The Ladybug pram, a small dinghy with a wheel permanently fixed in a case in its bow, allows for a nearly seamless transition from the water to a beach, all the while keeping its passengers’ shoes dry. The boat can be built in either a 6′ or a 7′ model. I first spotted it at The WoodenBoat Show at Mystic Seaport, Connecticut, in 2008, on a visit to designer-builder Harry Bryan’s booth. The prototype Ladybug was perched on the grass in front of Harry’s display. Sitting there on its bottom, with oars-cum-wheelbarrow handles at the ready, the boat’s concept spoke for itself. Harry and I had barely exchanged pleasantries when I handed him $25 for a sheet of plans, and began set- ting up the project in my head. I needed this boat, as I’ll explain in just a minute. But first, allow me a short digression to illustrate this boat’s niche.
Fifteen or so years ago, I went on an evening outing with friends in a 24′ sloop in Maine; they were considering buying the boat, which the builder turned over to them for a few hours. We set out halfway through the tide’s ebb, rowing to the mooring from a gravelly beach—which had grown significantly wider when we returned to it at dead low tide after sailing. The prospect of lugging that dinghy up the beach after our pleasant sail was sheer drudgery. As we were considering our approach to the job, the sailboat’s owner-builder appeared on the beach in his pickup truck, drove to where we were standing, and stepped out of the cab without saying a word. He looped the beat-up fiberglass dinghy’s painter around his bumper hitch, returned to the cab, and stepped on the accelerator pedal. He hit stride at about 20 mph, the dinghy bouncing along behind him.
Photo by Bryan Gagner
The Ladybug pram, with a knobby tire permanently mounted in its bow, eases the transition from water to land for beach-based sailors.
It was an impressive, albeit utilitarian, approach to a common problem: Many mooring-based sailors and powerboaters work from the shore without a pier and float, and they need a reliable dinghy system. Some use outhaul anchors, leaving their dinghies afloat and hauling them in to shore when needed. Some use dollies. Some use pickup trucks. And some use brute force, straining their backs and compressing their lumbar discs into sciatic-nerve-tweaking protuberances (ask me how I know). Very few people these days use wheel-barrow boats—an old concept that Harry Bryan revives with the Ladybug.
My wife, Holly, and I live near a gravel beach at the foot of a field with poor road access. We maintain a fairweather mooring off this exposed beach, and for several years have accessed this mooring with a dolly-mounted dinghy. It’s an adequate approach to the beach-dinghy problem, though it typically requires a trip overboard in knee-deep water to secure the dinghy to the dolly. It also requires some awkward lifting of the boat to place the dolly under it. And, the boat must be strapped down before its trip up the beach, lest it be rattled frustratingly askew of the dolly.
The difference in using the Ladybug for this transition from water to land is profound. The boat’s bottom has a pronounced rocker, or longitudinal curvature, at either end, allowing it to settle on dry land before the rest of the boat grounds out. The flat bottom forces the boat to sit bolt upright when it takes the ground, making it easy to step out and onto the beach. If you’ve backed onto the beach—my preferred approach—then you simply feed the oar handles through their respective holes in the transom, cleat the oar blades to the boat’s thwart (the oars are retrofitted with wooden cleats for this purpose), lift the transom, and back the
rest of the boat out of the water on its wheel.
Photo by Bryan Gagner
Ladybug has ample freeboard when carrying a sole rower; she’ll carry an additional passenger in calm conditions.
Ladybug’s basic dimensions are based upon a William Atkin dinghy called Tiny Ripple. Holly and I built our Ladybug over the winter in an unfinished spare bedroom in our house. We borrowed the building jig from one of Harry’s WoodenBoat School classes, so I can’t comment on the moldmaking and jig construction—except to say that if you know how to use a tape measure, saw, and screwdriver, you probably won’t find this job too mentally or manually taxing.
The bow and stern transoms are laid out according to dimensions on the plans, fixed to the jig in their exact locations, and then beveled to accept the planking. The planks—just two per side—are likewise laid out according to dimensions shown on the plans, though their shapes can also simply be traced from the jig. The two planks are joined together by a riveted lap. Once they’re fastened, the bottom edges of the garboards are beveled to accept the bottom planking.
Harry offers three different options for the bottom: (1) a single layer of cross planking, with splined edges; (2) a sheet of plywood; and (3) two layers of thin planking, diagonally laid. The third option, in my opinion, is the best, as it makes economical use of short stock and creates a watertight panel that doesn’t rely upon swelling to achieve its watertightness, which is a good thing for a dinghy that spends most of its life on land. Holly and I took a slightly different approach to option number three. Since we had a stack of cedar of adequate length and generous width, we laid the first course of planking athwartships, and placed the second layer (each was 5⁄16″) fore-and-aft. Stuck together with thickened epoxy, the result is a two-ply sheet of cedar plywood.
With the transom, planks, and bottom in place, the boat is removed from the jig, flipped over, and fitted out. The fitout is pretty straightforward stuff: a handful of frames to improve the stiffness of the sides; a stern seat, a rowing seat and its supporting thwart, rails, oar-locks, and knees. The rowing seat is unconventional, as it is oriented fore-and-aft. This allows micro-adjustment to the boat’s longitudinal trim, without requiring the rower to switch thwarts.
The wheel is an off-the-shelf item from Seitech, manufacturer of small-boat dollies. For about $90, you purchase a knobby tire, a plastic rim, an aluminum axle, and nylon bearings. Then you make an axle bracket from plate bronze or stainless steel and oak or locust. The whole thing is affixed to the bottom with four screws, which allows for easy removal for servicing. The wheel lives in a case in the bow which, when viewed when the boat is in the water, could be mistaken for another seat or a gear locker.
Photo by Bryan Gagner
The boat’s bottom can be built in one of several different ways, depending upon available material and personal preference. Here, a Ladybug bottom is being cross-planked in a single layer of cedar, edge-fitted with splines.
How does this amphibious dinghy perform? To be fair, we should consider it in both of its media and in the context of its intended purpose; this is a utilitarian dinghy, not a performance rowboat. It rolls over coarse terrain and short meadow grass very well. One can actually load a fair amount of gear into it and use it as a cart. Launching, depending upon the slope of your beach, is easy, too. I’ve found it best to load and unload over the stern transom. Typically the boat is afloat by the time I’m aboard, and little poling is needed. But, if a shallow-sloping beach requires it, a push on the beach with one of the oars is usually all that’s needed to get into navigable water. I lucked into a set of beater oars a few years ago, and these now belong to our Ladybug; it would be rather hard on the conscience to press a pair of new Shaw & Tenney spruce oars into such service on a rocky Maine beach. A dedicated pole would be handy.
And how does she perform on the water? The rowing ergonomics are fine, she glides between strokes, and I forget the wheel is even there. Ladybug is a small boat. Harry has piled three adults into his, and recommends such loading only in dead-flat water. In chop, while settling ourselves into the boat, Holly and I took a small amount of water through one of the oar holes—just once, but enough to warn us of the possibilities if we pushed things too hard in poor conditions. I spoke with Harry about this, and he had been thinking of some sort of flapper cover to stem such flow. I think that’s a good idea, and am mulling over the possibilities in neoprene. The rails are closer to the water than I’m used to; I would not feel comfortable in this boat in a significant chop with a large passenger aboard. I have, however, rowed it in breeze and chop alone, and feel perfectly safe in such conditions.
As with any small dinghy, loading and unloading at the mothership require careful weight distribution. One must adhere to the convention of unloading the ends of the boat before the middle. I’ve found standing from either of the low-slung seats to be a bit of a chore, but I’ve also been spoiled over the years by higher thwarts and larger dinghes. I wouldn’t change the position of Ladybug’s thwarts, as her rowing geometry is quite good as specified.
Photo by Bryan Gagner
For overland transport of the boat, Ladybug’s oars must be retrofitted with wooden cleats; these notch over the thwart, securing the oars to the boat.
Ladybug tows well behind a bigger boat. Her bow is rockered so high that the wheel rides clear of the water—except when surfing downwind. Then, it does have a tendency to catch the surface and spin as the boat scoots down the face of a wave, but with no bad consequences. An ample skeg keeps her tracking straight.
This little dinghy lives up to its promise; it’s changed the way I get on and off the beach. Every time I slide those oars into their wheelbarrow position and roll the boat to the water, I feel a glimmer of satisfaction spiced with disbelief that the transition from shore to sea could be so easy.
This Boat Profile was published in Small Boats 2010 and appears here as archival material. For more information about the Ladybug Pram, visit Bryan Boatbuilding.
Swallow Boats is a purveyor of boat kits in Wales. Their SeaRaider combines the best features of the fastest and most seaworthy Raid boats into one new boat. The boat originated in Scotland—one of the best places on Earth to put a small boat through its paces. In the space of a week on this country’s lochs and coast, one is likely to meet a wide range of weather conditions, from varied wind strengths, both upwind and downwind, to sudden rain squalls or katabatic gusts coming off the mountains. This drama is always complemented by enough soft breezes and sunshine highlighting the dramatic Scottish scenery to make one wish to stay longer.
The week of competitive sailing and rowing originally called the Great Glen Raid, now Sail Caledonia, has given Claus Riepe from Hamburg, Germany, and many other sailors, builders, and designers a unique opportunity to watch small boats perform under sail and oar and against each other. Any design or building faults, any glitches or lapses, soon become obvious. Claus thoroughly enjoyed the Raid concept, a week of competition and camaraderie in cruising areas that can be deep sea, shallow lagoon, or narrow canal, and he enjoyed his present boat, but he’d never sailed it in company with other boats of similar appearance. All week he and his crew had sailed their best and rowed their hearts out but were effortlessly overtaken by one boat after the other, always ending up toward the rear of the fleet.
Photo by Kathy Mansfield
The SeaRaider, a new design from the UK-based kit boat manufacturer Swallowboats, was purpose designed for point-to-point small-boat racing events called Raids.
“It was a sobering shock,” he admitted. “I first tried to upgrade with every trick I could think of—taller rig with more sail, carbon spars, booms, sliding fairleads—but all to no avail.”
He ordered a new boat, but that didn’t work either. Now ready for a complete change, he remembered Swallow Boats near Cardigan Bay in Wales, known for their small boats with a lovely sheer and performance, and their offer to design and build custom boats.
It was about this time that Matt Newland joined his naval architect father, Nick, at Swallow Boats, after a stint in London, bringing with him an engineering education from Cambridge University, designing skills on 3D CAD software, and the experience of working for a time with yacht designer Tony Castro. Claus visited them and described his dream boat, similar to a Drascombe Longboat but with better upwind ability, a self-tacking jib for singlehanding, room for four oarsmen on Raids, a mizzen that can be handled from within the cockpit, a strong rudder that does not have to be removed before beaching, good watertight stowage, self-draining ability, excellent buoyancy and righting capacity, and more.
The Newlands relished the challenge. Quickly they realized that water ballast was a necessity to achieve a light boat for rowing and racing, and a safe boat with self-righting capability for shorthanded sailing in varying conditions. After just two hours of discussion, a firm order was placed. All through the design process designer and client stayed in close contact, and together developed some innovative ideas and solutions.
The water ballast, for a start, is carefully thought out. “A false floor,” Matt explained, “is sited just above the waterline and inclining aft slightly, so the cockpit can self-drain through self-bailers or a simple twist hatch into the outboard well. A tank underneath this floor can take up to 660 lbs(330kg) of water, equivalent to the weight of four adults lying in the bilges.” Two inflatable buoyancy bags in the tank can be partly inflated to fine-tune the amount of ballast water taken on, a far more versatile system than multiple tanks. “And in effect,” Claus points out, “the boat has several different personalities. I can fish off the west coast of Ireland in a steady boat, or race with a crew in a light boat with its sail area of 196 sq ft and 21′ 10″ length for plenty of fun and excitement.”
There is an ingenious method for filling and emptying the tank. A forward-facing self-bailer within reach of the helmsman means the water can be flooded in, and three self-bailers mounted the right way around can remove it when the boat is moving as little as 3 to 4 knots. The water can also be pumped out with a conventional bailing pump, a small electric pump, or drained off as the boat lifts onto a trailer. I watched a capsize demonstration in Scotland when the water-ballast tanks were full: the boat self-righted so quickly from a complete knockdown that little water entered the cockpit and the crew were back aboard and sailing within two minutes.
Photo by Kathy Mansfield
SeaRaider is water-ballasted. As this capsizing demonstration shows, the boat is extremely stable when in ballast. It self- righted during the drill, and the crew was back aboard and in a dry cockpit within two minutes.
Once Matt was happy with the design, he had all the plywood parts cut out by computer-controlled router. “This not only saves time,” he explained, “but also ensures the hull is designed accurately and fits together exactly.” She was built right-way-up over a four-mold construction jig. Her bottom panel is sheathed inside and out with heavy 16-oz (450g) biaxial glass, and the whole hull is epoxy-coated. The construction method is largely self-jigging and relies on internal structure like bulkheads to form the shape and provide stiffness.
Several custom-made pieces of stainless-steel hardware were commissioned for the boat, including the massively strong rudderhead (plywood blade), the tiller joint, and the mast tabernacle. Matt applied his engineering skills to the tiller design—always a problem when a mizzenmast is in the way. Under the aft deck a stainless-steel push rod with stainless-steel ball sockets at each end gives fine-tuned responsiveness without any slack. It feels slightly heavier than an ordinary tiller, but one quickly gets used to it.
The resulting boat is a modern classic, with the graceful looks and lines, lovely sheer, and elegant use of varnished wood for spars, gunwales, and slatted seats that are part of the ethos of the Swallow- boat range. It was important for Claus that they could both design and build his new boat. The SeaRaider has the lean shape and flat run aft of a racing dinghy of the 1960s, her transom narrowed to reduce wetted surface to improve rowing ability. Primarily she is a sailing boat; with a firm turn of the bilge, good form stability, and a flat run aft, she is well able to plane in the right conditions, as we found. She weighs just 716 lbs when the tank is empty, fully 440 lbs less than Claus’s old fiberglass boat of the same length. So, she’s lighter to maneuver, tow, launch, and retrieve, yet just as robust. The boat has an outboard well, sited inboard on the centerline where it should be, with a slit just for the propeller that simply closes with a flap when not in use. The maximum power is 5 hp, but a Honda 2.3-hp short-shaft is sufficient.
The boat, named CRAIC after the Irish word for a good sociable time, was so brand-new when Matt trailered her up to Sail Caledonia to test her, that even Claus had not seen her and was still sailing his old boat. I liked CRAIC’s slim shape and the versatile yawl rig that can cope with strong winds.
The gunter mast can be stepped or lowered down in its hinged tabernacle, its topmast and the mizzen spar being light carbon fiber enclosed in luff pockets like a windsurfer. This reduces turbulence on the leading edge and adds a bit more sail area, and CRAIC sails very close to the wind. The self-tacking jib is set on roller-furling gear and tacks easily with its club boom. For stowage, the mizzen wraps on its round carbon-fiber mast; the mainsail can be similarly furled if the gooseneck is disengaged. The sprit on the mainsail means that the spar is well above head height, yet the sail is well supported. Slab reefing is still possible, with cringles near the mast, or the main can simply be dropped. CRAIC rows well, her topsides are low enough, and the rudder slightly down gives directional stability. The thwarts are removable to clear space for sailing. Everything works so easily.
