Fifty years ago, the Maine Maritime Museum added a 16′ dory to its collection. It apparently had been brought from Massachusetts to Maine by a summer resident of Boothbay who rowed it for many summers. The dory probably had been built around 1900 somewhere on the North Shore of Massachusetts, the center of the state’s dory-building community. That area once provided thousands of slab-sided Banks dories for fishing schooners, and hundreds of “Swampscott” round-sided dories for inshore fishing and recreation. No builders or other documentation came to the museum with the boat, so it was dubbed a North Shore dory.
Ben Fuller
The original 16′ dory from the North Shore of Massachusetts, circa 1900, is now on display at the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, Maine.
In shape, it marries the flat sides of the Banks fishing dory with the knuckles found on Swampscott dories: in the North Shore’s three strakes, the lower two have straight sections, with a knuckle in the frame at the bottom of the vertical sheerstrake.
The North Shore dory has details not found in working dories. There are beaded-edge floorboards in each section between the frames. Seat edges, inboard tops of each plank, and bottoms of the outboard planks are also beaded. The bottom has 3 1⁄2″-wide curved guard strips—called “shoes” on the drawings—beveled to meet the bottom edges of the garboards and running around the outboard edge of the bottom planking with a sturdy wide piece at each end. And it has stretched circular designs painted on each seat as well as on the removable seats at each end. These match the gray of the hull, whereas the sheerstrake and interior are white. This detail was not uncommon among recreational dories, as evidenced by several in the Mystic Seaport Museum collection, where the design’s color matches the sheerstrake. These designs may be pure decoration but also remind users to sit in the center of the boat.
Some features indicate that the dory may have been skidded into the water from a float or boathouse. There is no antifouling or other bottom paint, and the original paint inside and out is quite thin with no evidence of refinishing. The middle floorboard has worn paint. There are bits of sheet copper tacked to the base of the stem and sternpost, which would prevent wear when sliding off and onto a float.
David Dillion drew a fine set of North Shore dory plans for an article about dories in WoodenBoat No. 36, September/October 1980. The plans consist of two sheets and include lines, offsets, and construction details with a list of parts with wood types and dimensions. As part of an exhibit at the Peabody Museum (now the Peabody Essex Museum), a reconstruction of the North Shore dory was built as a hands-on demonstration. As far as I know, my dory, TIPSY, is the only other one that has been built to the plans.
About 2010, Kevin Carney, head boat instructor at the Apprenticeshop in Rockland, Maine, had some very wide pine planks with straight grain. Not wanting to waste them by cutting them into pieces, he deemed the planks perfect for replicating the North Shore dory. The challenge this dory poses is that its garboard is 16″ wide at the bow, requiring planks at least 24″ wide. When these are found, the ’Shop saves them for appropriate projects. The original had natural crook frames, which Kevin had replicated with riveted half-lap frames. Like the original, it is bronze fastened. The ’Shop built the boat on speculation, and after it was finished it spent a year or two gathering dust.
Ben Fuller
Unlike most working dories, the author’s North Shore dory has floorboards between the frames. He has removed the forward two panels, partly because he has found them unnecessary but also because it makes it easier to bail rainwater.
I needed a tender capable of carrying four or five crew for the Tancook whaler VERNON LANGILLE. The Apprenticeshop’s North Shore dory seemed like it would suit the purpose. We rigged it with tie-downs for the removable seats, thwarts, and floorboards so that they wouldn’t get lost in a capsize or a swamping. I added stringers under the thwarts to prevent them from flexing. As a tender, the dory didn’t do so well. It could take the weight easily but became uncomfortably unstable if the passengers rode on the seats in the bow and stern. They needed to be down on the floorboards. And, while the dory rows nicely from the stern and bow thwarts, a passenger on the center thwart keeps a bow rower from taking a full stroke.
I let go of the VERNON but I kept the dory, and row it in Camden Harbor in winter and in my cove on the St. George River in summer. With the launch ramp only 2 miles away, it often goes on a trailer for expeditions as far away as Mystic, Connecticut.
If I were building the dory as a trailer boat, I’d make the bottom and garboards of plywood. Indeed, plywood would make it possible to build this dory without access to wide pine. I’d keep the plywood as close as possible to the original scantlings, and I’d think about ’glassing the bottom and leaving off the shoes.
In the 10 years I’ve had the North Shore dory, I’ve learned a lot about it. With a waterline of about 13′, it’s hard to get it above 3 knots—it isn’t a race boat—but it’ll go all day just under 3. Without a skeg, it likes to turn. A pull on an oar can spin you past 90 degrees. This can be problematic in a crosswind but is a blessing when working the boat through a whitecapping chop.
While it is nice rowing on a flat calm day, where the dory shines is when conditions are a bit more demanding. As maneuverable as it is, it can easily work the waves in a chop. Going to windward, if the bow comes out of a crest over a trough and slaps down, the boat loses momentum. Rowing upwind, a little tacking helps prevent slapping and losing speed. Downwind in a breeze, I might row from the stern thwart and time my strokes to get little down-wave rides with each pull. Days when it is blowing 20 knots or so I call “half-boat days”: going to windward I aim to get a half boat length per stroke. On a course across the wind, a puff will catch the side of the dory and heel it a little.
The slab sides mean that the dory has less initial stability than a round-bottomed Swampscott or peapod. While you can kneel below the rubrail without taking on water, it isn’t especially stable when you’re moving about. This tippiness lets you steer some by leaning, with the dory turning away from the side you lean on. Rowing across wind on a windy day I can heel a bit to the windward or shift my weight a few inches to windward and hold a straight line.
Marti Wolfe
The dory trims well with a single rower aboard. Carrying a full water bag as adjustable ballast makes it possible to get the best boat trim for holding a course in windy conditions. A pair of 8′ oars works well when rowing amidships, allowing the hands to be comfortably separated and only slightly crossed when rowing in the forward station. However, at the aft station, where the oarlock span is narrower, 7′6″ oars are a better fit.
Trim ballast is an essential part to holding a straight course in a crosswind. I keep a full 5-gallon water bag, weighing about 40 lbs, in the bottom, which I can move forward or aft as needed to trim the boat to an appropriate angle to the wind. The bag in the stern, ahead of the tombstone transom, helps control nicely a tendency to turn into the wind—weathercocking—when the wind’s abeam. Sinking the stern with ballast raises the bow, letting it swing downwind. Then the stern acts a bit like a skeg. Going upwind, when I sometimes row from the forward thwart, I can control precisely how much bow is in the water, and the stern, with less weight, will swing downwind.
The dory works well with 8′ oars, used amidships with a hand span of space between handles or from the forward bench with a little overlap. The narrower span of the oarlocks at the stern station wants 7 1⁄2 footers, which are also useful with a shorter stroke when it’s rough and whitecapping makes it a little hard to get the oar blades out of the water.
With the notch for sculling in the tombstone transom, I can scull if I have a passenger forward or tuck the trim ballast right under the forward seat, as far forward as I can get it, to counter my weight in the stern.
Marti Wolfe
The working dories of the 1900s had no foot braces; instead, rowers pushed against the frames. The author added his own adjustable foot braces and a removable short sliding seat. Combined, these allow him to maintain a 3-knot speed even into a stiff headwind.
The original North Shore dory, like working dories of its time, had no foot braces; the frames served that purpose. I got tired of bracing against the frames, so I made some adjustable foot braces to attach to the floorboards, which make pulling much more powerful. What has really made a difference in rowing performance is adding a short sliding seat. It makes it easier to stay in the 3-knot range, but where it most helps is in my endurance and in being able to add power when rowing into a stiff headwind. It’s like having a second rower.
With its flat bottom, the dory is easy to trailer. I made a trailer-width shallow-V roller out of some PVC pipe which helps center the boat coming on. Beaching, of course, isn’t a problem, and if the tide has gone out, leaving the dory high and dry some distance to the water, the rocker in the bottom and the absence of a skeg make it easy to slip a roller or fender under the stern to facilitate getting back to the water. The oak shoes (rub strips) soak up the dings and dents, inevitable when landing on a rocky coast. In 10 years of serious use, I’ve not needed to replace the shoes and the garboard edges are unmarred. If I wanted better rowing performance, I’d take them off and replace them with a pair of straight bottom strips paralleling the 3″-wide strip secured to the centerline, which might help with tracking, but they wouldn’t protect the edges of the planks as well. A full false bottom, like that used on many dory types, would fully protect the garboards without increasing drag but would add to the weight of the boat.
John Williams
Having a second rower certainly increases the power and speed but it also makes the dory less stable. To counteract this the author has added not only a 40-lb water bag, but also two 25-lb bags of shot. These can be moved around as needed for the perfect trim.
Lately, I’ve done some more rowing of the dory as a double. Two large people definitely make the dory feel unstable because the combined center of gravity of boat and crew goes higher. So, I’ve added more ballast. Besides the 40 lbs or so in my water bag, I set two 25-lb bags of shot in the bottom. Together, they have made the boat considerably stiffer and can fine-tune trim. It’s made me appreciate that heavily laden flat-sided dories shine when settled low in the water. The addition of ballast is really noticeable when pulling as a pair downwind in a breeze when the boat wants to dig its bow in and slew around into the wind.
The North Shore dory is solid as long as you stay low. I trust the dory’s stability and sea-keeping abilities enough to row year-round, though in winter I pick my days carefully. There are many fine light-wind days when there may be a big old swell running from a recent blow. The dory rides those like a duck. It’s easy to feel and look like the fisherman in his dory in Winslow Homer’s famous painting, The Fog Warning.
Is the North Shore dory for you? First, you have to like rowing. If you want more speed or only are out on relatively calm days, there are better boats. It isn’t great carrying a load of people unless you add ballast. Building the dory light with plywood would take care of the wide garboards, but the lighter construction wouldn’t add to the dory’s performance and indeed may increase the need for ballast. Adjusting the fore-and-aft trim makes a huge difference in performance when the breeze pipes up. It is a fine boat for big rollers. But if you like to dance with your boat, wiggle up and down through a chop, the North Shore dory is hard to beat.
Ben Fuller, curator emeritus of the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, Maine, has been messing about in small boats for a very long time. He is owned by a dozen or more boats ranging from an International Canoe to a færing.
Dave and I launched his folding kayak and my decked skin-on-frame rowboat from Alder Bay on the northeast coast of British Columbia’s Vancouver Island for the 1 1⁄2-mile crossing of Johnstone Strait. Our destination for this first day was the Broughton Archipelago 10 miles east, so we headed north toward Weynton Passage, the 2 3⁄4-nautical-mile-wide gap between the Pearse and Plumper islands, but a strong ebb current pushed us to the west end of the Pearse group as we crossed. Rounding the largest island into Pearse Passage, we took the first of the channels heading northeast. We fought the current in which tips of rippling fronds of bull kelp pointed directly at us. Still, my GPS said we were making 2 knots and that seemed better than going around the long way, so we continued.
Dark green, densely forested islands rose on each side of us, indented by small coves filled with seaweed and barnacle-covered boulders. Beds of bull kelp blocked our path, sometimes making it difficult to drop an oar into the water through the thickly overlapping olive-green blades. We inched up the channel; three sailboats anchored in the deeper water in the middle of the channel swayed back and forth in the current.
Staying to the north bank, we made good progress up to the sailboats, but I could see a narrows ahead split by a fast-flowing river of foamy seawater heading our way. We stopped in an eddy to assess the situation. We had a long day ahead and really did not want to backtrack. Seeing another eddy on the opposite shore, I pushed my bow out and pulled hard for the other side. As my bow entered the current, it was yanked forcefully to starboard, nearly tipping me from the boat, and propelling me rapidly downstream toward the sailboats. That made the decision for us. After Dave managed a more careful turnaround, we went back the way we had come and, staying outside of all the narrow channels, continued to the east.
I had planned a 12-day, one-way journey from Alder Bay to the Vancouver Island city of Campbell River. Before the pandemic, I had been trying to complete a multi-year journey down the Inside Passage from Juneau, Alaska, to Seattle, Washington. Dave and I had paddled an Alaska section together in 2018, and I finished Alaska on a solo trip in 2019. Dave is from Maine and I’m from Colorado. We share a unique bond as adventure partners: his son is married to my daughter and we share two granddaughters. In the last couple of years, I had developed arthritis in a shoulder that made paddling a kayak painful, so we decided to skip the British Columbia Central Coast section of the Inside Passage and do a more protected section to Campbell River. Rowing didn’t hurt my shoulder, so I built the skin-on-frame rowboat to use on the journey and rigged it for forward-facing rowing. I brought my red Feathercraft folding kayak for Dave to paddle.
Roger Siebert
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We continued past the Pearse group, crossed Weynton Passage uneventfully, and stayed north of the small islands of the Plumper group just northwest of 4-mile-long Hanson Island. Coasting eastward around the Plumpers, we heard a whale blow to the north, then saw the pale mist of the blow hanging in the air over the dark water.
Blackfish Sound, our next crossing, was only 1 1⁄2 miles wide but known for heavy traffic, from small boats plying the waters around the Broughtons to cruise ships and barge tows passing to and from Alaska. The water was rippled from a light but building westerly breeze. Swanson Island, about 3 miles long, was straight ahead and we pointed our bows toward the center of the island, expecting to hold that heading and let the breeze move us eastward toward our goal of tiny, 150-yard-wide Flower Island at Swanson’s southeast corner. We heard a whale blow again, saw the mist in the air, and beyond the whale a dark-hulled cruise ship in the distance. Cruise ships can move fast, so we began the crossing, but watched carefully to allow the ship to pass ahead of us before continuing into the middle of the Sound. Moments later, we heard more whale blows off our stern starboard quarter from a pod of orcas swimming between us and Hanson Island. The whales disappeared just before the ship passed in front of us and the way was clear to continue the crossing. The ship, bearing a big Mickey Mouse on the stack, moved slowly past, and the music of the Disney tune “It’s a Small World” faded away with it into the distance.
As we approached Swanson Island, the wind picked up and moved us rapidly to the east toward Flower Island. Small whitecapped waves followed us, causing my bow to pull to port and making me work extra hard with the oar on what was my weak side. On the shore of Swanson Island to port, we saw a cabin and what appeared to be a hot tub, then just past that a sandy beach with a fleet of kayaks, signaling a likely guided kayak tour group. We pulled out on a small beach on the east side of Flower Island, chatted with a group of kayakers who were just leaving, and after 14 miles we called it a day. Dave and I each set up our tents on soft carpets of fallen pine needles in separate small clearings carved out of the trees just above the beach. Stout tree limbs stretched out nearly horizontal over the beach, and after making camp, we lifted our boats to set them on the limbs to ensure they were above that night’s high tide.
David Mention
We left our first campsite at Flower Island under a cloudy sky and headed to a meeting with my friends Tim and Kelli at Farewell Harbour Lodge. The islets in the picture are just two of hundreds of similar islets in the Broughton Archipelago.
Fresh from a restful night, we rose to calm winds, high clouds, and the prospect of a long day in the boats. After coffee and breakfast, we moved the boats down to the water and reloaded them with our gear. Some friends of mine, Tim and Kelli, ran a lodge on Berry Island and I’d made arrangements to pay them a visit. We climbed into our boats and pushed off, heading east through a cluster of a half-dozen islets, and tied up to the lodge’s dock. Tim and Kelli had purchased Farewell Harbour Lodge, a former fishing lodge, a few years before and had substantially renovated and expanded it. Kelli welcomed us into a cedar-lined high-ceilinged dining room, offered us hot coffee and freshly baked scones, and gave us a tour of the lodge.
After we refilled our water containers from their freshwater tank using a hose near the dock, Dave and I headed north and wound our way through the archipelago. There were densely wooded islands everywhere, some no more than an acre and some covering square miles, all interspersed with rocky ledge islets and separated by channels of calm water. A rhinoceros auklet with the distinctive horn on top of its short apricot-colored beak surfaced directly ahead of me and took off running over the water. A few minutes later the fin and back of a harbor porpoise quietly broke the surface a couple of times before disappearing again. We passed by pigeon guillemots, numerous murrelets, and, at each landfall, two to three soaring bald eagles, and too many Pacific crows and ravens to count.
David Mention
Tired and hungry, we stopped at a cove on the north shore of Hunter Island where my chart showed a campsite. Unfortunately, the beach was covered with downed trees, there were almost no clearings in the forest, and mosquitoes were swarming us as we scouted.
We crossed from Crease Island north to Owl Island and landed in a rectangular cove with a small sandy beach on the island’s south shore for a welcome lunch break of ham and cheese wraps and cookies. There was a nice campsite here, but we had miles to go before the end of the day. During the stop, Dave said that his wrist was hurting and that he was concerned that we were putting in too many miles too fast. We agreed to head to a campsite shown on my chart on Hudson Island a few more miles to the north.
We arrived at a shallow cove on the north shore of Hudson Island and beached the boats. The campsite there was not promising. The beach was shallow and did not appear to have much space for the boats above the overnight high tide. Downed trees littered most of the beach making it difficult to even reach the forest for fear of tripping, even if we weren’t carrying our gear. The forest had no tent clearings, and the ground beneath the trees was littered with fallen branches. Mosquitoes swarmed us as we scouted. Our chart indicated there was a campsite on Insect Island 3 miles farther north. We had been told it was quite nice, so we returned to our boats and headed back out. As we started, I added insult to injury to our long day and headed the wrong way in the labyrinth of islands, going nearly half a mile before I realized my error and turned us around.
David Mention
Our campsite in the Burdwood group was at a former First Nations site that has been a popular small-boat camp in recent years. Much of the brush had been cleared from the shore surrounding the beaches and tent sites were numerous. Here, Dave set up his tent to catch a westerly breeze to dry out from that day’s wet and foggy morning.
We continued north. I was tiring and was pretty sure that Dave was, too; we had stopped talking. After another hour, we landed on a white sand beach on Insect Island. A sign on the beach announced that the site was within the traditional territory of a First Nations group and asked visitors to respect the land. Above the sign was a 20′-high cliff of dirt embedded with shell fragments.
We had seen another paddling group at the site when we landed, so Dave climbed the cliff using a knotted rope fixed on its face and went off to check in with the other group and to scout for tent sites. While he was gone, I began unloading my boat. Dave came back with a positive report and I began the arduous process of hauling my gear up the cliff to the campsite, a large area among tall cedars cleared of brush. Everywhere, shell fragments were embedded in the dirt—an indication that the site had been occupied for centuries. After setting up camp, we pulled our boats up above the high-tide line, just under the cliff and horizontal to the beach, then tied them up for the night. We had gone 17 miles that day and were bone-tired, so after a quick dinner, we both retired to our tents.
David Mention
We packed up to leave the Burdwoods on the shell beach that was formed from many generations of First Nations shellfish gathering. The white of similar beaches above the tide was often visible for miles and the relative lack of boulders and rocks made for easy landings and launches.
That night it rained lightly, and in the morning a dense fog filled the forest, wetting every surface. We ate breakfast, packed our gear, and made the difficult haul of gear back down to the beach. Twice, I nearly lost my balance on the steep slope, but avoided a painful fall. The beach of fine shell fragments made moving the boats and loading easy and we were soon on our way, heading east for the seven small islands and numerous rocky islets of the Burdwood Group at the entrance to Tribune Channel on the north side of Gilford Island.
Paralleling the north shore of Baker Island, we took a lunch break before the short crossing of Cramer Passage to the deeply contoured west coast of Gilford Island. To the south was Echo Bay, a marina and lodge on the site of the former First Nations village of Ḵ̓waxwalawadi. Once across the passage, we stopped at a freshwater stream on Gilford to replenish our water supply; all the islands in the Burdwoods would be too small to have any fresh water.
Roger Voeller
After a lunch stop on Gilford’s north shore, we headed back out into Tribune Passage. The steep rock-faced peaks of the north shore of the passage fell to Lacey Falls visible in the distance beyond Dave’s boat.
We headed north toward the islands, which are about 1 1⁄2 miles across the entrance to Tribune Channel. On its north side, the mainland foothills all but blocked the British Columbia Coast range but a few snow-covered peaks appeared in the gaps. The sky began to clear as we crossed, and a light westerly breeze followed us as we headed for a campsite known to have another shell-midden beach on a small island right in the middle of the group. Despite the wind, the ebb set us slightly to the west and we rounded the west side of a half-mile-long unnamed island toward the southeast end of the group. Once around, the cove we were looking for was directly ahead and gleaming like snow in the sunshine.
David Mention
The steep shores of Gilford Island afforded few places to camp, so we knew we had another long day. With several miles left, we pulled out briefly for a snack break at Clam Point before crossing Wahkana Bay and turning south. To the east was the mainland inlet, Bond Sound, overlooked by snow-capped peaks of the Pacific Coast Range.
We landed by the west side of a narrow south-pointing peninsula on a beach that continued for 100 yards along the south side of the island. The island had clearly been used for camping for years. Nestled among cedars and hemlocks there were many patches of flat needle-blanketed ground for setting our tents. Not far from the beach was a one-room cabin not yet weathered silver-gray with the same sign we had seen at Insect Island asking visitors to “Respect our Land.” Dave set up his tent and laid his damp sleeping bag over the tent to dry in the sun and breeze.
After I set up my tent, I walked a trail densely lined with salal—a berry-producing shrub native to the Pacific Northwest—that led up a forested hill above the cabin. The trees were almost all cedar, with some massive stumps scattered among smaller, younger trees. On the way back down, I took a wrong turn in the salal on a trail that dead-ended at a red cedar tree with a 30′ high, narrow, tapering scar where the bark had been harvested long ago. This was one of the culturally modified trees common in the area. First Nations people removed the bark in a manner that would not kill the tree, then peeled out the inner bark to make clothing, blankets, and cordage. I found my way back down to the cabin, and discovered ripe huckleberries on a bush right behind it. Dave and I spent the afternoon relaxing in the sunshine.
David Mention
Most of the campsites in the Broughtons themselves had tent sites that were expansive and obviously frequently used. Once we moved east around Gilford Island, campsites were few and small and good tent sites were not always very flat, forcing close quarters for the tents.
The next day we continued east along the north shore of Gilford Island. Gilford is more than 20 miles long east to west and a dozen miles wide in places. Its shore is densely lined with cedar and hemlock, draped from steep hills and scarred in places from logging both in the distant past and still ongoing in spots. Beaches were few and rocky where they existed at all. After 5 miles we stopped for lunch and to refill our water containers. Just as we landed, four sharply hooked fins, with a curve of slate-gray on the leading edges and dusty gray behind, surged out of the water barely yards to port, followed by the arched back of what were clearly dolphins. The area is known for Pacific white-sided dolphins. They raced about in the cove, evidently hunting, before speeding away back into the channel.
