The microBootlegger is an elegant, cedar-strip boat that is a joy to paddle and draws compliments every time I take it out. Designed by Nick Schade of Guillemot Kayaks for use on small lakes or sheltered bays, it was inspired by a 1924 mahogany speedboat named BABY BOOTLEGGER as well as by Henry Rushton’s double-paddle canoes. Nick calls it a “roomy, efficient tandem kayak,” but I usually propel it with a single-bladed canoe paddle. Most people who ask me about the boat are equally confused as to whether it’s a kayak or canoe, and I use both terms for it.
Building the microBootlegger was my initial foray into boatbuilding, and the choice of this design was as much due to its stunning classic styling and aesthetics as to the fact that it can accommodate a second paddler and/or a small child or two to share the paddling experience.
The slightly raked forward bow and stern stems accented in quilted maple against the dark cedar, along with the contrasting maple waterline strip, give this canoe hints of the early 1920s mahogany speedboats. People have asked if the canoe is old and have remarked that it looks like a Chris-Craft or “the Rolls-Royce of canoes”—nice reinforcement for a first-time builder, and a compliment to the creativity and style of Nick’s design.
Adam Eckhardt
The rounded transition between the hull and deck, known as a rolled sheer, is a feature created in 1924 by George Crouch when he developed the Baby Bootlegger, a speedboat powered by a 220-hp aircraft engine.
The canoe is built using standard cedar-strip construction, a process which is covered well in numerous books and other resources. I purchased Nick Schade’s book, The Strip-Built Sea Kayak, which walks a builder through every step of the cedar-strip process from building the strongback to finishing touches. He also includes a great chapter on hull design and performance, and how to choose the right boat for your needs.
There are several ways to begin building your microBootlegger. You can purchase plans directly from Guillemot Kayaks or contact Chesapeake Light Craft to choose from numerous options, from plans only to complete kits with everything you need including materials for seats, foot braces, and hardware. I chose one step up from plans only and opted to get the CNC-cut forms, which saved me quite a bit of time and ensured accurate shaping.
I recalled seeing pictures of a version Nick Schade built himself out of mahogany strips and wanted a similar look for my boat. To get as close to that mahogany runabout look as possible, I decided to select my own lumber locally rather than order pre-milled strips. I already owned a tablesaw and router, so milling the strips involved only a minor incremental investment in bead-and-cove router bits. While CLC offers pre-milled bead-and-cove strips in light, medium, and dark shades (and you can specify your color preference), I also wanted to use sequential strips—especially on the deck for the most uniform color and grain.
The microBootlegger is a simple build as it does not have any particularly tight curves more common on performance kayaks. That said, as an absolute beginner in the strip-built process, there was one feature that I struggled with—the rear deck-to-side section, which is supposed to have a somewhat sharp transition similar to a hard chine.
As I laid the strips in this area, I was confused about how to manage that sharp transition, and ended up rounding-over the corners of the forms a bit so the strips could actually twist around from deck to side. If I had bothered to think just a bit more about this, contact Nick, or even post a question or two on a forum, I could certainly have accomplished this feature according to the original design.
In the end, my boat is more rounded in this area which looks just fine to my eye. Since I built my boat, Nick has posted a series of videos of an entire microBootlegger build on YouTube, detailing every step.
Builders of cedar-strip boats have many opportunities for customizing them, from artful selection of alternating color strips or grain patterns to actual art in the form of inlay or marquetry. What drew me to this design was its classic form and uniform mahogany color, and I didn’t want to deviate too much from that, but I did want to include some accent on the fore and aft decks. I settled on contrasting maple strips on the decks—understated, but something to give the otherwise blank bow and stern decks some visual structure.
This being my first build and my first time using fiberglass and epoxy, my boat, at 49 lbs, ended up probably heavier than what more experienced builders could achieve. I had turned on a space heater in my basement before applying fiberglass and epoxy to the inside hull. Rising temperature results in expanding air, causing bubbles to form between the wood and the fiberglass skin as the epoxy hardens. While not a structural concern, it was unsightly, and I had to spend extra time sanding and filling.
The bow and stern have quilted maple stems, which are a large part of the visual appeal. I used maple edge banding in the coaming buildup for some accent stripes. I also made two other modifications. First was to add some holes in the bow and stern that I could use for carry loops and as tie-down points while transporting on a roof rack. I did this by epoxying a maple dowel into an oversize hole, then drilling out a smaller hole leaving a cylinder of maple for reinforcement and wear protection. Second, I thought a flag seemed perfectly appropriate, so I epoxied a block of maple on the underside of the stern deck, drilled a hole, and reinforced it with an oval brass plate. I finished my microBootlegger after logging 177 hours over seven months.
Adam Eckhardt
The nearly plumb bow and stern keep the waterline long, just 2.4″ short of the overall length, to keep the potential top speed high.
The cockpit is quite roomy and can be organized in a variety of ways. Nick Schade’s carved wooden seats are stunning. At the time, I did not have the confidence to attempt something so complex. I’ve made a couple of variations of seating since launching but have settled on a carved minicell foam seat in the rear, with foam insulation on the back coaming to provide back support, and a caned seat with collapsible backrest for the front paddler or when paddling solo. It rests directly on the bottom of the boat with leather patches at the four corners to eliminate scratching and noise. This seat can be easily installed and slid forward or aft as needed to distribute weight for various conditions.
I have not yet installed foot braces. I was apprehensive about drilling holes or gluing mounts inside of the hull without knowing where I would want them, and I’ve just grown accustomed to paddling without them. The cockpit is so roomy, I can raise one or both knees and sit almost cross-legged. The ability to adjust position like this makes longer paddles more comfortable.
Adam Eckhardt
While the cockpit is designed for two, a solo paddler can move a seat and backrest just aft of center to achieve proper trim.
Flotation is provided by removable, press-fit, 3″ minicell foam bulkheads reinforced with plywood on both sides. They are not glued in, as suggested in The Strip-Built Sea Kayak. I put them in place, then pound them in with my fist. The fit is airtight, so much so that I had to add tiny air relief holes near the top to allow me to seat them. Without these, the increased air pressure would push them out like a piston. I’ve tested the bulkheads by intentionally flooding the kayak, and they remained in place and kept both the bow and stern nearly dry except for a few teaspoons of water. Making the bulkheads removable allows for greater gear storage options. If I spent more time paddling offshore in open water, I might consider gluing them in with sealant.
Adam Eckhardt
The aft bulkhead is made of minicell foam shaped to seal the stern compartment with a press fit. The wood face provides extra rigidity and the two handles easy removal of the bulkhead for access.
After having paddled this boat for 12 years, I can honestly say that its performance is wonderful and exactly meets Nick’s goal of “a roomy, efficient tandem kayak for cruising a lake or exploring a bay.” At first, I struggled a bit with tracking, and thought that I would want to add a rudder or skeg. However, after having built and paddled some more traditionally shaped canoes, I see that the microBootlegger’s tracking/maneuverability is right in the sweet spot.
Being just over 17′ long and having a nearly full-length waterline, it tracks strongly compared to my more traditional canoes, yet not so much that it is overly difficult to turn. Most of the time I paddle solo and have become quite adept at maneuvering. The only time I struggle is when there are stronger winds. At 17′, and with that large vertical bow, it can be a challenge to keep microBootlegger going straight when the wind picks up. However, it does indeed handle waves very well. I’ve had it on four of the Great Lakes, in the Detroit River as well as the Gulf of Mexico where waves have come completely over the bow and very little water made it into the cockpit.
While it doesn’t have the initial stability of a recreational canoe, it balances initial and secondary stability well. When inexperienced paddlers use this canoe, I generally help them with entry and exit, but once they’re under way they feel stable and safe. My caned seat supports the paddler right about at the surface of the water.
I usually paddle with a group of friends who use recreational kayaks 10′ to 14′ long. My boat has a significant advantage in efficiency, but they struggle much less than I do in keeping on course in wind. Another factor may be that, although my boat is a tandem with a design displacement of 459 lbs, I always paddle it lightly loaded, with only about 190 lbs onboard.
If I were to take the microBootlegger on extended cruises, I would want to add a rudder or retractable skeg. However, for the paddling I do I am entirely happy with the tracking built into the microBootlegger design without adding the extra weight and complexity of a skeg or rudder.
Another unexpected benefit of the microBootlegger design, specifically its voluminous bow and stern compartments and the large open cockpit, is that it serves marvelously as a cartop cargo carrier for camping gear. I carry it right-side up on the roof rack and made a cover for it to protect cargo from rain, wind, and sun. I carry lighter-weight items in it—sleeping bags and pads—as well as the usual paddling gear, a huge benefit since I have a small car.
Jason Eckhardt
The cockpit provides enough room between paddlers to keep them out of each other’s way.
Lifting the microBootlegger to the roof rack is not too difficult with my shorter vehicle’s roof height, and I regularly load and unload it myself. It would likely require two people to put it on a larger SUV.
The microBootlegger is a fantastic boat for a first-time builder, as well as a superb performer appropriate for novice as well as more experienced paddlers looking for a comfortable cruising canoe with loads of capacity. If you will likely paddle solo and/or lightly loaded most of the time, and don’t want the tandem capability, the Solo or Sport versions might be better options for you to consider. Regardless of which microBootlegger you choose, you’ll enjoy the roomy comfort, easy paddling, and the compliments on its beauty and style every time you take it out.
Adam Eckhardt of Flatrock, Michigan, has been a maker of things all his life. He has built a Yostwerks Sea Pup and three Cape Falcon 66 canoes, which he reviewed in the December 2021 issue.
In the last half of the 20th century, the southern New England coast and shores of Long Island were peppered with sturdy and simple workboats known as Brockway Skiffs. Designed and built by Earl Brockway of Old Saybrook, Connecticut, these budget-friendly plywood-and-lumber skiffs were ubiquitous in the region and used by professional watermen and recreational fishermen alike. Flat-bottomed and slab-sided, they were generally built in 14′, 16′, or 18′ lengths, and could be built as either skiffs or scows.
The boats developed a reputation for being able to carry a load, and they spread around the country and as far as Southeast Asia after the U.S. State Department adopted the Brockway design to aid typhoon-ravaged fishing communities. Built with less-expensive lumberyard-quality wood, roofing tar as adhesive, and galvanized nails, Brockways didn’t usually survive more than two decades, but they were easily replaced. With Earl Brockway’s passing in 1996, the boats’ numbers in the the southern New England coast dwindled, but his skiff still retains a strong cachet with backyard boatbuilders and designers alike, including Walter Baron whose refined Lumber Yard Skiff design has strong ancestral ties to the Brockway.
Photographs by Jason Pietrzak
The flat plywood bottom will pound in a chop. Placing the fuel tank forward minimizes the impact by keeping the bow down and minimizing the surface area presented to the waves.
Several years ago, I wanted to have a small, utilitarian, cheap outboard boat that was tied to New England tradition. I was on a strict budget but needed something stable and safe. A coworker showed me pictures of his Earl Brockway–built 14′ scow, and as I originally hail from the lower Connecticut River valley not far from Old Saybrook, the Brockway 14 was immediately a beguiling option. Timothy Visel, an educator and self-appointed Brockway historian, has developed plans for the Brockway 14 Skiff and posted them online. Visel took the lines off a conserved Brockway 14 in 2002. Much like the boat, the plans are straightforward and written with the novice boatbuilder in mind.
This type of boat construction allows the builder to get as fancy or simple as desired. The plywood can be A-C, marine fir, or marine plywood. Clear construction lumber is used for chines, frames, and gunwales. There is also a choice of adhesives and fastenings. I used meranti plywood, fir lumber, and a mix of PL Premium polyurethane construction adhesive for less critical joints and marine epoxy at the stem, chines, transom, and bottom joints. Sikaflex 291 would be another good choice in keeping with the spirit of a budget-built boat without compromising structural integrity. Depending on how long one wants the boat to survive, anything from galvanized nails to deck screws to stainless fastenings (as I chose) can be used. Traditional roofing tar can be employed to seal the joints, but superior modern glues, with only a marginal increase in cost, will improve the strength, watertightness, and life of the boat.
There are no difficult bevels or curves to be plotted during the construction. Straight lines are drawn directly onto two sheets of 1/2″ plywood for the sides, and the shape and rocker of the boat come naturally through the bending of the sides during construction. The start of the build is a fir 4×4 shaped into a stem with two dead-simple bevels. The two side panels, cut and joined with 1/2″-plywood butt straps, are attached to the stem and then bent around a single mold—made of 2×6s—that is temporarily placed amidships. The biggest struggle is attaching the sides of the boat to the 1-1/2″ thick transom, which is laminated from two 3/4″ plywood sheets. A Spanish windlass, explained in the plans, along with a second pair of hands perhaps, surmounts this obstacle.
The skiff is not designed to get on plane. The bottom is rockered from stem to stern rather than straight over the aft half of the hull as it would be for a planning boat.
Chine logs, made from 1×4 lumber, and floor timbers are installed next into the upside-down hull. The floor timbers butt and join the separate pieces of the bottom plywood, so no scarfing is necessary between bottom panels. A 2×4″ is specified as the floor timber, but I used some 4×4s I had on hand. Limber holes allow the water to drain the length of the boat. The 3/4″ plywood bottom is laid on the upside-down hull, fastened, glued, and trimmed. A keel for abrasion resistance is added along the centerline of the boat, usually made out of a 2×4 or 2×6, on the flat. I used an unfinished oak 2×4 and bonded it to the bottom with PL Premium and galvanized nails.
The boat is then turned over for fitting-out the interior. The 14′ version is light and well-mannered enough to be handled and turned over by one strong person with no special rigging necessary, while two people make this process supremely easy. Thwarts are then installed on 1×4 cleats, which tie the vessel together. Again, I used a mix of scrap 2×6s and okoume plywood that I had in my garage for the thwarts, but anything robust enough can be used, such as the stair tread that the plans recommend. The plans describe a center support post for each thwart, but I found the 2×6s to be plenty stiff and did not install posts. Flotation is strongly encouraged by Visel for safety. With the ample freeboard, there is room for high thwarts with stacks of foam underneath.
Because I built my Brockway with meranti marine plywood and epoxy, painted it with enamel Rust-Oleum, and keep it on a trailer, I decided against fiberglassing the exterior of the boat. One could certainly ’glass the boat, but it is not necessary and adds time ,expense, and weight to the project. It took me four weeks to build the boat from start to finish, working around my job. I spent approximately $600 on new materials and used leftover lumber and materials from past projects for the rest, and bought a used 6-hp two-stroke outboard for another $600. I estimate the Brockway 14 weighs somewhere around 350 lbs, and two people can carry the newly finished boat from shop to trailer. It’ll tow with ease behind any car and launching and retrieving it at the boat ramp are a breeze, taking just minutes.
The 4×4 post is not in the plans but the addition provides the skipper with something to hold on to while standing up. A tiller extension makes it possible to occupy a position close to the center of the boat and prevent the stern from squatting excessively.
When I first launched the 14, I was worried that it was going to be too tender—the bow seemed to me far too narrow. To my great pleasure, when I pushed it off the beach and jumped in over the stem, the boat barely knelt to acknowledge my presence. For a 14-footer, it has been rock solid and dependable from the first moments on the water.
The Brockway 14 is a straight-up workboat without any recreational pedigree. It is designed to carry fishermen and fish and whatever else needs hauling. It was not designed for high-speed running. Underway at displacement speeds, the Brockway 14 plows ahead, leaving a displacement-style wake that I take care to mitigate in anchorages and sensitive shoreline zones. When the speed increases, its shortfalls are easy to pick out. The easily drawn, long, straight plywood sides translate into an entire hull that is rockered. There is no flat run aft, as many such skiffs now have after design refinements, such as Baron’s Lumber Yard Skiff. Because of this, motor trim and weight distribution are crucial to keep the bow down as speed increases. If there is any sea while underway at speed, the boat will want to point to the sky as it stands on the rockered stern, and the bottom will start slamming. I have placed my fuel tank under the forward thwart to add weight in the bow. A passenger on the forward thwart with the skipper directly behind the center thwart offers the best balance for quiet handling characteristics.
When solo, I steer from a standing position just aft of the center thwart, using a tiller extension and a “chicken post”—an upright 4×4 that I use to steady myself while underway. The chicken post is a modification I made and is not reflected in the Visel plans. I can get the skiff going quite well from this position and, in calm water, can steer by shifting my weight.
Steering can be achieved by shifting weight to the inside of the turn.
Operated at sedate speeds in rough water, the workboat heritage comes to the fore and the Brockway offers a stable ride, shouldering the waves to the side and plunging forward with confidence. Slow isn’t a bad way to travel. While at full throttle, and with a person on the forward thwart, my skiff can achieve about 10 knots and leave a relatively quiet wake, but it’s hard on the motor to operate at red-line for long periods of time, and I usually cruise at a sedate 6 knots or half-throttle on my 6-hp two-stroke. We make excellent time over distance in a straight line compared to rowing and sailing, with the added pleasure of enjoying the sights along the way that are often missed at higher speeds.
With a 6-hp outboard, the Brockway can hit around 10 knots.
My wife and I spent three foggy days cruising some of the Maine Island Trail in our Brockway, TURKEY DINNER. With plenty of room for coolers and gear, the boat offered comfortable and economic cruising with all the extra amenities for beachside camping. We motored approximately 36 sea miles running at a leisurely 6 knots and consumed only 3.5 gallons of gas over the course of the trip. The skippers of lobsterboats waved as we passed, probably in recognition of the Brockway’s workboat sensibilities. The maximum rated horsepower for the boat is 25, but this would not necessarily lead to any speed benefits as the boat’s bottom was not designed to go high-speed running. I imagine a 9.9- or 12-hp motor would be an ideal intersection between speed and economy. The boat would ride relatively flat with a well-placed passenger up forward and would cruise at 10 knots without having to max out the throttle.
The Brockway 14 Skiff is not the prettiest boat I have owned nor the best performing, but it takes much hard handling and outdoor unprotected storage without complaint. Between the simple systems, steady feel, and absolute ease of use, I find it becoming my daily choice for fun, stress-less motorboating. The Brockway Skiff looks right at home in any shoreline waterway and is a practical option for an economical and approachable powerboat.
Christophe Matson lives in New Hampshire. At a very young age he disobeyed his father and rowed the neighbor’s Dyer Dhow across the Connecticut River to the strange new lands on the other side. Ever since he has been hooked on the idea that a small boat offers the most freedom. His previous Boat Profiles include the Atlantic 17 Dory and the TAAL SUP board.
Brockway Skiff Particulars
[table]
Length/14′
Beam/60.5″
Maximum Power/15-hp outboard
Passenger capacity/500 lbs
Passenger with cargo capacity/620 lbs
[/table]
The book How to Build the Brockway Skiff, by Timothy C. Visel, is available online from The Sound School, Regional Vocational Aquaculture Center, of New Haven Connecticut.
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A gentle but steady southeast breeze blew across Padre Island’s paved lot at Bird Island Basin and down the three-vehicle-wide ramp, sending ripples out into the wide Laguna Madre toward two tiny humps of islands on the horizon. The sun was already high above wispy veils of cirrus clouds and a scattering of cottony cumulus. On the upwind side of the 200-yard-long paved parking lot, a field thick with waist-high olive and khaki grass waved atop rumples of sand the color of unbleached canvas. A dozen or so pickups with empty trailers, along with my SUV and ARR & ARR’s trailer, sat clustered in parking spaces near the ramp, the rest of the 100-plus spaces in the lot empty, not unexpected on a November Monday morning.
On the northern of the two docks flanking the ramp, ARR & ARR, a Ross Lillistone-designed Flint I’d built, tugged at her bow and stern lines. I ducked under the swinging lugsail’s boom. One skipper gunned his flats boat up onto a half-submerged trailer; a pontoon boat with no bimini sat tied to the opposite dock, its skipper leaning on deeply tanned forearms on its rail, also watching the ramp; and an open skiff approached at an idle. I let the breeze push the bow downwind and fill the lugsail. I ducked a gentle jibe and steered past the idling skiff, following the ripples out toward the islands and, between them, two distant markers, a tiny red triangle and a green square, each atop its own piling maybe a mile out, showing the channel to the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW).
With ARR & ARR making good headway toward the markers, I wiped the sweat from my face and put my wide-brimmed straw hat on. I had hoped to launch earlier, while the air was still cool and plenty of daylight remained for the 15 or so miles to Yarborough Pass, my destination for the evening, but I had slept in and taken my time rigging the boat, double- and triple-checking that I had all my camping and safety gear aboard. The Texas coast between Corpus Christi and Port Mansfield is mostly uninhabited and has spotty cell service at best.
Roger Siebert
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Padre Island is commonly thought of as a condo-lined beach crowded with swimsuit-clad, sunburned college students binge-drinking their way through spring break. That part of the island makes up only the southernmost 5 or so miles of what is—at 130 miles long—the longest barrier island in the world. The greater part of the island, divided into North and South Padre islands by Port Mansfield Channel—which was cut in 1962 by the Army Corps of Engineers—is an undeveloped, pristine expanse of beach, dunes, grassland and mudflats, with 70 miles of the northern island’s length managed by the National Park Service as a National Seashore and 30 or so miles of the island’s south end designated as a national wildlife refuge.
Laguna Madre runs the entire length of Padre Island and separates it from the mainland. Separated from the Gulf except at the island’s ends and at Port Mansfield Channel, Laguna Madre has an average depth of less than 3′, little rain, and scorching summers.
After only 20 minutes of sailing from Bird Island Basin, I reached the first of the islands and the ICW, where I jibed to a port tack and veered upwind until sailing southwest on a beam reach under full sail, paralleling the island’s bayside shoreline. With a mile’s fetch, the waves were built to 1′ high, which gave ARR & ARR a pleasing motion and sent the occasional whoosh of spray from her bow.
Opposite Padre Island and two to three times as distant to leeward, the mainland Texas coast was a tiny blotted line on the horizon. I checked forward and aft for powerboats and barges, expecting traffic given that Corpus Christi was falling aft just over the horizon, but I was alone.
Half an hour later, I passed the number 85 marker, pushed the daggerboard all the way down, and headed due south, leaving the ICW on a closehaul obliquely back toward the island. The chart showed deeper water, with 3′ to 4′ almost all the way to shore. I wanted to spend as much time as possible out of the ICW away from any potential barge traffic and exploring the undredged parts of Laguna Madre.
Working to windward, ARR & ARR had a sharper motion and tossed puffs of salty mist across my face. I had to occasionally sit on the rail but rarely hiked out. It was wonderful sailing and lasted a full hour before I was back in the shelter of the island, where the wind was calmer and the water’s surface only ripples.
I paralleled the shoreline until in the lee of a stretch of barn-sized, mostly bare dunes. I dropped sail, set anchor, and rested in the warm midday sun enjoying an apple and drinking nearly a liter of water. Out on the horizon, in the ICW, was the tiny silhouette of a towboat pushing two barges one in front of the other.
With the lazy water, a satisfied stomach, and the warm sunlight, I wanted to nap, but there wasn’t time, though I made a point to remember the spot as a potential one for experimenting with sleeping aboard on my second night, on the return trip.
I raised anchor, dunked it a few times to wash a helmet-sized mass of mud and seagrass from its flukes, and set it into its plastic tote in the forward part of the cockpit. I paralleled the shoreline again until near Dagger Hill, where the chart showed the water too shallow for a daggerboard, so I fell off on a broad reach back toward the ICW. The wind was steady and ARR & ARR’s heeling so slight that I lay in the sternsheets with an arm draped across the tiller and my feet propped on the far gunwale.
An hour later and back in the ICW, I approached the 4-mile-wide entrance of Baffin Bay. On my laminated NOAA booklet chart, in the broad unsounded waters near Padre Island across from the bay, a note reads, “Many uncharted rocks exist in Laguna Madre.” These rocks are of two types, those from reefs created by serpulid tube-building worms, unique to Baffin Bay along the Texas coast, and beach rocks of concreted shell, sand, and clay. The serpulid rocks range from 300 to 3,000 years old. Some living serpulid worms still hold on in Baffin Bay but they are no longer widespread or thriving. The beach rocks are 20,000 to 30,000 years old and formed before Padre Island existed, when the Texas coast was where the beach rocks now sit.
All photos by the author
Fishing cabins sit atop spoil islands along the Intracoastal Waterway just north of the entrance of Baffin Bay. Although the cabins were built and are maintained by private citizens they sit on public land and are therefore officially the property of the state, which limits their numbers and issues renewable five-year permits for recreational use only.
With 5 to 10 miles of fetch in several directions, Baffin Bay can be difficult for small boats. I was grateful to be skirting its mouth when there were only moderate waves. Another hour and a half later, with the mouth of Baffin Bay astern and the late afternoon sun painting a shimmering sheen on the water’s surface ahead, I neared the ICW’s number 9 marker, where the chart showed a small cut through the spoil islands and into about a 4-mile stretch of deeper water that ran between and paralleled them and Padre Island. The chart also showed the area peppered with submerged rocks.
At the marker, I tacked and sailed closehauled on the starboard tack due east out of the ICW through a 50′ gap between a jagged dinghy-sized gray rock jutting 1′ above the water and a low 50′-wide island with a short length of corrugated-metal seawall on its northern end. Once through the cut, my plan was to tack again and closehaul on the port tack for about 2 miles, to take advantage of that stretch of deeper water before taking the starboard tack again for the remaining mile to the campground. Just after getting through the cut, though, I heard two knocks like a shovel striking stone. ARR & ARR had hit rock. She hadn’t shuddered or slowed, so the impacts seemed minor, but they were disconcerting: ARR & ARR’s hull is 1/4″ plywood with a single layer of 6-oz ’glass cloth.
The tides for my trip weren’t supposed to fluctuate more than a few inches, and the water would always be at least 6″ above mean lower low water, so ARR & ARR, with only 6″ draft, should clear anything not marked on the chart—without the daggerboard down. Yarborough Pass was upwind, though, so if I were going to sail there, I needed the board down and would draw 2′ to 3′.
Having taken two scrapes so soon after leaving the ICW, and not wanting to slam into a rock at hull speed, I decided instead to row the 2 miles to the campground directly upwind, allowing me to reduce my draft to the 6″ margin the tide provided. Rowing 2 miles in a straight line at 3 knots, instead of sailing 3 miles in a zig and a zag at 5 or 6 knots, wouldn’t delay my landing by any appreciable amount. I should still make landfall by sunset.
I replaced my daggerboard with the slot’s rowing plug, lowered the sail, and bent to the oars. ARR & ARR’s deep-V forefoot made it easy to maintain headway into the waves, and with a hull designed for rowing, she tracked and moved well with little effort even in the moderate headwind.
According to the chart, the campground was 2 miles dead upwind. From that distance, though, the entire island was a low stretch of subdued tans and greens; nothing discernible yet to indicate a campground. After only 20 minutes, I made out the silhouettes of four two-legged shade shelters jutting up from the island like giant half-driven staples. While still nearly a mile from the campground, my oar blades struck bottom. Ten minutes later they did so again. The parts of the bottom I struck varied from sand to mud and seagrass, not rocks, but it became clear that even if I had tried to sail to the campground, I would likely still have had to row the final mile or so.