Photo by Kathy Mansfield
SeaRaider’s gunter rig is easily un- stepped and stowed aboard.While primarily a sailing boat, she can be rowed handily when conditions require.
I joined CRAIC the day of her first real trial early in the week on Loch Lochy, on a crisp early summer’s day, the mountains circling the loch rising blue-green into the sky. The wind was gusty, between 8 and 18 knots, and designer Iain Oughtred had been invited to take the helm. The wind died as the race started but then returned strongly, and we set off on an exhilarating tacking duel with the Beetle whaleboat replica MOLLY, 6′ longer than our boat. Claus watched with incredulity as his new boat took off through the fleet “like a knife through butter,” he later told us, and left the rest of the fleet behind.
Our delight simmered down as the unsettled weather and the mountains began to throw longer and heavier gusts our direction, and whitecaps became trailing spume. Gusts up to 33 knots were coming our way, but Iain was curious to see what CRAIC was capable of and kept heading up, spilling a bit of wind when needed. We could have reefed the main, of course, or taken it down entirely; she sails well under jib and mizzen.
We turned onto the downwind leg, and Matt clocked 8.7 knots on his GPS before the boat with its four crew suddenly rose up a few inches and started planing. There was too much spray to read the GPS, but Matt had already reached speeds of over 10 knots in her in Wales. “It’s like a Nantucket sleigh ride, coasting behind a whale,” I thought to myself as I held on tight to my camera. At the next buoy we stopped to put in a reef, and by the time we reached our destination, the wind was an indolent breeze.
But CRAIC’s star had risen, Swallow Boats had achieved their biggest design breakthrough, and Claus was bursting with pride that he had been part of the project. Since then the boat has sailed in Raids in France and Italy, its design adapted to the BayRaider and cabin versions, selling through Europe and now to the U.S., and Claus’s pleasure has only increased.
The SeaRaider’s lines show a narrow, easily driven, sheet-plywood hull that, due to its water-ballast tanks, is unexpectedly stable. The gunter rig’s spars are built of carbon fiber.
This Boat Profile was published in Small Boats 2010 and appears here as archival material. Swallow Boats is now Swallow Yachts and the Sea Raider is no longer in production. See their website for current models.
Richard Wilson is a boatbuilding instructor. His smart-looking wooden power dory, Kingfisher, grew out of his desire for a practical inshore craft suitable for sportfishing, flatfish netting, and scuba diving. As a bonus, it also happened to be a good boatbuilding project for his students, which could be completed within the time frame of his course.
Wilson, a master tradesman with years of experience, became a director of his family’s boatbuilding company, Brin Wilson Boats, in 1974, when his father died. In partnership with his brother, he ran the company until 2000, when they made the decision to sell. Today, Wilson is a marine technology tutor at Auckland’s University of Technology, UNITEC.
Photo by John Eichelsheim
Kingfisher is an outboard-powered skiff whose lineage can be traced back to New England dories. Her topsides are planked in lapstrake plywood, and she has a double bottom that provides both flotation and self-bailing capability.
Wilson owns a vacation home at Marsden Cove, north of Auckland on the shores of Whangarei Harbour, a large, deeply indented, flooded river valley with plenty of the shallow inlets, tidal rivers, and extensive sand flats typical of New Zealand’s northernmost regions. Finding himself without a larger boat for the first time in many years, Wilson decided to design and build a dory after being bitterly disappointed in a lightweight 14′ aluminum runabout he’d bought to explore Whangarei Harbour and beyond. “I hated it,” he explained. “It was noisy, hard-riding, and unstable. And there was no room in it!”
Wilson’s first love is wooden boats. He became interested in design at a very young age. Over the years, ten yachts and three launches ranging between 36′ and 41′ in length have been built to his designs. So designing and building a boat of his own was an obvious solution. The dory is his first small design.
“I wanted a boat with a stable hull that was easily driven by a 20-hp outboard, easily handled by just one person, and easy to build. Kingfisher fits all those criteria.” The boat is a traditional-looking dory with a flat bottom and a double chine. Its high bow, sweeping sheer, moderately raked flat transom, and an outboard motor mounted in a well all contribute to its attractive, clean lines. The decision to mount the motor inboard was partly driven by aesthetics—Wilson feels it’s a better-looking boat in profile if the outboard doesn’t show—and partly by function.
One of Kingfisher’s regular tasks is to set nets for flounder, sole, and other flatfish which abound in Whangarei Harbour, for which her shallow draft is ideal. With this in mind, a raised platform is fitted across the boat’s transom to facilitate setting and retrieving a net over the stern. Working nets over the transom is always the safest procedure, but difficult to achieve with a conventional transom-mounted outboard, which gets in the way and constantly tangles in the net. Aboard Kingfisher, working nets is easy, as is accessing the engine when the boat’s afloat. When the engine’s kicked up it remains inside the line of the transom and well clear of the bottom of the boat.
Photo by John Eichelsheim
Kingfisher’s outboard motor is mounted in a well—a decision driven largely by aesthetics. It tilts clear of the water while remaining entirely within the boat.
Kingfisher’s construction is in 9mm and 6mm plywood, her topsides lapstrake planked. The bottom is fiberglass-sheathed to just above the upper chine, and all the boat’s timbers are sealed, epoxy glued, and then painted. Wilson uses single-part paint rather than more advanced two-pack systems, as it is more environmentally friendly and requires a less complex application and touchup.
The main floor—the sole—is also fiberglass-sheathed and then painted with a mixture of one-part paint and Epsom salts (magnesium sulfate) to provide an effective nonskid surface. The solid wood in Kingfisher is macrocarpa, a type of cypress, of which there was a supply in Wilson’s workshop at the time of construction. It is commonly used by boatbuilders in New Zealand; North American and European builders will no doubt require a substitute. A subsequent boat was built using yellow cedar, which bends well, is durable, and is a bit more dense than macrocarpa or red cedar.
Kingfisher’s trim is in mahogany, again because it was available to the school at the time of building. Wil- son prefers teak, which can be left to weather, but it’s expensive. The second boat doesn’t use teak either, for the same reasons. (Mahogany does, however, have the advantage from a boatbuilding perspective of requiring several coats of varnish—another skill for Wilson’s students to master.) The students also fabricated the boat’s solid-lumber details, like the knife holders and wooden bow roller, giving them experience in joinery details.
One of Kingfisher’s more interesting features is a sealed floor suspended 4″ above the bottom and 2″ above the upper chine line—effectively an airtight double hull with a volume of 0.5 cubic meter. Aside from offering a flat floor above the waterline inside the boat, which self-drains via two 2″ holes in the transom, it provides buoyancy and security should the outer hull ever be breached. The boat is also easy to clean, as it can simply be hosed down from the inside. Another benefit of the double-chine sealed-floor design is the form’s stability at rest. According to Wilson, a scuba diver can pull himself over the side of the boat with no risk of capsize. Indeed, the boat heels no more than a few inches. Certainly two adults can move around Kingfisher with impunity, barely altering her trim.
The boat is designed to be transported atop a conventional flatbed utility trailer. Most New Zealand households have access to light general-purpose trailers of this type, used to transport bulky or heavy goods, garden waste, and rubbish. The dory sits on the trailer resting on its twin timber keels, spaced 2′ apart and running the full length of boat’s flat bottom. The keels are 43⁄4″ deep and capped with aluminum rubbing strips to protect against wear and tear from contact with the trailer or when taking the ground.
The keels allow the boat to be pulled up a beach or left to sit on the hard when the tide recedes. They also provide lateral stability when the boat’s underway and give a certain amount of protection from damage in shallow water. When the boat’s on plane, air trapped in the tunnel between the keels acts as a cushion, softening the ride.
Photo by John Eichelsheim
Kingfisher’s twin keels funnel air between them, softening the boat’s ride.The keels also hold the boat upright when beached, and lend great lateral stability when underway.
Kingfisher made easy work of a short, wind against tide chop on Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour, easily soaking up the bumps and delivering a reasonably smooth, dry ride. With two people aboard she achieved a top speed of 14 knots, as recorded on the accompanying photo boat’s GPS. Wilson has managed a maximum of 15 knots with three adults aboard and 12–14 knots with four in ideal sea conditions.
Wilson likes to drive standing up, which is safe enough because the boat is so stable; this steering posture offers better vision forward. When planing, Kingfisher rides on the flat run aft with her bow well up in the air, an impression reinforced by her sheerline. If he’s by himself, the designer employs a simple tiller extension so he can stand or sit farther forward, helping to trim the boat.
In rough conditions, Wilson sits on the timber cross- seat just ahead of the engine box, one of two, painted, solid-wood thwart seats, each pierced with four holes to accommodate fishing rods. Additional angled plastic rod-holders are screwed to the gunwales for a total of 12. This man is serious about sportfishing.
Kingfisher is a remarkably large-volume boat. Unlike some dories, she carries plenty of beam, especially amidships, and her raised floor offers more usable surface area than would be the case if the outer skin were the floor, as is usual.
The interior layout is simple and uncluttered, but very workable: an enclosed locker—essentially an extension of the engine box/well—runs fore-and-aft between the seats down the middle of the boat. A lift-off watertight lid reveals stowage for a portable plastic fuel tank, life jackets, lines, fishing gear, and longer items such as oars and fishing rods. Two inspection hatches in the lock- er’s floor give access to the boat’s airtight under-floor compartment.
Between engine well and storage locker, and part of the same fore-and-aft structure, is an open-topped battery locker. The battery is housed in a proprietary plastic box to protect it from spray or water sloshing around in the lockers, which both drain aft into the engine well. Up under Kingfisher’s short foredeck there’s a self-draining anchor locker below floor level. The solid-wood anchor roller and bollard on the curved foredeck are attractive and functional features.
Kingfisher has been a successful design in every respect: she’s proven to be a capable, safe, stable, and seakindly boat with excellent load-carrying ability. She is economical to run. The design is relatively easy and inexpensive to build, and Wilson’s UNITEC students are able to complete the boat, from lofting to launching, working three days per week over thirteen weeks. Along the way, they learn a useful range of traditional and modern boat-building skills. Best of all, Wilson has created a great little boat that perfectly meets his needs.
Kingfisher’s combination of flat bottom and double chines provide ample planing surface and minimal pounding. The boat is built of sheet plywood.
This Boat Profile was published in Small Boats 2010 and appears here as archival material. The contact information in that Profile is no longer valid and we presume that plans are no longer available.
Clayton Wright, who built the pedal-and-propeller powered skiff featured as our Reader Built Boat in this issue, put an extraordinary effort into inventing a drive system for the boat only to discover during sea trials that it fell far short of his expectations. “The boat is back in the basement,” he wrote, “I’m going to throw a sheet over her and try to put her out of my mind.”
The original King Island kayaks were covered in seal or walrus skins. I used #10 duck and painted it with airplane dope.
Most of us who have built boats choose a design and a means of propulsion for it that have been well tested; the pride we take in the project isn’t dashed on launch day. It’s a rare occurrence to build a boat that is deeply disappointing, but it has happened to me too.
The hole in the upper bow is typical of King Island kayaks and gives the kayak an eye to see with and place to get a solid grip on the kayak.
The third kayak I built was a replica of a type built on Alaska’s King Island. A couple of years earlier, in 1979, I had built a Hooper Bay kayak and had developed an appreciation for traditional construction, and the King Island seemed like a worthwhile project. I don’t recall now what plans I used, but there were drawings and scantlings in Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America and I could study the specimen that the Washington State Historical Society had in its museum in Tacoma.
One of the few times my King Island kayak was afloat was for this gag photo I took to illustrate an article on bailing. My dad crawled in and I handed him a bucket full of water. I shoved the kayak out—with a line attached to the bow—and told Dad when to pour the water out.
King Island is situated 40 miles from the Alaskan mainland just south of the entrance to the Bering Strait. The waters there are notoriously rough, and the kayakers needed to travel long distances and carry heavy loads home after a successful hunt. Their kayaks have been described in glowing terms: “Of all the Bering Sea kayaks, this type was reportedly the best made and strongest…a great kayak for a person intent on distance paddling.” It seemed like the perfect choice to fulfill my dream of cruising among the San Juan Islands.
I carved the lower bow piece from an Alaska yellow cedar crook, the grain follows the curves extending upward from the keel and gunwales. Between those edges, the surfaces are hollowed out to reduce weight and provide airspace to keep the skin from rotting.
I wanted my King Island to be as close to the original as I could make it, so all the wood that went into it was driftwood that I gathered from the beaches near home. I split spruce for the gunwales and keel and Western red cedar for the stringers, cut the deck beams and carved the bow piece from Alaska yellow cedar crooks. I used power tools as little as possible and trimmed the pieces to shape with a drawknife, planes, and spokeshaves.
I added a maststep and partner and got so far as making the mast and yards for a small squaresail. I never sewed up the sail.
I made a few additions that I thought would be useful for cruising including accommodations for a foot-controlled rudder, a maststep and partner, and a mast and yards for a small squaresail. I couldn’t use seal skin to cover the kayak, so I used #10 duck and sealed the fabric with airplane dope. I’d already carved a single-bladed paddle for the Hooper Bay, so I was ready to launch.
Getting aboard at the beach was awkward, and when I shoved off I knew something was wrong. The King Island was very unstable. It would roll to one side, I’d brace, and it would roll to the other. The dreams I had for the kayak quickly evaporated.
The arched deckbeams were cut from crooks with gentle curves. The ribs were steam-bent from straight-grained yellow cedar.
Unlike the Hooper Bay kayak, which had ribs that were flat across the bottom, the King Island’s ribs were curved and the round bottom wouldn’t provide any stability until the hull had more than my weight aboard to settle deeper in the water and immerse the flare of its sides. With a cruising load the King Island might have offered the stability I needed, but I didn’t want to weigh it down every time I went paddling. I later read somewhere that the King Islanders put beach-stone ballast in their kayaks; I didn’t like the idea of filling a canvas-skinned kayak with rocks.
The framework of the King Island kayak is wonderfully complex and unfortunately gets concealed by the skin that turns it into a boat. With the skin removed, it’s sculpture.
My King Island kayak went into storage for decades at home under the eaves or a tarp. The skin eventually rotted and two years ago I tore it off and put it in the trash. I hadn’t had a good look at the frame in decades and I was pleased by what I saw, especially the beautifully curved yellow cedar bow piece. In every facet left by the spokeshave on the ribs and deckbeams I could see my 30-year-old self at work. It reminded me of the aspirations I had then while building the boat, not of the disappointment I felt after launching it.
Whether or not Clay gets satisfying performance out of his pedal-powered skiff, he may, in time, come to see and enjoy the beauty and ingenuity of the boat he built. Things may not always turn out as we intend, but doing good work is always its own reward.
Some 38 years ago, after a short career in the American Merchant Marine, my need to be on the water prompted me to begin looking for a small sailboat. At the time, I was living on a tidal river that had low bridges between me and open water, so I needed a boat with a mast that could be lowered easily. A friend told me about a Drascombe Scaffie, as the Devon Scaffie was then known, that was for sale in Portland, Maine. It turned out to be the perfect boat for my situation and now after thousands of miles, I am still sailing this very enjoyable and versatile boat.
