The Delaware ducker is a deceptively simple boat. It’s 15′ long, has a 4′ beam, and is low sided with side decks so that structurally there is no need for thwarts. There is a choice of rigs, depending on the crew’s intentions and abilities; they range from a 56-sq-ft gunning sail (as its name implies, the boat was developed for duck hunting) set with a sprit and a boom, to a 115-sq-ft gaff-headed racing rig.
The ducker is like a canoe: You need to step pretty close to the centerline when you board from the side. You need to have your hands on the coaming when you push off from the beach. And, if the wind is gusty, you must move from sitting or kneeling in the middle of the boat to the rail, where it seems you spend a goodly amount of time sitting on the low coaming. In short, it’s a sensitive boat that makes you move around.
Maynard Bray
The Delaware Ducker evolved as a bird-hunting boat on the tributaries of Delaware Bay. A study in simplicity and performance, it deserves close attention as a recreational boat.
If you have a passenger, the passenger can’t really row effectively unless you are working down a marsh and need someone to push-row looking ahead. Only if you are using the 65-sq-ft summer rig or the large racing rig can the passenger help balance the boat. So, the ducker is basically a singlehander, capable of carrying a passenger—a passenger who must move around to keep her moving. This is not a prescription for a highly marketable boat.
Still, the Ducker has some great virtues: It is one of the very few, perhaps the only, traditional working boat that would appeal to modern dinghy sailors—people used to boats that are tender and sensitive, boats that sail fast. There are no traditional boats that I know of that row as well as the ducker and can be sailed as well. It is one of the few traditional boats that will plane. It can be a demanding boat, but demanding boats are rewarding. There are boats that row faster and boats that sail faster, but there are few that will do both equally well.
I’ve owned my ducker, JOSEF W, for 30 years. She was built by Joe Liener in 1978 when he was an adviser to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, where I worked at the time. She is a copy of Joe’s own boat, GREENBRIAR. In honor of JOSEF W’s three decades, I had Nat Wilson replace her gunning sail last winter. He’d built the original sails, and the gunning sail had gone gray with age; patches were starting to go onto patches. With that new sail, I have been rediscovering the boat.
My first outing with the new sail on a local lake had fog and light wind. The 10-knot puffs coming through accelerated the boat to better than 4 knots, measured on the GPS. She’d ghost for a while as the puff died. When the breeze backed off, I needed to move from the side deck to the boat’s center in a hurry. Later, I took the boat out to my sister’s camp on a western Maine lake, rowing my wife the halfmile to the camp. A movable gunning box provides the rowing seat.
Ben Fuller
The Ducker we see here is JOSEF W, author Ben Fuller’s 30-year-old copy of GREENBRIAR, whose plans reside at the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia.
Later, when the wind came up, I rowed back to pick up the rig and sailed for a while that day with a passenger who sat amidships on the bottom. The floorboards are a single structure—a “floor flat” that comes out in one piece and has cleats on it to position the gunning box. The box houses the oarlocks, compass, and other loose gear. The side decks are supported by metal rods that double as oar stowage. There is a removable V-shaped lunch platform that lives under the stern deck, and a removable stern seat for a passenger. My passenger and I used the gunning rig that day.
For singlehanding, the gunning rig is pretty versatile. It will move you in a drifter, when you think oars might be a better way to go. Its spars are short enough so they will stow in the boat or can easily be carried. I have sailed this rig in Force 6 winds and 4′ seas— conditions that push the ducker to its limits. With the low sides and the big open cockpit amidships, spray climbs aboard and from time to time you must bail. If your conditions are generally a short chop, this is not as much of a problem. A canvas rough-water deck would be easy to add. And in a breeze, when you turn onto a reach, you will see that planing this double-ender is quite possible.
The ducker will capsize or swamp. Water on the side decks gives you some warning, and turning loose sheet and tiller will let the boat ride neatly broadside to wind and sea. I have not capsized but have seen it done, jibing in a breeze. She will float crew and gear but not high enough to bail. For more demanding conditions I put canoe float bags under the stern and bow decks, and we have rigged at least one of the duckers with side flotation bags. These would give you a chance at bailing the boat.
When rowing without gear and rig, 4 knots is achievable in most conditions, and 3 knots is easy cruising. The Blackburn Challenge is an annual distance rowing race in Massachusetts, and I have done three of them in JOSEF W and finished with no more than 10-minute differences in varying weather. The boat even won the Blackburn in 1989. One must pull from the after rowlocks, as the boat trims bow-down when rowing from amidships, making the boat hard to handle. As an experiment I added a small rowing frame with a wheeled platform on which I can put the gunning box so that I can use a sliding-seat boat. While I don’t go significantly faster with this rig, I do get to use more muscles.
When you are sailing, the ducker demands your attention. But with the sail brailed up or just drifting under oars, that nice open cockpit is ideal for napping. She would easily carry singlehanded camping gear and a tent over cockpit, something that was done often on the Delaware in the original boats.
Ben Fuller Collection
The Ducker is ideal for double-handed daysailing or for singlehanded camping—which was one of the boat’s historical uses.
Sometimes, the sprit rig is the first element of this boat that captures people’s attention. The boom jaws are close to the deck, but the sail is cut with a high clew, so the tip of the boom easily clears the head of the sailor. There is also a furling line that runs from the head down around the boom, then back up and down the mast. One yank, and the sail, boom, and sprit are a bundle ready to be lifted out.
The hardware is elegant and functional. The rudder hardware is fitted to a curved rudder with a standard pintle-and-gudgeon arrangement at the bottom and two mating gudgeons at the top with a pin to connect them. There are small turning blocks on the foredeck to lead the snotter and furling line back to the cockpit for the larger sprit rig. The oarlocks sit on bronze pedestals that look like inverted cones, and the shank of the traditional oarlock is a little longer to fit them. Several padeyes are riveted into the boat’s bottom; they pass through holes in the floor flat. Traditionally, these eyes were used for hiking lines—short lines with T handles that support the hiker. I have rigged them with a toe strap, and added a hiking stick made from a bamboo ski pole to the tiller.
Joe Liener is no longer with us. He had retired to a spot near the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum from managing the Philadelphia Naval Yard’s small-boat shops, rising from a 3d class journeyman. His ducker, GREENBRIAR, is part of the CBMM collection, and the museum is making the ducker the centerpiece of their small-boat building program. If you don’t want to build one yourself, they would be happy to build one for you—as would the Apprenticeshop in Rockland, Maine, whose lead instructor, Kevin Carney, built mine. Another Apprenticeshop instructor, Brian McClellan, led the building of what may be the finest reproduction that has been built. You can do it yourself, too: using modern materials, the easy plank lines make glued-lap or strip-planking pretty painless. Glued-lap can be done in 5⁄16″ plywood, which is what Joe used to build GREENBRIAR.
Ben Fuller Collection
Duckers were once ubiquitous. Given their recreational possibilities, it’s puzzling that we don’t see more of them.
It’s a little puzzling why we have not seen more duckers built in recent years. There have been perhaps half a dozen traditional ones built, mostly in museum and apprentice programs. Steve Clark, a highly experienced dinghy and sailing canoe sailor, saw the potential and built several cold-molded versions—and a mold for fiberglass hulls. People loved them at boat shows, but they did not buy. To my knowledge, one glued-lap version was built, taking the weight from around 150 lbs to 100 lbs; the cold-molded versions were as light as 60 lbs.
Were you to build, you’d have a choice of plans. Dave Dillion drew two splendid sets. Those for GREENBRIAR are in the collection of the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia. She has more deadrise and a flatter sheer than the other ducker that Dave drew— a boat given by John York to Mystic Seaport Museum. The York ducker is a bit steadier underfoot; this is the model used to build the cold-molded duckers.
JOSEF W may not be used as much as she once was. But I have worn out one set of oars and one sail, and there was a time that I commuted in her. Now she spends more time than she should hanging in the garage waiting to have a go. Perhaps she will if we can get more of these worthy craft built.
Dave Dillion
The plans for GREENBRIAR, drawn by Dave Dillion and sold by the Independence Seaport Museum, specify two rig options: a small gunning sail and a larger racing sail.
Plans for the Delaware Ducker GREENBRIAR, and others, are available from the Independence Seaport Museum, Penn’s Landing, 211 South Columbus Blvd. & Walnut St., Philadelphia, PA 19106; 215–413–8638.
In developing this design, Nelson Zimmer tells us his inspiration came from the many slim, handsome launches and cruisers that silently and gracefully passed by his waterside home in the days following World War I. Then, three horsepower served an 18′ launch admirably, and a 28′ cruiser might have had a 15-hp Kermath beneath her bridge deck. Because these engines were by today’s standards slow turning and low powered, they ran, if not silently, at least with a gentle, low-key rhythm that could even be called soothing.
Particulars and profile line drawings
But with the advent of power created by marine adaptation of the cheap, mass-produced, fast-turning automobile engine with its high (but sometimes questionable) power ratings, along with the blandishments of Madison Avenue and the stylists, the moderate launches and cruisers became obsolete in the eyes of most owners-but not extinct.
A case in point is the example shown. Designed as a tender to a Canadian north-woods fishing camp, the principal task of the Zimmer utility launch is to ferry passengers and supplies between the camp and town, some miles across a rather large lake. Great speed was not desired; what was wanted was an able hull, one that could cope with the chop from a fresh breeze or glide silently through the water to avoid disturbing the fishing grounds.
Body plans
In the interests of economy and the conservation of limited fuel supplies, the boat was designed to use the splendid little Sabb single-cylinder, 6- to 8-hp diesel, a true marine engine, remarkably free from the vibration that plagues most one-Jungers.
Since this little launch is only 20′ long on the waterline, it cannot be expected that she can be pushed much beyond 7 statute miles per hour, after which she will leave her stern wave behind and begin to squat, to the detriment of increased speed. But it should be noted that her top speed is achieved at about half throttle, when the standard 2:1 reduction gear gives a shaft speed of about 700 turns, providing plenty of torque to swing a big efficient wheel. At that rate, fuel consumption is a little under four-tenths of a U.S. gallon per hour, which translates to about 18 mpg-not bad, even from an automobilist’s point of view.
Construction drawings
This little 21×7′ hull has a shape that is easy to frame and build, and her light scantlings make for economy of material. Backbone and framing is white oak, planking is cedar or mahogany, screw fastened or copper riveted.
The cuddy aft provides a safe place to stow gear and offers shelter against a passing rain squall or a chill breeze, while with the canvas hood indicated on the drawings and some camping equipment, she can even double as an overnight cruiser. All in all, a good, commonsense little boat.
Arrangement plan
Zimmer utility launch design plans consist of four sheets, including lines, offsets, construction, and metalwork details. WB Plan No. 21. $105.00.
21′ Zimmer Utility Launch Design Plan Details
DESCRIPTION
Hull type: round-bottomed
Construction: Carvel planked over steamed frames
Featured in Design Section: WB No. 43
PERFORMANCE
Suitable for: Somewhat protected waters
Intended capacity: 6-8 day running, 2 cruising
Trailerable: With difficulty
Propulsion: 6- to 8-hp single-cylinder diesel
Speed (knots): Up to 7
BUILDING DATA
Skill needed: Advanced
Lofting required: Yes
Alternative construction: Cold-molded, strip
No. of sheets: 4
Level of detail: Average
Cost per set: $105.00
WB Plan No. 21
When Matt Murphy, editor of WoodenBoat, called me to say that Christopher Cunningham was retiring from the editorship of Small Boats, my response was immediate: What did he mean Chris was retiring? I’d worked with him for only two years as Small Boats’ managing editor, and I’d loved every minute; I wouldn’t get any more time with him?
But then Matt asked a question: Did I want the job?
I didn’t have to think about that one. Of course, I wanted the job. Chris Cunningham’s shoes would be big ones to fill, but I was excited to step into them.
Photographs from the author’s collection.
KOOKABURRA, the International Cadet bought for my older sister and brother. In time I would inherit her as my siblings graduated on to bigger and faster options. The 10′ 6″ Cadet was designed as a racing dinghy too small for adults to sail, and came with a spinnaker, tiller extension, and hiking straps. After the pram dinghy on which I’d learned to sail, she seemed the epitome of “cool.”
As I was growing up in Devon, England, my family had a string of small boats. First there was the 14′ Mayflower dinghy WENDY ANNE, and then THE POTTER, a 14′ plywood sloop with a tiny cabin. She lasted less than a season and was sold after capsizing with my father at the helm and my then young sister and brother in the cockpit. There was SACKBUT—a 15′ plywood Bermudan sloop—so named because of the strange trumpeting noise that emitted from the centerboard trunk on certain points of sail. Then OSPREY, a beamy 16’ clinker-built gaff sloop with an inboard diesel. I’m sure the engine had sounded like a good idea, but it gave nothing but trouble and ultimately caused OSPREY’s demise when it failed on a lee shore. By the time my father looked up from the engine box, it was too late to escape the rocks.
For five months of the year, the Cook’s One Design, KIWI, was moored on an outhaul below the house. In the winter she sat on a trailer in the single-car garage, which was so narrow my mother had to pull her outside to work on her.
The last sailboat in the string was KIWI, a 14′ Cook’s One-Design from Wivenhoe in Essex, a type that I later learned was a favorite of the legendary maritime historian, John Leather. Bright-finished inside and out with narrow lapstrake planking, a small foredeck, and short bowsprit, KIWI had a high-peaked gaff sail that never seemed to set right, and in the local Wednesday-evening dayboat races she invariably finished in the bottom three. The logo on her sail was a chef’s hat, honoring the man behind the design, but in truth it looked more like a mushroom than a hat and gave rise to many amused comments from family and friends. For all that, KIWI was beloved—especially by my mother who was solely responsible for her annual upkeep—and was the longest-lasting boat member of the family. She was sold only when my parents, in their early 80s, decided that maintaining even a small wooden boat was no longer fun.
My mother at the helm of KIWI soon after my parents bought her.
My siblings and I had our own boats. NEMO, a stumpy fiberglass pram dinghy with a gunter rig—the training boat for all three of us—was followed by an International Cadet, a couple of Fireflies, a Scorpion, a Mirror, and finally a Laser. The boats came and went as we grew up or as the local yacht club’s fleets waxed and waned. We sailed them daily through the summer vacations and gained a taste of independence that can only come from being a young child in a small boat wholly unconscious of the benevolent adult keeping a distant watch.
When I was in my teens, it seemed that the parents of all my sailing friends had yachts, and I was jealous of the size and sleek lines of those sparkling fiberglass hulls as they swung to their moorings. I asked, once, why we didn’t have one. My mother replied with neither apology nor irony, “Because we like to use our boats.” Only later did I understand her meaning: those yachts sat at their moorings week after week and rarely set sail. In contrast, there was barely a summer’s day when my parents weren’t afloat for at least an hour or two, out in the bay trolling for mackerel under sail, or pottering up the river in time to sail home on a gentle evening tide.
Built as a one-off in Devon, England, possibly in 1924, the 16′ sloop ELAINE came to the United States in a container in 2015. When she emerged from the delivery truck, it was obvious that the years were finally catching up with her and it was time for a refit. Paul Rollins of York, Maine, performed miracles, fairing the planks, ’glass-sheathing her exterior, building a new centerboard and centerboard trunk, and replacing her decks.
As I messed around in the small boats of my youth, I had no idea that I was destined to continue sailing for decades to come, not just for pleasure but also for work; that in a few short years I would be writing for Classic Boat magazine as its sailing editor, and would go on to edit The Boatman, Maritime Life and Traditions, WoodenBoat (as managing editor), and now Small Boats.
Since the 1980s, I have traveled to some extraordinary places thanks to small boats—from England to Australia, Brittany, Greece, Scotland, Canada, and all over the United States. Small boats have introduced me to some wonderful people, from fellow boatowners, to builders and designers, historians and teachers. They have opened conversations and led me to some of the warmest, most generous, straightforward people I’ve known.
I first sailed ELAINE as a teenager in the late 1970s, teaching kids, and later adults, to sail. Even though she’s only 16′ long, with her straight ends and generous beam, there’s cockpit space for as many as six, but she’s also the perfect boat for singlehanding. More than 40 years after I first helmed her out of the harbor, she’s still the best place I know for sloughing off the stresses of a day.
I have continued to own small boats—just now I have three. I’ve occasionally joined friends on longer big-boat cruises, have even sailed some transatlantic crossings, but I’m never happier than when I climb aboard ELAINE, my 16′ gaff-rigged sloop, and contemplate a short (or long) sail around the islands of the Sheepscot River in my adopted home of Maine. To now become the editor of Small Boats, to continue working with Christopher Cunningham (staying on as our editor-at-large), and to be part of a thriving community of fellow enthusiasts willing to share stories, swap knowledge, and keep alive a common simple love of small boats everywhere, is a dream come true.
Greenlanders would call the Hatch Cove Kayak—the newest design from David Wyman—a qajariaq, a “kayak-like” boat. Noted designer L. Francis Herreshoff would have called it a “double-paddle canoe.” But perhaps the best description for us might be a recreational touring kayak or “RTK.”
I first paddled (all too briefly) David’s prototype of the design just after he launched it in 2023. I brought with me the skepticism of decades of being a hard-core sea-kayak paddler and whitewater racer, to say nothing of my experiences of building and paddling skin-on-frame Inuit kayaks. I was (and still am, I suspect) a kayak snob: if it wasn’t long and skinny, and capable of being rolled, I wasn’t really interested.
David Wyman is a naval architect and boatbuilder who, for many years, was professor of naval architecture at Maine Maritime Academy, and is well known for his work with traditional sailing vessels. His personal boats range from small oar-and-sail cruisers to peapods and skiffs. He’d purchased some off-the-shelf small RTK’s to play with on ponds and rivers and to poke around in the waters near his home in Castine, Maine. But, never entirely satisfied, he decided to design one for his own use and to work with Clint Chase of Chase Small Craft to cut the parts for assembly in David’s home shop.
Ben Fuller
The choice of seat is left to the individual. David uses an upright canoe seat from L.L.Bean, but a foam seat with back band would serve as well. He created a “paddle park” by feeding a bungee through the deck to loop over the paddle to a simple hook. The arrangement holds the paddle when transporting the boat; David also uses it on the water when he wants to take a break from paddling.
David’s basic requirement was that he could solo the new boat in and out of the back of his pickup, and then could easily get in and out of it. David is a pretty big guy and has the stiffness that so many of us have when we enter our fourth quarter-century. The boat’s overall weight needed to be under 50 lbs, it must be short enough to ride in a pickup, even if overhanging the back, and it had to have enough initial stability to be boarded dry-shod from a bank.
Then there were David’s on-water requirements: he wanted the boat to have some decking to help keep things dry in a chop, but not to suffer from the typical windage he’d experienced in the RTKs he’d been paddling. It must have enough buoyancy to float him and his cargo (he wanted to be able to carry camping gear), and he had a target smooth-water speed of 3 to 4 knots. It also had to track well and, with wind on the beam, hold a straight course without weathercocking.
Ben Fuller
The hand-hold in the skeg is useful when moving the kayak around on land; it may also contribute to the boat’s maneuverability in turns. Forward of the skeg can be seen the tabs that locate the after bulkhead—the tabs are integral to Chase Small Craft’s Tab-n-Lock construction system.
Working with Clint, David designed the boat so the parts could be cut on a CNC machine. It is built over four molds that are tabbed into precut slots in the boat’s bottom using Clint’s Tab-n-Lock system; once construction is complete, the molds remain in the boat as integral frames. There are three planks of 4mm okoume plywood on 6mm frames with select spruce coamings and hardwood trim. The 4mm plywood is strong, but thin enough to accommodate the twist in the sharp bow and stern. For extra strength, in the cockpit area, there is a second layer of 4mm plywood to reinforce the bottom planks. In the ends of the boat, watertight bulkheads provide buoyancy chambers fore and aft that are enough to float the boat and its payload. These are in lieu of larger bulkheads, set at either end of the cockpit to create cargo compartments with hatches on deck. David will carry his camping kit in dry bags stowed under the decks in front of and behind the cockpit. If one prefers camping gear to fit through deck hatches, the frames closest to the cockpit could be cut not as ring frames but solid, to serve as watertight bulkheads. Hatches for access could be cut into the deck or the bulkheads themselves.
When I was invited to revisit David and his prototype Hatch Cove a month or so ago, I was excited to take it out for a serious spin on a local lake. I used an adjustable-length conventional paddle set at 220cm. The prototype doesn’t have adjustable foot braces and since I’m a good bit shorter than David, we improvised a temporary brace with a block of 4×4 set against the forward ring frame. David has been using a simple high-back canoe seat from L.L.Bean. I am more familiar with foam seats and low back bands so was expecting to be uncomfortable but, once out paddling, I was impressed by the seat: it allowed me to execute a full body twist as if I were in a racing seat more typical of sprint kayaks. For people who want a secured seat, a foam seat and a back band could be fitted. Clint Chase recommends seats as sold by Newfound Woodworks.
Ben Fuller
David Wyman (seen here, left, with photographer Harvey Bell) designed the Hatch Cove Kayak so he could lift it into and out of his pickup on his own. With the tailgate down, 8′ of the boat is supported by the truck, while the remaining 5′ overhangs. David lashes the boat in place and ties a red flag to the stern for transport.
To get into the kayak, I used the paddle as a brace to the shore and just stepped into the center and sat down, dry-shod. David carries a short stick and uses it as a cane in shallow water to help steady the boat and himself when climbing aboard; once on board, he stows the cane in his bungee paddle carrier. Getting out of the boat, I couldn’t reach the forward edge of the long cockpit, so I did what David does: I grabbed hold of the painter, pulled myself up to stand, and stepped out.