Once within a couple hundred yards of shore, I saw an inlet on the campground’s south side. I aimed for that and, after crossing half of the remaining distance, could see that it was a slough bordered with low briny land and punctuated with equally low islets, their greenery likely saltwort and glasswort, with larger islets sporting waist-high grass in their interiors. Beyond the briny slough’s shoreline, Padre Island was a vast mix of mostly hay-colored waist- to shoulder-high grass whipping in the southeast wind. Here and there in the distance a bushy mesquite rose in a short pale green dome above the grass.
Only a stone’s throw from shore, ARR & ARR slipped over a field of seagrass just beneath the water’s surface. I stepped out of the boat into what I expected to be shin-deep water, but my feet plunged into mud beneath the grass, and I was suddenly in water up my knees. I tied a line to the foredeck cleat, slung the bitter end over my shoulder, and trudged through the mud toward shore. Black muck roiled to the surface with each step and stank like an aquarium that hadn’t been cleaned in a year.
After a half-dozen steps, my right leg plunged knee-deep into the mud, which put the water at my waist. I assumed it was only a hole and pushed on, but two steps later, my right leg plunged in again. Then my left did. And my right again. The mud was deep everywhere between me and the shore and was thick, black, and hothouse warm, surprisingly warmer than the water.
I pulled the slack out of the line, pulled the boat close for support, and plowed forward. I probably should have switched from oars to push-pole instead of getting out of the boat, but moving to the sternsheets to pole would have raised the bow in the headwind, meaning either fighting to keep the bow pointed upwind or time spent rebalancing the boat’s load while drifting back offshore. Walking the boat had seemed the better choice.
I stumbled twice, and my PFD checked my fall, but the black muck oozed inside it and my shirt. By the time I reached more solid footing 10′ from shore, mud covered me from the neck down. I stood in shin-deep water clouded black from my trudge. Still holding the bow line, I scooped up the opaque water and rinsed off the mud packed on my skin and my clothes and in my pockets.
The shore had a rough seawall, two massive weathered gray logs crudely laid one atop the other horizontally across the shoreline, separating the low muddy beach on the bay side from hard-packed sand, pebbles, and shell 2′ higher on the campground side.
I kicked at the logs to rile up any hidden snakes and peered into the recesses—I had almost stepped on rattlesnakes twice before on trips—and once I was satisfied it was safe, I shoved the bow line through one of the many gaps between the logs and tied it off. I also set my claw anchor on the campground side of the logs, its 15′ of chain reaching all the way to the boat.
Yarborough Pass was dredged between the bay and the Gulf in 1941 and had to be repeatedly dredged until the effort to keep it open was abandoned. By 1950, it was left to fill itself in. The pass is now occupied by a mile-and-a-half stretch of unimproved road running from the Gulf beach to the bayside slough and campsite. The road was currently closed, and no cars driving the beach on the Gulf side could get to the campsite. It was a Monday evening during the school year, so I wasn’t surprised that I was alone.
The campground was a rough circle 100′ across, with four crudely constructed pergola shade shelters spaced around its perimeter, one sagging in disrepair. At the water’s edge on the south end of the site, short pilings crowned by succulent saltwort supported a wall of vertical planks so weathered they had gaps I could have put my fist through.
Along the campground’s north side, the dirt, gravel and shell road snaked off into the expanse of grass and stunted mesquite. Close in and surrounding the campground was a band of shorter grasses, intermixed with knee-high stalks topped with grape-sized puffs of pastel blue-violet mistflower still in bloom, yellow beach daisy mostly gone to flaxen tufts of bristly seeds and, tucked down within, prickly pear and ankle-high meanderings of dark green saltgrass.
Etched into the campground’s crusty, sun-cracked surface were tracks from wide, knobby tires and some large cloven-hoofed animal, perhaps a large deer or a feral hog. I didn’t relish the possibility of hogs rooting through my camp overnight. I tried using my phone to figure out the difference between their tracks, but there was no signal.
After I had pulled everything I thought I’d need for the night from the boat and set it next to the closest shelter in the campground, I stripped off my quick-drying hiking clothes and neoprene booties and thoroughly scrubbed myself with body wipes, hoping to get rid of the black mud’s stench and keep any scrapes I might have accumulated throughout the day from getting infected.
Halfway through my sponge bath, I glanced across the field of grass-colored marigold in the light of the setting sun and spotted, only 100′ feet away, a mature whitetail buck, stock still in the frenzied grass. The buck was hidden from the shoulders down, but his muscular neck and a massive symmetrical cage of antlers were clear and imposing. His eyes, huge and black, were staring straight at me. His fur was cast in gold by the sunset light but for the shock of white on his throat. I turned away for a moment and when I looked back, he was gone. The brief visit put my mind at ease about feral hogs making the tracks I’d seen.
In dry camp clothes and shoes, I hung my wet clothes on a length of paracord tied between a pair of nails driven into the shelter’s legs. The evening breeze whipped the clothes almost horizontal, snapping them like gale warning flags. While the remaining evening light faded, I pitched my bug-net bivy 10′ from the shelter, using my boathook and pig stick as tent poles and set the bivy’s ultralight tarp in a taut A-frame above. The bivy was new for me, less roomy than my usual tent, but with its small footprint and an entry at its head end, I would be able to pitch it on the boat, a way I thought could expand my camping options.
I dug a fire pit on the upwind side of the campground so any sparks that took flight would have the entire length of the hard-packed surface to burn themselves out, well before reaching the grass on the campground’s downwind side.
The wind made it difficult to light the fire, even with the excavated dirt piled on the pit’s windward side. Only a few strikes of the lighter’s wheel managed to produce a flame, and those whipped and vanished like will-o’-the-wisps, none lasting long enough to start the fatwood. I pulled out my emergency fire starter—cotton balls worked through with petroleum jelly—and got flames almost instantly.
After changing into dry camp clothes at the Yarborough Pass campground, I relaxed next to a fire. The pit I dug not only sheltered the flames from strong winds but also made it easy to bury the ashes afterward to leave a minimal trace. Driftwood on the bay sides of Texas barrier islands is scarce so I carry my own firewood from the mainland in a 1-1/2-cubic-foot plastic bin with lid. When the bin is empty, I use it to carry out my trash and a fair bit of refuse left by previous campers.
After I got a few larger pieces of wood burning, I took a meandering route back to the bivy, soaking up the night sounds and letting my eyes adjust to the dark. Ducks grunted in the wetlands, and waves plashed against the seawall. Stars were visible overhead in an arching band from east to the west, but the rest were washed out by the glow from Corpus Christi in the north and Port Mansfield to the south. Venus, however, hung bright and steady in the southwest sky and cast a dancing, dappled reflection on the bay.
My firelight dinner was two pieces of flatbread and a can of chowder, served cold. I preferred not cooking, given the heat of the day, the mildness of the night, and the warmth of the fire. The wind kept mosquitoes at bay and carried the briny and mucky scent of the island’s wetlands.
Once the last of the firewood had burned down to glimmering red coals, I drenched it with saltwater. It hissed and steamed as I walked the perimeter of the campground. The lights of a jet blinked overhead; far to the west, faint green channel marker lights winked out every few seconds; and even more faintly but stretched across the bulk of the western horizon, wind turbine warning lights blinked in an unsynchronized mass like fireflies over a midsummer meadow. Orion had risen in the east, and Venus had shifted to red-orange and tucked among the wind turbines’ lights, betrayed only by its steady glow. My headlamp reflected a scattering of pinhead points of light just inside the edges of the grass bordering the campground, bright and cool like dewdrops in early-morning sunlight; they were wolf spiders’ eyes, deceptively beautiful.
After I checked the boat, I crawled inside the bivy for the night. The tarp thrummed in the wind, beating against the bug netting only a foot above my face, and my clothes on the paracord outside whipped and snapped. Despite all the noise, I fell asleep quickly.
Just before sunrise at the Yarborough Pass campground, a crescent moon hangs high above islands in the slough toward the east-southeast, past the silhouette of a shade shelter and the seawall’s pilings.
I awoke at 5:30. The tarp and clothes were still and the only sound was the whine of one or two mosquitoes between the net and the tarp. It was dark. I rose even though, aching to get out of the confines of the bivy to stretch the stiffness from my joints. There was a breeze but much too weak to move the tarp or the clothes. A sliver of a crescent moon hung in the sky to the southeast and lay a wavering band of light across the still water of the slough. A trail of fresh cloven-hoof tracks lay stamped in the crusty ground, some pressed into my footprints from the evening before; the trail came within 5′ of my bivy.
My new shelter is a mesh bivy with a tapered silnylon tarp. A big-box-store plastic tarp protects the bivy’s bottom from shells and gravel. My hiking clothes hang still in the morning air; I always carry clothespins to prevent breezes from carrying them away.
I buried the ashes of the fire with the dirt I dug for the pit. I made coffee over my backpacker’s stove and sipped it while eating granola and milk in a baggie. The eastern sky finally grew light, cobalt at first, then through cerulean and gold to persimmon. The rising sun fueled the breeze and my hanging clothes swung again. I broke camp with the rising sun and the building breeze, changed back into my hiking clothes, and loaded the boat. The weather channels on my VHF were silent. I adjusted the squelch, but the speaker jumped directly from silence to steady static, no hint at a voice. My phone had no cell signal, so I couldn’t get a weather forecast there, either.
Beyond ARR & ARR, the road at Yarborough Pass snakes off another 100 yards and ends at Laguna Madre. With the boat’s yard, boom, and sail lashed together, the halyard, topping lift, and sheet position the mass out of the way while rowing and for secure storage overnight.
Seacoast bluestem and other grasses swayed in the early morning light. Wind turbines filled the horizon on the mainland two to three miles northwest of Yarborough Pass. The white pelicans, with their distinctive black wingtips, arrive not long after Labor Day to winter along the Texas coast.
I shoved off and climbed aboard, hurrying into position with the oars. The wind blew strong enough by then to threaten to push me onto the mud shallows that ran out from the point between Laguna Madre and me. I rowed around the shallows without grounding and, once in the 1′ to 2′ of water, let the wind push me from the island. I took my time stowing the oars and raising sail. The run back to the ICW was comfortable. The apparent wind was easy, and with the board up, Baffin Bay’s rocks didn’t pose a risk. I reentered the ICW by the same route I had left it, through the little cut between the jutting gray rock and the islet with its corrugated-metal seawall.
Again, the waves along the mouth of Baffin Bay were unexpectedly timid. The wind came in sporadic breezes between calms, the blows too enduring to call gusts but too brief to build anything more than dark flashes of ripples, and in between the water smoothed itself into what seemed like a leaden film. The result was lazing about when there was no wind and fine sailing when there was, leaving a gurgling wake swirling well aft.
I kept an eye on what I suspected was sapping the wind into its lulls. To the southeast, beyond Padre Island and well out over the Gulf, spotty but thick billowy cumulus clouds had built over the previous hour and cast canted gray veils of rain beneath them. None of the clouds had grown into anvil-topped cumulonimbus, though it was early yet. The ominous sky did not match the forecast I had seen on my phone the previous morning. I checked the phone, but still there was no signal.
To the north, at the far side of Baffin Bay’s mouth, the ICW makes a slight eastward turn behind a chain of six spoil islands to starboard. Atop the islands sit fishing shacks, each with a weathered pier, some little more than a row of pilings across the shallows.
Most of the markers along the ICW in Laguna Madre are simple green squares or red triangles atop pilings. Every other marker or so, such as the one pictured here, is topped with a flashing or occulting light. The structure in the distance is a large fishing cabin, its spoil island still not yet visible beyond the horizon.
Over the handheld VHF clipped to my PFD, a deep gravelly voice said, “Come on around. I’m sitting still with a broken rudder.” Another equally gravelly voice replied with a few syllables I couldn’t make out. The two must have been towboat skippers. No smaller boat would need that sort of coordination. The transmissions had been strong, and the ICW was empty astern, so I assumed the towboats and barges were somewhere around the bend ahead.
The ICW along this part of the coast is barely wide enough for one barge to pass another on a straightaway. They need more room when coming around a turn, even one as slight as that. I prefer to be out of the way and on a steady, predictable course by the time towboats with barges or other vessels with limited maneuverability draw near.
The chart showed no soundings between the spoil islands to starboard, which meant the water there was skinny indeed. To port, the chart showed only 1′ to 2′ of water and more rocks. In the fluky air, I doubted my ability to remain safely hugging the channel’s side, especially if in the barge’s wind shadow. I would be at risk of drifting either into the barge or into the shallows and rocks downwind of it. In either situation, I didn’t want to have to scramble to switch from sail to oars.
The easiest solution was to get out of the channel before the towboat and its barges reached me and wait for them to pass. I would need to switch to oars for part of the maneuver whether when leaving the channel for the skinny water between the spoil islands to windward or returning to the channel from the rocky shallows to leeward. I chose the former, guessing that the shallows between the spoil islands were sand or mud instead of rocks and wanting to get the more difficult part of the maneuver out of the way first and simply sail back to the channel afterward on a run with the daggerboard up.
Having a plan bolstered my confidence, so I sailed on, passing one spoil island then another before the barge emerged around the northernmost of the six islands. At the next gap between islands, I dropped sail, lashed it with the boom and yard, used the halyard to raise the bundle out of the way above my head, and rowed into the gap. To the south, the three green-square-topped channel markers lining the ICW from where I had come closed in on one another until they lined up like soldiers in formation—I was at the edge of the channel—then they eased apart again, but on their opposite sides, and I was in the clear.
Once I felt I was far enough out of the channel, I slowed my rowing to maintain my position against the sporadic southeast wind and kept an eye on the lay of the markers to ensure I didn’t drift back into the channel.
To the northeast of the entrance to Baffin Bay, a towboat pushed two barges lashed one in front of the other. A typical 195′ × 35′ barge can carry 1,750 tons of cargo, a load that would otherwise require 70 tractor trailers and four times the fuel.
The towboat pushed its barges past without incident. I stowed the oars, raised sail, returned to the channel on a run, and headed up and on my way.
After I rounded the turn, I passed what I assumed was the towboat with the broken rudder sitting immobile with two tandem barges.
Shortly after leaving them behind, I heard over the VHF, “Sécurité, sécurité, sécurité.” The Coast Guard station in Corpus Christi advised all stations to switch to channel 22A, where they broadcast a weather advisory to expect the wind to back overnight along with an increased chance for rain. The original forecast was for the weather to turn the following day, which was why I had cut my originally planned three-night trip to only two, but if it were now forecast to turn overnight, I needed to be off the water by nightfall.
A norther was the last thing I wanted to confront on the bay side of Padre Island. With a fetch of 5 to 10 miles down Laguna Madre, the wind could rile up breakers over the mile-long shallows and slam them relentlessly into the island’s bayside shore. The spotty line of gray-bottomed clouds on the southeast horizon had yet to build anvil tops or get any nearer to me, and their rain had petered out. They could have been just ordinary Gulf clouds, with the front yet to arrive from the north.
Given the Coast Guard’s advisory, though, my prospects for continuing with my cruise and a night sleeping aboard seemed slim. There was nowhere between Yarborough Pass and the takeout at Bird Island Basin to pitch a tent ashore without breaking national park rules, and there was no excuse for ignoring the Coast Guard’s weather advisory.
I kept sailing toward Bird Island Basin, checking my phone for a signal as I went. I’d decide what to do when I got a detailed forecast. After passing the edge of the shoals stretching out from Dagger Hill, I retraced my outbound route and close-reached in the southeast wind back toward Padre Island. Once a quarter mile from shore, I sailed on a beam reach paralleling the shoreline hoping to find anything protected from the north where I could drop anchor, check for a cell signal, get an updated forecast, and potentially stay for the night, but I found neither protection nor cell signal.
I passed the spot where I had stopped for lunch the day before. The shoreline made only a slight indent there, not enough of a niche to consider a cove and exposed to winds from every direction except for within a couple of points of southeast. I sailed on, but instead of continuing to follow my inbound track by falling off back toward the ICW’s 85 marker, I decided to hug Padre toward Bird Island Basin, still hoping to find a bit of protection in the shoreline. At the very least, I would reach the campground about a half-mile south of the boat ramp and could possibly pull ashore or anchor there. And even if I couldn’t, I’d heard about a cut I could take through the shallows to the boat ramp instead of having to backtrack first to the ICW. Finding the cut might also take some time, but I preferred exploring new ground, and the sun was still high.
A half-hour later, with no promising spots materializing, I saw the distant cluster of boxy white campers and RVs at the Bird Island Basin campground.
Although Laguna Madre is shallow it’s rarely clear, and local sailors sometimes joke about their centerboards or daggerboards doubling as depth sounders. My daggerboard dragged ARR & ARR to a halt several times while I sailed outside the dredged ICW channel. The clouds hanging over the Gulf beyond Padre Island had appeared menacing by midmorning but, as seen here, had abated by early afternoon into just plain old puffs of cumulus.
A single sail glided across the water from the cluster of campers toward the spoil islands, which lie 1/2 mile from Padre, and my mood brightened. The vessel’s skipper might know the way through the shallows to the ramp. Then the sail cut sharply 180 degrees back toward the campers, and I recognized the tight, winglike shape and the efficient undulating motion of a windsurfer, and not a promise of a path through the shallows to the ramp.
I closed in on the campground and spotted a cordon of buoys marked “No Boats.” Three-quarters of the way around the arc of buoys toward the ramp, ARR & ARR dragged to a halt in a mass of seagrass. I lowered sail, cinched the docklines to the foredeck and quarter cleats, hung the fenders back in place, pushed off the seagrass with an oar, and rowed toward the ramp.
The seagrass grew in thick, roundabout-sized masses, and occasionally I had to push off with an oar again. I took my time at it, though, with the sun still high and a reluctance for the trip to end. It had been too brief a trip to the Gulf, but prudent to depart while its gentler side still showed.
Roger Siebert is an editor in Austin, Texas. He rows and sails on local lakes and trailers to the Texas coast when he can.
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.
We’ve carried tools onboard our boats for potential repairs while underway and in the tow vehicle for any work needed on our trailers. Over the years, the tools have migrated from a Tupperware container to a small tackle box, and we were looking for a better solution when we happened across the Waxed Canvas Tool Roll from Readywares Supply Company. We have consolidated our boat and trailer tools in the tool roll and are quite happy with the light weight and space-saving results.
The tool roll is made of 20-oz waxed canvas, a time-proven material that holds up well in the marine environment (and that also served me well in the U.S. Marine Corps environment for 20 years). Waxed canvas has been in use by sailors since the early 19th century as a substitute for oilcloth and is highly water resistant and exceptionally durable. Audrey, with five decades of experience working with fabric, notes that the stitching on the roll is robust and the construction methods are excellent. The 18 tool pockets are well sized and spaced for tools of medium to small size. At one end of the roll is a pocket for small items; its YKK brass zipper will hold up longer than those made of most other metals and is much less likely to jam because of corrosion. There are cotton webbing straps on the outside to secure the rolled-up bundle; the straps have elastic keepers to keep their tail ends snug against the roll. We really like the plastic side-release buckles because they provide a secure closure that is easier to manage with wet hands than Velcro strips or cloth ties.
Photographs by the authors
The 18 pockets vary in size and are staggered to keep long tools on one side from overlapping with tools on the other side. The black strap down the middle helps keep the longest tools in line. The zippered pocket holds the small items.
The tool roll measures 26″ × 14-1/2″ when laid out flat; filled with our selection of tools, it rolls up to a compact diameter of 3 1/2″ and weighs 3.4 lbs. The size and shape of the roll allows storage in many spaces where our small plastic toolbox would not fit. The waxed canvas can be laid in the boat without the risk of scratching the boat’s finish, and the cloth handle is comfortable to hold. Waxed canvas can be cleaned with a damp cloth and set out to air-dry, while the tools benefit from a light coating of mineral oil to retard rust.
Straps and buckles hold the roll closed. The long tail ends are kept from hanging loose by bands, here on the back side of the roll.
We filled our roll’s pockets with items that we have found useful over several decades of boating and trailering: nylon zip ties, a tire-pressure gauge, cotter keys, keeper rings, clevis pins, a small bit of stranded wire, band-aids, multi-bit screwdriver, flashlight, 12-volt tester, brass wire brush, electrical tape, needle-nose pliers, and wire cutter. The roll also carries a small crescent wrench, small Vise-Grips, a razor-blade utility knife, and three metric box wrenches that fit nuts and machine bolts on our three onboard motors. To round out the kit we carry a few car and boat electrical fuses in common sizes, a hacksaw blade, propeller shear pins, and nylon gloves. And who could go anywhere without a red cotton rag? It all fits in a durable tool roll that’s handy to use and compact to stow in car and boat.
Audrey and Kent Lewis mess about in the Tidewater Region of Virginia with their small armada of canoe, kayaks, sail and power boats. Their adventures are logged at their blog, Small Boat Restorations.
The Waxed Canvas Tool Roll is offered by Readywares for $29.99. Currently out of stock, they will be available mid-June.
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’ve been impressed by the Silky line of tools. Made in Japan, they have good steel and hold sharp edges. After discovering and using the Silky Nata, a traditional type of Japanese hatchet, I was curious to see how the same materials performed in Silky’s Ono, a Western-style hatchet.
The Ono weighs a hefty 1 lb 11 oz and has an overall length of 12″ and a blade length of 4-5/8″. Its full-length tang has the same removable and replaceable rubber hand grip as the Nata, and the 7/32″-thick SKS-51 steel is ground to a 20-degree double bevel, also just like the Nata. A chrome plating resists rust.
The Ono’s case is made of heavy-duty nylon fabric and its interior is lined with plastic sheets to resist damage from the blade. In its case, the hatchet can be hung from the aligned holes in the case and blade. A hole in the end of the handle is provided for a lanyard
Photographs by the author
A little stropping of the factory edge made it sharp enough to cut cleanly into the edge of a piece of paper.
Although the Ono came with a sharp edge from the factory, I gave the blade a quick stropping. With that finishing touch, the Ono could cut cleanly into the edge of a piece of paper. In the woods, I found a fallen branch from a maple tree. The wood was well dried and quite hard, but the Ono cut though a 1″-thick section of the branch, set on a log, with one blow; a 1-1/2″-thick branch took two blows. I sawed a length from the 3″-thick end of another branch, set it on end on a log, and easily split it into kindling.
The Ono’s heft and sharp blade give it good chopping power.
The rubber handle has an oval cross section and a textured surface for good grip. It is just soft enough to absorb the shock of impacts. For such a short hatchet, the Ono’s well-balanced mass of steel packs a good wallop. The blade is especially long for its overall length, making it easier to hit the target. I never overshot the wood and struck the handle of the hatchet, and even if I were to, there’d be none of the damage that would be inflicted on a hatchet with a wooden handle.
The Ono’s weight provides plenty of power for chopping and spitting.
Using the Ono as a carving tool, I easily shaped a small piece of western red cedar into the tip of a paddle blade, chopping first to rough out the shape and then using the hatchet as a chisel of sorts to smooth the surface.
The sheath for the Ono has a webbing loop on the back side for hanging, handle up, from a waist belt.
Most hatchets have a poll or butt on the back end of the head that can be used as a hammer. The back of the Ono is only the thickness of the steel and while it’s narrow, I’ve used a hammer for as long as I can remember, and my aim is pretty good—I didn’t have any trouble hitting nails on their heads. For improvised tent stakes, I chopped a quick point on a stick, then rotated the Ono handle 90 degrees to use the side of the blade to drive the stake. I felt that was safer than having the sharp blade coming toward my face in between blows.
I like the configuration of the Ono—a small hatchet with a big blade—and found it as able a cutting tool as the other Silky tools I’ve bought.
Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats Magazine.
The Silky Ono is available from Silky for $119. Online outdoor recreation sites also carry it at the list price.
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 love rowing, but I’m not so enamored with it that I don’t think of raising a sail when I feel a breeze coming over the transom. While my Whitehall has a spritsail and a rudder, I don’t carry all that gear when I’m out rowing.
Two years ago, I spent an afternoon with the Whitehall, and on the way home a following breeze piped up. I couldn’t ignore it and tried sailing with my cagoule as a sail, one oar as a mast, and the other oar as a rudder. The hood of the cagoule fit over the blade of the oar and, with its draw cord cinched up, it stayed put. A couple of lines tied to the hem served as sheets. The boat briefly surged forward whenever the cagoule caught a puff of wind, but as a sail it wasn’t stable in the wind, and I struggled to keep it open and pulling. I needed a proper sail. I’ve had great success with a squaresail with my other larger boats, but it requires two spars. I decided I needed a spinnaker. It would work with an oar as a mast, and the head of the sail would just need a bag to secure it to an oar blade.
I found a pattern for a simple “M-Class Balloon or Parachute spinnaker” in an article first published in Model Yachting Monthly in June 1945. The pattern just needed to be scaled up for the Whitehall, so I lengthened the pattern from 48″ to 80″ and made it slightly more slender. The instructions in the 1945 article noted: “Make in 3 segments or in 4 if desired.” I planned for four and settled on five segments.
Photographs by the author
The pattern for the model sailboat was for panels 48″ tall and a little over 11″ wide for three or four panels across. For my 14′ Whitehall, I scaled the length up by a factor of 1-2/3 to 80″ and the width by 1-1/4 to 13-1/2″, a proportionally narrower panel for a spinnaker four or five panels across.
I used 4-mil plastic sheeting to make a prototype and drew the pattern on top of sheeting later twice folded over on itself to make four layers.
I assembled the four panels with Gorilla tape to see how the spinnaker would look. I later decided that I could add a fifth panel for more sail area and still have the sail set well.
The cloth, whether the spinnaker cloth I used or ripstop nylon, needs to be heat-cut to keep the edges from fraying. A wooden template will serve as a guide for the hot knife. I didn’t have any plywood to use for it, so I cobbled together some 3/8″ boards.
A piece of 3/4″ plywood served as a work surface for cutting the fabric. A pencil soldering iron with a small ball point works well as a hot knife. Mine is a Weller 25-watt iron, sold in a woodburning kit (WSB25WB) with 10 different tips. It has enough heat to cut the lightweight fabric and seal the edges without excessive melting.
With the cloth clamped tight on a plywood work surface, the template is set on top for hot-knife cutting.
After making the first cut, I moved the template over 1/2″ to provide a seam allowance (I traced along the template with a chalk pencil to mark the allowance). A couple of weights helped to keep the template from shifting while the heat cutting was being done.
After the panels are taped together, a batten sprung along the foot of the sail provided a guide for cutting a smooth arc.
After I had taken this photograph, I decided on a fifth panel, inserted it in the middle, and faired its bottom end in with the curve of the foot. With the foot cut, the spinnaker is ready for sewing.
The panels are sewn together with double-stick tape and two rows of zigzag stitching. The edges are covered with folded 1-1/2″ fabric tape. If rolls of the spinnaker cloth or rip-stop nylon like the one here aren’t readily available, you can heat-cut strips from the fabric leftover after cutting the spinnaker panels
Each of the three corners of the sail get sewn-on patches before the edge tape is applied. Webbing creates loops for attachment points.
To prevent the bag from being pulled off by the spinnaker, it is cinched tight around the base of the blade and its draw cord gets tied tightly at the oar’s throat.
The bag that fits the oar blade also serves for stowing the spinnaker: the head of the sail is sewn into the bottom of the bag. A loop of webbing provides an attachment point for the spinnaker when used with other masts.