Tom Hepp
The Scaffie has two unusual horns aft, which support a rope traveler for the mainsail sheet above the tiller and the outboard.
The Scaffie was designed by John Watkinson, founder of the Drascombe line of small boats, and has been in production in the U.K. since 1978. It is 14′9″ long with a beam of 5′9″ and, at 462 lbs fully rigged, ideal for trailering behind even small vehicles. Its 15″ draft allows access to almost any waters. The boomless standing lugsail has an area of 100 sq ft. Two uprights are set in sockets in the stern and support a shoulder-high rope traveler above the tiller. The mainsheet is led through a block on the rudderhead, then led forward along the tiller where it can be cleated or gripped with the tiller.
Michel Maartens
Heeling in a good sailing breeze, the Scaffie shows its windward bilge keel. The leeward bilge keel is providing lateral resistance to supplement that of the full-length keel.
A full keel, along with twin 36″-long bilge keels, leaves the interior of the Scaffie uncluttered by a centerboard trunk for added comfort and ease of movement in the cockpit.
A trailer to transport a Scaffie will generally support the full-length keel with a few rollers and outboard bunks to support the hull between the keel and bilge keels. It takes less than 15 minutes to rig the unstayed mast and sail to be ready to launch. Upon returning to the ramp, securing the rig and loading it onto the trailer is quick and easy. The mast partner is equipped with a gate, so the mast is set in the step, pivoted, upright, and locked by the gate. It is much easier than having to lift the mast to drop through a conventional partner. The partner has cleats for the halyard and the tack’s downhaul. There are two wooden rowing thwarts and molded fiberglass side benches with flotation that can accommodate up to four people.
Ole Helgerson
The center and bilge keels mean that the cockpit is unobstructed by a daggerboard or centerboard trunk.
It takes only a light wind for very relaxed sailing. In steady winds under 14 knots the boat is dry and an absolute delight to sail. The Scaffie was drawn with two reefs to reduce sail when the wind picks up. When I’m sailing solo, I set the first reef at around 14 knots. When double-reefed, the Scaffie can handle steady winds up to 20 knots, especially when there are two or more sailors aboard; that makes for very exciting sailing and you can expect to get wet.
Any small open boat is at risk to be swamped in certain wind conditions and the Scaffie is no exception, even when double-reefed, but with good judgment it can be avoided. In 38 years of experience, I have completely swamped my Scaffie only two times, but the boat remained upright and didn’t capsize. On both occasions the wind was strong and very gusty. The foam-filled molded flotation compartments kept the boat afloat and it only needed to be righted, bailed out, and I was back on my way.
Elizabeth Wade-Brown
The Scaffie carries a boomless 110 sq ft lug rig which can be set up at the ramp and ready to sail in about 15 minutes.
In my logbook is a passage that demonstrates the Scaffie’s extraordinary seaworthiness. I had spent a night high and dry on Steve Island south of Stonington, Maine; the forecast for the following day was for small craft warnings with winds to 20 knots or more from the southwest. The wind was already picking up. Staying among a group of islands that did not provide enough shelter would make for an uncomfortable day, and the best shelter was over 10 miles away with 8 of those miles crossing the open waters of East Penobscot Bay.
With the sail double-reefed, I set out into the bay one hand on the tiller and the other on the mainsheet, closehauled on a port tack. The wind was already at 20 knots or more and seas running up to 4′. Whitecaps were everywhere and one broke against the side of the boat. Spray filled the air but the Scaffie remained steady and rose to the crest as the wave rolled under the hull. For almost two hours, beating on one long tack, the Scaffie averaged 4.6 knots to windward into a heavy sea and took on very little water. At the time, I was in my early 50s and had 12 years of experience sailing the Scaffie. Now 77, I am still confident in my ability to handle this amazing little boat, but I avoid days when the wind is predicted to be 20 knots or more.
Elizabeth Wade-Brown
For rowing, the sail can be dropped and the outboard cocked up while still in the well. The tiller is lashed to the traveler to keep it steady amidships. Scaffie owners use oars ranging from 8′ to 9′ 6″.
The Scaffie normally carries one set of oars and is rowed solo from the forward or the aft station to maintain the best trim. A speed of 2 to 2 ½ knots can be comfortably maintained with the rudder set to ’midship. When not in use, the oars are stowed on the centerline under the thwarts.
An outboard of 2 to 3 hp can provide auxiliary power. The engine well is inboard making access to the outboard convenient and safe. The well is open aft so the outboard can pivot over obstructions as well as be kicked up for rowing and sailing, rather than removed. Scaffies are molded with a well but can be ordered with the opening in the hull not cut out. The Scaffie will cruise with the 2.5-horse at about 4 knots when set at half throttle for best fuel economy. The well is offset to port far enough to permit the use of the rudder for steering while under power.
With simple modifications for overnight, the Scaffie makes an ideal solo beach cruiser. There is plenty of space along the centerline in the bottom of the boat to lay out a pad and sleeping bag, but with such an arrangement there is limited space for gear. My solution has been to replace the thwarts with a 6′-long platform level with the side benches. It provides plenty of room for sleeping with a hatch in its center to provide access to gear stowed below. Crutches installed fore and aft support the mast as a ridgepole, for a cover to provide shelter from the elements.
Most of my overnight and multi-day cruises are on the coast of Maine where the tides are up to 10′. In some locations, I anchor in deep water to stay afloat through the tide cycle; in others, I like to plan overnight stays with high tides in the evening and in the morning, and set the Scaffie parallel to a soft bank to rest on the center keel and the shoreside bilge keel when the tide goes out. The bilge keels are not at the same depth as the center keel, so the Scaffie is made level by coming to rest across a gentle slope. Since the bilge keel on the water side doesn’t make contact with the ground, lines from the bow and stern to shore are tensioned as they are tied off to keep the boat secure and prevent it from rolling away from the bank. The rudder doesn’t extend below the keel line so it can remain in place when beached.
Michel Maartens
The keel makes it difficult to drag the Scaffie out of the water, but the twin bilge keels will keep it from heeling excessively if the tide drops.
The Scaffie is built to last and doesn’t require a lot of maintenance. Mine has always been kept inside when not in use, and at the start of each sailing season, I treat the inside and outside of the hull with fiberglass color restorer that provides UV protection and resists stains. The gelcoat on my nearly four-decade-old Scaffie is still shiny with only minor scratches. Every three or four years, I put a coat of spar varnish on the hardwood trim, tiller, mast, and oars. I am still using the original sail. This is a testament to the lasting quality built into this boat.
After 38 years of sailing the lakes, rivers, and bays of coastal Maine, I trailered my Scaffie to northeast Florida and we will begin to explore the sheltered waters of the St. Johns River, yet another chapter in the adventures of Scaffie hull #109. I take great comfort and security in the boat and enjoy all three ways of propelling it. If you like sailing, rowing or motoring, the Scaffie can do it all.
Tom Hepp has spent most of his life around boats and water. He is a veteran of the U.S. Navy and Merchant Marine and has worked professionally as a boatbuilder for over 10 years. He spends summers on the coast of Maine and winters near the St. Johns River in northeastern Florida. He designed, made cardboard mock-ups of, and built two take-apart pirogue-style boats (see “Nesting Boats”) to take in his van during summer vacations.
The Devon Scaffie is available from Honnor Marine for £12,995 ($17,869) and includes foam buoyancy, rudder, tiller, sail, Sitka spruce spars, and bronze rowlock sockets.
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Clint Chase of Saco, Maine, designed the Deblois Street Dory in the spirit of New England’s dories. The lapstrake hull, and graceful curve of the bow, the tombstone transom, and low sweep of the sheer are all Swampscott dory.
The first of the DSD dories was built in 2010. A few years later, at Maine’s annual Small Reach Regatta, Clint met JR and Mary Krevans, a couple from Bar Harbor, Maine. They were thinking about a new boat to build, one which could be rowed and sailed with ease, and keep up with the Caledonia yawls in the regatta. Clint modified his original Deblois Street Dory design slightly to fit JR’s and Mary’s needs by making it better suited for sailing. He kept the length at 18′8″ and the beam at 4′10″, but widened the flare on the frames in the stern to make the boat stiffer under sail and able to carry cruising gear. He also drew a bigger standing lug rig with a sail area of 90 sq ft. JR built the boat from a kit and launched it in 2015. The modifications became the current form of the boat.
The kit provides CNC-cut marine plywood pieces; additional kits are available for the hull and spar timbers, the hardware and the epoxy. The 34-page manual included has detailed step-by-step instructions illustrated with color photographs and drawings. For JR, “the kit components fit perfectly and the directions were clear.” The kit’s stem, frames, and transom are all made of multiple layers of precut plywood. Screws driven into predrilled holes keep all the pieces from sliding out of alignment when gluing the stacks together.
Sara Traynor
While the Deblois Street Dory was designed as a plywood kit boat, it is virtually indistinguishable from a traditionally built dory of the Swampscott type with lapped planks and gusseted frames.
Clint, inspired by John Gardner’s The Dory Book, wanted the DBD to be faithful to traditional dory construction, so assembling the hull begins with attaching the stem, frames, and transom to the bottom before setting that structure upside down on the kit’s precut plywood strongback. The 9mm okoume planks for the dory’s five strakes come in two pieces for the garboards and three pieces for the rest. The CNC-cut joints have three steps, with interlocking puzzle joints in the middle step, which will be invisible when assembled. The exposed edges of the joints are gently wavy, to avoid weakening the joints and present a more subtle glue line for a bright finish. Builders working from plans are provided with measured drawings for the planks; no spiling is required. In keeping with traditional construction, builders will cut bevels and gains in the planking laps before securing them with epoxy; battens and temporary screws hold the laps closed while the epoxy cures.
JR noted: “My previous boatbuilding experience was four kayak kits and a 15′ dory, all stitch-and-glue construction. My building time for Deblois Street Dory was about 300 hours spread over six months.”
Sara Traynor
With the aid of rollers, the approximately 225-lb dory can be launched or hauled out of the water. The rudder, with its blade pivoted up, doesn’t need to be removed for hauling out.
The interior is outfitted with three thwarts in typical dory fashion. Airtight tanks in the ends provide buoyancy. The plans include drawings for a daggerboard and a centerboard, both with blades made of three layers of plywood and sheathed with 6-oz ’glass, and a fixed rudder made of laminated plywood. JR built his dory with a daggerboard trunk and used solid white oak for the board. There are drawings for a fixed rudder and for a rudder with a pivoting blade. JR opted for the latter. Whether making the board and rudder blade from solid wood or laminated plywood, the plans and kit include templates for giving them effective foil shapes for low drag and better windward performance. The mast and yard on JF’s DSD are carbon fiber and weigh altogether less than 8 lbs. The plans give the necessary details for making the spars of Sitka spruce or eastern white spruce—solid spruce for the yard and boom; hollow bird’s-mouth construction for the mast.
The DSD plans offer several sail rigs: the 90-sq-ft standing lug that’s shown here, the 88-sq-ft balanced lug with 18-sq-ft mizzen, the 76-sq-ft standard sprit, and the 87-sq-ft sport sprit. JR opted for the lug rig for its acceptably high performance, and ease of singlehanding.
The DSD “trailers easily and is narrower than our Subaru Forester so visibility and tracking are good,” according to JR. “At the ramp, the flat bottom is easy to load on and off the trailer.” I joined JR for a sail on Mount Desert Island’s Somes Sound and I was impressed, once the boat was afloat, by how rapidly the mast, lug, and sprit boom could be raised in one 30-second swoop, and how quickly we could leave the dock, which was 30 seconds after that.
JR finds the dory “initially a little tender, but the flare carried back from frame 3 to frame 5 allows great use of the skipper’s body position to keep her steady. The hull is only about 220 lbs empty and we do not carry ballast, so the crew does definitely need to balance the boat.”
Sara Traynor
The dory is offered with four sailing rigs: standing lug (shown here), balanced lug with mizzen, standard sprit, and the larger sport sprit. Note the skipper is well positioned for solo sailing with one hand on the tiller, the other on the sheet, and weight close to the windward rail.
JR and I sailed out in 5 to 10 knots of wind, and I immediately felt like we were sailing in one of the modern racing dinghies of my youth, but, miraculously, we were also staying dry. We zipped around in the protected cove at the head of Somes Sound at up to 5 knots. The sprit boom is self-vanging and set high enough so it’s not likely to hit you in the head during an unexpected jibe. Closehauled, the DSD tacks through about 100 degrees. “Going off the wind in a breeze,” notes JR, “the hull starts to lift in the water and exceed 5 knots; that is the only time I feel a need to put down my coffee cup and keep weight low.”
I quickly got a sense of its excellent responsiveness. The boat reacted to every minor adjustment of the tiller and weight shift, tacked and jibed with ease, and came to a quick stop when luffed into the wind. JR finds that there is only minimal weather helm unless the DSD is sail-heeled well over. On a couple of occasions he and Mary sailed the lee rail under, but the dory rounded up nicely and took on very little water.
Though we didn’t need to reef, JR showed me the process, which took us only three minutes to lower the sail, reef, and raise it again. Color-coded lines eliminated confusion from the loose ends clustered on the floorboards. JR and Mary generally put the first reef in at about 10 knots of wind. They take the dory out in anything up to 15 knots, but they are double-reefed at that speed. When sailing downwind in heavier winds, they have an 18-sq-ft storm sail made from a tarp. JR reports they’ve “put three people on the windward rail and nothing has given out yet.”
Sara Traynor
The designer recommends 9′ oars for the dory. The stations for tandem rowing have plenty of space in between them to minimize clashes if the rowers get out of synch.
We could switch from sailing to rowing within a minute or two; the sail and spar easily fit in the boat off to one side. JR designed a plug that goes into the daggerboard trunk to help prevent water from splashing up through the slot. The plug projects below the hull about 1″ and is about 1 1/2′ long, creating a skeg of sorts that helps the boat track better while rowing. The dory glides along quickly with a low effort on the oars; rowing was very satisfying. JR has measured speeds around 3 knots with one person at the oars and up to 4 knots with both of them rowing over a distance. The blade of the rudder kicks up with a pull of a line next to the tiller, to allow the boat to navigate shallow waters.
Sara Traynor
The tiller detailed in the plans is nearly 7′ long and allows steering from the center section of the boat, where the beam can support the weight of the skipper and maintain proper trim.
JR and Mary have had their Deblois Street Dory, POLARIS, for six years now and in most conditions, they are able to keep up with the Caledonia yawls while rowing or sailing, falling behind only in heavier winds. Clint has joined JR and Mary a couple times, including for a 42-mile circumnavigation of Mount Desert Island, which took them about 13 hours. JR and Mary always carry a fair amount of gear in the boat, including extra safety gear, a throw rope, two bailers, and extra flotation in the form of a couple of big fenders. They find that they can sail the boat with a complement of three and some safety gear, or just the two of them and a lot of camping gear. They often beach the boat by rolling it up above the high-tide line on the large fenders.
After rowing and sailing the Deblois Street Dory, I came away thoroughly impressed. The boat’s aesthetics are rooted in tradition, but it moves with the quickness of a modern racing dinghy. I think the DSD would be an excellent boat for a single person, a couple, or a young family to enjoy in a variety of ways—from day sails in moderately protected waters to overnight coastal camping trips. JR and Mary enjoy the versatility of the boat, from rowing to sailing for the day, to loading it up with gear and going camping for a couple days along the coast and among the islands. “The hull is supremely seaworthy,” notes JR. “Using the boat is a joy.”