It was easy to paddle the Hatch Cove Kayak at 3 knots, and to get to 3.5 knots and 3.7 knots with just a little added pressure. In a flat-out sprint I could hit 4 knots briefly, but the kayak’s waterline length isn’t meant to go that fast. There wasn’t much wind, so I was unable to see if the boat weathercocked in a cross wind, but in the light breeze it was unaffected. David has tried the boat in a variety of conditions and reports that it tracked straight in as much wind as he cared to paddle: a nice 10 to 12 knots of breeze with a distinct surface chop.
Harvey Bell
I leaned well over to test the stability of the kayak. Even with my head over the sheer, the water was still a few inches from the cockpit coaming. At this point I was applying no pressure on the Greenland paddle. To heel the boat any farther would have taken considerable effort.
To give the kayak innate tracking ability, David designed a sharp stern with a skeg. The skeg incorporates a generous hole so that it doubles as a carrying handle. But that hole may well contribute to the boat’s maneuverability. I had anticipated that it might be hard to spin with that sharp stern, but it wasn’t. I could spin the boat through 360 degrees with four pairs of sweep/reverse-sweep strokes—about the same as spinning a much longer sea kayak.
The boat has a slight V-bottom and a relatively long straight bow. The sheerstrakes overlap the middle strakes, to work as a spray rail, and David says it works well to keep spray down when paddling into a chop. I would also want a spray skirt—mostly to keep the paddle drip out of my lap—which would require a lip to be glued to the top of the coaming.
Ben Fuller
David Wyman (seen here in his Hatch Cove Kayak prototype), has designed a boat that is easily transported, easy to get into and out of, can carry him and his camp-cruising gear, and can reach smooth-water speeds of 3 to 4 knots.
The deck at the sides of the coaming is quite wide. My knees stuck up above the coaming and my lower legs braced against it comfortably. This allowed me to heel the boat to steer it— heeling down on the side opposite the direction that I wanted the boat to go.
I wanted to see how stable the boat felt when I shifted my weight out to the side. I could put my head and shoulders over the sheer and the coaming came within a few inches of the water. It would take real work to capsize. I did not get a chance to see what it was like fully swamped and whether I could bail it out but am confident that it would float me.
As a nimble, light, recreational touring kayak, this is as nice as anything I’ve seen on the market. For fishing, photography, working down a narrow creek, or exploring twisty saltwater coves or marshes, it’s ideal. And, it can cover miles when pushed.
Ben Fuller, curator emeritus of the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, Maine, has been messing about in small boats for a very long time. He is owned by a dozen or more boats: kayaks, canoes, a skiff, a ducker, and a sail-and-oar boat.
Is there a boat you’d like to know more about? Have you built one that you think other Small Boats readers would enjoy? Please email us your suggestions.
Another in the series of lapstrake plywood small craft designed by Joel White especially for WoodenBoat, Shearwater combines the style of the wonderful open boats of western Norway and the performance of a Maine peapod with the ease of construction and durability of lapstrake plywood.
She’s narrow at the waterline, for a long, lean shape below that lets her glide through the water without fuss; yet, her topsides flare out to give lots of reserve stability and enough beam at the rail so that long oars can be used. Underwater, her bow and stern rise up so that she’ll turn quite quickly under oars, and not trip on her forefoot to become a liability when towed as a tender behind a larger boat in a following sea.
Shearwater sails well in light and moderate air. In a breeze of wind, leave the rig ashore.
Her hull, elegant and shapely as it is, is a study in simplicity, consisting of a backbone, three frames, and six planks-three to a side. Drawings for a sailing version are included, showing how to build the centerboard and trunk, rudder and tiller (she steers with a Norwegian-style cross-arm and push-pull tiller), and spars. We’ve found her to be unusually fast under sail and great fun in moderate seas, but because of her speed under sail, her low freeboard, and undecked hull, she’s not a sailboat for all weather. When it gets rough, she’s drier and safer under oars at speeds slow enough for her to rise to meet the oncoming waves.
Outboard profile
At 16′ overall and 150 lbs, the Shearwater boat is suitable for cartopping and, at the same time, suitable for carrying a sizeable load. Because she’s of plywood, she won’t dry out in the sun when not waterborne. And because her interior is uncluttered with the usual frames, chines, seat risers, and inwales, she’s very easy to keep clean, to sand, and to paint. Her seats and floorboards are easily removed—they just lift out—making the task of caring for her even easier. There’s no doubt about it, Shearwater is a wonderful combination of beauty, simplicity, versatility, and performance.
Construction plan
Shearwater design plans come in eight sheets, and include sail plan, profile and oars plan, building jig details, construction plan, lines and offsets, plus three sheets of full-size patterns. WoodenBoat Plan No. 58. $75.00.
A group of us in the Oarlock & Sail Wooden Boat Club in Vancouver, British Columbia, were looking for a new boat to build. Our requirements included room for more than two crew, stability, self-rescue capability, and exciting performance—along with beauty, of course.
Our search naturally led us to the designs of the late Iain Oughtred, and we chose his Gannet, the middle size of his trio of planing dinghies. At 14′ 5″, Gannet is 2′ longer than the longest of the other club-owned boats, so would offer more space and thus more opportunity for people to enjoy sailing.
Gannet is available in kit form, but we chose to build from plans and ordered a set from Oughtred Boats. The drawings, in Oughtred’s able hand, are gorgeous to look at and include full-sized drawings for molds and stem, Bermudan- or gunter-sloop, and lug or lug-yawl rig variations, as well as options for an open or half-decked hull. The plans are full of rich detail, while, at times, leave things open to interpretation—there we were aided by Oughtred’s Clinker Plywood Boatbuilding Manual.
Daniel Friesen
Once the hull was fully planked, we could turn it over and begin work on the interior. As the build came together it was exciting to see the cockpit layout unfold. Oughtred’s plans allow for personal choices, and we made good use of battens and clamps to test shapes and sizes before deciding on final configurations.
We chose the half-decked gunter-sloop version of the Gannet, with some modifications. We lowered the aft deck so that the top of the flotation chamber was at seat height and gave us an additional 18″ of seating, and we reduced the size of the foredeck so that the bulkhead, deck, and coaming were all forward of the mast, lengthening the cockpit space by some 12″. The change in the foredeck meant that the stayed mast was no longer deck-stepped as specified in the plans, but instead was keel-stepped. We keep our club boats in the water year-round, so rigging time is not a concern for us, but in the interest of simplifying the rigging process and to introduce stability, we fit a simple wooden mast partner enclosed by a leather strap that holds the mast to the cockpit coaming—it helps to steady the mast before the shrouds and forestay are rigged.
The gunter rig has a 14′ 6″ mast, shorter than the 19′ 8″ Bermudan option, and even with the 2′ 2″ additional length required for stepping it on the keel we were able to get it and the boom and yard out of some Sitka spruce that we had on hand. Oughtred’s sail plan calls for an 88-sq-ft mainsail and a 32-sq-ft jib. A set of donated sails—made by Macken Sails of Vancouver around 50 years ago—fit our boat nicely. The mainsail is more like a high-peaked gaff than a gunter, so we probably lose a little upwind performance, and the combined sail area is undersized by about 20 sq ft—the mainsail is 77 sq ft, the jib is 32 sq ft. Despite the smaller sails, we built our spars full size so we can upgrade to the designed sail plan if we ever decide it’s necessary. Reef lines are on our to-do list, but we haven’t needed them yet—even singlehanded, the Gannet stands up to an estimated 12- to 14-knot breeze if you’re prepared to hike out.
We considered building the boat in traditional lapstrake (one of the options offered in the drawings) with yellow cedar on steam-bent white oak. Our last couple of new builds have been built this way, but for the Gannet we questioned the traditional construction with the built-in flotation compartments: would a sealed chamber provide adequate ventilation, or would it lead to premature rot? In the end, we decided to go with Oughtred’s preferred glued-plywood lapstrake, both for its light weight and ease of including built-in flotation. Also, it’s a boatbuilding method that our members might be more likely to try if building a boat of their own. For planking and decks we used 1⁄4″ marine plywood, either okoume or meranti; the transom is 3⁄4″ meranti, and the aft deck is 1⁄2″ okoume. The centerboard is two layers of 3⁄4″ meranti, and the rudder is two layers of meranti, one 3⁄4″ the other 1⁄2″. The keel is Douglas fir, the stem is black locust, and the deck framing and floorboards are yellow cedar. Oughtred’s plans do not include material specifications, but the accompanying construction information includes a list of recommendations.
Daniel Friesen
By lowering the aft deck to seat level and shortening the foredeck we increased the cockpit space so that it will comfortably accommodate four adults under sail. We cut holes in the knees so we could tie things to them—by happy coincidence those same holes were perfect locators for the oars.
Construction went smoothly, and planking progressed quickly—we employed the lattice pattern/spiling or “ladder truss” method of picking up the plank shapes. This method has been described on the WoodenBoat Forum and other online resources, and is mentioned briefly in Oughtred’s manual. Battens are temporarily fastened or clamped to the molds—one along the top edge of what will be the next plank, and one along the bottom. These two battens will define the shape of the plank. They are held in place, relative to each other, by a series of short sticks hot-glued to both and laid zigzag to form a truss. The resulting pattern can then be lifted off the molds and laid flat on the planking stock for the plank to be marked out and cut. We used one pattern per each of the eight pairs of planks and made the patterns alternating on either side of the hull to avoid accumulation of error. When we fitted the planks, we used temporary screws, rather than clamps, along the laps, so that we did not have to wait for the epoxy to cure before starting on the next plank’s pattern. Later, we removed the screws and filled the holes.
With the ample aft flotation chamber and side benches extending the full length of the cockpit as well as a single thwart, the Gannet has plenty of seating options for optimal balance but also enough room to move around. The plans show options for a letterbox slot through the transom for the tiller, or a higher rudderhead that places the tiller above the transom and deck. We chose the taller rudderhead so that we could use a lifting tiller to ease side-to-side movement when the boat is full of crew. As drawn, the tiller is long enough to reach well into the cockpit.
Throughout the construction process we used a 3D computer-modeling program called SketchUp so we could visualize what we were doing before we did it. We imported scans of the lines and construction plans to model the hull by tracing. However, a table of offsets is included on the lines plan for anyone who prefers to loft the lines. We used the computer software initially to consider color schemes for the finish, but then also found it helpful in configuring the floorboard plan, picturing what the revised cockpit would look like, and testing oar length.
It took our club members a little more than 20 months to build the Gannet, with anywhere from six to eighteen people working on the project for a few hours each Saturday. We enjoyed the challenges of the construction (if not the sanding), and Iain Oughtred’s drawings, with all the elements drawn and dimensioned, provided enough information to keep us going; further help was easily found in Clinker Plywood Boatbuilding Manual and online. Having some previous boatbuilding experience was beneficial.
Getting the Gannet ready for sailing is straightforward. We keep it in the water, so the mast is already stepped and rigged. The boom is mounted to the mast with a gooseneck, we have a bridle on the yard and a single halyard, and we have a cunningham to tension the luff. When we return from sailing, we have a topping lift with lazyjacks so that we can support the boom and catch the sail as it is lowered. This makes for an easy harbor furl and keeps the sail out of the cockpit. Stability is excellent when moving around within the cockpit, and although going forward to bend on the jib does cause some tippiness when the crew member goes around the mast, this can be minimized by keeping weight low and movements slow.
The narrow, thin-profile rudder and centerboard were both shaped using NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) foil templates as a guide, and under sail the Gannet is extremely responsive to the helm. The drawings show the outline of the rudder and centerboard, but the shaping is left to the builder. The keel is only 3⁄4″ deep and offers little resistance to tacking; if the skipper and crew are in sync, the maneuver can be done in a heartbeat, the boat barely slowing.
Rob O’Dea
When rowing, the lazyjacks contain the mainsail, and a bungee holds the tiller amidships. The mainsheet block is located on the centerboard trunk and gets in the way of the rower; to overcome this we unhook it from the boom and stabilize the boom with a temporary line cleated off in the stern.
Vancouver’s outer harbor, where our club members sail, is busy with recreational, fishing, and whale-watching boats, which can generate confused seas. We’ve sailed our Gannet in a variety of conditions, both singlehanded and with as many as four people aboard. With a full crew, as the wind and chop increase, some water does make its way over the forward quarter. With a crew of four in a 13-knot wind gusting to 18 knots and with particularly heavy boat traffic, we maintained a boat speed of 5 to 5 1⁄2 knots. We encountered one particularly large wake with a 3′ trough and took water over the bow, but typically the Gannet takes larger wakes well and, at a decent speed, makes it over waves without porpoising. With only one or two people onboard, it remains dry.
The Gannet is easy to keep flat and is very responsive to weight shifts. We get the best performance with crew weight well forward. We’ve added a simple tiller extension, which makes it possible for the skipper to hike out effectively. We haven’t added hiking straps yet, but so far, hooking our feet under the thwart or the centerboard-trunk rails is serving the purpose.
For rowing, we already had a pair of 8′ 2″ oars that fit the boat nicely. Stowing oars in a small boat can be a challenge, but we discovered that the holes we had cut in the deck knees for securing things just happened to fit the handles of the oars, which then tuck beneath the side deck perfectly.
Arnt Arntzen
The Gannet may only be 14′ but can accommodate four adults in comfort. We have found that with four on board in a stiff breeze with a choppy sea it can be a little wet, but with a crew of two she stays dry whatever the conditions.
Rowing is best done with the centerboard and rudder at least partly lowered because the keel is too shallow to offer any tracking stability on its own. We have found that rowing with the mainsail raised is a challenge. The mainsheet, led to a block mounted on the centerboard trunk, fouls the oars, but we have overcome the problem by running a temporary line farther aft, and unhooking the mainsheet from the boom.
We are more than pleased with the boat, and its ability to carry a crowd. With a lighter load, we’ve been on the verge of planing speed a few times and have enjoyed surfing some larger wakes and waves. We still plan to test the self-rescue behavior, but in the meantime the stability and the way the Gannet handles the winds make us confident that we’re able to avoid the need. The spacious cockpit has some club members dreaming about camp-cruising excursions, and indeed, a drop-in infill between the aft seats would provide a roomy bed. Until then we will enjoy day sails in the harbor, whether relaxing light-wind picnic cruises or more thrilling gallops around the bay!
Daniel Friesen has been a member of Oarlock & Sail Wooden Boat Club for nine years, since first joining and discovering the beauty and satisfaction of being part of building a boat from scratch and then getting out on the water to enjoy it. On the Gannet build he served as lead builder, planning the weekly tasks, arranging for supplies, and ensuring that members were as involved in the work as they wished to be.
Plans for Iain Oughtred’s Gannet are available from Oughtred Boats priced at $229AUD (within Australia) and $254AUD (the rest of the world); Oughtred Boats also offer Gannet kits starting at $5,888AUD. In the United States kits are available from Hewes and Company, priced at $3,518 for 6mm planking and $3,843 for 9mm planking.
Is there a boat you’d like to know more about? Have you built one that you think other Small Boats readers would enjoy? Please email us your suggestions.
My friend Eric and I were aboard my 20′ Whitehall as we slipped out of High Hill Harbour on the southeast side of Ontario’s Lake Nipigon. With a 3-hp electric motor providing power, we glided quietly between 300’-high rock hills clad in boreal forest, and out into the wide expanse of the lake. The sky was a low, flat, winter gray; there was a modest north wind on our starboard beam, and steely gray light glimmered off the faces of the waves. I pulled the flaps of my snow hat down over my ears and turned my face from the wind. The air temperature was 41°F, and the little display screen of the portable fishfinder at my side showed a water temperature of 36° and 255′ of cold, dark water beneath us. It was the third week of May, and the winter ice had cleared only two weeks earlier. This would be no summer idyll, but the early season should be good for fishing.
Eric sat stiffly at the bow wearing a down jacket and an orange rain hat pulled down over a cloth head covering. A stubble of white beard showed below his sunglasses. Between us were two 110-W solar panels spread out on deck amidships along the starboard rail—their glossy black squares and stark white border looking out of place against the sweeping curve of the teak gunwale.
I turned the tiller throttle until we reached 4 mph by GPS and set the boat on a course that would take us west-southwest across 10 miles of open water to the nearest of the Macoun Islands—then barely visible as a thin, unbroken line of misty gray on the western horizon. With the course set, and the boat moving at a good trolling speed for lake trout, I propped a fishing pole against my seat, planted my foot against the cork-covered handle, opened the bail of the reel to let the line stream out astern, closed the bail, and watched the line pull tight and both pole and line vibrate softly as the lure wobbled below the surface far astern.
Photographs by the author
Eric tended the boat and set up his GPS for tracking while I parked the van in the gravel lot next to the boat ramp. No one else was using the ramp, and we encountered only two other boats throughout our 15 days on the water.
An hour into the crossing, I saw that the “house” battery, which stores the power from the solar panels, was not feeding the motor battery as it should to replace the power drawn by the motor. I turned the motor off and inspected all the electrical connections while Eric checked the fuses. Nothing seemed amiss. I dug the clamp meter out of the port seat locker and began testing each part of the electrical system. The meter’s digital readout showed that the solar panels were feeding the house battery properly, and the house battery was fully charged, but no power was going from the house battery to the motor battery.
We looked dumbly at each other for a long moment as the boat rocked awkwardly in the waves. We had exhausted our limited electrical know-how, and we both knew we couldn’t continue the trip if the motor battery couldn’t recharge. We began checking everything again…and again…testing and pondering and cursing in vain as the boat drifted broadside to the waves.
With no other options left, we tried the one thing that we both had agreed at the start could notpossibly be the problem—we disconnected the auxiliary cigarette-lighter connection cable that I had added to the house battery so we could power an electric kettle and charge phones and satellite gizmos without disconnecting the motor. Tightening the terminal bolts back down on the house battery, I looked over my shoulder and saw the electric motor’s red charging light blink on. With a twist of the tiller handle, we were on our way.
We found a quiet anchorage that evening in one of the small, unnamed islets of the Macoun Islands, which we christened “Fishhook Island” because of its shape. Inside the hook, at its south end, was a shallow, soft-mud-bottomed bay 60 yards wide and open only to the northwest. I might have avoided an anchorage open in that direction, but the internet forecast for that night and the following day had been for light south-to-southwest winds, and though we were now out of cell range, my sailor friend Jack had offered to text new forecasts each morning and evening to my handheld satellite gizmo, so we would have advance warning if the weather might change. Gone are the days of relying solely on reading the sky.
Roger Siebert
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After we positioned the boat in the center of the anchorage, Eric lowered the 8-lb anchor gently into 3′ of water just as a loon paddling close by let out its lonely oboe cry and a second loon quickly answered farther up the bay. We scanned the shoreline and saw no sign of a nest, but we guessed we had disturbed a late-spring matrimonial encounter. Indeed, when we returned to the same anchorage two weeks later, we found the loons alternately guarding and sitting on a shaggy nest built on shoreline rocks just inches above the water and hidden from above by tall grass that had sprouted on the bank.
I began setting up the Conestoga-style tent I’d made of Tyvek stretched over fiberglass tent poles. The tent extends the full length of the boat, and I showed Eric how to manage the snaps and poles as I worked aft from the bow. The evening was clear and there were no bugs, so we left the cockpit open. We laid our bedrolls across the seats and plywood inserts that formed the central platform, where the 5′ 6″ beam gave us plenty of room, and then sat out in the open cockpit breathing in the fragrance of the cedar, spruce, and fir trees that nearly encircled us.
Darkness came early under the low clouds, and the temperature hovered in the low 40s, but there was not a puff of wind in the little bay. The two loons glided back and forth 25 yards off the stern, their bodies riding low in the water with only their heads, long necks, and the tops of their backs visible above the surface as their silvery wakes carved Vs into the shoreline reflections.
I heard rain on the tent sometime during the night, but it had stopped by the time I awoke at first light. I pushed away the down vest that covered my head and raised myself on one elbow to peer out the clear plastic “porthole” at the low clouds, then clambered stiffly from under my two sleeping bags. Eric’s digital thermometer read 37°F.
When we set up the Tyvek tent, we folded the two 110W solar panels and stowed them upright along the port gunwale. The “house” battery (seen lower left) doesn’t quite fit under the seat. I carried two bulky sleeping bags and other gear in the yellow dry bag. The two black yoga mats were mainly to protect our knees from the temporary plywood deck as we moved around the boat. No standing was allowed on the deck or seats while we were underway because of the potentially dire consequences of falling either into or out of the boat. For sleeping we added inflatable camping pads on top of the foam ones.
Our immediate task each morning was to make coffee. I first checked to see that the red LED light on the motor battery was glowing solid red—indicating that the battery had fully charged overnight—and then disconnected the charging cable from the house battery, plugged the electric kettle into the cigarette lighter connector, and ground fresh coffee beans in the hand mill.
Soon Eric and I had taken our positions on the aft seats—still inside the tent and comfortable enough wearing winter hats pulled down over balding heads, and winter coats pulled on over puffy down vests. We wore fingerless gloves as we each gripped a stainless-steel mug of fragrant, steaming coffee. I leaned back in the cockpit to peer out through the mosquito net at the aft end of the tent so I could get a partial view of the lake out beyond the entrance to the bay. The water there appeared to be calm, and the dark tops of the 100′-tall spruce trees stood motionless along the skyline.
We took the tent down when the air had warmed to the low 40s, but we still dawdled. Eric finally pulled the anchor late that morning—stripping the cold water from the nylon line with one hand as he laid 15′ of coils onto the teak floorboards just behind the bow seat. When the anchor reached the gunwale, he was quickly introduced to the dense, greasy clay that lies beneath the brown muck in the quiet bays of Lake Nipigon. He tried to wipe away the 3″ layer of gray clay stuck to the anchor but mostly just transferred it to his hands.