Roger Voeller
Once we decided not to go all the way to Campbell River, we could do shorter days. We spent two nights in a cove on the eastern edge of Gilford Island just behind Kumlah Island and facing the Coast Range on the mainland across the channel. Logging scars on the hillsides in the picture were a common sight throughout our days around Gilford Island.
Before getting underway again, Dave and I discussed his sore wrist and decided to scrap the plan to make it to Campbell River, and to circumnavigate Gilford Island instead, returning through the Broughtons to our car at Alder Bay. For the next six days the weather remained dry and even more sunny as we rounded Gilford. To the east and the north, high peaks rose above the steep forested hills that flanked the mile-wide inlets carved deeply into the mainland. Far to the north rose the Coast Range, its highest peaks flecked white with snowfields.
David Mention
We crossed over Tribune Channel to the mainland and into Sargeaunt Passage for a protected route toward our crossing of Knight Inlet. The narrow passage has little wave action, no real beaches, and a steep shore, so we camped on rough cobble just above our estimated high tide. I stayed up late until I was sure our tents weren’t going to be flooded, then entered my tent where my sleeping pad did a great job of smoothing out the rocks under me.
As we approached the southeast corner of Gilford, we veered east away from the island to enter Sargeaunt Passage and go due south along the narrow 2 1⁄2-mile passage between Viscount Island and the mainland. At its end we began the crossing of the 1 3⁄4-mile-wide entrance to Knight Inlet, a steep-sided fjord that reaches a crooked 50 miles inland. In the open water we hit wind of about 15 knots and 2′ seas, the first challenging conditions of our trip, though we were under clear skies and the whitecaps in the middle of the channel sparkled with sunlight. We weathered the crossing and I was pleased that my home-built decked rowboat handled the breaking waves well. Its cockpit stayed generally dry, although I endured the occasional splash when an oar caught the top of a wave.
David Mention
After crossing Knight Inlet, we continued back west toward the Broughtons and camped one night on the northeast corner of Harbledown Island. Once again, a steep shore behind us forced us to the beach, which this time was sand, but quite small. We were just able to fit two tents and the boats into the available space above high tide.
With just a few days left, we headed west down Knight Inlet and passed Village Island where thimbleberry bushes above a 250-yard-long shell beach surrounded the site of ’Mimkwamlis, a historic native village. In a clearing between two houses clad in weathered clapboards and shingles stood two thick posts supporting a massive log as a crossbeam, the centuries-old remnants of a traditional longhouse of the ancient village.
David Mention
We knew competition for campsites could sometimes be fierce once back in the Broughtons. Our mornings were now sunny and we pulled hard down rock-and-islet-strewn Beware Passage, past Village Island with its ancient First Nations ruins, to nab a campsite on the west side of Pearl Island back in the marine park.
We camped for the night on a small island to the west of Village Island and continued the next day past Berry Island and beyond to land on Flower Island where we hoped to camp as we had on the first night, but every site was taken. We took a break for lunch, then returned to the boats, and set off under a cloudless sky for a campsite at Red Point on Harbledown Island about 1 1⁄2 miles away. Weather reports had suggested afternoon winds up to 25 knots, but there was only a light breeze rippling the water, which made for easy rowing. We had gone less than a quarter mile when a whale spouted a few hundred yards to starboard; as its glistening black back gently fell, the water folded over it.
David Mention
Our favorite campsite during the trip was on Harbledown Island’s Red Point. The sandy beach faced west toward Hanson Island and the setting sun, and there were numerous tent sites in the forest above. I spent the night in a perfectly flat tent site floored with soft hemlock needles, waking frequently during the night to hear whales just off the beach in Blackfish Sound.
We passed Red Point’s steep rocky shore, and 1⁄4 mile farther along the prominence’s south side, arrived at a 100-yard-wide crescent beach of gray gravel and sand—a welcome break from the barnacle-encrusted boulders or cobble we’d had to contend with at many of our previous camps. At the edge of the woods, yellow alders stretched their limbs over the sand. After landing and unloading the boats, we carried them up the beach, set them in the sand, and tied their painters to the roots of fallen trees clinging to the undercut soil above the beach. Our tide tables said the midnight high was going to be 15′, but the line of dark brown dry seaweed left by an earlier high tide indicated the tide would not reach the boats. In the clearing above the beach, we set up our tents on ground cushioned with a mat of fallen hemlock needles. Overhead, the branches of towering hemlock and cedar trees knit together and allowed only speckles of sky to show through.
After setting up camp, we sat in the soft sand. Silvery trickles of fresh water crossed the rocks at the south end of the beach. In wetter weather, these would have provided ample water, but it had not rained for 10 days. Fortunately, we had filled our water containers at a bigger stream the day before. To the west, Blackfish Sound was a thoroughfare for marine traffic. Sportfishing boats, water taxis, and kayak-shuttle boats sped back and forth between Vancouver Island and the islands of the Broughton Archipelago. A couple of Alaska cruise ships went by with bright white hulls perforated with rows of portholes and topped with layer upon layer of cabin balconies. Long after they had disappeared, their wakes reached our beach and broke the silence with 2’-high cresting waves. A tug towing a barge stacked with green shipping containers crept southeast toward Blackney Passage and Johnstone Strait.
Humpback whales crossed back and forth in the Sound; their blows were followed by the mist from their breath hanging for seconds in the still air, often followed by an arc of a black back and a small dorsal fin, barely breaking the surface. One whale raised its flukes high in the air before sliding vertically beneath the surface.
For a few minutes a pod of 10 orcas passed from south to north on the Hanson Island side of the Sound. They were mostly females—evident by their curved 2′- to 3′-tall dorsal fins—accompanied by at least two males, with fins straight and twice as tall. Their raspy exhalations carried to us across a half-mile of water. Three adult and four juvenile bald eagles joined a swarm of gulls feeding at an eddy line caused by opposing currents a couple of hundred yards off the beach. The eagles glided low across the water and struck at the water with outstretched talons, but none of them caught anything; eventually, a white-headed-and-tailed adult and mottled brown juvenile eagle flew our way and rested 50′ above us in the limbs of a hemlock tree.
By nine o’clock, the sun was down. It was still a bright twilight, but I was tired and retreated to my tent and was soon asleep. During the night I woke several times to near silence, but I could always hear the whales’ breathing, which sounded different than during the day—sometimes a deep echoing bellow, occasionally a grumble.
Early in the pre-dawn morning—my watch said 5:15—a thunderous crash came from the water, close enough that a few seconds later I heard waves tumble on the beach. Apparently, in the dark, a whale had breached. A few minutes later, there were loud slapping sounds, likely a humpback slapping the water with its tail or a pectoral fin.
When Dave and I stepped out of our tents that morning, Blackfish Sound was almost completely still—no wind, no waves, and no boats. A thin layer of fog lay over the water, but the sky was clear above and Hanson Island rose above the fog on the other side of the Sound. As we drank our coffee and ate a pancake breakfast, the whales continued to blow and swim by. After breakfast, Dave did the dishes at the water’s edge, while I packed up the camp kitchen. We took down our tents and hauled dry bags from the woods to the beach. The low tide had been at 7 a.m. and was rising again as we brought the boats down to the water’s edge and packed them. Even at low tide, there were few large rocks on the beach, making it easy to carry the boats and move the gear. As we packed, the rising tide floated the boats, making for a straightforward launch. We headed out to cross the Sound for Hanson Island and after one more pleasant night in camp, crossed back over to Vancouver Island where, in a heat wave, we packed up the car and began the journey home. The Campbell River leg of my Inside Passage journey would have to wait.
Roger Voeller is a retired environmental consultant. After discovering sea kayaks while living in Massachusetts, he worked part-time as a sea-kayaking instructor for the National Outdoor Leadership School for 15 years, paddling the waters of Alaska, British Columbia, and Baja California. The boat used in the article is the fourth he has built. He currently lives in Colorado.
If you have an interesting story to tell about your adventures with a small boat, please email us a brief outline and a few photos.
Audrey and I have a stable of 16 small boats, and we often need to move them off and on trailers for maintenance and repairs. Audrey has a background in theater-set construction where the crews avoided lifting anything when a lever, dolly, line, or block-and-tackle would do, and after watching me struggle while moving boats, she designed a simple sling lift to reduce wear on me as well as the boats.
Photographs by the authors
Each sling in the authors’ pergola has a cleat (left) to secure the working end and a single block (top) secured to an overhead beam with a pad eye. The stationary end of the line is secured to another pad eye. Here the author’s 1965 Alcort Catfish is being lifted from its trailer for some hull repairs.
The lift’s two slings are made up of items from our hardware and rigging boxes: two retired 25′, 5⁄16″ mainsheets; an eye-strap for the end of each line; two blocks; and two cleats. We have a pergola that provides a suitable structure for the lift, but slings can also be easily installed on shed rafters, garage joists, or a free-standing, purpose-built frame. Our pergola’s 2×6 beams easily bear the weight of our boats; our previous sling lift was hung from 2×4s and they, too, were strong enough.
With the trailer pulled out from under the boat, there is easy access for any work that needs to be done. With fully exposed support beams like those in the pergola, the ends of the slings and the pulleys could be tied in place without the need for pad eyes.
The slings provide a bit of mechanical advantage—the boat itself is the moving block of a gun tackle system—and to date we’ve used the lift to hoist boats up to 200 lbs, but it could lift heavier boats. We attached the hardware with marine-grade screws or bolts, because our lift is exposed to the weather, and spaced the two slings about 8′ apart. This setup works for all of our boats, which range in length from 12′ to 14′.
Supported by the two slings, the boat can be set at an angle to make it easier to work on.
To lift a boat, we slip a sling under each end. The well-worn mainsheets’ soft braided covers were easy on the hands when they were used for sailing and are just as gentle on varnished or painted wood. We avoided using hard braided line or coarse twisted line, which could leave scars. We’ll use padding if we think even our soft mainsheets might mar a fine finish or paint that is not fully cured. We use old bath towels and pool noodles for padding; pipe insulation would work, too.
For work on the bottom of the catamaran, it has been rotated 180 degrees. Towels rolled and taped around the slings are one means of protecting finishes that might be marred by direct contact with the sling.
I can use one sling at a time to move boats up and down by myself, but when Audrey and I team up, we still lift a boat off its trailer one end at a time, because it reduces the effort required. After lifting an end, one of us cleats off the line and then we do the lift with the other sling on the other end. The boat will roll as the sling raises it, which is useful if there’s work to be done on the bottom and we intend to flip the boat over. If the boat is to remain upright, we cleat both slings and lift the low gunwale to bring the boat back to level or tipped beyond level in anticipation of another lift. Once a boat is hoisted, it is a simple matter to gently roll it in the sling to work on the bottom.
With our 16 boats, six trailers, and six dollies, we use our sling lift whether getting a boat off its trailer to gain easier access to it while working on the bottom, or shifting boats between trailers.
Audrey (aka Skipper) and (aka Clark)Kent Lewis blog about their boat shuffling at Small Boat Restoration.
You can share your tips and tricks of the trade with other Small Boats Magazine readers by sending us an email.
Having recently finished building our 7′ 7″ Nutshell Pram, we moved on to outfitting it for sail. For the rudder we chose a bronze-and-brass split-gudgeon fitting, as specified by the Nutshell’s designer, Joel White. The split-gudgeon hardware is also specified for White’s Shellback and Catspaw dinghies as well as his Pooduck Skiff but would work well on almost any dinghy transom. An Arch Davis Penobscot 17 that we once owned had the same rudder hardware, so we were confident it would work well on the Nutshell.
The gudgeon straps will straddle a rudder-blade thickness of just under 7⁄8″; the upper strap arms are 4″ long, and the lower strap arms are 5 1⁄4″. Both can be trimmed to length as needed, which was the case for the lower strap for the 7′7″ version of the Nutshell. The kit comes with all mounting hardware.
Photo by Audrey and Kent Lewis
With the rudder held horizontally the rudder’s lower gudgeon can engage on the pintle, just below the its upper transom fitting.
The Nutshell, like the Penobscot, has a raked transom, which poses a challenge whether you’re in the boat or standing in the shallows and peering down into the water to line up standard gudgeons and pintles. The split gudgeon solves this problem by employing a single 11 7⁄8″-long brass pintle and placing both gudgeons on the rudder. The split gudgeon has overlapping top and bottom bronze “hooks,” similar in shape to open fairleads. To hang the rudder, it is turned horizontal so that the split gudgeon hooks go either side of the pintle. This can happen high on the pintle, just below the upper gudgeon so you don’t have to hang over the transom if you are in the boat. The rudder is then swung to vertical, and the hooks grab hold of the pintle. The rudder slides down until the upper gudgeon slides over the top of the pintle.
Photo by Audrey and Kent Lewis
By bringing the rudder to vertical, the hooks of the lower gudgeon will capture the pintle. The rudder can be slid down until the upper, conventional gudgeon engages the top of the pintle.
This rudder hardware makes it a simple matter to row off a beach, sit on the aft thwart, clip the lower gudgeon to the transom, slide it down, engage the upper gudgeon, attach the tiller, and get underway.
Once both gudgeons are on the pintle, the rudder is securely hung in place.
The continuous pintle, described as a “hanger” by White, gets secured to the transom by two bronze plates with three screws apiece. The gudgeons fit snugly to the pintle, so the rudder does not come loose while under sail. However, if an underwater obstacle is struck, the rudder may slide up and pop off the top gudgeon, while the lower gudgeon will remain attached to the pintle. A retaining clip, like those used with standard rudder hardware to keep a rudder from going adrift, will ensure the top gudgeon on this system stays put.
We like things that are simple, work well, and look great. This split-gudgeon rudder hardware meets all those criteria.
Audrey and Kent Lewis mess about with boat lumber in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. Their small-boat adventures are logged at their blog, Small Boat Restoration.
Decades ago, when I was into cruising long distances under oar, sail, and paddle, I accepted roughing it as a necessary part of the wilderness experience. In recent years I’ve shifted my focus from making miles to enjoying shorter adventures in comfort. And rather than carrying food merely as fuel to provide the calories I need with as little time and effort as possible spent in cooking, I now indulge in meals I make onboard that are often better than those I make at home. A good food-preparation knife and a cutting board have become part of my standard boating kit.
The new folding knives from nCamp have elevated my standards for what makes a good galley knife. The knives are available with Santoku and Chef blades in two grades—Premium and Elite. Each of the four models has wooden scales forming the grips on either side of the handle, three triangular holes that make it possible to open the knife with a thumb, and liner locks to hold the blade open. The handles are offset from the cutting edges to provide clearance for the knuckles above the cutting surface. I’ve been using the Premium Chef and the Elite Santoku and, right out of the box, both easily pass the usual sharpness test—slicing cleanly into the edge of a sheet of paper.
Photographs by the author
The Premium knives, like the Chef at top, come with a nylon bag. The Elite models, like the Santoku at bottom, come with a leather case.
The Premium Chef is nCamp’s more economical version of the Chef. It has beechwood scales on the handle and a blade made of a high-carbon stainless steel (9Cr18MoV) with chromium for high corrosion resistance and molybdenum for strength. It is 10 3⁄4″ long when open with a 5″-long blade. Closed, it is 5 3⁄4″ long. It weighs 5.8 oz. The blade has a 1⁄2″-wide hollow grind along the cutting edge and a 1⁄32″ microbevel. The Premium knives come with a nylon bag equipped with a drawcord and spring-loaded lock.
The Damascus steel used for the Elite knives (top) gets etched with acid to bring out the patterns created by the layers of different steel. The scalloped part of the blade keeps food from sticking. The Premier blades (bottom) are hollow ground. This Premier is the Chef model, which has a blade with a more pronounced curve than the Santoku type above it.
nCamp’s top-of-the-line Elite version of the Santoku has a walnut handle and the same dimensions as the Chef but is 0.1 oz lighter. Its blade has an inner laminate of high-carbon, high-chromium stainless steel (10Cr15MoV) for corrosion resistance and strength, sandwiched between Damascus steel layers for toughness. The multiple laminates within the Damascus are visible as parallel stripes of different shades of gray; they don’t have the intricate patterns associated with fancier decorative versions of Damascus steel. On each side of the blade a series of 10 scallops set 1⁄4″ away from the cutting edge reduces drag while slicing. The blade has a hollow grind that’s 7⁄16″ wide and about half as deep as the Chef’s with a similar microbevel. The Elite knife comes with a sturdy leather case with a belt loop.
Both the Chef and the Santoku can be opened and closed with one hand by pressing the thumb into one of the triangular holes. Using the hole closest to the pivot can open the blade completely in one motion, though it takes a bit of practice and effort. It takes less effort to pinch the hole farthest from the pivot with the thumb and middle finger to swing the blade partially out of the handle and then fully extend it by holding the blade’s tip on a cutting board. The liner locks are easy to operate when closing the knives. The pivot of each knife operates smoothly without being too stiff and when the blade is fully extended and locked it has a solid, immobile connection with the handle.
The steel at the cutting edges of both knives can take a very sharp edge and easily sliced vegetables thin enough to see through.
The handles provide a comfortable, secure grip even for my extra-large hands, and both blades have made quick work of cutting everything from chicken breasts, cucumbers, and russet potatoes to tomatoes and broccoli. The nCamps outperform the best chef knives I keep in my kitchen and take an edge that’s the equal of my 50-year-old high-carbon-steel Chinese cleaver, the sharpest food-prep implement I’ve ever owned.
I was pleasantly surprised by the Elite Santoku while I was cutting broccoli—the blade seemed to glide through the stalks with little effort on my part. When I tried the same cuts with the Premium Chef and two of my kitchen paring knives, the difference was easy to feel. Compared to the Santoko, the Chef took a little more effort and the paring knives seemed to take twice as much. The scallops on the sides of the Elite blade, as intended, significantly reduced the drag of the blade while cutting. I found the same effect with everything else I cut with it except butter.
The nCamp knives, especially the Elite Santoku, start an enjoyable meal by making its preparation quick and pleasurable.
With folding blades that protect the edges—and me—the Chef and the Santoku take up little room in my galley box, but they won’t take up permanent residence there. It’s such a pleasure to use them that they’ll spend their time between cruises in my kitchen.
Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats Magazine. He has been taking notes while cruising since 1980.
The Chef and Santoku knives are available from nCamp. The Premium versions cost $75 and the Elites cost $150. Small Boats readers can use discount Code BOAT35, and get 35% off the list prices. Offer ends May 31, 2023.
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Larry Cheek’s memoir, The Year of the Boat, tells the story of building his first wooden boat, a Sam Devlin–designed Zephyr 14, a modest sprit-rigged daysailer. His work, he wrote, was “incomprehensibly slow, stumbling, often incompetent, plagued by doubt, and at the same time infected by too much pride to ask for help.” Even though he had embarked on the project knowing he was “fully unqualified to build a boat,” he pressed on for 18 months “buoyed by the belief that every first-time boatbuilder is unqualified, by definition.” When launched in April 2007, and christened FAR FROM PERFECT, Larry’s boat sailed well and became a source of pride.
Photographs courtesy of Nick Grumbles, Anna Lee Haag, and Larry and Patty Cheek
With all the plywood parts for the boat and the strongback precut by a CNC machine, Nick and Larry, both graduates of Texas Tech, got the Ilur boatbuilding project off to a quick start in Larry’s spacious shop. Here, they’ve just finished the stem. Beyond the boat’s stern is Larry’s Inspiration Wall where he has quotations posted with blue masking tape: Michael Ruhlman—“All great accomplishments are composed entirely of interlocking details.” Richard Todd—“The problem of insistence on a pure vision is that so much life exists within the impurities.”
Through the years that followed, Larry became a self-described, serial boatbuilder. He built two kayaks, three more sailboats, and eventually PATTY B, a 21′3″ Devlin-designed gaff cutter. In 2019, he and his wife, Patty, took PATTY B to the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival. While sitting in the cockpit, they invited dozens of admiring festival attendees aboard; among them was a young couple, Nick Grumbles and Anna Lee Haag.
Anna Lee, Nick, Larry, and Patty toast the completion of the planking. Next, the hull will be removed from the jig and turned right side up, but Larry, ever the realist, impressed upon Nick and Anna Lee that until it hit the water it was simply a “boat-shaped-object.”
As the four of them sat and chatted aboard PATTY B, they discovered that, despite an age difference of more than 40 years, they had much in common: they were all from Texas, had all graduated from Texas Tech, and Nick, like Larry, had dreamed of building his own boat. He even had a name picked out, TURN AGAIN, after an Alaskan inlet south of Anchorage that had impressed him with its beauty when he and his family had visited it in 2006.
Much of the painting and varnish has been done and the hull has most of its fittings installed. The hollow bird’s-mouth mast awaits final shaping and finishing.
Before the day was out, Larry and Patty had invited Nick and Anna Lee to their home on Whidbey Island. A couple of weeks later, the older couple took Nick and Anna Lee sailing and gave them an introductory lesson. A few weeks after that, Nick asked if he could help build the 28′ schooner Larry had spoken longingly of during a few earlier conversations. Larry explained that the boat really was little more than an idle dream, but then made a “spur-of-the-moment counter-offer: we could build a boat together, their boat, in my workshop.”
The Ilur was launched as a rowing vessel at Lone Lake on Whidbey Island. With the christening of MEASURE AGAIN, another milestone was toasted.
Larry suggested to Nick and Anna Lee several boats that he thought would be appropriate for them, but “Nick fell for the Vivier Ilur. He just responded to its looks on an emotional level.” Larry understood the power of that impulse; he had once been sorely tempted to buy a 45′ wooden sloop as a liveaboard, not because it was at all practical—he didn’t then know how to sail or even if he liked sailing—but because it was “breathtakingly beautiful.”
The first row; as Nick pulls away from the Lone Lake launch ramp, the smile says it all. The hole in the port side of the transom will accommodate the boomkin, and the notch to starboard of the rudder will hold a sculling oar. Both features are familiar on the traditional Breton boats that were the inspiration for the Ilur design.
With delivery of a CNC-cut kit of the Ilur’s plywood pieces, Nick and Anna Lee became first-time boatbuilders. Over the course of the next 22 months, under Larry’s instruction and guidance, they built the Ilur—a 14′ lugsail dinghy designed by French naval architect François Vivier with inspiration drawn from traditional small craft of Brittany.