Arista Holden is a longtime seamanship instructor for programs including Outward Bound, NOLS, Atlantic Challenge USA, and WoodenBoat School. She is a frequent contributor to WoodenBoat, and is at work compiling a book about the Apprenticeshop and its founder, Lance Lee. She holds a 100-ton USCG license and lives in Belfast, Maine.
Deblois Street Dory Particulars
[table]
Length/18′6″
Beam/4′ 10″
Width on DWL/37 ½″
Depth amidships/18 ⅜″
Draft, loaded to DWL/6″
Hull weight (no gear)/225 lbs
Sail Area/90 sq ft
[/table]
Standing Lug
Plans and kits for the Deblois Street Dory are available from Chase Small Craft. Plans are delivered as a digital download and are priced at $250. The complete kit is $6,821.
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It was the fall of 1962, and I had just started my junior year of high school. I subscribed to Popular Mechanics magazine and was always excited when each new monthly issue showed up in my mailbox, since it contained all kinds of stuff that was interesting to this 16-year-old technically oriented guy. The cover of the August 1962 issue pictured “The Supersonic Helicopter of the Future” (well, that didn’t happen) and teaser—“Build a 38 m.p.h. Fun-Boat—for $38.”
SBM
The August 1962 issue of Popular Mechanics had 202 pages for just 35 cents. The top billing went to new cars and highlighted the ’63 Studebaker Avanti.
I immediately turned straight to page 140 and read the article. It described how to build a neat little 13′9″ outboard runabout, a PM-38. The “PM” was for Popular Mechanics and the “38” came from a boat speed of 38 mph, a materials cost of $38, and a build time of 38 hours. “Hey,” I thought, “I can do that!” I showed it to my dad, and he said that if I could build the hull, he would find an engine for it.
SBM
The article on the PM-38 packed a lot of information, drawings, and photographs into 7-1/2 pages.
Our home in the Sunset District on the west side of San Francisco had a two-car garage, but we had just one car, so I had space to build the hull. My grandfather Kelly had a construction business and much of the framing material came from his scrap pile; I saved my allowance of $3 per week to buy other materials and plywood, saving some money by Pa Kelly using his contractor’s discount for the Douglas-fir exterior-grade plywood used for the hull planking. I don’t know how much I spent, but it was likely less than $38.
Most every weeknight after dinner and homework, I would go down into the garage and spend an hour or two working on the boat. Not much got done on the weekends—Friday was “date night.” Dad didn’t help much with the construction. Although he was a very competent woodworker, he felt that this was my project and believed I would learn more by making mistakes and figuring out how to fix them. More than once, I had the unfortunate “measure once, cut twice” experience. Once or twice each week, Dad would look over my work, and explain what I was doing right, and point out where I could do better. Occasionally, my friends would drop by to see what I was up to; they were always amazed that I would even try to build a boat.
For the previous two summers, I had worked as an apprentice carpenter in my grandfather’s construction company, so woodworking was not completely new to me, but building the boat was a real stretch of my skills. I built it on a pair of sawhorses, instead of the two A-frame supports called for, and used secondhand power tools: an old 1/4″ single-speed drill, a beat-up circular saw that Pa Kelly had given up on, and a tiny jigsaw of my dad’s. I bought a carpenter’s framing square, a decent rasp, and a block plane.
The forward ends of the plywood bottom panels required steaming to bend and twist them into place. I borrowed my new stepmom Mildred’s steam iron for this task and managed to burn it out. She and my dad had been married less than six months, and she was not impressed.
There were nearly 400 screws in the boat, all driven in by hand. The magazine article called for caulk on all the joints below the waterline, and Weldwood waterproof glue elsewhere, but my dad suggested that I should use the glue for all the joints. Weldwood Plastic Resin Glue, a urea-formaldehyde formula, is nasty stuff. It’s a brown powder that, when mixed with water, turns dark, and has the stinging, eye-watering smell of formaldehyde. Unless just the right amount of water is mixed in with the powder and the joints are gap-free and put under a lot of clamping pressure, it won’t have any strength at all. At the right consistency it’s a sticky mess and gets all over everything. The only thing that was worse was Dad’s suggestion to fiberglass the hull. He did spring for the fiberglass cloth, resin, and catalyst, but he left the messy job of sheathing the hull to me. The polyester resin in common use then was “aromatic” to put it mildly, and everything in the house soon absorbed the smell of the resin. Again, my poor new stepmom was not impressed. I knew she was irritated by the situation, but she never made a big deal out of it. She knew that the project was important to me and was always supportive. She was an exceptional person, a great stepmother, and we eventually became very close.
Courtesy of the author
I have very few photos of my first PM-38, TERRY’S FERRY. I’d give a lot if I had a picture or two with the boat in the water, but they just don’t exist. Back then, in 1963, I didn’t have a camera, and my folks weren’t much into photography. That’s 16-year-old me at the helm. In this picture the lack of any paint on the interior is clearly evident.
Dad found a used 1959, 40-hp Elgin outboard motor in the boat department of the Sears store on Geary Street in San Francisco. Yes, our local Sears and Roebuck store did actually have a boat department. Elgin, the Sears in-house brand, was made by Scott-Atwater and would provide plenty of power. The Popular Mechanics PM-38 pictured in the magazine was powered by a 28-hp Johnson and could do 38 mph; and the boat was rated to take up to a 45-hp motor.
Courtesy of the author
These shots were taken in the driveway of our house, likely the day Dad and I loaded the boat onto the trailer and mounted the Elgin outboard.
It took me eight months to build the boat, working around six hours per week on it. The math says I spent somewhere around 180 to 200 hours total. I don’t think it could be built in 38 hours.
Terry McIntyre
My stepmom and my dad were impressed by what I had built and were proud to pose with the boat.
I finished the PM-38 in April 1963. We named it TERRY’S FERRY. After school on Friday, May 3, 1963, my best high school friends—Bill and Dave —and I towed the boat with my grandfather’s F-100 pickup to Lake Berryessa, a 15-mile-long reservoir in Napa County, about 75 miles north of San Francisco. We set up a tent in the campsite at the Berryessa Marina. It rained all that night; our campsite was a muddy mess. It was chilly the next morning, but the sun came out, we launched the boat without much fanfare, and all three of us piled into the boat and motored away from the dock. The first thing that happened was the propeller shear pin failed, and I had to get into the water to replace it. (Fortunately, I always bring a tool kit the first time out.) The hull was watertight, but in a tight turn, water just poured in through the hull-to-deck joint. On top of that, the old cable-and-reel steering system was wasn’t working properly. I muttered something like, “Well, what else could go wrong?” and leaned back; the helm seat snapped loose from the bottom and I tumbled into the back of the cockpit. In spite of all the problems, we all did get water-skiing that day—I conned the boat while kneeling on a flotation cushion.
Popular Mechanics did not lie about the boat’s performance: it was indeed fun and fast. The boat would show its transom to most anything; it would flat-out fly. It was a great ski boat, hardly any wake, although a good slalom skier—like my buddy Dave—could get the boat to fishtail a little when he made a tight cut.
I finished the hull with white oil-based house paint scavenged from Pa Kelly’s scrap pile. I had varnished the deck but it was made from interior-grade mahogany plywood and deteriorated quickly. After two summers, I ’glassed the deck and repainted the whole boat with pencil-yellow marine enamel. I also replaced the original bucket seats with a back-to-back bench, upholstered with slick black Naugahyde. Big mistake—the black seats got really hot in the California summer sun!
We did not have a good experience with the Elgin outboard. About every second or third outing, something went wrong. Scott-Atwater outboards have a reputation for being great runners when they run, but they are finicky. The Elgin 40 was a two-cylinder engine with twin carburetors, and the carb floats would often stick, and then the engine would simply refuse to start. I got into the habit of picking up the trailer tongue and dropping it on the ground prior to taking the boat out—this would sometimes unstick the carb floats. In the spring of 1965, my dad and I took the boat fishing on San Francisco Bay, and on the way back to the launch ramp, the engine suddenly developed a rattle like a handful of bolts being shaken inside a coffee can. The engine got us home, but in the garage, we took it apart and found the crankshaft had broken. Fortunately, the break was oblique and inside one of the engine’s main bearings so the shaft could still deliver power to the propeller. To its credit, the engine hobbled along and got us to shore that day, but it was a goner.
Not long after the Elgin died, I passed by a small boatshop in our neighborhood and noticed a used 1960 Johnson 40-hp Sea-Horse in the front window. I went in and inquired about the price: $200. I was then a freshman engineering student, but I had a part-time job that paid $100 a month and, to my amazement, they let me purchase it on credit—$20 down and then $16 a month for 12 months. The Johnson, unlike the Elgin, was bulletproof. It powered TERRY’S FERRY for the next eight years, and two subsequent boats, until I turned it in on the purchase of an Evinrude 75-hp engine on my first “real boat”—that is, one that I didn’t build myself—in 1982.
All through a five-year courtship with Antoinette, my college girlfriend, we often took the boat water-skiing at Lake Berryessa. Summer days with a hot boat and a pretty young woman in a red and white polka-dot bikini sitting next to you—well, if that doesn’t make you a happy guy, I don’t know what will.
In late August 1965, Bill, Dave, John, and I—inseparable friends from high school—got together for a day on the lake before heading back to our separate colleges for our sophomore years. By that time, Antoinette and I had been dating for 15 months, and were starting to get pretty serious and would eventually get married. Bill brought this cute redhead he had been dating for a month—they would get married three years later. John brought Rosie, a classmate whom we all knew. Dave didn’t bring a date, but he brought beer even though we were all 19 and below the legal drinking age.
It took three trips out to a small island near the marina with the people and gear: beach chairs, a couple of ice chests, a grill, and charcoal, not to mention the skis and ropes, and towels and the like. We set up our little day-camp site near the shore under oak trees for some shade. Four people was the most the boat could seat, so we used the campsite as a base while we water-skied with just the driver and observer aboard. We got all the girls up on two skis. Dave tried to teach me to do a “beach snatch”—getting up on a single water ski from the beach without getting wet. I just couldn’t get the hang of it—I either got the tow handle pulled out of my hands or did a face plant into the water. We barbecued hamburgers and hot dogs, ate Antoinette’s chocolate chip cookies, and drank Dave’s Colorado Kool-Aid (that’s Coors beer for the uninitiated).
It was a Sunday afternoon, and we had intended to pack up and head home around 4, but we were all having such a great time that we lost track of time. Around 6:30 or 7, sunburned, tired and happy, we realized that we needed to get going. Instead of the three trips that we took to get to our campsite, we ended up with all seven of us and all the gear in the little boat heading back to the marina. I was at the helm, all the equipment was in the cockpit, the gals were sitting on the side decks with their legs inside the boat, and the guys were sitting on the front deck. Maybe the boat had 6″ of freeboard. There was no way even the Johnson 40-horse could get the PM-38 on plane, and even if it could have, it would not have been safe with the boat so terribly overloaded! It wasn’t far, mostly inside the 5 mph “no wake” zone anyway, and we made it back to shore safely. We loaded the boat on the trailer, all hugged, said our goodbyes, and promised each other we would do it again next year. But by the next August the war in Vietnam would raise its ugly head. Bill and Dave, who were in the Navy reserve, would be called up to active duty, and I was in USAF Officer Candidate School. While my buddies and I remained lifelong friends, that was the last time the four of us would be together. It was one of my best boating days, ever.
By the summer of 1971, the PM-38 had seen the last of its good days. The inexpensive materials used in construction and the lack of paint on the interior led to framework decaying, particularly around the transom. It was also starting to leak badly. Antoinette was pregnant with our first child, so the boat didn’t get used much that summer. After eight years, its time was almost up, but it had been a great little boat, worth every bit of $38, and every hour it took to build.
Courtesy of the author
In May of 1972, I had nearly completed ORANGE CRATE– a Glen-L Rebel that was the PM-38’s replacement. My college lab partner, Ron, and I moved the PM-38 hull from my trailer onto his new trailer, and the Rebel off its building form and onto my trailer. Then we mounted my “bulletproof” Johnson 40 hp Sea-Horse on the transom of the new boat. Right after this, Ron and I took out a circular saw and cut the back end off the PM-38 hull. I don’t recall that Ron ever renamed the boat. The car in the garage is my 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air sports coupe. It was my car during my undergraduate college years, and I used it to tow TERRY’S FERRY for most of the boat’s life. After it cracked a piston, I had every intention of tearing down the engine, but life got in the way. When we moved to San Jose in ’73 I sold the car, not running. Big mistake—that car would be worth big bucks today!
Over the winter of 1971–72, I built another, bigger, ski boat—a Glen-L Rebel—to replace the PM-38. When the Rebel was near completion, I asked a college friend to help me put the new boat on the trailer, mount the engine, and take the old PM-38 to the landfill. Ron agreed to help, but then asked if he could have the boat instead of dumping it. “Sure,” I said. He bought a trailer and engine (a 40-hp Merc) and we used a circular saw to cut the back 6” off the boat to get rid of the worst of the rot. We fabricated and installed a new transom and put a new layer of fiberglass tape and resin on all the seams. Ron used the boat for another three summers. The last time he used the boat he was running it at speed when the joint between the front and rear bottom panels failed, and half the bottom peeled off. The boat sank like a stone. Ron and his wife were both wearing life jackets and were quickly picked up by a passing boat, and everyone was okay. As far as I know, my PM-38 is still at the bottom of Lake Mendocino.
A half century and several other boats have passed since the good times with my PM-38. I follow a couple of wooden-boat and boatbuilding pages on Facebook, and one day the original 1962 Popular Mechanics article popped up along with a story about someone building a PM-38. It brought back all these great memories. Today, Antoinette and I have a genuinely nice 27′ express cruiser that we motor frequently on San Francisco Bay—and I need another boat like a hole in the head—but the post about the PM-38 got my attention. I didn’t intend to build it, but the retired mechanical engineer in me got thinking about what I would do differently if I did. My original intent was to maybe build a 1/12 scale model.
Alan Scott, the designer of the PM-38, had gone all-out to minimize the hull weight, as the 1962 article put it: “Since everyone knows that weight is one of the most important performance factors, our designer laid out plans for a fast planing hull and then hacked off weight wherever possible.” In doing so, I think he built in some structural weaknesses. The original design does not have a true sheer clamp: the deck and sides are joined on a 3/4″-square sheer rail screwed to the outside of the hull. That seam nearly always leaked, and frequently popped loose. Likewise, the spacing between the rearmost frame and the transom was nearly 4′, and the side decks became a little spongy over that span. Outboards have also changed, and a 20″ shaft is now the standard, rather than the 15″ shafts they had back then.
The possibilities for improvements became my checklist. I started with sketches and then some scale drawings. When I got to the point of lofting some full-sized patterns for the frames and other components on heavy paper, Antoinette said something like, “Go ahead and build it, you know you will be unhappy if you don’t, and you want to take the grandkids skiing, don’t you? Just make sure that my car will be in the garage every night when you are building it!”