Motoring slowly out of the anchorage with no sun above us, we strained to see beneath the surface glare more than a few feet in front of the bow. The topographic maps of the lake area show land contours but little or nothing below the surface of the water, and where our map showed a rock awash outside the anchorage, we instead found a 100-yard-long reef of rock slabs and boulders that eons of winter ice had crushed and bulldozed into a level shelf just inches below the surface. I raised the motor before the prop hit anything, and we pulled out paddles. Eric paddled kneeling on the bow seat as he peered into the water in front of him, and I stood on the floorboards in the stern using a 6′-long paddle I carried for just these circumstances.
The 20’ sailing Whitehall was designed by Bruce King with a bit of rocker and a slightly cutaway stem to improve handling for recreational use. The hull is easily driven—the 3-hp electric motor pushes the hull at well over 6 knots, and paddling is an option over moderate distances. The electric motor weighs only 35 lbs, which suits the narrow stern of the Whitehall better than the much heavier weight of a comparable four-stroke engine.
Once clear of the reef, we motored along a shoreline where a bold band of black rock 3′ high had been scoured clean by waves and ice—evidence that the lake was unusually low this year. Above the band of clean rock, loose boulders, and solid bedrock were mottled with lichen of gray, pale green, and rusty orange.
To starboard, alder bushes and pale-green cedar trees 60′ high grew along the shore on shelves of dark granite. Behind them loomed much taller and darker spruce and fir with pointed tops. Close along the shore, gray-beard lichen covered the lower trunks and branches and the bleached and broken limbs that lay beneath them.
For the next two days we would meander about the Macoun Islands and west across the narrow channel to 8-mile-long Shakespeare Island. We trolled slowly in shallow waters along the island’s eastern shore and ducked into little bays and cuts to cast for brook trout over cobblestone reefs tight against the shore. When the sun came out, its warm light played off algae-covered cobbles in shallow water.
Tucked into a quiet channel between two sand beaches at midday on that first full day, with a brilliant sun overhead, we fried bacon and then blueberry pancakes on a cast-iron griddle over a propane burner set up in the cockpit. After our pancake lunch, I splashed through a quick bird bath in 45° water, stirring up the bottom muck as I hurried in and out of the shallows.
The morning at Twin Harbour was cold and threatening rain, so we opened only the bow and stern sections of the tent. We could handle the anchor, paddle to shore, and get in and out of the boat without taking the tent down entirely. The unusually low water level had exposed the bottom mud along the shore and left the flattened grass and last year’s cattails far from the water’s edge.
We anchored the first two nights at Fishhook Island, and both nights produced heavy rain, but the days were sunny and dry. The daytime air temperature held in the low to mid-40s except when we ventured across the strait to the south side of Shakespeare Island. Out in the deep, open part of the lake, water temperatures in the high 30s kept the air even colder, and the slightest breeze forced us to put on our winter hats and coats.
Once inside the protected bay of Mink Harbour on the south coast of Shakespeare, we pared down to flannel shirts and windbreakers as we alternately paddled and motored slowly over the shallows, casting here and there for pike. The soft, muddy bottom was dotted with sunken driftwood, fist-sized clams, and the dormant brown stubble of last summer’s weed growth. In the sandy shallows at the head of the bay, we came upon a cloud of reddish algae close to shore where the water had warmed.
Back out in the open lake, we paralleled the south shore under low clouds until we rounded the southwest point of Shakespeare and faced the wind as we wound our way through a scatter of small rock islets. On the wooded shore a half-mile ahead of us appeared a very large, oddly shaped, black and white object that appeared to be right on the shore. As we drew nearer, we saw that it was a freshly painted commercial fishing boat—a 40′ steel tub, looking very much self-designed and self-built, had been pulled up bow-first to the shore.
Just then we spotted a little white buoy with a faded orange flag 100 yards ahead of us. Assuming that it marked a fishing net but not knowing whether the net was strung along or across the channel, we headed straight for the buoy until we were about 10 yards from it. The lake was only a few feet deep over a sandy bottom, but the wind in our face was roiling the water such that we couldn’t see anything below the surface. We motored cautiously right up to the buoy until we could finally see a net and a series of small, half-submerged cylindrical floats strung out up the channel in front of us toward another small buoy just visible 100 yards ahead. We headed slowly north, running parallel to the mile-long series of nets.
Because of the low water level, the beaver channel in the foreground was only a few inches deep—not nearly deep enough to protect the beaver from the wolves, bears, and other predators that inhabit the area.
We stopped to fill our water jug in deep water outside a double bay we called “Twin Harbour.” Small harbors in the northland are almost always populated by beaver, which can carry giardia, so we were careful to top up our water jug before we entered. This is nature’s own water and safe to drink here and elsewhere in the Canadian North as long as one avoids drawing water near beaver lodges (and the odd uranium mine). We anchored in the north lobe of the double bay facing a low, swampy section with stunted trees that did little to block the north wind. Distinctive “beaver sticks,” stripped of bark, their ends chopped through by beaver teeth, floated near the shore, and we could see clams and a line of moose tracks in the tan mud under the boat. To windward, at the west end of a soggy beach backed by last year’s decaying cattails, a beaver channel not more than 1′ deep wound back through the grassy marsh toward a stand of alder and birch. The first few mosquitoes we had encountered buzzed around our heads as we put up the tent and, from inside, sealed the mosquito net to the transom with Velcro.
Rain was snare-drumming off the tent when we awoke the next morning. Eric reported the air temperature inside the tent was a tolerable 47°, and the fishfinder showed the water temperature in the shallow bay was 41°. The cold was not all bad as it provided great refrigeration for our fresh food supplies. I had been using powdered whole milk for coffee and cereal the last few days, but that morning I discovered a forgotten carton of milk at the bottom of the starboard seat locker—the milk was still as fresh as when I had opened the carton five days earlier. My coffee and cereal were especially good that morning.
I looked out the back of the tent and saw a bald eagle swoop down low over the marsh and pluck something big out of the water with its talons. Not until the eagle rose over the silhouette of the treetops could I see it had not captured a fish but was carrying a soggy clump of decaying reeds that swung out behind the bird as it flew low over the trees.
The day continued cold and rainy, so we passed the time under our sleeping bags napping or reading until early afternoon when the skies began to clear, and the wind dropped to 8 knots from the north-northwest. After stowing our gear and rolling the tent against the port rail, we headed out of Twin Harbour heading northwest across 6 miles of open water toward a bay called Charlie’s Harbour at the northeast end of a mainland peninsula that protrudes into the main lake.
We enjoyed a bright, cloudless sky and flat-calm water on our transit from Charlie’s Harbour through the Ursel Islands and across open water to Caribou Island, but the air was still cold enough that we wore winter coats, hats, and gloves.
Charlie’s Harbour is more than 1⁄2 mile long and 1⁄4 mile wide, opening to the north-northeast, with a generally smooth shoreline that provides little protection for a small boat. Away from shore the bay is too deep to anchor, so we pulled up very close behind a tiny sand point not far from the entrance and just 20′ off a narrow sand beach. We set one anchor right on the beach and another running perpendicular away from the shore in 6′ of water; between them they held the bow facing directly into a light north breeze.
The sky had cleared to a deep, cloudless blue, and the air had warmed, so we went ashore to explore. On the beach we found more moose tracks along with clam shells and the chalky-white scat of some animal (perhaps an otter) that seemed to have a steady diet of clams and fish.
I ducked down under the lower branches of the cedar and fir trees behind the beach. Under the dark canopy, I found the remains of some long-ago campsite whose visitors had left behind their trash. I picked a rusty can of bug spray from the tangled weeds, then a 16-oz beer can of faded blue, a plastic soda bottle, and a broken plastic pail. I stood on each in turn to flatten them, then waded out to the boat and stuffed them under my berth into the plastic shopping bag that was beginning to bulge with our own trash.
Next morning Eric and I sat in the open cockpit with our mugs of coffee as bright sunlight flooded through the tops of the trees, casting long shadows over us and out over the calm water of the bay. Small fish dimpled the surface near the beach, and four different songbirds sang their sweet melodies from unseen perches in the trees on shore—each appeared to be the sole example of its kind.
The entrance to Henry’s Harbour is protected by a rocky peninsula. We anchored in shallow water and waded ashore through the rocks and decaying remains of last year’s weed growth.
After packing up our gear and stowing the anchors in the bow, we made a smooth 12-mile passage north under sunny skies past the 200′-high rock cliffs of Grand Cape, then west through the low-lying Ursel Islands with their gently sloping sand beaches, and finally west-northwest across open water to an anchorage inside the enclosed bay at Caribou Island. The next day we fished for brook trout under sunny skies along the western shore of Caribou Island before continuing north past the black sand beaches at Champlain Point on the mainland and west across the entrance to Gull Bay toward the mile-wide and nearly circular Pike Bay.
A southwest wind was blowing 15 knots, gusting to 20, as we approached the entrance from the southeast, and the boat rolled awkwardly as waves rose and fell under the port quarter. The day was sunny, though, and I thought the generally shallow, sandy Pike Bay would be a good place to practice using the emergency mast and sail that I carried to provide one way of getting back to the boat ramp if the motor conked out. The Whitehall has a full sailing rig, rudder, and tiller, but it’s too much to carry as backup on a solar-powered motor cruise. Instead, we carried only the jib—complete with wire forestay, halyard, and sheets.
On a wilderness trip several years ago, my son and I had cut and rudely shaped a small pine tree and stepped it as a full-length mast to which we set the jib vertically in its normal position. On this trip, however, I carried an 8′ × 1 5⁄16″ laminated wood dowel I had picked up at a hardware store to act as a short mast for the jib, which would be set upside-down. The tack of the sail would be set at the bow where it usually is, but the head of the sail would be pulled aft along the rail with the halyard attached to act as the sheet. The clew of the sail would be hauled up by one of the attached sheets to the top of the makeshift mast. The 8′ dowel was fitted-out with a few odds and ends to make it fit somewhat snugly in the partner and step meant for the spruce mast. I had tried out this same rig with great success while on a solo trip to Nipigon the previous year. The wind had been strong that day, too, and the boat had fairly skimmed along at 3.5 mph on a broad reach. I expected to fare as well in Pike Bay.
With the wind blowing strongly into the bay from the southwest, we stopped to assemble the rig in calm water close in the lee of a small island that sat in the middle of the entrance. From there, I planned to sail on a broad reach along the south shore of the bay in the lee of a long, low peninsula, where we would be protected from the strongest wind and waves.
In 2023, when this picture was taken, I tested the upside-down jib as auxiliary power on a solo trip to Lake Nipigon. I rigged it using one of the sheets as the halyard and the other cleated down to port as a backstay. When Eric and I tried the same rig this year in Pike Bay, I forgot to rig the backstay and the dowel mast snapped.
I lowered the centerboard several inches and raised the sail, but we didn’t move, so I paddled a few strokes. Edging forward out of the lee, the sail filled with the wind on the port quarter, but the boat was sluggish with all the weight she carried. When we finally ghosted out of the lee and headed into the bay, powerful gusts hit the boat.
I sat in the starboard quarter holding the sheet taut in my left hand as my right hand gripped the handle of a paddle that I levered against the side of the boat to help steer. The mast bowed more and more with each gust. The boat was just beginning to plow through the whitecaps when an especially strong gust hit the sail. The dowel bowed ominously and then snapped with a loud crack, and the sail tumbled over the side. I had forgotten to cleat the second jibsheet down as a running backstay!
With no harm done other than a broken dowel, we had a good laugh, quickly stowed everything, and motored across the turbid shallows of the bay to a broad river mouth at the southwest shore. We set out two anchors, port and starboard, to hold the boat between little flat islands ringed with water reeds and topped with cattails.
The first blackflies of the season discovered us there the following morning. It was the first day of June, the wind had died, the sun was bright and very warm, and we had stripped down to T-shirts and long pants. The water in the river mouth was already too warm to hold fish, so we motored out of Pike Bay heading northeast into the cold, deep, open part of the lake.
A 10-mile passage carried us to the western end of Kelvin Island where we anchored off a marsh deep at the head of a bay identified as Henry’s Harbour on the topo map. Our hope in visiting Henry’s Harbour was to see a moose in the large marsh and alder thickets that fill the head of the bay, and as we anchored the boat, we could see tracks the size of soup plates crisscrossing the muck below.
Eric soon spotted a moose walking chest deep through the water just 200 yards away. We quickly pulled the anchor and began motoring slowly at an oblique angle that we hoped would get us closer to the moose without spooking it. The moose just craned its lumpy, antlerless head with its donkey ears, looked over its shoulder at us for a moment, and then turned to resume its leisurely walk toward shore—lifting one bony leg after another half out of the water as it splashed slowly forward. We approached closer but were still 80 yards away when the moose gathered pace and, with more purpose, trundled off to the shore, lurched up the bank, and turned amid the cattail stalks to look directly at us before turning back and cantering away into the alder thicket.
From Henry’s Harbour, we traveled north under sunny skies and light winds along the northwest coast of Kelvin Island, around the island’s northern point, then southeast and finally south into a half-mile-wide bay called Moose’s Harbour on the eastern side of Kelvin. We searched the entire circumference of Moose’s Harbour for a protected place to anchor a small boat but found nothing suitable.
With darkness coming on and clouds and bad weather moving in, we motored around the point that formed the eastern shore of the bay to a tiny, round cove that opened through a narrow, dog-leg channel to the main lake. We called the anchorage “Sock Harbour” because of its shape. At its toe, the little cove was only 50 yards wide and 2′ deep with a marsh at its northwestern end and rock ledges topped by cedar trees opening to the crooked channel on its eastern side.
Having used most of our battery capacity on the foggy transit from Kelvin Island to Shakespeare Island, Eric checked the flow of amps that evening to see if it was worth leaving the solar panels deployed a little longer.
Rain began drumming on the Tyvek tent late that night and didn’t stop until the following afternoon. The clouds finally cleared in the evening, but we awoke early the next morning in a dense fog; the tent was wet inside and out from condensation. We hurried through our morning routine and set out through the fog heading for the northwest corner of Shakespeare Island—15 miles to the south.
The lake was glassy calm. The only sound at our stern was the prop churning quietly under the transom, and the Whitehall left virtually no wake. The only sound forward came from a 2″ bow wave that gurgled softly as it passed along the hull. Fog lay on the horizon all around us, and the dark mass of Kelvin Island was barely visible half a mile to starboard, but the sky was bright blue above us and to the north. As we cleared the southernmost point, a white fogbow appeared where the sun shone directly into the haze—the glowing band of white light arching over the water like half a smoke ring until its two ends plunged into the cold water.
Eric and I were comfortable in our coats and hats as we motored along at an efficient 3.6 mph to save battery power on the long crossing, but the air registered only 47°, and the surface water temperature was only 39° over 283′ of deep blue. As Kelvin Island disappeared in the fog behind us, we could see nothing to steer by but the compass. We heard no sounds, saw no wakes from distant boats: no one was out there but the two of us.
A lone gull cried overhead as Shakespeare Island finally came into view through the fog. Ravens cawed from a wooded island somewhere off the port bow as we approached the entrance to a crooked bay we called “The Hook” on the northwestern corner of Shakespeare. After inspecting the anchorage, we moved back outside to cast for brook trout over rocky shoals at the mouth of the bay—twice running straight up on boulders hidden beneath the reflected glare of the sun. Striking more rocks than fish, we soon nosed the boat onto a gray sand beach, unfolded the solar panels on deck to charge the house battery, and set an anchor in the dry sand of the beach.
We spent our last two nights anchored at Fishhook Island where the bay is protected in all directions except through the narrow entrance channel to the northwest. In the foreground is a “beaver stick” (in this case, an alder branch) with its bark eaten away to reveal the white sapwood beneath.
On the 15th day of our trip, we returned to our first anchorage at Fishhook Island having traversed 165 miles around the lower half of Lake Nipigon. We were trolling slowly southward toward the island in a flat calm when suddenly a strong puff of cold air at our backs presaged the approach of weather from the north. We continued trolling all the way to the island and carefully avoided the rock shoal, barely detectable as a slight browning of the water’s color on the south side of the entrance. A northwest wind of 8 to 10 knots was blowing directly into the cove, so we tucked into a little V-shaped notch at the northeast corner and put out two anchors on tight lines from the bow with our stern 10 yards from shore and the keel floating just 2″ above the mud bottom.
That evening we cooked dinner in the open cockpit with the tent protecting the propane stove from the wind as we watched luminous, silky-smooth cumulus clouds build over the western horizon. No rain threatened, so we sat outside until 9:30 when the sun finally dropped behind the clouds, quickly chilling the air. An undisciplined chorus of little frogs peeped from the nearby marsh, and our two loons called their oboe-like notes to each other from across the cove. Two new loons dropped down to the relatively calm water of the outer cove but soon departed—taxiing away down the channel with their wings flapping and their webbed feet slapping the water loudly until they finally gained enough speed and altitude to fly. For a moment, a tiny flash of sunlight reflected off their wet backs as they disappeared across the lake.
The night soon turned blustery with rain and 20-mph winds. On shore, the dark forms of spruce and fir trees swayed in the wind—each to its own rhythm—but with two anchors set on opposite sides of the bow, we pointed neatly into the wind, and the boat sat nearly motionless as 1″ to 2″ wavelets passed along the hull.
The wind came up from the northwest on our last night at Fishhook Island, so we tucked in very close to shore in a tiny cove where a low, rocky point protected us from the waves but not the wind.
Our final morning on the lake dawned cold and calm. We needed a favorable wind for our 10-mile run across the open lake to High Hill Harbour. My friend Jack texted the forecast from his house in Maine as we sat in the shelter of our tent. The early morning would likely be dry and partly cloudy with a light southwest breeze building to 20 knots after midday. It was a call to action; we heated coffee water in the electric kettle and began packing our gear quickly inside the tent as patches of blue sky appeared through the portholes.
Soon out on the open lake, we headed east-northeast toward High Hill Harbour, which lay unseen below the eastern horizon, our bow parting a heavy dusting of tree pollen that covered the surface of the lake and left yellow swirls in our wake. A line of rain squalls was developing over the mainland to the southwest and appeared to be moving northeast to intersect our course. Another line of squalls appeared on the horizon to the northwest and another over the mainland to the northeast. I checked the charge indicator on the motor battery and turned the throttle up until we were skimming along at 6 mph, trying to beat the showers.
Halfway to High Hill Harbour, we could just make out the shapes of two cell towers standing atop a darkly forested ridge in the direction of the outpost town of Beardmore and the highway that would take us away from the lake. We were almost there, and the modern world was waiting… Neither of us reached for our phone.
Tim O’Meara grew up sailing and otherwise mucking about in small wooden boats on Lake Okoboji in northern Iowa during the 1950s and ’60s. In college he was fortunate to sail 30′ sloops on San Francisco Bay as a junior member of a club team, and during two summer breaks crewed on a wooden 50′ Rhodes cutter off the California coast and then around the Hawaiian Islands and back to San Francisco. After graduating in 1970, he set off with two friends and a brother and sailed around the Caribbean for a year in an aging fiberglass sloop. A lost year soon followed during which Tim built a cold-molded version of the tender for Herreshoff’s yacht COLUMBIA; the tender now hangs in his garage above the 20′ Whitehall. Three graduate degrees in archaeology and anthropology were followed by 13 years of teaching at universities in the United States and Australia and then 25 years working as a consultant on economic development projects focused on the Pacific Islands where he learned to sail traditional wood canoes: in 1973 on the island of Taha’a in the Leeward Society Islands, and in 1988 and again in 1993 on Ifaluk Atoll in the Western Caroline Islands. Tim is now retired and spending as much time on the water as possible. He described an earlier voyage in his 20′ Whitehall in “An Electric Journey to Knight Inlet.”
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.
There are few techniques as efficacious and expeditious as using steam to plasticize wood—especially when bending planks. The technology is simple: you need a steambox, a high-capacity steam generator, plenty of fast-action deep-throated clamps, a gaggle of small wooden clamping pads, and hopefully, some reliable helpers to assist with bending the plank to the vessel. Once planks are removed from a steambox, they immediately begin to lose their pliability, and every second counts. For two or more people working in concert, this can lead to a bit of a scramble—even with extensive preparation and experience. For a lone builder, it can be a nightmare.
As luck would have it, there’s an alternative—the trusted, boil-in-the-bag technique where you bring the steambox to the boat, not the plank to the steambox.
For most small craft, the critical twist in a plank is at one end, typically the bow (or in both ends if the boat is a double-ender). In the middle, the run is relatively flat and straight. Thus, when it comes to steaming, you don’t need to work on the whole length of the plank but only on the hood ends (where the plank fits into the stem or sternpost rabbets).
To steam your plank ends singlehanded, you will need a contractor trash bag, or any long closable plastic “sock”; some string or masking tape; heat-resistant gloves, such as welding gloves; a 5-gallon bucket; and a steam generator such as an electric wallpaper steamer or purpose-built wood steamer with a long hose.
Photographs Isaac Robbins
The new plank is clamped in place, its hood end sticking out at a tangent. To bring it into the stem rabbet requires considerable bending, which if done cold will undoubtedly split the wood.
Step 1.
Clamp the pre-fashioned plank in its proper location on the hull. To align the plank, it helps to make an index line on it to indicate a station mold or frame.
Step 2.
Assemble the necessary clamps and pads that will be used to hold the plank once it is bent into place.
Step 3.
Slide the bag over the hood end of the plank, which is likely sticking out from your setup at a bit of a tangent. Slide the end of the steam hose into the bag along with the plank, then close the bag around the hose and the plank with string or masking tape. Make a couple of holes in the top and bottom of the bag. The top ones will allow the cooled vapor to escape the bag; the lower ones will allow the condensed steam to drip out. Place the bucket beneath the bag to catch the drips.
Step 4.
Plug in the steamer and set your timer for the requisite time—typically 1⁄2 hour for a 1⁄2″ plank, 3⁄8 hour for 3⁄8″, and so on. This timeframe is consistent for both hard- and softwood, although most small boats will be planked in softwood. As the steam fills the bag it will inflate like a hot-air balloon. Adjust the position of the bucket to catch the drips. Sit back, have a cup of coffee, and wait for the magic to unfold.