Nick, Larry, and Anna Lee join forces on a second attempt to make accommodations for the mizzen mast, which Anna Lee has tucked by her shoulder.
At the outset, Nick and Anna Lee were equipped with little more than Nick’s dream and passion. Neither of them knew much about using hand tools or power tools, “but that just reminded me of me 15 years earlier,” recalls Larry. The young tyros inevitably made mistakes along the way but, as Larry told them, boatbuilding is not about preventing mistakes, it’s about solving the mistakes you make.
As launching day neared, Nick and Anna bent on the sails. The driveway gave the space needed to lay the sails out flat, but tarps were put down to protect the sailcloth and spars from any grit or dirt.
Larry became teacher and mentor, coaching Nick and Anna Lee until they gained the skill and confidence to work on their own. They both were, he says, attentive and focused and while they were working “no blood was spilled. We started in the fall of 2020, and by spring of 2022 I had receded mostly to the role of advisor rather than boatbuilder.”
With the mizzen mast in place with its sail laced on, the focus of the work moved forward to the main-mast partner.
Most weekends, the young Seattle-based couple would drive to Mukilteo and take the ferry to Whidbey Island. They stayed in the Cheeks’ second bedroom and as the weeks became months, the pieces of wood in the garage slowly but surely transformed into what Larry called a “boat-shaped-object,” inching toward the moment it would first float and become a boat.
Larry and Patty, Nick and Anna Lee became friends. “We don’t have children or grandchildren,” says Larry, “so we feel like we’ve adopted Nick and Anna Lee as honoraries. They’re as good as—no, probably better than—any we could have designed and produced ourselves: smart, responsible, unfailingly helpful, and always fun to have around.” Along the way the two couples did more than build a boat; they shared ideas about relationships, careers…even music. “In the mornings,” says Larry, “I would stream all five Beethoven piano concertos, then Anna Lee would respond with a cavalcade of Eurovision bands through the afternoon. We each began to appreciate the other’s music…at least a little.”
During the build, Larry noticed that one side of the hull was 1cm shorter than the other and the transom was not quite square to the centerline. The three builders did what they could to minimize the impact of the misalignment and, in the end, no one else would notice it. Larry assured Nick and Anna Lee that the goal wasn’t perfection, but “finding a level of imperfection that seems reasonable and comfortable.”
It was an image like this that made Nick fall in love with the Ilur. Larry knows well how such a feeling can carry a novice through the challenges of boatbuilding, even when using a boat of any kind will also be completely new territory. Mole, of TheWind in the Willows, was also struck by his first vision of a boat: “Mole’s whole heart went out to it at once, even though he did not yet fully understand its uses.”
The Ilur was launched in July 2022. Instead of being named TURN AGAIN, the boat was christened MEASURE AGAIN, a name that Anna Lee had suggested when the short side of the boat was discovered. It was offered in jest, but the name stuck. Larry and Patty watched from the shore as Nick and Anna Lee pulled away for the first time. Larry, who had initially been unsure that the Ilur was the best choice for a first-time project, could see that it was a boat that would “take care of you when you misjudge and get out in conditions a bit over your head.” He believes MEASURE AGAIN is “a boat that Nick and Anna Lee can grow into and enjoy.”
The chance meeting at the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival, Larry notes, “has become a wonderful friendship, even better than the boat we built together.” Nick and Anna Lee also grew closer together as they built their first boat. Two months after they launched MEASURE AGAIN, they were engaged.
Do you have a boat with an interesting story? Please email us. We’d like to hear about it and share it with other Small Boats Magazine readers.
Much like Nesbitt sodas and Odell Hair Trainer products, Lyman powerboats were everywhere in the 1950s. Thousands of consumer products were sold, used, admired, and then, eventually, cast aside. Tastes and styles changed, and that was pretty much that. Moreover, because they were all so common, nobody paid much attention to any of them, and—with the Lymans as one exception—nobody is much interested in bringing them back into modern use.
Fortunately, though, some people do care about the classic lines and good basic construction of the Lyman Boat Works’ line of powerboats, which included everything from small, zippy runabouts to family cruisers up to 35′ or so. And, as is the case with the 1950s cars of big fender fins, hood scoops, and lots of American-made steel, Lymans are still worth having for both their iconic status and for what they can still do in the environment for which they were designed. So that’s where Jonathan Taggart and Anne Witty started some 10 years ago when they began looking for a salvageable Lyman runabout for use in their waters of Georgetown, Maine.
“I was particularly interested in a clinker-built boat, one small enough for an outboard,” Taggart recalls. Several runabout brands from the ’50s combined lapstrake, or “clinker,” construction techniques with marine plywood and highly durable caulking concoctions, resulting in reliably watertight boats. “It didn’t really have to be a Lyman,” Taggart says, noting Penn Yan as just one other example of a company that produced clinker-built outboard runabouts with a rock-solid combination of plywood and caulking. But Lyman lapstrakes were what Witty and Taggart were most familiar with. “Plus I wanted a boat that chuckles,” says Witty, describing the trademark sound of small wavelets bouncing off the hull of a lapstrake boat.
Living in Maine, they began their search and quickly ran into a problem. Taggart quotes a veteran Lyman restorer as saying, “Don’t even bother looking in the Northeast. The ones worth having are so overpriced you can’t afford them. And the rest aren’t worth having at any price.” Taggart and Witty soon found this counsel painfully accurate—so they cast their nets ever wider.
Jonathan Taggart
With a no-frills functional layout, the runabout is easy to handle and to care for.
“Not surprisingly, we started finding more Lymans available in the Midwest,” says Witty. The birthplace of all Lymans was Sandusky, Ohio, a small city on the shores of Lake Erie noted for its recreational uses of that ideal location. With such a prime piece of real estate at hand, the brothers Bernard and Herman Lyman began a small boatbuilding business in the 1870s. Starting in Cleveland, the company eventually moved to Sandusky, where it grew on a reputation of using the best materials—white-oak keels and frames, white-cedar planking (plywood planking came later), nonferrous fastenings—while employing craftsmen who didn’t mind slowing the production line down a bit to get a fit or finish just right. From the start, Midwesterners gravitated to this type of proven, durable product in droves, while East Coast customers caught on later in the 20th century.
Eventually, Taggart and Witty found their 161/2′ runabout in a barn in Charlevoix, Michigan—although the “find” was actually in the modern sense of finding an item via relentless Internet searches. “I didn’t mind buying it sight-unseen,” says Taggart, who telephoned the owner and was told about all of the 1958 runabout’s deficiencies, which included rot in the stem and part of the keel, as well as general neglect from sitting in a barn for years. Returning overland from a business trip to Oregon and Montana, Taggart “swung by” Michigan’s Lower Peninsula on his way back to Maine. Finding the boat as described, including a trailer for the trip home, he paid the $2,000 and set to work.
From the beginning, we knew this wasn’t going to be a restoration to museum standards,” says Witty, who has spent much of her adult life as a museum curator—as has Taggart, a fine arts conservator. “We looked at it (the boat) as history, telling the story of its owners and its uses over time. We said, ‘Now we’re going to be part of its history, too.’”
So the curators began a non-curatorial process that started with repairing the stem and keel. “It was surprisingly easy,” Taggart says. The rot only extended into the false stem and false keel. The rest of the true backbone of the boat was still as sound as a 1958 silver dollar. Even better, the resorcinol glue in the laps in between planks was still solid, which isn’t always the case with Lymans. Hard use over many years sometimes rattles that glue free, and the bronze nails at the overlapping planks can’t fully compensate. Many elderly Lymans lack reliably watertight planks at every launching. But with Taggart’s Lyman, the planking was still very tight. So far, so good.
Being a boat built for an outboard, however, it was tough to tell exactly what size engine would be appropriate for a low-riding vessel with pronounced tumblehome aft. Weight would clearly be an issue, as it was in 1958. The boat itself is only 650 lbs dry weight and has room for four passengers. The U.S. Coast Guard ratings for such a boat have long been lost, but it seemed to Taggart that an engine much over 150 lbs might push the top of the boat’s transom perilously close to the waterline, especially when someone stood aft. In 1958, that meant you might be limited to an engine only up to the 25-hp range—older outboards generally having a higher weight-to-horsepower ratio than modern outboards. Additionally, Taggart and Witty wanted a quieter, more fuel-efficient solution provided by a modern four-stroke outboard—with some added get-up-and-go to it.
Settling on a 223-lb, 50-hp Honda outboard meant Taggart had to raise the transom’s upper edge by about 3″. “They still make that stain,” Taggart the conservator says, pointing at the nearly-invisible line where the top of the original mahogany transom meets the new filler piece. The stain to which he was referring comes from Sandusky Paint Co. (www.sanpaco.com), the Ohio-based company that has been supplying Lyman owners with specialty paints and stains since 1927. Taggart also stuck with the color known as “Lyman Sand Tan” for floorboards and other assorted pieces.
Jonathan Taggart
Small enough to reside on its trailer, and with plywood lapstrake planking that doesn’t need to “take up” after launching, this Lyman allows its owners to access their sailboat’s mooring regularly from a public boat launch.
But that’s about where the curatorial inclinations ended. “We’ve been concentrating on protection, not perfection,” Taggart says of his other paint and varnish efforts, which might earn him a B-minus at Varnish University. “We bought the boat intending to use it, to bang around in it, run it up on the beach, that sort of thing,” he says, adding, “you know: much like the original owners of Lymans.”
To that end, Witty and Taggart agreed to change the original Lyman cable-and-pulley steering system ransom’s upper edge by about 3″. “They still make that stain,” Taggart the conservator says, pointing at the nearly-invisible line where the top of the original mahogany transom meets the new filler piece. The stain to which he was referring comes from Sandusky Paint Co. (www.sanpaco.com), the Ohio-based company that has been supplying Lyman owners with specialty paints and stains since 1927. Taggart also stuck with the color known as “Lyman Sand Tan” for floorboards and other assorted pieces.
But that’s about where the curatorial inclinations ended. “We’ve been concentrating on protection, not perfection,” Taggart says of his other paint and varnish efforts, which might earn him a B-minus at Varnish University. “We bought the boat intending to use it, to bang around in it, run it up on the beach, that sort of thing,” he says, adding, “you know: much like the original owners of Lymans.” To that end, Witty and Taggart agreed to change the original Lyman cable-and-pulley steering system.
Jonathan Taggart
The current owner modified this boat’s transom, raising it and neatly matching the original finish, to accommodate a quiet and efficient four-stroke outboard.
And speed and reliability is what we got when we took little DEIOPEA, named for one of the Nereids of Greek mythology, out for a spin. Even after weeks in the owners’ barn on a trailer, the boat didn’t leak a drop as it hit the water and floated free of its trailer. Better still, with three adults aboard, the boat quickly got up on plane, roughly at half of the top-end rpms. Proper adjustment of the trim took a little time to figure out, but that’s common on any runabout, modern or otherwise.
Running at about 25 to 30 knots, the boat responded well in the smooth waters of our testing cove in Georgetown, Maine. In tight turns, her stern skidded a bit but didn’t feel too squirrelly. Taggart says he has considered installing skegs just above the waterline to minimize the skidding. But he and Witty are especially pleased with how the boat responds to wakes, tending to cut through the waves without pounding, as you would expect from a wooden boat.
Heading back to the gravel beach where we launched DEIOPEA, I noticed Taggart still had high-enough regard for the Lyman folks of yore to remove the company logo from the old steering wheel and epoxy it to the center of the modern wheel. “I don’t mind running her up on the beach,” Taggart said as we did just that. “But I am glad it’s a Lyman.” Some things from the 1950s are indeed worth keeping operational, if not outright restored.
Lyman runabouts are commonly found on the used-boat market. For a good source of information about the type, contact the Lyman Boat Owners Association, P.O. Box 40052, Cleveland, OH 44140; 440–241–4290; www.lboa.net.
In 1958, Lyman advertised a full range of outboard runabouts, from 13’ to 18’. Its largest inboard-powered boat at that time was 23’, though in later years the company built boats as large as 30’. The company’s claim of durability has been proven by the fact that many Lymans are still in use today and are highly regarded by their owners.
DEIOPEA Particulars: LOA 16’6″, Beam 5’10”, Depth amidships 2’3″, Weight 650 lbs, Motor 50-hp outboard
The story of the ELSON PERRY dates back to the late 19th century when Elson Perry, a lighthouse keeper, boatbuilder, and fisherman living in the coastal community of Port Medway, Nova Scotia, built a boat—a 20′ workboat carrying a handful of spars. It is believed that he built this boat for his own use and kept it for the rest of his life. It appears that a descendant kept the boat until 1929, when it was hauled up out of the water one last time and stored in a fish shack. There it rested until the 1960s when the house and land that included the fish shack were sold to the writer Calvin Trillin. Trillin donated that old boat to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, where it has been preserved to this day (See WB No. 163).
When the museum decided to build a boat to celebrate the millennium, they chose to build a new version of that old Port Medway boat. This new boat is the ELSON PERRY. She’s proven to be a very shapely and able craft built by the museum’s resident boatbuilder, Eamonn Doorly, and launched on Canada Day—July 1, 2000.
In the 19th-century Nova Scotia in which Perry lived, a fellow did any number of things to piece together a living, and in many ways Perry’s life and his Port Medway boat are reflective of that diversity. One of the unique mysteries of the boat is that there are three mast partners, one on each of the forward three thwarts, suggesting that she could be rigged in a variety of ways, perhaps for different uses. Sometimes the boat was used for hand-lining, other times for scallop raking, and with a boat so pretty I would hope that she sailed for the pure pleasure of it as well.
There are signs of influences from other boats in her design and construction, but the overriding truth is that she is unique and very much the product of one builder in one place and one time in history. Although Doorly was building a new boat, he was tethered to the history of that old Port Medway boat. The replica is proof that, although there have been many advances in design and construction in the past century, a simple well-thought-out and built boat is still a great pleasure to observe and use—and is every bit as capable today as it was when it was first built perhaps 140 years ago.
To state that Doorly was the builder is a little misleading; more accurately, one should say he was the lead builder, with every single employee of the museum contributing some of his or her time. The hours in the shop are now looked back on fondly, and with the boat in the water each summer in front of the museum, she is a source of pride for the staff.
Michael Higgins
The ELSON PERRY has mast partners at each of her three forward thwarts. The storage compartments under the thwart were not in the original boat.
The boat was lofted from lines recorded from the original Port Medway boat by Ed Porter. This provided patterns for the stem, keel, and transom as well as for the building molds. These molds still exist and are in storage at the museum. All of these components were assembled right-side up and faired before the boat was planked. Like most lapstrake boats, she was planked—seven strakes a side—before frames were bent into the boat. There is a lot of shape in this hull, particularly aft. As a result, much care should be taken in lining-off the planking to ensure that one does not try to force too much shape into a single plank.
The stem and keel assembly is made of oak, as are the frames, and the planking is pine. No doubt another builder of this boat might choose other suitable woods available locally to them. Perry simply did what all good boatbuilders of that time did: He used woods readily available to him. Doorly did the same but was able to stray a little from his historical predecessor by using mahogany for the sheerstrake, which has added to the resilience and stiffness of this boat. The boat’s narrow side decks and long coaming also add greatly to her stiffness and aid considerably in keeping the ocean out. She has four thwarts supported by plenty of grown knees, and above the sole boards there is a partial ceiling—all adding up to a strong little ship.
The rig is full of traditional details, such as boom jaws and table. Much pleasure and pride will be found in splicing the standing and running rigging. No one piece of the ELSON PERRY is too big; this is a fully realized boat, but on a manageable size. There are ample opportunities to stitch leather on chafe points, and to fabricate your own vintage ironwork. The six spars would provide a chance for experimenting with different construction methods. A few could be solid, others laminated hollow with “bird’s-mouth joints” or tapered staves. For a builder with sailmaking skills or a desire to learn them, a suit of handmade sails would be just the thing to complete the project.
Michael Higgins
There are enough lines aboard to keep three people busy sailing the ELSON PERRY; four is better in windy weather.
This is not an instant boat; she will not be built in a few weekends over a winter, and she will require a depth of commitment. Few things are as disheartening as having an incomplete boat hanging around for years. On the other hand, if you have a suitable space, some basic tools, and perhaps 800 or 1,000 hours with which to work—not to mention several thousand dollars—you could build a boat that will turn heads and hearts wherever you may sail.
Now, I suspect that none of us is going to build an ELSON PERRY today for the inshore fishery or scalloping, so we need to think a little about what sort of sailing we are apt to do, and what sort of sailing the PERRY is up to. Port Medway is a sheltered body of water, and this being an unballasted, open boat, we would want to use her in coastal waters with an eye on the weather. But, that being said, she is an able and responsive boat, capable of impressive speed, particularly given the age of her design.
On a breezy day, the ELSON PERRY would sail best with a crew of four or so, not just because there are a lot of fun pieces of rope to pull on, but she could also use the weight to help keep her upright. She has plenty of power, and on a gusty and blustery day one needs to be agile to keep her leeward rail out of the drink. The reward is a very enjoyable ride indeed. Doorly reports, “Sailing the ELSON PERRY as a ketch is the most fun way to sail; she is very responsive, fast, and requires at least three people to sail, four in windier weather. Her purpose at the museum is to familiarize staff with the basics of sailing, so keeping staff busy and engaged while sailing is very important. I’ve tried other rigs on her, but she seems to come into her own when sailed as a ketch.”
Michael Higgins
At 20’ long, the ELSON PERRY is plenty big enough for camp-cruising, but also fast and lively enough for daysailing.
I can see us now deciding if we are going to be the Swallows or the Amazons. The ELSON PERRY is exactly the sort of boat that would appeal to Arthur Ransome. (Please, if you have not read Swallows and Amazons, do yourself a favor and find a nice old copy in a used bookstore, or get it new at The WoodenBoat Store, and settle in for a tale that will inspire you to build a boat and sail about your neck of the world with a renewed sense of wonderment and imagination.) If you would ike to explore a tidal estuary full of islands or inland lakes such as the Norfolk Broads in timeless style and grace, then the ELSON PERRY is a boat for you.
Endless days could be spent in pursuit of privateers, or on the run from custom agents with a contraband cargo of cheese, crackers, and cold lemonade. For fun, or to disguise your boat, you might leave the mizzen ashore, move the mainmast back a thwart to the next maststep, and rig her as a sloop. The mystery of the extra maststep will probably never be solved, but it would be very interesting to see how many different ways you could rig her. She is big enough at 20′ LOA and 5′ 5″ beam to carry the gear required for a weekend on the island, but small enough to trailer to another destination next week.
This is a timeless boat, and as such she is limited only by your imagination. She is at home along with her sister, the original Port Medway boat, at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic but would also fit right in at any gathering of wooden boats today. The ELSON PERRY is the boat in which we wish our grandparents had taught us to sail and row, and the boat in which we might teach our own children to sail and row.
The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic no longer offers plans for the ELSON PERRY. The review appears here as archival material.
The ELSON PERRY carries six spars, making possible a variety of rigs. Ketch, cat ketch, sloop, and cutter rigs are all possible. These plans were drawn by Ed Porter and taken from the original boat owned by Elson Perry. The museum’s new version has a few modifications not shown here.
ELSON PERRY Particulars: LOA 20′, LWL 18’1″, Beam 5’5″, Draft 1’2″ board up 3’6″ board down, Sail area 210 sq ft
Under oars or sail, the Heritage 23 is a bewitching sight. The ketch-rigged double-ender, 23′ LOA, is English designer Richard Pierce’s contemporary interpretation of a classic Great Lakes Mackinaw boat, with a sweeping sheer, plumb stem, and raked sternpost. She is the prototype for a comely new one-design class intended to promote rowing and sailing along Michigan’s Sunrise Coast, bordering Lake Huron.
The idea for the Heritage 23 was conceived at East Tawas, Michigan, in 2011. A small cadre led by David Wentworth founded Heritage Coast Rowing and Sailing, Inc., a nonprofit organization. The group’s mission, inspired by the success of the St. Ayles skiff program in Scotland (see Small Boats 2012), is to encourage community boatbuilding, preserve classic regional boat designs, and encourage rowing and sailing. The group commissioned Pierce to adapt a traditional 19th-century Great Lakes boat design to a kit-buildable craft, using marine plywood and epoxy resins. Several boats were considered—among them the Collingwood, Huron, Tawas Bay One-Design, and Bateau—but in the end, the Mackinaw was selected.
Mackinaw boats originated on the Upper Great Lakes sometime in the 1800s, but exactly when has been in dispute for decades. The American Fur Company used Mackinaws on Lake Superior as early as the 1830s. Fishermen on Isle Royale near the lake’s North Shore worked aboard 20′ to 30′ versions of the boat from the 1850s to early 1900s. These Mackinaws were robustly built and heavily ballasted for operating in open waters. Early models, which primarily featured pointed bows and sterns, varied greatly in style, depending on the builder.
Once commissioned by the Heritage group, Pierce studied various plans, including Nelson Zimmer’s 20th-century version of the Mackinaw boat, in preparation for completing his design. Although based on historical Mackinaw lines, the Heritage 23 is designed to be constructed with lightweight modern materials. It weighs just 350 lbs and carries no ballast. With four rowing stations, each for an oarsman handling a single oar, and a coxswain seat, the boat is ideal for competitive coastal racing under oars. As a sailboat, she is best suited for protected waters. Overall, she performs like a large dinghy, rather than a deepwater workboat.
George D. Jepson
Rowing is a particular emphasis of Heritage Coast Rowing and Sailing, and the teamwork involved in having four oars and a coxswain will serve the goal of building community interest in boats and boatbuilding.
After the Heritage 23 plans were drawn, Pierce turned to Alec Jordan at Jordan Boats in Fife, Scotland, to design the prototype kit, as well as the boat’s interior layout, which favors the rowing configuration. Jordan already had a longstanding relationship with Hewes and Company in Blue Hill, Maine, to produce boat kits in North America, and the Heritage 23 has been added to the lineup.
Last April, six amateur boatwrights, regulars who would see the project through to completion, gathered with Jordan in a small building near the East Tawas waterfront. They constructed the Heritage 23 mold, glued garboards to the keel, and the modern Mackinaw began to take shape. During the course of the project, at least two dozen volunteers contributed to the building effort. Four experienced wooden boat builders dropped by almost daily to offer guidance.