I got serious about designing. To make the sheer-to-deck joint more robust, I added a breasthook, deepened the hull by 3″ to accommodate a 20″-shaft outboard, and notched the top of the frames for a 1-1/2″-square sheer clamp. To bridge the gap between the transom and the original rearmost frame, I drew in an additional frame 18″ forward of the transom and tied it into the transom knee. With the deeper hull it was possible to add a self-bailing motorwell, and I added a drain plug in the transom. After a day of water-skiing in the original, we would have to use a bucket and sponge to get all the water out of the bilge. I’ve gotten too old for that.
Terry McIntyre
In March 2020 the boat was just about ready to plank. Here you can see many differences between my new version and the original—the framework was assembled on a stout building form on casters instead of scrap lumber A-frames, and the sheer rail and breasthook have been installed. The rear partial frame that I added is tough to see, but it’s there, connected to the transom knee.
These modifications only moderately increased the weight of the hull (from about 200 to perhaps 225 lbs) but made it far more structurally sound. The beam increased by almost 6″ and the length by 3″. When I ran these numbers through the formulas in the U.S. Coast Guard “Safety Standards for Backyard Boat Builders” I was pleasantly surprised to find that these seemingly minor changes would increase the recommended maximum load by nearly 500 lbs, and the maximum engine size from 45 to 60 hp.
I started construction in the fall of 2019. To meet Antoinette’s requirement that her car be safe in the garage at night, I built a stout, wooden construction frame on casters, so that I could roll the project outside and cover it with a tarp when I was not working on it. The boat turned out to be my COVID-19 “sanity project” during the lockdown.
I’m no longer a kid on an allowance, and money is not the issue it was for me in 1962; I used much better materials this time around. The framing is all kiln-dried clear straight-grained Douglas-fir, and the planking is BS1088 meranti marine plywood. Wood is still wood, but adhesives have greatly improved in 60 years. The entire boat was assembled with marine epoxy, with the screws all removed after the adhesive had set, since the epoxy alone provides the needed strength. The hull exterior is covered with fiberglass, and the entire interior is encapsulated in epoxy, to ensure that the wood remains dry and avoids the rot problems encountered in the original. This boat will likely outlive me.
My plan was to make the hull white with a mahogany deck, like the 1962 version, but when I got the hull planked, Antoinette looked at the meranti ply and said, “You aren’t going to paint that gorgeous wood, are you?” It was a lot more work preparing so much of the plywood to be finished bright. The results just scream the 1960s. The crowning touch would be a wraparound windshield similar to one from a ’57 Chevy—but I have not yet been able to find one.
Antoinette found some nice back-to-back pontoon-boat bucket seats online. I had to shorten them a bit, but they are serviceable and the brown and tan complement the hull’s finish. I also added floorboards to the interior, topped with faux-teak-decking carpet. The boat has running lights and full instrumentation, making it more complete (and legal) than the original.
Terry McIntyre
TERRY’S FERRY did have a bow light on the front deck. I have no idea where it came from—I must have salvaged it from somewhere—it never was connected to a power source. A speedometer or tachometer would have cost far more than I could afford. In the second PM-38, I installed the tachometer and engine monitoring that came with the new Evinrude, a trim gage, and pitot-tube speedometer. Switches for the running and anchor lights are to the right of the wheel. The steering is a modern no-feedback rack-and-pinion system instead of the cable-reel-and-pulley type I used in the 1960s. The handrail on the dash makes it much easier for a passenger in the front seat to hang on in a turn.
The cost for the hull materials, not including the hardware, seats, and steering, came to about $900, which was substantially more than I spent on the original. I took the article’s Materials List from the original PM-38 and priced the lumber, plywood, fastenings, and adhesives on a home improvement store’s website to see what they would cost today. An inflation calculator says $338. The big-box store materials came to $450. I spent about 300 hours building the new PM-38, about 100 more than the first one. Most of the increase over the original was in the work to prepare the hull and interior for a bright finish: eight coats of spar varnish, wet-sanded to 2,000-grit. It was far from a 38-hour build but worth the effort
I was initially undecided about how to power the boat. A period engine would carry the vintage look from stem to stern, but in the end, I decided that I’m too old to fight with a temperamental 60-year-old motor, and new engines are far more ecofriendly. I found a new 40-hp Evinrude E-tec which fit the new motorwell and promised plenty of power. It weighs nearly 250 lbs, over 100 lbs more than my 1960 Johnson. The original engine had a rope-pull start, and the new one has an electric start that requires having a 50-lb battery aboard.
We launched the boat for the first time in late April 2021. I considered towing the boat to the ramp with my classic ’69 Chevrolet Camaro, the car I bought new as my college graduation present to myself and used to tow my first PM-38 50 years ago, but decided on towing with my more powerful and less precious Chevy 4WD pickup. We poured some champagne on the bow and christened her RETRO-ROCKET. At the dock, the additional 200 lbs of weight of the engine and battery made the transom sit a little lower in the water than I would have liked. I was very glad I had added depth to the hull and its load-carrying capacity.
Terry McIntyre
When I got my undergrad engineering degree, I treated myself to a brand-new 1969 Chevrolet Camaro. I put a trailer hitch on the Camaro, and it became my tow vehicle for the summers of ’69, ’70, and ’71. I’ve kept the Camaro stock and original, and it still looks and runs great. I couldn’t resist hooking up the new boat to the Camaro and driving it around the block.
There were several folks on the launch ramp, and they immediately started commenting on how nice the boat looked and asking what it was. “That’s a cool old boat, what year is it?” has been the most common question.
Terry McIntyre
Tied up to the dock, the new PM-38 is overboard for the first time. Whenever we have it at the dock, it gets lots of attention. The accent stripe down the middle of the deck is unstained mahogany—I had to put the stripe in, because I wasn’t happy with the panel joints on the deck. I milled out the strip with my router and added the new piece. I was pleased with the result.
With just me aboard, the Evinrude brought the boat on plane nicely, but as the speed approached 30 mph it started to porpoise badly. I returned to the launch ramp and had Antoinette step aboard. While the porpoising was noticeably reduced with her aboard, I was not comfortable in pushing the boat any harder, and we called an end to the first sea trial.
Terry McIntyre
I was shocked by how fast the boat is. Here, Antoinette and I are running flat out with the speedometer showing 46 mph. The USCG allowable power calculation shows that the boat would be approved with a 60-hp outboard. I can’t imagine how fast it would be with that power.
On the web I discovered that porpoising is a common problem with late-’50s and early-’60s boats repowered by modern outboards. I moved the battery forward to under the front deck, and added a set of automatic trim tabs; the combination both eliminated the porpoising problem and improved the at-rest trim. Like the original, the new PM-38 “runs like a racer’s dream,” just as the Popular Mechanics article had promised. The boat is scary-fast— with just Antoinette and me in the boat, the pitot-tube speedometer indicated 46 mph flat out! With four adults on board, she hit 40. At speed, with the engine trimmed out, the boat throws a spectacular “rooster tail.” I haven’t tried to pull up an adult water-skier yet, but my teenaged grandkids get popped right up!
Terry McIntyre
My grandchildren were the raison d’être for the new PM-38. Here are three of my four grandkids with Moira, the eldest at the helm. Josh, to port in the back, was the most excited of the bunch, and was the first one we got up on skis.
Marion Speed
The engine is trimmed way out, raising the bow, and we are about to do a screaming 180-degree turn with an impressive rooster tail while three mid-septuagenarian “kids” relive a day from a long time ago
For our first real outing with the boat, we met with a group of old high school and college friends (including four of the seven who were there on that day back in 1965), for a day on the water in the California Delta. Racing along in the reincarnation of the PM-38 was a fabulous experience. For most of that day, I was 19 again. Not all the tears in my eyes were from the wind.
Terry and Antoinette McIntyre live in the small town of Morgan Hill, California, 75 miles south of San Francisco. They have been married for 52 years and have two grown children and four teenaged grandchildren. Terry holds mechanical engineering degrees from San Francisco State University, the University of California and Stanford University, and is a licensed professional engineer in California. He retired from General Electric Power Systems in 2002 after a 33-year career as a research and development engineer and project manager, designing and building nuclear power plants. He has been a boater since 1960 when his father got involved with a group of co-workers who were boaters and waterskiing enthusiasts. Terry has owned seven boats over the past 60 years, four of which were homemade wooden boats. Terry and Antoinette boat primarily on San Francisco Bay in their 27′ power express cruiser, and are looking forward to using the new PM-38 runabout in the California Delta.
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.
Many years ago, while building small craft, I sought a solution for securing a hull under construction in different positions. It occurred to me that V-shaped sawhorses would maintain a V- or round-bottomed skiff in a secure working attitude whether upright, inverted, or in between. This would also work for a flat-bottomed hull, as long as the bottom was narrow near the ends, as a dory is.
Consequently, I quickly and haphazardly conceived a simple design that could be implemented rapidly and cheaply, using standard 2×4 lumber. I build most of my sawhorses with legs cut to an acute angle on the flat on the upper ends, and cut to an obtuse angle on the bottoms, parallel to the shop floor. The upper angles are hard to cut through the width of a 2×4, so you rarely see sawhorses made this way. I do it because the horses are light, simple and strong, and use a minimum of material. I often gusset the ends with whatever scrap plywood is lying around the shop.
Reuel Parker
The drop-center sawhorses were an improvement on my standard sawhorses which have survived at least 15 years of use outdoors. The old and the new horses have the same beveled connection between the legs and crosspieces.
To make conventional horses, I cut four 2×4 legs to the height I desire—usually 24″ or 27″, and one 2×4 crosspiece to the width I desire, usually 36″ or 48″. To cut the upper ends of the legs, I use a bevel square set arbitrarily to an angle of about 25 or 30 degrees. I mark one side of all four legs and cut the line carefully with a circular saw set to near maximum depth. I cut the rest of the way through using a bandsaw with a wide blade (3/8″ or 1/2″). I screw the legs to the crosspiece using 2″ to 2 ½″ self-drilling exterior-grade screws or, in some cases, air-nail them with #10 ring-shank nails. I set the horses on a flat, level surface, and trace the feet parallel to the floor with a carpenter’s pencil or Sharpie pen. I set my circular saw to that angle and cut the feet. This makes them more secure but encourages rot from rainwater. If I am in a hurry, I just leave the bottoms of the feet square. These sawhorses seem to last well, and I have some that are at least 20 years old, having been in constant use, much of it outdoors. Occasionally, the bottoms of the legs rot, and I simply cut them a little shorter and keep using them.
Reuel Parker
Twenty years ago I used drop-center sawhorses while building a 14′ dory in my shop in Maine.
To make drop-center sawhorses, I make the legs the same way, but make the crosspiece from two components, joined in the middle by plywood gussets on each side. The angle of the V can be tailored for a specific boat project or can be generic for general use. I have only made one or two sets of drop-center sawhorses, and I can’t remember when, or for what project. They are more than 20 years old.
To make the V components, I cut my 2×4 crosspieces to an angle of about 55 degrees where the halves join, and I trim the top outer edges to 35 degrees for the 3-1/2″ width of the legs. I do this so that I have flat surfaces at each side of the finished sawhorse for resting plywood or temporarily adding a plank across the top to use as a conventional sawhorse. To protect the boat, I carpet the tops of the horses with synthetic carpet stapled in place.
This Sea Bright Skiff sits upright, safely cradled by a pair of carpet-padded drop-center sawhorses.
The horses are versatile in that they will secure a boat project in various attitudes and positions. The coarse carpeting aids this as it prevents slipping.
Reuel Parker is a yacht designer, boatbuilder, and author who regularly contributes to WoodenBoat and Professional BoatBuilder magazines. A lifelong cruising sailor, he currently lives in the Bahamas aboard PEREGRINE and sails seasonally between Maine and Florida. He ventures farther as time and tide permit.
Editor’s Notes
For many of my boat-repair projects I used ordinary sawhorses with straight crosspieces on top. To keep boats from rolling around, I used the foam cradles designed for carrying a kayak on a car’s roof rack. They worked marginally well but didn’t hold the kayak securely. Reuel’s drop-center sawhorses are perfectly suited to working on small boats, so as soon as I had his text and photos in hand, I made a pair for my shop.
I made a few departures from Reuel’s instructions for a better fit for me. I wanted the boat to be held a little bit higher, so I made the legs 32″ long. Angled at 30 degrees they would make an equilateral triangle with an equally wide base. A 32″ span between the feet seemed a bit wide. I settled on a 24″ span and, using an online right-triangle calculator, plugged in a 32″ hypotenuse and a 12″ base to get the 22-degree angle for the top of the leg and 68-degree cut for the bottom.
An 8′ 2×4 will provide three legs with no waste. A full set of eight legs will consume all but 32″ of three 2×4s. The leftover piece and a fourth 2×4 will provide the rest of the lumber required.
I opted to used a 12″ chop saw for most of the cuts. In retrospect, a band saw would well too, cutting by eye to lines drawn with a bevel gauge. The chop saw lent itself better to guides and stops for quicker, more uniform cutting.
A chop saw can’t be at 22 degrees to the fence for the acute angle at the top of the leg; angles are measured from 0 for a square cut. I set the saw to 22 degrees and cut a scrap 2×4, on the flat, to make a guide. With the chop saw set back at 0 degrees, I clamped it to the fence with a piece of plywood to serve as a stop. (Without it the saw could easily bind if the workpiece shifted, as it likely would if merely handheld.) I set the guide back about 1/8″ from the line of the cut to leave some enough of the 2×4 to stay secure against the plywood stop.
A longer guide assured the leg would be secure at the 22-degree angle. A block of wood clamped to the outer end served as a support.
With the chop saw set up to make safe, uniform cuts, it made quick work of the eight leg-top angles.
The chop saw’s 12″ blade can cut through a 2×4 on edge in one pass.
With the tops cut, the guides can be removed and the saw can be set at 22 degrees to cut the bottom angle with the 2×4 set against its fence. A stop speeds the work and assures uniformity.
These are my patterns for the 2×4 crosspiece components and the plywood gussets, two of each piece for a sawhorse. The diagonals are cut from a 22-1/2″ length of 2×4.
To align the two halves and mark the area for gluing, I drew lines at the top of the cut, horizontally out from the top corner.
I had lots of 3/4″ plywood scraps, so I used them instead of 1/2″ plywood. Titebond III and galvanized air-gun nails did the fastening.
A rectangle of plywood, with the ends cut square, gets temporarily screwed to the legs to hold them parallel and at the right spacing while the tops are screwed to the crosspieces. A tool tote holds the plywood high to get the legs at the right angle to be fastened to the crosspieces.
To make the two horse stackable, I put the braces on the inside of the legs of the bottom horse and outside on the top horse.
To keep the horses from having too tight a fit when stacked, I made 1/4″ spacers for one of the ends and glued and air-nailed them on.
Stacked, the pair of sawhorses take up half the space. For long-term storage, the horses can be taken apart by removing the screws holding the legs and crosspieces together. Mark the pieces so they can be reassembled using the same screw holes.
I did three major repair jobs of this Danish-built training K-1 on standard sawhorses. If I’d had drop-center sawhorses, the work would have gone much faster with fewer frustrations.
The rounded contours of the K-1 hull and deck make it unstable on ordinary sawhorses. The drop-center horses cradle it securely.
My 80-lb decked lapstrake canoe rests nicely on edge simplifying some tasks, including washing the interior and bailing out the water, which hides under the floorboards when the canoe is upright.