The plank is wrapped in plastic, the steamer’s hose fed into one end. Steam has been filling the bag and, as it cools, it has condensed and pooled inside. If holes had been made in the bottom of the bag, the condensation would have dripped away. Now, however, the builder must be careful not to spill the pooled condensation while removing the steamer and bag from the plank.
Step 5.
Once the time is up, don your heat-resistant gloves (the bag and its contents will be plenty hot), release the closure, and slide the hot, waterlogged bag into the bucket. Twist and press the now-limber plank into place and clamp it down. Let it cool into shape.
Step 6.
Make any final clamping adjustments to snug the plank into its correct location, add bedding between the stem and plank, and fasten.
After steaming, the pliable plank can be twisted and clamped into place. It is then allowed to cool before being permanently bedded and fastened into the stem.
For small boats where a false stem is added later in construction (for example, dories, semi-dories, skiffs), the plank can be run past the stem to be trimmed off later.
For carvel planking, pay special attention to the placement and clamping of the plank: the end of the hood can run long, landing on the face of the stem beyond the rabbet instead of in it. To avoid this, when you clamp the plank into place, set it roughly 1⁄4″ aft of its index location (see Step 1), then steam and bend in the plank. Once it is cool, slightly back off the clamps and, with a wooden mallet, lightly tap the aft end of the plank to advance it to its final resting place in the rabbet. Retighten the clamps, snug up the plank, and fasten it into place.
This simple steaming technique can prevent disaster in many boatbuilding operations: when a partially fastened but reluctant outwale is threatening to snap, or cranky chines just won’t make the final bend, or the “other” end of a peapod’s plank won’t fall into place, the mobile steamer and bag will save the day. All it takes is thinking out of the (steam) box.
Greg Rössel is a builder of small boats and a long-time instructor at WoodenBoat School. He is the author of Building Small Boats, Boat Builder’s Apprentice, Half Hull Modeling, and a regular contributor to WoodenBoat magazine. He is also a member of WoodenBoat’s Mastering Skills video crew, and the presenter of World of Music on WERU-FM.
You can share your tips and tricks of the trade with other Small Boats readers by sending us an email.
At last year’s Wooden Boat Festival in Port Townsend, Washington, the only places I found to change into and out of my boating clothes were the portable restrooms—exceptionally awkward and unpleasant changing spaces. In anticipation of this year’s gathering, I shopped online for pop-up camp shower tents. I bought one, but it was too bulky and heavy when folded and provided much more room than I needed when set up. I continued my search and found Pankay’s offering, billed as a “Pop Up Privacy Tent, Portable Outdoor Camping Bathroom Toilet Tent, Collapsible Shelter for Camping & Emergency.”
Photographs by Christopher Cunningham
Most privacy tents are made to accommodate stand-up showering—this one is 74 1⁄2″ tall, and much larger than what I was hoping to find. When stowed in its 23 1⁄2″ bag (seen here on the ground to the right), this larger tent weighs 4 lbs 10 oz. By contrast, the 51″-tall Pankay pop-up tent, which fits into the smaller green bag seen here, folds down to 14″ in diameter and weighs just 1 lb 1 oz.
The tent is made of a lightweight 190T (T = threads per inch) polyester fabric. The sides are 51″ tall and the top has a diameter of 36″. The hat-like crown adds about 2 1⁄2″ to the overall height and rests on top of the occupant’s head without restricting mobility—I can easily turn my head to see out in every direction without having the whole tent rotate. A 2″-tall band of black mesh between the top and sides provides ventilation and a view out without compromising privacy. There is a webbing strap over the crown so that the tent can be hung up if a fixed location is desired. Three flexible hoops give the tent its cylindrical shape; the touch of a magnet indicates they are all made of steel.
The Pankay pop-up is just the right size to carry on board a small, open boat. It takes only 20 seconds to set up, from opening its bag to having it in place. Taking it down and getting it zipped back in its bag takes 40 seconds.
When the tent is collapsed to be put away, the side’s three hoops, brought together, can be twisted and folded to reduce their diameter from 36″ to about 14″. Pankay provides an illustration and a video on the folding technique: it’s a bit like folding a bandsaw blade but different enough that it took me a while to get the knack. In its zippered storage bag, the tent makes a compact, easily stowed package that weighs under 17 oz.
The tent, along with my retractable portable toilet as a seat, made a very comfortable dressing room at the boat festival. I set up behind a booth, out of the main flow of foot traffic but not entirely hidden from view. While I was seated, the sides of the tent rested on the ground, providing complete coverage. Having the tent resting on my head wasn’t at all a nuisance. I could pull T-shirts off and on without trouble.
While the green tent required only seam sealer applied to the crown’s seams, the black pop-up’s top wasn’t made from waterproof material and needed an application of water-repellent treatment to keep the inside dry when subjected to a garden-hose shower.
While I was using the tent I discovered that it was a rather pleasant place to be. The air inside was still, and the mesh provided an all-around view. After the festival, I used it to sit in the rain and enjoyed the tent’s warm interior and the sound of the raindrops on its top. On other occasions I discovered how easy it was to use my phone while I was shielded from the glare of the sky, whether it was clear or cloudy. In that small, protected space with my hands free, I could comfortably have a bite to eat, write notes, or work with my camera. All I needed to shoot photos was to create a small circular hole in the side, so I used a hot knife to cut and seal the fabric edge. There was room in the tent for me to set up my camera on its tripod to hold the lens at the hole while I viewed its display screen. The hole hasn’t been a problem in my rainfall tests, so I’ve left it without a cover.
The tent is available in both green and black. I bought both, believing the company’s promotional material indicating that both versions were waterproof. The tents did, indeed, keep a light rainfall at bay, but when I later created an artificial deluge with a garden-hose sprayer in my backyard, the seams of the crowns, which are neither taped nor coated by the manufacturer, quickly leaked.
I cut and sealed a small hole in the side of the black tent for taking photos, thinking I might get some good wildlife shots while hidden from view. I plan to make a similar hole in the green tent for safely using my camera when it’s raining.
I first tried a water-based urethane seam sealer without good results and scrubbed it off. I did achieve leak-free seams using GearAid’s Aqua Seal +FD although this thicker sealant doesn’t flow into the seams and needs to be brushed on thoroughly. After the first application, shower tests revealed a few stray leaks that required a second application of the Aqua Seal. (It’s important to dust cured Aqua Seal to keep it from sticking to itself; I used crushed blackboard chalk.)
With the crown seams fully sealed, my home-made monsoon tests were successful for the green tent. Water streaming off the tent’s top flowed over the edge, away from the mesh, leaving the interior dry. Angled spray, simulating wind-blown rain, could be kept out of the tent by tilting the top in the direction of the spray to block it.
I made a rain canopy for my Whitehall, but it takes a lot of time to set up and take down. The pop-up tent is much quicker to assemble and provides better protection from the elements.
The seams of the black tent no longer leaked, but the underside of the brim glistened with minute beads of water. There were no drips, but the fabric was evidently not as waterproof as the brim of the green tent. I took a deeper look at the technical details and for the black version there were these two lines: “Water Resistance Level/Waterproof” and “Is Waterproof/False.” The details for the green version had “True” instead of “False.”
To increase the black tent’s effectiveness in wet weather, I treated the top with a water-repellent spray that is free of silicone and PFOA (Perfluorooctanoic acid, a harmful “forever chemical”). The spray dries quickly, and I applied it twice. While that seems to have remedied the transmission of water, I’d recommend the green tent.
In weather foul or fair, the green version of Pankay’s collapsible shelter is a good match for small open boats. Easily stowed and deployed in seconds, it will provide privacy and a refuge from the elements. If you think you’ll look silly using the pop-up, you can avoid embarrassment by fleeing the scene while continuing to wear it, thus making your escape unrecognized.
Christopher Cunningham is editor at large for Small Boats.
Pankay’s Pop Up Tent is available from Amazon for $18.79 in two colors: green (waterproof) and black.
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.
When I was growing up in the 1960s and ’70s, one of my best friends had a Victorinox Swiss Army Knife. He was justifiably proud of it, and I coveted it for its bright red color, multiple blades, the toothpick and tweezers that slotted into the end of the case, the folding scissors…and that Swiss-flag shield logo gave it a touch of European class.
Despite my early longings, I have never owned a Swiss Army Knife, but some years ago I discovered that Victorinox makes other knives of lesser complexity, and I am now the proud owner of five.
Photographs by the author
The fixed-blade knives can be safely stowed in the made-for-purpose pouch, while the folding picnic knife offers a more compact solution.
Five years ago, on a visit to a local boatyard store, I spotted samples of a fixed-blade knife with a serrated stainless-steel blade and a bright-red polypropylene handle. I asked about them and was told they were Victorinox Swiss Classic Paring Knives, a favorite with local commercial fishermen and the yard’s own crew, and that they would cut through almost anything. The price tag was around $5. I bought one.
I still have it. It lives in a bucket on my 16′ sailboat and has been used for cutting everything from nylon three-strand rope and small bits of softwood to apples and rags. It remains sharp, and its handle has retained its vivid color. A couple of years after buying that first one, I found a second, tangled up in a pile of seaweed in the tidal zone near our mooring. It’s in equally good shape despite the unknown time it spent slewing around in the saltwater. It lives in the car. There is a third one in the kitchen that has become a family-favorite prep knife, and a fourth lives in the garage toolbox.
The paring knife’s handle is polypropylene with a molded valley along its length that fits my thumb when cutting. It feels comfortable in the hand and its textured finish is just enough to make the grip secure even when it’s wet. The overall length of the knife is 7 1⁄8″, the cutting edge is 3 3⁄16″ long, and at its maximum width the blade measures 1⁄2″. The blade is 1⁄16″ thick at the shaft, and the overall weight is just 0.6 oz.
The Swiss Classic Paring Knife comes in a wide range of handle colors, and a variety of blades: edges can be straight or serrated (called “wavy” by Victorinox), and the blade profiles are either spearpoint or sheepsfoot. My two fixed-blade paring knives (both serrated, but each of the different blade profile) reveal an evolution in Victorinox’s handle design: my original knife’s handle is almost straight along its upper edge, while the more recent acquisition has a pronounced curve, which is more comfortable to hold.
The three knives are clearly of the same family but with variations. From top to bottom are the serrated spearpoint knife, which after five years of use both on and off the boat is only slightly less sharp than it was when new; the sheepsfoot knife was found in the tidal zone and is as good as new except for some slight discoloring of the blade at the handle end; the picnic knife with serrated edge and rounded end is good for both cutting and spreading.
Thanks to the bright color of the knife’s handle, it is easy to spot in the dark recesses of a toolbox or drawer, and for anyone who wants a touch of safety there is an optional extra nylon sheath (or pouch) that has a covered metal tension belt clip, and an inner plastic liner. It is designed for the Victorinox paring knives but would fit any knife with a blade length of up to 3 1⁄4″, and an approximate width of 5⁄8″.
The most recent addition to my Victorinox collection is the Classic Picnic Knife, a foldable version of the paring knife. Made with the same polypropylene handle and stainless-steel serrated edge, the knife weighs 1.525 oz. Its blade is 4″ long with a rounded tip, 11⁄16″ at its widest, and folds into a 5 1⁄8″-long handle. It has the same excellent cutting quality, but with its blunt end is well suited to spreading. The liner lock that holds the blade open is more easily operated left-handed and was a little awkward to operate at first.
All Victorinox knives are Swiss made and guaranteed for life. They remain my go-to knives and are still the most affordable either on the boat or in the kitchen.
Jenny Bennett is editor of Small Boats.
Victorinox Swiss Classic Paring Knives are available through many marine stores, including Hamilton Marine where they are marketed as Net and Twine Knives, or direct from Victorinox. The classics are priced at $8, the pouch is $9, and the folding picnic knife is $24.
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.
From childhood, Geoff Hart has been interested in boats and boatbuilding. His father, an amateur builder of small boats, built a skin-on-frame boat that he kept upside down in the yard of the family home in Miami. “A neighborhood kid, a little older and bigger than me,” recalls Geoff, “was running up and down on the upturned boat and put his foot right through the bottom. My father was fit to be tied. After that he only ever built in plywood.” Indeed, his father went on to build a couple of sailboats, an outboard runabout, and a 9′ pram dinghy with a Bermudan rig that he built for Geoff as a Christmas gift. As a teenager, Geoff helped his father from time to time and remembers that he “never bothered with lofting but instead would work straight from the table of offsets.”
Geoff took his first class at WoodenBoat School more than 20 years ago, joining a team of students building a traditional Norwegian pram with Bob Elliott. He returned some years later for the Fundamentals of Boatbuilding and then Advanced Fundamentals of Boatbuilding with Greg Rössel. He followed those with Elements of Boat Design with Paul Gartside, and finally Bronzecasting for Boatbuilders with Michael Saari, commenting, “Casting is like snow-skiing—way more difficult than it looks.”
Geoff Hart
Geoff’s office floor became the ideal space for lofting, although the family English setter was not always the most efficient assistant.
While he was accumulating knowledge through the classes, Geoff was building and dreaming on his own. He built a strip-planked Wee Lassie but wanted to try his hand at traditional construction. He acquired some rudimentary plans for a 12′ × 4′ 7 1⁄2″ Snow Bird, a 1932 Frostbite dinghy designed by C.D. Mower. They had been published in a 1955 issue of How to Build 20 Boats by the editors of The Rudder magazine (reprinted from the April 1933 issue of the magazine itself), and consisted of offsets and drawings on two 6″ × 9″ pages along with the advice that “Anyone who has had any experience building round-bottom clinker-built dinghies will find sufficient information on these pages to enable him to build a Snow Bird for himself.”
Geoff had no “round-bottom clinker-built” experience but decided to give it a go. He enlarged the plans. “In the originals,” he says, “some of the numbers were so small you couldn’t possibly read them. Even enlarged, the plans were very basic. What was there was good, but there was almost no detail.” Geoff thought back to his father’s habit of building from offsets and decided, “There was no way. I would have to loft it full size.” He laid out several sheets of plywood on the floor of his office and spent “a couple of weeks wearing kneepads, crawling around on the floor, and shifting the sleeping English setter who kept me company.”
Once lofted, he moved the project out to a bay in the barn near the house. It would be there for the next four years. “I’d leave it for a couple of months here and there, but it was very involved and there was a steep learning curve at every stage.”
Geoff Hart
Geoff set up the molds and then laminated frames around them. Subsequently he set up ribbands and installed the remaining laminated frames at 8 1⁄2″ centers.
Geoff built the hull upside down on molds. The plans suggested white oak for the keel and frames and cedar for the planking. But, unable to find white oak locally, Geoff decided to laminate the frames out of bald cypress. “They’re 3⁄4″ × 3⁄4″ spaced at 8 1⁄2″ centers, and there are a lot of them,” he says. “But not as many as the original—those were narrower and spaced every 6″. I made mine wider so I could screw into them.” He also added floor timbers at every other frame. “I wanted extra strength in the bottom, mostly because the boat was going to live on a trailer.” For the planks he used 5⁄16″× 6″ cypress boards, nearly all of which had to be scarfed for length.
For Geoff, the project was constantly challenging. “I truly did spend as much time thinking as I did building. The first time I attempted to fit the garboard, it broke. I remembered Greg Rössel’s steaming tips and bought a wallpaper steamer.” But before he even started planking, Geoff had to figure out how many planks he was going to need. He drew a full-scale diagram and figured out he could use 9, 10, or 11 planks per side. “If I’d used 11, they would have been too narrow to take two screws to the stem, and nine planks would have been too wide in the garboard and at the turn of the bilge.” He settled on 10 per side.
The original boat was very lightly built, Geoff says. The planking was in cedar and Geoff’s cypress would be slightly heavier but also stronger. He decided not to rivet the entire hull. “I knew where the stress would be greatest, so I riveted the full length of the garboard and two broadstrakes, but the other planks I riveted only from the bow to just aft of the maststep.” His wife stepped in to help with the riveting in the bottom of the hull. “A little of that went a long way with her,” he says. “She told me she was going to file a grievance with the Under-Boat Workers of America.”
Geoff Hart
The planking almost complete, the sheerstrake is clamped in place. Riveting has also begun in the bottom planks.
Geoff fastened all the plank laps to the frames with bronze screws (mostly inherited from his father) and, on the outside of the hull, applied adhesive caulk to the inside corners of the laps to seal the seams. “The climate here in Florida is pretty humid—wooden boats don’t dry out like they might in the Northeast if you haul them for the winter. I wasn’t worried about the planks splitting.” When he launched SNOW BIRD, Geoff says, “she didn’t leak a drop.”
Knowing that his choice of wood had added weight to the hull, Geoff sought ways to reduce weight elsewhere. The transom, he says, was designed for 3⁄4″ oak; he used 7⁄16″ cypress. He fashioned the centerboard from fiberglass, 7 lbs lighter than the specified metal. He hand-laid the board on a mold to the same basic dimensions as the original. When finished, it weighed 16 lbs, which he thought would be heavy enough to overcome its own buoyancy. “At the dock it went down just fine, but once I got going, the board just wouldn’t sink.” He took it out, cut a 6″-diameter hole near the bottom, and had a local metal shop fabricate a 3⁄8″-thick mild-carbon steel plate, which he ’glassed into the hole. It added 2 lbs of weight and, says Geoff, “worked like a charm.”
Geoff Hart
With the hull fully planked up, Geoff turned the boat over and began the fit-out. He built the centerboard trunk to the plans although, knowing he would be laying up a fiberglass board with squared off bottom edge, he also squared off the aft end of the trunk.
Mower’s design adhered to the 1930s Frostbite class rules. The boats were required to have three thwarts plus a mast thwart. “In a 12′ boat that’s pretty tight. It doesn’t leave room to turn around. I took out the forward thwart. The rules also specified small buoyancy tanks. They were probably big enough to keep the boat stable and upright after a capsize, but I decided to increase them, making them as large as possible while still fitting under the center thwart.”
The rig, says Geoff, is essentially as designed, although he increased the sail’s luff by a foot, which changed the area from 72 sq ft to 80 sq ft but didn’t alter the longitudinal center of effort. He also lengthened the mast from 11′ to 12′ 6″ to accommodate the taller sail. “I built it box-section out of Douglas fir rather than the original solid spruce, so it’s lighter but stronger. It’s tapered in both directions, which made it hard to build. I had one joint that was horrible, and I decided I couldn’t live with it. I spent four hours with a heat gun popping the epoxy glue loose and taking it apart so I could clean it out and redo it.”
Patty Hart
The original Snow Bird design showed smaller buoyancy tanks, more frames, and a removable forward thwart, otherwise Geoff’s new build would have looked like her sisters of the early 1930s.
While Geoff has been sailing since he was a child, the lug rig was new to him and, like everything else in this project, “involved a lot of learning. I’m still fiddling with it, trying to get it just right. Every time we use the boat, I raise the sail a little higher and adjust the downhaul, looking for that perfect set.”
Sail-setting aside, SNOW BIRD has more than lived up to Geoff’s hopes. After four years in the barn, she emerged and was launched in the summer of 2023, and, two summers on, Geoff is very happy with her. “I haven’t sailed her in more than 10 knots of wind,” he says, “but she’s surprisingly fast on a close reach.” When sailing, he sits on the cockpit sole, “because that’s how I learned.” He uses the center thwart when rowing, and the sternsheets when motoring. He has made the aft thwart removable. “If I didn’t have the motor, I’d probably just take it out, but it is nice if there are two people and one is rowing, it’s somewhere for the passenger to sit. We’ll see.”
Patty Hart
Geoff increased the sail’s luff by a foot, which increased the sail area by 8 sq ft—that extra canvas helps SNOW BIRD to move in even the lightest of breezes.
Like so many other builders of small boats, Geoff will no doubt go on tinkering and looking for things to improve, adjust, or tweak. But that is surely part of the fun. For now, SNOW BIRD sits on her trailer ready to go for a sail whenever the skipper and the riveter have some free time.
Jenny Bennett is editor of Small Boats.
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The Blue Jay–class sloop was designed in 1947 as a junior trainer. Today, the fleet numbers over 7,000, and the boats are sailed by adults and kids alike.
It was blowing like stink, and my perch on the bow of the modern go-fast raceboat was precarious. The spinnaker jibe was not going well. I looked back at Randy, the skipper, who was grinning through the chaos; it was the same grin he had on his face when we capsized my Blue Jay–class sloop nearly 45 years before. I realized then that we’d live through this particular screw-up just like we’d lived through that one. And eventually we’d laugh about it.
If the only thing that Blue Jay taught me those many years ago was to laugh through the small calamities, it would have been enough, but I learned much, much more. Most important, I learned the love of sailing and the love of the Blue Jay class of sailboat. BANZAI, my Blue Jay, has proved to be the boat of a lifetime.
History of the Blue Jay-Class Sloop
The Blue Jay is a classic little sloop designed by Sparkman & Stephens (S&S) in 1947. It’s a hard-chined daysailer, 13′ 6″ long, 5′ 2″ at the beam, and weighs a minimum of 275 lbs. It carries 90 sq ft of sail in a main, jib, and spinnaker. While its sheer is relatively flat, its bottom is slightly veed and sweeps up nicely toward the stern. It is a very pretty little boat both under sail and at a mooring. While the design is now 60 years old, the Blue Jay’s appearance is still up-to-date.
S&S forged its reputation with fast, deep-draft ocean-crossing yachts, but they designed smaller boats, too. Their Lightning-class sloop is a 19′ centerboarder designed in the days before World War II; it found immediate favor with the growing numbers of middle-class families drawn to sailing, and boats are still being built to this design for active class-racing worldwide. In 1947, S&S designed the Blue Jay as a “baby Lightning”—a junior trainer for the growing hordes of baby-boomer sailors. My twin sister and I were a part of those hordes.