I also sewed a bag for the straight-bladed oars I made for my dory. A webbing loop at the top is fitted with a spring hook that clips into the loop at the head of the spinnaker. The long loops of webbing at the bottom were initially for shrouds (a failed experiment). Smaller loops would be fine for attachment points for a line tied around the throat of the oar to keep the bag in place.
With an oar in the mast partners, the spinnaker sets nicely and provides enjoyable downwind runs.
A second oar serves as a rudder. I added an oarlock, set to starboard on the transom, for the purpose. A line tethers the oar to the boat to keep it from going astray if it slips from the lock. With my weight in the stern and the spinnaker pulling at the bow, the boat tracks well without needing any steering, so the oar can trail with the back of the blade skimming on the water. I rotated the blade to face the side I wasn’t to steer to when I needed to change course.
The spinnaker has also been a pleasure to use on the tandem canoe with the bow paddler holding a painter’s telescoping extension pole as a mast and the stern paddler in charge of the sheets.
If the boat you row isn’t rigged to sail, a forward thwart just needs a hole to serve as mast partners and floorboards can have a hole or a step screwed in place to secure the oar handle. Alternatively, the forward thwart can have a hole as a step for the oar handle and a partner can bridge the gunwales. If you assign a crew member to mast duty, a backstay will take the pull of the spinnaker.
The next time you’re out rowing and a friendly following breeze pipes up, think of how pleasant it would be to put the oars to use as a mast and a rudder, take a comfortable seat in the stern, and leave the labor to the wind.
Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats Monthly.
You can share your tips and tricks of the trade with other Small Boats Magazine readers by sending us an email.
Joe Lanni’s first-build, 3’S A CROWD, appeared here as the Reader Built Boat for our September 2020 issue. She’s a three-piece plywood sectional, built to plans that provided the option to forgo curves. That simple construction appealed to Joe as a novice boatbuilder, but a boat constructed with straight lines, angular corners, and flat surfaces might not be regarded as a first step into the boatbuilding arts. “It was,” writes Joe, “like making three wood boxes that connect.”
There are three good reasons for a boat to be, instead of boxy straight lines and angles, a composition of curves flowing one into another: even a quick glance at any creature evolved to move quickly through water makes it obvious that smooth curves don’t impede its flow; the curves of a hull, like the arch in stone and steel architecture, have more strength than straight lines; and curves are simply more beautiful.
Photographs by and courtesy of Joe Lanni
With Joe’s first boat, there were valid practical reasons for building it with the sheerline made of straight segments, but one’s eye cannot follow it without coming to a stop at the angles created.
For his second boat, Joe was interested in another easily built plywood boat, this time a kayak or double-paddle canoe around 11′ long and light enough to be easily cartopped. He liked the look of Wee Lassie canoes but wasn’t ready to take on the traditional cedar-on-oak lapstrake construction. His online search led him to the Wacky Lassie, which designer Fritz Funk describes as “an instant double paddle canoe to be built and used by kids.” Joe finally settled on the Wackless Lassie, David Beede’s take on Fritz’s boat.
David’s website provides a guide to each step in the construction and measured drawings for the plywood pieces and the temporary forms. The 10′9″-long sides, cut from 1/4″ plywood and each butt-blocked from two pieces, are straight and parallel sided. The sides’ straight lines get their curves from the spread and the angle set by the temporary forms. The chine logs, as well as the outwales, are glued on the outside of the side panels. Having the chine logs on the outside makes them easier to bevel to provide a landing for the bottom—just glue them along the edge of the plywood and plane the proud corners flat after the sides are bent around the forms. The bottom gets a keel, glued on the flat, and, after the three forms are removed, two spreaders hold the sides out.
When it came to build an 11′ boat that was too big for the workshop, it was Daddy’s turn to use the swing set.
Joe made his Lassie in his yard using his kids’ swing set as his workshop. The only shelter the boat had from the weather while under construction was a tarp. The project sat idle for weeks at a time during the New Jersey winter.
The finished canoe belies the fact that its sides can be cut in a single pass on a table saw with its fence set 11″ from the blade.
The finished Lassie came in under 40 lbs. For the accommodations, Joe uses a sit-on-top seat/back support with fittings on the rail to hold it upright and in place. He finds the canoe “easy to paddle; it tracks really well and is a joy to use.” It hasn’t yet been christened, but the name he has in mind (another inspired by the passenger capacity) is PARTY OF ONE.
A sit-on-top kayak seat and backrest provide simple but comfortable accommodations.
The curve of the port rail, deepened by this view, invites the eye to swing back and forth like a slow pendulum. Even while the canoe is at rest, it invites motion.
The Wackless Lassie sits nicely in the water with the ends just touching the surface.
With a simple bend around angled forms, Joe transformed the ruler-straight sides of two pieces of plywood into an eye-pleasing sheerline. He has already been musing about building a third and larger boat. On the road he is traveling to become a boatbuilder, there are more curves ahead.
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.
In 1982, inspired by Nathaniel Bishop’s book Voyage of the Paper Canoe, I built a 17′ decked cruising canoe with a laminated paper hull and deck reinforced with a yellow-cedar frame. On August 15, 1983, a paddling partner in a fiberglass kayak and I set out to follow Bishop’s 2,500-mile route from Quebec City to Cedar Key, Florida. Almost all of the route is well protected and only twice did we have to go ashore to wait for safe conditions. There was only one dangerous moment that could have turned out badly. It happened on Love Point on the north end of Kent Island in the middle of Chesapeake Bay. Here’s how I recorded it in my journal:
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Thursday, October 13, 1983
Up before light. Gray skies but calm and good visibility. Saw bald eagle—big. Later two more. Geese, heard before seen, came from a cornfield and alit on the water in our path with 7 or 8 white swans with them. Geese leapfrogged ahead of us. Swans a little bolder. Saw white bird like a heron but half the size. Egret?
Made a couple of stops along a marsh. Found a white terry-cloth visor. Stopped at Gratitude Marina [Rock Hall, Maryland]. Saw horseshoe crabs. A man my age working on boats. He tried to find charts for us but at the end of the season nobody has cruising guides. New revised ones out in spring. Gave us route instructions to Annapolis. Nice guy. Checked at Rock Hall Marina. No Charts. Rain. Got ice-cream sandwich.
Crossed bay at the mouth of the Chester River to Love Point, east side of Kent Island. Hard pull across wind southerly, pushing us sideways. Paddling hard 15° to 20° above landing. Stopped quickly and came north around point, heading south toward bridge. Saw orange sand alluvial cliffs. One block of fallen stuff had sand ripples. Took picture of boat and cliff blocks of sand.
Was shooting another when C shouted, “Your boat!” Looked to see the stern buried in dirt. I had cameras in hands. Took two shots. Looked at boat, then cameras, back and forth. Called C. Gave her cameras and told her to keep off, yell if anything moves. Dug out stern and pulled boat free. Felt bottom. No cracks. Got in, kept weight forward. When C and I paddled back with crippled boat, I looked over to her, grinning and said “Neat!”
Paddled north to a beach in front of a house. Rudder bent and jammed. Put ashore and put boats up on a lawn. C emptied gear and spread it to dry. I started cleaning for repair. Left a note at the house’s front door. Back to boat, turned on radio and immediately heard mention of a thunderstorm warning. Turned on weather radio. Severe thunderstorm warning, heavy winds, and damaging hail, 3 to 10 p.m. Uh-oh.
Back at house, old folks. “We need a garage.” “We don’t have anything like that here, but okay to move boats through our yard.” Found big garage and Steve and his wife Charlie [short for Charlotte]. Lucky to get off open ground before hail storm. Steve drove truck down and loaded my boat. Drove to garage. C wheeled hers up [on her cart]. Steve drove us to hardware store for more fiberglass. Back for dinner.
I had pulled ashore at a recess in the cliff that had enough of a beach to get half of the canoe out of the water. The large roller made it easier to move the heavily laden 17′ canoe than dragging it. The fender was a find from the day before as we paddled south on Chesapeake Bay along Maryland’s Eastern Shore. It proved its worth and we carried it for the remainder of the voyage to Florida’s Gulf Coast.
This block of compressed sand was what drew me ashore. The ripples had been preserved beneath strata of more sand since the Ice Age. While I was taking this picture, I heard a muffled WHUMP.
The 20′ tall scarp looming over the stern of my canoe had collapsed, pushing it off the roller and burying its stern. No more than three minutes earlier, I had been standing at the base of the wall, bent over, setting the stern down. If not for a fortunate bit of timing, I likely would have been buried.
I could see the canoe had been damaged even before I began to dig it out. The coaming had split in two at the center and was the end of a crack that angled aft across the port stern deck. Trying to wrestle the canoe free might have caused more damage, so I dug it out with my hands, keeping an eye on the cliffs looming over me.
The break on the port side of the deck was about 5′ long. The starboard side was fractured along about 3′ of the gunwale. I left the sand that was in the cracks to prevent water from flooding the canoe on the short paddle to the north to a safe beach.
Friday, October 14
Took a long time this a.m. to get packed. Stuff was in such a mess. Charlie fixed us cheese omelets, big, with toast. During breakfast her infant son, 6 months old, in walker, was hypnotized by willows in the wind.
Wheeled C’s boat and gear to small point on west shore of Love Point. Windward shore—blowing 15 to 20, 3′ waves and whitecaps, no beach, no protection.
Went back to Charlie’s then walked C’s boat to the other side of the point, 5-minute walk to oyster-dredge place. Met Larry, Bill, and Jim. Led us to beach on leeward shore. Larry drove us back to Charlie and we loaded my boat and the rest of the gear. Said goodbye to Charlie, hugged adieu. So nice. Larry helped us drop off boats. We loaded up and headed out. Stream full of fish.
I carried fiberglass and epoxy with me to make repairs to the canoe, but I didn’t have enough for the damage the landslide had caused. A Love Point family came to the rescue with a garage to work in and a ride to a marine hardware store for the supplies I needed.
The canoe lasted another 83 days and roughly 1,000 miles with only minor damage and repairs. Here, at Cedar Key, the canoe had fulfilled its purpose.
Looking back on that event, now 39 years ago, I still remember the elation I felt as we paddled away from the landslide. I had read James A. Michener’s novel Chesapeake in preparing for the voyage and knew that islands in the bay inevitably ceded their shorelines to the water. Michener’s fictional Devon Island lost land to the water and eventually disappeared altogether. In the fallen blocks of sand, I could see that had been happening at Love Point, though I assumed that, like many geological processes, I’d never see it in action. These days smartphone video recordings capture almost everything, landslides included, and it’s there for the viewing on YouTube. In 1983, to be present and to experience such an event firsthand was quite rare. It was a stroke of good luck to be at Love Point at just the right time. Much of Love Point’s shore is now protected by revetments of boulders and the sand cliffs have been graded to a gentle slope and covered with grass. The bay and the island have been brought to a stalemate.
I wasn’t at all upset about the damaged canoe. The paper laminate began falling apart even before the voyage had begun and repairs were a constant chore. After the first 500 miles, we stopped in Troy, New York, on the Hudson River and I did an overhaul of the entire hull and put on a new skin of brown paper towels, Handiwipes, and polyester resin. So, fixing the landslide’s damage to the deck was easy. I was pleased the canoe got some impressive scars to carry the Kent Island story.
Without the damage to the canoe, we would have missed the kindness of the residents of Love Point. They welcomed us, sheltered us from a dangerous hailstorm, made it possible to get the supplies the repairs required, gave us a place to sleep, fed us, and sent us on our way as if we were old friends. The landslide was one of the most memorable things that happened on that long voyage. And it led to one of the best.
There is a humble build-it-yourself boat—a one-design, if you will—that is more numerous than any other, and that may be having a more profound impact on the larger world in general than any boatbuilding project of its size should. It is the Six-Hour Canoe, originally conceived and first built by Mike O’Brien in the dark ages, ca. 1977.
Mike looms large in the boating world. He has been sailing since he was seven, rowed eight-oared shells in college, was indomitable in New Jersey surfboat rowing competitions, designed and built numerous boats, served as the senior editor at WoodenBoat magazine for two decades, and self-published Boat Design Quarterly for 28 years. I have heard that he pours yacht white enamel on cedar shavings for breakfast and his hot morning beverage is pine tar. It is most appropriate that the genesis of the Six-Hour Canoe should be Mike.
Among Mike’s devotees would be Richard Butz, William Bartoo, and John Montague. After a pilgrimage from Buffalo State College to the WoodenBoat office in Brooklin, Maine, the three had their epiphany over cups of coffee with Mike and his basic drawing of the little flat-bottomed double-ender that would become the Six-Hour Canoe. When the three college professors trekked back to the boatbuilding wilderness of western New York, together they took the simple design and from it organized, drew up, and drafted Building the Six-Hour Canoe. Published in 1994 by Tiller Publishing and distributed for the past 20-some years by The WoodenBoat Store.
Photographs by the author
The canoe takes shape around a single frame when the sides are bent to meet at the ends. The bottom is initially cut oversize, glued and nailed in place, and then trimmed flush with the sides.
There are several important bits of information to reveal about Butz, Bartoo, and Montague before I get into the glue and shavings. When they set about to create the manual for the canoe, they were not experienced boatbuilders. They all were, and still are, experienced and passionate educators, steeped in arts and crafts. One is a potter with a strong sense of how to get things done; one produces penciled doodles at meetings that are works of art; and one is a craftsman/designer of fine furniture. Montague’s uncluttered illustrations, the clear step-by-step organization by Butz, and the logical assemblage methods by Bartoo make the manual a very model of how such things should be done. To build this canoe as cost-effectively and efficiently as possible, you’ll want to closely follow the manual. With it in your workshop, you will be able to build a fully functional 15′3″ double-ended canoe.
Nowhere in the manual does it say that you should have some familiarity with basic boatbuilding, and that’s because you don’t need it. If you’re on your own and have no prior woodworking experience, the manual gives you enough information in the instructions, lists of materials, and required tools that you can always figure out what to do next. Since you’re not building a fine yacht that will last for decades, it is possible to build this boat with leftovers and tools that might be lying around your shop, garage, or basement.
The students and teachers in the photographs that illustrate the steps of building the boat for this article are all from Buffalo’s St. Mary’s School for the Deaf. They had almost no prior woodworking experience, but you can see how well their boats turned out and what skills they learned as they built the boats.
Sitting in the bottom of the canoe keeps the weight low for the best stability. Some will find a low seat pad and a backrest provide comfortable accommodations.
In the “Designer’s Introduction” for the first edition of the manual, Mike describes throwing the first Six-Hour Canoe together from leftovers. While his leftovers included two perfect sheets of 1/4″ Bruynzeel plywood—known for rot resistance, strength, and beauty—and, I’m sure, some bronze screws, ring nails, and lengths of mahogany, you don’t necessarily need the expensive materials that happened to be lying around in the boatbuilding shop of an experienced boatbuilder. The Six-Hour Canoe can be built of high-quality boatbuilding materials, but it really only requires two sheets of 1/4″ plywood of some sort; some 16′-long, 1″-thick lumber for the ’midship frame, chine logs and outwales/rubrails; short pieces of 2″ stock for the stem- and sternposts; and some fastenings.
While I urge our students to use the best materials for strength, longevity, and beauty, we know of many fully functional Six-Hour Canoes built using underlayment, common hemlock/fir/spruce lumber, and drywall screws. While 1/4″ exterior plywood is a common type found in home shops, marine-grade fir plywood is a step up. Pressure-treated southern yellow pine is rot-resistant and usable for the structural members, as long as it has been allowed to dry thoroughly so that epoxy will stick to it. The boat built with the least-expensive materials will probably not last as long, but it will be a boat that you can use and learn from. Building this first boat will also let you know if you want to spend the time and money to build something that will take you just a little further beyond the basics.
Epoxy is crucial for building a durable Six-Hour Canoe and is one of the few materials you should buy if the leftovers you have in the shop have been sitting for years. Thickened epoxy is a strong gap-filling material for less-than-perfect fits, and unthickened epoxy will toughen up the surface of a doorskin or underlayment panel until it can serve as a durable, waterproof hull. With some fiberglass cloth or tape on the outside of the chine and maybe other places such as the inside and outside of the bottom panel, even the least rot-resistant plywood will hold up for quite a few years of seasonal use once it has been epoxied.
The canoe is designed primarily for solo use by a single paddler sitting amidships. Two kids, seated in the ends, can paddle with single-bladed paddles.
Unlike most wooden boat building, the construction method for the canoe uses no strongback or other setup jig. The method used works perfectly well and saves on additional purchases of lumber. In fact, although your knees and back will complain, with a bit of patience you could build the boat right on the floor (although a pair of light sawhorses is recommended).
The two plywood sheets are butt-blocked together to make a 16′ panel. Sides, bottom, and some gussets are drawn onto the plywood using offsets and then battens to pick up the sheer. The rake of the stems is provided in measurements on the provided plan. The ’midship frame is made of three pieces of 1×2 stock screwed and glued together with gussets cut from leftover 1/4″ plywood; it establishes the sides’ flare, the width of the bottom, and the overall beam. The stem stock for the bow and stern is beveled to meet the sides and bottom, and while the stems are probably the most complex part of the build, Montague’s drawings clearly explain the cutting sequence to follow on the table saw. The stems are glued and screwed to the inner face at the appropriate ends of one topside panel. The ’midship frame is fastened with glue and screws in place between both panels. Then the ends of the panels are brought in and fastened together at the stems, and suddenly you can see that what you are building is in fact a real boat. Chine logs are fitted, glued, and screwed in place. When the glue has set, the chine log and lower edge of the topside panel are planed so that the bottom panel, which is the next to be fitted and fastened, will sit fair and flat, flush with the outside surface of the topside panels. The overhanging edges of the bottom panel are planed flush with the sides. The chine is covered with fiberglass tape set in epoxy. Sand, and then paint with your preferred finish. A good-quality paint with a high pigment content will give a longer-lasting finish, but decent exterior latex house paint can be a functional solution, with spar varnish for accents on the rubrails. Launch and paddle.
The canoe can carry up to 250 lbs and is intended for sheltered waters. “Its real application,” the book notes, “is in quiet ponds or lakes where its shallow draft makes it ideal for exploring.”
Our classroom shop building is within a block of the Niagara River, but we have never launched a Six-Hour Canoe at our local boat ramp: the river flows (in spots) at an estimated 15 miles per hour to Niagara Falls. However, there are countless— maybe thousands of—ponds, lakes, creeks, and smaller rivers nearby that could, most delightfully, be explored in one of these small lightweight paddle boats. The simple double-bladed paddle with plywood blades is perfect for moving the boat along at a canoe-like speed. It tracks well enough that it does not require constant steering. You can sit directly on the bottom of the boat, but there are several better options (including one shown in the manual) for a fairly comfortable seat with backrest that will keep your bottom from going numb too quickly. Some fancied-up Six-Hour Canoes have cloth end decks added that would shed a chop, but the boat really isn’t suited for those kinds of conditions. You can certainly carry enough stuff for a sizable picnic, but I wouldn’t load the boat down with serious camping gear that needed to be paddled for miles.
The canoe is suited for small kids to full-grown adults, and I can’t count the number of totally inexperienced people we have launched successfully into fun excursions in these boats. The Six-Hour Canoe is pretty easy for one person to load onto a car roof rack, as long as you can figure out how to tie it down securely.
The Six-Hour Canoe, in all its simplicity, is a perfect choice for a first boatbuilding project no matter what your age or skill level. We have students doing so in our classes at Buffalo Maritime Center all the time. In the various boatbuilding programs I’ve been involved in, I have partnered with boatbuilding students with every degree of hand-eye coordination to build hundreds of Six-Hour Canoes. Can it be built in six hours? Let me know, please.
The final chapter in Building the Six-Hour Canoe is about community boatbuilding. The educational objectives of the manual have become even more important since the 1990s, when industrial arts programming started to decline all over the U.S.
The Six-Hour Canoe has been popular with educational and community programs. Its quick construction and low cost makes it well suited as an introduction to woodworking and boatbuilding.
In our community boatbuilding programs we use mentors from our volunteer crew at the Buffalo Maritime Center. I believe that people are drawn to wooden boats because they embody an elevated expression of craftsmanship in build, form, and function. Each beautiful well-built wooden boat is tangible proof that a higher standard than one might have dreamed is achievable. When new volunteers arrive, we explain that we are not just building boats, but building successful kids. When our students launch their boats into our local lake, there is no way to describe the feelings welling up inside these kids with this proof that they have done something amazing. They leave our program knowing they have what it takes to make the world a better place.
The number of boats built is justification enough for my elevation of this boat and manual to a special place in the world of boats. The educational experience of using the manual to build a simple boat has provided a life-altering, profound experience to so many people; the Six-Hour Canoe is much more than just a boat.
Roger Allen grew up haunting the boatyards along the Delaware River in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and sailing the shallow bays of the New Jersey shore in sneakboxes, garveys, and Aqua Cats. He was a ship’s carpenter on the 157′ barkentine, GAZELA PRIMEIRO, in Philadelphia and founded the Workshop on the Water for the Philadelphia Maritime Museum in 1979. At the workshop, he offered classes in boatbuilding, mounted nine exhibitions featuring individual vernacular small boats, and acquired boats for the museum’s collection. At the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort he produced similar programs as curator of boatbuilding technology and director of the museum’s Harvey W. Smith Watercraft Center. He moved to Cortez, Florida, to expand his preservation efforts around the village and the traditional lifestyles of its commercial fishermen. For the past 10 years, Roger has lived and worked in Buffalo, first as the Buffalo Maritime Center’s executive director and factotum, now as master boatbuilder of the 73′ replica Erie Canal boat, SENECA CHIEF.
Six-Hour Canoe Particulars
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Length/15′3″
Beam/31.5″
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Building the Six-Hour Canoeis available from The WoodenBoat Store for $15. Other online book retailers also list the book.
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!
When I was a boy growing up on Bayou Lafourche in southeast Louisiana, everyone spoke French and all the men around me were boatsmen. My uncles, cousins, and brother-in-law—all the men closest to me—made their livings with boats. Some of them were shrimp fishers, some oystermen, and still others worked boats in the oilfields. When I was 12, I wanted to go duck hunting, but I didn’t have a boat. One of those men, a shrimper and fur trapper who had built many boats (one as large as 50′), supplied me with his patterns and guidance for a pirogue, a 14′ double-ended flat-bottomed skiff made from a single 14′ sheet of fir marine plywood. In those days we could buy long sheets of marine plywood and beautiful bald cypress at a local lumber yard.
After a few more wooden skiff and steel workboat builds, I decided in retirement to build another wooden boat. I was thinking skiff; at first, a skiff à joug—a Creole skiff made from four cypress planks with a yoke (joug) for forward-facing rowing. I decided that it wouldn’t have much utility today, but I still had that hull shape in my head.
One day while searching the web, I came across a video of a skiff designed by Doug Hylan. He called it a Chesapeake Crab Skiff after boats designed for working in Chesapeake Bay. I thought, wow, what a beautiful little skiff, a working skiff much like those I grew up with. I went directly to his website and discovered that, in addition to that boat, he offered plans for a smaller version called Little Crab. I found it to be even more attractive than the Chesapeake Crab Skiff. Its profile, graced by the elegant sweep of the sheer, was just what I was looking for. I downloaded the study plans, looked them over, and I was sold. It was a gorgeous small skiff that I thought would be satisfying to build and, at the same time, help me recapture some of my skills as a boatbuilder. On top of all that, it could be sailed, something I had not done in many years and dearly missed, and it might even be small enough to cartop.
Thomas Dantin
For sailing or for sleeping aboard the center thwart can be removed and neatly stowed alongside the centerboard trunk.
I ordered the plans, and an impressive set of plans they are: five sheets including a sail plan—with spar dimensions, locations for cleats, and other attachment points—and full-sized drawings of cleats and the boom half-jaw. There are full-sized patterns for the molds, transom, and transom knees. The construction plan is highly detailed with every part numbered to correspond with specifications that give details on recommended wood species and dimensions, as well as the location of all the major fastenings (their sizes and material type are also detailed on the specification sheet). The building-jig drawing is the heart of the bundle and makes this design so easy to build. It includes full-sized templates for both the inner and outer stems, a drawing that lays out how all the molds can be gotten from a single 4×8 sheet of material, and the plank layouts. The plans set offers copious instruction on the construction of the ladder frame and the placement of the molds on it.
My Little Crab is built, for the most part, as specified in Hylan’s plans. Five sheets of 9mm BS1088 meranti plywood provided material for the planking, transom, centerboard, and rudder. All other lumber is sapele, except for the thwart riser, inwale spacer blocks, oars, and spars, which are made of bald cypress. Fastenings are as specified, either store-bought or fabricated myself from rod, bar, and plate.
I had a slight problem with the chines when offering them up to the stem. The curve around mold #1, which would become the forward bulkhead, was too tight to allow the chines to fit the stem properly. My solution was to release the mold and slide back on the ladder frame just enough to fit, glue, and screw the chines to the stem properly, then move the mold forward as close as I could to its original location. I do not believe that this changed the shape of the boat to any appreciable extent, but it is something to watch for. Another thing to look out for is fastening the bottom and sides to the chine. As you continue aft toward the transom the angle of the chine to the side plank increases, making the fastening angle critical and hard to judge. If you are not attentive you may put screws through the top of the chine (a few of mine needed to be reworked).
Rita Dantin
The mast here gets stowed for trailering with one end in the transom sculling notch and the other in a notch in a specialized mast gate. The mast is designed to stow inside the boat with one end tucked under the foredeck through the bulkhead’s open access port. The storage area under the stern seat has been made watertight and is fitted with an plastic hatch.
I was unable to find rudder hardware with gudgeons that would fit the sternpost; everything I could find in bronze was too wide. The dimensions for the sternpost are not specified in the drawings, so I built it to match the dimensions of the skeg. If I had obtained my rudder hardware prior to building the sternpost, I could have set its width to fit the available gudgeons.
As for my choice of bald cypress over Sitka spruce or Douglas-fir for the spars (as specified by the plans), it was primarily one of availability in south Louisiana. Bald cypress falls nicely between the characteristics of Sitka spruce and Douglas-fir, and I know that when boatbuilders were still building spars on the Gulf Coast they were not using Sitka spruce or Douglas-fir, they were using bald cypress.
The Little Crab was designed with spars that fit inside the boat for storage and trailering. To set the longest spar, the 11′10″ mast, in the boat, the hatch in the forward bulkhead is removed and the masthead set inside the compartment.
As drawn, the skiff has one watertight flotation compartment in the bow, a stern bulkhead covered with five slats (with the center one removable for access to a storage area), and a pair of scuppers alongside the keelson to drain any water that slipped between the slats. I added a plywood top to the compartment and eliminated the scuppers to make an airtight compartment for flotation with a plastic deck plate for access. The summer I launched the skiff, I intentionally swamped it in a shallow part of the river, and found that with the two watertight compartments, the boat is unsinkable—an especially admirable attribute if sailed by a child or a senior like me. (The Chesapeake Crab Skiff has recently been redrawn with flotation compartments in the stern, and the same is being considered for the Little Crab.)
Rita Dantin
Straight-bladed 7’4″ oars are a good fit for the Little Crab. The drawings for the boat include a second set of oarlocks for a forward rowing station, which will trim the boat when a passenger is carried in the stern.