This 14′ New York Whitehall rests at a good height for working on the interior.
The Whitehall’s stout skeg puts the boat’s weight on the sawhorse while the planking just makes contact for stability.
When I first saw photographs of Reuel’s drop-center sawhorses, I knew it would be well worth building a pair. They exceeded my expectations and my only regret was that I didn’t know about them 40 years ago.
You can share your tips and tricks of the trade with other Small Boats Magazine readers by sending us an email.
I have several roller stands that I’ve used to support long pieces of lumber and plywood as I feed them through the table saw. They work, but they’re not without shortcomings. On the infeed side, I have no complaints. I set the stand up with the roller at table height and feed the workpiece through. I do the same with the stand on the outfeed side but if the workpiece is flexible, the leading edge will sag and butt into the roller rather than cross on top of it. It’s an awkward moment when I have the blade whirring and I can’t finish the cut. And crosscutting with the stand out to the side of the table saw is out of the question. Last year I came across a better system, a washer roller. It’s easy to make and for many tasks works better than a roller stand.
Photographs by the author
Stacking three washers with the lower two providing a gap for the top washer’s hole establishes the spacing for the nails. Walking off the interval with dividers simplifies the process. If you’re marking the spacing with a ruler, you can use a more convenient interval if it is a slightly larger spacing.
To make one you’ll need a length of common 2×4, fender washers (either 1″ or 1-14″), and 1-1/2″ hanger nails. I made rollers 32″, 22″, and 19″ long. The longest one is the most useful. Start by cutting the 2×4 to length. Then, determine where to drill holes for the nails that the washers will spin on. Hold a washer on the side of the 2×4 with about ¼″ of it extending past the edge. Mark the hole. The circle will be larger than the hole you’ll drill for the nail; the top of the hole will be at the top of the circle. Mark the center point for the drill and draw a line through it parallel to the edge of the 2×4. Set two washers side by side and a third on top. Move the pair apart until the hole of the top washer no longer overlaps the washer beneath it. Measure the distance between the holes and with a divider set at that distance, pace off the locations of the holes along the line on the 2×4. Pressing the point of the divider into the wood will help center the drill bit, especially if you’ll be using a handheld drill. A 5/32″ bit will make holes just big enough for the hanger nails to be pressed in my hand. Drill the holes, stopping just short of going through the 2×4.
Drilling the holes accurately will keep the washers all at the same level. A drill press with a fence will make quick work of the drilling. The bottom edge of the fence is beveled back to keep drilling debris from pushing the workpiece out of position.
The drill press has its drilling depth set just shy of coming through the back of the 2×4.
The washers will be aligned best if you use a drill press with a fence. A wooden fence with its bottom edge beveled will keep any sawdust created by the drilling from pushing the holes out of alignment.
After drilling the holes, cut the kerf for the washers in the edge of the 2×4. Set the table saw’s depth of cut to match the diameter of the washers. If a single pass doesn’t provide a loose fit for a pair of stacked washers, move the fence slightly to take another pass, perhaps cutting with just a fraction of the saw blade. The washers need to be held loosely but close to vertical.
Washers are set on alternating sides to spin freely and guide the workpieces straight.
Set one washer at a time in the kerf and press the hanger nail into the hole and through the washer. The 1-1/2″ nails don’t need to be driven flush and thus poke out the back side of the 2×4. The heads can stand slightly proud. Alternate the sides of the kerf the washers are on.
I use a Workmate, which has a clamping table top, to hold a washer roller with a piece of 3/4″ plywood screwed to it.
To keep from adding more clutter to a crowded shop, I didn’t make dedicated stands for the washer rollers. I added a few pieces of lumber to one roller to slip over the edge of the top of a sawhorse. Another roller has screwed to it a piece of plywood that I clamp in my Workmate. A cleat screwed to the lower end of the plywood serves as a stop that sets the washer tops at the correct height. If I’m using my crosscut sled, a lift set under the cleat adjusts the height.
The end of a board dropping beyond the table saw can be picked up by putting a slope on the front end of the washer roller. A Workmate is holding this roller by clamping the piece of plywood that is screwed to the 2×4. A cleat screwed to the plywood sets the roller at the required height for a quick setup.
A few bits of lumber created a saddle to fit over the top of a Krenov-style sawhorse.
Washer rollers can be set at the back edge of the table saw to catch pieces immediately and continue to provide support.
The washer rollers can be set close enough to the back side of the table saw to catch the wood being sawn before it sags, and a roller set off to the side will work for crosscuts. With the end of a workpiece supported, I can focus on guiding it through the saw blade and not divide my attention and effort to pushing the wood down on the table.
A sled is a better table-saw accessory for many cross-cutting tasks. A washer roller helps it handle longer pieces of lumber.
I’m not sure where my old roller stands are. I haven’t seen them in months and haven’t felt the need to look for them, knowing the washer rollers are handily tucked under the table saw.
Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats Monthly.
You can share your tips and tricks of the trade with other Small Boats Magazine readers by sending us an email.
When we moved and no longer had a waterfront of our own, we became trailer-sailors again and needed to make it easier to transport our various boats to the launch ramp. One challenge was our 17′ Grumman Double-Ender canoe. Trailering it seemed overkill, and cartopping would be the way to go if only the 70-lb canoe didn’t require pressing a crew of two or three to load or unload it. We purchased and installed the Reese Towpower Hitch Mount Canoe Loader, and now I load and unload the canoe by myself while Skipper supervises from a comfortable chair in the shade.
The loader weighs 18 lbs and consists of a lower receiver tube, adjustment tube, upright tube, a 21″ cross support with rubber strip, a shock cord, and a hardware packet that includes a hitch pin, hex bolt with locknut, and a 3/4″-diameter square-head bolt to attach the lower receiver tube to a hitch drawbar. The hitch drawbar must be purchased separately to fit the vehicle’s receiver. The cross-support can be adjusted from 36″ to 60″ above the center of the receiver. This height should be sufficient for most vehicles except for very tall vehicles with high roof racks.
Photographs by the authors
With the loader taking a bit more than half the weight of this aluminum canoe, loading and unloading it is a lot easier.
To load the canoe, I move the canoe stern to the rear of the car, with the bow pointing off to one side. I roll the canoe upside down, lift the stern onto the swiveling cross support, which has a rated capacity of 100 lbs, and secure the canoe with the shock cord. I then move to the bow, lift it high enough for the canoe to clear the roof rack, and walk it to the front of the vehicle. The canoe is then secured to the roof rack, and while the canoe loader can stay attached to the hitch receiver and canoe during transport, it is not intended to be used as the rear tie-down.
While the loader comes with a bungee with hooks to engage the loops in the cross bar, the boat must be secured to both roof racks to stabilize it.
Once the loader is installed, hatchbacks cannot be opened until the canoe and loader are removed. On a newer vehicle with an automated hatch, it is a good idea to disable the system while the loader is in place. There is an adapter included that can be used to offset the canoe loader from a hitch ball, so the loader can be used in conjunction with towing a trailer.
The loader is made of heavy-duty materials and assembles easily with basic hand tools. The loader has been easy to use, even one-handed once the aft end of the canoe is secured to the cross support. We are looking forward to exploring our local gunkholes with the help of this handy loader.
Audrey (Skipper) and Kent Lewis mess about in the gunkholes of the Tidewater Region of Virginia, following the paddle strokes of Pocahontas and the early English settlers to this region. Their adventures are logged at Small Boat Restoration.
The Hitch Mount Canoe Loader by Reese Towpower is available from retailers listed on their website. Prices vary from $50 to $80.
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.
It’s often said that necessity is the mother of invention, but even a casual look at early U.S. patents makes it clear that the needs were as much inventions as the inventions themselves. Did anyone ever really need a helmet with shelves inside for potted cactus plants to supply oxygen to the wearer? Probably not, but in 1986 Waldemar Anguita was granted U.S. Patent No. 4,605,000 for it. If not need, what? The British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead came closer to the driving force behind invention: “Inventive genius requires pleasurable mental activity as a condition for its vigorous exercise.”
Clay Wright found that pleasurable mental activity in imagining ways to equip small boats with pedal propulsion. “I have a strong interest in unconventional human-powered boats and enjoy sketching offbeat propulsion systems.”
SBM
Clay’s HIYU is a Fiddlehead canoe, designed by Harry Bryan for double-bladed-paddle propulsion.
That interest led to his building of a 10′6″ Fiddlehead, a decked canoe designed by Harry Bryan. The canoe was designed to be used with a double-bladed paddle, but Clay had something else in mind for his Fiddlehead, which he christened HIYU.
SBM
The combination of pulleys in the cockpit with the gears beneath the hull give the system an 1:11 drive ratio, so pedaling at 50 rpm spins the prop at 550 rpm.
He devised a pedal drive that used a long V-belt from a large die-cast pulley on the horizontal pedal axle to a small pulley on the forward end of an outboard’s propeller shaft. On the outside of the hull was the outboard’s lower unit rotated 90 degrees with the skeg pointing forward and the driveshaft facing aft, with the propeller attached to it.
SBM
An old outboard motor gearbox was reoriented for use on HIYU. The skeg is pointing forward and the shaft that once was driven by the motor now drives the prop.
The mechanism was simple, but there was an ergonomic problem that could be easily overlooked in the design process: “Lifting one’s horizontal leg on the upstroke of a pedal-powered boat is an issue,” Clay discovered. “The first ten minutes of any cruise I take in little HIYU makes my quads burn, and I think there is no way I can keep it up.” In time Clay grew accustomed to the unusual cycling position, but HIYU’s performance was only a qualified success. HIYU, but the way, is a word in Chinook jargon, the 19th-century trade language of the Pacific Northwest. It means “plenty,” but in this case, plenty wasn’t enough for Clay.
Steve Navratil
CLATAWA is a Monk plywood skiff with a few changes Clay made to enhance the boat’s curves.
He started again from scratch and built a 9′ flat-bottomed skiff, designed in the 1940s by Edwin Monk as an easily built rowboat. Clay christened the finished skiff CLATAWA, a Chinook verb meaning “to go.”
His “vigorous exercise” of invention resumed with a new focus for the drive mechanism. “My main objective was to find an alternative to rotary input, i.e. bicycle pedals, which virtually everyone who builds these vessels employs, including me with my double-ended canoe. Reciprocating foot pedals and hand levers could provide linear inputs much like an elliptical exercise machine.” Clay recognized that reciprocal motion applied to a human-powered boat would be nothing new. Another Bryan design, the Thistle, is a slightly larger boat than the Fiddlehead and is equipped with a reciprocating-pedal drive that wags a flexible fin like a fish’s tail. And the highly successful Mirage Drive for sit-on-top kayaks uses pedals that move back and forth to power its flexible fins. But as Clay noted, “I’ve never seen reciprocal motion be converted to rotary motion to rotate a propeller.”
Clay Wright
Nearly complete but still in the works, Clay’s mechanism is wonderfully complex.
Clay made a mockup with PVC pipe for the frame that would occupy the bow of the boat and support the pedals and hand levers that would supply the power to a new drive system. The skiff’s power would come from the skipper operating the system like, as Clay put it, “a seagoing elliptical exercise machine.” He followed the mock-up with construction of working mechanical systems in metal. In the shop, everything worked as it was intended to.
Steve Navratil
The copper-pipe pedal system has pedal pads and hand grips for leg and arm power. The levers on the seat are used for steering by shifting each propeller between forward and reverse.
What Clay calls “the engine room” is even more complex. Here’s how he describes it: “The large pulleys are plagiarized from Phil Thiel; the near pulley is fixed to the copper shaft and therefore a driver. The far pulley is a freewheeling idler that returns the twisted V-belt. The little pulley is mounted to and drives a 1/2″ shaft which passes through the wooden tower. The aft small pulley receives the V-belt and turns a 3/4″ tube that encloses the 1/2″ shaft. Therefore, we have two shafts on a common center that are rotating opposite directions.”
Steve Navratil
The black drum at lower right is wrapped with the cord that is connected to the pedal system in the bow. These drums are equipped with bearings that spin in only one direction. One of the large pulleys transmits the power to the center fore-and-aft shaft. The other large pulley is free-spinning. The shifting between forward and reverse is accomplished by the upright pins that move the yellow drive belts between the center drive shaft and the propeller shafts.
The yellow drive belts move to switch the prop rotation from forward to reverse. Again, here’s Clay’s description: “The horizontal bars on the clutches move the nylon rollers forward or backward to shift the belts. Note the pulleys on the propeller shaft that have one wall sawn off. Mounted in front of them are simple bearings. When either of the belts is shifted to its respective pulley, the propeller shaft is driven. The other belt is simultaneously shifted onto the bearing, where it freewheels helplessly and doesn’t drive the shaft. In this way, forward and reverse cannot be engaged at the same time.”
Clay Wright
Twin counter-rotating propellers provide power and eliminate the need for a rudder.
CLATAWA’s early sea trials did not live up to Clay’s hopes. After the first outing, he reported: “I am very disappointed with the boat. She just wouldn’t cooperate. One problem after another (the drive is overly complex), weeds clogging the propellers, etc., and I could hardly get the boat to go at all. I’m feeling that the boat is a failure. The boat is back in the basement. I’m going to throw a sheet over her and try to put her out of my mind.”
Steve Navratil
While Clay may have been disappointed with his prop drive, his boatbuilding yielded pleasing results with a shapely hull that sits in perfect trim with him aboard.
If the boat were the point of the exercise and designing the drive was simply a means to an end, CLATAWA might well be considered a failure. But it took only a few days for Clay to recall the project’s beginnings: “I concocted this admittedly impractical design for the challenge.” And he confirmed the connection between “pleasurable mental activity” and invention: “I had a great deal of fun puzzling out the challenge of converting linear movement into rotary motion.” The poor performance of CLATAWA was not a dead end but a path to escape the disappointment by taking up the challenge again.
One of the factors that had hampered the drive system’s performance was the nature of reciprocating motion: while a circular motion can continue without interruption, a reciprocating motion comes to a brief stop every time it changes direction. This isn’t an issue with the Mirage and Bryan fin drives—the fins also have a reciprocal motion and it’s what makes them work. But the propellers have a rotary motion, and they come to a stop and create drag rather than propulsion when the pedals change direction. Clay considered a flywheel to store energy and keep the props spinning in between pedal strokes. Unfortunately, he estimated that a flywheel for his drive system “would need to weigh about 80 lbs to be effective, and the boat weighs a ton as it is with all that mechanical nonsense. I think what would help the most is maximizing the pedal stroke length so the propellers would get in a good, prolonged spin before slamming to a halt. I’ll ponder a little more over the winter.”
CLATAWA’s drive system is not yet finished, but it is being worked on even if Clay is only thinking about it. The creation of something new is an essential human pursuit. The pondering is the point.
Do you have a boat with an interesting story? Please email us. We’d like to hear about it and share it with other Small Boats Magazine readers.
Seeing an AF4 on the water for the first time is a bit of a surprise. At a distance, the raised deck profile fools you into thinking you are looking at a classic cruiser from a bygone era. As the boat gets closer, you realize she is smaller than you thought, and that she is built of plywood. When you get a closer look at her elegantly utilitarian form, you think that maybe it is a classic after all—a new kind of classic.