We grew up on the Shrewsbury River, Monmouth County, New Jersey. The Shrewsbury is a shallow river separated from the ocean by a string of sandbar towns. It joins the Navesink River, and the two flow into Sandy Hook Bay just south of New York City. During the mid-1960s, there were fleets of Blue Jays on both rivers, and the annual Junior Sweepstakes Regattas held on the Navesink were drifting matches with dozens upon dozens of Blue Jays, and double the dozens of young teens testing their skills against each other. Lifelong friendships like mine with Randy were formed in regattas like this one.
Ours wasn’t a family of sailors. But we lived on a river, and my parents thought that sailing was something the kids should learn. In 1963, we drove down to Bay Head, New Jersey, to the Hubert Johnson Boat Yard. The unfinished Blue Jay we went to look at that day was the yard’s first, and it looked little compared to the other boats in the shop; a deal was struck, and months later BANZAI was delivered.
The International Blue Jay was built by many small yards like Hubert Johnson, and by many individuals as well. A significant chapter in the early history of the Blue Jay class was community boatbuilding. The boat was designed to be built in plywood over sawn frames and chines. From the late 1940s through the ’60s, yacht clubs, youth groups, camps, and neighborhood families built many boats for their sailing programs. While most of these boats were intended for children, a number were for adults from the beginning.
The Blue Jay is a great junior trainer. It can be raced with two teens, sailed with three or four littler kids, or a parent and a couple kids. It is rigged with a main, jib, and spinnaker and in the right wind and in the right hands, it can really get up and go. The cockpit is big and deep, and long enough for the not-so-tall to stretch out and sleep. While most of my early time in the boat was spent racing or training for racing, some of my favorite memories have BANZAI beached on a sandy island.
While the boat is a thoroughbred one-design with great balance, and is close-winded and quick, it is also fairly forgiving—though as my young friend Randy and I learned on that gusty day 45 years ago, it is not a totally forgiving boat. A moment of inattention left us upside down with the mast stuck in the soft Shrewsbury River mud. After learning that insurance would cover most of the damage, and when the blood returned to my father’s face, we could laugh about our misadventure.
Our family kept the Blue Jay for a few years. In that span of time, I had become totally boat-besotted and under the spell of the great Danish sailor Paul Elvstrom, who had won four consecutive Olympic gold medals in the singlehanded sailing events. I had to have a Finn dinghy like him. The Blue Jay was sold. I went to college and my dreams of representing the U.S.A. at the Olympics drifted away into the haze.
Jamie Bloomquist
Drake Sparkman, one of the founding partners of the venerable design firm Sparkman & Stephens, specified wood construction for the Blue Jay. In the 1960s, the fleet began to allow boats built of fiberglass—though wooden boats are still being built, too.
During the 1970s, the Blue Jay lost its preeminent position as the junior sail trainer to the fiberglass 420. This French design was faster than the Blue Jay, and it had a trapeze. It was modern, it was hip, it was ’glass. The Blue Jay, although now available in fiberglass, seemed like it was beginning to become passé—though many clubs have stayed with the boat because of its good manners and versatility.
Rediscovering the Blue Jay
Many years after we sold BANZAI, my mother found her on the side of the road, looking forlorn and with a hole in the bottom. We got it back for free. I loaded the boat into the back of my beat-up yellow Ford truck and brought it back to Maine, where I was now living. With subsequent renovations BANZAI was able to race again and we finished third in the WOOD Regatta series at the 1992 WoodenBoat Show. Today, we still do some fun races, but most often we daysail—usually with crews of kids and dogs. Sometimes I sail gloriously alone.
I’m not alone in my experience: many adults who were brought up in the Blue Jay are being attracted back to the boat. On the class’s website are requests from people across the country trying to find the boats they used to own, or ones of the same vintage.
The big cockpit that swallowed up all those little kids is just right for a couple of getting-larger middle-aged folk to have a comfortable day sail. I find it still has the same sprightly performance I recall from childhood, although the tiller seems to be a lot lower today. Adult newcomers enjoy the boat, too.
John Hanson
Many sailors who were raised in the Blue Jay class are today trying to relocate their childhood boats. Sam Hanson, seen here, is lucky: His dad found his old boat, inspiring a new generation of Blue Jay aficionados in the Hanson family.
The Blue Jay has a few faults. The plywood construction of the past did not have the benefits of modern epoxies, and the decade-old plywood panels can get a little beat. It is hard to fix the centerboard trunk leaks brought on by old age. If you are looking at older boats, look for signs of delamination and ask a professional to check the boat over. Don’t let a little damage kill a good deal, though: a lot of age-related deficiency can be repaired with a little skill, money, or both.
On the water some of the boat’s benefits are drawbacks as well. The big, beautiful deep cockpit is not self-bailing, which means rainwater can be a pain, and with the narrow side decks and no flotation, the boats can capsize. While they will not sink completely, older Blue Jays cannot be sailed out of a capsize as can, say, a Laser or a 420. The up-side is that this does teach caution.
These flaws are minor compared to the joys of owning and sailing a classic yacht from the boards of one of the world’s most prestigious yacht design firms. Today on the classic-yacht-racing circuits of Europe, sailing a Sparkman & Stephens boat is ne plus ultra. You can’t get much better. Olin Stephens, the firm’s cofounder, died at age 100 in September. With an International Blue Jay, you too can be pretty swank, sailing your own Sparkman & Stephens classic. And you can laugh about it.
Designer/builder Rollin Thurlow took the lines shown here from a surviving 17′ B. N. Morris canoe (Model A-64, Type 3) that had been built in 1908. According to the builder’s catalog, the Morris Model A canoe combined “the most important features that are required in an all-round canoe … great stability, good speed, good paddling qualities, together with a remarkable carrying capacity on slight draught.” “Type 3” indicated that this canoe had longer decks and other details that marked it as being top of the line.
The 1908 Morris A-64, Type 3: perhaps the canoe in which Grandpa courted Grandma.
Paddlers with salt water in their veins might question this design—and, for that matter, most other “Indian” or Canadian canoes. Look at all that tumble home (the sides curve toward the boat’s centerline as they near the rails). Won’t it invite green water aboard, and won’t it reduce secondary stability? And what about the seats located high up in the ends of the boat? Doesn’t this arrangement put the paddlers’ weight up where it shouldn’t be for rough-water work? The answer to all of the above is, “Yes, but….”
Wood-and-canvas construction. The distinctive lay of the planking allows fast and economical building.
Tumblehome keeps the rails clear of the paddlers’ knuckles, and this allows more efficient strokes. Also, the hull tends to be structurally stiffer because it approaches the tubular configuration of a decked canoe. As for the seats, their height permits more powerful strokes. And their far forward and aft locations provide better steering.
Body plans
This historic Morris canoe will carry a larger load than any comparable decked competitor, and it will do so while giving sharp control in shallow and tight streams. Most necessary repairs can be made with materials at hand. Used in its native inland Maine waters for its intended purposes, old Model A-64, Type 3 seems to approach perfection.
All-wood, strip-on-frame Peterborough construction is elegant and labor-intensive.
Thurlow’s beautifully detailed drawings describe three different construction methods for this canoe: traditional wood-and-canvas; all-wood strip-on-frame; and wood-strip fiberglass. Plans for the B.N. Morris canoe consist of eight sheets and include full-sized mold patterns and construction details for each canoe, as well as lines and offsets for the wood-and-canvas and allwood strip-on-frame versions. WoodenBoat Plan No. 96, $60.00.
PERFORMANCE
* Suitable for: Protected waters
* Intended capacity: 1-3
Trailerable or cartoppable
Propulsion: Paddle, pole
BUILDING DATA
Skill needed: Intermediate
Lofting required: No
* Alternative construction: As described
PLANS DATA
No. of sheets: 8
Level of detail: Above average
Cost per set: $60.00
WB Plan No. 96
* See page 96 for further information
Completed B. N. Morris Canoe Images
Poling is a popular pastime among canoe enthusiasts.The Morris’s weight combined with her relatively flat bottom gives her good initial stability.This makes her an excellent choice for poling or for general use in calm waters.
The 17′ 4″ Pathfinder yawl, designed by John Welsford, is meant for serious cruising. One owner-builder in the designer’s New Zealand home waters spent 10 months living on his boat while exploring.
The Pathfinder, an open-cockpit yawl from New Zealand designer John Welsford, is a dinghy meant for some serious cruising. The 17′ 4″ LOD boat combines the classic looks of a lapstrake hull, the speed of a modern underbody, and the simplicity of a split rig to suit the singlehanded sailor. Any backyard boatbuilder with the desire to pack up some gear and head out onto the water for a few days would do well to take a look at this boat.
SPARTINA is the name of my Pathfinder. I don’t claim to be a boatbuilder or even a woodworker, but after 20 months of night and weekend work, the varnish glows brightly on her Douglas-fir masts, and a rich mahogany coaming rises to a peak on the foredeck. A dark green hull sets off the white sheer plank and the bright white main, mizzen, and jib made in a loft in Maine. If I can build a Pathfinder, just about anybody can.
Welsford is an ardent supporter of open-cockpit cruising, and he made his mark with the Navigator design, a 14′ 9″ yawl, a tried-and-true cruiser. About 600 sets of Navigator plans are in the hands of home boatbuilders, and about 250 of the boats are on the water worldwide. Another New Zealander, David Perillo, has done some of the most celebrated sailing in a Navigator, spending 10 months (that’s right, 10 months!) cruising the Fiji Islands in his Navigator yawl, the MARGARET H. His stories, full of adventure, knockdowns, and wide-open sailing, have drawn sailors to Welsford’s designs. Some of those sailors wanted something just a bit larger than the Navigator. Welsford says he had requests asking for a faster boat with more storage and a greater range. His answer was the Pathfinder.
From bowsprit to boomkin, Welsford has drawn the Pathfinder with safety, comfort, and storage in mind. The heritage for this design, Welsford tells me, comes from the cobles and other traditional boats of the northeast coast of England. Those lapstrake boats are launched off the beach and sailed well out into the waters of the North Sea, “a seriously rough part of the world,” he says. The Pathfinder pays homage to those classic North Sea boats with a narrow forefoot that slices through the water, a hull that broadens amidships for stability, and a nice tumblehome as the upper planks slope inward from thwart to the slightly raked transom. Beneath the waterline, Welsford has borrowed some of the shape used on his transatlantic racers to give the Pathfinder some speed.
Steve Earley
Bruce Hollingsworth at the tiller of SPARTINA on Core Sound.
For safety, Welsford has built an incredible amount of buoyancy into the Pathfinder, with watertight compartments in the bow and beneath the seats of the aft cockpit, the thwart, and forward cockpit sole. These watertight spaces serve double duty as storage areas accessible through deck plates. Under the aft cockpit seats of SPARTINA, I store my first-aid kit, batteries, extra line, spare fittings, spark plugs, and fishing tackle and still have plenty of room left over. The thwarts provide the largest watertight storage, the perfect spot for food, clothes, books, and cameras. Just forward of the thwart, two more deck plates give access to the ballast area where there is extra room for the tool kit, spare anchor, and almost 10 gallons of water.
Bruce Hollingsworth
Steve Earley cooks dinner for two on board SPARTINA on Core Sound, North Carolina.
The Pathfinder’s wide side decks and coaming hide cruising gear from the sun and salt spray. I keep my foulweather gear, cook kit, oar, boathook, camp stove, and fenders lashed up along the hull under the side decks. Beneath the foredeck is room for the anchor, portable toilet, boom tent, and sleeping bag. It is amazing how much storage Welsford has crafted into this boat. Room to keep things tucked away is more than just convenience on a small boat; it is a matter of safety. I’ve got a clear path forward to the halyards and anchor, with no worries about tripping over gear. An inboard well for the auxiliary outboard preserves the graceful lines of the lapstrake hull. While this keeps the classic look of the hull, I see it as yet another safety feature. I don’t have to lean out over the transom to add fuel or change a spark plug. All of that can be done from inside the cockpit.
Just as Welsford brought traditional styling to a modern hull, he also adapted traditional boatbuilding to suit the garage boatbuilder. In his plans, he shows how common tools, marine-grade plywood, and epoxy can be used by someone like me, a complete amateur, to build a fine boat. Welsford tells his builders, “Don’t sweat over the last tiny bit; build your boat, paint it, and go sailing.” Knowing well that many of his builders don’t have skills or patience for hair-thin tolerances, he says a fair curve is more important than a millimeter or two here or there.
Steve Earley
Sailing under a small-craft warning on Tangier Sound.
A metric tape measure is probably the first tool worth buying, as Welsford’s plans are in metric measurements. Beyond that, mostly common tools are used in Pathfinder’s construction. Screwdrivers, hammer, drill, jigsaw, hand plane, sander, and a bucket full of clamps will get you going.
The 12 sheets of drawings in the Pathfinder plans have scaled drawings for seven frames to be cut from plywood. The frames and centerboard trunk are then mounted on a bottom panel scarfed from two sheets of plywood. The promise of a boat shows as stringers are bent into place around the frames. Plywood planks are dry-fitted to the stringers and trimmed to fit from the bottom of one stringer to the top of the stringer above. The most challenging plank is the garboard between the first bulkhead and the stem where there is a reverse curve in the lowest stringer. Getting the plywood to match that curve is a matter of strength, leverage, and patience. But once the plank is drawn into place, there is that beautiful forefoot that cleaves the water with a slight hollow as it flares upward to the next overlapping plank. Once that plank is epoxied in place, the rest is easy. With the hull completed, I barely looked at the plans and simply cut the decks, seats, and cockpit sole to fit.
Need advice in the middle of the build? Go to the John Welsford builders group at Groups.yahoo.com/-group/jwbuilders. Past, current, and prospective builders all take part in the discussion of understanding plans, techniques, and design for Welsford’s boat. Ask a question, and more likely than not Welsford himself will chime in with advice or opinion.
In fact, the discussion group is the place to talk with the designer about changes to his plans. I made a handful of changes to suit my tastes and sailing experience. I left out the bow anchor well on my boat. The well is 4′ from the cockpit—farther than I would want to stretch to reach the anchor in rough water. I find it simpler to keep the anchor in a bucket under the foredeck. For increased ballast and stability, I substituted a 1⁄ 2″-thick, 100-lb steel plate for the weighted wooden centerboard shown on the plans. The masts and spars in the plans are made of aluminum tubing, but a classic-looking hull like the Pathfinder deserves wood. So, like many Welsford builders, I built wooden masts, booms, and gaff from Douglas-fir.
The Pathfinder performs better than I had hoped it would. With a light breeze, she moves along nicely; with a stiff breeze, she flies. The hull, feeling much wider than it really is, has a solid feel as the boat heels to a comfortable angle and holds her position. The narrow forefoot cuts through the water, the flare of the bow pushes the spray out and away on all but the roughest of days.
SPARTINA has proven herself time and again. I’ve sailed across miles of deep water during small-craft warnings, a single reef tucked in the main, and felt perfectly safe. I’ve sailed backwards—a nice trick that can be done with a yawl under mizzen only—across shallow sand flats. A good friend and I have packed the boat with food, water, tents, sleeping bags, clothes, cameras, and fishing rods for a sixday, 100-mile cruise in the sounds of North Carolina. All that gear on board, and we still had plenty of space. Whether miles from shore or in shallow water along a barrier island, the Pathfinder feels at home. I can’t imagine a better design—especially one that I could build—for open-boat cruising.
Sam Crocker’s design work was highly regarded by his peers, and by those who built, brokered, maintained, or cruised his yachts. The yawl Sallee Rover, drawn in 1953, shows why this is so.
Crocker has recombined a remarkable assemblage of elements here into one small boat, but the result is so superbly proportioned that no one item overpowers the overall design. Joel White, who built the sloop version of this boat, aptly describes the hull, with its shallow draft and broad beam, as a cross between a catboat and a Muscongus Bay sloop. She has a very strong sheer, extended at the ends by her steeved bowsprit and boomkin; a big outboard rudder; a clipper bow; and a round-fronted cabin trunk which combines with a high coaming carried well aft. But for all the traditional detailing, the sail plan is a modern marconi rig of manageable size, in both the yawl and sloop versions.
Here, too, it is a credit to Crocker’s skill that he could set those sails on this hull and still keep it all in character.
You can build SALLEE ROVER as a sloop or yawl.
More about this hull: Sallee Rover’s scantlings are substantial for so small a vessel. Her keel, for example, is 7 x 9″ oak; other structural members are sized accordingly. Crocker used the hull itself—particularly the heavy backbone—to ballast this boat, and thereby simplified construction by eliminating a ballast keel. Her down-low weight and wide body, plus some inside ballast and the sensible sail plan, make this a stiff boat in strong winds.
Profile
Her cockpit is self-bailing and the footwell is jogged, thus adding space and making good use of the coaming, cabin, and afterdeck for assorted seating under sail or at anchor. There are no below-deck accommodations shown, other than two transom berths with lockers under, and a platform for stowage forward of the mast—but the little cabin provides an airy and adequate shelter for camp-cruising. The recommended inboard auxiliary power is less than 10 hp and accessible through a large hatch in the cockpit sole.
Heavy scantlings, inside ballast, and firm bilges give Sallee Rover the stability she needs.
She’s special, Sallee Rover—a small wonder. She’s the craft chosen to demonstrate, and celebrate, the anatomy of a wooden boat in a series of perspective drawings by Sam Manning for the 10th anniversary issue of WoodenBoat magazine (WoodenBoat No. 60).
An extraordinarily comfortable cockpit and spartan cruising accommodations.
Plans for the 20′ Crocker Yawl, Sallee Rover, include lines and offsets, construction and sail plans for both the yawl and sloop versions, spars, wire rigging, tankage, and specifications. WB Plan No. 65. $150.00.
Sallee Rover Plan Details
DESCRIPTION
Hull type: Round-bottomed, keel/ch boat
Rig: Marconi yawl or sloop
Construction: Carvel planked over steamed frames
Headroom/cabin (between beams): About 3 8
Featured in Design Section: WB No. 62
Although she’s only 20′ long and displaces about two tons, MARTHA feels like a big boat and will accommodate two for a weekend excursion. At the end of the season, you can haul her home with a small truck.
"Is that a PocketShip?” Even though it was the first time I had ever launched my PocketShip, it was not the first time a stranger had approached me to ask about it. This stranger turned out to be very familiar with the design, having followed it since Chesapeake Light Craft introduced it. What would prove to be the usual suite of questions followed: Did I build it myself? Plans or kit? How long did it take? How does it sail? He expressed his enthusiasm for the PocketShip and his dream to build one.
Jon Lee
The PocketShip was designed to be towed by a modest car with a four-cylinder engine. The full-sized sedan here is more than up to the task.
John Harris, the proprietor of and chief designer for Chesapeake Light Craft, designed the PocketShip as his personal boat. “I’d owned a production fiberglass pocket cruiser, which sailed well but was hellish uncomfortable,” he explained. “I had a hunch that I could design a sailboat with a 15′ length-on-deck that not only sailed extremely well, but was ergonomic for someone of my 6′ 1″ height.” The boat had to be light enough to tow to Florida behind his four-cylinder car, fast and seaworthy enough to sail overnight to the Bahamas, and commodious enough for a week’s cruising once there. He drew a centerboard gaff sloop with a doughty profile. The waterline length is 13′ 8″, and the boat weighs around 1,200 lbs when rigged, ballasted, and loaded with provisions. John packed a lot of boat into a small, well-balanced package.
Jon Lee
The boom gallows catches the boom and gaff when the main is lowered.
The PocketShip struck a chord with amateur boatbuilders, and a flurry of interest from potential customers led John to add the design to the CLC offerings. The promise of big-boat cruising adventure in a petite, built-it-yourself, trailerable package proved irresistible to many, and at last update more than 300 kits and plans have shipped to locations around the world.
The PocketShip is a do-it-yourself project with a scope and complexity that a handy amateur can readily contemplate. It is available as a kit with CNC-cut plywood parts, epoxy, epoxy thickeners, fiberglass, drawings, and manual. Hardware, timber, and sails are available as optional packages. I built from CLC’s plans, huge rolls of paper with full-sized patterns for nearly all parts. The 280-page manual is a masterpiece, with minutely detailed instructions, readable prose, and clear photographs and illustrations. While PocketShip is best for the intermediate-level amateur, the quality of the manual has enabled complete novices to build fine PocketShips.
I built my PocketShip in a one-car garage over the course of two years. When I decided to order plans instead of a kit, I felt that I had to cut out all the wood myself in order to claim I had built my own boat. If I were to do it over again, I would build from a kit; it would get the build started faster, produce more precise work, and still require enough labor to provide a legitimate claim to a self-built boat.
Jon Lee
The 2.5 hp four-stroke outboard is the maximum recommended auxiliary power. A larger outboard would add an unnecessary burden to the transom.
The PocketShip is constructed using the stitch-and-glue plywood method. Having built two kayaks before the PocketShip, the basic techniques were familiar to me, and the hull went together much like a giant, complex kayak. I picked up some new skills such as scarfing plywood (the kit uses CNC-cut puzzle joints), melting lead for the keel, and rigging the sheets, halyards, and stays. The manual always kept things from getting intimidating; it breaks down the building into a series of small, achievable tasks, most of which can be completed in weeknight sessions. Some things, such as the big fiberglass jobs, are best reserved for weekends.
courtesy of Chesapeake Light Craft
For the performance-minded sailor, the optional spinnaker adds power for sailing off the wind.