As a warmer-than-usual spring hinted at the coming summer, the shop buzzed with activity. The team worked steadily to hang 9-mm okoume marine plywood planks, 12 to a side, gluing the laps with epoxy. “To have consistently hung two pairs of planks a day with a team who mostly had not been involved in building boats is a fantastic achievement,” Jordan said. When the sheer-strake—the “whiskey plank”—was fitted and glued, Jordan and the boatwrights celebrated with “a wee dram” of single-malt Scotch. Although there was much work ahead, it was a major milestone for the boatwrights and their mentor.
In addition to planking, bulkheads, thwarts, and flotation tanks were fashioned from CNC-machine-cut okoume. White oak was used for the keel, keelson, stem, sternpost, inwale, gunwale, tiller, rudder, steering yoke used when rowing, and bowsprit. The centerboard trunk was constructed with a white oak frame, an okoume body, and a sassafras cap. Spars, which included masts, yards, and booms for the standing-lug fore and main sails, were shaped from Douglas fir. The centerboard was cut from 3/4″ aluminum. The boat-builders cut cleats from a white-oak-and-carbon-fiber sandwich that they had laminated.
The Heritage 23 has a traditional-looking finish. The topsides are coated with white epoxy paint. The sheerstrake, thwarts, centerboard trunk, foredeck, spars, yoke, tiller, and rudder are finished bright. The boat is fitted out with off-the-shelf stainless-steel hardware, except for the pintles and gudgeons, which were custom-made locally from aircraft aluminum. Doyle Sails of St. Clair Shores, Michigan, cut Heritage 23’s white Dacron sails.
Raising the Heritage 23’s standing-lug rig is a rather simple matter, and even a novice can do it in about 20 minutes. The two identical unstayed masts (fore and main), with halyards attached, can be seated in their maststeps by one person. Preparing the yards to be sent aloft, the halyard is attached with a rolling hitch. The jib snaps quickly to the bowsprit and the halyard. Connecting the two downhauls, one forward and one just aft of the foremast, and threading the sheets through blocks completes the setup. Breaking down the rig takes even less time. The boat is easily towed or stored on its custom trailer, which Pierce also designed.
George D. Jepson
When the Heritage 23 is under oars, the tiller is removed and a rudderhead yoke with steering lines is installed to permit the coxswain to sit amidships all the way aft.
By late July, the Heritage 23 was ready to launch Pierce arrived in East Tawas from his home on an island off the coast of Scotland six weeks earlier to shepherd the project through its final steps; Alec Jordan returned to his business in Scotland. On an early August morning, a leaden sky darkened Tawas Bay, while a stiff 15-mph southeasterly breeze whipped the seas into a lively chop. The Heritage 23, with Pierce at the helm and three crew aboard, sliced across the bay under full sail. Emerging from the gloom, she was an apparition from somewhere in time. Turning into the wind, the crew lowered the mizzen, a precaution against potential damage. Even under reduced sail, the boat charged across the cresting waves, heeling to the wind but keeping her lee rail out of the water.
Returning to the harbor behind the protective breakwater, the Heritage 23 glided into her slip. There was water in the bilge and the crew was damp from the spray of the choppy seas. A bit of bailing set things right, while the sailing rig was stowed. Pierce suggested adding a canvas bucket to the regular gear list.
At high noon, the Mackinaw was rigged for rowing, with a steering yoke fixed atop the rudder in place of the tiller. A five-man crew was aboard, including a coxswain. The rowers each grasped a stout 12′ oar. With a word from the coxswain, the pulling began, while he steered by pulling ropes attached to either end of the yoke. Clearly, the pulling crew will need training to achieve a competitive edge, but for the moment they were pleased—along with Pierce—that the hull slid smoothly through the water.
George D. Jepson
The Heritage 23 draws on the famous Mackinaw boat of the Great Lakes, with its straight and plump stem, its shapely lapstrake hull, and its two-masted rig with plank bowsprit. The design requirement for glued-plywood kit construction, however, necessitated developing new plans from the bottom up.
By early afternoon, the wind moderated. Once again, Pierce rigged the Heritage 23 with just the jib and foresail, in yet another test of the boat’s capabilities, this time in a light breeze. Clearing the pierhead, we set off on a starboard reach. Tawas Point Lighthouse was visible off the port bow. The designer, still at the helm, was delighted with the boat’s response. In these conditions, a two-person crew could easily handle the Mackinaw for a leisurely daysail. In a heavier blow, with three sails aloft, at least one more hand, if not two, would be preferable.
Taking the tiller from Pierce, I found the helm responsive to my touch. In the light air, there was no weather helm. Pierce remarked that this was also his experience in heavy winds earlier in the day. Coming about, the boat is sluggish due to the long, straight keel that helps her track well under oars. Gaining speed once again, we sailed through the wind and headed off on a port tack. Pierce suggested that I let go of the tiller. Surprisingly, we continued sailing in a straight line, a display of the craft’s tracking ability.
Under sail, the helmsman must sit aft on either the port or starboard bench, just forward of the coxswain’s seat. In this boat, these side seats narrow significantly near the stern, leaving the helmsman with precious little room to comfortably perch. The layout is understandable for rowing purposes, but perhaps a removable thwart would answer.
Heritage Coast plans to build a second Mackinaw this winter, offering an opportunity for a new group of amateur builders to become involved. Along the Sunrise Coast, at least four other community groups are interested in building Heritage 23s.
As more Mackinaws are christened, windows will open to the past—a poignant reminder of the sailors and fishermen who plied these inland seas in small boats a century and more ago.
The Heritage 23 is an international effort: English yacht designer Richard Pierce paid homage to the Mackinaw boat heritage, but worked in modern elements such as an easy-to-handle standing lug rig, then worked with the Scottish kit-boat developer Jordan Boats to work up specifications for parts cut by Hewes and Company in Maine for a sailing and rowing association based in Michigan.
Heritage 23 Particulars: LOA 23′, Beam 5’6″, Draft (db/cb up) 1’2″, (db/cb down) 3′, Weight 350 lbs, Sail area 233 sq ft
In 2009, I kayaked the 25-mile-long south coast of Menorca, the northernmost of Spain’s Balearic Islands. I had intended to circumnavigate the island but there was a strong northwest wind, called the Tramontana, crashing waves up to 15′ into the north coast and raking across the west and east coasts. I spent three days waiting for the Tramontana to weaken. With my time running out, my hosts, Maria Teresa and Carlos of Menorca en Kayak, turned me loose at Biniancolla, a coastal town on the southeast corner of the island. Trading the circumnavigation for an unhurried cruise in the sheltered south coast was the best thing that could have happened. That coast is entirely composed of eggshell-white marés limestone, a much more malleable stone than the dark gray and red crags that fortify much of the north coast. The shoreline I’d be paddling is riddled with caves carved either by the Mediterranean Sea or by hand as far back as the Bronze Age.
The launch ramp in Biniancolla was at the north end of a narrow, well protected cove but the Tramontana sweeping over the low landscape on the east end of the island swirled around the buildings and buffeted the water. When I left the cove and paddled west along the coast, I kept close to shore in a band of still water only a dozen yards wide.
Four miles from the launch, I found a cove with an entrance no more than 100 yards wide and its end concealed by a dogleg bend to the west. A quarter mile in, I pulled ashore here at Cala de Biniparratx, a beach nestled in a valley at the foot of a 50′-tall limestone cliff. I walked to the base of the cliff and below the largest opening here, left of center, I found steps cut into the stone that led to a cave hidden by the trees. There was a rope hanging from the largest opening that I could climb to get into that cave. There was plenty of light left for the day and I went back to the kayak and paddled 1/2 mile west to the next cove. It wasn’t nearly as interesting, so I returned to Biniparratx.
These carved steps led to the cave where I made camp. In my right hand is the rope I used to climb to the large cave higher up on the cliff face.
The cave had plenty of room and a flat floor, making it a good place to sleep, though I didn’t know at the time that the cave and those above it were burial chambers carved out of solid rock in 1st Century B.C.
There were many other ancient caves carved from the cliffs looking out over the Mediterranean. Some of them, like these, were accessible only from the high ground beyond the tops of the cliffs.
Some caves, like the one pictured here—barely visible just above the bow; also seen in the next photo— were just below sea level and repeatedly filled with water pushed in by the low swell rolling in from the south. Air trapped inside would get compressed…
…and explode outward in a plume of spray. Other semi-submerged caves had wider openings and the air pushed out sounded like a deep sigh. Two of them led to long chambers that echoed the sound of waves rolling in, which created an unnerving sound as if someone trapped inside was moaning.
I made my second camp at Cala Sant Lorenç, a cove with sides so high and steep that my SPOT satellite messenger couldn’t get a signal out. There was an abandoned stone-walled boathouse at one end of the beach. It was filled with rubble and was rank with animal droppings, so I made my camp several yards away with my hammock stretched between two head-high rocks. Partway up the flanks of the hill to the south, I spotted two goats silhouetted at the edge of the woods; there appeared to be another cave right behind them.
In the morning I climbed the slope to where the goats had been grazing and found this cave. Inside there was a mattress, some cooking supplies, and a handle-less broom made of twigs lashed together.
I paddled into just about every sea-level cave that was safe to enter, mindful that if there were unusually high swells that I’d need plenty of headroom to ride them out while I was in the cave. I found grottoes like this that were lit from above by gaps in the cliff and from below by light striking a white-sand bottom.
There were some caves that wove intricate paths under the cliffs and I found places where the only light came from sunlight angling under the cave walls, illuminating the white limestone sand below. I had never seen color like this before anywhere in the natural world; the only other place I’ve seen anything remotely like it is in the beads of light-blue flame that form around each hole in a butane camp-stove burner head. To be floating in that light was mesmerizing.
The stairway built on the side of this cliff had 186 steps and railings of olive wood polished smooth and shiny by countless hands. After I climbed to the top, I descended and crept through the pile of boulders at the base of the stairs with a grapefruit-size rock in hand. Large blocks of Menorca limestone ring like bells when struck. The pitch of the tone coming from a boulder wasn’t related to its size, but each had a note so clear that the slope of boulders could be set up as a musical instrument.
At Calas Coves there were scores of caves, some prehistoric, some with inscriptions carved into the stone in Latin. Many of the caves were for burials; Calas Coves is Menorca’s largest necropolis. I found a few caves on the east side of the inlet that were clearly living quarters with separate carved chambers for sleeping and cooking.
I landed on the west side of Calas Coves and hiked to the top of the cliffs. On my way up, I saw this series of carved-stone troughs, each with a recess in the top edges of the walls between them. I believe it was built to treat water. If a heavy rain picks up dirt and litter as it flows downhill, each of the troughs would let sediment settle before the water flowed into the next trough. At the end of the line, the water would be clear and the process would be faster than accumulating all the water in one container and waiting for it to become still enough for the sediment to gather at the bottom.
There was an old quarry a short walk from one of the beaches I visited. Limestone had been cut by hand for building material on Menorca since Neolithic times, but using machinery to do the job lasted only from 1960 to 1994. This quarry had three flat 35′-high vertical walls that showed marks where the cables had made precise straight cuts in the stone.
I hadn’t paddled far into this towering cave before I realized I’d need a better flashlight before continuing. I backed out and paddled west to the town of Cala Galdana to get one. With better light I paddled deeper into the cave, well past the bend in the passageway that blocked all light from the entrance.
I estimated that I had paddled about 100 yards before I came to the end of the cave. The ceiling had lowered but was still high enough, a bit over 10′, to be safe if a swell pushed in. The limestone took on beautiful colors from dusty pink and purple just above the waterline to pale verdigris green overhead. The final chamber was about 25′ in diameter, large enough for me to get the kayak turned around, and when I turned the flashlight off and let the darkness envelop me, the echoes made the space sound like an empty gymnasium.
When I reached the west end of Menorca’s south coast, the Tramontana was still blowing hard and large waves were racing past the lighthouse at Cap d’Artrutx. I paddled into the harbor in the town of Cale en Bosc to wait for Carlos to pick me up. In the five days I’d had to paddle Menorca, I’d seen much more than I had ever hoped to see even if I had kayaked around the entire island.
Skimming across Copper Harbor, the Manitou 18 summons memories of lazy summer days in the 1950s on waterfronts across America. Built for coastal running on the Great Lakes and the region’s large inland waters, the eye-catching runabout—18′ LOA, with a 6′ 7″ beam—features a deep-V hull, substantial deadrise, and a sweeping sheer. Based on the Downeaster 18 by Charles W. Wittholz, the boat is a contemporary rendition by Copper Harbor Boat Works, a small shop on the tip of Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula, which juts into Lake Superior.
After building two small runabouts, the Boat Works sought a design that was better suited for the often choppy waters along the Lake Superior shoreline. Research led the shop’s founder, Ray Chamberlain, to the Wittholz runabout. In 1986, WoodenBoat Publications commissioned Graham Ero to build a Downeaster 18 (see WB Nos. 73, 74, and 75). Contacting Ero in Still Pond, Maryland, Copper Harbor boatwright Jeff Coltas inquired about the boat’s performance and solicited suggestions regarding its construction. Satisfied with the design and Ero’s feedback, Chamberlain decided to move ahead with the Manitou 18 project.
On a blustery midwinter day, with snow swirling in the north woods near the Lake Superior shore, the three-man crew commenced lofting the Manitou 18 in the shop’s snug confines, a small barn warmed by a fire crackling in the wood-burning stove. Lofting proved to be the most difficult step in the process, according to Chamberlain. The plans contained a table of offsets, but no patterns, requiring full-sized plywood templates to be fully developed for each part. While working straight from offsets may seem daunting to some, a builder with intermediate skills or an amateur who is very dedicated can build this boat. Of course, familiarity with lofting is also a good idea.
George D. Jepson
A storage compartment separates the two stern seats providing space for the fuel tank.
With Wittholz’s plans to guide them, the team began the hull’s plank-on-frame construction. Frames sawn from 3⁄4″ marine plywood and secured to the strongback hinted at the hull’s eventual shape. The frames were paired with pieces of red oak, providing a better surface on which to fasten the planks. The builders cut the 13⁄8″ keel and the keelson from mahogany, the stem from ash, and the sternpost from red oak. While white oak is generally accepted as a better boatbuilding wood than red oak, because of red oak’s known porousness, Chamberlain reasoned that encapsulating the wood in epoxy should provide sufficient protection against decay. Some builders will feel safer using white oak instead. They laminated two layers of 3⁄4″ mahogany plywood to form the transom.
Coltas reported that the Downeaster 18’s hull had a tendency to flex with the 9mm plywood planks specified in the plans. To strengthen the hull, the crew added one more frame and hung thicker, 12mm okoume side and bottom planks. Two additional Sitka-spruce stringers—six in total—further stiffened the bottom. Turning the hull upright, they noticed that the bow was a little high, but Coltas and crew liked the look, so rather than cutting it back they simply put a little more sweep in the sheer than was called for in the plans.
George D. Jepson
The runabout handles Lake Superior nicely, providing a dry, comfortable ride.
Once work began on the interior, the builders adjusted the seating plan. Moving the forward bench aft a few inches provided greater legroom and comfort for the helmsman and a passenger. Two stern seats, separated by a storage cabinet, completed the arrangement. Outboard fuel tanks are stored under the seats, which were fabricated from mahogany plywood. Most internal parts, including the seats, are fastened with stainless-steel screws, making them easy to remove. The sole is attached with bronze screws. This simple helm-forward plan provides ample space and storage for one to six on a daylong cruise.
The Manitou 18’s elegant interior and decking are among its most stunning features. Pinstriped fore and aft decks, built with 1⁄4″ bird’s-eye maple over 6mm okoume, add to the boat’s charm. The builders made the ceiling from quartersawn red oak and the sole from black walnut and red oak, and framed the windshield in maple.
The Boat Works sealed everything in epoxy before finishing, and paid careful attention to details when they applied the finish. They gave the entire boat—inside and out—two to three coats of clear epoxy, then painted the topsides with four coats of pale yellow, two-part polyurethane. Below the waterline, they applied four coats of white Teflon bottom paint. Interior surfaces and the decks were finished bright, with at least five coats of varnish. The team expended over 700 hours on this project.
In addition to the helm-forward layout, the boat is also available with a center-console configuration. The versa tile design accommodates multiple power options. This particular boat is driven by a 90-hp Evinrude E-Tec outboard, but was designed for 40- to 100-hp outboard motors. Other alternatives include an inboard/outboard or jet drive, as well as an inboard engine. Instrumentation includes a speedometer, tachometer, fuel gauge, and ammeter.
The seating and propulsion options will meet a variety of boating needs, from coastal cruising to pulling water skiers to picking up groceries at the local marina market. Easily trailered and simple to launch at public ramps, the Manitou 18 can be kept dry and under cover on its custom trailer—a good idea for any fine boat—or moored in front of the family cottage.
George D. Jepson
The Manitou’s attractive lines should earn some second looks at the launching ramp.
On a late-summer morning, I drove northeast on U.S. 41 toward Copper Harbor, a small, picturesque town. Under a brilliant clear-blue sky trees already displayed splashes of color, a sure sign that the boating season on Superior—called the “Big Lake” by those living near its shores—was nearing an end. At Copper Harbor Boat Works, the Manitou 18 sat on her trailer near the boat ramp. Less than five minutes after I saw her, she slid into the crystal water, reflecting her lustrous natural woods under the northern sun.
This is a charming little showboat, displaying impeccable workmanship from stem to stern. Chamberlain chose to trim the Manitou 18 with these special woods and the bright finish, but, in my opinion, she would also look comely with less brightwork and a painted finish. The latter option would hold up better against heavy use, too.
As we stepped aboard the runabout at the Boat Works dock, a light zephyr rippled across the water’s surface. Otherwise, all was still in the vast harbor, which stretches for nearly 3 miles and opens into Lake Superior. The Manitou 18’s chrome wheel and steering knob are throwbacks to the days of rock-and-roll and hot wheels, from customized roadsters to the early muscle cars, and reflect Chamberlain’s passions for speed and music with a classic ’50s beat.
As I edged the throttle forward, the boat literally flew over the water, streaming a clean wake. Momentarily, my mind drifted back to the late ’50s and early ’60s. Strains of Doo Wop tunes played in my subconscious, recalling endless summers on the water, pulling skiers or cruising along the beach. I was at the wheel of our old family runabout again, with the wind in my hair and Superior’s blue water spread before me.
The ride was smooth, even as we approached 40 mph. The boat and motor were relatively quiet. Powering into turns, the Manitou 18 responded with ease. As we accelerated on the straightaway, the stern barely squatted and the boat once again rose up on plane. It sliced through a building chop with minimal buffeting. At cruising speeds, the Manitou 18 is level and balanced. Chamberlain plans to add trim tabs to further balance the relatively light boat when there is just one person aboard.
Conditions were nearly perfect on this day, hardly challenging the Manitou’s capabilities. During earlier sea trials, the boat proved her mettle, powering through 2′ to 3′ seas in Lake Superior with her V-bow. The boat’s narrow entry makes her a bit tender side-to-side, but that’s the trade off we make for speed. The runabout is well suited for coastal waterways, whether fresh or salty. She handles Lake Superior nicely, providing a dry, comfortable ride.
George D. Jepson
The Manitou is rated for 40- to 100-hp outboard motors. With a 90-hp Evinrude E-Tec outboard, she flew across the water, giving a smooth ride at speeds up to 40 mph.
Overall, the Manitou 18 is simple to operate and is roomy enough to fit two additional seats just aft of the forward bench seats. Custom-made seat and back cushions give added creature comfort to the helmsman and passengers. Storage cabinets behind the forward seats are handy and suitable for towels or extra gear, such as binoculars. The boat is an extremely versatile modern classic, offering years of enjoyment with minimal maintenance.
Whether viewing the Manitou 18 moored dockside or sweeping through a sharp turn, boaters with a touch of gray will recall the time a half century ago when vintage wooden runabouts turned heads on waterfronts from coast to coast.
Plans for the Downeaster 18 can be ordered from The WoodenBoat Store.
Copper Harbor Boat Works is no longer in business.
These plans by Charles Wittholz appeared in WoodenBoat No. 73 as the first part of a three-part article by Graham Ero called “Building the Downeaster 18.” Copper Harbor’s modifications included raising the sheerline at the bow, using 12mm planking, and installing two additional stringers and one more frame. Particulars: LOA 18′, Beam 6’7″, Draft 1’1 1/2″, Displacement 1765 lbs (dry), Power 40-100 hp
When I was in Sea Scouts in high school, I got to sail a Lightning, and it became the standard by which I have since measured all small sailboats. I have always wanted a small sailboat of my own but, as awesome as a Lightning is, it is too big and heavy for me to manage on my own. I had grown to hate dealing with trailers and stayed masts, and wanted something I could transport on top of the car. For many years, I searched for the perfect boat, keeping a growing file of likely designs.
I found some promising candidates in Reuel Parker’s The Sharpie Book and Howard Chapelle’s American Small Sailing Craft, but I discovered the boat of my dreams when I saw the lovely Drake 13 Sharpie from Selway Fisher.
There are three Drake sharpies: an 11-footer, an 18-footer, and (for my needs) the “just right” 13′ boat. I ordered plans and they arrived from England, folded in a packet. While the four pages of drawings and eight pages of instructions are clear and well-detailed, it proved very helpful for me to have built a few boats: a Bolger Cartopper rowboat and a 13′ Pete Culler Butternut double-paddle canoe.
I studied the Drake 13 plans carefully and decided on a few changes. I would want to sit on the bottom of the boat, which meant changing the centerboard shown in the drawings to a daggerboard for its shorter trunk. I also preferred a balance lugsail to the standing lug in the plans because the balance lug is so tunable and maybe more importantly, I think it looks cooler. The sail plan I drew has about 7 sq ft more sail area, an increase of about 10 percent. Douglas Fowler made the sail to the drawings I provided.
Photographs by Buddy Levy
The plans offer options for building plywood-on-frame or stitch-and-glue. While the original design calls for two thwarts and a centerboard, this boat has a stool for rowing and a daggerboard for sailing. Sealed compartments in the ends provide flotation.
Paul Fisher, the designer, assured me that the modifications I had sketched would work but, just in case, I made the daggerboard slot longer than necessary so that I could adjust the center of lateral resistance if I got the sailing balance of the boat wrong. That, and the adjustability of the balance lugsail position, would also give me the ability to fine-tune the balance. I shaped a piece of closed-cell foam that fits in the daggerboard slot vertically to hold the daggerboard in place and then fits into the trunk horizontally to fill the slot when rowing.
The plans offer two construction methods: plywood planking over frames and stringers or stitch-and-glue. I opted for stitch-and-glue because I know the system well and it creates a very strong hull that’s light in weight and provides a clean, smooth interior that’s easily maintained.