As a young aerospace engineer, Jim Michalak moved from his native Massachusetts to work at a missile plant in St. Louis, Missouri. Finding a flat land of broad lakes and rivers, his attention wandered to boats. After building a Gloucester Light Dory and the prototype Bolger Birdwatcher, there was no going back. Jim now has nearly 100 designs to his credit, and the AF4 is one of the most popular, for this simple cruiser is among the most accessible designs available.
What do I mean by “accessible”? Most obviously, external-chine “Instant Boat” construction is conceptually simple for the beginner, as well as quick and easy to build for anyone. Yet this simple construction provides a purpose-designed beach cruiser with about 4″ draft. This creates access for boating in places many of us haven’t even considered. With a low trailer, an AF4 has cruised where few motorboats can even launch.
Photo by Rob Rohde-Szudy
AF4, an outboard powered beach cruiser with 4″ of draft, can boldly go where most boats can’t.
Ease of launch touches on another element of accessibility: setup time. Jim stresses that a boat that can be launched quickly and easily gets used more—sometimes a lot more. Consider how much more boating time the average working person has available if a weekday evening can be a meaningful outing. After the necessary errands, twenty minutes’ setup time can derail the whole thing; the AF4’s setup time is under five minutes.
Of course the flat bottom is not very capable on wide, unprotected water, but this is intentional. The AF4 is optimized for the sort of boating that is most accessible and appealing to most people: cruising protected waters on nice days. The AF4 is more capable than she seems, however. Flatties have a reputation for pounding in a chop, but AF4 owners feel that at 15 mph she pounds about like a deep-V hull does at 35 mph. Getting every- one to sit on the same side also eases the ride by using the chine as a shallow V.
Another element of accessibility is cost. Cheap and easy repairs encourage us to forget about resale value and use the boat. Inspired by Bolger’s Instant Boat work, Michalak designs all of his boats to be built with common lumberyard materials. These materials are not meant for continuous immersion, so I would not leave such a boat at a mooring; indeed, Jim’s Birdwatcher is kept on a trailer under cover and looks great after 20 years.
Photo by Rob Rohde-Szudy
AF4 is a simple boat. Her designer, Jim Michalak, was unabashedly influenced by the late Phil Bolger, whose Instant Boats work inspired legions of amateur builders.
Michalak keeps his plans prices extremely low. At little more than the typical cost of study plans, he puts construction plans in the hands of dreamers so they can immediately become builders. He also lends confidence with information through his online boat-design articles (www.jimsboats.com) and his book, Boatbuilding for Beginners (and Beyond!) (www.duckworksbbs.com/ media/books/michalak/index.htm). Fuel efficiency makes for longer trips. As an engineer, Jim thinks a lot about things like power-to-weight ratio, efficiency, and range. The AF4’s flat bottom gets her on slow plane at 10–11 mph with about one horsepower per 80 lbs. This means a whole family doesn’t need more than an 18-hp engine, and a solo trip can get by with less. Jim makes this speed solo in his own AF4 with a 50-year-old 7.5- hp motor, yielding 15 mpg. A modern motor should do better. Even if you can afford to feed a go-fast boat, there is a limit to how much fuel you can carry. The AF4 lets you carry enough fuel to go a long way without resupply. Range—getting away—is an integral part of the designer’s concept of a camp-cruiser.
“Getting away” was, in fact, the whole reason for this design. Jim originally designed the AF4 as an efficient camp-cruiser for his own use. In this role, the AF4’s flat bottom is not just a simple method of construction. Jim is known for his spartan interiors— his cockpit contains only a folding lawn chair. This minimalist approach not only saves weight, but also provides lots of usable space for sleeping and stowing camping gear. This boat truly sleeps two in the cabin. The flat bottom also lets you creep into tiny, secluded waterways and beach gracefully. Indeed, you can pole her into places where canoes run aground.
Photo by Rob Rohde-Szudy
The “slot top” allows passengers to walk nearly the length of the boat without leaving the safe confines of the cabin.
A cabin allows you to bed down with less fuss than a cockpit tent, but at the price of stooping. This cabin is an exception. A full-length “slot top” lets you walk upright all the way to the bow. Personally, I don’t know how I ever got by without this feature. When beaching, you simply walk forward, lean on the foredeck, and swing your legs out to plant your feet on dry sand. You can even fish from this slot, and its mechanics are handy when a hooked fish crosses under the boat. A few builders have made boarding even easier (myself included), modifying the cabin with a dropboard entry to the self-draining forward anchor well. Recently Jim went even further with his own boat and added a fold-down door in the side of the well. It looks a little odd, but kids and old joints appreciate it greatly.
That anchor well is very useful for muddy shoes, clothes, fishing gear, or anything else you don’t want messing up the cabin. If you run out of space there, the motor is mounted in a slop well with space for fuel tanks and reboarding after a swim. Keeping the tanks in a draining well is a nice touch, since vapors drain overboard to eliminate the risk of explosion.
A sailor seeking a powerboat tends to be uncomfortable replacing the quiet bliss of sailing with a noisy, expensive gas-guzzler. The AF4 strikes a balance, as the motor is small, quiet, and economical. She is small enough that you still feel in touch with the wind and water, but you can cover much more distance in the time available. And Jim is right—with no rig to fuss with, most people go boating more often.
Photo by Rob Rohde-Szudy
A well forward of AF4’s outboard motor provides a secure, remote place for fuel; a high transom at the end of the cockpit keeps water where it belongs.
The AF4 is capable of 25 mph, but not comfortably. She is happiest at slow planing speeds of 10–15 mph, and there is no apparent “hump” in getting to them. This is her most efficient range as well, creating less wake than many motorboats do at “no wake” speeds. Wakeboarding wouldn’t be much fun behind an AF4, but it can pass a canoe at slow plane without causing the paddlers much trouble (crew coaches take note).
I was on the water one day in my AF4 Breve—the 15-1/2′ version of the original 18′ AF4—when a group of folks in a raft of large powerboats waved me over to ask about my boat. Apparently they had been impressed with her looks and performance in the day’s light chop—and were even more impressed that we had only a four-gallon fuel tank. The fellow I was talking to started listing those advantages, along with cost savings on fuel, storage, mechanical work, slip fees, and maintenance. Apparently, the fuss and fuel cost associated with boats like his lead many to use them essentially as lakeside cabins. Friday after work they motor out a short distance and raft up with friends, then get around in the dinghy all weekend.
Photo by Rob Rohde-Szudy
AF4 at speed. The specified power plant is small enough to keep noise and vibration to a minimum, allowing passengers to enjoy their surroundings.
The AF4 (or AF4 Breve), the man suggested, would be a welcome improvement over the typical dinghy in this application. Kids and groceries ride out of the weather, and the adults can stand in the slot and lean on the cabintop while chatting with fellow boaters. The slot top makes easy work of docking and coming alongside, as well, which is very welcome after staying up too late chatting. Perhaps best of all, meaningful day trips become possible without moving the big boat.
The AF4, in short, is a weekend cruiser that gives you everything you need and nothing you don’t. Whether you are a neophyte or salt-crusted, this efficiency equates to accessibility. Accessibility means you get on the water more often.
And what about the name? It sounds like a jet-fighter moniker, but it isn’t. Rather, AF4 is the fourth design named “Alison’s Fiddle.” Jim was fortunate enough to witness firsthand the development of a young Alison Krause in regional fiddle competitions. And what is Alison’s fiddle but a cleverly crafted wooden box that can do amazing things?
AF4’s construction requires five sheets of 1⁄4″ plywood and four sheets of 1⁄2″ ply, joined by nails and glue.
This Boat Profile was published in Small Boats 2010 — for more information, visit Duckworks.
Since he launched his design and boatbuilding career in 1981, Eric Hvalsoe has been seeking “the Holy Grail of traditional small craft design”: a boat that rows and sails equally well within the limitations of its length.
It took him 20 years and several variations on the theme, but he may well have found it in the Hvalsoe 16. This plank-on-frame lapstrake dinghy, first produced in 2001 by Eric’s company, Hvalsoe Boats in Shoreline, Washington, receives rave reviews both from owners who row it exclusively as well as from those who love to sail it—even as its designer and builder considers it “the great compromise” because of the choices he made to ensure the viability of both modes.
“For my uses, it’s the perfect boat,” says owner Michael King of Seattle, who purchased his Hvalsoe 16 in 2003 for the purpose of rowing on Puget Sound. Owner Denis Norton opts for the same adjective in calling his 2007 Hvalsoe 16 “just perfect” for sailing the glacial lakes of central Idaho. High praise indeed for a “compromise” boat.
Photo by Shelly Randall
Although its construction is substantially different from the classic Whitehall pulling boat, representing as it does a compromise between good rowing and sailing performance, the Hvalsoe 16 is squarely in the tradition of the historical type.
The genesis of the Hvalsoe 16 was the Hvalsoe 13, designed in the early 1980s, which Seattle reviewer Chas. Dowd described thus: “Narrow at entry and run for easy rowing but with healthy ’midship sections for sailing stability, the design worked even better than anyone had a right to expect.”
I’d say the same of the Hvalsoe 16—it surpassed my expectations.
Its shippy appearance, however, would lead anyone to expect the best. With its raked stem, graceful sheerline, and heart-shaped transom, “it always gets compliments,” according to Michael. Subtle details, like the convex curvature of the floating breasthook mirroring the curve of the transom, convey the designer and builder’s aesthetics and attention to detail.
And it’s truly a Pacific Northwest boat, having been informed by and designed for Northwest waters by a man who himself was born, raised, and educated in Washington state.
Inspired by the Whitehall type, among others, but designed for a client who wanted “something other than a Whitehall” for both rowing and sailing, the Hvalsoe series was developed with a generous beam, a strong mid-section, and a high, soft bilge. The hulls are slender but with good buoyancy. “I don’t want to say it’s lightly built, but it’s efficiently built,” says Eric of the Hvalsoe 16. “It’s a fast boat. Compared to a heavier boat, it accelerates well and feels pretty sporty.”
The Hvalsoe 16 handles nicely under sail with three adults, or two adults and two children, and under oar power with one to four adults (it has two rowing stations). Two strong people can carry it, but it helps to have four people for a longer carry.
Photo by Shelly Randall
A plank keel makes the boat not only a fine one for beach landings but also for hauling by trailer to the next destination.
The Hvalsoe 16 is actually 15′ 9″ long with a 4′ 6″ beam and a minimum draft of 1′ 6″. It weighs 185 lbs with the centerboard and trunk, and carries an 85-sq-ft spritsail. For comparison, the Hvalsoe 13 is truly 13′ in length, but the beam and draft are the same as the 16’s. It weighs 155 lbs and the spritsail is 65 sq ft. “Either of these boats is a capable near-shore boat within the confines of common sense,” says Eric.
The Hvalsoe boats are available in several sizes. “The development of the 16 from the 13 was an evolution by experience and eye, which included an intermediate stage, the 15,” Eric explains. He simply stretched the 13 to get the 15, using the same sections spaced farther apart, but then felt the hull could use more buoyancy in the stern, so he redrew the body plan by eye to get the 16. However, the midsection of all three boats is the same. He is now considering adding an 18′ or 19′ version.
Photo by Shelly Randall
A foredeck provides a bit of stowage underneath.
Eric builds these boats with 3⁄8″ Western red cedar planking over white oak bent frames. The stem, transom, centerboard trunk, and knees are mahogany; the keel and riveted rubrails are also hardwood. All fastenings are copper and bronze, with the exception of stainless steel hardware for the pop-out rudder.
The Hvalsoe 16 would be an ambitious project for an experienced amateur boatbuilder, but construction and sail plans are available. All Hvalsoe plans require lofting. Those who would prefer to commission Hvalsoe Boats to construct a boat—starting at $24,000 fully finished and rigged—would be hard-pressed to find better craftsmanship.
Eric recently had the opportunity to buy back Hvalsoe 16 hull No. 1 from a former client. It’s the first boat this career boatbuilder—who turned 50 this year—has ever actually owned, and it’s the one I tested on Seattle’s Lake Union.
We launched from a dock at The Center for Wooden Boats, but Eric tells me the Hvalsoe boats will stand upright on the beach with their wide plank keel. We took some time to talk about the hull, which is protected with tough UHMW (ultra high molecular weight) plastic grounding shoes on the keel and skeg and rubbing strips on the first three laps. Eric meticulously finishes the hull interior with SeaFin Teak Oil and then covers all the brightwork with a urethane coating. To further enhance longevity, he offers a custom all-weather boat cover stretched over laminated arch supports. He’ll also supply a galvanized marine trailer with carpeted supports and tie-offs of his own design.
“When he gets done with it, it’s a custom trailer for the boat,” says Michael, who tows his Hvalsoe 16 with his Volkswagen Vanagon, assuring me that the van “doesn’t suffer at all” with the light boat and minimalist trailer. “It’s really easy to launch and to put back on the trailer. It’s no effort, really.”
Photo by Shelly Randall
Simple footrests give the oarsman a better chance to row hard without slipping off the thwart.
I was intrigued by the adjustable and removable individual foot stretchers that Eric designed to catch a frame and fit between the floorboard planks. Having suffered many barely passable foot stretchers in fixed-seat rowing boats, I found they were just about the handiest thing I had ever seen. They provided comfortable braces for my feet when rowing and popped out and out of the way for sailing.
Unfortunately, the weather on our trial day was not comfortable, but at least the gray and gusty March day provided a good test of the Hvalsoe 16’s capabilities. Eric wisely reefed the loose-footed spritsail, and as we headed out onto the lake, I was immediately taken with the boat’s stability. The tiller was responsive in the big puffs, and when we heeled, there was ample freeboard. I found it most comfortable to sit low, on a cushion on the floorboards as opposed to the thwarts. Eric had dipped the rail earlier that day, but there was only a little water in the bilge, and the raised floorboards kept my seat dry. On the light-air edges of the lake, we roll-tacked, and Eric showed me how he lets go of the tiller during a tack to concentrate on the sheet. The rig is so well balanced that the rudder recenters itself on a close-hauled point of sail. Eric sometimes “cleats” the sheet between his knees, and I noticed why: the line doesn’t always run smoothly in the vertical cleat on the aft face of the centerboard trunk. But overall, the galloping sail was exhilarating and I could imagine how the boat with its full sail area would move satisfyingly in a light, steady breeze.
When it came time to row, the Hvalsoe 16 converted from a sailing to a rowing boat in minutes. We returned to the dock, used the brailing line to collapse the sail against the mast, and effortlessly unshipped the unstayed mast, which is made of lightweight Sitka spruce. One per- son standing on the dock can easily lift out the mast, sail, and spar bundle. These fit entirely within the boat if necessary, but I left them on the dock. Then out came the oars, also made of Sitka spruce. Rowed solo from the center thwart, the Hvalsoe 16 was light and responsive and had a tight turning radius. I followed Eric’s advice and dropped the centerboard a couple of inches. She was tracking beautifully, even in a crosswind, until I experimented briefly with raising the centerboard. I was rowing into a strong wind at the time and the bow was blown off immediately. After a minute of struggling to regain my course, back down went the centerboard, and rock-solid stability returned.
Photo by Shelly Randall
A simple, boomless sprit rig allows the sail and sprit to be easily brailed up and lashed around the mast while at the dock or while rowing through a calm.