Construction begins with the keel assembly, which includes the centerboard trunk and has two compartments, one at each end of the trunk, that are filled with 108 lbs of lead, melted and poured in. (Another 150 to 200 lbs of ballast—bags of lead-shot—will later get set in the bilges of the completed boat.) The finished keel assembly is dropped into a building cradle made of two female molds. The hull bottom and sides are then dropped in and wired together with temporary 18-gauge-steel wire stitches. Next, an array of plywood bulkheads and floors are stitched in place. The joints are then permanently bonded with big epoxy fillets and the entire interior is sheathed in fiberglass. The decks and topsides are also stitched, glued, and ’glassed. There are a few fiddly bits of carpentry along the way, where timber needs to be cut at a complex angle, but these tasks tend to be welcome breaks from the epoxy work.
The mast is a tapered hollow box, built up from four 16′ spruce staves. The bowsprit, boom, and gaff are all solid timber with rectangular sections, milled down to attractive tapers. While traditional in appearance, the rig is fairly modern in the details, including a roller-furling jib and sail track for the main. Rigging requires a wide variety of blocks, cleats, and eyestraps, and careful routing of the running rigging.
Getting the PocketShip to the launch site and out sailing is a breeze. For easy trailering, the mast is stepped in a tabernacle and folds down onto the boom gallows. On reaching the launching ramp, you start by casting off the tie down that secures the mast to the boom gallows. The bobstay also must be shackled to the bow eye, unless the geometry of your trailer permits it to remain attached. Standing in the cockpit, you thrust the mast upward toward vertical and haul in on the jib halyard, which does double duty as a forestay, pivoting the mast into place. Once the boat is in the water, drop the centerboard and slide the mainsail onto its track. When this process is well-rehearsed, it is possible to be underway within 10 minutes of arriving at the ramp.
The boat is designed with singlehanding in mind, with all lines, including the jib’s roller-furler line, led to the cockpit. For a relatively heavy displacement boat with a 13′ 8″ waterline and 6′ 3″ beam, the PocketShip has surprisingly inspired sailing qualities. John Harris likes his PocketShip to sail fast, and worked hard to get as much speed as he could out of this little vessel. The hull lines are fairly refined and carry a good dose of racing dinghy in them. The boat has a single hard chine, a V bottom, and a surprisingly fine entrance. If it were not for the 268-lbs of ballast required to keep her on her feet, it could probably be induced to plane quite readily. The ample sail area adds to performance; with a 109-sq-ft main and a 39-sq-ft jib, the boat has no shortage of power.
courtesy of Chesapeake Light Craft
The prudent reefing and PocketShip’s ballast, over 250 lbs divided between the keel and bilge, lets the skipper sail while safely seated in the cockpit.
For a gaff-rigged boat, the PocketShip is close-winded, able to sail to within right around 50 degrees of the wind. A beam reach is where it really shines. The boat almost effortlessly plunges forth at a sprightly 5-ish knots and settles into a groove that yields delightful sailing. At speed, the PocketShip will plow jauntily through chop, and is stable and confident in rough conditions. Full sail can be carried up until the wind hits 10 to 12 knots; above that, a single reef will calm the boat down substantially without sacrificing any speed.
With its large sail area, a PocketShip will propel itself in even the lightest of airs. If currents are a fact of life in your home waters, however, a 2- to 2.5-hp outboard motor, hung on a mount fixed to the transom, is essential. The boat is easily driven and zips along under power. The manual notes that a pair of oars and a yuloh are auxiliary power options, good for a couple of knots, and though accommodations for them are not included, they would be easy enough for the builder to add.
Jon Lee
The cockpit foot well is kept to a minimal but functional size to make more room in the cabin for storage and sleeping.
The cockpit is roomy enough to accommodate three or four adults. It is an expansive and comfortable space, almost as well suited to lounging about as a living-room couch. The narrow, shallow footwell is a compromise with the sleeping accommodations below it, but the PocketShip’s cockpit is perfectly functional.
Jon Lee
The cabin provides sleeping quarters with the extensions, to left, under the cockpit seats.
The cabin has an open layout; you sit or sleep directly on the floorboards, with legs extended aft under the cockpit. At the forward end of the cabin there is a large storage area, and additional space aft, below the cockpit decks. There are comfortable sleeping accommodations for two full-grown adults. Though the cabin is small, it is possible to spend time below without discomfort, as I discovered during one very rainy weekend.
Jon Lee
The PocketShip performs well in light air, and when the winds fail, it is light enough to be propelled by sculling or rowing if the builder choses to rig the boat for oars.
There is a degree of celebrity that comes with sailing a PocketShip. A PocketShip owner gets used to being photographed out on the water, complimented at the dock, and peppered with questions at boat ramps. On a recent trip to Friday Harbor in Washington’s San Juan Islands, my PocketShip looked Lilliputian moored next to the long rows of enormous, glittering, white production cruisers. Yet, the tourists walking the docks were inevitably drawn to my little red boat. I had to abandon my plan to lie about and read, and instead respond to the stream of questions and compliments that the boat drew. While the monster yachts that surrounded me had galleys, settees, even televisions, one little boy stood wide-eyed, marveling that such a little boat could have windows!
The PocketShip has indeed gained a following. With stout and shippy good looks, delightful sailing performance, and micro-cruising comforts all rolled into one built-it-yourself package, it is a following that is well-earned.
Jon Lee of Everett, Washington, is a full-time engineer, sometime amateur boat builder, not-enough-time sailor. He built his first boat, a self-designed rowboat, during grad school. In the years since, more boats followed, while Jon swore he could quit anytime he wants. His greatest claim to fame is successfully leading his boatbuilding team to two successive last-place finishes in the Edensaw Boatbuilding Challenge at the Wooden Boat Festival, and loving it.
This issue marks the 10th anniversary of the launch of Small Boats in September 2014. With this September issue, the number of articles published has risen to around 1,000, all of them available to subscribers under “Issues” in the menu bar above. This ever-growing resource for our community is both for our readers and from our readers. Almost without exception, the articles are written by boaters who have some hands-on experience or knowledge that they have been moved to share with our community. A majority of our contributors have never before written for publication. Their sense of shared purpose, at the heart of what we call Small Boats Nation, has allowed this publication to thrive over the past 10 years. Your participation is as welcome as it is essential for guiding Small Boats through the decades to come. All it takes is an email.
A Change of Watch
In February 2014, I received an email from Matt Murphy, the editor of WoodenBoat. The subject line read: “If asked, would you serve?” I had an answer even before I opened the email—WoodenBoat had been my favorite magazine since I built my first boat in 1977. “For some time now,” Matt wrote, “I’ve been thinking of how WB might adapt our print annual Small Boats content into a digital magazine–a monthly, perhaps. The idea is gaining traction here.” He provided a brief outline of the content of the new publication and asked if I was interested in being its editor. I was already quite proud to have had several articles published by WoodenBoat and to have been an instructor at WoodenBoat School. Working for WoodenBoat as an editor focusing on small boats was beyond what I’d ever dreamed of. And Matt’s use of the word “serve” struck home. By accepting, I’d be taking on not just a new job but an opportunity to be a part of something I believed in and admired.
Matt had emailed his invitation shortly after I’d launched my last issue as the editor of Sea Kayaker magazine. That job had also started with an invitation from an editor. That one came in a phone call in 1989 from John Dowd, Sea Kayaker’s founding editor, asking me to take over the magazine, then in its fifth year. I’d only written one article for Sea Kayaker, and I knew nothing about editing or publishing, but John had evidently been impressed with the editing I’d done of my own work. I took the chance and then stayed on for almost 25 years, until Sea Kayaker ceased publication in 2014.
As much as I’ve enjoyed my somewhat accidental 35-year-long career as an editor, at the age of 71, I’m now ready to spend a little less time at my desk and more time in my shop, aboard my boats, and with loved ones. But I have so valued working with the WoodenBoat crew, my connections to Small Boats readers and contributors, and the broader community of designers, builders, and users of small boats that I’ll remain on board as Editor-at-Large and continue to write articles.
Jenny Bennett, who has been the managing editor of Small Boats since 2022, will be taking over as editor. She has been an editor with Classic Boat, The Boatman, Maritime Life and Traditions, and WoodenBoat. She grew up sailing small boats and taught sailing in England, Greece, and at WoodenBoat School. Now living on an island on the Maine coast, she owns an 8′ skiff, an 11′ sailing dinghy, and an old 16′ gaff sloop. Small Boats will continue on a steady course with Jenny at the helm.
The Blekingseka is a traditional boat that has its origins in the Blekinge archipelago near Karlskrona on Sweden’s east coast. Eka is the Swedish term for an open boat characteristic of the region, typically featuring a small, raked transom above the waterline. These boats generally have ranged in length from 14′ to 23′.
The original 14′ eka, on which today’s building plans are based, was built by Bröderna Mårtenssons Båtbyggeri (Mårtenssons Brothers Boatbuilding) on the island of Östra Hästholmen, an island 6 miles to the southeast of Karlskrona. The boat was commissioned in 1970 by Hans Hanson, a resident of the island. He had ordered it with a motor but removed that shortly after the eka was delivered to him in 1972. The eka was measured and documented by Swedish boatbuilder Bertil Andersson. His plans show how the boat would have been constructed without a motor.
Sebastian Schröder
The original ekas were built of oak lapstrake planking on oak frames. I built mine glued lapstrake using 9mm Vendia plywood and pine. The construction technique removes the need for frames although I did fit timbers to support the floorboards, and hanging knees to support the gunwales.
The plans include four sheets of information about the eka’s origin and its equipment, such as oars, sails, and motor specifications. The sheets show the lines taken off by Andersson drawn at a scale of 1:10. In lieu of measured drawings or a table of offsets there is a PDF file meant to be printed out at full size (165″ × 36″) to produce full-sized patterns—with planking marked—for the keel, stem, sternpost, transom, rudder, and six frames.
The ekas were originally built entirely of oak. I decided to construct a glued-lapstrake hull using Finnish-made 9mm Vendia Marine Planking, and pine. I drew the frames as molds, which would be removed after planking, and installed floor timbers to support the floorboards, and hanging knees to support the gunwales. I used Iain Oughtred’s Clinker Plywood Boatbuilding Manual as a guide for the more contemporary construction. To facilitate the build on an upside-down frame with molds, I created a 3D model and slightly shifted the frames. I also added a removable third middle thwart to allow for rowing without interfering with the mast. Instead of using the mast stays indicated in the drawings, I opted for a slightly larger mast diameter of 90mm.
The one-piece sternpost is designed to run outside the boat below the waterline but inside the transom above the waterline, adding complexity to the construction—making it more suitable for experienced builders. Fitting the transom requires precise cutting, and the garboards have a strong twist aft. A heat gun worked very well to bend the 9mm Vendia.
Sebastian Schröder
There is no centerboard or leeboard. Instead, the eka gets its fine tracking ability from its deep-V sections and its prominent keel. While not close-winded, it can comfortably tack through 120°. Its draft is only 15″ so it can be sailed in shallow water but when beached it won’t sit upright.
The finished boat is light and compact, making it easy to trailer. Rigging the unstayed 12′ 6″ mast is straightforward: the sprit mainsail remains furled and lashed to the mast, which just needs to be raised and set in a simple hole in the thwart that serves as a mast partner. The heel of the mast fits in a square hole in the transverse maststep, a block of plywood glued to the keel. The sprit has a groove at its upper end, allowing it to be set up while standing next to the trailer without needing to climb into the boat. Within 15 minutes, the boat can be launched with the mainsail set. To lower the sail while on the water, you can stand behind the mast, take the sprit out, furl the sail, and secure it.
As the open eka lacks built-in flotation, I use a set of inflatable rollers covered with fabric underneath the mast thwart and the removable middle thwart. Seating is comfortable, even on the floorboards, and the boat can accommodate up to three adults. A curved tiller allows for easy steering and is long enough for the skipper to sit well forward to balance the boat from amidships.
Christoph Busse
The rig is traditional and simple, the unstayed mast stands in a hole in the forward thwart. The maststep is shown in the plans as a transverse floor timber with a hole for the mast’s heel in its upper edge. There is no built-in flotation, so I tied buoyancy bags to the underside of the center and forward thwarts. The plans suggest paired thole pins for the oars, I elected to use single pins with rope grommets.
Both the main and the jib can be easily trimmed from the helm, whether you’re sitting on the middle thwart or the floorboards. The low-hanging sails can sometimes obstruct your forward view, but you can easily lift the bottom of the boomless spritsail for a better view. I especially like that the boomless sail also flaps harmlessly overhead while coming about.
Sailing this boat is a real pleasure, as it tracks beautifully. The characteristic gurgling sound of the lapstrake hull accompanies the curved bow as it smoothly rides over waves rather than cutting through them. The boat is eager to head into the wind in a gust, with almost no force needed at the tiller.
It feels fast and stable, responding immediately with moderate heeling as it accelerates. In winds of 12 to 15 knots, the boat can reach speeds of up to 5 1⁄2 knots. When pointing to windward, it maintains a speed of around 3 1⁄2 to 4 knots, as measured by the GPS. Even in 20-knot winds, the boat remains comfortable on a lake, though its performance in larger waves is yet to be tested. In winds up to 17 knots with a crew of two, the rig can be sailed with both the jib and mainsail. In stronger winds, it would be necessary to take down the jib and reef the mainsail.
Christoph Busse
The rudder is hung on the transom and the sternpost. The fixed blade is shallower than the keel and its lower leading edge is protected by the aft end of the keel.
In moderate winds, there is minimal spray over the bow. Tacking is smooth without significantly slowing the boat, but the crew needs to be ready to balance during a jibe, as the rail can dip into the water. Counter-heeling can be easily managed by adjusting the seating position on the thwarts or sitting at the gunwale.
Instead of a daggerboard, the boat is equipped with a large rudder and a wide keel area under the transom, giving it a tacking angle of around 120°. The short hull is highly responsive to changes in longitudinal seating, so the crew must avoid sitting too far aft. For solo sailing, I would recommend adding an extra 88 lbs of ballast.
I use a single pair of Norwegian-style oars with a single wooden tholepin as the oarlock. Swedish oars with long, narrow, flat blades are specified in the plans. While sailing, the oars can be kept secured to the tholes with short lines. There are no foot braces, and with the mast standing, only one of the two rowing stations can be used comfortably.
For longer distances, a crew of two could either remove the mast or lay it down, with one person rowing from the first station and the other steering or also rowing. With a crew of three, one person would be in the bow, another rowing at the middle thwart, and the third steering at the helm. In calm waters, one person can easily row a crew of three, even with the sails set. Adding a long-shaft outboard instead of oars would crowd the small boat and require a modification to the raked transom.
Christoph Busse
While double-enders are common among traditional Scandinavian boats, the eka working boats of the Blekinge archipelago on Sweden’s east coast had distinctive five-sided transoms. The ekas ranged in length from 11′ to 45′.
The unique lines and small inclined transom of the Blekingseka make the building process enjoyable. Once on the water, the ease of rigging and the boat’s direct response to steering and wind make sailing an exhilarating adventure. With a draft of only 15″ when empty, my boat can be beached bow-first on a sandy shore and heel over on the bilge rubbing strips I added. The Blekinge Eka is best suited for protected waters and will appeal to builders with small workshops or limited storage space who have some prior experience in boatbuilding. The boat is most enjoyable when sailed by a crew of two and, with the absence of a daggerboard, even a family of three can be comfortable.
Sailing the Baltic Sea became a dream for Sebastian Schröder while kayaking around the Danish island of Bornholm in 1996. Since then, coastal cruising in small, open, traditional wooden boats has become a passion. Living close to Leipzig in the southeast of Germany, he frequently sails the nearby region of Neuseenland where old open-pit coal mines have been flooded to create lakes. His work as an illustrator in creativity workshops and conferences gives him the opportunity to sail and kayak the Baltic Sea and to build wooden boats in traditional Scandinavian style as Feinspiel.
Blekingseka Particulars
Length: 14′
Beam: 57 3⁄4″
Draft: 15″
Sail area: Main 60 sq ft Jib 22 sq ft
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In the late 1990s, the prolific small-boat designer Iain Oughtred worked with his friend Brice Avery to design a trailerable coastal cruiser. With inspiration drawn from canoe yawls of yore, the resulting craft would be known as Eun Mara. A gaff-rigged yawl, it has a 19′ 9″ length on deck, a 6′ 8″ beam, and draws 1′ 5″ bilgeboards up and 3′ 4″ with them down. The twin bilgeboard trunks are integrated into the interior furniture, leaving the spartan but spacious cabin more open than it would otherwise be with a traditional centerboard trunk dividing the space.
The plans include a centerboard option paired with an inboard rudder and self-draining cockpit as well as a sloop rig. The 11 pages of drawings come with a table of offsets for lofting the boat but also include full-sized patterns for the molds with the plank lands drawn in. The hull is glued-lapstrake construction using 3⁄8″ marine-plywood planks and decking with dimensional lumber used for the backbone, keel, and a pair of laminated frames to help support the deck-stepped mainmast. There are approximately 400 lbs of lead in the keel, and the two bilgeboards are 3⁄4″-thick steel plate, each weighing about 100 lbs, for roughly 600 lbs of ballast.
Dieter Loibner
The plans offer an option for an inboard rudder with a tiller forward of the mizzenmast, but for the outboard rudder, which is also offered by Oughtred, a split tiller that loops around the mizzenmast is required.
Auxiliary propulsion is provided by an outboard located in a small well built into the aft end of the cockpit/afterdeck area and offset to one side of the mizzenmast. Most owners have found 6 hp to be adequate for the roughly 2,500-lb boat. The mainmast of the gaff rig is stepped on deck in a tabernacle. The standing rigging is a forestay with upper and lower shrouds. The unstayed gaff-rigged mizzen is stepped through the aft deck to the sternpost. A small jib flies from the bowsprit; whether it hanks to the forestay or uses a furler is left to the builder. The bowsprit and boomkin each add about 4′ to the overall length and the mizzen boom extends a couple of feet past the boomkin, so you’ll need about 30′ of dock space to moor your 19′ 9″ LOD Eun Mara.
Steve Borgstrom
The Eun Mara can be beached upright by partially lowering the bilge keels, but if I need to access the bottom, I can retract the bilge keels, and let the boat heel as it dries out. The outboard rudder is designed with a drop-down blade, here seen lowered, to get a purchase in the water below the keel. The line seen hanging against the side of the rudder is for retracting the blade.
The boat was intended to be a “trailerable coastal cruiser,” and while the Eun Mara is indeed trailerable, setting up and striking the yawl rig rules out casual daysailing. It’s more likely to be used as a long-weekend or week-long cruising boat. My Eun Mara, MARIANITA, lives in the water, and I only need about 10 minutes to put the motor in the well and stow the sail covers. But getting her from road-ready to launched is about a two-hour process. The deck-stepped mainmast pivots in a tabernacle; a block-and-tackle running from the bowsprit to the forestay is adequate to lift the mast into place, and I’ve raised and lowered the mast both on the water and on the trailer by myself, but it is certainly easier with extra hands. The unstayed mizzenmast simply slides into a hole in the after deck. With the companionway open, all of the spars, except mainmast, fit in the boat. I lace the sails on, but hoops or robands might be faster for somebody who moves the boat on and off a trailer more frequently. With its shoal draft, the boat sits low enough on the trailer so that it can be launched from most boat ramps; a crane isn’t needed.
Steve Borgstrom
For a boat that has a hull only 19′ 9″ long, the Eun Mara’s cabin is surprisingly spacious. The bilge keels are housed in trunks that support the V berths, their lifting winches are housed in boxes built on the bulkhead either side of the companionway.
On the water, the double-ended cruiser has an old-school feel with a cockpit that is on the small side by modern standards, but with the non-self-bailing configuration, is comfortably deep: you sit in the boat, not on it, and for the singlehander everything you need is within reach. Benches on either side can be configured as spacious lockers, although too much weight aft will drop her stern quickly.
An outboard rudder demands a tiller that finds its way around the mizzenmast; the specified single-sided stick bent around the mast, or a hoop will work. Either is an opportunity to fire up the steambox and bend some wood. With Iain Oughtred’s blessing, I played with a Norwegian push-pull setup, but the boat is a little too big for this style of tiller. As designed, the rudder is a bit of a barn door with a drag-inducing 3″ squared-off trailing edge. I have replaced it with a more up-to-date NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) foil, and it has proven worth the effort. I also gave the bilgeboards, which are square-edged in the plans, as much shape as their 3⁄4″ thickness allowed by adapting the Pollock pattern Michael Storer uses on his Oz Goose.
Steve Borgstrom
Up forward, the deck-stepped mainmast is supported by an oversized deckbeam so there is no compression post taking up room in the cabin. The V-berth can be converted to a double by lifting the cabin sole and setting it onto the support ledges on either side of the V.
Down below is a spacious cabin with 7′ V-berths and comfortable sitting headroom. There is space for a galley on one side and a navigation/library/ship’s stores area on the other. The bilgeboard trunks are beneath the berths and, with the deck-stepped mast supported by a beam instead of a compression post, the cabin feels very open. The center section of the cabin sole can be fitted between the V-berths to create a queen-sized sleeping platform. The cabin is a comfortable place to sleep, though it is worth noting that the bilgeboard trunk caps are 1″ above the waterline and roughly 22″ outboard of the centerline: when the boat rolls port and starboard, water sometimes slaps the bottom of the trunk lids. Keeping the bow into the waves will help quiet things down. To line up with the waves I either use the mizzen as a riding sail or set a stern anchor.
The plywood berth tops are epoxy-filleted to the hull, creating a stiff structure that can have any number of hatches cut-in for shallow storage options or positive flotation. There is a small watertight compartment forward and another aft, which the designer notes in the plans might be just enough to keep the boat afloat but not much more. There is no provision for a head; I use a folding toilet seat with WAG bags and stash the used bags in a sealed container in one of the cockpit lockers.
Dieter Loibner
The Eun Mara design was influenced by the popular canoe yawls of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The gaff-yawl rig offers versatility in a wide range of wind strengths, and when I’m singlehanding, the mizzen acts as a useful crewmember, holding the bow close to the wind as I raise and set the main and jib.