I was hoping the skiff could be cartopped on my old Jeep Wrangler, but I may have to admit that a 225-lb boat is too heavy for that. I bought a relatively inexpensive trailer designed for small aluminum johnboats and large jet skis. As far as trailering the Little Crab goes, it’s exceptionally light and extremely easy to launch and retrieve.
The design’s removable center seat is the place to row from. I decided to install only the set of oarlocks for rowing from that center seat, knowing that I could add the second set for the forward rowing station, if needed. That one set is enough, at least when the skiff is carrying two full-grown adults like my wife and me. I am not much of a rower, but I find the boat quite easy to row and it seems to reach its maximum speed quickly. While I was waiting for my sail to be delivered, I rowed Little Crab on several occasions for 5 to 10 miles; it was quite easy despite my lack of experience and somewhat declining tone of aging muscle. I used a modified Pete Culler oar pattern to make a pair of 7′4″ oars—a perfect fit for me.
Rita Dantin
The Little Crab carries a lugsail with an area of 76 sq ft.
Oh, what a joy the lug rig is! Simple: one halyard, one sheet. It takes no more than five minutes at the launch to raise the mast, attach the halyard to the yard and parrel, rig the sheet, and go. If the halyard is led aft, all lines, including the line to lower and lift the weighted centerboard, are reachable while sitting on the bottom just aft of the removable seat.
This little boat is an absolute blast to sail. You sit on the bottom and see everything forward under the boom. Your head is only a foot or so above the water, and when the boat gets going it’s like you’re flying, and oh, that sound the water makes under and along the hull! It doesn’t take much wind to get off and the skiff can take a remarkable amount of breeze before you must do something about it. I had the 76-sq-ft balance lug sail sewn by Gambell and Hunter Sailmakers and had them put in one reef. On the day the sailing photographs here were taken, the breeze was 12 to 15 knots from the north, blowing straight down the river. The night before we had a cool front come through and a lot of rain, so the river was coming down hard. Despite the sail being poorly rigged (the clew had loosened from the boom and the foot of the sail was too loose), I was in complete control and able to tack and jibe safely; however, it was a little gusty and just about time to take in a reef.
When I sail alone, I leave the seat in its position as a thwart; when sailing with a second person, I stow that slip thwart alongside the trunk, providing more room to sit and move to windward.
Rita Dantin
Sitting on the bottom is the most comfortable position for sailing and allows the best view under the sail.
This is a wonderful skiff: it is a good boat based on a traditional workboat of proven design. Because it is small and its low boom requires that one sit on the floor to sail it properly, I think it is best suited for someone younger and more agile than I am. It would be the perfect boat for a younger person—even a child—to learn how to sail. This little boat is simple, strong, easy to sail, and very safe.
Thomas Dantin of Covington, Louisiana, is a retired shipbuilder and designer of steel tugboats and other workboats up to 115′. He worked for 40 years for the same family-owned business where from time to time he designed, operated, built, maintained, and managed a fleet of seagoing tugboats, converted a 65′ oyster lugger to a yacht, and built a few small skiffs.
It was a Saturday morning in September, and my not-quite-girlfriend Delaney and I had just left the fishing dock in Bass Harbor on Mount Desert Island, Maine, in RIDDLE, my Shellback dinghy, for a weekend of camp-cruising in Blue Hill Bay. In spite of a late start—it was almost lunchtime—the morning fog, damp and breathless, had failed to burn off and visibility was measured in oar lengths instead of miles. With RIDDLE loaded down with two days’ worth of food and camping supplies, we floated the boat—sunk down well past the waterline—off the beach and headed out into the opaque white, using an aviation navigation app on my phone as our GPS.
Photos by Delaney Brown and Tom Conlogue
When Delaney loaded up RIDDLE, the boat’s paint was unscratched and our muscles were still fresh.
Delaney sat in the sternsheets serving as chief navigator; I was in the forward rowing station, and RIDDLE was cutting through the still water at a brisk clip when we heard the Swans Island ferry get under way somewhere off to our port side. The rumble of the ferry’s engines changed from a dull idle to a persistent growl, sifting through the fog and telling us it was in gear and under way. I grinned at Delaney in what I hoped was a confidence-inspiring way and pulled a little bit harder on the oars until I felt RIDDLE dig into her bow wave. The water quietly lapped along the hull as we pulled southwest, leaving astern the gritty beach and oil-slicked surface waters of the fishing dock shrouded in hazy gray.
Fresh off the beach with the fishing pier to port, I rowed out toward the fog bank as Delaney, reading off a flight-navigation app, guided the way.
While I had never launched here before, I thought I had a firm grasp on the water’s hazards and the standard ferry route. Bass Harbor is a cove that runs north to south with Weaver Ledge at its entrance just west of center. I had assumed that the car-carrying ferry, which left from a pier a few hundred yards to the south of our launching point, would stay east of the ledge, keeping to the deeper waters. Under this assumption, and in the interest of minimizing mileage, we kept to the ledge’s western side.
Roger Siebert
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With the ferry’s low hum nearly enveloped by the fog behind us I rowed ahead, confident in our course and that the ferry would pass well to our port side. Delaney, who had laid back and seemed to be enjoying the subtle rock and acceleration of each pull of the oars through the flat water, started to look around as if led by a hook in her ear. Hesitantly, she said: “I think we’re in the ferry’s path.” A half-minute later she repeated that, but now firmly. Though neither of us could see the ferry, the sound of the engines was rising to a crescendo, and I knew she must be right.
After a quick consultation of the chart, I turned hard to port and pulled for the ledge in the middle of the channel, using every bit of skill and muscle I possessed to propel us as fast as possible while listening to the ferry bearing down on us. Suddenly, the red buoy marking the west side of the ledge came out of the murk ahead, just as the ferry loomed from the fog 20 yards off our port beam. Suppressing a yelp, I made straight for the nun and we shot past it at hull speed as the ferry blew by, cutting a few yards from the marker on its way out the harbor. Quickly, I dug one oar in to spin us around, and we met its wake head-on, bouncing wildly and grinning like idiots.
Once the ferry had passed and our heart rates had settled to an acceptable level, we resumed our course and felt our way out around Lopaus Point, striking out westward into Blue Hill Bay. With the fog still closed in, muffling the sounds of the seagulls on the rocky shore until all was quiet, our world was soon contained in a circle of off-white nothingness, with only the occasional lobster buoy disturbing the scene.
We switched places, passing each other while stepping over coolers and dry bags filled with gear, and Delaney took over the oars while I reclined in the stern assuming a more managerial position. While she is an excellent sailor, having raced at a high level during college, this was only her second time rowing, so I got to enjoy the sight of a determined Delaney trying furiously to keep the oars in the oarlocks and our course a straight line. With laughter and a little not-so-helpful coaching as I pantomimed vague angles of oar blades and lever arms, we splashed our way west as the fog began to brighten around us.
After a half hour and about a mile of progress, we had just switched places again when I saw a pair of shiny dark heads bobbing in our wake. The seals stayed about five yards behind us as we plodded along at 2 or 3 knots, providing a welcome variation on the scenery for an hour or so.
By noon the fog had burned off over most of the bay, and the sun beat down on us without a breath of air to alleviate the heat. Stripped down to swimsuits, we rowed on impatiently and the 5 miles of bay between us and our destination seemed to stretch on indefinitely.
Pond Island is less than 3/4 mile across, is mostly tree-covered, and has a small tidal pond on the northern side that we planned to camp by. There is a 1/4-mile-long beach hiding this pond, and that spit of sand happens to be a popular picnic spot for locals, so I wasn’t particularly surprised when we rounded the corner and saw a white Boston Whaler pulled up on the beach with a flock of small children cavorting around it. The tide had carried us slightly south of the island on our passage over, so we turned north to get out of the current running parallel to the shore. We had been looking forward to jumping into the 50°F water to get away from the heat. Since we didn’t feel like socializing, we stopped rowing once we saw the beach was infested with youngsters and drifted slowly south with the ebbing tide, each of us sprawled on opposite ends of the boat too exhausted to be upright. Of course, this setback meant it was time to break out the beer and chips to help ease the pain of being cooked to medium-rare in the midday sun as small flies bit our ankles.
When the powerboat and its associated munchkins finally called it a day and vamoosed, we picked ourselves up and rowed over to the beach. The tide was almost fully out at this point, leaving about five yards of sandy beach above a hundred yards of rocky mud below, with scattered knee-high rocks sticking out at the perfect height to catch the propeller of a picnic-goer’s outboard at mid-tide. We grounded on the beach to the screech of plywood on rocks and dragged the loaded boat to the high-tide line. RIDDLE seemed to have grown much heavier while the biting flies stung like needles. Delaney and I made a frantic run to the water, with a comet’s tail of flies trailing behind us until we plunged into the water, the shocking cold of the emerald green a welcome relief.
After beaching on Pond Island, we took a quick break to take pictures and look around before the flies drove us into the water for a swim.
Once our feet were numb and the flies had subsided, we trekked back to the dinghy to unload and begin setting up camp. After about five minutes of searching, and stretching ourselves out to judge the ground’s levelness, we found a tent-sized flat spot in the knee-high grass above the beach and decided this was just the place to make camp for the night. It was shielded from wind to the north by an embankment at the top of the beach, and the ground was covered with rounded, sea-tumbled rocks and shells interspersed among them. We set up the tent, pleased with the views of Acadia Mountain to the northeast and Blue Hill Mountain to the northwest. The grass on the embankment hid the ocean, so it looked like we were in a field that stretched for miles.
By now it was only around two in the afternoon, and the sea breeze had finally started to fill in from the southeast. I grinned at Delaney, “Should we go for a sail? Maybe we could make it to Brooklin and surprise everyone.” She grinned back, “Of course!” So, we dragged RIDDLE back down the beach, although the haul wasn’t quite as far this time; the tide had just turned and water was creeping up the beach steadily.
I unrolled the sail, a standing-lug arrangement that fits inside the boat when stowed, and rigged the boat while still on the beach. Then, after a quick shove from shore, we began sailing north with the wind behind us blowing away from the island. Since the water just offshore was too shallow for the rudder, I had an oar over the stern for steering. With the daggerboard partially down, we scudded out past the last line of rocks and into deeper water. I pulled the oar back into the boat, letting RIDDLE luff up to head into wind while I set the rudder.
It was about 4 miles to Brooklin where Delaney is an editor for WoodenBoat magazine and I was on staff at WoodenBoat School, and we were hoping to blow in and surprise everyone that we had made it all that way in the fog. We settled onto a beam reach heading west, with Delaney wedged in forward by the mast looking very pretzel-like in the barely human-sized space while I sailed. I tried to concentrate on the sail and wind, doing my best not to stare at the beautiful girl lounging up forward. I can’t say I was particularly successful. Low, cotton-ball clouds built up over the mainland, the fog stayed in a solid bank to the south, and the breeze wavered at an inconsistent 4 knots as we worked our way west.
By the time we made it to Naskeag Point, the closest land on the western side of Blue Hill Bay, it was clear the breeze was dying quickly. We admitted defeat—our blistered hands had had enough rowing—and went to tack around to head back to Pond Island. RIDDLE came head-to-wind in the light breeze, but then faltered and fell back onto the port tack as we were barely making steerage way. Trying again, I pumped the rudder a few times to get the bow through the wind and we made a slow, languishing tack to port back toward camp. We made it back to the beach as the sun began to sink close to the horizon, and we hurriedly dragged the dinghy past the high-tide line and scrambled to find firewood. Delaney had brought a vegan pineapple curry she’d made for us to heat up for dinner. As a fervent meat eater, I was rather skeptical of a vegan meal, but, regardless of my food inclinations, we needed to hurry up and build the fire before the sun set. Delaney amassed a pile of driftwood while I made shavings from what looked like a promisingly dry piece of cedar and lit the fire; white smoke from the damp wood settled over the water like fine gauze.
The flames built up to chest height and sparks shot skyward like miniature rockets on an unstable trajectory. As the sun turned the western sky blood orange, we let the fire burn down to a bed of coals. We dug through the cooler, bypassing the breakfast food to get to the curry. I’d brought a wok from the boathouse at WoodenBoat, and once the flames subsided, I put it on the side of the fire with the exceedingly healthy-looking curry settled down at the bottom of it. After a few minutes, the curry was bubbling promisingly, and it smelled delicious, even to a diehard meat eater like me.
With the sun gone and the stars out, the driftwood fire burned steadily as it was fanned by the onshore breeze.
We had just dug into dinner with the ravenous hunger of a pair of young adventurers who had received too much sun for one day, when Delaney’s grandmother called. Since no amount of hunger should ever get in the way of talking with a worried grandparent, dinner was postponed until Delaney could assure her grandmother that we were indeed still alive and weren’t endangering ourselves too severely. After the phone call, we settled down for a few hours of storytelling and breeze-shooting as the wind began to build from the north and the tide crept up to lap quietly at the edge of our fire. With the sun long gone and the breeze blowing directly onto the beach with the urgent feel of a cold front, we snuggled by the fire in a Navajo blanket to keep the cold at bay.
Around midnight we ran out of firewood, so we decided to call it a night before we fell asleep on the beach with the sand fleas. We doused the fire and scuttled through the waist-high dune grass to the safety of the tent, our laughter carried ahead of us by the building wind.
The morning dawned cool and crisp, the kind of late-summer day that reminds you fall is coming. After languishing in the tent for about an hour, unwilling to leave the warmth of the sleeping bags, we crawled out of the tent around 10 to a stiff north wind flattening the coarse grass around the tent. Making my way to the site of the fire from the night before, I could still smell the smoke on my clothes and feel on my skin the grit of the sand still stuck there from the evening. I tracked down the single-burner propane stove and set it up on a driftwood tree trunk lying shielded from the wind behind the bank of the beach.
Acadia Mountain made our tent look tiny as we hid from the wind amid the grass.
We propped ourselves against the log and Delaney made us a breakfast of eggs and vegan sausage, which I had to admit was almost indistinguishable from the meat it was trying to impersonate. Sitting in the grass with the log pressing comfortably against my back, I stared at the salt pond 100 yards away. “Do you think we could get the boat in there?” I asked.
Waking up to bluebird skies and a crisp breeze, Delaney packed up the sleeping bags from the tent while I stalked off to the cooler bag to rustle up coffee and unpack what we were going to have for breakfast.
We ate an oxymoronic breakfast of eggs and vegan sausage. It proved to be an easy meal that paired well with instant coffee and pleased both the vegetarian and carnivore.
“We could row up the creek that feeds the pond,” she suggested, reading my mind and already packing up breakfast and moving toward the dinghy.
We launched RIDDLE into a steep, short chop crashing onto the sand. The spray salted my lips as we launched and sent shivers down my spine while I rowed us 20′ off the beach. Turning to port, we paralleled the shore, the beam sea trying to slide me across the thwart until we came to a cut in the sandbank with the creek that fed the pond. It was just wide enough for the oars to clear. We shot in with a following sea, and I pulled aggressively to keep us from getting thrown sideways by the breaking waves. Passing through the head-high cut in the bank, we were suddenly in the calm waters of the creek. The passage had gotten considerably narrower and soon there was not enough room for the oars. Seeing the perfect opportunity to impress Delaney, I asked her to switch places with me, then threw an oar over the stern to begin sculling us along. “Wait, let me try that!” she exclaimed.
If rowing had been hard to explain, it soon became clear that sculling was even more difficult. But Delaney was a quick study and was soon wiggling her wrist in just the right way to move us along, cursing colorfully every time the oar jumped out of the sculling notch in the transom. There is an advantage to learning to scull in a strip of water 5′ wide: the close banks let the boat pinball off them, so keeping a straight course isn’t much of a concern. However, the creek was made up of many short, 20′-long straight sections followed by 90-degree turns as it worked its way back to the pond, so just as Delaney got us up to speed, RIDDLE would ram into the bank and ride up onto the grass.
When not fending the boat’s bow off the bank, I “explained” sculling by flopping my hand like a fish. When not popping out of the sculling notch, Delaney laughed at my pantomime inevitably forcing me to fend off the bow again.
After a few such collisions, the stream became even narrower, and the dinghy was soon wedged between the grassy banks. As I stepped easily over the side and onto the grass, RIDDLE didn’t budge. The pond was only 20′ away, so once Delaney had piled out, I grabbed the breasthook and dragged RIDDLE the remaining distance over land, the skeg hissing as it cut through the grass. Once in the water, I triumphantly jumped into the dinghy and rowed the circumference of the 8/10-acre pond as the oar blades dragged on the shallow bottom. The pond wasn’t as spectacular as I had hoped and only about 5″ deep with shallows that persistently grabbed at the skeg of RIDDLE in an annoying way. After I’d made a lap, Delaney and I dragged the dinghy straight back to camp over the grass.
After successfully carrying RIDDLE the last 20′ and splashing down into the pond, it was time for a victory lap.
Turning back toward camp, I poled the first few feet with an oar before Delaney and I pulled the boat out of the diminishing creek and dragged it over the grass berm to get back to the beach.
By now it was about 11:30, so we decided to make one last excursion before heading back to Bass Harbor. Lamp Island, a hillock only 50 yards long and a third as wide, lay ¼ mile north of Pond Island’s beach. I have a penchant for high places, and this tiny islet seemed to be the tallest rock in the immediate vicinity, so we dragged RIDDLE down to the water yet again, leaving a trail of blue bottom paint on the golf-ball-sized rocks. Delaney jumped into the front before I could get there and told me she would do the rowing. We went bashing directly to windward, spray soaking our sweatshirts while whitecaps rolled past as we crawled toward Lamp Island. Making landfall on the lee side, I ran up to the sandy bank and climbed to the top. I pulled myself over the edge, but instead of the soft grass I had anticipated, the top was covered in exceedingly prickly bushes, and I was bleeding by the time I managed to stand up. Delaney laughed at my cursing as I made my descent but when I reached her, she consoled me with a kiss.
Delaney was reminded that rowing is actually pretty hard, and she popped out of the oarlocks a few times in the choppy conditions. However, we didn’t take any green water onboard and eventually made it to Lamp Island.
After relaxing on a half-tide rock on the north side of the island as the breeze kept the noonday heat at bay, we jumped back in the dinghy. The breeze was blowing an exhilarating 15 knots, more than enough to be downright sporty in our Shellback, and with the wind at our backs we flew back to Pond in about three minutes flat. Packing up camp, we threw gear loosely in RIDDLE in our excitement to go sailing. With Delaney on the tiller and me on the sheet, we tore off toward Bass Harbor on a beam reach, the water hissing on its way past. Doing 5 knots, RIDDLE threw cold spray onto us every time we met a wave, but we couldn’t stop laughing and were having too much fun to mind the cold. The fine water droplets hung in Delaney’s hair, adding silver to her auburn mane. The 5-mile passage that had seemed so long the day before flew by, and about an hour after leaving Pond, we had hardened up to a close haul and began tacking north up Bass Harbor.
With spray flying and sprits high, RIDDLE made excellent time back toward Bass Harbor on a beam reach.
Once we were inside the protection of the harbor, the breeze became fluky, and sections of calm water were darkened by catspaws barreling down from all sides. The winds converged on us in a frustratingly inconsistent manner. It took us the better part of an hour to work up the mile of harbor, but we eventually ran up on the beach by the fishing pier we had left from. RIDDLE protested loudly as we ground onto the barnacle-covered rocks, and we climbed out soaked in seawater and once again gritty with sand. Our adventure had come to an end, the two of us none the worse for wear and RIDDLE losing only a little bottom paint. We packed the boat into the back of my truck, and with sand clouding the rearview, my girlfriend Delaney and I peeled out in search of food and a shower, muscles sore but spirits high.
Tom Conlogue is a former WoodenBoat School waterfront staff member who is currently feeding a crippling boat addiction as a student at Maine Maritime Academy. He can usually be found near some patch of water messing about in small boats.
Editor’s note: Pond Island is administered by the Maine Coast Heritage Trust and camping is permitted only at the established site on the east side of the island. The author learned of the restriction only after the trip.
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.
Several of the boats I’ve built have required carts to get them from the launch-site parking lot to the water, and while the carts I’ve built have all worked well enough to carry the boats they’re made for, they haven’t been compact enough to stow neatly when it’s time for the boats to carry them. While there are, of course, many good folding and take-apart boat carts on the market, I prefer to make my own equipment—not only for the pleasure of designing and making things, but also to save money.
The frames of the commercial carts are usually made of aluminum and molded plastic, and the designs don’t lend themselves to homemade wooden interpretations, so none of them were of much use in my quest to build a homemade cart that can carry the boat and take up little space on board.
Photographs by the author
The cart for the sneakbox easily managed the 140-lb boat and the gear carried aboard it.
With the cart secured amidships under the 80-lb canoe, I have very little weight to lift and can guide the canoe with a loose grip.
With my most recent carts, made for my sneakbox and lapstrake canoe, I devised a simple design for a take-apart frame made of four interlocking pieces of 3/4″ plywood. I added a pair of hand-truck wheels—with pneumatic tires—that I found on a curbside with a “Free” sign on them. If you’re not as lucky, similar 10″ pneumatic hand-truck wheels can be purchased online at various sites, including Harbor Freight for $9 apiece. The wheels require a 5/8″ axle, and a length of zinc-plated 5/8″ steel rod costs less than $20 at most hardware stores and home improvement centers.
The interlocking pieces of plywood have notches cut in them for quick assembly of the frames. The crosspieces are scribed to fit the hull close to amidships; having the cart take the load makes pulling or pushing the boat by hand much easier. I deliberated about the axle running through the 3/4″ plywood without any reinforcement to provide more strength and durability, but the axle doesn’t spin in the plywood—the wheels have bearings—so any wear is likely to be very slow. If the axle gets too loose in the hole, I can add pieces of hardwood with freshly drilled holes. The axle itself needs a hole in each end for hitch-pin retainer clips. The only trick to drilling the steel rod, either with a drill press or a hand-held drill, is to make a small divot in the rod with a center punch. The dimple will keep the drill bit from skating off target. The holes in the plywood frame are for rope or a webbing strap to secure the cart to the boat. The lines or straps must be pulled very tight to keep the cart from tripping if the wheels meet an object too tall to roll over smoothly. Foam pipe insulation is ideal for padding; it comes with a slit along one side that is easily pulled apart to make an opening for the edge of the plywood.
I used a compass to scribe the bottom contour of my lapstrake canoe on a scrap of plywood.
A flexible plastic batten shaped a curve to fit one half of the scribed line.
The half pattern cut from the scrap serves as the template to mark the contour on the cart’s transverse pieces.
These are the dimensions I used for the sneakbox cart. The patterns accommodate 10″ pneumatic hand-truck wheels.
There’s an advantage to a cart that comes apart into separate components. The pieces can be stowed in small spaces. All of the cart pieces for the canoe fit under the aft deck with room to spare.
Tie-down straps are well-suited for the cart. The 12-footers are long enough for the canoe and the sneakbox. The pivoting kickstand (to the left of the tire) greatly simplifies loading the cart by holding it nearly upright, ready for the hull to settle on it.
On firm sand, the tires have a wide enough footprint to keep from sinking.
Soft sand is a bit harder to negotiate, especially on the uphill run from the water to the parking lot.
The easiest way to move the canoe uphill in the soft sand was to loop some line about the bow handle and face the boat, holding the line with both hands. Rather than muscle the canoe forward, I just leaned away from it and let my weight do the work. A tug with both arms would continue to move the boat. After taking a step back and planting both feet, I tugged again. The method, a lot like a dog tugging on a rope toy with all four paws planted, was surprisingly effective.
If you have more than one boat that requires a cart, you can make additional front and back transverse pieces and axles to fit each boat. I made crosspieces to adapt to fit both the 140-lb sneakbox and the 80-lb lapstrake decked canoe. The wheels and the side pieces of plywood serve both boats.
For each cart, the disassembled plywood frame pieces make a stack just 2-1/4″ thick and the wheels, taken individually, are compact enough to be tucked away in small spaces on board.
Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats Magazine.
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The Sperry 7-Seas 3-Eye Sneakers are boat shoes that perform almost every job you can ask of them. They’re lightweight, flexible, and easily adjustable sneakers that grip well on most surfaces you can imagine encountering in, or around, small boats.
This lightweight water shoe is designed to perform through the rigors of a day on the water. The ovals in the rubber sole’s honeycomb pattern have sipes—fine cuts that improve traction on slippery decks—while the wave-like tread near the toe and heel provide grip on a variety of surfaces. The injection-molded EVA (ethylene-vinyl acetate) midsole provides cushioning and is equipped with built-in drainage holes that ensure that your feet won’t be sloshing for long after you’ve stepped out of the water. The breathable hydrophobic mesh uppers are quick to dry out. I wear the shoes without socks, which works fine for the sailing season’s mild weather. Waterproof socks would be in order if you need to stay dry and warm.
Delaney Brown
The siped mid-section of the sole is covered in a honeycomb pattern while the toe and heel portions have a wave-like pattern.
When sailing off a beach of sand and pebbles, no sand gets into the shoes through the drainage holes or past the seal between the uppers and my feet. After I step aboard the soles stay put on the slick, painted bottom of the dinghy and my feet don’t slide around in the shoes. I didn’t feel any water sloshing around my sole; the mesh uppers dry in about 5 minutes. On shore, the hiking sandals I frequently wear slip on smooth granite and rocks recently soaked by a high tide, but the Sperry 7-Seas had a secure grip and enough traction for leaping from boulder to boulder, even when landing on a rock face sloped about 40 degrees.
I use my shoes hard, and many others I’ve tried have lasted only a single season of boating. I wore the previous iteration of this shoe through three years of vigorous college sailing. Hiking straps on boats chafe away at shoe’s uppers, and constant alternation between long dinghy-dolly pulls over asphalt, beach launches, and hanging on to the grip tape placed on the floors of dinghies and decks of keelboats can quickly wear down the soles of many rubber dinghy boots. I can’t yet speak to the longevity of the new 7-Seas sneakers, but they appear to be made with the same materials and care, and I expect they’ll last at least as long as their predecessors.
Delaney Brown
The laces on the uppers not only tighten the shoes over the instep but also tension the laces on the sides for a snug fit at the heel.
I have a wide foot and usually wear a women’s size 8.5; in the new Sperry 7-Seas 3-Eye Sneakers, size 8.5, my foot didn’t overlap the sides of the shoe’s sole, and I had about 1/2″ of space between my big toe and the shoe’s end, the minimum amount recommended for the best fit in most shoes. By adjusting the two heel cords that wrap around the heel on the outside of the shoe and then cinching the laces tightly to tension those cords tight, I was able to lock my heel into the back of the shoe.
The Sperry 7-Seas 3-Eye Sneakers do just what I need them to do—keep my feet comfortable and firmly planted under me, even on slippery decks and seaweed-covered rocks.
Delaney Brown is associate editor of WoodenBoat magazine and recent University of South Florida alumna, currently living in Maine to restore a 31′ liveaboard sailboat.
The Sperry 7-Seas 3-Eye Sneakers are available from Sperry for $89.95. Men’s sizes come in black, gray, and navy. Women’s sizes come in navy, gray, and peach.