The instructions provided with the drawings note that plywood can be either marine or exterior grade, but I didn’t want to use fir exterior plywood as it checks badly unless covered with fiberglass. I ordered five sheets of Joubert okoume plywood.
I butt-jointed the plywood pieces with ’glass on both sides instead of using butt straps or cutting scarf joints, as shown in the drawings. On the lengthened sheets, I laid out the panel shapes with a series of penciled tick marks according to the measured drawings. I connected those points into fair curves using a flexible batten and then cut out the panels. Stitching the four panels together—bottom, two sides, and transom—rapidly turned them into something resembling a beautiful little boat.
The 4′ 6″ beam provides a good oarlock span for 8′ oars.
The hull’s side and bottom panels are 6mm (1/4″) plywood; the transom, rudder, and daggerboard trunk are 9mm (3/8″). I designed and added some 9mm frames and I also added some 3″-wide chine-to-chine transverse strips flat on the bottom to stiffen it up a little bit and provide some depth for screws to mount my foam-pad tiedowns. The daggerboard is doubled 9mm plywood with carbon-fiber inserts to stiffen it.
I applied fiberglass tape to the joints but did not cover the entire surface of the interior or the exterior with ’glass cloth. This has worked well, and the plywood is still in good shape after three seasons of use. I think I saved about 8 to 10 lbs of weight this way as well as a lot of labor.
Spruce spars are specified in the instructions, but I used fir from the lumberyard. I picked through the pieces carefully and then hung them from the ceiling of my shop for a few months to let them air dry. I tested the spars by shaping them and then jumping on them with 6″ blocks holding up each end. I managed to break one of them. Better to fail in the shop than while out sailing!
I spent about three months, full-time, building the Drake 13 and launched it on a cool spring afternoon. At 105 lbs (stripped of oars, spars, and rigging), it’s fairly easy to get it on top of the car and to drag it across a sandy beach to the water. I use two 3′ x 8′ pieces of carpet to protect the bottom from abrasion while dragging the boat over the ground.
The rudder has a fixed blade with a horizontal bottom edge aligned with that of the skeg. For a better purchase on the water, the plans provide an option for adding a drop-down blade and the author added the horizontal wings seen here.
It takes about 30 to 40 minutes from cartop to sailing. That may seem somewhat slow, but that’s a result of being cartopped: the hull is transported bare, and everything needed on the boat must be packed in the car. Trailering would significantly shorten the preparation time at the ramp.
The oar length for the Drake is not specified in the plans. Mine are 8’ long and I use Gaco oarlocks, which are strong and smooth working. With moderate aerobic effort, I can row the Drake at about a 2-1/2-knot reading on the GPS. Ramping up to 80 percent effort increases speed to about 3 knots, and an all-out sprint might see 3-1/2 or a bit more.
On my first outing with the Drake, christened GREBE after the diving birds I see where I do most of my sailing, there was a sprightly wind. Once I got out on the water and all the various lines were adjusted, I sheeted in on a beam reach and the Drake leapt forward, soon sending spray over the gunwales and making that go-fast hum sailors love. The overall sensation was one of lightness, nimbleness, and speed. The Drake is quick and fun under sail, and I’ve seen a top speed of about 6 knots sail-surfing down a motorboat wake. Windward performance is satisfactory—the Drake tacks through 80 to 90 degrees. Cranking on the downhaul helps shape the sail well for windward work.
When sailing, kneeling on the bottom makes it easier to look forward while having a hand on the tiller.
During my first season of sailing GREBE, I found coming about difficult and often stalled halfway through a tack. To address the tacking performance, I added an endplate to the rudder to make it more effective without anything extending below the level of the skeg. (The instructions include details for a steel or aluminum drop-plate rudder blade that would give the rudder a deeper grip.) The endplate helped a lot. Falling off a little before the turn to build a little momentum and backwinding the sail are also very helpful in getting through a tack.
That flat bottom pays off when the boat is beached and sits nice and flat on the shore, but it can pound in waves. While sailing, I can shift my weight to settle one of the hard chines down into the water and lessen the impact with waves. Sailing on a run is a joy and jibing is made considerably more pleasant by the natural cushioning effect of the yard and boom squeezing together, allowing the boom to come across without a bang. In light air, I can center the tiller, lock it, and steer the boat by shifting my weight gently from side to side—pretty cool!
The plans call for a 65-sq-ft standing lug rig with the tack set to the mast. The author opted for a balance lug where the tack sets forward.
On one blustery day I had an opportunity to practice a capsize recovery. An unintentional jibe put the boat over with the mast and sail resting on the water’s surface. The boat righted easily—a little pull on the end of the daggerboard was enough. The aft flotation compartment supported me while I crawled back in over the transom. The sail should have come down to lessen the chances of the boat capsizing again. Although the stern and bow flotation compartments kept the gunwales above the water’s surface, the daggerboard trunk needed the board and the foam filler in place to prevent the ingress of water while bailing. About 15 minutes of adrenaline-fueled work with a large bailer removed enough water from the cockpit to ready the boat for rowing to shore. The longer centerboard trunk in the plans would need some similar way to seal its opening.
Selway-Fisher’s 13′ sharpie is a big boat in a small package and accommodates all the gear I need for overnight camping trips; I could probably pack enough in GREBE for a weeklong trip. Building a Drake 13 would be a straightforward project for an experienced builder and a suitable first boat for those with some woodworking experience. This little sharpie is easy to store and move, even by cartop. I have had so much fun daysailing and camp-cruising this pretty sail-and-oar boat.
John Larkin recently retired from a career designing bicycle helmets and returned to his first loves: painting, drawing, building boats, and sailing. He lives in Moscow, Idaho, and sails primarily on Cascade Lake, a reservoir in central Idaho.
I have owned several sailboats and loved the romance of sailing, but as I’ve aged it was requiring more work and scampering about than I enjoyed. When my friend George took my wife Donna and me on a short motor cruise of the western end of New York State’s Erie Canal, I found it to be a relaxing and beautiful experience, quite different from sailing on the turbulent waters of Lake Erie. I decided to build a boat for cruising the canal.
Donna Harris
The L’Ark is built upside down with the posts on the transom and bulkhead sides extended to a common baseline. The extra length gets cut off after the hull is rolled over.
We wanted a relatively small trailerable boat that was suitable for overnight travel. It had to have a galley, a head, and berths for at least two. I also wanted a boat that had a traditional appearance and used readily available materials, not exotic and costly tropical hardwood. And, it had to be possible to build it in my double garage with the tools that I had on hand and with my limited boatbuilding skills. When I came across Philip Thiel’s Escargot, it seemed to fit the bill except for its lack of standing headroom. I noticed that the Escargot plans include four pages of supplemental drawings for a modified version, L’Ark, with the same 18′ 6″ length. This four-berth plywood canal cruiser has 6’ standing headroom, a 6″ greater beam than the Escargot’s 6′, and steeply sloped cabintop sides. It looked perfect. I ordered the plans and built a scale model to give me a clear understanding of how the hull was constructed (it is a lot less expensive to make a mistake in balsa than in marine plywood).
Roger Allen
The L’Ark is drawn with a centered motor mount for an outboard to provide power and steering. The offset mount and centered rudder were borrowed from the Escargot plans but the arrangement proved more difficult to operate than the outboard-only setup.
I started construction of our L’Ark on the Fourth of July, 2016. I laid out and put together the seven frames on an 8′ x 8′ level plywood platform. To keep the frame pieces from shifting during construction, I added some cleats to make sure everything lined up and stayed put. I used good quality 1/2″ Douglas-fir marine-grade plywood. The plans call for 3/8″ plywood transoms and sides, but I found the 1/2″ to be less expensive and locally available. For the timbers, I was fortunate enough to have a lumberyard that would allow me to sort through the common 2x12s, which I ripped down into clear pieces. I used silicon-bronze fastenings as recommended in the plans; stainless and galvanized fastenings are listed among the options.
Roger Allen
Ordinarily the L’Ark would have an uninterrupted aft deck instead of a footwell. To compensate for the loss of height the author stands on a box to get a better view over the cabintop.
The seven completed frames were set up, upside down and squared to a leveled strongback. The plywood sides, previously made up of three sections and joined by plywood butt straps, were then glued and fastened to the frames, followed by the bottom panels, made up of five sections, also butt-strapped. I covered the bottom below the waterline with fiberglass cloth and sealed everything inside and out with two applications of epoxy. After two coats of antifouling paint, the boat was ready to turn right-side up.
David Harris
Standing headroom makes it much easier to prepare meals in the galley. As designed, the bottom of the door leading to the cockpit would be about level with the countertop and a three-step ladder would be fitted in the cabin.
The hull at this time weighed about 700 to 800 lbs and was ready to flip right-side up. The instructions recommend having 10 people, five on each side, to roll the 500-lb Escargot. I sent out an open invitation to a boat-flipping party and almost 30 people showed up. All went well and, with the hull right-side up and set on appliance dollies, I was able to move the boat around in my garage if I wanted to make room for a car or to make it easier to work on all sides.
David Harris
The author added floorboards that are not included in the plans. Setting the boards across the tops of the frames reduced headroom by a few inches but eliminated potential trip hazards while moving around the cabin. The ladder between the two forward berths leads to the foredeck.
Before putting the cabintop on, I built and installed cabinets for the head and galley. I wanted the boat to have a traditional look inside and out, so I opted for 3/4″ tongue-and-groove knotty pine for the ceiling instead of the 1/4″ plywood called for. The pine added significant strength, stiffness, and aesthetic appeal.
David Harris
There are two 24″-wide compartments between the saloon and the forward berths. The plans indicate one is for a head. The curtains here provide a measure of privacy.
During the long cold winter, a small space heater in the cabin made it possible for me to work on the boat’s interior in comfort but I kept tripping over the frames, so I installed 5/4 pressure-treated yellow pine floorboards over them. This reduced the headroom to 5′ 10″ (fortunately, still an inch taller than my height). The pine also added the more traditional appearance that I was looking for and would keep things dry, even if a little water found its way into the bilge.
David Harris
The compartment opposite the head is for storage.
The plans called for sliding windows and hatches. This looked complicated to build and only half of each window opens, so I built simpler hinged awning windows. This has worked out well. I also made hinged hatches instead of sliding hatches to free up the flat area of the cabintop for seating and storage. The companionway hatches also act as air scoops and provide plentiful airflow while underway and at the dock.
Roger Allen
While the plans call for a fixed table in L’Ark, Escargot’s table can be lowered to create a berth or bench. On L’Ark, the aft berths (not shown here) are accommodated on the aft seats and flats that extend beneath the aft deck.
L’Ark, as designed, has a flat deck at either end, each built over the foot ends of a pair of berths. A bench made of 1/2″ galvanized pipe is meant to be installed in the stern, but I didn’t like the way it looked and instead made the rear deck like the cockpit of a sailboat with a bench on either side and a self-draining footwell in the middle. Under one side bench is a ventilated compartment for batteries and an open area for gas tanks. Enclosed under the other bench is one of the remaining berths, which extends into the cabin. My cockpit footwell also allowed for a taller entry into the cabin. For the forward companionway, I opted to make it like a sailboat’s with a pair of removable plywood hatchboards. This proved to be a mistake, because they were awkward to remove and took up valuable space to store when not in place; I plan to install a split, hinged door.
David Harris
Beneath the forward berths there is lots of storage space accessed via removable plywood panels under the cushions. The ladder is easily removed and, with the addition of another plywood panel and cushion, a king-sized berth is created.
I covered the tongue-and-groove pine ceiling with 1/4″ plywood, taped the seams with fiberglass, and coated the whole thing with epoxy followed by paint. This was certainly leakproof, but it looked merely okay; I considered corrugated metal for a finished roof but decided on red-cedar shakes, which added a lot of character to the boat.
The plans for the L’Ark indicate a centered outboard bracket; the outboard motor would be used for steering. I built and installed the rudder and tiller and installed a motor to one side, as shown for the Escargot. While the tiller/rudder added a traditional look, the tiller took up too much space in the cockpit, and handling the tiller and motor at the same time proved awkward when docking. I decided to eliminate the rudder and mounted the motor in the center as per L’Ark’s plans. I found a 6-hp sailboat outboard with an extra-long shaft that fit perfectly on the transom without the need for a bracket. It also had a modified prop that was designed not for speed but to move a heavy boat.
Roger Allen
The foredeck has space for two folding chairs; passengers can escape the noise of the outboard and enjoy the view in comfort.
In 2021, after five years of work, my dreamboat was ready to launch. I was concerned that it might sit low in the water because I’d built the boat significantly heavier than designed, but it floated level and the waterline was perfect.
The designer’s statement recommends an outboard of between 2 and 5 hp “for a sensible 4-mph cruising speed.” With the 6-hp outboard, our L’Ark handles nicely. Even with a headwind, we can easily cruise at 6 to 7 knots, which is just right for the Erie Canal. Considering the high profile and shallow draft—about 12″—our L’Ark tracks and handles better than I expected. Docking can be a little challenging if there is a strong wind and current, but it’s a small boat so there is little chance of damage.
For an 18-1/2′ by 6-1/2′ boat, the L’Ark is surprisingly roomy inside. The forward berth is almost as large as a queen-size bed and is as comfortable to sleep on as in any boat that I’ve been on. There are two smaller berths, as well: one converts when the table is dropped down and the other is a small quarter berth half tucked under the rear cockpit bench. These are both just 24″ wide so they are best for children (or a guest that you don’t want to stay too long). In the galley, I installed a single-burner alcohol stove, a small copper sink, and a large glass water barrel with its spigot over the sink. In between the forward berths and galley there is a water closet with a pump-out toilet to starboard and a cabinet with drawers and a medicine cabinet to port. The three separate “rooms” have curtains to provide some privacy. There is plenty of storage under the seats and berth. The awning windows work well, don’t leak, and provide plenty of ventilation while keeping rain out. I daydream about someday sitting at the galley table and fishing out the window. The modified rear cockpit has worked out well, although to get a good view forward I have to stand to steer or sit on a small folding stool. The forward deck is large enough for two folding deck chairs and far enough from the motor for quiet conversation.
Roger Allen
With a 6-hp outboard, the author’s L’Ark can cruise at 6 to 7 knots.
My wife and I have enjoyed several cruises with our L’Ark, TERRAPIN, on the Erie Canal, staying at the marinas that almost every small canal town has. While tied up, our boat attracts plenty of attention. For day trips it can comfortably carry four to six people, and if the weather turns bad, there is plenty of room in the cabin; on one trip we saw an Escargot, the L’Ark’s little sister, and I suspect its crew was envious of our standing headroom. The boat is simple to construct and easy to modify to suit individual needs. It can be very simple as designed or dressed up (as I did with our L’Ark). I’m quite happy with the design and would recommend it to anyone who wants to build a tiny houseboat.
David Harris grew up in Tonawanda, New York, where the Erie Canal meets the Niagara River and halfway between lakes Erie and Ontario. At 21, he enlisted in the Coast Guard and served in Jonesport, Maine, first at a small boat station and later on an 82′ cutter. While serving Down East in the 1970s he got to know local lobstermen who were still building and using wooden boats. While in his 40s, he and his father built Bolger’s June Bug, a small sailing skiff. Several years later, David restored a run-down Catalina 30 and earned his captain’s papers to run sightseeing tours on it. He went back to college to study fine arts and design and enrolled in a class in boatbuilding at the Buffalo Maritime Center; he built a small skiff and learned how to work with fiberglass. He has owned several sailboats as well as a classic Chris-Craft cabin cruiser. After sailing for years on the turbulent waters of Lake Erie and wanting something traditional and more easily handled, he sold his last sailboat and went to work on his L’Ark canal boat, TERRAPIN.
L’Ark Particulars
[table]
Length/18′ 6″
Beam/6′ 6.75″
Height/6′ 5″
[/table]
Plans for the Escargot and the L’Ark consist of 12 pages for Escargot plus 4 pages of L’Ark modifications for the hull and cabin. The full set is available from The WoodenBoat Store for $75, print or digital format.
Is there a boat you’d like to know more about? Have you built one that you think other Small Boats Magazine readers would enjoy? Please email us!
With TRAMP, our 16′ double-ended pulling boat, on top of the Volvo station wagon, Ben and I had driven for days through vineyard-draped landscapes dotted with chateaux to reach Castets-en-Dorthe, a one-post-office, one-pharmacy village about 80 miles inland from where the tides of the Atlantic meet France’s Gironde estuary and flow past Bordeaux and into the river Garonne. We stopped near the first of the 53 locks of the Canal de Garonne to look for a slip to launch from and spotted a lockkeeper in a cobalt-blue T-shirt bearing the emblem of Voies Navigables de France (VNF), the authority managing the inland waterways. When we told him our plan to row along the Two Seas Canal to Sète and the Mediterranean Sea, he told us that we couldn’t use the locks in a non-motorized boat. Not once in our nearly two years of research in French and English had we found this rule, though we had heard from a rower who had secured official permission and had still been denied entry to the locks. After some discussion, the lockkeeper admitted that he really wasn’t sure and suggested we come back the next day when he could check with his boss.
In the morning, on our drive from our campground, we crossed the single-lane road-bridge over the 100-yard-wide river Garonne. Just upstream the dark stone walls of the first lock’s twin corridors on the river’s left bank rose above the water. Set between the walls two sets of dark metal gates in parallel V-shapes at either end of the chamber pointed toward the canal. Beyond the locks, in the shade of the regularly spaced trees flanking the canal, the bottle-glass-green canal water lay still barely a foot below the flat grassy banks. We found the same lockkeeper standing next to his white VNF van just beyond lock 52. He phoned his boss and after a brief exchange, still holding his phone to his ear, gave us a thumbs-up.
Before putting the boat in the water, we squeezed dry bags and duffels, a cart, and a four-gallon water container under and in between the thwarts. With cushions set on the thwarts, I settled aboard as Ben cast us off from the slip and jumped in. The first 600 yards we rowed was not enough for us to find a rhythm but it wouldn’t take long to synchronize our strokes effortlessly.
Photographs by and courtesy of the author
The Canal de Garonne offered abundant shade and peace; in our first week of rowing, we encountered just two or three other boats a day.
I twisted to peer over the bow and saw the waterway blocked about 100 yards ahead by two solid metal lock gates, flanked either side by steep slopes of dark stone 10′ from the water, the red light of a triangular set of traffic lights just above the right-hand slope. I stowed my oars, stood up, and turned to face forward. Balancing in the moving boat I stretched my arm up fully to reach the rubbery pole dangling from a wire 15′ above the water and yanked it hard to signal the automated lock system of our arrival. The pole bounced up, down and around, but nothing else happened. I sat down to Google “hanging stick French locks” as Ben backed TRAMP. I tried again and twisted the pole one half turn. It clicked and the green light illuminated as the lock prepared itself for us. Moments later, a beeping alarm sounded as the lock gates opened inward. Once they’d each clunked into position alongside the edges of the chamber, the red light went out, the green one stayed on, and we could enter.
The locks were not wide enough to comfortably accommodate the span of our oars, so Ben maneuvered us with the paddle through the entrance to the lock. I looked for one of the light sensors, which detect boats as they pass by and indicate to the automated lock system that a boat has entered or exited the lock. The sensor was set in a cobwebbed circular recess in the stone about 3′ above water level, too high to register TRAMP slipping by beneath it. I held a folded map over the sensor to get it to notice us and activate the system. We stopped TRAMP so I could get out and climb the concrete stairs before Ben paddled past the lock gates and into the chamber.
At the side of lock, the amply windowed olive-drab keeper’s booth was unoccupied. On the wall facing the lock, next to an orange life ring was a white switch box with two push buttons, one green and the other red. After Ben climbed from TRAMP onto the ladder up the lock side holding the bow and stern painters, I pushed the green button. A low humming resonated in the lock chamber followed by beeping as the lock gates we’d just entered jolted from their recesses in the lock walls and 20 seconds later slammed closed with a boom. The humming continued as the sound of trickling water grew louder. Water gushed into the lock, a torrent of white froth curling at the front gates. The water calmed as it flowed farther into the lock, where Ben held the rocking TRAMP 20 yards back, closer to the rear lock gates, coiling the painters in his hand as the boat rose.
Roger Siebert
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I wandered up a path to look closer at the light-yellow lockkeeper’s house, a plain two-story building with a terracotta tile roof. A faded blue sign above the front door told us we were at Lock 51, Ecluse de Mazerac. An arrow pointing right said it was 692 meters to the lock we’d just come from and an arrow pointing left said 4,449 meters to Lock 50, Bassanne. We would be counting down the locks from here to Lock 1 at Toulouse.
We rowed 11 miles to the hilltop village of Meilhan-sur-Garonne and pulled into a space between cruising boats, where wooden pontoons ran parallel to the bank along the canal. We cooled down and celebrated our successful first day with a sparkling Perrier water for pregnant me and a beer for Ben. We made a few trips back and forth carrying gear from TRAMP to the campground that was to be home for the night. Our orange pup tent was the only tent on site among campervans and caravans from France, Britain, and the Netherlands.
We got a late start the next day and that afternoon we rowed a stretch of over 6 miles with no locks. Rows of 200-year-old plane trees rose like green vaults of an endless cathedral and protected the canal from winds, its banks from erosion, and us from the sun. The trunks of these trees were surely the inspiration to the French artists during the First World War who developed military camouflage: a patchy collage of swamp green, tea brown, and sandy beige. A steady rhythm formed as our four blades plopped into the water together, followed by the collars clicking against the brass rowlocks, twisting them with a grumble before we lifted the oars out and drips trickled off leaving an arc of overlapping rings on the water. A golden oriole sang soprano in a chorus of the twittering birds around us.
We stopped for a rest day at Moissac and took a walk to look at the Pont-Canal du Cacor, a nearly 1/4-mile-long navigable aqueduct. Built in 1844 of the same pink bricks common in Toulouse, it carries the Canal de Garonne across the river Tarn; the following day we’d row TRAMP along this canal-bridge. Christian pilgrims on the route to Santiago de Compostela in Spain stop by the town of Moissac, which is situated near the confluence of the Tarn and Garonne rivers and famous for its abbey.
