a dinghy, with fine lines despite a broad beam, she is a throwback to a simpler time in America. She is ideal for Lake Charlevoix, with its rich maritime heritage. Over a century earlier, the lake teemed with wooden schooners and steamers carrying passengers and freight along the shore.

Darnton commissioned the Great Lakes Boat Building School (GLBBS) in Cedarville, Michigan, to build FILO (meaning first in, last out). Wittholz had drawn his well-detailed plans with an eye toward the home-based builder, starting with a cold-molded hull, which has no frames, thus eliminating steam-bending. The first layer is 1⁄4″ western red cedar running fore-and-aft. That layer is covered with two diagonal layers (set at 90 degrees to each other) in 1⁄16″ African mahogany. This monocoque hull requires only minimal maintenance and weighs less than a comparable one built in either solid wood or fiberglass. FILO features a constellation of woods, including white oak for her keel, tiller, and its extension, sapele for her inwales and rubrails, Douglas-fir for the rudder, and Douglas-fir marine plywood for the stem. Okoume marine plywood was used to build the foredeck, thwarts, daggerboard, and daggerboard trunk. Her spars are in Sitka spruce, and floorboards and oars are Alaska yellow cedar.

George D. Jepson

Whether sailing in a stiff breeze or light airs, the robust little cat is lively on a reach.

This project requires intermediate to advanced skills; even Patrick Mahon, lead instructor at the GLBBS, found bringing together the wineglass transom and narrow skeg at the stern to be a bit of a brain-teaser. But once the hull was completed, he found building and installing the daggerboard and trunk, foredeck, thwarts, trim, and spars to be straightforward. The stem is composed of three laminated layers of 3⁄4″ Douglas-fir plywood. The foil-shaped daggerboard and barn-door rudder (made of okoume plywood) are sheathed in epoxy and fiberglass cloth. Wittholz only suggested lofting as an option, but those who have built the boat strongly recommended it to enhance interpretation of the plans and better grasp some of its more complex details.

The dinghy’s plans offer various options for builders and owners. Darnton chose a daggerboard—Wittholz’s original specification—over a centerboard in order to conserve cockpit space. The designer added a pivoting centerboard option in his plans for those who prefer that alternative. Darnton ordered a second tiller with an extension for singlehanding FILO. The gaff rig was chosen over the optional marconi rig for its appearance from bygone days. Finally, the sternsheets stretch forward to the ’midship thwart, a deviation from Wittholz’s plan, which offers a bit more seating for the helmsman.

FILO is finished with a traditional livery; the top-sides and cockpit are painted white, while the bottom from the waterline down is sea-mist green. The stern-sheets and thwarts are buff colored. Standard marine enamels were used, allowing Darnton to do touch-ups in his garage. Rubrails, thwarts, foredeck, and spars are finished bright, clear-coated with epoxy and varnish. The floorboards are unfinished. The dinghy was fitted out with off-the-shelf stainless-steel hardware, with the exception of the stem fitting that secures the forestay, which was custom fabricated in stainless steel.

FILO’s custom, full-battened white Dacron mainsail was cut and sewn at Sperry Sails in Marion, Massachusetts. This is a slight departure from Wittholz’s traditional design, which did not include battens. Darnton chose the Sperry sail based on an article he read in WoodenBoat about the gaff-rigged daysailer-weekender WAVE, designed by Nat Benjamin (see WB No. 214). Full battens facilitate balanced load distribution and shape the sail, while a single reefpoint allows shortening it in a blow.

Raising or breaking down FILO’s rig takes only a few minutes. The sail is laced to the boom, gaff, and mast, and is raised and lowered with a halyard. The mast, which passes through the foredeck and is stepped on the keel, is supported with a 1⁄8″ stainless wire forestay. Darnton leaves the rig in place and keeps the boat on a mooring in front of the cottage, when the family is in residence. A custom canvas boom tent keeps the sail and cockpit dry.

The versatile 11′ dinghy is an ideal cottage craft that can be sailed or rowed from the beach or a mooring. She is also well suited as a tender for a power yacht or deepwater sailboat. She will tow easily behind a larger boat in relatively calm conditions but may bounce around quite a bit in a chop. Wittholz originally conceived the dinghy as a tender for a power or sailing yacht, hanging from davits when not in use.

Weighing just 150 lbs, FILO can be easily towed on a small trailer and launched from a ramp or stored on shore and floated off a hand-pulled dolly. Two or three people can also carry her to the water’s edge. She is ideally suited for waterfront cottage life or for trailering to favorite destinations.

Under a slate sky, a stiff northerly breeze is blowing down Oyster Bay. It’s mid-June, but this is northern Michigan, where the weather can bring a chill beneath storm clouds, followed within hours by cerulean skies and warm sunshine. The wind is whipping near 15 mph, with higher gusts, creating a chop on the bay. This is the type of weather that will put FILO through her paces.