Editor’s Notes:
I have a high instep and a long heel, and that combination makes for a tight squeeze getting into slip-on neoprene booties and knee-high rubber boots. The Sperry 7-Seas Men’s 3-Eye Sneaker is not a slip-on but a laced shoe, with the laces connected to two cords that wrap around high on the outside of the heel. Tightened, the cords help prevent the shoe from slipping off the heel, a valuable feature, but they prevented me from getting the shoes on if I loosened the laces only at the top. After loosening the laces all the way to the bottom to put slack in the heel-retention cords, I could pull the shoe on.
I have wide, size 13 feet. The sneakers’ stretch-mesh uppers comfortably accommodate them by allowing the outside of my big and little toes to overhang the sides of the soles a little bit, while the soles are just wide enough to support the weight-bearing parts of my feet. Sperry’s sizing worked for me, and the stretch in the uppers allows me to wear Sealskinz or Kokatat knee-high waterproof socks to keep my feet dry and warm.
Christopher Cunningham
The sipes, razor-like cuts into the ovals of the honeycomb pattern, appear as faint wavy lines. They provide grip on slippery painted or varnished surfaces. A men’s size 13 model is shown here.
The 7-Seas sneakers are very comfortable and light—a size 13 men’s shoe weighs just 10.6 oz. I had surgery on my left knee about 35 years ago, and that knee can get sore after 10 minutes of walking on pavement. These sneakers have a well-cushioned sole that is shaped to roll my foot down, eliminating the impact and thus the soreness of that knee.
The grip of the textured and siped sole is excellent on oiled teak floorboards and varnished ash seats, whether they are dry or have standing water on them. The sole would only slip an inch or two on the slipperiest surface—a wet varnished seat—if I lunged onto it, but when my full weight was planted, the shoe’s sole held fast.
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.
Skipper and I like to usher small boats to their natural habitat, and after 29 years at this work we are creeping up on 80 restorations or new builds. Many of these projects involved smoothing a wood or fiberglass surface prior to application of primer and paint. With our first few projects we used an epoxy-based system that required a guessing game of resin, hardener, and various types and amounts of thickening powders. Four years ago we tried TotalBoat’s TotalFair epoxy-based fairing compound and have stuck with it ever since.
TotalFair is a two-part epoxy-based compound, packaged in separate containers of resin and hardener. The fairing filler is mixed into both parts, so there is no guessing how much filler needs to be added and nothing runny to make a mess. The resin is yellow, the hardener is blue, and each part is scooped out onto a mixing board. We measure the parts by eyeball; ratio has not proven to be super-critical. Cardboard makes a handy palette for mixing the yellow and blue until the compound is a uniform green. The opaque materials and the color combination make it much easier to see when the two parts have been completely mixed than with clear resin and hardener.
Photographs by the authors
The mixing ratio is not critical. Just eyeball equal amounts of the resin and hardener then mix until you have a uniform green without streaks of yellow or blue.
We apply TotalFair with a rubber spreader or plastic putty knife, using different tools appropriately sized to the area we are covering—some boats require only the filling of small holes while others need fairing compound for the entire hull or deck to fill in irregularities from surface grain or to hide the vagaries of our fiberglass repairs.
The compound dries quickly. On a summer day, when temperatures are about 80°F, we can fair a surface in the morning, sand three hours later, and move on to priming the same day. Cooler temperatures will mean longer drying times, up to 12 hours at 50°F. The product is simple to apply and easy to sand—so easy that the main risk is sanding away all of the compound. There is little risk of sanding away the adjacent fiberglass or wood. When fully cured the compound sands away as dry powder that doesn’t clog sandpaper. The TotalBoat website cautions, “If it sits for more than two days, it can become harder to sand,” but we usually sand the same day or the next and have not experienced the compound becoming any less easy to work. TotalFair isn’t prone to trap air bubbles while mixing, so sanding doesn’t result in pinholes to fill; most of the time this eliminates the need for a second application.
TotalFair is formulated for the marine environment, unlike other often-used fillers from the automotive market, and we have used it successfully on our trailered fleet on wood and fiberglass, under and over compatible primers, and above and below the waterline. While Jamestown Distributors states that “TotalFair will not stick to one-component paints or primers,” we haven’t had adhesion problems with these simple coatings. Jamestown recommends using TotalFair under “epoxy, polyester, or a two-component urethane in good condition, with good adhesion.” When repairing fiberglass boats, use a primer over TotalFair if a gelcoat finish is to be applied or the gelcoat may not cure properly.
Untreated fir plywood (left) can take an overall application of TotalFair (center), and be sanded to a smooth surface (right), ready for primer and paint.
The compound can fill divots up to 3/4″ deep, though for a fill that deep it is best to use two, layered applications. It can be applied to vertical or overhead surfaces without sagging or running. It is easy and fast to mix small or large batches of the compound; we have had working times out to 30 minutes at 70° F. Being able to mix the two pre-thickened components eliminates guesswork and minimizes waste. Once finished with fairing, we have stored the remaining TotalFair resin and hardener for several months before popping the containers open again for use the following season. (A plastic sheet inside each container reduces air intrusion and ensures fresh TotalFair when the next fun fairing times arrive.)
Skipper (Audrey) and Clark (Kent) Lewis mess about in a small armada of sail, oar, paddle, and motorboats in the Tidewater Region of Virginia, when not fairing and sanding. Their adventures are logged at Small Boat Restoration.
TotalFair is sold by Jamestown Distributors from their in-house brand of TotalBoat products in 2-pint, 2-quart, and 1-gallon kits for $41.99, $69.99, and $124.99, respectively.
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.
That’s according to a poem Alexander Pope wrote more than 300 years before Dennis Ward of Riviera Beach, Florida, figured it out for himself. Reading a book on stitch-and-glue boatbuilding inspired him to design and build a boat in 2004 even though he had no experience with either skill.
Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts, In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts
Dennis’s muse was Sam Devlin and his temptation was the boatbuilding method detailed in Sam’s book, Devlin’s Boat Building. After reading the book, Dennis went straight to work to create a boat of his own: “I sketched a dinghy on paper, then glued some pieces of wood together with epoxy, and was amazed I had made a boat that didn’t sink.” Cutting out pieces of plywood, drilling a bunch of holes, and wiring and gluing the pieces together just happens to be the easy part, but the goal is more than just keeping the water out. Dennis quickly discovered that the dinghy was unsafe on the water. Pope expressed that awakening of a novice to what has yet to be learned:
But, more advanced, behold with strange surprise New distant scenes of endless science rise!
The subtitle of Devlin’s Boat Building is “How to build any boat the stitch-and-glue way”. Sam likely intended “any boat” to encompass the sizes and types the system works for—he has designed and built boats ranging from a 6′3″ dinghy to a 45′ motor cruiser—but “any boat” could also be taken to mean good boats as well as bad boats. Sam’s boats, the result of a wealth of education and experience in boat design and construction, belong in the former category. Dennis admitted that his boat had fallen into the latter: “That dinghy has since become yard art.” The lesson he learned was “Let the professionals design the boat!”
Photographs by and courtesy of Dennis Ward
In October of 2021, Dennis retired after a 35-year career as a Palm Beach County ocean lifeguard, rower, rescue-boat driver at Jupiter Inlet, Boynton Inlet, and Boca Raton Inlet. A couple weeks later, he got all six of his boats in the water for some photos. At the water’s edge, from left: Dennis’s self-designed dinghy, kid’s rowboat from a thrift store, Passagemaker Dinghy, Gloucester Gull, and Ben Garvey. The Gloucester Rocker is safely away from the water. His Chester Yawl isn’t shown.
Despite the disappointing results of his first efforts, Dennis thoroughly enjoyed the time he spent building the dinghy. For his second boat, he skipped the designing and bought a kit for Chesapeake Light Craft’s 11′ 7″ take-apart Passagemaker Dinghy. He finished it in 2007 and, although it had all the characteristics that would put it in the “good boat” category, the Passagemaker was only afloat a few times before Dennis was back in his back yard under a 10′ by 20′ canopy, “making more sawdust.” His series continued with a Gloucester Gull and a partially built child’s rowboat he bought in a thrift store for $30. The Gull was afloat only a few times, and the little rowboat has yet to be launched and is waiting for an interested kid he can give it to.
The mild weather in Florida made it practical for Dennis to build the garvey outdoors under a canopy.
One of Dennis’s friends bought plans for Doug Hylan’s Ben Garvey, decided the project was more than he could manage, and gave the plans to Dennis, who started building it in 2011. After he had finished the hull and flipped it right-side up to begin work on the accommodations, he decided to do away with the center thwart. “That way I wouldn’t be stepping over it, and there’d be 8′ of space on the bottom for horizontal activities, like napping.”
Having decided to omit the center thwart to open up the center, Dennis devised a structure that provided a walk-through passage between partial side benches and framing across the bottom.
A cockpit sole over the added interior framing provides a smooth surface for napping and enclosed spaces for flotation.
Concerned about losing the strength the thwart would have provided to the hull, he replaced it with two enclosed storage-compartment seats on either side. “I also intended to add several more frames on the bottom to add more strength to the chines and sides. The extra frames would be a tripping hazard and make napping uncomfortable; adding a cockpit sole on top of the frames seemed to be the ideal solution. I ended up with a double-hulled boat with flotation in between.”
The gunwales are teak and were initially varnished but Dennis decided “it’s like lipstick on a pig. This is basically a workboat, not a fancy piece of furniture.” He also embedded tie-dyed fabric on a pane forward and a hatch aft “because I wanted to learn how to do that. What I didn’t know at the time is that I coulda bought clear epoxy, instead of regular yellowish epoxy. So the tie-dyed bright whites turned yellow.”
Dennis finished building the garvey in 2012 but then left it on sawhorses under a canopy for several years until he could afford a trailer. A few more years drifted by as he saved enough for a 25-hp outboard for it.
Dennis worried that his weight in the stern along with that of the motor and fuel tank would cause the bow to rise too high, but It sat in the water perfectly.
While the garvey waited, Dennis’s mother gave him the plans for the Gloucester Rocker as a Christmas present. That was in 2017, and all through the following year he worked on it without telling her. The hull and rockers were straightforward work but the seat and grab bar—fashioned from walnut and holly that he had harvested on his mother’s lot—were not. The curved and beveled joints were not easy to get right and by the time he got perfect fits, the two pieces had taken more time than the rest of the boat. The next Christmas he surprised his mother with the rocker; she was delighted with it and she uses it to hold her dog’s toys.
Rob Rogerson
On the boat’s first sea trial, Dennis was “somewhat surprised how powerful the 25hp motor was. The garvey is a heavy boat but it got up on plane right away and I wasn’t comfortable going any faster than half throttle. An hour later, the garvey was back under the canopy.”
The garvey was finally ready to launch in 2020, but it wasn’t launched until this year for what Dennis says are “various lame reasons. Mostly, I’d rather build boats than go boating.”
Dennis’s 15′ Chester Yawl kit boat is being built with the help of his 86-year-old mother. She offered her basement for the project.
And he has been building boats. A Chester Yawl is in the works in his mother’s basement in North Carolina. Earlier this year, Dennis built the molds and a ladder frame for the L. Francis Herreshoff pram featured in John Gardner’s Building Classic Small Craft. The hull of the 10-footer is usually built in lapstrake cedar on steam-bent white-oak frames, but Dennis had been given a generous assortment of sapele strips and was eager to turn them into a boat.
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts
Strip-building would be uncharted waters for him and, more cautious now after the experience of his first dinghy, he floated the idea of strip-planking the pram on the WoodenBoat Forum. He was dissuaded from making an attempt that could waste time, money, and valuable wood.
New distant scenes of endless science rise!
Rather than forge ahead, he bought Nick Schade’s book, Building Strip-Planked Boats. “I’ll read up some more before I decide what to do.”
Dennis is happier building boats than using them: “The prominent pleasure of wooden boats is in all the different things I learn in the building process.”
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.
The cat-ketch JANE ANN—18′ LOA, with a beam of 5′ 6″—is builder Mike Kiefer’s interpretation of the lapstrake daysailer Robin, designed by naval architect Rob Pittaway, formerly of Mystic Seaport. Robin was originally conceived as a trailerable open boat that could be sailed or rowed for short distances in New England’s coastal waters. Pittaway said his design was inspired in part by Nathanael Herreshoff’s Columbia Lifeboat Tender, which has a striking resemblance to JANE ANN.
Kiefer, a South Haven, Michigan-based boatbuilder, modified Pittaway’s design by adding a short foredeck, 3″ side decks, an aft deck with a lazarette underneath, and a steam-bent white-oak coaming, which combine to scatter spray in open waters. A motor mount bolted to the aft deck accommodates a 3-hp long-shaft outboard for auxiliary power to get in and out of channels on the Great Lakes, where few natural harbors exist. Two rowing stations provide alternative propulsion, but maneuvering under oars in relatively long and narrow Great Lakes channels, with surging waters and heavy traffic, can be a tricky proposition.
Robin’s original rig called for a mainsail with a diagonal sprit and a mizzen with a horizontal sprit. There were no headsails. Under Kiefer’s interpretation, JANE ANN is rigged with a balance lug mainsail, which has a boom, while the mizzen setup remains unchanged. Collectively, the Robin’s sails carry 103 sq ft of Dacron (70 on the main, 33 on the mizzen).
George D. Jepson
This 18’ cat-ketch, designed by Connecticut-based naval architect Rob Pittaway for New England’s coastal waters, is equally at home on the Great Lakes or inland waters, under sail, auxiliary outboard power, or oars.
JANE ANN’s rigging is simple, with minimal hardware. A hole pierces the top of each mast, taking the place of a sheave, to accommodate the halyards. Sheets are neatly tied to the main boom and mizzen sprit, and run through jam cleats. The mainsheet also runs through one wooden block attached to the boom, which Kiefer crafted to assist the helmsman in gaining purchase in a stiff breeze.
On a bleak winter’s day over a decade ago, my wife Amy and I stopped by Great Lakes Boat Building Company—Kiefer’s rural shop out-side South Haven, Michigan—to “talk boats.” I mentioned that we were interested in a trailerable daysailer for the Great Lakes. Moments later, Mike pulled several designs from his files, including a lines drawing and a description of Pittaway’s Robin.
The following autumn, Mike laid the keel for our new Robin. By the time of my next visit, the backbone, made of Michigan sassafras, was in place on the jig, ready to accept her planking. Over pancakes and eggs at a nearby diner, he described the modifications he planned for the boat.
Winter settled in and the wood-burning stove in Mike’s shop glowed red as he hung the boat’s 9mm okoume plywood planks—eight to a side—gluing their laps with epoxy. Frames (steam-bent), thwarts, centerboard and trunk, and trim were all fashioned from sassafras. “For my money, ‘sassy’ is the best [native Michigan] wood for small-craft construction that we have,” explained Kiefer. “It glues, accepts fastenings, and steams well. It has a medium density and weight, and it’s durable.”
Warm spring breezes signaled the end of winter, as the boat neared completion. The masts, which are identical and fit either the main or mizzen stops, were shaped from Sitka spruce. Varnishing and painting the boat were the only tasks remaining before she would be launched in the Black River.
George D. Jepson
Boatbuilder Mike Kiefer modified Pittaway’s design, adding flat floorboards to the bilge and belaying pins for stowing lines.
On a lovely May morning, the boat sat on the stocks as I stepped into Kiefer’s shop. Dust floated in the sun’s rays slanting through the doorway, illuminating the boat’s lovely lines. The aroma of freshly sawn wood, shavings, paint, and canvas permeated the air.
As we stood gazing at her fair sheer, Mike looked like a young boy at the county fair, anxiously waiting for someone to bid on his prize calf. We christened her JANE ANN, for our daughter.
JANE ANN’s maiden sail was down the Black River, bound for the open waters of Lake Michigan. Sails were set in the lee of the channel. As we passed the pier heads and barn-red South Haven Light, we switched off the engine and trimmed the sails. She heeled slightly, slicing through the light chop. It was an exhilarating sail for builder and owner alike.
She is beautiful to behold, whether viewed from the cockpit, standing on the dock, or from another boat. Her bright interior finish accentuates the wood grain and her graceful lines are eye-pleasing from virtually every vantage point. Under sail or oars, she draws waterfront admirers.
With a spacious cockpit and deep, sumptuous seating, JANE ANN is a comfortable daysailer with four adults aboard, and could be a camp-cruiser for two, with the addition of a cover for inclement weather. Over the years, she has proven to be fast in gentle breezes, and with an experienced helmsman she has sailed in winds up to 30 knots in heavy seas. She sails well close-hauled, is a delight on a reach, and jibes deftly. A particular joy is sailing downwind wing-on-wing. JANE ANN rows easily, even with three or four adults aboard.
She also tows effortlessly behind a vehicle. Weighing less than 400 lbs, she is light enough to be maneuvered onto her trailer by one person. At boat ramps, she can be rigged and ready to sail within 15 minutes. Hauling out and dropping the rig afterward take about the same amount of time.
George D. Jepson
JANE ANN performs well in light air and is heart-pounding fun in a stiff breeze. With the addition of fore, aft and side decks by Kiefer, she has proven to be snug and dry.
After several summers sailing JANE ANN, I discussed possible alterations with the builder. The original floorboards followed the shape of the hull, and were not comfortable while moving about or sitting. So he designed, built, and installed a new flat platform, which is much more agreeable. He added belaying pin stations—two on the forward coaming and two at the mizzen mast hole. Finally, Kiefer built a wooden traveler at the aft end of the cockpit, which has a jam cleat at its center through which the mizzen sheet runs. Previously, with the cleat fixed atop the rudder, the sheet tended to become tangled with the outboard motor. The traveler also serves as a crutch for the mizzen sprit.
A fresh coat of paint on the hull—Hatteras off-white, which has a tinge of the color of the sun—and a new slightly darker blue sheer stripe, a coat of varnish on all of the brightwork, and a new layer of tan paint on the deck completed the boat’s fetching new livery (paint scheme). Freshly varnished masts were re-rigged with new lines, and she was ready to sail yet again.
Under a dazzling blue, late-summer sky dotted with white cumulus clouds, JANE ANN rounds South Haven Light on a starboard tack, her cream-colored sails— reminiscent of Egyptian cotton—filled to the south-westerly breeze. Heads turn along the breakwater, while this lovely wooden boat begins life anew on the Great Lakes.
Rob Pittaway
In all views she resembles Nathanael Herreshoff’s Columbia Lifeboat Tender, which was her inspiration. Like her forebear, each of the fetching JANE ANN’s lines is placed with purpose. Her full midsection and moderate deadrise indicate a comfortable and accommodating boat.
This Boat Profile was published in Small Boats 2011 and appears here as archival material. If you have more information about this boat, plan, or design – please let us know in the comment section.
Going to Lowell’s Boat Shop in Amesbury, Massachusetts, is like going to a dory candy store. Do you pick a straightforward rowing dory like the Salisbury Point Skiff, developed in the 1860s? How about the outboard-motor-powered version of the Amesbury Skiff, an adaptation from the 1920s? What about a high-sided Banks Dory, set up for traditional tholepin rowing? Having but one choice to make, I selected what I thought for me, and I suspect for many others, would be a fine compromise: a Sailing Surf Dory.
Corinne Ricciardi
A comparatively round-sided dory, the Sailing Surf Dory handles well under sail or oars. This boat is a 14-footer, and Lowell’s Boat Shop in Amesbury, Massachusetts, also builds 16’, 18’, and 20’ versions.
For many dories, the words “sailing” and “rowing” don’t comfortably sit side by side. If performance sailing is of paramount importance and you break out the oars only grudgingly, look elsewhere. If keeping up with the collegiate rowing teams along the Charles River in Boston is your ambition, don’t even think about a boat that has anything like the word “sail” in its vocabulary. All boats are compromises, and the only question is whether the compromise works well or works poorly for its intended function in the hands of its owner.
Lowell’s Boat Shop made thousands of dories in the schooner-fishing era and has a tradition dating back to 1793 in Amesbury. The combined boatshop and museum, now a nonprofit organization, is worth a visit in its own right. Dories built here using jigs and patterns polished by use and time have been shipped far and wide. “All that we build we build from patterns that are here at the shop and notes from the original builder,” lead boatbuilder Graham McKay said. “John Gardner has a few plans for boats like this, such as the Nahant Dory and the 19′ surf dory in The Dory Book, but our design is indigenous to the shop and based on 19th-century patterns. Likely some of the boats Gardner recorded were similar surf dories built here…or they were closely based upon them.”
Tom Jackson
The nonprofit Lowell’s Boat Shop fulfills roles as a working boatshop and also as a museum. Dories are built here using strongbacks and templates that date back many decades.
Lowell’s makes the Sailing Surf Dory in four sizes, 14′, 16′, 18′, and 20′. On a fine day with a fair breeze, I took a 14-footer for an afternoon sail on the Merrimack River during the high slack tide. The boat was 33 years old, built by longtime Lowell’s builder Fred Tarbox. She had been donated back to Lowell’s by her owner after long service. The boat was in excellent condition, a testament to her builder and the care she has received during her lifetime.
Tom Jackson
The Sailing Surf Dory, at front, is one of many dory types built at Lowell’s on a site that has a boatbuilding tradition extending back to 1793.
This particular boat was rigged with a single sliding gunter sail. Other rig variations are possible, among them the traditional dory combination of a long-footed triangular mainsail with a small jib. For solo sailing, I found the sliding gunter to be a fine choice. It has ample sail area, and it’s easy to handle. The rig is something like a very high-peaked gaff rig, with the gaff nearly parallel to the mast. Its particular advantage is that the mast can be quite short, making the entire rig easy to stow inside the boat when rowing.
The boat is handy, responding well to her helm and easily making stays, or turning from one tack to another, leaving no doubt of her ability to cross the eye of the wind. The sheeting system is the only thing that might offer a novice some consternation, but with a bit of practice it becomes clear. The system is a common one for dories and a few other small-boat types in which a single-part sheet passes around one of a pair of very simple thumb cleats mounted on the inwales well aft, one on each side. When you tack, you free the sheet from one thumb cleat and pass it around the other one, which will be on the leeward side on the new tack. There is no provision for cleating it off, nor should there be: Get used to keeping it in your hand, where you can instantly let it go in a gust. This sheet-shifting can seem awkward at first, but very soon the sailor develops a strategy to guard against having the sheet run afoul of the long tiller.
Corinne Ricciardi
With no standing rigging, the rig is easily struck completely when it’s time to row. Here, the mast heel is run under the rowing thwart and the masthead and spar extend just a bit past the transom.
The sheet really must be shifted when sailing close-hauled, not just because doing so assures the best sheeting angle for the sail but also because it’s the best way to keep the sheet clear of the tiller. When jibing, however, I found that it is much simpler to leave the sheet on one or the other thumb cleat and forgo shifting it. On downwind points of sail, this has a negligible effect on sheeting angle, and leaving the sheet on one cleat means that jibes can be done one after the other in quick succession with very little effort or disruption. I simply held the tiller and sheet together in one hand and grabbed the clew with the other to pass the sail across the boat for the new tack.
The boat is fitted with a daggerboard, which is sensible for a dory. The board can be raised fully for downwind sailing, and it allows a continuous adjustment for any given point of sail. It requires no complicated gear, and its top is well supported by the rowing thwart. The trunk’s short length minimizes intrusion into the interior. Forgetting to raise the board when nosing into a beach, however, would bring a memorable reminder, and venturing too close to rocks risks not only harming the board but also wrenching and possibly damaging the trunk. Having simple and uncomplicated rigging perhaps leaves the mind free to pay close attention to that board.
Tom Jackson
A daggerboard helps the dory track while sailing, and the fitted cap (below) keeps the water at bay while rowing.
When it comes time to row, the dory’s sail bundles easily around the mast, spar and all, where it can be made off with a short length of line or the end of the sheet. There is no standing rigging. The halyards— there are two, throat and peak—are made off to cleats mounted on the mast above the partners. This means that the whole bundle can be very easily lifted free and stowed in the boat. When I row a boat like this one, I like to pass the heel of the mast under the rowing thwart and let the top end of the mast trail over the transom. This keeps the rowing thwart clear.
Tom Jackson
Thumb cleats on the insides of the rails, far aft near the distinctive transom, provide a good sheeting angle.
Dories can be remarkably agile under oars, and they can also be very comfortable to row. The surf dory steps up nicely to its pace, and with its well-rockered bottom it comes around sharply. No dory will track as well as a long-keeled, round-bottomed boat, but steady rowing rewards the oarsman with a reasonably straight course. One benefit of a dory is that when you come to shoal water, you can adroitly turn it around and row effectively backwards, allowing you to see any rocks and maneuver around them. When beached, this boat will also remain upright on her flat bottom.
Corinne Ricciardi
Downwind, it is possible to leave the sheet on one thumb cleat to simplify quick jibes.
I sailed in a fairly light breeze in protected waters, but I wouldn’t hesitate to do some adventuring in this boat, especially the larger versions of it. Dories are famously capacious, and with dry bags for gear, camp-cruising for a solo sailor or a couple would be a tempting possibility, especially if tenting ashore. The boat has no floorboards, so it would be difficult—but not impossible—to set her up for sleeping aboard. The 18′ and 20′ versions, especially, would be robust trekking boats for cruising to islands in at least somewhat protected waters. Like many boats, this one will probably take more weather than the skipper will—and it’s worth remembering that for a century the old U.S. Life Saving Service, before the days of the Coast Guard, relied on surf dories like these.
With effective reefing systems, wise choices of ground tackle, and a willing oarsman, this boat will go places. At 230 lbs for the shortest boat and 400 lbs for the longest, any of these dories would do well on a trailer for expeditions to new territory. And once set up to the owner’s taste, new territories will always beckon.
Because Lowell’s Boat Shop uses templates and patterns, no plans exist for the boats built there—and Lowell’s built them by the thousands back near the turn of the 20th century, especially for the Gloucester fishing schooners. Mystic Seaport’s John Gardner reproduced lines for some boats, and one that comes close to the Sailing Surf Dory shape is the Nahant Dory shown here and published in The Dory Book. Note, however, that it was not set up for sail and that with 4’2” of beam for its 17’ length, the Nahant Dory is much narrower than the 14’ Sailing Surf Dory with a beam of 4’11”.
The Townsend Tern adroitly answers the question of whether good-looking small boats permit anything but cavelike accommodations. In the Tern, the paradox is literally one you can live with. Her attractive hull, accentuated by the lines of her plywood-lapstrake planking, still has a welcoming interior.
Kees Prins, a Port Townsend, Washington, builder and designer, designed the boat for Chelcie and Kathy Liu, small-boat enthusiasts who retired to the area. They knew what they wanted, and equally well they knew what they didn’t want. They were willing to put time into a lengthy—and therefore expensive—collaboration on design details. The boat was launched for the first time just a week before the 2010 Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival, and based on the pleased expressions of the couple, the result is on the mark.
Laingdon Schmitt
For a 23’6” boat, the Townsend Tern packs in plenty of the necessities of life for a cruising couple. She is designed to be simple to sail singlehanded, with unstayed carbon-fiber masts that are hinged at the tabernacles to make them easy to lower for trailering. Port Townsend, Washington, boatbuilder Kees Prins, at the helm, designed her in close consultation with the owners, Chelcie and Kathy Liu.
“Part of the reason or the impetus for this was a particularly grungy winter up here, when I thought, ‘Gee, wouldn’t it be nice to trailer a boat to a place that’s nice and warm, and sunny, and has longer days?’” Chelcie said. San Diego, maybe—but the freedom is there to venture farther afield.