Rowing out of the shade of the plane trees, we saw a triangle of canal traffic lights on the right of the stone arch bridge where hire boats would have to lower their canopies to squeeze under. Beyond the nearly 20 gelcoat-white rental cabin cruisers with their bows pointing into the canal, we found a space just long enough to moor TRAMP. Ben and I stepped ashore to look for the campsite I’d read about online. Two-story houses in different widths and heights all built one against the other rose beyond the grassy bank, their red tiled roofs forming a staircase upward to the village of Le Mas d’Agenais. Quickly sweaty and out of breath, we trudged up between red-brick and flaking-stucco buildings to find a wall-less timber-framed building with a barn’s gambrel roof. Knocks from centuries of market vendors marked its thick mottled hand-hewn oak beams, each planted on a knee-high stone plinth. Neatly brick-paved streets led past a white and gray stone Romanesque church to the campground, where a handwritten cardboard sign dangling on a rope across the entrance read, “Fermé.” We would have to find somewhere else to stay the night.
We returned to TRAMP and within an hour we rowed to the next canal-side campsite, 2 miles farther on. We found an empty car park with a vacant building, a trash-bin enclosure with no bins, and a bone-dry sink with spiderwebs full of dead flies in its corners. A signpost poking out of a waist-height hedge read, “Reserved for Campervans.” By now the canal’s locks were closed for the night, so we dragged ourselves over the canal bridge and along the road to the only other place marked on Google Maps, a bed-and-breakfast less than a half mile away. It had no website or phone number. Beyond a field of knee-high cornstalks with dark green arching leaves, we cautiously wandered through the pillared entrance between 6′ walls into a dusty courtyard. Five doors painted the color of claret were evenly spaced along the front of a one-story building, the windows between them almost hidden behind thick, lush layers of ivy. Perpendicular to it was a sandstone building with cracks that could accommodate small birds reaching up to the beveled clay-tile roof. A wooden beam, almost black with age, spanned the top of a metal garage door.
“Bonsoir?” I called. A man stepped out from the back of a van, wisps of gray hair flowing from the sides of a faded flat cap that shielded his crinkled face from the last of the day’s sun. “The minimum stay is three nights,” he said, “but back at the crossroads, the first house on your left, is someone who sometimes helps travelers like you.” We walked to the house and, finding no way in, gently tinkled a bell hanging on a chain outside. A gentleman appeared and opened his metal back gates. Smiling, he introduced himself as Jérôme and invited us to follow him. We wound through his tangle of rooms, each crammed full with paintings—a still life of three apples next to a stack of crumpled papers under a violin, ladies languishing with half-fallen white robes, an intricately embellished gilt frame wider than the faded square portrait it surrounded, a wooden framed pen-and-ink illustration of a battle sitting on the floor behind the end of a wrought-iron bed frame sculpted with the silhouette of an oak tree. He led us to a bedroom, flung the shutters open, looked under the bed linen to check it was clean, and exclaimed, “Perfect, the room is ready.” We returned to TRAMP to cook up a camp-stove dinner of couscous, tomatoes, and lentils with dried onions, olives, and artichoke hearts. Taking only the wash kit, we headed to Jérôme’s for a dip in the pool before bed. After two consecutive days of rowing at least 12 miles each day, we rested deeply.
Jérôme sat us at a breakfast table where tapestries hung on the wall and an intricate ammonite fossil 12″ in diameter on a metal stand vied for space with six busts on a glass-top table with intricate legs decorated with golden metal leaves. Ben cut a slice of dark crusty bread for me and spread it with a thick layer of butter. I sank my teeth in and was surprised by how sweet it was; it was actually an unfrosted chocolate loaf cake. Jérôme filled the table with a sliced baguette in a woven basket, a jar with a handwritten label abricot, a jug of strong coffee, and a bowl of strawberries from his garden.
Excited to learn that we’d arrived in a wooden boat Ben had built, Jérôme, a metalworker, shared his passion for working with his hands. Around the garden there were large sheets of metal he had sculpted in sensuous forms; his open workshop was adorned with mirror frames decorated with gold-leaf finish, one going to Versailles, one to Italy. Part of his bonsai collection was growing in rocks, with others in pots next to a yew tree he had been pruning into the shape of a flying bird. Neat garden rows stretched out with zucchini, strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, and artichokes. He accompanied us back to TRAMP to admire Ben’s work where I learnt the French word for mahogany, acajou. Before parting ways, Jérôme wished us that all would go well with our growing baby and that only wonderful things would happen in our journey and lives.
Numerous cyclists enjoy the towpaths between Toulouse and Bordeaux. Curious to see the locks in action with a wooden rowing boat, some stopped to chat and kindly took a rare photo of Ben and me aboard TRAMP.
We settled into days of counting down each Canal de Garonne lock we passed through, long straight rowing stretches, and locating bakeries, campsites, or B&Bs to stay each night less than a 20-minute walk from the canal. On our tenth day, we passed Lock 3 after lunch and Lock 2 less than a mile after. We barely noticed another mile and a half before gliding into Lock 1 at the northern edge of Toulouse. Inside the lock, Ben and I stood holding the bow and stern lines as the two metal gates boomed together, closing the chamber behind us. A man in the now-familiar VNF blue T-shirt stopped trimming the grass on the far side of the lock, walked over the closed lock gates to us, and asked gently, “How far are you going?”
“Toulouse today and Sète after,” I responded. He phoned his colleague at the locks ahead to let her know we were coming and as I heard him use the word aviron, I tensed. Aviron is associated more with oars for racing shells, whereas rame would have been a better word for our oars. The water in the lock slowly rose as the lockkeeper talked with his colleague. The lock was half full when he made another call, three-quarters full when he made the third. I’d lost count which call he was on when the second set of lock gates opened out on the last stretch of the canal.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “you cannot pass Toulouse.” Our second leg, the Canal du Midi, was supposed to begin in the city center with three locks managed by one central lockkeeper using closed-circuit TV. The Toulouse lockkeeper said she couldn’t take responsibility for a boat without a motor going through. “You’ll have to take the boat out.” After another phone call, he said his team leader would come shortly. A cloud of dust billowed from the stony path as the boss pulled up in a white VNF van and came to an abrupt stop. Out strode a large-bellied man with furry furrowed eyebrows who took one look at TRAMP and barked, “Non! Not possible! You do not have authorization.” He stood squarely with his arms crossed, his face slowly getting redder, continuing without taking a breath, “You need documents to pass, it’s a public holiday tomorrow and the managers will take Friday off, too, so you can’t speak to anyone until Monday. You cannot pass the locks.” He returned to his van and roared off.
Dejectedly, we rowed the last 2-1/2 miles of the Canal de Garonne and moored TRAMP at the Port de l’Embouchure, a basin for the three-way junction of the Garonne, Brienne, and Midi canals. Later that warm evening, we strolled through the streets of Toulouse, La Ville Rose—the Pink City—where many buildings have for centuries been built with distinctively pink bricks. We passed duck foie gras specialist shops, Lebanese restaurants, bars, brasseries, and patisseries. About 1-1/2 miles from the Port, we arrived at Toulouse’s Pont Neuf—“New Bridge” (in spite of it having opened in 1612). It spanned the Garonne River on seven stone arches of varied sizes. People filled the streets lining the riverbank, drinking wine from plastic cups and snacking on baguettes and saucisson while a police van parked nearby waited for the hordes of revelers expected before Ascension Day, a national public holiday.
Muscles all over my body ached and my mind, tired of speaking French, raced through “what next?” scenarios. Could we haul TRAMP and all our gear on her two-wheel trolley through the traffic-filled streets and find a place to relaunch after the locks? Might we slip into the locks unnoticed behind a bigger boat? Was our adventure already over?
After a restless night in a €75 apartment-hotel, we went to check that TRAMP was still safe. Stuck to the stern thwart with brown parcel tape was a neatly handwritten note in a plastic pouch, “I have more information on your request, please call this number.” I phoned and five minutes later, a man approached in tan slacks and a pale blue jacket. Without the cobalt blue VNF T-shirt I didn’t recognize him immediately, but it was Franc, the lockkeeper who’d made numerous phone calls at the last lock the day before. He’d spoken to the VNF directors, and they would give us authorization to continue—on two conditions: that at least one of our docklines measured no less than 10 meters and that neither of us stayed in the boat while the lock was in operation. Ben unwound the rope from the mooring, and I lined it up on the brick while Franc pushed out meters of his yellow metal tape measure: 12m60. We repeated the process with the bow line, identical in length. We told him we’d like to leave the next day at 9 a.m., and he said the lockkeeper would be waiting for us—we had permission from the VNF territorial management to row all the way to Sète on the Mediterranean coast.
With a verbal go-ahead from the regional management of VNF, we were relieved and excited to be let through the three locks at Toulouse and on to the second leg of our adventure.
In the morning, after stopping at a bakery we set off through the middle of the three arched bridges at the Port de l’Embouchure to the constant noise of traffic and honking car and moped horns. As we rowed, we passed dog-walkers and joggers, some on the towpath a few feet above water level, others a bit higher on the pavement beyond, with shop fronts and apartment blocks lining the half-mile stretch to Béarnais lock, the first of 64 on the Canal du Midi. As we approached a wooden waiting pontoon about double the length of TRAMP, the lock’s bottom traffic light turned to green. We stopped to let me climb out and I walked up the bank side onto the road and used the pedestrian crossing over four lanes of traffic as Ben paddled us underneath and into the lock. Not finding a gate in the metal barrier separating the sidewalk from the concrete area surrounding the lock, I hopped over it and entered an office where a lady sat surrounded by screens showing different angles of the city’s locks, milliseconds ticking by in green numbers in the top right corner of each. I presented her with a croissant and pain au chocolat I’d just bought, so fresh the paper bag they were in did not yet have any translucent butter marks showing. She thanked me and apologized for the difficulties we’d initially faced, assuring us that our safety was their main concern and that she’d slow the water speed flowing into the lock to avoid a torrent disturbing our small boat.
I returned to Ben, who had climbed the lock-side ladder and was holding TRAMP’s lines on the opposite side. We peered around to spot the CCTV cameras, sitting atop posts at either end of the lock, to which we gave a thumbs-up. We grinned to each other as the 50′-long brick-lined lock chamber slowly filled. With many merci beaucoups and smiles, I waved goodbye to the lockmaster as Ben paddled us out of the lock and we resumed our rowing positions for less than five minutes before repeating the whole process at Lock Minimes.
The loud whoosh of cars speeding by next to us bounced off the gray concrete bridge as we rowed under its shade for about the length of a bowling alley, the width ample for our outstretched oars with no need for careful steering. We continued undisturbed along a 1-mile stretch of serenity in the shade of the evenly spaced plane trees, the only constant on the canals since the start of our adventure. Pedestrian and road bridges traversed the canal about every 500 yards with occasional concrete steps leading from the towpath up to at least two lanes of traffic either side. As the CCTV lockkeeper had advised, we stopped a good 100 yards or more clear of Lock Bayard, which borders the Matabiau train station, and waited more than five minutes as the red and green traffic lights shone and the lock chamber emptied itself through the sluices.
Few people noticed us below them as they hurried to and from Toulouse station. Once the red light went out, Ben paddled us into the darkness of 80 yards of concrete-capped canal under the spacious pedestrian plaza area. The smooth concrete sides of the lock rising yards above us were green with grime to the maximum height of the waterline, where the concrete became a clean pale gray about a foot below the lock edge. Like some specialized high-diving facility, a swimming-pool ladder came out of the canal before the lock gates, leading to concrete steps up and beyond our line of sight. Above the cold-black lock gates at the lock’s far end gleamed the bright green leaves of a tree in the sunshine beyond. We both got out of TRAMP using the ladder, then each released more and more slack so we could hoick our ropes over the various handrails lining the steps and lock gates as we climbed up to the lock-side.
At street level we re-entered city civilization in front of the train station, a building adorned with colorful coats of arms between the 26 double windows stretching between the north and south concourse, each topped with a flat-topped dome-shaped black slate roof. The clock in the middle at the top of the building showed 10:30. The sill at the top end of the lock was more than 3′ above the water, trickles spouting continuously over the closed gates above it before we gave our thumbs-up to the CCTV and the sluices opened to let the water rush in. Ben and I stood at the vertiginous lock edge occasionally tugging a line to keep TRAMP steady. Our sharp-edged shadows fell against the opposite side of the lock. Behind us, a toddler stood with his face peering through the orange metal fencing separating the lock from pedestrians as TRAMP’s gunwale finally came into view by our feet. Between us and the Mediterranean lay 150 more miles of canal.
After clearing the drama and hubbub of Toulouse, we were glad to return to the shade of the plane trees where a slackliner, visible here surrounded by the tree canopy, practiced above us.
Two days, 33 meandering miles, and 12 locks later we were 633′ above sea level at Lock Ocean, the canal-system’s aptly named summit. Its oval shape was characteristic of the locks on the Canal du Midi and could accommodate the increasing number of hire-boats and hotel barges we now shared the water with. After another 3 miles of rowing, we were at Lock Mediterranean where, for the first time, the V-shape of the front and rear lock-gates now pointed toward us as we entered. The lock was full of water when we entered so we could easily step out of TRAMP onto the lock-side. The water emptied from the lock without turbulence and we each gradually paid out the painters as TRAMP descended in the chamber. Once the downstream gates opened, Ben climbed down the lock-side ladder and paddled out to the waiting pontoon to meet me.
After we’d finally mastered the light sensor system on the locks of the Canal de Garonne, we discovered that the oval locks of the Canal du Midi use a different system—radar—to monitor boats as they enter and leave.
Six miles and a series of singles, double, and treble locks later, we found ourselves at a closed lock. Like most people in France, lockkeepers took a lunch break at noon and by 1 p.m., a line of for-hire boats had formed on either side of the lock, waiting to pass through. The entire waiting pontoon was occupied by other boats, so we rowed to the opposite bank, held reeds to stay in place there, and watched green and blue finger-length dragonflies dancing together. When the lock-gate ahead opened, three hire boats maneuvered into the lock. We moved into the space on the back left side of the lock to prepare to lock down, but we heard a beeping sound and saw the lock-gates start closing behind us as the boat in front started drifting back toward us. “Red button! Red button!” I shouted in English, trying to tell what I thought was the Belgian crew standing near the control booth to press the emergency stop button. Moments later the lock-gates stopped moving and a flustered lockkeeper appeared on the far side of lock; she had a shoebox-sized box with buttons to control the lock’s operation hanging in front of her from a strap around her neck. “You gave me the fright of my life,” she said in French. “I thought someone had fallen in. This will be your last lock.” Once the boat ahead of us was safely secured, we moored behind it and climbed out. Ben held TRAMP’s lines as I went to speak with the lockkeeper and recount the story of our journey including permission from Toulouse management. As we talked, she kept her eyes on the water level, occasionally pressing a button on the box to operate the double lock. She slowly began to chat more freely. We cleared the two locks and by the time we said goodbye, she was smiling and wished us well on our voyage.
Lock Ocean is at the summit of the Canal du Midi. It was the last of the locks to take us upstream; the downstream locks beyond Lock Ocean would lower us without the turbulence created for upstream traffic. We nearly got crushed three times in one day and were constantly vigilant for the inattentiveness of hire-boat crew with whom we were sharing locks.
While the locks on the Canal de Garonne were self-operated using the dangling pole and the automated system of light sensors, almost all locks on the Canal du Midi were staffed, perhaps because of much higher traffic traveling between tourist hotspots like Castelnaudary, the self-proclaimed world capital of cassoulet, and the fortified hilltop medieval citadel of Carcassonne. On one day we passed through 15 locks, a new record for us, and met lockkeepers of all shapes, sizes, ages, and countenances. One smiling lockkeeper gestured us through without question; when his services weren’t needed, he carved out time to set up a shop selling sun hats, gloves, cold drinks, and cherries picked from a nearby tree and still warm from sunlight. Another lockkeeper sat in the shade of the lockkeeper’s house with the control box on his lap while his sheepdog herded the hire boats through. Yet another lock had colorful ramshackle sculptures for sale: an elephant; a face with moving eyes; male figures with crude markings; a cartoonish big-bosomed, short-skirted lady with flowers growing as her hair. Some lockkeepers phoned their colleagues ahead to let them know a small wooden rowing boat was on its way.
As we neared the Mediterranean, there were more and more boats and fewer and fewer trees. Where the bank drew almost level with the water in the canal, I stood up in TRAMP and in the distance to the south saw the snow-capped table-top mountains of the Pyrenees. A few miles farther along the Canal du Midi, pink rock lined the left side of the canal.
Camping along the canal outside of the established campgrounds is not permitted, but when we reached the locks here on the Canal du Midi after 7 p.m. they were closed, and we were miles from the nearest campsite or village. Most of that afternoon we’d shared locks with the barge LA BELLE VIE, and the couple who lived on it presented Ben with an ice-cold beer and let pregnant me use their bathroom.
We weren’t expecting to see waves on the canals, but for three days after Carcassonne, their rhythm had been constantly battling against ours in the rocking boat. The resistance I felt pulling the oars through the water now doubled as I felt the blades flutter when I pushed them through the air blowing up to 12 miles per hour against them. Both of us taking a break would mean getting pushed backward, but Ben reminded me to take one whenever I wanted. I stowed my oars and laid my head down onto the forward thwart to rest my lower back and gaze up at the cloudless sky. A clubtail dragonfly landed on my starboard oar. A yellow stripe ran from the tip of its 2″-long tail to its bulging head and between the shining domes of its pastel-blue eyes.
The next day seemed never-ending, rowing 15 miles of lock-free meanders between Le Somail and the bridge at Capestang, an arch of mortared irregular stones over a passage only 16′ wide and 7′ 9″ high at each side. After resting at a guesthouse on the banks of the canal, I ate three boiled eggs, half a baguette, a bowl of fruit salad, and a pot of yogurt for breakfast. Finally, the winds blew in our direction. A blue and white barge with tourists squeezed on its upper and lower decks emerged from the black Malpas tunnel ahead of us. I switched on the navigation light and held it upon my head with both hands, elbows jutting out, hoping to cut a noticeable figure for any boats about to enter from the other end. As I stood facing forward, Ben paddled us gently into the approaching darkness. Once under the Ensérune hill, we could see daylight glaring 165 yards ahead, highlighting a towpath and railings to our left and the lumps, bumps, and voids in the tufa rock tunnel walls from 300 years of humidity and erosion. I sang out at the top of my voice. The tunnel remained clear, and Ben rowed until we popped out of the cool shade through the tidy brickwork at the tunnel exit into the glare of the day.
From the tunnel we rowed 4-1/2 miles along more meandering canal to a seven-lock flight at Fonseranes, which would lower us 71′ over the next 980′. We could only see the first of the 100′-long locks; beyond its downstream gate, the flight dropped out of sight and down to the next step. Three bulky white hire boats had crews of varying attentiveness managing the ropes from the walks above the wall. Fortunately, the limited lock space prevented the boats from drifting backward or letting their sterns shift sideways. We kept TRAMP tucked as far back in the lock as possible without reaching the sill, with Ben holding the stern line up the stairs, and me with the bowline on the lower lock-side ahead of him. After the lock gates closed behind us, water drained away through the front gates into the next chamber for nearly 10 minutes. I turned away from the sun to shade my burning red feet with my legs and drank frequently from the now-warm water in my flask. Once each lock emptied, we waited for the three boats to bumble into the next lock before walking TRAMP along. With only one fender positioned amidships, a rowlock occasionally scraped the stone lock edge, until we reached the flight exit at the end of the seventh chamber.
Carcassonne is a medieval city that surrounds a Gallo-Roman citadel dating back to the 4th century. A good way to explore most French towns is to look for a vegetarian restaurant without the help of Google and without paying attention to their opening hours before you get there. You are likely to walk for miles, not find anything, not spend a cent, and see most of the town you are visiting.
After spending a night at a canal-side campground in Villeneuve-les-Béziers, it was already 80°F by 9 a.m. the next morning. Ben and I each set a now faded, flattened, and folded cushion on a thwart to start our 22nd day of rowing. Three miles later, I clambered out of TRAMP onto the grass and walked along a gravelly cycle path to speak with the lockkeeper. I found him resting his elbows on the railing of the single-lane road bridge overlooking lock Portiragnes. “Are you expecting to use the lock in that?” he quizzed me. I barely had enough time to answer before he declared, “Non.” Asking if I could explain, he interrupted, “Let me explain, boats without motors cannot use the locks. I can show you the rulebook that says canoes can’t go through,” nodding with his head toward the lockkeeper’s house where the document we’d been hearing about for weeks was apparently kept. “We’re not a canoe. We’ve rowed over 260 miles on two canals and been through over 100 locks,” I pleaded, “and we’ve only one more lock to go after this.” “I don’t care,” he puffed. “Pull the boat out.”
I looked back at Ben sitting in TRAMP alongside the waiting pontoon wondering what I could do or say next. A 90′ barge was cruising toward the lock, its clean black hull reflecting the sun’s rays off the water, the prow impeccably painted burgundy red. Rows of potted plants and flowers neatly lined the perimeter of the barge that surrounded the four guests being served drinks around a wooden table. The young captain stood at the stern behind a wooden steering wheel twice his width, wearing a navy-blue baseball cap and sunglasses, his white polo shirt tucked into navy-blue shorts. Another man in matching uniform stood looking ahead from the bow, where just below him ALOUETTE was painted in white next to a hefty white anchor. “How did you get through the flight of locks at Fonseranes yesterday?” the lockkeeper suddenly asked me. “We held TRAMP from the lock-side and walked her through with our ropes when possible. Ben used the ladder to get back aboard and paddle through to the next lock when the bridge was in the way.”
“If I let you through,” he said, “you will be walking through, not in the boat.” He told me he would phone his colleagues at Fonseranes and left me standing on the road-way bridge as he headed toward the lockkeeper’s house.
I walked back to TRAMP hoping that we might be able to share the lock behind ALOUETTE. The lock gates opened and ALOUETTE glided in. Ben and I waited, Ben in TRAMP, me standing at the canal side. Finally, the lockkeeper re-emerged from the house and with a wave, he signaled Ben to paddle forward into the rear portside of the lock. As the lock gates closed, the lockkeeper took a closer look at TRAMP. From the opposite side, I walked ahead, past the lock and over the bridge to join him and Ben. After not getting a response speaking French to Ben, the lockkeeper turned to me. “You’re not the first kind of this boat to come through the lock,” he said. “All the others manage to pull their boats out.” He used the plural masculine pronoun ils to refer to ‘the others’ so I switched to feminine elles and asked him, “Were they pregnant, too?” Shocked, he looked down at my belly. “Well, it doesn’t show,” he said, “maybe a little bit.”