I sewed the sails from a Sailrite kit. When I’m ready to get sailing, I hoist the mizzen and sheet it in hard; the boat will lay about 20 to 30 degrees off the wind while I go forward to get the main up, then it’s back to the cockpit, raise the jib, and I’m off. In high-wind conditions it’ll sail reasonably well under just the jib and mizzen, coming close to hitting hull speed without a lot of drama. As a gaffer, it doesn’t point particularly well, but ease the sheets a bit and it’ll take off. Beamy and lightweight, the Eun Mara suffers when going to windward in choppy conditions and pounding through the waves really slows it down. The flatter the water, the better it sails. I’ve had some ripping sailing in a harbor where there isn’t enough fetch for much chop to develop. The mizzen is big enough to balance the helm. Easing it while tacking helps prevent getting caught in irons. To speed coming about, I backwind the jib a touch. Under power, I can cruise along with the fuel-sipping 6-hp outboard at 4 knots all day. The motor can take the boat over 5 knots but with a lot more sound and fury. Retracting the bilgeboards when motoring is good for at least 1⁄2 knot.
Overall, the Eun Mara meets the design brief of a comfortable, capable, coastal cruiser. The foredeck stays dry, and the cockpit does a wonderful job of creating a safe, snug sailing area. Down below is a fine place to spend the night or take shelter from the weather with plenty of room for a captain, first mate, and maybe a small child. But where the boat excels is as a singlehanded cruiser. There’s plenty of room for stores, and with a simple, flexible sail plan the Eun Mara takes care of the crew. The little mizzen sail is like an extra crew member when you most need one, holding the boat steady while hoisting sail, putting in a reef, or dealing with the anchor. I built MARIANITA over the course of two-and-a-half years in a converted two-car garage. The plans are excellent but this is a big project and having some prior experience in building smaller boats will help.
Steve Borgstrom, a self-described serial builder, lives on Bainbridge Island in Washington State. With a 1,500-sq-ft shop and 1,500-sq-ft house he lives a balanced life, supporting his boatbuilding habit by working as a firefighter in a nearby city. Not content with the half-dozen boats he has built so far, he’s accumulating plans and materials for the next three.
Eun Mara plans and kit are available from Oughtred Boats.
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Owing to her light weight and refined shape, Harrier is exceptional under oar or sail. Designer Dias rows the boat here with author Bennett.
RAN TAN was built to Tony Dias’s Harrier design, which is, in part, a development of an earlier design of his, Marsh Hawk. But Tony will tell you that Harrier was drawn specifically for Ben Fuller, for campcruising, with a good deal of input from Ben himself. A small-boat aficionado, Ben comes from a background of rowing boats and sailing canoes—he has an interest in just about any small boat that rows and sails fast, and he is unafraid of high-tech. But he also knows and appreciates tradition better than anyone—he has been curator at Mystic Seaport and Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, and is now curator of the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, Maine. He came to Tony with his ideas, and together they created the Harrier double-ender.
Tony takes up the story: “We started with Marsh Hawk, a round-bottomed double-ender with an external keel, but Ben wanted a boat that would beach easily. We were both very interested in the plank-bottomed wherry shape—there’s a Piscataqua wherry in the collection at Mystic; it reminds me of working boats I’ve seen in Portugal. So, our idea was to take Marsh Hawk, chop off the keel, flatten out the bottom like a wherry. In a Banks dory or a mackerel seine boat, the shape, and therefore the way the boat behaves, makes you feel at home, even though you’re in an open boat in rough water—that’s what I think we were after.”
At Rockport, Maine, we have loaded two pairs of oars into the boat and Tony is laying the daggerboard across the aft benches to act as a temporary rowing thwart. “With two people rowing you want an aft thwart, but you don’t want a permanent seat cluttering up the cockpit for sailing—the daggerboard is the perfect width and length for the job.” We pull away from the dock and immediately are up to speed, tracking easily through the harbor, the water chuckling against the lapstrake hull. We sight-see for a while but are anxious to get sailing and return to the dock to step the mast and raise sail.
Kmehlsphotography.com
A high-peaked, fully battened mainsail set on carbon-fiber spars gives Harrier great power and stability. The mizzen balances the rig and adds maneuverability to the boat’s many virtues.
The Harrier carries a standing-lug yawl rig, high-peaked and fully battened in the main—an eye-catching blend of old and new technology. For years the lug rig was overlooked by all but European working-boat enthusiasts and designers of small sailing dinghies looking for a simple rig that could be used by children, required minimal standing rigging, could be stored within the boat’s own length, and was not aspiring to any form of “high performance.” Then came the Nigel Irens designed ROXANNE— a slippery 29′ 6″ yawl with a high-peaked standing-lug main carried on an unstayed carbon-fiber mast. “That rig, and its performance, fascinated me. For Harrier I originally drew up three or four different rigs with wooden spars, but it seemed only natural to use carbon fiber. Ben isn’t afraid of carrying sail, so isn’t concerned by a big, tall rig, and we found that if you use carbon fiber, which reduces weight aloft, you really don’t need to reef sail if you’re prepared to be athletic about it. You can reef if you want to, but the boat isn’t overpowered by the rig.”
There are other interesting features in the mainsail: the tack is low on the mast, the clew higher, and so the sail is self-vanging; there is a highly efficient downhaul to control draft; and in the lower part of the sail there are full-length battens giving stiffness (especially just above the foot) without the disadvantages that come with a boom. The battens, however, are a “work in progress.” The right level of stiffness is crucial: it has to be stiff enough so that when you’re off the wind, it doesn’t belly off like crazy and create too deep a pocket, but at the same time it has to be limber enough not to totally flatten when you’re close-hauled. As for the mizzen, it is a diminutive jib-headed spritsail that helps balance the rig, keeping the load on the helm lighter, and as Ben was to later point out, keeps the boat’s bow into the wind when reefing or at anchor. But it has uses beyond the usual: “Ben’s interested in camp-cruising, and you can use the mainmast as a ridge-pole for a tent awning—you lay the heel down against the stem and tie the head up on the mizzenmast; you almost have standing headroom in the stern.” And, as Tony was to demonstrate later, it is the perfect backrest for the idle skipper.
The joy of the carbon-fiber mast becomes apparent the minute you rig the boat. One reasonably fit person can lift the mast, one-handed, and stand it through the mast thwart into the step—and that’s all there is to it. To raise the sail there is just the one halyard counter-tensioned by the downhaul, and thanks to the boomless foot, the sail can be raised with the wind coming from any direction.
With two adults aboard, the Harrier seems bigger than her 17’6″ by 5′, and despite her lightweight construction (6mm plywood planking and a hull weight of about 200 lbs) she feels stiff and stable. Tony tells me that at the 2007 Small Reach Regatta on Eggemoggin Reach, Maine, they had three on board. “It was great—one person sits up forward, one amidships, and one right aft. With the boat more heavily loaded, it does make sense to reef down for a drier ride and less strain on the boat and the rig. When the boat’s lightly loaded, she’ll just go faster in stronger air and ride higher and drier.”
We have sailed away from the landing and are picking up zephyrs across the harbor. We are without the mizzen, for we have forgotten the boomkin. In this configuration, RAN TAN is tricky to tack in the light airs, but she will respond to, on occasion, a momentary backing of the mainsail. Tony demonstrates the boat’s stability by standing at the helm and shifting his weight as if on a surfboard; I settle comfortably on the center thwart.
Kmehlsphotography.com
Ben Fuller, whose vision gave rise to the Harrier design, sculls the boat at Rockport, Maine.
When Ben returns with the boomkin, we reach back to meet him and set full sail. RAN TAN is in her element. We run, wing-and-wing, down the harbor, Tony dipping beneath the mainsail every so often to check his path, me tucking lines out of the way, stowing extra clothes beneath the foredeck, and thinking about the options for sleeping aboard—on the flat floorboards either side of the daggerboard case (the center thwart is removable), or up on the seats with an infill for the aft cockpit. As we near the harbor mouth, we turn close-hauled and catch one of the few big gusts of the day. RAN TAN heels to the wind, seems to take a big gulp, and then comes back; never once do you get the feeling that she might just keep going. I was sorry there was not more wind, as it would have been fun to sit out on the wide side-wales and hike out. Tony concedes that, as with any unballasted boat, it is possible to capsize her, but even if the boat is swamped the flotation bags will keep her floating with the water level just below the top of the daggerboard case so you can bail it out.
We switch positions. I quickly become used to the tiller arrangement—not quite a “push-pull” in the Scandinavian sense, but with a rigid elbow and tiller extension that works conventionally—though with a dog leg to get it around the mizzen—and learn that she is remarkably responsive to the helm. We dip beneath sterns and shoot across bows as we pick our route through the moored boats back up the harbor. And as the occasional gust raises our speed, so we carry our way ever closer to the wind.
It is lunchtime. We head for a sandy beach on the seaward side of the town landing and, as we approach, raise the daggerboard. With no crew and no board, RAN TAN draws about 6″; even laden, we manage to run far enough up the beach that I can disembark without getting my feet wet. The tide is falling so we leave RAN TAN where she is, moored to a low tree branch. Some time later we will return to slide her down the beach on a couple of rollers and pull away from the little cove under oar. It has been a fine introduction to the boat—one that has left me hungry for more—and when I hear that RAN TAN will again be at the Small Reach Regatta later in the summer, I am delighted to think that I may get to try her in different conditions.
Harrier Double-Ender Particulars
LOA 17′ 6″
Beam 5′
Draft 6″/ 3′ 6″
Weight, (unladen) 200 lbs
Weight, (laden) 250 lbs
Designed by Tony Dias
Prototype built by The Apprenticeshop, Rockport, Maine
For plans information, contact Antonio Dias by e-mail at [email protected].
Antonio Dias
Exceptional detail and artful rendering are hallmarks of Tony Dias’s design style.
Antonio Dias
While Harrier is not a simple boat to build, her plans are exceptionally well detailed and within the reach of a beginner with aptitude.
Launching into Washington State’s Bellingham Bay from the skinny Fairhaven launch ramp, I was optimistic about having a relaxed trip over the next few days in the middle of May. My plan was simple: make for the northern string of islands in the San Juans that stand as diminutive guards against the Strait of Georgia, and spend a few days on the water shaking down the camp-cruising setup onboard my family’s 25-year-old Haven 12 1⁄2, LAZYDOG. With the forecast predicting only a 10-knot southerly under sunny skies and a progressively diminishing breeze over the following two days, I was eager to make the most of this early-season weather window, with lots to test out on LAZYDOG before it would be all-systems-go for longer trips over the summer months.
Photographs by the author
LAZYDOG reaches across Rosario Strait with Matia Island in the distance. The large watertight bulkhead forward of the mast gives peace of mind in rough seas. but has no access for gear. Anything that doesn’t fit in a small aft compartment must sit on the floorboards between the helm and the halyards.
After an easy launch, I slowly sailed out into the bay past the blue-and-white Alaska ferry, docked at its southern terminus and sporting the Big Dipper and Polaris on its smokestack. Out past the industrial Fairhaven docks I set the beige marconi main and self-tacking jib for a close reach across Bellingham Bay toward Hale Passage, the 1-nautical-mile-wide gap between Portage and Lummi islands. Before long, the crumbly white bluffs along Portage’s south shore loomed above me and I cracked off my course, letting the jib club swing over to windward as LAZYDOG settled into a wing-and-wing run northbound. For the next 5 miles LAZYDOG romped down the passage, first nearing the steep and densely forested evergreen slopes of Lummi Island before jibing back toward The Portage, a slender sandy spit linking Portage Island to the Lummi Reservation on the mainland. Playing downwind with small puffy clouds shining against the blue sky overhead and hardly anyone out on the water, I couldn’t have been more pleased with how this shakedown cruise had begun.
Roger Siebert
.
When I rounded the dark seaweed-strewn rocks of Point Migley at the northern end of Lummi Island and entered Rosario Strait, the hands-on sailing began. My time in Hale Passage had been leisurely with downwind sailing in 10 knots, but now LAZYDOG’s bow was punching through the waves on her new beam-reach course. The 15- to 20-knot southerly was battling against a northerly ebb current that combined for a steep and tightly packed wave pattern that sent spray high enough off the bow to clear the varnished mahogany coaming and soak me at the helm. With the mellow forecast, I hadn’t planned on tasting salt on my lips during this passage. Rosario Strait has a reputation as a body of water with little sympathy for small open boats, or their soaked skippers, so I turned to a broad reach and left the helm to a tiller bungee while I pulled on more layers and boots. Now more properly attired, I set about crossing the 4 miles of open water at the northern mouth of the Strait. I dropped the centerboard, brought the bow up onto a close westward reach, and set my sights on my next obstacle: crossing the Rosario shipping lane. As I neared the boundary, a tug-and-tow passed by, crushing the swell with its bow as it churned north. Otherwise, it seemed to be a sleepy day for commercial traffic, and I only had to duck behind the stern of a lone northbound tug during my crossing. While LAZYDOG remained remarkably stable, not heeling excessively while still under full sail, she required quick and constant working of the mainsheet, and taking the waves directly on the beam gave me a chilly soaking every few minutes. My only recourse from the steepest sets, which came through in groups of nine to ten larger waves every few minutes, was to diverge from my beam-reach course and run downwind with the waves before correcting my course again.
Rolfe Cove, my destination for the day, lies just around the Matia Island headland, visible under the boom. The jib is flown with a club, which keeps the foot stretched out for downwind sailing. It is particularly handy when running wing-on-wing.
I occasionally retrieved my phone from the drybag clipped near my feet to use a charts app to check our heading, confirm buoy sightings, and get a gauge of speed over ground.
As LAZYDOG romped across the Strait at a steady 6 knots, hitting upward of 8 knots running down the steepest waves, I fell into the rhythm of each passing set, first easing off the sheet to gently bear down with the swell and, once it had stopped rushing under the hull, turning back up again to keep the boat speed up. It felt like linking ski turns through a steep mogul field. LAZYDOG’s buoyant bow danced among the waves with plenty of responsiveness on the helm, though I inevitably slipped up on my steering through an extra-tall set that slapped the windward corner of the transom as I belatedly steered the bow down. The spray smacked the back of my head and soaked my hat. I looked backward more frequently for the approaching sets for the remainder of the passage. Mesmerized in this ritual for about an hour, I soon saw that the yellow buoy marking the center of the shipping lane now lay off my starboard quarter, indicating that I had cleared the channel. I pressed on into the lee of the towering ridge of Orcas Island’s 2,400′-tall Mount Constitution; the wind dropped to 10 knots.
After the trying crossing of Rosario Strait, I arrived exhausted on Matia Island. The sandy beach in Rolfe Cove was a very welcoming place to beach the boat. On the horizon beyond the mouth of the cove is Sucia Island.
With the lighter wind the waves slackened, and the steeper sets no longer threatened to overtop the gunwale. I ran wing-on-wing once more and passed under the longer southern side of Matia Island to reach the entrance of Rolfe Cove on the western end. I short-tacked into the cove and found the dock was crowded with nine white-hulled cruising sailboats rafted up two and three across. I had planned to spend the night at anchor but was nevertheless surprised to see the cove so busy only a few weeks into May. In between the tall rocky flanks of the cove the wind died, so I dropped the sails and rowed the last 250 yards toward the beach. About 50′ before the shore, I tossed out my first anchor to let it settle in the mud before rowing ashore. Just as the keel grounded gently with a shushing sound, I stepped off the bow into 1′ of water. I set my second anchor high in the sand just beneath the mossy ground at the edge of the treeline.
While this old-growth western red cedar was slightly worse off than most of its peers, it was still alive despite the fire damage to its lower trunk. As part of the preservation efforts on Matia Island, a state park and national wildlife refuge, campfires and wood collecting are banned.
During the windy crossing of Rosario, I’d strewn spare clothing layers, food bags, and a rat’s nest of lines on the floorboards. The mess was a reminder that I’d be safer if I kept the boat tidy while underway. I coiled sheets, corralled loose water bottles, and rearranged the cockpit to prepare for the night ahead. It didn’t take long—everything is within arm’s reach in LAZYDOG’s 7′-long cockpit. I was desperately hungry after the bouncy hands-on crossing that had left me no time for snacking. In the quiet shelter of Rolfe Cove’s high-walled shoreline, I extracted from a salt-encrusted dry bag an apple and home-baked cranberry-molasses bread and quickly devoured them.
With things tidied up onboard and my hunger at bay, I went ashore to explore Matia. The 1⁄4-square-mile island’s only trail is a loop that twists 1 mile through the western red cedars and Douglas firs. Long and skinny ridgelines topping out at over 150′ run the length of the island and can be seen from the trail below them in the moss-covered valley. In this old-growth forest the crowns of massive trees with trunks that would require several people to encircle them rise well clear of Matia’s ridgelines. Within the valley, the epiphyte-laden boughs of the big-leaf maples and the grand fir saplings poking up from mossy nurse logs are undisturbed by the wind in the Straits, yet I could smell the salt in the still air that hung in the valley. I sat on a fallen log deep in the valley amid the waxy-deep green of the abundant salal and celeste-green of the fir needles shimmering overhead. A varied thrush chick alighted on a log not 10′ away. With baby down feathers still interspersed between its developing orange and black plumage, it eyed me from different angles as it hopped along the log. After a few minutes of exchanged glances, the thrush flew noiselessly away into the dense underbrush, and I carried on my own way down the loamy path.
Seen from the cliffside trail along the cove, LAZYDOG cuts a diminutive figure compared to the cruising boats at the park dock.
Farther along the trail, I met a family of three who had crossed Rosario Strait about an hour before me in their Pelican dinghy in similar windy conditions. They told me about a dicey jibe they’d experienced in the steep and crowded waves when the peak of their gaff-rigged mainsail had unexpectedly backwinded across the mast and left the boom on the opposite side of the boat. They were planning to relax for a few days on Matia before heading out again, and after hearing about their travails I couldn’t blame them for taking a long break. LAZYDOG had fully displayed her seaworthiness by sparing me a similar experience, and further proved to me that despite most Haven 12 1⁄2s never venturing far from their home ports, they do in fact make seaworthy sail-and-oar cruising boats.
Back in Rolfe Cove, I chatted with the gaggle of around 20 sailors on the dock. They were a cruising club from Bellingham, who open their season with a cleanup trip to Matia every spring. I was heartened to know that local cruisers are embracing a duty of care to help preserve the San Juan Islands. They had watched LAZYDOG sail into the cove and invited me to their dockside potluck.
My somewhat flappy tarp over the boom did offer me a view of the sun setting beyond a thick layer of clouds hanging above Canada’s Gulf Islands. Rolfe Cove is narrow and has steep, high sides that offered good protection from the strong southerly that had blown all day.
After a while, I left their company and waded back out to LAZYDOG for the night. The tide had fallen throughout the evening and the 18″ keel was gently lodged in the sand. I had been unsure before the trip if my sailing boots would be tall enough to keep my feet dry while leaving and returning to LAZYDOG on beaches, but they had 2″ to spare before they would become overtopped. A gentle push set the boat floating again. Once I had hopped aboard the foredeck and stepped into the cockpit, it was time to move to deeper water for the night. I paid out the shoreside anchor rode while hauling in the one set deeper in the mud-bottomed cove until LAZYDOG was in about 15′ of water. With only an 8′ tidal swing coming overnight, I would rest easy.
I set about rigging my test tarp over the boom. It was an unwieldly 12′ square poly-tarp originally purchased for car-camping trips, but it was the only one I had on hand when pulling gear together in my tiny apartment. Folding it in half and then folding up one-fourth of the length gave me a tarp of 6′ by 9′, about the right size to sit over LAZYDOG’s boom, which was held by a taller-than-normal crutch I had made. I ran tiedowns as best I could from stem to stern, but my origami cover was far from taut. As darkness fell upon the cove, the exhaustion of a long day set in, and I was soon tucked alongside the centerboard trunk. Having never slept aboard prior to this trip I was thankful that the sleeping pad and my 6′ 2″ frame fit as well in practice as my shoreside tests had suggested.
LAZYDOG sits afloat between her two anchors. A 4-lb anchor sits in the mud about 60′ behind the boat, and a 2.5-pounder is some 40’ up the beach deep in the sand. Since the keel prevents her from being fully beached, I left her with a couple of feet of water under the bow.
The tarp flapped throughout the night, but despite its incessant addition to the sound of lapping water, I awoke well rested to a dawn chorus of robins and chickadees. I peered west out of the triangular opening between the tarp and transom and saw a 10-knot westerly rolling into the mouth of the cove from the sunrise-lit hills of Sucia Island. The breeze was far greater than the light air forecast for the day, and I immediately knew I could not let it go to waste. I was quick with my breakfast, packed up my bedding, and pulled LAZYDOG back to the beach. I was soon striding along the loop trail to check conditions in Rosario Strait. From Matia’s southeastern bluffs I trained binoculars on the flanking sloped shores of Lummi and Orcas islands and saw consistent but not overly large whitecaps rolling across the Strait. The sea state was much friendlier than the day before, thanks to the morning’s ebb current running with the wind. With unexpectedly lovely conditions for making miles to the south, but such a dismal forecast of variable light wind still predicted for my final day, I’d need to visit Sucia and Patos islands another time. Instead, I set my sights on a visit to Vendovi Island, 12 sea miles to the southeast, before spending the night in Lummi’s Inati Bay, which would leave me only a short jump to Bellingham the following day.
I was soon back onboard LAZYDOG and short-tacked out of Rolfe Cove until I rounded the angled slabs of guano-stained rock protruding from Matia’s western point. Once clear of the cove, I bore off on a broad reach to the southeast and it didn’t take long for LAZYDOG to put the island far off the port quarter. The recreational shrimp-fishing season had just opened, and with the favorable sea state multitudes of small aluminum motor craft dotted the water around me as the shrimpers deployed their traps with yellow buoys.