Darnton dry-sails FILO off a dolly parked on the shingle at the base of a cedar-covered hill below the cottage. Already rigged, she is ready to sail within minutes once he removes the cover and rolls the dolly through shallow water to a mooring buoy. Darnton releases the painter as he raises the sail. She catches the breeze heeling as she cuts across to the opposite shore on a reach. Occasional puffs put her rail in the water, exposing her green undersides.

George D. Jepson

Though traditional in appearance, FILO’s cold-molded hull makes her easy to trailer and very easy to maintain.

FILO’s fine entry slices neatly through the waves. She makes broad turns while tacking and likes to go to windward. Sailing singlehanded, the helmsman’s optimal position is just abaft the ’midship thwart to achieve fore-and-aft trim. Sitting too far forward results in the bow pushing water, rather than sailing through it.

Although she has a relatively high free-board and is reasonably stable for a sailing dinghy, FILO is probably not a boat for absolute novices; she will not tolerate a lot of shenanigans under sail. An unexpected knockdown or pushing the envelope in a robust breeze can capsize her. Her intended capacity is four passengers, but I recommend two for comfortable sailing. She is a delight to sail and has little weather helm.

By early evening, the skies are blue as the sun dips toward the horizon over nearby Lake Michigan. A light sea breeze propels us back and forth on the bay, as we take turns at the helm. The only sound is the peaceful gurgle of water against the hull. This comely cat will make her mark for years to come on Lake Charlevoix, crisscrossing the wakes of ghosts from another era, when canvas sails puffed full and steamers’ stacks trailed ribbons of smoke.

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Plans for the Wittholz 11′ Dinghy can be ordered from The WoodenBoat Store.

While borrowing her narrow entry, raised transom, and sweeping sheer from the classic Whitehall, the Wittholz dinghy remains a true catboat with her broad beam, tum-blehome stem, and barn-door rudder. FILO’s owner chose the gaff rig to complete the catboat look.

Wittholz Dinghy Particulars: LOA 11′, Beam 5′, Draft (cb up) 8″, Draft (cb down) 2’11”, Weight 150 lbs, Sail area 80 sq ft

The Thames skiff is a lightweight, narrow, lap-strake rowing boat native to England’s River Thames. While it dates to the 10th century, and emerged first as a ferry boat, ship’s tender, and fishing craft, it became popular in Victorian times for racing and leisure. The boats ranged from about 18′ to 30′.

I live in the north of Scotland, about as far from the River Thames as it is possible to get while remaining in the U.K. So it may seem odd to think of building a Thames skiff up here. It all started when my wife and I rented a holiday cottage on the Thames and had the good fortune to visit the boatbuilders Henwood & Dean at Henley. There I was inspired by a magnificent small skiff (18′ 3″ long) recently completed and immaculately varnished, with its gold-leaf cove lines and woven cane armchair aft. I thought it would make an excellent project because it is lightweight and lends itself to ornamentation, which would provide good occupational therapy for one of advancing age and diminishing physical ability. My wife was enthusiastic too, imagining some rather more ladylike boating than that to which she had been subjected hitherto.

I took as many photographs and measurements of the boat as possible, but did not have time to take the lines, even if I had known how to do so. Fortunately, boat designer Iain Oughtred has plans in his catalog for a 19′ Thames skiff for glued-plywood construction, and I decided to build that boat—with some departures from Iain’s specifications. I used the mold shapes detailed on Iain’s plans, but chose traditional, solid-wood construction rather than plywood. And I changed the interior to my own tastes.

The Thames skiff has six planks per side, topped by a seventh, the “saxboard,” which is twice as thick as the normal planking and constitutes both the sheerstrake and the gunwale. I built my boat upside down to make it easier to fit the first few planks; I then turned the whole thing over in order to be able to do a neat job of fitting and fastening the saxboard.

The Thames skiff’s principal backbone member is formed from two pieces: the on-edge keel timber and the on-the-flat hog, or keel batten, which sits above the keel, forming a T. I chose close-grained Douglas-fir for the keel. Slender oak knees at each end of the back-bone support the stem and transom. All of the back-bone joints were glued and screwed.

KINGFISHER’s frames are 3/8″ thick, except in way of the oarlocks, where they are 1/2″. All are joggled to fit the planking. In some original Thames skiffs, the frames taper inboard in order to save weight.

I planked my boat in 5/16″ Brazilian cedar. Because the first two planks have a pronounced twist, I steamed their ends using a wallpaper stripper attached to a sleeve made from sheet plastic. This device could be passed over each plank end to allow steaming where needed, while the rest of the plank was temporarily clamped in position. The half-inch plank laps were fastened using 14-gauge copper nails and 3 /8″ roves. Because of the awkwardness of working inside the overturned boat, only intermittent nails were riveted to “spot-weld” the plank into position, and the rest were left until the boat was turned upright.