Once the lock had emptied, the gates opened and ALOUETTE motored forward. I thanked the lockkeeper as Ben and I walked TRAMP along and out onto what could be our last 8-mile stretch of the Canal du Midi.
Le Somail would be just another sleepy hamlet along the Canal du Midi but for its bookshop, Le Trouve Tout De Livre (Find It All by Book), located near the circular tower at left. The store is a labyrinth of more than 50,000 books, comics, tomes, and antique invoices, and has developed into a popular tourist stop complete with canal cruises and restaurants (including the only vegetarian menu in the region). The bridge here, with the semicircular vault that spans the canal, dates to the 17th century.
The lock at Agde connects the Canal du Midi from the east and west with a junction south to the river Hérault, each lock-gate with different water levels beyond. Our reference book said that the Hérault had suffered from silting in recent years, so we were unsure whether that could be a possible route for us out onto the Mediterranean. To turn boats that are not taking the straight east–west passage, the chamber is shaped like two joined semicircles, the southern one half the diameter of the northern.
We arrived from the west followed by a hire boat; I helped loop its lines around the mooring so they didn’t need to get off the boat. A young smiling lockkeeper said we’d be fine on the river Hérault, though we’d have to wait our turn. Using the control box hanging on a strap around his neck, he first filled the lock to its maximum level, an unusual canal ascent on the otherwise downward route. He opened the east gates, and the hire boat left toward the final lock of the Canal du Midi and the Étang de Thau, a lagoon stretching 13 miles to the northeast roughly parallel the Mediterranean coastline to Sète. Another hire boat with a couple onboard cruised in and a teenage boy appeared on the lock-side as their crew. They took some time to decide on the best place to moor their 35′ boat against the lock’s curved walls, finally choosing the starboard side of the west lock-gate, diagonally opposite us. The lockkeeper released water to the level it was when we’d entered, allowing that boat to continue west.
After the lock-gates had closed behind them it was our turn. Though the water only descended another 3′, it took nearly 10 minutes to drain the voluminous round lock. A darker waterline was revealed on the lock-side suggesting how rarely the south lock-gate was being used. As the lockkeeper opened the gates of our final lock, he seemed to read my mind, “No one will bother you now. When you get to the sea, the nicest beach is on the right.” Ben climbed down a ladder and stepped aboard TRAMP and used a paddle to cross and exit the lock. I rejoined him from a waiting pontoon to row the slender 1/3-mile-long canal to the Hérault.
Exhausted after weeks of rowing and days of headwinds, at least we could enjoy slipping under narrow low bridges without the concerns that bigger boats face. We had a cart in case we needed to portage TRAMP, but fortunately we needed to use it only once to avoid a long wait for a broken lock to be fixed.
After three weeks of rowing canals that were mostly well-protected from the wind, we suddenly faced a salty onshore breeze blowing against us on the 100-yard-wide river. The experience of our regular rowing trips back home in England’s Suffolk county on the tidal River Orwell served us well, and we put our backs into the strokes. Scattered along the riverbanks for about a mile were two-story houses and three-story apartment blocks painted either white, dusky pink, or crème brûlée, but all had terracotta-tile roofs. We rowed past palm trees, fishing vessels bristling with cranes and winches, and moored in front of the corrugated iron warehouse of the Grau d’Agde fish auction. Fishing rods of sport anglers poked up and out in all directions from a pair of parallel basalt stone breakwaters that flanked the Hérault for 1/5 mile beyond the shore into the Mediterranean. Each was capped with a concrete promenade and ended in a squat, white light tower with the top of the one on the west breakwater painted red and, 130 yards to the east across the river mouth, the top of the other painted green.
The light tower of La Tamarissière marked our arrival at the Mediterranean Sea. We stopped in the shallows and Ben gave TRAMP a sponge bath to get the worst of the green canal grime off the hull.
TRAMP lurched up and down quickly as the flow of the Hérault pushed into the azure Mediterranean Sea, which stretched out to meet the cloudless sky. I struggled to get the oars in and out of the water, let alone in time with Ben’s, as we cleared the light tower with the red top and turned west toward a sandy beach dotted with people and parasols of every color. Moments later Ben climbed over the side and dropped into waist-high shallows. I jumped in and ducked underwater, re-surfacing quickly to catch my breath from the shock of the chilly seawater. A few deep breaths later, I lay back in the sea, weightless, and felt the sun’s warmth on my face. With the Canal of Two Seas behind us, I wondered which country’s canals we will be crossing next, where our adventures as new parents will take us, and where in TRAMP the baby will go.
Caroline Kocel and Ben Jackson are based in Suffolk, on the east coast of England. Ben, a classic wooden boat enthusiast, worked at Spirit Yachts for eight years before setting up his own workshop as Jackson Yachts. He met Caroline during the 2020 lockdown after her return from life in Micronesia, and together they have rowed across Scotland, England, and France. They spend as much time as possible on the River Orwell estuary and have their sights set upon sailing a 30′ classic to the Caroline Islands in the Pacific.
If you have an interesting story to tell about your adventures with a small boat, please email us a brief outline and a few photos.
One of the nicest and easiest bits of marlinespike seamanship that we have found on a boat is French whipping for a tiller handle. It is both decorative and functional: its spiral of half hitches is attractive and provides a grip that is more secure than is a simple wrap without hitches.
This photograph and opener, Small Boats Magazine
The French whipping on this Whitehall’s tiller uses a soft 3/16″ solid-braid synthetic cord.
While any braided or laid cord can be used, synthetic or natural, we prefer laid cotton. It’s traditional, kind to the fingers when working it, easily pushed together to close any gaps in the wraps, and takes sealers well.
Although French whippings often have Turk’s heads covering the ends, these decorative elements aren’t necessary and we’re happy to forgo torturing ourselves with them. Fully functional French whippings can be applied with tidy and secure ends.
We whip about 5″ of a tiller, which is enough to provide a good hand grip. The amount of cord needed will depend on the circumference of the tiller (the tiller end here has a circumference of 4″) and we used about 25′ to wrap this one. It is nice to have a few extra feet of cord so we can choose where to end the hitches—usually on the underside of the handle. We do a test wrap of 1″ or so, undo it to see how much cord was used, and estimate the total length of cord needed. From there we can confidently cut the required amount and avoid pulling an unnecessarily long length of cord through each hitch. Another trick is to wind the cord like a yarn ball, which makes it easier to keep track of the working end of the cord and to avoid having to pull a long length of cord through each hitch.
We start the whip about 3″ from the end of the tiller, leaving room for a tiller-extension fitting should we decide to add one later. The first half hitch is put at the center on top, for appearance’s sake, leaving a short end of cord as an anchor that we capture under the first few wraps. Cotton cord flattens well and the tail end of the cord underneath the whipping won’t be noticeable. After the first few half hitches, we can slip the whip around the tiller to center the starting tag end on top. Then we continue the half hitches and stop every five or so hitches to slide the cords together as needed to provide a pleasing look to the finished whip.
The half hitches are continued, each hitch snugged to create a nice spiral. A tighter or looser hitch can be tied to adjust the alignment. Once we are within five hitches of finishing the whipping on the underside of the tiller, we set a loop of waxed twine past the end of the existing whipping and wrap each successive hitch over the twine. At the end of the whipping, the loop will pull the tail end of the cord back under those last 5 hitches. Then it is time to closely trim the ends of the line. If using cotton cord, we can dip the tiller in hot water to further tighten the whipping as the cord dries.
Photographs by the authors
The whipping starts with a simple half hitch tied around the tiller. The starting end will be covered by the wraps as the lashing proceeds. A piece of transparent tape or masking tape could be placed over it to hold it temporarily in place. Viewed from the right-hand side, the cord will make counterclockwise turns around the tiller.
The second wrap, like the first, passes under itself to make a hitch before being drawn tight. The cord emerging from the hitch can be pulled tight in the direction of the wind, then in the opposite direction against the wind to get the hitch tight, compact, and aligned with the previous knot to make a spiral ridge.
Before the tail end is completely covered, it can be pulled tight with a pair of pliers to make sure the first wrap is snug.
The wraps and hitches continue, forming the spiral.
A half-dozen wraps before the end of the whipping, a loop of thin line gets covered by the wraps.
At the finish, the tail end gets pulled through the loop.
The loop pulls the tail end under the wraps.
The remaining cord is carefully cut with a sharp knife. Once it is removed the gap between wraps can be closed-up by adjusting the cord.
The finished wrap can be coated with varnish or waterproof glue to keep the whipping tight and prevent it from slipping.
After the cord has dried, we seal the whipping with varnish or a waterproof glue such as Titebond III, and in just 15 minutes we have a good-looking non-slip grip on a slick, varnished tiller.
Audrey, aka Skipper, and Kent Lewis mess about on the shoal waters of Virginia’s Hampton Roads, and have traveled coast to coast with a menagerie of small boats. Their tiller adventures are logged at their blog, Small Boat Restoration.
You can share your tips and tricks of the trade with other Small Boats Magazine readers by sending us an email.
Recently, when we needed to make the mast for our Nutshell Pram, I was excited to use a spar gauge to mark the spruce for tapering and rounding. While the mast is small, I was not excited about hand-planing the larger sections during the tapering process. To make this job less onerous, I enlisted the help of DeWalt’s 20V MAX XR Brushless Cordless Planer, which transformed the tapering from a chore into a fun day.
My first impression was that the tool’s weight and size would allow me to make the precise cuts on the mast in an efficient, controlled manner. The mast was marked for tapers on two opposing sides, and the planer made short work of removing material. I started out on the lowest depth adjustment, 1/256″ (0.01mm), which is one step up from a zero cut. I could barely notice the cut at this setting (which would be good for final finishing on broad surfaces like thwarts), so I deepened the cut to 1/64″, which is a setting I like on my table-top thickness planer. At this depth, a satisfying amount of material was removed with each pass and I was able to work multiple short cuts on the more tapered end of the mast, gradually blending the short cuts into longer cuts that flowed along the entire 5′ taper. At first, I planed close to the line and finished the final taper with a hand plane, but after a few minutes of using the DCP580, I was comfortable with planing to the line. After I cut the mast’s four tapers with the planer there was still enough battery power to finish the eight-siding and cleaning off the high corners between the eight faces.
Photographs by the authors
The milled aluminum sole has a groove for chamfering and a kickstand so the tool can be set down with the blades elevated. The kickstand pivots out of the way when the planer is pushed forward; it can also be locked in the up position.
The belt-driven, twin-blade cutter head spins at 30,000 rpm, with a minimum speed of 15,000 rpm. DeWalt’s 20V brushless technology increases torque to the motor to keep rpm constant as the load on the blades varies. At the smallest diameter of the mast, 1-3/8″, the planer was easy to control while making fine cuts on narrow faces. As an experiment, I tried deep cuts on a scrap of mahogany and the motor only slowed down if I pushed especially hard to make a fast cut. The brushless motor extends battery life, too, and most times we find that we’re ready for break time even as the planer is still going strong. Weighing just 7.4 lbs, the tool did not significantly contribute to our fatigue.
The blades are 3-1/4″ wide, with an option for high-speed steel blades or reversible dual-edge carbide blades. There is a useful storage compartment in the handle for spare blades and the wrench needed to change them.
The planer’s brushless motor maximizes battery life and adjusts to keep the cutter head running at a constant speed.
This small planer’s overall length is 13.7″, the height is 8.9″, width 8″, and the shoe is 3-1/4″ wide and 11-1/2″ long, making it a good fit for small workpieces. I like the smaller size and precision depth adjustments because if I do make a mistake (when I make a mistake) it will be a small one. The precision-machined shoe has a 4.5- to 8mm-wide chamfering groove down the middle, which is handy for easing sharp corners—something we always do on a small boat—and this groove can be used to begin eight-siding a small spar more accurately. The dust extraction port is on the right side and can be connected to a dust bag or a dust-extraction system with a DeWalt adapter. The chip chute is large enough that it rarely jams. For those needing it, there is a fence included that can be used for rebate cuts up to 23/64″; the fence can be used on either the left or right side. A small kickstand behind the aft end of the shoe keeps planer blades off the bench or workpiece when the motor is off.
The DeWalt cordless planer proved to be the right tool for our mast-making project. Its small size and precision cuts are my favorite features of this planer, and we see much more use to come as we plane more boat lumber.
Audrey and Kent Lewis mess about with boat lumber in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. Their small boat adventures are logged at their blog, Small Boat Restoration.
The DeWalt cordless planer is available for around $219 at many hardware and home-improvement stores as well as from online retailers.
Is there a product that might be useful for boatbuilding, cruising, or shore-side camping that you’d like us to review? Please email your suggestions.
I take a lot of gear when I go cruising, and while most of it is essential for my safety and comfort, only two things are irreplaceable: my photographs and my notes. Decades after a cruise, those images and words are often all that remains after I’ve sold the boat I’d used and updated all my gear. Although I have a sturdy watertight, crush-proof case for my camera gear, a drybag is all I’ve had to protect my journals and notebooks, pens, and pencils. That’s fine for writing at day’s end when I’m in camp or at anchor, but it’s awkward during the day when I want to make notes while I’m underway.
Photographs by the author
The Clampdesk measures 14″ x 11″ and weighs just 24 ounces when empty.
The Clampdesk from Rite in the Rain consolidates writing material in a weatherproof case that also serves a lap desk. Its shell is made of EVA (ethylene vinyl acetate), a tough, UV-resistant thermoplastic. Flat panels on both front and back provide smooth, stiff writing surfaces. The front has a strong spring clip that can hold a single sheet of paper or a 1/4″-thick notebook, and an elastic-fabric band at the bottom to keep letter-sized sheets of paper from blowing around. A weatherproof zipper with dual sliders keeps rain and spray out of the Clampdesk when it is closed and a yellow elastic loop on the spine keeps a writing implement handy without having to open the case.
Photographs by the author
The front of the Clampdesk has a stiff, flat writing surface with a clamp at the top and a band of elastic-fabric at the bottom to keep a standard sheet of paper in place. A handy loop on the spine holds a pen or pencil.
Inside, there are two mesh pockets on the left side, the upper one zippered and the lower one open-topped to hold long items. The mesh allows a good view of what’s inside and both pockets provide well-protected places to keep reading glasses. On the right, there is a single pocket made of stretch materials that can accommodate letter-sized notebooks and loose sheets of paper. Five elastic loops sewn on the pocket hold pens and pencils.
Inside the Clampdesk, there are two mesh pockets on the left side and a single pocket on the right with elastic loops for writing implements.
The Clampdesk is roughly 1-1/8″ thick and encloses an airspace that keeps it afloat if dropped overboard. The zipper has rubber flaps that close tightly against each other for most of their length to keep water out, but there are gaps around the sliders where water could get in. Because the Clampdesk floats, very little water gets in, if any.
The waterproof zipper protects the contents of the Clampdesk from rain and spray. The only gaps in the zipper’s seal are next to the sliders.
I bought a Rite in the Rain “All-Weather Legal Pad” which has 35 sheets of letter-size 8-1/2″ x 11″ recyclable paper. The pad is a good fit for the Clampdesk, inside and out. I’ve used several of the company’s “All-Weather Notebooks” in the past and the paper is certainly more water-resistant than common writing/printer paper. Immersed, it does turn gray as it absorbs water, but while ordinary paper when saturated comes apart at a light touch, Rite in the Rain paper retains some of its strength. It will tear with about half the effort required to tear it when dry, so although it’ll survive a dunking or a rain shower and still take pen and pencil marks, it’s best to take some care to keep it dry and to dry it out gently if it gets soaked. (WetNotes note pads from Ritchie Navigation have fully waterproof plastic pages that are better suited for downpours, rough water, and even snorkeling but are expensive and not recyclable.)
The Clampdesk provides a way to keep paperwork—home-printed charts, navigation notes, and writing materials—in one safe and readily accessed place. It will make it easier for me to capture experiences in writing, preserving them far longer and more clearly than I can in fleeting memories.
Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats Magazine. He has been taking notes while cruising since 1980.
Tim Shaw grew up in Manchester, Massachusetts, and summered on Cuttyhunk Island, the end of a chain of small islands west of Martha’s Vineyard, so his childhood was steeped in traditional wooden boats. In his tween years he got his first taste of boatbuilding when a friend on Cuttyhunk built a sailing pram and, soon afterward, he looked on as his father built a pram for the family. As a teen, Tim sketched small boats inspired by traditional forms. During the summer after his freshman year at high school, his parents gave him the okay to build a Gloucester Light Dory in the space that had been his playroom when he was younger. When he went off to college, he thought he’d become a yacht designer, but an unpleasant math class in the first semester brought that ambition to an end. For the next decade, Tim turned his attention elsewhere.
When Tim married, he and his bride, Lisa, went to Hawaii for their honeymoon and during a walk on a beach on the coast of Kauai they saw an outrigger canoe. “I was instantly transfixed by the blend of modern and traditional,” he recalled, “and, despite no experience with such a craft, I decided this was the sort of boat I needed to have.”
The couple moved to Alexandria, Virginia, and there Tim was able to begin gathering boatbuilding skills at the Alexandria Seaport Foundation during Tuesday open-shop evenings and at the Apprentice for a Day program at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, Maryland. He also spent a week at WoodenBoat School taking a class in boat design, reconnecting with the vision he had once held for his future.
In 2006, Tim came upon plans for the Peace Canoe, designed by John Harris, in a “Getting Started in Boats” insert in WoodenBoat magazine. He didn’t have a shop, so he built the canoe in his side yard, often working by headlamp after his young children, Helena and Aidan, had gone to bed. The canoe was a success, but it didn’t fulfill his dream of building an outrigger canoe. He began sketching variations of the ocean canoe and departed from the decked OC1 (single outrigger canoe) he’d seen in Hawaii toward a more traditional open canoe.
At first, he had strip-built construction in mind, but after reading Robert Morris’s book, Building Skin-on-Frame Boats, Tim was drawn to the materials and construction of a lashed framework. With that as his goal, he spent months drawing the lines and construction details.
Photographs courtesy of the Shaw family
Tim approached the design of his outrigger canoe with neatly drawn, detailed sketches.
In 2009, he began the construction project by building the outrigger, or ama. Tim carefully selected dimensional lumber from a big-box home improvement store and resawed it to produce the ama’s longitudinals—the keel, chines, gunwales, and deck. They were given their shape by a stem piece, three bulkheads, and a small transom.
The steam-bent ribs all went into the main hull in a single day of steaming in the back yard.
Artificial sinew served as the main fastener and some dowels used as trunnels reinforced critical joints. The finished ama was covered with a nylon skin made watertight with a two-part urethane coating. The main hull, called a kino, was of similar construction, but with steam-bent white oak for most of the frames. Two stout laminated frames provided the attachment points for each crossbeam, or ’iako.
Tim launched the canoe in the fall of 2010 and christened it AL DEMANY CHIMAN to acknowledge the design’s influences: Al is “the” in Arabic, demany is “sail” in Malagasy, and chiman is “canoe” in Algonquin.
On one occasion, the Shaws took the canoe to Cuttyhunk Island, where Tim had spent many summers while growing up. From bow to stern: Lisa, Helena, Aidan, and Tim.
AL DEMANY CHIMAN did not yet have her sailing rig, but paddling served well for family outings on Chesapeake Bay. During a five-day solo cruise on Muscongus Bay, Maine, Tim observed that she “handled the more open water well and proved light enough to carry ashore on the rugged islands. It was a voyage I had dreamed about in the boat I had made reality.”
The first version of the ama was skinned and plagued with a persistent leak. Here, in 2011, Lisa paddles at the bow while Helena scans the Chesapeake Bay waters off Queenstown, Maryland.
Helena and Aidan took a liking to the canoe. On an outing in the fall of 2011, Helena came up with the idea of hanging from one of the outriggers while her father paddled. Aidan wasted no time in joining the fun and slipped overboard to hang on an outrigger, too.
Helena came up with the idea of hanging from one of the ’iako. It made for slow paddling but making good speed was never the point of the family outings. Here, she cools off in the Patuxent River.
Aidan wasn’t about to miss out on the ’iako hanging. He’s trailing a turbulent wake.
Not everything with AL DEMANY CHIMAN went as expected. The ama took on water no matter how much caulk Tim applied to potential leaks. For safety’s sake, Tim removed the skin, carved pieces of foam to fill the space inside the frame and put on a new skin.
Stymied in his efforts to find and stop the leaks in the ama, Tim changed tactics and filled it with carved blocks of foam.
Tim put a lot of effort into the sailing rig, but AL DEMANY CHIMAN didn’t take kindly to it and her main hull twisted with the torque imposed by the mast.
He also discovered that the sail applied enough torque to the frame to twist it alarmingly out of shape, so he chose not to press his luck and used the canoe without it. “AL DEMANY CHIMAN has thus been almost exclusively a paddled canoe,” Tim notes, “but I have been very happy with her in this capacity.”
In the autumn of 2014, Tim and Helena went for a father-daughter paddle on the upper-tidal Patuxent River in Maryland. Helena, who is on the autism spectrum, was engaged in the outing and settled in the stern seat, enjoying the river’s marshes. Unfortunately, as Tim recalls, “it would prove to be the last paddle of its kind.”
Early the next year, Helena went swimming at the local rec center and suffered a seizure while underwater. The pool lifeguards quickly pulled her out of the pool after which she coughed up a lot of water and then seemed well enough to go home. There, her breathing became labored, and Tim and Lisa made calls for an ambulance. At the hospital, Helena suffered heart failure, a result of a dry drowning—her lungs had been damaged by the water she had aspirated. Helena survived, but the lack of oxygen had injured her brain. She remained in the hospital for 15 weeks, but has not fully recovered her mobility or language.
“After adjusting to the new normal, I turned my attention to ways to get Helena more active.” Tim wrote. He built her a wheelchair that could negotiate trails in the woods during the summer and a kicksled for winter outings.
“What I really wanted, though, was to get back on the water more, and I wanted to bring Helena.” Paddling AL DEMANY CHIMAN was something they could do together, largely unhampered by the new disabilities. In 2019, Tim added a second ama to give the canoe stability on both sides and built a seat that would give Helena the support she needed.
In 2021, Tim gave AL DEMANY CHIMAN a new skin.
AL DEMANY CHIMAN was showing her age. Some parts had significant rot, others were broken. In 2019, Tim rebuilt the ama, and over the winter of 2020, he completely rebuilt the main hull and gave it a new skin.
Twelve years after she was first launched, AL DEMANY CHIMAN takes to the water again as good as new and with a new smaller outrigger to starboard. From the stern, Tim, Helena, and Aidan.