They were specific with their other criteria, too. Both are, as they say, not getting any younger, so it was important that either of them, and most especially the slight-of-stature Kathy, could handle the boat alone if need be. Endurance cruising holds no appeal—“How long does it take to go from one B&B to another?” Kathy asked rhetorically—and they’re more likely to find a favorite restaurant than to cook aboard. But they wanted a workable galley. They definitely wanted a cabin heater for Northwest cruising, which can be clammy or outright sopping wet. They favored wooden construction, but wanted contemporary techniques so maintenance would be minimal. They insisted on electric auxiliary power—“that was non-negotiable,” they said, partly because they don’t care for pull-starting gasoline engines. But for safety, they didn’t want to have to lean out over the transom to deal with the motor in any way. They also wanted all sail controls led to the cockpit. One more thing: no through-hull fittings.
To simplify the sail plan, Prins incorporated a cat-ketch rig from a Bruce Kirby–designed Norwalk Islands Sharpie, which has free-standing carbon-fiber masts hinged in aluminum tabernacles for light weight, ease of setting up and folding down for trailering, and simplicity of rig. Its 214 sq ft of sail area also was the right size for their targeted hull length. Prins laid out a glued-lapstrake hull of 23′ 6″ LOA with a beam of 7′ 10″, comfortably within legal trailering limits. He specified using a laminated keel and 1⁄2″ okoume plywood for the bottom planking. To save weight, only the garboards are fiberglass-sheathed; the first two broadstrakes are coated with a mixture of epoxy and graphite, the rest are simply epoxy-coated, as is the interior. The bulkheads, which are set up for egg-crate-style structural support, are also made of 1⁄2″ okoume plywood, as is the deck. The well-rounded cabintop is made of two layers of 1⁄4″ plywood. No fastenings were used in the hull.
Tom Jackson
Sitting on the lowest of the centerboard steps, Chelcie Liu shows the convenience of the navigation station. The main saloon has ample sitting headroom throughout. The electronics are simple: The couple chose portable GPS and VHF units, thinking that they would be easiest to upgrade later. A house battery powers everything except the electric outboard.
In any centerboard boat, the placement and profile of the centerboard trunk has a controlling influence over the cabin layout. Prins made this centerboard’s top edge stepped in a zigzag pattern, allowing the centerboard trunk to cleverly double as companionway steps. The lowest of these is longer than the others and serves as a seat while working at the stove to port or the navigation table to starboard. The trunk also has a screw-in hatch cover mounted high on its port side, giving easy access to the lifting line and its fitting.
The plywood centerboard itself is 2″ thick to provide good strength and bearing surface in the area where it fits into the slot. When the board is fully lowered, the apex of each step corresponds to a floor timber, distributing heeling loads to the hull. The board’s below-the-keel profile, however, is sculpted to airfoil cross-sections that are parallel to the waterline when the board is fully lowered—something that Chelcie, a retired physics professor, appreciated.
Tom Jackson
Four AGM (absorbed glass mat) batteries—two stored on each side under the settees—power the Torqueedo Cruise 2.0 electric outboard, which is housed in a well.
The space under the bridge deck to each side of the highest part of the centerboard trunk is used to good advantage. To starboard, a composting Airhead toilet—a logical choice given the Lius’ proscription on through-hulls—is mounted on cabin-sole sliders allowing it to be pulled out for use. To port, two battery chargers and the easily accessible house battery, which powers everything not related to the electric outboard, are tucked neatly out of the living space.
The cabin has excellent sitting headroom that is little impeded by the centerboard trunk. The after ends of the bunks provide comfortable vis-à-vis seating. When it’s time to hit the sack, the floorboards lift in sections that fit between the V of the berths to provide a large sleeping platform. The interior doesn’t feel cramped, has lots of stowage, and gets lots of light from six portlights and a polycarbonate foredeck hatch.
Tom Jackson
To port is a simple galley, with a stove that converts easily from a one-burner cookstove to a fan-powered cabin heater—a comfort on a rainy Pacific Northwest day. Visible under the bridge deck are battery chargers and the house battery; in a similar space on the starboard side of the centerboard trunk, a composting toilet is stored, ready to slide out on tracks built into the cabin sole when needed.
Some interior choices were easy to make. The galley stove is a Wallas, a dual-purpose Finnish unit that runs on kerosene and has a plastic fuel container that can easily be refilled off the boat. The stovetop has a hinged cover that swings up to expose a single burner suitable for one-pot cooking. When the top is closed, a fan kicks in to blow heat into the cabin. Electronic systems are minimal, and the GPS, VHS, and anemometer are all handheld, avoiding cabin and masthead wiring. Electronics have a habit of going obsolete rather quickly these days, and handhelds don’t pose the same problem of reinstallation posed by built-in devices. Cabin lights are battery-powered LEDs that can be placed anywhere, avoiding fixed wiring. The running lights, too, are Danish-made Lopolight LEDs, battery-powered to avoid wiring.
Other judgments, however, became a true collaboration between designer and client. For example, the Lius printed off ellipses they could tape to the cabin sides to help decide portlight sizes and shapes, ultimately choosing to diminish the forwardmost one on each side to accentuate the slope of the cabin sides. During a trunk cabin mockup, they agreed to reduce its height to better suit the hull without losing interior comfort.
To power the Torqueedo Cruise 2.0 electric outboard, four Lifeline GPL-6CT deep-cycle marine batteries in series are placed under the berths, two on each side, for a total weight of 280 lbs, rechargeable via shore-power connection. The 24-volt outboard’s thrust is equivalent to a 6-hp gasoline-powered outboard, with perhaps 30 miles of range running at slow speed. Prins feels that a gasoline-powered outboard would work as well in the boat and may provide greater thrust when needed.
The motor is placed in a conventional after out- board well. The well closes off in a manner anything but conventional, however, to reduce drag, the bane of outboard wells in sailing boats. The keyhole-shaped opening in the bottom planking, straight-sided forward for shaft clearance and rounded aft for propeller passage, can be closed off entirely. Two box-shaped plugs can be snapped into place in the shaft alley, and the oval propeller aperture is closed off by clamshell doors operated by lines from the cockpit. When everything’s closed up, the well isn’t waterproof (and doesn’t need to be), but the fair shape of the hull is restored to assure the best possible sailing performance.
The rig is simple to set up and use. Even reefing lines are led to locking cleats on the after edge of the cabintop. The mainsheet doesn’t have a traveler; instead it passes through a block and then through a hole in the mizzenmast tabernacle, then to a cam cleat. A winch mounted on the mizzenmast can be used for either the centerboard pennant or the mizzen halyard, which can be cleated off after being snubbed up. The boat has no standing rigging, and all of the running rigging is within easy reach of the helmsman when singlehanding.
Sailing couldn’t be easier. The mizzen halyard runs alongside the mast and cleats at the tabernacle. The main halyard is led to a locking cleat on the aft edge of the cabintop. When tacking, really nothing needs to be done except to haul or ease the sheets to trim the sails as needed for the new course. Jibing is equally simple, except of course that the sheets have to be hauled quickly and then eased steadily to bring the sails to the other side for the new tack—but because there’s no jib to haul around the mainmast, jibing couldn’t be easier. Visibility is excellent. The boat is well-balanced and responds quickly to the tiller. She tracks well, even in the swirling ebb current off Port Townsend.
In a light breeze off Port Townsend during the annual festival, the Tern stayed even with one racing Thunderbird sloop and bested another through a long tack to windward, which is no mean feat and bodes well for her performance. The boat isn’t meant to be a racer, but she won’t make you late for that restaurant dinner, either.
More than anything else, it’s easy to imagine set- ting out for a long cruise in interesting territory in the Townsend Tern. The ability to handle a simple rig and reduce sail jointly brings the promise of safety and security when, as is inevitable, the sailors are caught out in a blow. Fair weather or foul, approaching an anchorage with the prospect of a roomy cockpit, a commodious and warm cabin, a comfortable berth, a good book, and a hot meal—well, what else in the world does a person need?
Comfortable accommodations, ample storage, a practical rig adapted wholesale from the Norwalk Islands Sharpie, and numerous clever solutions make the Townsend Tern an excellent cruising boat for a couple. The stepped centerboard allows the trunk to double as companionway steps, the lowest and longest of which allows the comfort of sitting to work in the galley or at the navigation station. The forward hatch admits light and also allows a crewman to handle most of the foredeck work, even setting and retreiving the anchor, from inside. The electric outboard motor kicks up in a well, which has doors that close to leave the hull fair for sailing. She also has a stowable composting toilet. Even with all this, the hull is well proportioned and attractive.
This is a general outline of the process for a basic annual-maintenance varnish job. Healthy, well-maintained exterior varnished surfaces will require one maintenance coat per year, unless the boat is in a boathouse or under cover. Additional coats might be needed on surfaces subjected to high traffic, abrasion, or ultraviolet exposure, and more frequent recoating might be needed in the tropics.
In areas where damage requires touch-up varnishing of bare wood, or if starting a varnish project from bare wood, I apply nine coats of varnish minimum (seven coats on interior surfaces). On transoms, masts, or deep-grained oak, I recommend a minimum of 12 coats.
Note that with any exterior varnish, you may need additives to keep your varnish flowing in hot sun, windy weather, or on particularly large expanses of wood. Conversely, when varnishing off-season in cold shop or storage spaces, you may require additives to help your varnish dry.
Power sander with a hole-punch pad and adaptor to fit a standard vacuum hose.
Vacuum with brush and floor attachments
Extension cord with two-way splitter
Heat gun fitted with nozzle ends
Scrapers (I use carbide ¼”, ¾” triangle blade, 1½” blade.)
Hard and soft sanding blocks plus small wood blocks for fairing touch-ups
Rubber mallet
Screwdrivers (square, slot, and Phillips-head)
Long awl (to unseal thinner and additive containers, clean caulk nozzles, and poke drain holes in varnish cans)
Paint-can opener key
Five-gallon bucket
Varnish brushes (I use Redtree badger-hair brushes, and 1” (25mm foam brushes for a few limited instances.)
Varnish roller trays (I use white plastic trays with a bubbled surface; they can be reused if cleaned well.)
Roller frames and foam rollers (I use yellow foam rollers: 3” (76mm) for small jobs, 7” (178mm) for large surfaces.)
Sharpie pen for labeling
Tack rags and rags (and scissors to cut them)
Rubber gloves, eye protection, dust masks, respirator, ear protection, knee pads, and protective tape for fingers
Cone paint filters and a filter “donut” (a plywood or cardboard cutout with a 4” [102mm] hole to hold the filter over a bucket)
Stir sticks
Brush spinner and combs
Two plastic buckets with lids (2 qt [2 liter]) for cleaning brushes, and a 1 qt [one liter] to hold brushes)
Jug labeled “Used Thinner”
Umbrellas (to shade my varnish tray as I work)
MATERIALS:
Sandpaper—80 grit, 120 grit, 240 grit, and sticky-back 240-grit sheets (Use quality sandpaper such as Norton. It’s worth it.)
Red Scotch-Brite scouring pads. Half a pad fits on a ¼-sheet sander (for deglossing only).
Tape (I use 3M Scotch green masking tape #256—for exterior use up to five days— and 3M blue 2090 tape for bare wood and double-taping around touch-ups for heat-gunning.)
Denatured alcohol in a spray bottle
Turpentine
Varnish and additives
Scrap cardboard and boxes (for under buckets and for workstation)
PREPARATION:
Wash the boat. This removes grime and saves sandpaper.
When removing hardware that would interfere with your varnishing, label each piece for re-installing afterward. For any hardware you leave in place, be sure to tape it thoroughly to prevent contamination with splatter or stray varnish.
Identify and mark with tape any damaged or blistered areas that require touch-ups. (When you find “blown” varnish, that is, varnish that has turned yellow and milky, and no longer adheres to the wood, think about why it’s blown—sun, moisture—and fix the source of the problem if you can.) Deal with these areas first, because they will need nine coats to match the surrounding varnish. Remove blown varnish with a heat gun and scraper, scraping into the damaged or bare spot (see more in TIPS AND DETAILS, below). Fair the edge of intact varnish into the bare spot with 120-grit paper on a small hard block until smooth. Sand the entire touch-up area with 240-grit paper. Wipe with alcohol and seal with a 50/50 varnish-and-turpentine mix. Do this with each touch-up.
Dieter Loibner
Tape off with a double layer of blue 3M tape and carefully remove blown varnish with a heat gun and scraper.
Tape will not stick to sanding dust, so before sanding it’s best to tape off the surface to be varnished, and be very careful not to disturb the tape while you sand. If sanding up against glass in portlights, hatches, or windshields, it’s best to tape first just for insurance; scratches in glass often cannot be undone.
When touch-ups are sealed and you’re building coats on them, you can begin to sand areas with intact varnish. On sunny days, you can get two or three coats of varnish on touch-ups if they dry enough to the touch in between; on cold days, you may get only one on.
Dieter Loibner
Fair the edge of intact varnish with 120-grit paper, and then switch to 240-grit to sand the entire touch-up area.
For surface preparation of healthy varnish, it’s important to degloss everything. I start with 240-grit paper on a ¼-sheet palm sander to do a quick deglossing and overall sanding. It does the bulk of the work quickly and easily. Then I hand-sand using a soft block with sticky-back 240 grit to remove swirls from the mechanical sander and hit any missed spots such as seams and corners. For surfaces with prominent brush strokes or uneven varnish, it’s best to hand-sand with a hard block to fair them. For deglossing line holes, detailed scroll pieces, or hard-to-reach undersides of cleats, Scotch-Brite scouring pads work well, but they will not remove sags, drips, or hairs.
Dieter Loibner
Degloss with 240-grit paper on a 1⁄4-sheet palm sander connected to a shop vacuum, and then handsand with a soft block to remove swirls.
Work around your wet touch-ups. If you need to, skip the midday touch-up coating so you can sand parts near touch-ups without the dust embedding in very wet varnish. Usually after a couple of hours, touch-ups are dry enough to sand nearby them without them becoming embedded with dust.
If you’re doing more than one overall coat, sand everything out, and apply your first full coat as soon as you can, rather than wait until all your touch-ups are done. This allows your first overall coat a few days to dry before sanding for the topcoat once your touch-ups are ready. (If only doing one overall coat, you’ll need to wait until your touch-ups have eight coats on them before doing your finish coat on everything.)
Dieter Loibner
Wet-sand in dust-sensitive areas, e.g., to wet varnish. The specially formulated paper cuts faster than dry sandpaper.
Wet-sanding, which produces no dust, is useful when you need to sand a surface next to wet varnish or touch-ups. It’s also useful when prepping any exposed exterior varnish when you shouldn’t produce dust or you don’t have power for vacuuming. Specially formulated paper for wet sanding cuts much faster than conventional dry sandpaper. I use it with a 2-qt bucket of water and a microfiber cloth, sprinkling water on my sanding area with my fingers or dipping the paper in water before sanding a section. Then I wipe the wet dust slush off with my wrung-out cloth. Leave the bucket of sludge water in the sun to evaporate. Do not dump it at the shop or marina. Dry wiping and vacuuming aren’t necessary. Just wipe the surface with alcohol, tack, and varnish.
Dieter Loibner
Dip your fingers in a small bucket of water to dampen the area, or dip the wet-sand paper. Afterward, clean up the area with a microfiber cloth.
After dry-sanding, wipe down with a dry rag. When the rag gets too full of dust, I clean it by letting the vacuum hose suck it in while I hold the end. Next, vacuum to clean any leftover dust off the surface and surrounding areas, and then wipe down the surface with a clean rag and denatured alcohol. I put alcohol in a spray bottle for economy and convenience.
Dieter Loibner
After dry-sanding, wipe down and vacuum the surface and surrounding areas. Then spray with denatured alcohol and wipe again with a clean rag.
If you didn’t tape off the perimeters of the surface to be varnished before sanding, do it now.
APPLICATION:
Just before varnishing, wipe the surface with alcohol again, and then tack with an unfolded gauzy tack cloth to pick up any last bit of dust. Wear gloves to keep the tack cloth wax off your hands, and never press a tack cloth hard against the surface (it will leave wax, and your varnish will fish-eye and not adhere). If varnishing interior surfaces the same day you sanded, it’s best to spray the air above with a mist of alcohol to drop any airborne dust and then wipe surfaces with alcohol. Also wipe any work lamps you may have positioned over your varnish. Pull your hair back and mind your clothes. A wool sweater or any cloth that sheds fibers isn’t good varnishing attire. I roll and tip my varnish.
Dieter Loibner
For final prep, gently wipe with an unfolded gauzy tack cloth. Wear gloves and never press a tack cloth hard against the surface, as it will leave wax.
For most surfaces I use a 3” yellow foam roller with a white plastic bubbled tray. The roller should be flaked to remove lint from it, and its cardboard ends should be rubbed—even if the packaging declares “NO LINT” in big bold letters. The roller puts the varnish on quickly and evenly. First, I roll the varnish on in short sections—roughly 1.5’ x 2’ (0.45m x 0.61m). Next, using a high-quality badger-hair brush, I brush the rolled varnish gently forward, then brush it back into the finished section and move on. This sequence helps reduce the stop-and-go buildup lines and keeps the varnish flowing into itself.
Dieter Loibner
Brush rolled varnish forward, and then back into the finished section. This helps reduce buildup lines and keeps the varnish flowing.
If I have a large expanse to varnish or if it’s breezy, it’s helpful to add a little flowing agent, such as Epifanes Easy-Flow or Penetrol. But if it’s not breezy and the expanse is not large, I use the varnish straight out of can, without any I hardly ever use thinner in varnish. The exception is when I’m coating a large expanse, such as a hull, on a windy day.
When varnishing caprails or cabin trim, I first roll the underside edges just up to the visible round, and tip with a foam brush, which leaves a nice beveled edge to meet up with when I come back and tip the adjacent visible surfaces with my varnish brush. This sequence keeps me from having to slow down to get those unseen spots and break my flow on the visible surface. With the undersides done, I’ll quickly coat the sides first, then the top for a short length—roughly 1.5’ x 2’—then move on to next section.
As I varnish, I keep my varnish tray in a cardboard produce box with a magnetic clip on the side to hold my brush. I also keep a rag and my tack cloth in the box in case I need them as I’m going along.
It’s important to block the sun from shining on the tray of varnish. The box flaps can help with that, but I also use my own shadow, shadows from the boat, or umbrellas I set up strategically.
Dieter Loibner
Protect varnish from the sun by putting the container into a high-sided box. If necessary, you can make your own shade with a small umbrella.
When you’re finished applying varnish, go back around, and, while it’s still wet, clean up any varnish you may have gotten where you don’t want it.
CLEANUP:
Pour leftover varnish into a separate can from your fresh varnish.
Dieter Loibner
Use paint filters and a filter “donut”—a plywood or cardboard cutout with a 4″ (102mm) hole to hold the filter over a bucket.
If you clean your bubbled tray well with your brush, you can let the tray dry and reuse it.
Pour a couple of inches (about 50 mm) of turpentine into a 2-qt plastic bucket, and then discard the used yellow roller, but put the roller frame in the bucket and clean it well using your brush. Wipe the frame with a rag, and put it away. (If you don’t clean your frame, it won’t roll next time you need it.)
Dieter Loibner
To reduce expenses, maintain all your brushes well. Cleaning them with a brush comb and turpentine is only the first step.
Clean your brush well with a brush comb and turpentine, and spin any solvent lingering in the bristles into a 5-gal pail with a brush spinner. If you use your brush frequently, after cleaning it you can store it in a quart plastic bucket with 1” or 2” of turpentine. Cut a slit in a plastic lid to push the handle through. Then each time you need to use it, you just comb it out and spin it, and you’re ready to go.
Dieter Loibner
Next, mount the handle to a brush spinner and spin hard into a 5-gal pail to remove all the remaining solvent from the bristles.
I keep a lid on the 2-qt cleaning turpentine bucket and reuse it for quick cleaning of my brush through the day, or for setting my brush in while going for lunch. (Leave your brush in turpentine only. In paint thinner or mineral spirits, varnish in the brush will turn to goo in just an hour.) When the cleaning turpentine gets too murky, pour it into a labeled “Used Turpentine” container, and take it to a hazardous waste disposal facility when it is full.
When spot-stripping varnish, use a heat gun set on medium and fitted with a narrow nozzle to help keep varnish from bubbling up adjacent to the intended touch-up. Double-taping with 3M blue 2090 tape right around your touch-up will also help limit the area you strip. And remember, you need only a bit of heat on the varnish. It doesn’t need to be a gooey mess before scraping.
Dieter Loibner
To spot-strip varnish, use a heat gun set on medium with a narrow nozzle to direct the heat and keep adjacent varnish from bubbling up.
When applying touch-up varnish, always brush in toward the patched area to reduce buildup on the edges surrounding it. This makes for easier sanding when your many repair coats are done.
Never let more than three coats of varnish dry before pulling your tape. When doing nine coats, I’ll pull my tape after the fourth coat before it’s dry, then again after the eighth coat before it’s dry. I always retape just before the topcoat.
Dieter Loibner
A double layer of 3M blue 2090 tape limits the strip area. Never let more than three coats of varnish dry before pulling the tape.
For sanding and varnishing bare wood, I will sand up to only 120 grit and then seal with 50/50 varnish and turpentine.
“Hot-coating” is recoating within 24 hours of the prior application, before that coat has completely cured but is dry enough to rub your hand over. When hot-coating or recoating without sanding, tack between each coat. To keep the surface fair, it’s best to let the varnish thoroughly cure after three hot coats, and then sand it, especially on open-grain teak or whenever the finish shows too many brush strokes or any unevenness.
Don’t pile more varnish on top of flaws. Spot-sand out any sags, drips, hairs, or bugs before applying the next coat. If you have a thick drip or sag, get rid of it before the next coat—scrape it down with your scraper, let it dry, then sand it out. In the meantime, just varnish around it.
When taping around curves, use a series of small pieces.
Dieter Loibner
Taping around curves is tricky, but a series of small pieces going in the same direction will make it easy to pull the tape after the job.
Be aware that sanded surfaces—whether they are to be painted or varnished—will usually pull adhesive from your tape and leave it on the surface. It’s hard to see this residue, so always double check for it and clean it away before varnishing or painting that area. It will otherwise show up in your finish.
Never pool varnish in corners or on low horizontal seams. It tends to blow within a year.
Dip only your brush tip into varnish, and never hold your brush upside down long enough to let varnish get in under the ferrule.
When you set your brush in turpentine, you need the solvent to come only an inch or so up the bristles. Don’t immerse your brush up to the ferrule in turpentine.
Be mindful of sharp tools in your pockets as you move about the boat; also beware of any metal snaps, rivets, and buckles on your clothing that could scratch the finish.
Wear a dust mask for dust, a respirator for chemicals (keep respirators in sealed bags for longer life), gloves for wipe-down and cleanup, and kneepads.
Dieter Loibner
Dust mask, respirator (with replacement filters), gloves, kneepads, and tape (to protect fingertips) are the basic necessities for personal protection.
While gloves are important when handling solvents, I never wear them while varnishing. It’s too easy to get varnish on the tips of the gloves’ fingers without realizing it, and then to go around the boat leaving little varnish prints everywhere.
Always put lids back on tight each time you use anything.
Be especially careful with your rags. Always hang them to dry or put them in a fireproof bucket with water in it. Never leave a chemical rag balled up or resting on varnish.
Unplug your heat gun whenever you turn your back on it, and be mindful of how and where you set it down when it’s hot.
Check for residual adhesive after pulling your tape when the job is done. Rubbing a dirty hand or rag over where it was will make the adhesive show. Clean away the adhesive with an orange citrus cleaner if you need to. Do notuse an acetone-based cleaner.
In a cold shop in the winter, I sometimes add accelerator to speed up the drying time so that I can coat the next day. (It’s also good to slightly hasten drying time if rain is on the way.)
Random-orbital sanders can be problematic with varnish. For the most part, they are overkill. You must be very careful not to create circular ditches and ruin the fairness of the finished surface. It won’t show up until you put the glossy finish on. Also, the friction created by sanding at high speeds with paper as fine as 320 can heat up and lift the varnish.
To make unfolding cold tack cloths easier, just set them in the sun or on a lamp for a minute.
Small boats provide endless opportunity for innovative thinking. We prowled the waterfront seeking clever and aesthetically pleasing solutions to some of the common problems posed by small boats: how to rig them, how to move them, how to stow gear aboard them, how to steer them, and how to live comfortably aboard them.
On the following pages, we present a selection of those details, beginning with an ingeniously outfitted Caledonia Yawl in which Small Boats Magazine editor Chris Cunningham cruises in style with his two children. We hope the ideas presented here will inspire you when it comes time to outfit your own small boat.
Christopher Cunningham
Chris Cunningham’s crew enjoys dinner aboard Chris’s 19’ Caledonia Yawl. (Chris is behind the camera, and will join them shortly.) Carefully designed and built details allow this small boat to be comfortable for daysailing, sleeping, and eating.
A Galley in a Box
Here’s a galley in a box that stows neatly aboard Chris Cunningham’s Caledonia Yawl. “I used a wide slip thwart as a base for the galley box,” says Cunningham. A slip thwart is a removable crosswise seating platform that sits on ledges built into the edges of parallel side benches. “When not in use,” says Chris, “the galley hangs beneath the thwart and serves as a seat for rowing or as part of the sleeping platform. At mealtimes the box is flipped upright and set anywhere along the side- bench ledge. With two stoves, tableware, and cookware, the box is quite full and the contents shift little when flipped. I always pack a tablecloth as much to cushion plates and pans as to cover the footprints on the dinner table.” The dinner table, you see, is a repurposed floorboard.
A Floorboard as Dining Table
“A pair of slip thwarts 9″ to 10″ wide and set vertically,” says Chris, “will support a floorboard panel at table height. Holes drilled in the center of each slip thwart accept the ends of a dowel to hold them on edge.” Imagine a trestle table, and you’ll get the idea. “The slip thwarts then can rest on the bench ledges. In my yawl the dowel allows the slip thwarts to be set across the ledges and support the table in its normal athwartship orientation to seat four or more, or with the slip thwarts parallel with the ledges and the floorboards rotated 90° to provide an alternate seating arrangement for two. The latter arrangement allows the diner aft to tend to the helm when the boat’s underway. (Meals I serve while underway are usually limited to downwind runs in light air.)”
An Elevated Sleeping Platform
The same ledges that support Chris’s slip thwarts also support his floorboards, which are raised up to become the sleeping platform. “The space between the side benches will dictate the dimensions of the floorboards,” says Chris. The thickness of the floorboards and the placement of their cleats is carefully planned so the surface of the floor-board–sleeping platform rests flush with the tops of the side benches. The floorboards in the bow of Chris’s yawl are at a fixed height, which is 9″ above the designed height. This extra elevation, due to the flare of the hull, allows enough width for a V-berth; the space beneath them allows some storage. “As high as these floorboards are,” says Chris, “there is little effect on stability when I stand on them, and their broad expanse makes for excellent footing for handling the sailing rig.”
Locker Ventilation
This pleasing silhouette depicting seagulls against the setting sun adorns a locker door on a First Light launch built by Pease Boatworks of Chatham, Massachusetts. The hand-cut detail is not only decorative; it also provides needed ventilation to the locker.