With six planks on, it was time to turn the boat over to start work on the saxboards. This turned out to be a time-consuming performance involving the removal of the molds from the strongback and, once the boat was turned over, replacing them inside the boat, realigning them, and then bracing them from an overhead beam.

The saxboards are 5 /8″ thick and have a 5 /16″ × 5 /8″ rabbet cut in the inside lower edge to fit over the top of the sixth plank so that it is flush inboard. An ogee molding routed along the lower edges of both sides of that board delineates an area of gold-leaf decoration. Given the boat’s low freeboard, the upper edge of the saxboard is raised in way of the thole arrangement to elevate the oarlocks. (For simplicity I elected to use bronze oarlocks rather than the more traditional square-sectioned tholepins.) It took quite a lot of adjustment to get the upper edge of the sixth plank to fit neatly into the saxboard rabbet the full length of the boat, but with this done and the fastenings in, I could finally remove the molds and begin the fitting out.

The majority of historical Thames skiffs were planked in mahogany. Colin Galloway chose Brazilian cedar for his boat, because he found a stash of it of suitable length and quantity. This lightweight, pale brown wood is fairly soft and rot resistant. “It is nice to work but produces an irritating peppery dust,” reports the builder.

The floor timbers span the lower three planks except at the very ends, where they are shorter. They are fastened to the hog with a central nail and normally have limber holes only at the garboard; however, I put limber holes at each plank lap, as well, to make it easier to fit the floor timbers. Furthermore, the additional holes, which allow water to pass freely through the floors, seemed a sensible addition after an experienced builder told me that one of the first things to rot in the older boats is the floors.

I set the cedar thwarts on cleats fastened to the planking and strengthened them with oak knees. Then I added quarter knees and the breasthook, followed by the framework to support the adjustable footrest for the oarsman. I made floorboards from cedar and Douglas-fir.

One of the most recognizable features of the Thames skiff is the comfortable armchair aft. These chairs sometimes have a solid wooden back with ornate wrought-iron arms, but I thought I would have a go at the woven-cane type, which looks a bit better to my eye. Brass fittings allow the seat to be assembled and taken down quickly. Two studs (brass screws with the heads sawn off) protrude from either end of the back and pass into holes on the inner sides of the arms. The arms are then held closely onto the back by hooks and eyes. The seat assembly’s only attachment to the boat is by a hasp-and-eye arrangement at the forward ends of the arms.

The final touch was a fine red velvet cushion with buttons and gold braid, made by my wife.

Builder Colin Galloway, with KINGFISHER.

I launched my Thames skiff, KINGFISHER, after two-and-a-half years of construction, on a fine June daPortsoy, Scotland. She was christened with the aid of a small quaich (a highland drinking vessel) of whisky shared with family and friends. She is not a sea boat, but it was a calm day and we all enjoyed a great outing using borrowed oars—oarmaking being a job I’d saved for the following winter.

I asked several oar and skiff builders what length of oar would be best for a skiff with a beam of 3′ 9″, but each had their own special formula, with lengths ranging from 7′ 6″ to 8′ 6″. So I decided to make the oars 8′ 6″ and allow for shortening in the light of experience. I chose Sitka spruce, and gave them hollow looms.

These 8′ 6″ oars proved to be unwieldy and did not allow enough leverage inboard. So I removed 6″ and adopted the practice of overlapping the handles during the recovery phase, and they were just right for someone with my relatively modest muscle power.

KINGFISHER uses square-sectioned oarlocks, rather than the more traditional tholepin arrangement.

In the summer of 2011, we had some exhilarating recreational rowing, mainly on Loch Ness. Most commonly there has been just one passenger, but the boat is perfectly comfortable with four aboard. She has proved to be quite fast and to carry her way well, especially in smooth water, but I would guess less so than the more usual longer (about 21′ ) and less beamy single skiff. Having a long keel with very little rocker, she is slow to turn using oars alone, but is remarkably responsive to the transom-hung rudder. I would estimate the turning circle to be around 50′. Choppy water significantly affects her performance—but, then, she is a river boat.

This Thames skiff has provided a great deal of enjoyment both in the building and the rowing, and can be thoroughly recommended as a project for anyone who wishes to have some fast and comfortable rowing in sheltered inland waters.

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Plans for this  Thames Skiff, Iain Oughtred’s Badger, are available from Oughtred Boats.

Colin Galloway built KINGFISHER to Oughtred’s Badger design, shown here, but included only one rowing station. Badger’s plans are an enlargement of the 16’ Mole; the lines plan is common to both, but the station spacing is revised for the longer boat. Thames Skiff Particulars: LOA 19′, Beam 44 1/2″, Draft 15″, Weight 150 lbs