Just after departing Rolfe Cove, I sailed on a reach in the morning breeze toward Orcas Island. The mountain-ridge knob to the right of the starboard-most halyard is the summit of Mount Constitution. Soon after this I hoisted the spinnaker to head south down Rosario Strait.
I continued to ease off from the wind as LAZYDOG neared the skinny pairing of Clark and Barnes islands, so I raised the white spinnaker, and we were soon sweeping past the long white-sand beaches on their south ends. To the west, the stone tower high up on top of Mount Constitution was clearly visible but from such a height LAZYDOG must appear truly miniature. Mount Constitution often casts a large wind shadow when a west or southwest breeze blows across the San Juan Islands. The spinnaker buckled and drooped as we coasted out of reach of the westerly, and I doused it in anticipation of the light and shifty winds ahead. With 10 to 15 knots visible as a dark swath of water just a few miles away around Sinclair Island, I only had to get there before it died too. I pursued catspaws from every which way during my escape from under Constitution’s ridgeline, yet of the hour I spent ghosting along, I only shipped the oars for the final few minutes to round Orcas Island’s Lawrence Point into the new breeze.
I docked on Vendovi Island just as the fickle wind died. Access to the island and time allowed at the dock are limited, so my stay would be a short one.
Picking up the new wind from Bellingham Channel I was making consistent progress once more—first on a tight reach, and then beating upwind to finally nose around Vendovi’s 150′ breakwater. I had initially been concerned about sailing into such a small enclosure, in case other boats were maneuvering in the cove, but seeing the dock nearly empty I first lowered the jib, followed by the main before stepping off onto the concrete dock just as LAZYDOG’s momentum faded. I’d made it just in time too, for the breeze that had carried me the last few miles died as I ate a late lunch overlooking Rosario Strait. If I was going anywhere without rowing, I had some time to kill. With the hope that the southerly would return, I set off to explore the island’s arching pebble beaches and sword-fern-lined paths to a bluff viewpoint looking south toward Guemes and Samish islands.
I hiked the one-mile trail to Vendovi’s southern bluffs where there is an expansive view of Guemes Island and many other small islands dotting the protected waters of Padilla Bay.
A few hours later I was back at my lunch overlook and watching as dainty catspaws dotted the glassy surface between Vendovi and Eliza islands. The signs of the breeze were a sure signal that it was time to hoist the sails and get on with the day, so I headed back to the dock and was soon underway. Purple martins, perched at the holes of their dockside nest boxes, eyed me as I cast off. Yet I was soon out of their gaze, delicately coaxing the spinnaker to hold the whispering southerly breeze as the afternoon turned into evening.
LAZYDOG rips back into Bellingham Bay under her spinnaker. The impending rain clouds to the right brought great sailing for the end of the trip and blew themselves out before dousing us.
As a new 10- to 15-knot wind built from the southwest, the spinnaker no longer required my babying to stay full and carried LAZYDOG toward the mouth of Bellingham Bay at a purposeful pace. Cruising past the homes dotting the eastern side of privately owned Eliza Island, I had a decision to make about how to conclude my shakedown trip. My original plan had been to make the short jaunt west to Inati Bay only 1 ½ miles farther northwest and spend another night at anchor. The updated forecast for the next day was for variable winds less than 5 knots, meaning a long and hot row across Bellingham Bay in the morning. LAZYDOG is a 1,600-lb boat before gear or passengers are added, and rowing her for over an hour, even in calm conditions, is a backbreaking endeavor. As LAZYDOG pressed downwind toward Fairhaven, the decision to return home a day early was an easy one to make. I have always been a sailor first, and took the opportunity to finish my trip under a full spinnaker and following seas.
As I sailed the final leg into Bellingham Bay, clouds stacked up behind the building wind and doused Lummi Island with rain, which formed a gray mist across its 1,400′-high ridge. Yet the clouds never caught LAZYDOG as she raced downwind. Eventually, the spinnaker had to come down in the lee of the steep and rocky Chuckanut Hills. After reaching around Post Point, I jibed toward the Fairhaven ramp.
Closer to shore I doused the sails to coast gently into the launch-ramp dock and stepped off LAZYDOG, pleased with my two-day spin to Matia and back. With everything onboard functioning as intended, I was looking forward to the summer cruising season.
Sean Grealish lives and sails in Bellingham, Washington, where he is an environmental science master’s student at Western Washington University studying the impacts of estuary restoration on invertebrates. He grew up racing dinghies before completing two Transpac races and skippering the (then) youngest team ever to finish the R2AK in 2018. He now enjoys a calmer sailing lifestyle, squeezing in trips to the San Juan Islands whenever he can on his family’s Haven 12 ½, LAZYDOG.
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.
If you’d like to extend your cruising season, putting a roof over the your head to block the rain, and placing windows around you to divert the wind, can make manning the helm in inclement weather tolerable and perhaps even pleasant. Phil Thiel equipped his Friend-Ship canal cruiser with a shelter for the shoulder seasons; it comes apart in sections and stows aboard the boat for trailering and for passing under low bridges. The outboard motor is mounted in a recess in the transom and covered with an easily removed box to reduce its noise. Flanked by a pair of storage boxes, it serves as part of an 8′ long bench for passengers to keep the skipper company.
Thiel’s Friend-Ship is ideal for cruising sheltered inland waters.
At the end of the day’s travel, find a snug spot for the night where there’s enough water to accommodate the boat’s 9″ draft, and go below for supper in the main cabin. There’s room for four at the table. The galley has a countertop with plenty of room for a recessed portable stove and a sink on top and a cooler or two tucked underneath.
At lights-out a couple can retreat to a 4′-wide double berth aft, and a second couple, guests perhaps, can lower the dinette table for another double berth. Forward, there is a pair of single berths. The head is in a compartment on the port side of the aft companionway, set apart by a plywood door. Curtains will offer a measure of privacy for the three sleeping areas.
Flotation materials
The 1/2″ plywood bottom will easily take the gentle curves rising up from a flat midsection to the bow and stern transoms. The curves for the cabin and helm shelter roofs are easily made from 1/4″ plywood. The outwales running the length of the hull are there to protect it; they also add a strong curved visual element that is, in the words of the designer, “the chief means of changing a box into a boat.” Assembling the rest of the Friend-Ship calls for straight lines, right angles, and basic carpentry skills.
The Friend-Ship canal cruiser’s 14 sheets of plans include construction details, options for windows, and instructions for the sequence of assembly.
Outboard profiles
Plan 152-009
DESCRIPTION
Hull type: Flat-bottomed, transom sterned
Construction: Plywood
PERFORMANCE
Suitable for quiet, protected waters
Intended capacity: 1-6
Trailerable
Propulsion: 5–10-hp outboard
BUILDING DATA
Skill needed: Basic
Lofting required: No
PLANS DATA
No. of sheets: 13
Supplemental information: 1 page
Level of Detail: Above average
Plans Format: Print or Digital
Cost per set: $75
Related Publications:
WoodenBoat No. 222
For those who prefer open-air boating, the plans include an option for a folding bimini in lieu of the wheelhouse. The transom ladder and folding swim step are an individual addition.
Whenever I decide to spend a night on board at anchor, there are two problems I have to solve. The first is determining the depth in an anchorage. In areas with big tidal ranges, it’s especially important. Handheld electronic depthsounders are available but I, like many other open-boat cruisers, don’t own one. The second problem is deciding how much scope I have out. I can get pretty close by measuring the rode in arm spans, but it takes longer than just feeding it out and is a nuisance when I lose track and have to start again.
Alex Zimmerman
Plastic flagging tape is inexpensive, easily threaded between the strands of a three-strand rope, and in my experience, stands up well showing little or no deterioration after six years and several hundred anchorings.
I came up with a single, simple, cheap solution to these problems, one that I have used on three boats so far. I insert small strips of colored plastic flagging tape into the anchor line to mark lengths, so that I know how much line I am letting out. When I feel the last of the chain coming to rest on the bottom, the marked rode then serves as a lead line: the length of the rode that I’ve paid out, minus the 21′ of chain gives me the depth. When I know the depth, I can take the local conditions into account, decide how much rode to use, and pay it out using the markers. They take the chain into account and directly indicate the scope.
Alex Zimmerman
Laying out the anchor rode alongside a measuring tape makes it easy to measure and keep track when inserting the flagging tape, but it’s not essential. The anchor and 21′ of chain are at the top of this picture, and are counted as the first 21′ to the first set flags: three yellow flags at 30′. The red flags nearest to the camera are the marks for 50′ (one red flag) and 100′ (two red flags).
My three-strand nylon anchor line makes it easy to insert strips of tape between the strands. The marking scheme I use is to insert one strip of yellow tape at 10′, with an additional strip of yellow tape every subsequent 10′ increment: two for 20′, three for 30′, and four for 40′. At 50′ I insert a single strip of red tape. Then 60′ gets one red and one yellow, 70′ gets one red and two yellow, and so on. At 100′ there are two strips of red, and the pattern continues. I have a lead line marked this same way.
Of course you could use any intervals that make sense to you: feet, fathoms, meters, or whatever aligns with the charts you use; and any colors of flagging tape that you prefer. I chose yellow and red for good visibility in low light or near darkness. Flagging tape is inexpensive and easily obtainable. It is also easy to renew if it becomes too tattered with use, but I have found that it lasts quite well. With this system in FIRE-DRAKE, my previous sail-and-oar boat, I anchored several hundred times over six years, both for short stops and overnights, and the original tape was still in place.
Alex Zimmerman is a retired executive and engineering consultant who became enamored with the sea and sailing after he learned basic seamanship in the Royal Canadian Navy. From his home in Victoria, along the coast of British Columbia, he has put several thousand miles under the keels of the various small boats he has built for himself. His book, Becoming Coastal, chronicles many of those journeys. He continues to write about wooden boats and the people who build and sail them.
Editor’s Note:
The 1⁄2″ solid-braided nylon line I’ve been using as an anchor rode doesn’t take well to having bits of flagging tape inserted. It can’t be twisted open like three-strand, and the braid is too tight to open with a hollow fid. After a brief struggle, I was able to pick up one loop on the outside of the braid with a Swedish fid, but then the edge of the fid severed the fibers.
I switched to heat-shrink tubing for markers. I bought a marine-grade version that came in a package that included two 4′ lengths of tubing—one black, the other red—both with a heat-activated adhesive. The tubing is listed as 1⁄2″, but had an inside diameter of 9⁄16″, which made it easy to slide over my 1⁄2″ line. My heat gun effectively shrank the tubing. It was done when I could see the texture of the braid showing through and a bit of the clear adhesive emerging from the ends of the tubing.
The applied tubing compresses the rode a bit, but its edges stand proud, enough that I can easily feel them but not get scratched. I also used it for some quick whippings on the rode’s ends. The tubing also works on twisted line and other types of braided line of similar diameter.
Christopher Cunningham
I measured out 10′ of my rode with a tape measure and made the blue mark seen here. I set two bar clamps on the edge of my workbench about 5′ apart, with the bars up, then looped one end of the rode around them. The braided line curves around the bars, so a 5′ spacing between them makes a loop of line longer than 10′. I shifted one of the clamps until the end of the line was even with the mark I’d made.
Christopher Cunningham
I tied a loop in the end of the line in the same way I’d tie it to the end of an anchor chain and set the loop over one of the bar clamps. I will use the rode markings to measure depth directly when I feel the last of the chain come to rest on the bottom. Alex includes the chain in his markings, so he subtracts the chain length from the length of rode payed out and measures scope directly from the markings. I made blue marks for each 10′ in the middle of each bend around the bar and added black marks as indicators of length from the end—dots to tally multiples of one and bars to tally multiples of five.
Christopher Cunningham
I cut pieces of the heat-shrink tubing—longer pieces of black for 50′ increments and short pieces of red for 10′—and slipped them over one end of the line in the order I’d use them.
Christopher Cunningham
Once the sections of tubing were in the right positions, I shrank them with a heat gun. I used a couple of extra pieces as “whippings” on the ends of the rode.
You can share your tips and tricks of the trade with other Small Boats readers by sending us an email.
I keep a glued-lapstrake Penobscot 17 oar-and-sail boat on a mooring on the coast of Maine. For simplicity’s sake, we leave it uncovered. While that saves a lot of time fussing with a tarp, the downside is that when we get a big rain, the open hull collects water, and I need to bail her. Sometimes it’s just a few inches, but there have been times after a big storm when I have found a foot of water in her. The boat, built of wood and fitted out with plenty of foam insulation for flotation, is in no danger of sinking, but it can be a long chore to bail her out.
Photographs by the author
After some big rains, I would find our Penobscot 17 filled to almost bench-level. The boat was never in danger of sinking, but it did lead to time-consuming bailing before we could get off the mooring.
I wondered if there was a better way to keep her bailed and if I might be able to cobble together a small solar-charged, battery-operated bilge pump with a switch. I have done a lot of basic wiring in our homes, but this seemed like a different sort of electrical knowledge. When I wandered the marine stores, the choices and options were overwhelming. Not having a great electrical mind, I didn’t know where to start, so I called a good friend who’s an electrical engineer and a fellow boater. He came across the EasyBailer online and suggested it seemed a good solution at a good price.
After I checked the site, I learned that the designer of EasyBailer, John Bianchi, had stopped making the units several years ago but now offers plans. The 22-page PDF I received from the EasyBailer website by return email was detailed with clear step-by-step instructions, advice, photos, and a parts list, which made the entire project seem doable. John had experimented with different pumps and switches over the years to find components that were the simplest and most reliable. I had most of the tools—pliers, crimpers, heat gun, drill bits—and I found most of the electrical connectors at a hardware or big-box store. No soldering is needed. The pump, switch, battery, solar panel, and a few of the electrical connectors were easily ordered online and all came from Amazon suppliers in one package. I did find an inexpensive bilge hose from Walmart that seems fine. John’s PDF has a complete list of materials with helpful details on how he determined the reliability of each component, which makes it evident that he experimented for years to find the best parts and arrangement. I won’t detail the process here because the PDF does such a good job of it. The unit can be built in an afternoon or evening. I spent about $160 in parts for my EasyBailer.
The assembled unit sits in a customized battery dry box. The switch can be seen beneath the bundled wires. On its face, not visible in this picture, is the activating panel that activates the pump when an electrical connection is made by rising water. The round hole cut in the side of the box allows water in to trigger the switch and gives access for manually testing the switch by touching its contacts. Dielectric grease is used throughout to ensure all the crimped connections remain water resistant.
When assembled, the components—pump, switch, battery, fuse, and all connections—are contained in a small dry box (approximately 7″ × 11″ × 5″). Altogether it weighs just a few pounds. The box specified in the plans is inexpensive, available online, and its main function is to contain the parts. The assembled unit is placed in the lowest spot in the bottom of the boat and the solar panel, which is connected by approximately 6′ length of wire, can sit anywhere that’s unobstructed. I use a short line to tie the bilge hose to the gunwale. When I want to row or sail, I stow the panel and hose with the pump box under the deck.
The pump is activated by 2″ of water and shuts off when there’s about 3⁄4″ left at the bottom of the EasyBailer box. When I first get onboard after a rain, I sit positioned so my weight pools the remaining water around the pump. After a couple of minutes, most of the remaining water has been pumped out; following up with a little old-fashioned sponge work mops up the rest.
The tiny pump specified by John is rated for 500 gallons per hour (8.3 gallons per minute) and moves a lot of water out of the boat quickly. He initially experimented with less expensive float switches but found that debris floating about in a boat’s bilge inevitably gets caught up in the switch, which can prevent it from turning the pump on. He specifies an electronic switch, which has two points that activate the pump when in contact with water (or one’s fingers to test).
The box holding the pump assembly sits comfortably in the maststep locker with the solar panel resting on the deck above. To make sure the hose end stays overboard while we’re not there, we lash it to a shroud.
I’ve only had a couple of small issues so far. My first solar panel apparently failed after a year or so: the red/green indicator light wasn’t functioning, and I couldn’t tell if the panel was charging or not. I bought another (approximately $20) and it has been working fine. The solar panel is a 1.8-watt trickle-charger that’s completely sealed to be waterproof, rugged, and durable (according to the manufacturer). John suggests putting a bead of marine-grade silicone caulk around the glass panel for extra weather protection. The other component I’ve considered replacing is the battery. John recommends a small, inexpensive, lead-acid battery. I’ve seen lithium batteries with similar dimensions that are far lighter and should have more power, but they are closer to $50 so I’ve held off investing in one. I’ve noticed that after a heavy rain the battery I have seems a bit weak: the pump still runs but sounds a little slower to me. I’ve not tested the battery to see how quickly it recharges.
John clearly states the unit is designed for bailing occasional rainwater from boats up to 17′ and not boats that leak and need constant pumping. I believe the EasyBailer was designed more than a decade ago, so it’s also entirely possible that solar panel and battery technologies have evolved and there might be more advanced alternatives. Even so, I think the basic concept and design are still solid, the instructions are applicable to materials available now, and it seems like a worthy investment for most small boats. It’s also a nice opportunity to learn something new and have a simple project to complete that is truly useful.
Jim Root splits his time between a home in Barrington Hills, Illinois, and Round Pond in mid-coast Maine. He is now retired after a career in communications and advertising. He enjoys being out in either a Pygmy sea kayak, restored Old Town canoe, Hylan Beach Pea, or Penobscot daysailer. He also paddles two skin-on-frame Greenland kayaks, per Christopher Cunningham’s book. Jim’s mother says he has too many boats. He also paints and finds subjects in Maine and Illinois to fuel his passion for painting. You can see his work on his website.
Plans in PDF format for the EasyBailer pump are available from EasyBailer for a minimum $25 donation to prostate cancer research.
You can share your tips and tricks of the trade with other Small Boats readers by sending us an email.
It has been about 10 years since I bought my first oscillating multi-tool, a Ryobi that I’ve used mostly for sanding in tight spaces and not much else; it’s a hobbyist’s tool. Last year I acquired (see the footnote at the end of this article for how) a DeWalt DCS356 Atomic 20V MAX multi-tool, a heavy-duty tool for more arduous work. The first time it proved its worth was when my furnace gave up the ghost last winter and I had to cut away a section of wall to have it removed and replaced. It cut through drywall quickly with minimal dust and cut through 2×4 framing in a space too small for any other saw. More recently, I’ve been using the multi-tool to repair and restore a Bolger pirogue. I’m doing the work in the backyard and every task is easier without having electrical cords in the way.
Photographs by the author
Most multi-tool blades are offset to make flush cuts possible. The DeWalt muti-tool got through this 1″ oak dowel in 8 seconds. It took me 14 seconds with my Japanese kugihiki flush-cut saw.
The DCS356 is a cordless version of the DeWalt DWE315. It’s powered by a 20-volt battery and has a brushless motor. The tool, without battery, weights 2 lbs 4.8 oz. It has a switch in its base for three speed ranges, and within each setting, the tool’s trigger has variable speed. The top speed is 20,000 oscillations per minute. A soft pull on the trigger turns a light on at the front of the tool, illuminating the work area. The light goes off 20 seconds after the trigger is released. The trigger has a lock, which comes in handy in tight quarters when it’s not possible to hold the tool with a finger on the trigger.
Equipped with a sanding pad and hook-and-loop sandpaper, the multi-tool is well-suited for getting into sharp corners.
The business end of the multi-tool has a spring-loaded quick release for installing and removing blades. Universal blades, designed to fit a wide variety of oscillating multi-tools, are slotted and slip into place before getting locked in position. For blades without slots, there is a threaded hole to attach them with a machine screw. The blades and other accessories can be positioned at various angles to the tool to best suit the work.
The built-in light effectively illuminates work areas.
Neither the DeWalt website nor the tool’s manual specify the oscillation arc for the DCS3536, but many retailers list it as 1.6°. The angle I measured was 3.5° to 4°. At the cutting end of the blade the length of that arc is about 4mm, which makes a difference for wood-cutting teeth that are about 2mm apart. I don’t think a movement of just 1.6°—with an arc length not quite 2mm—would cut effectively. With one of the high-carbon-steel wood-cutting blades I sawed through a 1″ oak dowel in eight seconds and with a bimetal blade for metal I cut through a 1⁄4″ steel machine screw in about one minute.
The blades can be set at different angles to accommodate tight workspaces. To cut off long bolt ends in this storage compartment, I could lock the trigger to keep the tool running while I changed my grip to a less awkward position.
The 20-volt 2Ah has plenty of long-lasting power. Its back end has a state-of-charge indicator with three lights that come on with the push of its button. When there’s only one light left, the battery is down to 25% charge. The indicator works even if the battery is not connected to the tool. The lithium-ion battery has a charge time of 35 minutes and weighs 12.5 oz. There are larger batteries with longer run times but they’re heavier. I haven’t felt the need for one.
The quick-release device on the DeWalt DCS356 Atomic works with universal multi-tool blades that have slotted attachment points. It’s a real time-saver over the bolt-on system of early multi-tools.
The assortment of attachments I bought for the DeWalt includes 10 types of saw blades for wood, chisel-edged scraper blades, and two sanding pads with precut abrasive patches. There are carbide- and diamond-grit blades for other materials. I’ll buy more blades as I find other jobs that the DCS3536 multi-tool can do more easily or faster than any other tool in my shop.
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.
Stolen tools
My pickup truck was stolen a year ago and was missing for about a month until I got a call from a police officer some 35 miles away: the truck had been located and I could retrieve it. The cab and the bed were chock-full messes, and it was evident that the thief had been using the truck to steal tools from construction sites. The officer I met at the scene said I could do as I pleased with whatever was in the truck. None of the tools had any marks to identify the owners. I searched for their serial numbers on Stolen Register and Power Tool Safe and none of the tools I’d acquired had been registered as stolen. If the owners had recorded the serial numbers, they could have registered them at these websites, and I could have returned their tools. —CC
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