An Oar Cradle
Walt Simmons made this clever oar transport cradle for his Matinicus double-ender (page 96). Two, 2×2s are bored with 2-1⁄4″-diameter holes and then ripped to form half-round cradles. The outside of each cradle is carpeted to keep it from scratching the thwart it rests upon. The two cradles are set on the thwarts, the oar looms are laid into their respective cradles, and then the whole thing is bungeed in place to prevent sliding or shifting during transport.
A Shop-Built Inspection Port Tool
Trevor Peterson devised this handy inspection-port wrench for his 16′ Bolger-designed Surf double-ended sloop, BLUE BIRD. His oarlocks were stowed under the afterdeck one day, accessible only by the port, and the breeze was dying. That’s when Trevor discovered that loosening the port’s threaded plate was far harder than tightening it. Some determined effort freed the oarlocks that day, but it also sent Trevor’s mind to thinking about a tool to aid the job. The result couldn’t be simpler—and more effective: Two 3 ⁄4″-diameter dowels are set and glued into holes bored through a piece of 3⁄4″×1-1⁄2″ pine. The dowels protrude from the face of the pine by about 1 ⁄2″, and they do the work that would otherwise be done awkwardly by fingers. The tool also allows for ports to be mounted in tight places where hand function might be restricted.
Steering Linkage for a Yawl
Small yawls with outboard rudders always pose steering problems: how do you work around the mizzenmast? Some use a traditional Scandinavian method of a long push-pull tiller connected to a one-armed yoke on the rudderhead; others use a wildly looping tiller laminated to a great bend to allow it to swing and yet clear the mizzen. This solution uses a cast-bronze tiller yoke connected via low-stretch line to a similarly proportioned rudderhead yoke. Stephen Canright of the San Francisco National Maritime Historical Park developed this system for his own double-ended Nomans Land boat.
Wooden Bailers
These handcrafted bail scoops are nicer-looking than the often-used cut-away bleach bottles for bailing water that collect in the bilges of small wooden boats. The smaller, solid bail scoop is simple to make and fits smartly between a boat’s seat riser and planking when not in use.
A Ridge for the Boat Cover
Standing water on a boat cover can leak and damage a wooden boat in storage. This pole supports a fore-and-aft wire, which keep the boat’s canvas cover elevated, ensuring that water will be shed from it. The pole’s step and partner hold it fast, even in strong winds.
Bow Grating
Near the bow of a boat—in this case, the dory REPUBLICAN built by Capt. Gerald Smith—where the painter and anchor rode are stowed, this removable “bow grating” will help keep the bilge well ventilated while giving wet line a broad drying surface.
Dory Oarlock Keeper
This simple oarlock keeper on a Bolger-designed Gloucester Light Dory is made by cutting a slot in a side-mounting oar-lock socket. Filed and
sanded smooth, the slot allows the twine to pass when the oarlock is slipped into the keeper. Mounting the keeper on a spacer block gives a bit more clearance for the oarlock’s horns, making it easier to set or retrieve the oarlock. When the boat is set upside down over sawhorses for the winter, the keeper works another way: Sliding the oarlocks into the keeper the opposite direction makes them stay tucked up out of the weather.
Oar Keepers
Jonathan Minot, a boatbuilder from central Maine, borrowed from an elegant Adirondack guideboat tradition when building this lovely pulling boat to his own design. Like those famous lake boats, this boat’s seat back for the after thwart doubles as a keeper for the oars, which slip into purpose-made notches. Note that the seat’s top edge is fitted with a brass rub strip to guard against the inevitable times when the blades don’t make it into the notch on the first shot.
Centerboard Rod Pennant
A sailing Beach Pea peapod designed by Doug Hylan of Brooklin, Maine, and built by The Landing School in Kennebunkport, uses centerboard hoisting gear made of bronze rod. The great advantage of the rod is that if a stone jams the centerboard in the trunk, the rod instantly provides something rigid to use to push down on the board to clear the blockage. This arrangement doesn’t allow for fine-tuning the centerboard—it’s either all the way up or all the way down—but racing tactics like slight board adjustments aren’t really the objective for a boat like this one, anyway. When the board is raised, the rod is housed by pressing between two simple bent-bronze keepers; when lowered, a similar keeper stops it from drifting up. A setup like this also saves overall boat weight because the board doesn’t need lead ballast to hold it down when under way.
An Organized Center Console
Boatbuilder Mark Ober of Sorrento, Maine, put a lot of thought and care into the construction of a well-appointed center console for his 22′ Pulsifer Hampton boat. The box-shaped, low-profile addition to the console is held in place by only two screws, and by backing them out—and disconnecting several multiplugs—the entire box can be removed for access. On the underside of the hinged lid, Mark has his VHF microphone, a stopwatch, a digital clock, a pencil, and a flashlight neatly organized. Inside the self-draining box are engine instruments and warning lights, bilge pump switch, the VHF’s main unit, a GPS display, and a depthsounder readout. In case of rain, the console’s lid can be closed to cover the gear. As backup in case of GPS failure, Ober uses a compass with a purpose-made mount that slips under the lid’s handle aligned with the boat’s centerline. By placing the main battery under the afterdeck instead of at the base of the console, he opened up in-console locker storage, with quick access to his fire extinguisher, flare kit, horn, and binoculars. It’s a tight package, neatly organized, and highly functional.
A Well-faired Motorwell
Aboard the Townsend Tern, a small cruiser designed and built by Kees Prins of Port Townsend, Washington (see page 88), this well for an outboard motor—an electric one, in this case—has a clever method for closing off the bottom when sailing. Two doors, operated by lines from the cockpit, close when the motor is kicked up but allow easy opening when resorting to motor power when the wind fails. Being able to close these doors keeps the hull stream-lined when sailing. The system relies on simple technology—bronze angle and commonly available rigging fittings. A car sliding on a piece of sail track mounted on the well side works through a hinged bronze angle to open or close the door. Two lines per door—one hauling the car down, the other up—lead to cam cleats in the cockpit, locking the door either in the closed or open position. The three bronze angles that form the door hinges lie flush with the inside of the plywood bottom planking, assuring that the door will stay flush, as well.
A Box for the Anchor Rode
James McMullen of Emerald Marine in Anacortes, Washington, developed an effective box for keeping the anchor under control on ROWAN, his Iain Oughtred–designed, double-ended Sooty Tern. The box keeps the anchor, chain, and rode contained, and a purpose-built cutout in the floorboards prevents the box itself from sliding around the boat during tacks. Keeping an anchor under control not only keeps it from damaging floorboards and planking, but also can increase safety by keeping the anchor’s weight low and on the centerline instead of off to leeward. The box also keeps the anchor within easy reach when it needs to be set In a hurry. An additional benefit is that the box lifts out for trailering, so the chain doesn’t get dragged across the boat’s nice woodwork.
A Folding Trailer Bunk
For his Washington County peapod, Charlie Chamberlain of Brunswick, Maine, made up an unusual trailering bunk. The hinged bunk folds down so the boat can clear it when being drawn up onto the trailer. The boat settles into a fixed forward bunk and, once the hull is in the right position fore-and-aft, the after bunk swings up and locks into place.
A Rope-Stropped Block
This rope-stropped block made by Trevor Henderson is used to tension the starboard running backstay of FRANCES DE LA ROSA, a sloop designed by J.R. Purdon in the late 19th century, and built by Alex Low and Jon Brown in 2010. Rope-stropped blocks are straightforward to build and to modify, and the rope strop both conceals and secures the sheave axle.
A Watertight Hatch Seal
The words “simple” and “watertight” don’t usually go together, but these hatches in the seats of the PT Skiff are both. Surgical tubing glued into a notch in the hatch lid provides a gasket. The dogs are machined from fiberglass plate and have a thin plastic washer underneath. The fastenings are bonded into epoxy-filled holes in the wooden hatch coamings.
An Under-Seat Locker
Designer-builder John Brooks built an eye-catching glued-lapstrake plywood interpretation of the legendary Herreshoff 12 1⁄2 daysailer (see WoodenBoat No. 217), and in the process devised this clever under-seat locker. The spaces under the forward and after decks of both the orignal Herreshoff boat and the Somes Sound 12 1⁄2 are relegated to buoyancy chambers, and aren’t meant for storage. But a small boat such as this one is kept much more tidy if its gear—unused sail stops, foghorn, flares, hand-bearing compass, docklines, and such—have a home. The space under the seats of the Somes Sound 121⁄2 proved to be a perfect place to tuck all of this stuff, and a locker there keeps it safe and organized.
Flip-out Oarlock
This flip-out oarlock socket increases the effective beam, and thus the oar power, on a 16′ Rangeley Lakes boat built by Tom Regan of Grapeview Point Boat Works. The boat is based on a C.W. Barrett design of 1915, and the hardware is from Shaw & Tenney (www.shawandtenney.com) of Orono, Maine. The otherwise vulnerable socket locks in its rowing position, and is easily unlocked and flipped into the boat for storage and transport.
A Compass Guard
A thwart-mounted compass in an open boat is vulnerable to all sorts of knocks from oars, errant steps, and fouled lines. This simple guard, resembling a mast partner, is part of the outfit of TERN, a 23′ open ketch designed by Tad Roberts and built by a group of recently graduated college friends who made a 10-month expedition in the boat from Lopez Island, Washington, to Ketchikan, Alaska—with no damage to the compass. (See WoodenBoat No. 195 for an account of the expedition.)
Shop-Built Kayak Cart
Brian Bean of Lake Tahoe, California, designed and built both this 19′ kayak and the cart upon which it rides. The cart has a form-fitting carbon-fiber saddle, a wooden axle to which the spoked wheels are lagged. The buckle and strap came from the local hardware store.
Quick-Release Turnbuckle
Here we have a quick-release turnbuckle from Port Townsend Foundry of Port Townsend, Washington (www.porttownsendfoundry.com). This hardware allows for fast setup and down-rigging of an Aurai 17, an Arch Davis–designed sloop (based on his Penobscot 17 design) sold by Callisto Sailcraft of Wenatchee, Washington. Note the deadeye to which the turn-buckle is fixed: It’s attached to a piece of threaded rod that’s nutted on the other end. Remove the nut, pull out the deadeye, and you’re left with an oarlock socket. Very resourceful.
Paul Gartside’s 14′ daysailer is a classic example of a “big” little boat. SKYLARK was built at WoodenBoat School by students in the Fundamentals of Boatbuilding program.
This handsome dinghy is an ideal family daysailer and can comfortably carry up to 4 people.
Skylark has great stability under both sail and oar.
Skylark is very fast, sails well with a good turn of speed even in light air and tacks well without hesitation.
Paul Gartside’s 14′ daysailer is offered with either a standing lug rig or a gunter jib and main.
Dawn came early, as it so often does when one is anxious, and I was anxious. The forecast was for a hot and sunny day, a rare treat in our corner of the Pacific Northwest. Normally I would be elated at such a prediction, a chance to slow down, go for a lazy sail, or putter about the boat. But this was painting day, and, next to snow, intense heat was about the worst weather we could be dealt; it would cause the paint to dry too fast, thus leaving brush marks, sags, and lap lines where the so-called “wet edge”—the advancing front of fresh paint—was lost. We had spent days painstakingly sanding the hull with a longboard. Our arms hurt. Our backs hurt. Our heads hurt—probably from self-medicating our arms and back with contents from the cooler. It would take another day of cleaning and taping, but it would all be worth it if we could apply a perfect coat of paint.
Staging surrounded the boat, laid out so we could walk continuously down the length of each side without stopping or tripping. In a shady spot, we had laid out our paint, thinners, rags, extra brushes and rollers, and anything we might need in a hurry. The plan was for an early start. We wanted to dry off the dew, get the hull wiped down, and be painting as soon as possible so as to take advantage of the cool morning air. Three of us mixed up our paint, grabbed our tools of choice, and went for it—one person rolling, another “tipping” the rolled-on paint with a brush, and the third standing by to pour more paint when we ran out and look for holidays, runs, and sags. And, most important, this third person also adjusted the viscosity of the paint as we went along; we would call out to have brushing thinner added as the sun evaporated it out of the paint pot, or to further thin the paint as the day heated up, to assure that the paint would flow out and level off. Although we didn’t get a ticker-tape parade when we were done, we were pretty proud of the finished product.
By noon that day it was hot, and the wind had picked up. As we were cleaning up, we heard shouts of anger from somewhere in the boatyard. A bit of investigation revealed a jet-black boat practically spontaneously combusting in the heat of the day and her crew doing everything they could to hopelessly trowel on a decent paint job. It was a losing battle, but they were not giving up. They should have. I’m pretty sure at one point I saw a paintbrush stick to the side like a kindergartener’s macaroni-art project, and the conditions did not improve with time.
This article is about how to get your paint to flow and level. And the first thing you can do to assure success— before adding stuff to your paint, and before refining your application technique—is to pick the proper weather.
Have you ever read this on the label of a paint can: “Do not apply in direct sunlight,” and wondered, “why not?” In direct sunlight on a warm day, say over 75°F, a white finish can reach temperatures of 180°F degrees and black can reach 250°F. With those temperatures, not only are the solvents quickly leaving the paint, but the outer layer of paint is oxidizing (drying) too quickly, and locking the brush marks in place. There simply is no way for the paint to level—to smooth out once it is applied to the surface—let alone maintain a wet edge.
Perhaps you’ve heard the suggestion of putting your can of paint in the refrigerator until you are ready to paint. Don’t forget that the temperature of the surface to be painted is just as important as the air temperature and the temperature of the paint. So, if you are spread- ing your refrigerated paint in hot air on a boat that has been sitting in the sun, your problems will persist: as soon as the paint is exposed to the hot air and applied to the hot surface of the boat, the solvents are going to flash off, the outer layer is going to heat up and start to dry, and you’ll be left with paint that won’t flow out. The solution is simple, and right there on the label of the can: Do not apply in direct sunlight.
So, check the weather forecast. If it looks as if it is going to be hot on the day you plan to paint, prep the boat the day before so that all it needs the next morning is a quick wipe-down before painting. I often see people spend the morning preparing a boat and then painting in the hot afternoon sun and getting a poor paint job that has to be redone. Save yourself the trouble: prep one day and paint the next.
Cold Weather
“That’s all fine and dandy” you say, “but what about when it’s cold and wet?” Well, when I am cold and wet, I have a tendency to huddle up and hold myself for warmth. Paint has the same tendency: it thickens up, it doesn’t like to flow out, and it can feel as if you are trying to spread glue with a cat’s tail. Again, just as important as the outside temperature and the temperature of the paint is the temperature of the thing you are painting—the substrate temperature. Often, the substrate is much colder than the air in the morning, and it might warm up if direct sunlight beats down on it. But if you are working in a part of the world where mornings are cold and afternoons warm, you won’t find much time where the substrate is the same temperature as the paint. In this case, you must first warm things to a workable and even temperature, preferably around 55°F.
If you are lucky, your boat is in a shed or building with a woodstove or some other heating device. If not, grab some tarps and build a quick temporary shelter, then find a way to get some heat going, such as a blast furnace or safety heater. Sometimes a 500-watt halogen work light does the trick (if you decide to use a propane blast furnace, remember: they put out a lot of moisture). If your paint is still sitting in the refrigerator, take it out the night before and put it someplace warm. Do the same for the thinners and conditioners you plan to use, as well, warming them to just above room temperature but being careful to not bring them to the point at which they will ignite. Some of us have a long drive to the boatyard; for me, it’s an hour and a half. I like to put the paint on the floor of the car under the heater and keep the heat going. You will likely have to warm it up again before you start mixing and painting, but at least you won’t be starting with really cold paint.
Painting your boat without a shelter in cold and wet weather, such as spring or fall, can be challenging, but rest assured it’s possible. You likely won’t get as much done every day, so plan to be hauled out longer than you might expect if you are in an area where your boat lives in the water year-round and you haul it just for painting and bottom maintenance. Break up your painting projects so you are not trying to paint everything in one or two days. Start painting late in the day to take advantage of sunlight. And be careful: even in a cold region, direct sun can still heat up the substrate quickly.
WoodenBoat School
Painting a boat in warm or cold weather requires careful use of modifiers that allow the paint to flow and level. Shelter can make a big difference, too, in blocking sunlight, retaining heat, and protecting from wind and dew. The first step to assuring a good paint job is to choose your weather.
Thinning and Conditioning the Paint
Have you ever thrown up your arms in disgust and screamed at the heavens, “Why can’t the manufacturer just make a paint that I can use straight out of the can!”? There are too many factors at play for such a one-size-fits-all approach. In order to evaluate coatings, tests in the lab must be consistent, so paints are formulated to standards. For example, an oil-based alkyd is said to be dry after cooking at 70°F for seven days. But in the real world, where you might have daytime temperatures in the 80s and nighttime temperatures in the 50s—or 55°F consistently, all the time—the paint might take a month to fully dry.
Flow and level are also both calculated in the lab, and the recipe is adjusted for optimum performance. The application method is a factor because different qualities are preferred if you are spraying as opposed to brushing. To evaluate flow and level, a lab will take measurements using a sag meter and a leveling bar. These are metal tools with precise grooves cut in them, and when they are dragged across a paint film they’ll show what thickness of paint will flow out and level. Various modifiers or additives are mixed into the paint until the chemist is satisfied with the results. Sometimes they want to make the paint thicker, reducing flow so you can get a thicker coat applied before sags appear; sometimes they might put in a surface modifier that alters the sur- face tension so the paint levels off better than it would otherwise. Regardless of what’s done in the lab, however, you most likely will have to adjust the paint on the day you use it, to get it to flow out and level off according to the ambient conditions.
To combat the effects of excessive ambient heat, you can thin the paint with a suitable solvent. The instructions on the labels of quality paints include suggestions for suitable solvents; some blends, such as Interlux 333, are formulated specifically for brushing. If you can, thin with a solvent that has a slow evaporation point or use a paint conditioner designed for thinning a paint in hot conditions. Typical paint conditioners are a blend of oils and sometimes resins and other additives. Penetrol is a popular one. They can drastically increase the paint’s dry time and wet edge, but because they are usually mostly oil, they can soften the dried paint film; sometimes dull the gloss; and, if not mixed in well with your semigloss, satin, or flat-sheen paint, can yield a mottled look. With as little as one percent by weight of raw linseed oil added into the paint, you will notice a big difference in the paint’s softness, dry time, and durability.
Be careful when adding thinner, too. Too much of it will dilute the paint’s resin, and you will be painting on mostly solvent and pigment, resulting in poor film build and a loss of gloss. This starts to happen when the additional solvent reaches 20–30 percent of the paint volume. In most single-part paints, the solids content is around 50 percent, meaning that half of the paint is resin and pigments while the other half is solvent. An additional 30 percent solvent diminishes the solids content; you would thus have to apply additional coats to get the film thickness you would get with one unadulterated coat. However, if that is what it takes to get the paint to flow out in the conditions you are stuck with, it might be the better option.
When mixing thinners and conditioners for warm weather, the goal is to keep the paint from drying too quickly. With cold weather, the goal is to speed up the paint’s drying so it doesn’t thicken due to the cold and cause sags, runs, and brush marks. If there is a lot of wind, don’t paint! If you disregard this advice, treat the paint as you would for warm weather.
Use the same additives for cold weather that you use for warm weather, except that instead of a slow-evaporating thinner you might try a quick one. Some- times, if I am afraid the substrate might be a little cold and not want to hold onto the new paint, I’ll even add a little bit of a “hot” solvent to help melt the old layer of paint and thus help the new one adhere. When the weather is cold, roll or brush the paint on thin; on such days, it takes a long time for paint to “through- dry”; if you have applied a heavy coat, you might notice weeks later that even though the outside is hard and sandable, you can easily press hard and leave a mark. Resist the urge, in cold weather, to apply multiple coats of paint before the previous coat has thoroughly dried, or you will end up with a soft mess.
Photos by Peter Marshall
Topside enamel is seldom applied without the use of additives, and the choice of additives depends upon the weather and the viscosity of the paint in the can. Left—Penetrol improves flow, reduces brush marks, and extends the working time of the paint; too much of it will soften the cured finish. Middle—Some solvents, such as Interlux 333, dry slowly and are meant for hot weather. Right—Xylene is a “hot,” or fast-evaporating solvent, and is ideal for cold-weather painting. It should be used sparingly, and the mixture checked on a test board, because it can melt paint.
TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES
Conditioning the paint is only one of the variables of a good paint job; tools and techniques are also critical to ensuring good flow and leveling when applying paint.
Before you begin painting, make a test board. This could be a simple piece of plywood, 2′ × 2′ or larger. It need not be fancy. Every phase of your painting project should be tested on this board. Use it to test how your paint is flowing out before you apply it to your boat; this way, you can see if you need to add more conditioner or less, or not paint at all. It’s much cheaper and easier to not paint than to do a bad job painting and have to sand it all off.
Starting with the primer coat, a foam roller tends to work the best for applying paint. Primers do not flow out or level because they are packed full of pigments that do things like hide the previous layer, block tannins, and fill grain. Don’t attempt to tip out the primer; the stipple from the foam roller leaves a very nice and even surface that is easy to sand out. If you try to use a brush to tip off the primer, you will get brush marks that are uneven, making it harder to sand out and giving a greater loss of the primer layer. This translates into more work.
There are two basic types of foam roller: the yellow ones that fit a standard roller frame, and the little white ones with domed ends that take a special frame. I had never seen the little white ones until I was working on a 175-million-dollar-yacht and the varnish crew used them exclusively. After I promised to never reveal their secret (sorry, guys), they informed me that the little white rollers left a finer stipple, giving a smoother finish. I tried them. The varnish guys were right, but the downside is these rollers come only in short lengths, inadequate for a large surface. The yellow foam rollers come in three sizes and fit standard roller frames. After doing an amazing job of priming, make sure you sand out all of the stipple. To do this, employ a friend and a raking light—that is, a light held at an angle to the surface—to make sure it’s all smooth. Any leftover stipple will telegraph through the top coat. The primer coat is the spongy, cozy layer of forgiveness that helps you even out the surface of the boat; its surface should be oh-so-smooth.
Photos by Peter Marshall
Rolling and tipping of topside paint has become standard practice, and the choice of roller cover is critical to a good job. Left—Standard-sized foam rollers are an ideal choice for large surfaces. Right—Small, white, dome-tipped foam rollers are reportedly superior.
The topcoat allows you to really get to show off your talents as a painter. If you must thin the paint, it may take a couple of final coats to completely hide the primer; “hide” is not only a function of pigment load, but also of coat thickness. I like to roll-and-tip my top coats. It’s fast; an experienced and prepared painter, working with a friend, can paint a properly prepared 30′ sailboat in 30 minutes.
We have talked about roller choices, but what should we tip off with? Don’t even think about using a cheap brush if you want a great job. Here are the basics of brush design: The bristles of a great brush will have “split ends,” which means one bristle is broken at the end to form many smaller bristles. The smaller the bristle, the shallower the groove it leaves in the paint and the less the paint has to level out to eliminate the brush marks. Put the brush in your hands and run your fingers through it to make sure the bristles are fairly even in thickness, which translates to even grooves in the paint film, and thus consistent leveling.
Another trait of a great brush is the shape of the tip of the brush. An inexpensive brush’s tip will be fairly flat, having only spilt ends at its very tip; a great brush will have a tapered crown and the split ends are distributed along the portion of the brush you actually use.
The brush should be packed with enough bristles to hold paint, and it should be stiff enough to move paint around—but not so stiff that it is not flexible. For small jobs you can buy, for a couple of bucks each, some decent artist’s brushes in the range of 1⁄2″ to 1″, but they are pretty flexible. Try one out; if it is too flexible, shorten the bristle length by wrapping some masking tape around the bristles until it firms up. My shop has a painting corner in it, which is a fancy way of saying my shop has a place where I lazily heap my painting supplies, and in that corner I try to keep a supply of inexpensive foam brushes. In numerous books, I have read about glorious jobs produced with foam brushes, but I have never been able to get a great paint job with one. If you look closely at the tip of a foam brush, you will see just how ragged they are. This hinders leveling. When I use them, foam brushes tend to act like squeegees, pushing the paint clean out of the way. So, why do I keep them? They are great for touch-ups.
Photos by Peter Marshall
The rolled-on paint must be brushed, or “tipped,” to spread it evenly and to begin its leveling, and a good brush must be employed for this purpose. Left—Great brushes have bristles with split ends, and the tips of the brushes are beveled to ensure maximum contact of bristle tips with the paint. Right—Poor brushes have squared-off tips and cheap bristles that shed during use.
You can successfully roll-and-tip on your own, but if you have a team of two to four people, you will get a better job. Use one person to roll, one to tip, one to mix paint and pour it in the tray (this way you don’t have to stop painting and risk losing your wet edge), and one to look for holidays, sags, and runs. Remember to constantly communicate with each other by saying things such as “more paint here,” or “less paint, roll it out thinner,” or “needs more conditioning so add three capfuls of thinner,” and so on. Yes, this is why shiny boats tend to cost more. It takes more people to keep them that way.
If you are more old-school and decide to forgo the roller and use only a brush, you can get good, even results by painting first in alternating diagonal lines (like painting an X) and then tipping out. It’s important when you tip out to follow the sheer when painting plywood or the plank lines when painting a planked boat. No matter how good you are, there will be brush marks, but if they follow the sheer or the plank lines (as opposed to random zigzags like the ones on Charlie Brown’s shirt) they tend to disappear.
Recently a friend asked if I would help him paint a new boat he was building. He was using a two-part top-coat paint that I had never used. Two-part paints can be tricky. They are used mainly on big, expensive yachts and airplanes, and generally are formulated for spraying rather than brushing. That means the paint is sticky, goes on very thin, and dries fast, not leaving much time for leveling out. Some manufacturers make brushing thinners for these paints, but that does not always help to the extent you would like it to. This is where that sample board can really come in handy: make sure you practice on it before touching a brush to the actual project.
We mixed our paint according to the directions, but as soon as I touched the sample board with the brush I realized we were going to have problems because the brush seemed to drag, sticking to the surface even though the paint was fairly thin. We added more brushing thinner and continued to add it as we went along the boat and the thinners flashed out of the paint pan. We ended up with a decent job. Some two-part paints claim you can buff them out with an electric polisher, and some claim you can’t; buffing allows your sins to be erased by a machine later on.
If you are a novice, afraid of making a mistake and worried your paint job won’t look like a calendar photo, or if you are the experienced veteran who rushed the job to satisfy a schedule, I have some final words of advice for you: Don’t worry about it. It’s just paint. You will be doing it again next year anyway.
Nonskid Deck
My first experience painting a nonskid deck came when I was just a little kid. At 36′, my parents’ old converted fishing troller was not a large boat, but its after portion was a giant party deck above the old fish hold. It was covered in nonskid.
One day, my dad decided to repaint the deck, so he got out the TSP (trisodium phosphate) and mixed it in a bucket of water, explaining to me that TSP didn’t leave a residue so it was good for cleaning paint work before painting. On that deck, the nonskid was silica sand scattered (broadcast) over wet paint and let to dry. Then the excess nonskid was vacuumed up and a top coat was applied. As I watched him scrub, he explained to me that with this method you can’t sand to any effect when you go to prep for a fresh coat of paint, so you must clean well!