AL DEMANY CHIMAN was relaunched in July 2021 and on the day following the launch Tim, Helena, and Aidan went paddling at Mason Neck State Park, situated in a backwater of the Potomac River about 17 miles downstream from Alexandria. The renovated canoe worked well and the three enjoyed the outing. They’ve been on many more since then. “AL DEMANY CHIMAN has given me not only the experience I had hoped for,” wrote Tim, “but also many lessons. She has proved to be a vehicle—and metaphor—for perseverance and renewal.”
Do you have a boat with an interesting story? Please email us. We’d like to hear about it and share it with other Small Boats Magazine readers.
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.
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.
I built this cabin on a slope above the South Fork of the Sauk River in 1980. Most of the materials I used were salvaged from demolition jobs I did or purchased at junk yards. The aluminum sheets I used for roofing were offset lithography plates for a book about the Umpqua National Forest. It made for interesting reading while I nailed them on the roof. The main floor was devoted to shop space; I slept in the attic above and cooked on the workbench.
Building my sneakbox, LUNA, in the winter of 1984 in a shop without electricity wasn’t as hard as it might seem. While I was living on an old mine claim in Monte Cristo in the heart of Washington’s Cascade Mountains, I used a Tote Goat trail motorcycle to power a makeshift tablesaw and a gas lawnmower engine for my bandsaw.
The view from the shop was filled with a mountain range that rises steeply about 3,000′ above the riverbed. During the winter, the county stopped plowing the road 14 miles away and I had to ski out to get supplies and ski back uphill with a heavy backpack. It was brutal work in fresh snow when I had to break trail. If I would have had an emergency during the winter, I’d have to get myself out or hope for a weekend snowmobiler to help me. There were no cell phones back then.
Once I had all the red cedar ripped into planks for cold-molding, hand tools were all I needed and what I preferred to use even if I’d had power to run electric tools. I didn’t work long hours after dark, and battery-powered lanterns and candles provided enough light.
For my sneakbox, I used a traditionally built design from Chapelle’s American Small Sailing Craft and adapted it for cold-molding to make the boat lighter and suitable for the short lengths of red cedar I had salvaged. I cut the molds from the particle-board side panels of video arcade machines. I’m seated at the far end of the shop.
I milled the 1/8″ planks from a red-cedar driftwood log I hauled off the beach near my home in Edmonds, Washington. Here, the first of the hull’s three diagonal layers has been applied to the port side with the staples driven through salvaged packing straps to ease the removal of the staples. In the back left is the plywood-faced Gilliom bandsaw I built from a kit and powered with a Briggs & Stratton lawnmower engine.
Heat for curing the epoxy was provided by a woodstove, which worked very well even in the dead of winter when the shop roof was thickly frosted with snow. I’d fire it up for a gluing session and have the shop heated up into the 90s before I epoxied and stapled a set of planks in place. The fire would die down and the shop would cool overnight, but it never dropped below 50 degrees, even when it was freezing outside.
After I finished cold-molding the hull, I suspended it from the ceiling and went to work on the deck. Here, the first of two layers has been stapled to the building-form stringers with scraps of planking to make them easier to remove. I saved the best of the planking for the final layer of the deck. I had kept the planks stacked in the order I’d sawn them so I could bookmatch pairs for a symmetrical pattern on the top layer of the deck.
After I had laminated the hull and deck, I joined them together with a sheer clamp. There was no other framing in the hull, so I set out to fiberglass the deck and hull to the clamp on the inside to strengthen the union. That task was easy enough in the cockpit, where I could just reach through the foot-locker-sized opening and apply the ’glass and epoxy, and not so bad in the stern where the transom provided enough space for me to move around and get the ’glass-taping job done. The bow was another matter. The space between the deck and hull tapered from about 14″ at the cockpit to the 1-1/2″ sheer clamp. There was just barely enough room for me to work.
A votive candle in a tuna-fish can provided the light I needed to work on the interior of the assembled hull. (I took this photo in the bow of the finished boat.)
I put on a pair of gloves, cut fiberglass tape to length, and mixed up a batch of epoxy. To illuminate the space in the bow, I lit a votive candle, set it in an empty tuna-fish can, and pushed it ahead of me as I crawled in. I loaded a disposable brush with epoxy and went to work prodding the ’glass tape into place on the port side. It was a tight squeeze, and I could only reach the tip of the bow (a distant 5′ 6″ away from the cockpit opening) by holding the very end of the brush handle. I backed up, rolled over, and went to work on the starboard side. The daggerboard trunk, set on the starboard side of the cockpit coaming, gave me less room to work and pinned my left arm against my side. I managed to get all but the last few inches saturated with epoxy and pressed in place against the sheer clamp. To get the reach I needed to finish the job, I squeezed myself forward a few more inches. As I dipped the brush into the dish of epoxy, I smelled something burning, slightly acrid like bread smoking in a toaster. I didn’t feel or hear anything unusual, but it was easy enough to tell that I had lunged into the votive candle and set my hair on fire.
I couldn’t do anything with my left hand. It was pinned tight. The glove on my right hand was dripping with epoxy and the brush was stuck to it. For a moment, I feared that liquid epoxy might be flammable, but I had to take the chance that it wouldn’t catch fire and set the whole boat ablaze. I flicked off the brush and patted my head as I writhed out of the bow. That put the fire out, but my hair was coated with epoxy.
I had warmed the shop to cure the taping job, but I certainly didn’t want to hasten the cure of the epoxy on my head, leaving an unsightly and permanent coiffure. I closed up the shop and walked through the snow to my cabin, a dozen yards away. Brushing the epoxy out would only have spread it. I squirted the best part of a bottle of shampoo on top of my head and worked it in, trying to get every strand of hair separated. When I could run my fingers through it, I put a plastic produce bag over my hair and left it there for a couple of hours while I tended to dinner, dishes, and getting ready for bed. When I took the bag off, I was able to run a comb through my hair and pull out the gummy shampoo-and-epoxy gunk.
After the hull was sealed enough to endure a little weather, I put in on a sled made from skis and towed it by snowmobile to the plowed road. I took advantage of an opportunity to move to a log cabin on Lopez Island in Washington’s San Juan archipelago. Moving below the snow line made getting groceries a whole lot easier.
In November of 1985, I drove the sneakbox to Pittsburgh and embarked on a winter cruise aimed at Florida. Here I’m in the first mile of the Ohio River, looking over the stern at downtown Pittsburgh with the Allegheny River flowing under the bridge at left, and the Monongahela under the bridge at the right.
The following winter, I launched the sneakbox on the Allegheny River on the outskirts of Pittsburgh. Over the following two-and-a-half months and 2,400 miles I rowed downriver to New Orleans and then sailed and rowed the Intracoastal Waterway to Florida. I had some miserable times and some frightening moments, but the cruising was certainly less dangerous and more romantic than boatbuilding by candlelight.
This issue goes out with special thanks to Delaney Brown, who was instrumental in producing the past two years of Small Boats Magazine.
Paul Gartside’s design #221 for a 17′ outboard runabout came about in 2016 when he had an inquiry from a resident of Victoria, British Columbia. The brief was for a 1950s/1960s-style boat with a pair of seats behind a protective windscreen, with room for gear or extra passengers aft, and to use in the Gulf Islands, an archipelago in the inland sea between Vancouver Island and the British Columbia mainland. Paul says that this style of boat “has been standard since the first boom in outboard power in the 1920s, perhaps even earlier, and it’s still hard to beat. It’s fun, comfortable, and sociable—a lot like driving a car.” Knowing that the Gulf Islands area has “some of the most benign boating conditions salt water has to offer” but with “strong tides and wind chops from time to time,” Paul gave the boat’s planing surface a few degrees of deadrise to counter pounding. “In a small boat with the crew’s center of gravity at times high, we can’t give it much, but every little bit helps at speed,” he said. The original brief was for glued-plywood clinker (lapstrake) construction, but Paul also advocates clenched clinker, cold-molding or strip-planking, the latter being, he thinks, “probably the most practical option for most home builders.”
When Tim Odling enrolled in the 40-week Boat Building, Maintenance and Support course at the Boat Building Academy at Lyme Regis, UK, in October 2021, he would have liked to have built a sailing boat with a fixed keel, but the academy’s workshop was unable to accommodate such a boat. So, he decided to build Paul Gartside’s #221 with strip-planked construction, not least because clenched clinker, plywood/cold-molding, and glued-carvel construction were being used for the other three boats the students were building, and it is BBA policy to expose the students to a variety of methods.
All photos by Nigel Sharp
The windshield included in the drawings hadn’t been built in time for the launching. The drawings also show a folding dodger that offers occupants of the two forward seats additional protection from spray and rain.
After the lines were lofted, the eight temporary molds were set upside down on a base frame. The iroko keelson (“hog” here in the U.K.) and inner stem (or apron) were both then let into recesses in the molds. The keelson was in one piece—4-1/2″ wide × 3/4″ maximum thickness—and the inner stem was laminated from 22 pieces of 3/32″-thick veneer with a maximum width of 2-1/2″. Also let into recesses in the molds were the iroko deck shelves around the sheer, each of them 3″ × 3/4″ and set up at the correct angle to establish the deck camber. The transom frame, laminated from three layers of 1/4″ plywood, was then set up with the apron and deck shelves notched into it.
The plans call for the transom frame to just go round the transom perimeter, but it was decided to include additional components on the centerline and across the top for extra strength. The radiused transom was laminated from three layers of 3/8″ plywood. Although it wasn’t specified by Paul, it was decided to vacuum-bag these laminations to maximize gluing pressure. The transom was then fixed to the transom frame after the apron and deck shelves had been trimmed to length, so their ends were sealed by the transom itself. A 1-1/4″ iroko knee was fitted between the transom and keelson.
The outboard well has drains to keep water that might wash aboard from accumulating. The aft end of the deck hints at the curved transom beneath it.
The planking selected for the hull was 5/8″-thick × 1-7/16″ yellow cedar with convex and concave edge profiles. The students followed Paul’s recommended starting point for the first plank, from about halfway up the topsides at the transom to then intersect the sheer at the forward-most mold. However, as they continued the planking process—edge-gluing the planks with polyurethane glue and temporarily screwing each one to each mold—they found that they had to shape the forward 3′ or so of about half a dozen planks to avoid excessive edge-bending. None of the planks had to be steamed. The temporary screws were then removed, their holes filled with epoxy filler, and the outside of the hull was faired.
The smooth hull of this runabout was achieved with strip-built construction. The drawings also show an option for a glued-plywood lapstrake hull.
The plans call for 6-oz ’glass cloth on the inside and outside of the hull, but this was doubled up on the outside for extra robustness, in conjunction with Gurit Ampreg epoxy. After the hull was faired with Nautix Blue epoxy filler, the keel, made up of six laminations of 1″ iroko and then tapered and profile-shaped according to the plans, and the outer stem, 22 layers of 3/32″ thick iroko, were then glued and screwed to the centerline. The topsides were painted with Nautix HPE high-build primer, Hempel’s light primer, and then Epifanes two-part Polyurethane Steel Blue topcoat. Coppercoat was applied to the bottom.
The hull was then turned the right way up while removing and partly dismantling the molds at the same time. The interior of the hull was sheathed with 6-oz ’glass and epoxy.
With the runabout at full speed, its turning radius is about three boat lengths.
The original design of this boat called for a 20- to 30-hp outboard motor. Tim ordered a 30-hp Tohatsu in plenty of time, or so he thought, but partway through the construction process he discovered that his engine had been held up and was going to be delivered too late for the launching of the boat. Some urgent research revealed that local company Rob Perry Marine had a Honda 50-hp four-stroke engine in stock. Tim got in touch with Paul Gartside for advice, and Paul said that it would be acceptable to use this bigger engine provided the forward end of the cockpit and the two forward seats were moved forward so that the weight of the driver (and another crew member, when there was one aboard) would counteract the additional weight of the engine. Tim moved these elements forward 8″. Paul also suggested that the transom should be made up of three layers of ply rather than the two specified on the plans.
The runabout was designed to be powered by a 25- to 30-hp outboard, but this version of it accommodated a larger and heavier 50-hp outboard by moving the two seats farther forward to help achieve proper trim.
The shift to accommodate the larger engine involved a slight modification to the floors. Eight of these, set throughout the cockpit area, are made from 1-1/2″-thick solid timber. The plans specify fir; Tim used iroko. These eight floors serve as bearers for the 3/4″ iroko cockpit sole boards. Under the foredeck there are three more floors; the aft two are laminated and the forward one is solid with a half-lapped joint. The aft laminated floor was moved forward from the designed position to maintain the required legroom for the driver and passenger. It has a fillet of timber on its aft face to support the ends of the sole’s three middle boards.
In the foredeck area, the thickness of the deck shelf was doubled up on the underside to allow notching-in of the six 1-3/4″ × 3/4″ full-width deckbeams. Tim again used iroko in lieu of the fir specified. Around the side decks, the deck shelf was extended inboard and was supported by two knees each side. A layer of 1/4″ plywood was then laid over the deck shelf and deckbeams, and on top of that were laid sapele for the covering boards and kingplank and 1/4″ iroko for fore-and-aft iroko deck planks.
A 1-1/4″ × 3/4″ iroko rubrail was fitted around the sheer and a 6″ × 3/4″ iroko cockpit coaming was set to rise slightly higher above the deck forward than aft. The helm console fascia was made from sapele, as were the two forward seats and the seating around the aft part of the cockpit.
There was a bit of a swell running in Lyme Bay on the Boat Building Academy Launch Day. Despite that, the boat managed 21 knots with three of us on board. While accelerating, the trim is a little too bow-up, reducing visibility from the helm, but at full speed the runabout almost leveled up. Tim is contemplating fitting a fuel tank under the foredeck to help to address this issue. There was a bit of spray at slow speeds but at 10 knots or more this was hardly noticeable despite the absence of the windscreen, which was to be fitted later. The turning circle was about three boat-lengths at full speed, while at 5 knots the boat turned in its own length. At tick-over rpm in the calmness of Lyme Harbour, it did about 2 knots.
Even though Tim wanted to build a sailing boat, he is looking forward to using his runabout “with the convenience of just being able to turn the engine on and without the hassle of all the rigging.” He plans to use the boat for fishing, swimming, “and just lying at anchor with friends on a bright sunny day. It is a fun boat that I can use for more than just going full throttle because I would get bored of that. I want to be able to do different things.”
And he is delighted with the result of his and his fellow students’ labors. “Before we built it, I don’t think we really realized how beautiful it would be,” he said. “But now I can see it has beautiful lines—the way the bow really flares up and the tumblehome at the stern. It just has this wonderful shape. I fell in love with this boat as soon as we built the hull.”
Nigel Sharp is a lifelong sailor and a freelance marine writer and photographer. He spent 35 years working in the UK boat building and repair industry and has logged thousands of miles in boats big and small, from dinghies to schooners.
Mike Webb, the Victoria, B.C., resident for whom Paul Gartside drew Design #221, sent photographs of his lapstrake version of the runabout, HAVEN. He made the windshield a bit higher to improve visibility forward, the better to avoid the logs that drift in his cruising grounds.
Mike Webb photographs
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We have 15 small boats and certainly didn’t need another one, but in talking with Maynard Bray, WoodenBoat’s Technical Editor, about the best options for small boats that families could build together as well as for introducing our granddaughter to boats, he said, “You should build her a Nutshell Pram.” That planted the idea in our heads, and we bought the plans, to look them over. When we got bored this past winter, we decided to build the little Nutshell. We’re very happy that we did.
The Nutshell was designed in 1983 by naval architect Joel White. “This little packet,” he wrote, “grew out of a discussion with Jon Wilson and Maynard Bray over the winter about why so many designs for plywood boats are complicated, unattractive, and unsuccessful.” He emerged from the conversation with Maynard and Jon, WoodenBoat’s founder, to design a good-looking pram that would be easy to build with 8′ plywood sheets, consisting of only 27 parts for the rowboat version. Joel built the first of the prams, and almost four decades later Maynard still has the prototype and Jon’s family still has the first production model.
Although kits are available, we chose to build our Nutshell from scratch using the plans and Maynard’s 1987 book, Building the Nutshell Pram, as our guide. Its 32 pages guide the builder through the steps of putting the pram together as well as rigging information for the sailboat model and sailing tips. The Nutshell’s glued lapstrake construction offers tremendous strength to the hull and ease of construction, and the traditional pram shape brings out the attribute of workboat utility.
The pram is 7′ 7″ long and 4′ wide, making it small and portable. It was designed as a tender, one that would row, tow, scull, and sail. And at 90 lbs it is light enough to haul up on a mothership’s deck where it would take up very little space.
Photo by Audrey and Kent Lewis
The belaying pins on the forward thwart serve to belay the halyard. While they may seem more sentimental than practical, when properly used they can be pulled in an instant to drop the sail. And unlike cleats screwed in place, they can be removed to clear the thwart for rowing. For builders who don’t have a lathe, they’re available for purchase. The function of the long pintle on the transom is explained in the text.
Photo by Audrey and Kent Lewis
For rowing, the daggerboard, rudder, and tiller fit neatly behind the aft thwart. The lug sail can be rolled up around the spars and laid in the boat; the 8′ 3″ mast will extend past the transom.
The 28″-wide flat bottom and hard chine provide reassuring stability when stepping into and out of the Nutshell. A pair of 6′ oars are a good fit at both rowing stations, with no overlap of the handles. I’m 5′ 8″ and have plenty of knee clearance on both the ’midship and forward seat. The oars tuck off to the side inside the hull when sailing. The oars can also be stowed over the gunwales port and starboard, each pair in oarlocks at the two rowing stations. Rowing the pram is a pleasure; it responds immediately to the slightest flick of an oar and easily spins in its own length, handy when maneuvering around docks and moorings. The hull draws just 5″, useful for getting into puddles of water where no other boats dare to go. The keel, with its integral skeg, keeps the pram tracking straight, and with minimal effort it will carry a boat length or two for each stroke. The Nutshell handles a steep chop well, and the high sides keep it dry. When rowed into a fresh breeze, the boat’s short length and light weight require minimal effort to control.
Photo by Audrey and Kent Lewis
With a single occupant aboard, the Nutshell sits with the bow transom clear of the water without a lot of overhang shortening the hull’s waterline.
A sculling notch is placed top center of the transom. We are not experienced scullers, but for 40 years Maynard has used his Nutshell to get to and from his boat in a crowded mooring and sculls it almost exclusively.
Sailing the Nutshell is delightful! The daggerboard trunk is offset to starboard; this preserves the uninterrupted length of the keel, which makes it easier to pull the Nutshell onto a dock or a deck. The 37-sq-ft balanced lugsail is set on the lightest mast you’ll ever step, laced to the yard, and set loose-footed on a tiny boom. It is exceptionally easy to rig: one sheet and one halyard, with the halyard secured to a cute belaying pin. The boat draws 1′ 9″ with the daggerboard down and points about as high as you’d expect a balanced lug to point, which is not especially high, but sails well through all other points of sail. Jibes are easy to control, and the tiny boom isn’t likely to do too much damage to the noggin of a skipper who fails to duck. The Nutshell is well suited for junior sailors, yet it has room for two adults to sail comfortably. The pram can be sailed from the aft or middle seat, or the bilge, and when sitting in the bilge the sides of the boat provide comfortable backrests—almost too comfortable if one wants to stay awake. The plans include a way to make the middle thwart removable to free up space for the solo sailor to move closer to the daggerboard trunk to balance the boat fore and aft, although we found it fun to sit a bit aft to raise the bow and spin the pram around in pirouettes on its stern.
Photo by Audrey and Kent Lewis
The Nutshell comes with an option for a removable center thwart. Here is has been removed from its position aft of the daggerboard trunk to give the sailor more room. Sitting on the bottom of the boat puts the boat in proper trim and gives the tiller its full range of motion.
Joel gave the Nutshell a shape that rides well under tow; the angled bow transom and the V sections of the garboards below it ride over waves easily, and the full-length keel keeps it towing straight. The painter is led through a hole in the bow transom and secured to the laminated fore keel. For towing the sailboat version of the pram, the daggerboard trunk must be plugged to prevent water from spouting through it and swamping the pram. Maynard’s book shows a short board to fill the trunk and a gasketed cap to seal the opening; a pin keeps it in place with the gasket pressed tight.
The rudder hardware has a single long pintle supported by two flanges. The gudgeon set low on the rudderstock is split to engage the long middle section of the pintle when the rudder is held horizontally, then capture it when the rudder is rotated upright. When the rudder slides down on the pintle, the top gudgeon can slip over the short top extension of the pintle. This arrangement allows the rudder to be easily installed while reaching over the stern of a bobbing boat. If the bottom of the rudder hits an obstacle or bottoms out during beaching, the rudder can rise along the pintle and, if the top gudgeon comes free, a tether will ensure that the rudder is not lost overboard. When the sailing rig is dropped for rowing, the daggerboard, rudder, and tiller stow nicely in the gap between the transom and the aft thwart.
Photo by Audrey and Kent Lewis
This Nutshell’s sail has a row of reef points, described in Maynard Bray’s book as “a prudent step.” He also advises “Hold the sheet; don’t belay it. Being able to instantly let it go in a puff will avoid a capsize.”
The uncluttered interior simplifies cleaning, varnishing, and painting. There are not a lot of nooks and crannies to conceal dirt and water. However, the space under the mast partner needs to be peeked at and kept clean and dry when in storage.
The Nutshell takes up little storage space and it is extremely portable. We keep ours on a dolly and use our utility trailer to haul it to beaches with ramps so we can access skinny water. Cartopping is also a practical option that offers up additional launch sites that can’t accommodate trailers. The 7′ 7″ × 4′ footprint will fit in the bed of a standard pickup truck, even one with the short bed popular today.
The Nutshell Pram has classic looks, is small, simple, and affordable, provides refreshing relief from the complexity of larger boats, and does the job for which it was designed exceedingly well. We join Maynard in believing that the Nutshell Pram is Mr. White’s best design. Thousands of Nutshells were built during the first decade of the design being offered. “Can’t beat ’em,” Maynard says.
Kent and Audrey Lewis named their Nutshell EXCUSE ME; the pram will seek prizes in the waters of Hampton Roads. Its build log and adventures are found at Small Boat Restoration. They wish to thank to Maynard Bray and Eric Dow for sharing their extensive knowledge of the history, care, and feeding of the Nutshell Pram.
Ben Fuller
Ben Fuller
Marti Wolfe
Marti Wolfe
John Williams