Today, several different kinds of nonskid are available, including ready-made and mixed varieties, thick paints that dry rough, and various different sands that you can either stir into the paint before application or apply using the broadcast method while the painted coat is still wet. When using the broadcast method, or if you are adding nonskid particles to the paint pot yourself, you have a few options not only for the particle material but also its size.
The pre-mixed, ready-made, nonskid paints are often available in professional industrial-grade, two-part systems consisting of resin that you mix with a catalyst when you are ready to paint. There are also easier-to-handle single-part systems. The benefits of these premixed products are twofold: first, they create less mess, and, second, you don’t have to apply a top coat after application. If there is a downside, I would say the industrial stuff is expensive and the single-part versions tend to be light on concentration of nonskid particles.
Photos by Peter Marshall
Major paint manufacturers offer fine, uniform-grain sand additives to create nonskid paint of virtually any color.
A fairly new development in the world of nonskid is paint formulated to be thick. This type tends to be a water-based acrylic that goes down thick and is then hit with a textured roller to create an aggressive nonskid surface. Although simple to use, they dry very fast; one should plan accordingly. I found out the hard way to be very careful not to use, or spill, harsh chemicals such as gasoline or acetone on these surfaces; these chemicals will “melt” or dissolve the acrylic coating. Acrylics don’t cure like alkyds or epoxies; they get hard once the solvent is gone, but reintroducing the solvent makes them liquid again, the way shellac handles. If you want a version of this but need it to be more robust, try a two-part epoxy or epoxy paint, then add silica adhesive thickener to it until it is really thick—almost like cookie dough. Then spread it on and use a textured roller to achieve the desired surface. Years ago, I worked in the movie industry, and this was a method the painters used for giving texture to movie-set pieces.
Proven by decades of trial and error, the old method of broadcasting grit into wet paint is a workhorse of nonskid applications. You get a lot of flexibility using this method because you can choose not only the type of nonskid particles but also their size and concentration. Some examples of materials are walnut shells, aluminum oxide sand, silica sand, and rubber sand. This flexibility allows you to have more aggressive nonskid in areas such as the foredeck around the anchor windlass or the cockpit sole, and less aggressive texture in areas such as the cabintop or a place you might sit.
Photo by Peter Marshall
Rubber particles offer a softer surface than sand does.
Start by laying a coat of your deck color in the area you want the nonskid to be, then either put your particles in a shaker and shake them over the wet paint or simply toss or cast them onto the wet paint. Start light. You can always add more if you don’t think it looks even or aggressive enough. Let the paint dry. Then get a broom or vacuum and clean up any loose particles. After that, put down another coat of deck color. When you need to refresh the paint, scrub and clean it well with a soap that does not leave a residue (such as TSP), and recoat. When the nonskid starts to fill in with paint, grind it off and do it again.
All nonskid is difficult to clean and keep clean, so my philosophy is to use it only where you need it. Keep the nonskid out from under cleat horns, for example, because it can chafe lines. A nice way of laying out the different zones of nonskid on your boat is to use masking tape and create waterways (smooth areas of paint without nonskid) around deck fittings, cabin sides, coamings, and toerails. If you are having trouble visualizing this, go check out any fiberglass boat and you will see areas where the molded nonskid is and is not. Deciding on the width of the waterways is artist’s choice, and it depends on the size of the boat and size of the area to be painted. A 2″-wide waterway on a small daysailer might look silly and wide, but on a 75′ yacht it might be just right. Use your eye as your guide, but don’t sacrifice safety for beauty.
Photos by Peter marshall
Step 1: Nonskid application begins with a cleaning or sanding of the surface to be painted, and then careful masking around hardware and deck furniture. Step 2: Detailing the masking tape with radiused corners, marked with the gauge shown in Step 1, is important for a refined appearance. Step 3: The paint is applied to the masked-off area. Step 4a: The nonskid medium is then broadcast by one of several means. Here, a modified Ball jar does the job.
Waterways look best to me when they terminate in a radius. This is more forgiving to the eye and allows your dimensions to require less precision. To get those radii consistent, I like to make a radius gauge block out of 1⁄4″ doorskin. Generally, I make two blocks, each about 2″ square, one with different outside radii on each corner and one with different inside radii on each corner. You make whatever fits your project. A nickel or a quarter works well for drawing the radii. Using a Forstner bit or a paddle bit in a drill press can help you make the inside radii on your gauge block perfect. To do this, draw your gauge on an oversized piece of pattern stock, then at each corner drill an appropriate-sized hole. With the holes drilled, cut the block to the finished size. This is a lot easier than trying to get a drill bit to drill half on the plywood and half off.
Photos by Peter Marshall
Step 4b: Particles may also simply be broadcast by hand. Step 5: Excess nonskid is vacuumed from the surface after the paint has dried. Step 6: A second coat of paint covers the particles and completes the job. The nonskid surface, with masking removed. Maintenance coats should be applied sparingly, in order to retain the effectiveness of the nonskid. Surface preparation should be an aggressive scrub with trisodium phosphate—unless one wishes to sand it all off and start over.
With a fresh coat of varnish, the chart holder hangs from the overhead. To get it to this point, I had to gather things from everywhere in the shop. I used a measuring tape, a combination square, the table saw, a table-saw sled, a stop block, a clamp, the dust collector, the bandsaw, the drill press and its hold-down, a plug cutter, the belt sander, a random-orbit sander, the compressor and nail gun, a cordless drill, a 1/4″ bit, Titebond III, a flock of drafting ducks, superglue and accelerator, a disposable bristle brush, nitrile gloves, my painting apron, a foam brush, lacquer thinner, a piece of a T-shirt for a rag, scissors, a paper cup, sandpaper, a foam pad over the table saw, a sanding block, a scraper, a chisel, a hot knife, the shop vac, a length of wire, and wire cutters.
When I read David Cockey’s article about chart holders, I knew I needed to make one for myself because I use paper charts exclusively—they can indeed be awkward to handle—and I also enjoy woodworking projects. Unfortunately, spending time in my shop can be a mixed blessing. The tools and supplies I’ve accumulated since I began building boats in 1978 have overwhelmed the one-car-garage workshop they now occupy.
While there is a place for everything in my shop, there just isn’t enough space. The stocks of wood and metal I have leaning up against the walls and the tools piled on shelves are as unstable as mountain talus slopes. “Debris piles up to a characteristic angle of repose,” notes Encyclopedia Britannica, and “when new debris is added to the slope, thereby locally increasing the angle, the slope adjusts by movement of the debris to reestablish the angle.” It’s not uncommon while I’m working at the bench to hear something fall on the opposite side of the shop: an angle grinder, for example, sitting on a shelf 10′ away from me, spontaneously rolled off, dropped onto a box of soldering equipment sticking out from the shelf below it, and took it to the floor with itself, breaking one of the firebricks that was in the box.
When my house was built in 1926 the car parked in this garage probably had wheels with wooden spokes. When I built my Caledonia yawl here, there was only room for the boat. All of the tools occupied the adjoining basement. Other boats occupied either the basement or the back yard.
More often, when I drop things I can’t find them (especially if they’re smaller than a half-dollar). The floor is speckled with drips and trails of paint, amber-like globules of epoxy, and wayward screws, nails, and staples. The Jackson Pollock–like pattern is as good at hiding dropped hardware and drill bits as Mossy Oak camo clothing is at concealing hunters. The back third of my workbench is devoted to storage for knives, tape, pencils, drill bits—and the rest of it (along with the table saw and jointer) can get so cluttered during a project that when I put a hammer down and turn my back it’s as good as gone.
The garage was built with an extension on one side. It’s now occupied by a mix of woodworking and metalworking equipment.
Working in my shop is a bit like delving into the I Spy books I enjoyed with my kids when they were very young. On each page of the books is a photograph of dozens of miscellaneous scattered objects with a rhyme that names items to find: “I spy a lion and eight other cats, a shell from the ocean, a fish who wears hats.” In my shop it’s: “I’ve misplaced my chuck key, a stainless-steel screw, two ball-peen hammers, and the cap for the glue.” There’s a satisfaction in finding things, but nothing in an I Spy book is burdened with the annoyance of having lost the hidden objects in the first place.
I’ve worked in tidy woodworking shops, so I know such places exist. I’ve had woodworking jobs in two Smithsonian Institution museums making displays and at Seattle’s Dusty Strings building hammered dulcimers. The floors in those shops were always swept clean, and every tool and every unused clamp was put back where it belonged after use so others would be able to lay hands on them. I don’t know why it has to be so different in my own shop. I like to think that more space would make a difference, but the shop once occupied most of my home’s basement and it was every bit as cluttered.
Now that my kids are on their own, I plan to move to a smaller home that has a big, detached garage where I can spread out. I can imagine having all my tools and supplies as neatly arranged as they would be in a Smithsonian workshop. I might set it up that way, but I worry that Shakespeare is right that “what’s past is prologue.” A character flaw would seem to be at the root of my disarray, but I finished the chart holder losing only a cabinet scraper (and not my temper) and I think it came out okay.
For fans of the I Spy books, here are lists (with my apologies, not set to rhyme) of items in the photographs here (click on the photos for a larger, sharper view). All of the objects included appeared in articles in Small Boats Magazine and are linked to them.
Envision a frustrated prehistoric man gazing beyond the crashing surf to schools of fish erupting on the surface, well out of reach: “If only I could get to them.” Every surf-casting fisherman can relate. Skiffs provide the shore-bound fisherman a new universe of opportunity, but those who launch directly from the beach when favorable conditions allow, must hope surf conditions don’t worsen before it’s time to return to land. Every continent has a stretch of turbulent coastline on the receiving end of an ocean reach spanning thousands of miles. Much of North America’s Pacific coastline fits this bill with exposed shorelines and frequent big swells.
For the early Euro-American pioneers of Oregon’s north coast, the Pacific swell was certainly a few notches more dangerous than the inshore waters of New England, where many dory designs evolved. Unlike the countless bays, estuaries, and sheltered harbors of New England, this stretch of the coastline offered no safe passages to the ocean. Pacific City, a hamlet on this stretch of the Oregon coast, was built near the mouth of the Nestucca—a coastal river with a nightmarish bar. As a result, fishermen had to choose the beach as the port of entry for their modest fleet.
Local builders started with the classic double-ender surf-dory designs of New England, but soon made longer and beamier versions for more stability among the larger swells. By the 1950s, motorwells were common in double-enders, and by the ’70s square-sterned powered semi-dories took over. Abundant old-growth Douglas-fir provided premium framing lumber, and the golden age of AA marine-grade fir plywood offered outstanding planking. Builders abounded in western Oregon, where the Pacific City Dory probably held the title as the most abundant plywood-on-frame working skiff in America. These boats were simple to build and had a length of 20′ to 22′, a beam of 7.5′ to 8′ carried well forward, a 5′- to 6′-wide flat bottom, a transom raked at 12 degrees, and sides angled of at least 25 degrees.
Sandy Weedman, (pcphotolady.webs.com)
With a flat bottom that’s 5′ wide for much of its length, the Hunky Dory is quick to get on plane even at low speeds. For the author’s boat, equipped with a 90-hp outboard, the top speed is 34 knots.
A beach-launched skiff should have a flat bottom and a wide, proud bow, with rocker to rise over waves, not bury into them. The framing must be strong enough to withstand the head-on wave impacts and the stinging slams as the boat falls into the troughs at the back of a wave. Returning to shore, a high transom and splash well fend off following waves while the upturned bottom at the bow resists the bow steering that can lead to a broach. Landing can be more technical than launching. The skipper needs to feather the throttle to stay in the trough between wave crests and then, at just the right moment, accelerate over the collapsing wave and onto the sand, far enough to avoid being sucked back into the break.
Sandy Weedman (pcphotolady.webs.com)
With careful attention to the throttle, the Hunky Dory can match speed with the waves and approach the beach on the back of a collapsing wave.
The Glen-L 22′10″ Hunky Dory (and 18′3″ Little Hunk) are the only readily available sets of plans with true Pacific City Dory DNA—not only in their proportions, but in the finer details of framing. While many Glen-L designs may well be original, many are riffs on older, established designs, as Glen L. Witt often converted known hull shapes to a more approachable plywood-on-frame construction for the home builder. We do not know what specific Oregon dory or builder he pulled lines from, but his Hunky Dory and Little Hunk carry the likeness of many 50-plus-year-old, locally designed and built dories that still launch and land on the Pacific City beach. His Glen-L semi-dories include very strong framing with heavily gusseted frame joints with numerous 1×3 inner bottom battens. The battens are not let into the frames so bilgewater can flow freely through the gaps.
The broad appeal of this design is likely its versatility and simplicity of build, not its surf origins. Its beam-forward design and wide, flat bottom make it a very stable platform as a fishing or dive boat. While the semi-dory is a proven seaworthy craft with a large load capacity, its flat bottom and reserve buoyancy make it a capable shallow-water vessel.
Sandy Weedman (pcphotolady.webs.com)
With its broad flat bottom, the Hunky Dory can slide over thin water—even as the outboard is kicking up—before coming to a stop on the sand. Note how well the spray rail turns the water away.
In 2019, I purchased plans for the Hunky Dory and salvaged some old Douglas-fir lumber, including four sheets of 1970s-era AA Douglas-fir factory-scarfed 20′ plywood. The package from Glen-L came with a set of study plans, a build guide, and full-sized patterns for the frames, transom, stem, and breasthook. The patterns have copious annotations and identify the cuts in the frames for the sheer clamps and chines on each frame station. The patterns also clearly show the elevation of each frame on the jig needed to produce the straight bottom aft and the upward curved bottom forward. The build jig, typical of Glen-L designs, is a double beam that works well to stabilize the awkward heft of the transom and 12 frames, making subsequent adjustments and alignments much easier. The spacing between these elements can be adjusted proportionately to lengthen or shorten the dory up to 3′. Once the frames, transom, and stem are fabricated and mounted on the jig, the rest of the build is an intuitive process of marking, cutting, and fastening longitudinals. While I had some 20’ sheets of plywood to work with, the drawings detail butt joints with 8″-wide butt blocks or scarfed joints.
The plans offer alternatives for a motorwell or transom-mounted outboard, although they don’t provide details on a splash well for the transom version. Spray rails are shown in the drawings, but their shape and placement are left up to the builder. I set mine at a roughly 8-degree angle from horizontal down from the bow to the stern and applied curved fillets on the undersides to turn the water away from the hull. The interior is similarly left to the imagination of the builder, which is typical of many similar open boats. I opted for a plywood stand-up center console with a raised cooler as a leaning post. An optional set of plans detail five different cabins that can be added during construction or retrofitted later.
While some may gravitate to the motorwell option, the transom option is a more efficient planing surface, is just as safe with a good splash well, and provides more cockpit space for fishing. All contemporary Pacific City Dory builders have opted not to build the motorwell.
In a departure from the Pacific City style, Glen-L added four 1×3 battens to the outside of the bottom. They are an absolute no-go for beach landing because they violently grab the sand, so I installed them on the inside of the bottom to keep the strength they provide, while leaving the bottom smooth. Instead of the single layer of 1/2″ plywood specified for the bottom, I used two layers of 3/8″.
Rachel Bruce
The plans call for battens on the outside of the bottom, but for landings on a smooth sandy beach, they would only dig in and stop the boat before it could slide well up the flats. With the boat safe from the waves, it can be picked up by a trailer with a tilting bed and a strong winch.
To resist cracking from hard bottom hits, I reinforced the bottom piece of each frame with plywood cheeks or gussets, epoxied and nailed on either side. Due to the forces involved in surf launching and landing, I wanted to increase the strength of the transom and added two large transom knees on the bottom and quarter knees on the sides.
Although most Pacific City dories have an arrow-straight sheer aft of the upswept bow, I grew up in New England, and my idea of a sheerline is a sweeping curve. Whether a lobsterboat, dory, sloop, or a simple skiff, a nice curve from bow to stern was essential, so I gave my Hunky Dory just enough sheer to please my eye. Because the sides in that area are straight and set at a 30-degree angle, lowering the middle of the straight sheer to achieve the curve I liked also decreased the beam slightly, giving the boat a very subtle hourglass shape when sighted along the sheerline.
I started this build in December 2019, worked at a fairly fast clip, and finished by June of 2020 having logged about 375 hours. When the hull was complete, I turned my attention to the motor and trailer. Despite Evinrude closing its doors that year, the company’s E-tec 90-hp was a perfect choice with responsive two-stroke power for the surf zone and excellent fuel efficiency. I had an E-tec dealer install the motor. I salvaged a tilt-trailer from a junked dory and after some modifications to fit the dory, I was ready for a late-summer launch.
To say that launching and landing the Hunky Dory in the surf requires a steep learning curve would be an understatement. Over the course of the first couple of seasons, I gained experience and appreciation for the Hunky Dory’s seaworthiness. I was amazed how the boat ate 6′ curling waves on launch, often without even a splash of water over the bow, and thrived out in the open ocean in big rolling swells.
The boat jumps to a plane almost instantly and stays on plane even running as slow as 5 to 8 knots (some might say this relatively light hull with a large flat bottom is always on plane). It did require some trimming by moving the batteries from the stern to the center console; keeping crab traps and extra gas tanks forward also helps. The dory surprised me by how it carved turns and resisted skidding, an effect, perhaps, of the crisp, straight chines.
The dory’s wide, flat bottom helped make the E-tec exceptionally fuel efficient. On a 90-plus-mile round trip to albacore fishing grounds, the engine only drank about 17.5 gallons. All flat-bottomed boats pound in certain conditions, so for folks who want to spend lots of time running above 20 knots in rough, choppy seas, the Hunky Dory is probably not the right boat for them. But at around 15 to 17 knots this skiff moves comfortably in moderate seas, and in flat seas it can easily reach 34 knots at wide-open throttle.
Although launching often appears more dramatic, landing amidst larger swells is what gives most dory skippers the cold sweats. While running this dory downwind in a larger swell out at sea, I find its wide, flat bottom acts a bit like a surfboard, easily slipping down waves ahead of the danger zone at the wave crest. In the surf zone, I stay well away from following waves. What the Hunky Dory does so well, with enough power applied, is accelerate swiftly on command when the leading wave crumbles. Ideally, it glides in on a carpet of bubbling foam to a casual slide on the sand. I sometimes time it wrong, and land with a stinging slam on the leading edge of the wave, but the boat handles it with ease.
Two design features I have learned to appreciate are the 30-degree angle of the sides and the spray rails. Compared to other dories with sides several degrees closer to vertical, the Hunky Dory has ample flare at the bow to provide an extraordinarily dry ride in nasty conditions. The sides also have much finer, more pleasing lines than the bathtub-like 20-degree hulls. The spray rails keep the spray low and less likely to be picked up by wind; they also added significant rigidity to the plywood sides’ spans between frames.
The Hunky Dory is a versatile design, although it is in some ways too much boat for many inland waters and has too much flat bottom surface area to be practical for moving at speed in waters known for chop. However, this tough, stable boat delivers you through the surf to productive fishing resources in a big ocean. For that alone, it’s a magical thing.
John Goodell is a wildlife biologist and museum professional, currently serving as the Executive Director of The Archives of Falconry, in Boise, Idaho. He grew up in New England, and during stints in the carpentry trades he developed an interest in traditional dory and skiff designs in regional settings. He somewhat regrets choosing terrestrial professions in place of a life on the water. Before this project, he built a Chestnut Prospector strip canoe, and assisted in a Lumberyard Skiff build.
We were looking for a stable platform for fishing our local southern California waters with ample range to motor across the border to try our luck in Mexican waters. We also wanted to share our father-and-son adventures with others, so we needed a boat with the capacity to accommodate up to four fishermen.
Our web search of designs led us to the Glen-L La Paz 22. We were drawn to its spacious self-bailing open cockpit, seaworthy deep-V hull, and the range its 100-gallon fuel capacity would provide. The La Paz was designed as a trailerable center-console sportfisherman by Ken Hankinson—Glen L. Witt’s friend and partner at Glen-L.
The plans give options for building in either aluminum or plywood as well as changing the station spacing to build a 20′ or a 24′ version. We chose plywood, as we both (dad Mark, son Ryan) have a background in woodworking, epoxy, and fiberglass. And some 30 years ago Mark had built a Glen-L Hunky Dory.
We purchased study plans, decided to go forward with the project, and then purchased the plans and full-sized patterns for plywood construction along with Witt’s book Boatbuilding with Plywood. The plans give a wealth of information about the construction schedule, frame layout, and all the key elements of the build. Paying close attention to the detailed plans and patterns, especially before we cut any materials, saved us time and money.
Photographs by Dennis Eaton
The chine flats and lifting strakes are applied to the outside of the ‘glassed plywood hull and are meant to provide lift and reduce friction.
No lofting is required, so the La Paz construction—in any of the three lengths described in the plans—starts with building the seven frames, the transom, stem, and breasthook. The full-sized, half patterns for the frames and transom are transferred with carbon paper to a 4′x8′ sheet of cheap plywood that will serve as a table for assembling the frame and transom parts. Each frame consists of four individual pieces of solid wood gusseted together with 3/8″ marine-grade plywood and epoxy. The plans recommend vertical-grain Douglas-fir, Alaskan cedar, Southern pine, and Philippine, Honduras, and African mahogany. We made the frames with sapele; the plans give options for either 4/4 or 5/4 stock, and we chose 4/4 due to its availability.
The transom is drawn with options for configurations to suit a single outboard, twin outboards, or an inboard/outboard. It is made of two laminations of 3/4″ plywood with mahogany frame members. We added an additional lamination of 3/8″ plywood for extra strength and rigidity.
There are full-sized patterns for the stem and breasthook. The stem is made of three layers of 3/4″ marine-grade plywood; the breasthook has two layers.
The frames, transom, stem, and breasthook are all secured on a building jig made of 2×6 timbers anchored firmly, square, and level to the shop floor or ground. The frames are set square across the jig’s centerline and anchored to it with cross spalls secured to the frames at the design waterline (DWL). The keel, bottom battens, chine logs, and sheer clamps are bent in place without steaming, then secured with epoxy and bronze screws. The longitudinals are fastened with silicon-bronze screws and epoxied in place. The chine log, sheer clamp, and bottom battens are all beveled to provide a fair, flat mating surface for plywood planking. We used a grinder with coarse 80-grit paper to remove the bulk of the material, then finished with a block plane.
The plans include options for powering the La Paz with an inboard/outboard, twin outboards, or, as shown here, a single outboard. The actuators of the trim tabs that were added are visible here.
The plans do not include templates for planking, and Boatbuilding with Plywood recommends bending oversized plywood panels around the frame and tracing their outlines. We chose to first make cardboard templates to minimize waste. The 3/8″ side planking goes on first. Plans note the options for scarfing 8′ sheets to make full-length panels to apply in one operation or using butt joints to fasten the 8′ lengths of plywood one after another one the building form, joining them with butt joints. The butt joints are backed with 3/8″ plywood plates that span between chine log and sheer clamp and get epoxied and screwed in place. We opted for the latter for ease of installation.
Once the side planks are in place and their edges beveled flush with the chine logs, the bottom planking is installed, with sections butt joined. The aft section can be planked with 1/2″ plywood; the forward section is laminated with two 1/4″ sheets of plywood in order to accommodate the bend and twist in the bow area. Wet towels applied and left overnight made the plywood easier to bend.
While the plans call for sheathing the hull with one layer of 7.5-oz fiberglass cloth, we chose to use two layers for added durability. All corners and joints have doubled layers of fiberglass cloth. After the ’glassing process and final sanding, chine flats and lift strakes are installed and ’glassed in place. Once faired, the boat is ready for paint.The plans give dimensions for cockpit layout with center console, hatches, and an elevated casting deck forward, but this was one area where we deviated from the plans. We extended the fore anchor locker, and built an insulated fishhold under the raised casting platform. We also chose to foam-fill the entire hull under the sole for noise dampening? and safety, built a taller center console than plans detail with a centered helm, and purchased a leaning-post that provides a higher vantage point and, unlike a seat, lets the skipper’s legs absorb some of the shock when powering through chop. Like the designed console, ours has a seat built into its forward end, hinged to provide access to storage space. Our dual batteries and wiring panel are housed inside the console.
We purchased a T-top for some relief from the Southern California sun. It’s equipped with rod holders to supplement those attached to the seat and recessed in the side decks.
The La Paz was designed with a center console that could accommodate two on the helm side and two forward. The T-top was installed by the builder over his modified console to provide relief from southern California sunshine.
The cockpit sole is elevated above the waterline and self-drains aft through fittings in the transom. The 100-gallon fuel tank, made of aluminum by a metal fabricator, sits between frames under the sole and console. It keeps the weight amidships so the hull is nimble in rough water and trims properly whether the tank is full or empty.
The La Paz’s 8′6″ beam, lift strakes, and chine flats ensure a stable ride with superb handling. In moderate conditions the ride is dry if the wind isn’t picking up the spray and sending it on board. We installed electric trim tabs to keep the bow down in adverse conditions. The boat handles 3′ to 4′ seas well; the full-length deep-V hull softens pounding, but add wind and you’ll be slowing down to stay dry.
With a 135-hp outboard at wide-open throttle, the La Paz can hit 35 mph. It can accommodate an even more powerful motor. The 100-gallon fuel tank built into the hull under the console provides a respectable cruising range.
We powered the boat with a Honda BF135, which quickly gets it on plane and to a top speed of 35 miles per hour. If we were to do it again, power would be upgraded to 150 horsepower. Glen-L notes estimated speeds for motors ranging from 80 to 225 BHP (brake horsepower, measured at the motor without the losses created by a drive train), noting “the higher figure should not necessarily be considered the maximum rating.” The fuel consumption is economical, averaging around 3 to 4 miles per gallon. Given the 100-gallon fuel capacity, we have more than ample range for southern California fishing.
Our 24′ La Paz sits on a trailer we had custom-made. It weighs roughly 4,000 lbs fully loaded and trailers like a dream. At the launch ramp it can be handled by one person, but usually needs to be walked off and on with the trailer close to the dock. Two pairs of hands are best for a quick launch.
The La Paz has been a wonderful boat, and we are looking forward to many years of good times on it. It has fulfilled our expectations for a safe, stable, and economical center-console sportfisherman. We would highly recommend this design to anyone who has the time, space, and motivation to embark on such a boatbuilding project. Building it took us the better part of 18 months and was no easy feat to complete; there were times during the build that both of us doubted our ability to finish this project, but with a little fortitude and persistence, things fell into place. All in all, it has been the most rewarding project that either of us has worked on to date. The boat, with its classic lines, draws attention from most all who see it since it is definitely not your typical production center-console. While offshore fishing is our main objective for this boat, it will be just as at home on any smaller body of water.
Mark McDaniel is a recently retired airline pilot, and his son Ryan is a first-year middle-school teacher. They both have an affinity for all things saltwater and have long enjoyed woodworking.
La Paz 22 Particulars
[table]
Length/22′1” with options for 20′ and 24′
Waterline length/18′8″
Beam/8′6″
Hull draft/1′3”
Hull depth, maximum/4′7″
Displacement/3,800 lbs
Fuel capacity/100 gallons
[/table]
Plans for the plywood La Paz 22 are available from Glen-L for $284. Study plans cost $15.
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!
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Adam Eckhardt
Adam Eckhardt
Adam Eckhardt
Adam Eckhardt
Jason Eckhardt