If you’re in the Seattle area, you can get a feel for Eric’s designs by visiting The Center for Wooden Boats on south Lake Union. The livery has a donated Hvalsoe 13 and a student-built Hvalsoe 15 available for rental. If you have more time, you can take one of Eric’s traditional plank-on-frame lapstrake courses offered at the center. Recent classes have participated in lofting, framing and planking a Hvalsoe 16.
“I like being in the increasingly unique position of a traditional plank-on-frame builder,” Eric says. “I don’t seem to be strongly motivated to design or build simpler projects, or make lapstrake ‘easier’ by going to plywood for the home builder—not that there is anything wrong with that. Given time, I imagine I would develop some simpler models, but…time is what it is.”
In recent years he has had more customer interest in the Hvalsoe 16 than in the 13, but he continues to build both and delight his clients by presenting them with “the Holy Grail” many of them have also long sought.
“It’s just an amazing boat,” says Michael. “I’m always reminded when I get out on the water how good a boat it is.” He pauses, reflecting on his two young children, in whom he hopes to instill a love of both rowing and sailing. “This is a boat that will be inherited,” he says finally.
Blending good characteristics for both rowing and sailing, the Hvalsoe 16 has a fine entry at the bow, a comparatively flat bottom for upright beaching, and weighs only 185 lbs.
This Boat Profile was published in Small Boats 2009 — for more information, visit Hvalsoe Boats or contact Eric at [email protected] or (206) 533-9138.
Hird Island is surrounded mostly by marsh grass, but along its easterly face a meandering deep-water creek sidles close to shore where a few dwellings and docks have sprung up. Here it’s quiet except for an occasional outboard motor. Ashore, you travel in electric golf carts instead of autos. You’re in the heart of Georgia marshland—tidal, sheltered, and, most of all, silent where the call of birds is apt to be the loudest sound you’ll hear.
Because of the island’s proximity to the Atlantic, there’s a surprising current from the incoming and outgoing tide, so rowing isn’t always the best way of exploring, and the winding nature of the meandering creeks (there are miles and miles of them) oftentimes makes sailing a challenge. To fit in appropriately, Doug Hylan (who has a cottage on Hird Island) selected electric power and a simple skiff of plywood with a centerboard and small sail to be used when the wind suited. He keeps her in a shed when he’s away, which is most of the year, but in only a few minutes after arriving he is able to launch and set her up for use.
Photo by Anne Bray
The reedy shallows of Georgia call for a shoal-draft boat that can easily navigate the channels—and with its electric motor, this skiff can do so without disturbing the peace and quiet.
Energy, of course, comes from batteries, a pair of 12- volt, deep-cycle ones housed under the forward seat in dedicated compartments each side of the centerboard trunk. They connect to a Minn Kota Endura 30 trolling motor that’s been cut down to fit within a capped well, completely hidden from view. The motor can be hoisted clear of the water and a plug inserted in the opening, which reduces drag when sailing or rowing. So rigged, the motor still lives inside the well. A transom-mounted rudder steers the boat; the motor is fixed in the straight-ahead direction. The rudder operates by means of a continuous steering line easily reached from anywhere in the boat. You just grab the line (it runs through a series of eyes mounted on the inwale) and pull or push on it to move the rudder and steer the boat—and it works under sail and oars as well as under power. Initially, it’s not as intuitive as a wheel or tiller, but you soon get used to it, and steering this way becomes as natural as any other method. One of its advantages is that there’s enough friction in the system so the rudder stays where you put it and the boat holds its heading without your having to tend continuously to steering.
Motor speed and direction (i.e. forward and reverse), while normally controlled by twisting a stock trolling motor’s steering handle, here are operated by rotating a knob mounted on the side of the boat within easy reach of where you sit. A setup like this requires some rewiring and extra carpentry, but is well worth it in terms of convenience.
Watertight compartments in the bow and stern keep the heavy batteries from sinking the boat if for any reason she should accidentally fill with water. The motorwell is a box within the aft compartment accessed by a deck hatch. (You can access the compartment itself through a door in the bulkhead.) Between the permanent forward and aft seats, there’s a removable thwart for rowing. Being flat-bottomed, this is an easy boat to walk around in, although you’ll find yourself sitting side-by-side with your companion most of the time, leaning comfortably against the backrest and enjoying the view—and the silence of electric power.
Photo by Anne Bray
When there’s room to tack and depth to lower the centerboard, the skiff’s dead-simple but very effective lugsail lets the breeze do the work.
In using the boat, Doug usually goes electric: “While I first envisioned this skiff as doing a fair amount of sailing, in fact our usage has evolved in two other directions, both based on electric power. The first is wine-and-cheese sunset cruises with my wife, Jean. Here the quietness of the motor and the private proximity of the passenger pro- mote lovely conversations (perhaps helped along by the wine). Our second favorite use of this boat has been for wonderful moonlight cruises. Sailing has receded partly from my own laziness, but also because the range under batteries has turned out to be far more than I expected.” The range has been more than four hours at maximum speed.
Although Doug used stitch-and-glue construction for the boat he built for himself, he decided that conventional chines would be easier, so he has drawn the plans that way, with station molds 2′ apart erected on a ladder-type frame to define the hull shape. The forward half of the hull is absolutely flat on the bottom, but as it approaches the stern, the bottom takes on a shallow V-shape to reduce its drag, especially while heeled under sail.
Photos by Maynard Bray
Top—The skiff’s electric motor, which is nicely hidden away in an aft compartment, and can be hoisted out and replaced by a fitted cap to reduce drag when rowing or sailing. Above left—Batteries reside underneath the rowing thwart. Above right—The rudder line runs in a continuous loop just below the gunwale, always in easy reach.
Doug Hylan’s drawings consist of six sheets: a sail and spar plan; lines and offsets; construction; building jig and stem patterns; plywood panel layouts; and molds, transom, and rudder patterns. The set includes basic instructions and a CD of photographs. The skiff’s sides are of 1⁄4″ plywood, and the bottom is of 3⁄8″. In building, you begin by gluing two sheets of each thickness together for length, then marking and cutting out the pieces. Seven molds are needed, and their shapes come from full-sized patterns. They’re set up on the ladder frame as depicted and described in the notes, along with the inner stem and transom. Sides are bent around, the chines are added, then the bottom—and, before you know it, you have a hull. From there, with the boat turned right-side-up, it’s a matter of adding the remaining items like centerboard trunk, bulkheads, decks, etc. In all, it’s a pretty straightforward building job suitable for first-timers.
After watching Doug build the first of this design and admiring its characteristics (and how quickly it went together), I was eager to try it out. This happened at Doug’s place in Georgia. We sailed her and ran her under power along those narrow, marsh-grass-bordered creeks and found her perfectly suited to calm water and moderate winds. Speed is fine propelled either way, the sail being large enough to make her move well and respond, and there being enough thrust (30 lbs at full throttle) to be more than sufficient to move along at a good clip even against an adverse current.
But, best of all, was the silence!
Doug Hylan’s plans for the Hird Island skiff are characteristically easy to follow and complete. The hull is marked by its simple construction and good looks.
This Boat Profile was published in Small Boats 2009 — for more information, visit Hylan & Brown Boatbuilders.
I’m a boat nut. I’ve built and rowed, sanded and sailed, painted and paddled most of my life. One of my favorite activities is gliding around a harbor in a dinghy, rowing or sailing, working up an appetite for steamed shellfish. Another favorite is my job teaching boatbuilding at The Carpenter’s Boatshop in Pemaquid, Maine. This offers endless hours of boat talk, swapping stories, and trying to convince the listener that your way of doing it is the best solution. Well, the opportunity to talk with Arch Davis and take a look at his latest design, GRACE’S TENDER, allowed me to indulge both interests. Davis honed his design and building skills in New Zealand and has since brought both to the waters of midcoast Maine. GRACE’S TENDER was designed as a project to be completed by his daughter, Grace, now 12, with the close support of her dad and his workshop.
The boat has been drawn wide to provide initial stability. There is a nice transition from a shallow V-bottom shape in the middle of the boat to a deeper V forward that requires about as much twist as you can demand from plywood panels. This yields lots of interior space on a very short waterline. Don’t ask to put too much adult weight onboard without affecting performance. At 55 lbs, the hull is lightweight, easy to carry, and can be cartopped with the appropriate rack. The rig is a standing lugsail that puts up a generous area on short spars for portability and easy storage.
Construction is glued-and-screwed marine plywood, a system used for many modern small boats. This renders a light and strong hull that won’t leak when launched after extended periods ashore. The strongback on which the temporary building frames are attached is quite rigid, yet the frames seem to flex until the bottom and planking are attached. In my opinion, the whole setup may benefit from an additional temporary brace or two. The stem is an interesting lamination of plywood and softwood. The plywood inside gives cross-grain stability, while the softwood sides provide an easy-to-carve landing for the planking.
Photo by Arch Davis
GRACE’S TENDER is a kindly little plywood boat that Arch Davis designed to build with his daughter, Grace. This handsome and capable craft is an exceptionally good first boatbuilding project.
The joint between the bottom and the topside planking changes from a lap at the chine to a butt in the area of the stem. This sort of mimics the gains in traditional lap-strake construction. Achieving a smooth transition here may be a challenge to a first-time builder, but the description and details are well laid out in the plans.
I’m not a great fan of daggerboards, having seen the results of altercations between rocks and boards on larger boats; however, this boat is the right place for one. While daggerboards require some attention in shallow water, contact with the mudflats in a boat this light should just bring you to a halt and remind you to pull up a bit sooner. Daggerboards are also slightly easier to build and install than centerboards. Arch has chosen a kick-up rudder. Although more complex to construct, kick-ups protect this vital piece of equipment from damage when sailing in thin water, and allows continuous directional control.
The building package for GRACE’S TENDER consists of an 80-page manual with over 100 photos, a section on material sources, discussion of tools, a complete glossary, and sage advice on building and using small boats. Also included are full-sized Mylar patterns for every piece, something any builder will appreciate. No lofting, no paper patterns to tear or stretch, and no small-scale drawings that require careful scaling up. The gem of the package is the optional DVD documenting each step of construction, starring Grace Davis, my nominee for an Oscar.
Photos by Arch Davis
Amazing Grace. While her dad took on more dangerous jobs like ripping long pieces on the tablesaw, Grace did the majority of the boat’s construction herself.
A few photos lack detail, but in combination with the text and the DVD, almost every aspect of construction is covered. The exception is painting. While building and woodworking techniques are somewhat consistent, there are many different ways to finish off a boat. Here, your personal style calls the tune. Anyone wishing for a yacht finish should consult one of the many good books and articles on painting and varnishing. Someone like me might be so anxious to get this duck in the water that a couple of coats of leftover marine paint would do the job, thank-you-ver y-much, and pass the oars please.
With plans in hand you can search out your own lumber and fastenings, or you can opt for the kit that comes complete with all plywood, lumber, epoxy, fastenings, and sailing rig. While these options are available from other designers, the vast amount of detail provided makes GRACE’S TENDER stand out. Back at The Carpenter’s Boatshop, I asked one of our first-year apprentices to look through the package to gauge whether she felt it contained all that was necessary to build the boat. She agreed that it is a clear and thorough set of plans and instructions.
Photo by Arch Davis
While GRACE’S TENDER is a fine boat for a youngster to sail in light winds, she also makes an able yacht tender.
Finally, I feel that a very important aid in any boat-building project is having access to the designer. While not always possible, it’s really nice when you can connect. When you call Arch Davis Design, you get Arch Davis on the phone. His personal interest in each boat is evident and he will talk you through the sticky places.
As a first boatbuilding effort or as a several weekend adventure with the kids, GRACE’S TENDER is close to the ideal. Now, clean out one side of your garage, go forth and build, and when you’re done, keep an eye out for those perfect harbors and steamed shellfish.
GRACE’S TENDER’s inboard profile plan clearly shows the major fitting-out components: seats, kick-up rudder, daggerboard, mast, and the all-important foam flotation. The foam provides an extra margin of safety for kids learning to sail and row.
This Boat Profile was published in Small Boats 2009 — for more information, visit Arch Davis Designs.
For some people, the meaning of life seems forever to be bound together with a quest for the perfect yacht tender. There is no such perfection, of course, since the just-right fit for one person will be completely wrong for the next, and boatbuilders and boat owners seem never to lack opinions. These days, however, it seems a great many people find perfect contentment with a less-than-comfortable, less-than-attractive inflatable with an outboard, and they are to be found trailing astern of even the most elegant classic yachts. And yet others have never faltered in their quest, and they know without hesitation the characteristics of a fine tender when they see one.
Such is the case for Sunshine, a Walter Simmons design based on a 1915 boat a client brought to him for restoration years ago. Simmons delivered the bad news that the boat was too far gone to restore—better, he advised, to take what was good about her and build a new boat. He proceeded to take the lines of the original hull, which had been built in Stonington, Maine. During some available winter hours, he faired up the lines and worked up construction details.
Photo by Tom Jackson
With excellent load-carrying capacity and rowing characteristics, low weight, and great looks, the Sunshine design makes a wonderful yacht tender.
What was good about the original has been universally hailed by all who have used the boat before or since. She’s burdensome, but not at all ungainly, 10’6″ boat with a 4′ beam, about 6″ more or less of draft, and very seakindly ways. “She just does everything you want her to do,” Simmons says. “She’ll take any load, any way you want, and would ride the back of a stern wave all day long.” Simmons himself has built about 40 of the boats, and he has sold plans to builders far and wide, some as far away as New Zealand. Many more boats have been built by those who bought the plans.
For anyone driving the winding road down to Brooklin, Maine, in recent years, a small roadside sign saying “North Brooklin Boats,” and often a boat itself, would always catch your eye. Eric Jacobssen, the proprietor, decided some time ago that he was going to pursue his ambition of starting a small-boat business. The first design he looked at (with some friendly advice from his friend Mike O’Brien, former senior editor with WoodenBoat) was Sunshine.
“It’s a truly great boat,” Jacobssen says. “I’ve never ever for one moment been unhappy with the boat I chose. It looks nice, and it really rows superbly. Good yachtsmen have confirmed that for me.” He builds boats the way he prefers to: pick a good design, build it well, and the clients will follow. He has built 15 of the boats by now, and every piece is patterned and jigged up. But still, he estimates that it takes him 300 hours of work to build one, given the quality of work and finishes he strives for. “There are some shortcuts I could take, but I just feel it’s not what the market wants in this boat. It just takes more time, but it’s just kind of what I feel like doing.”
Art Rocque was one of the people who noticed Jacobssen’s shop, after driving home “the long way” to Stonington one night after dinner. He had recently had his wooden-hulled Egg Harbor 27 restored, and when he saw a Sunshine alongside the road in front of Jacobssen’s house, he saw what he wanted to have hanging from his davits. He called to inquire about the boat, which had already been sold. But, yes, Jacobssen could surely make another.
I walked with Rocque down the mossy trail to the shore from the home his grandfather had built on Deer Isle, Maine. The boat was as lovely as could be, trailing from an outhaul. Hauled ashore to a little scrap of sand between the rocks, she nosed in easily, allowing a dry-feet entry.
Photo by Tom Jackson
Drawing only inches, the tender can easily be brought ashore by an outhaul—and the same characteristic would make her a great gunkholing boat.
I took a turn at the oars, and I can fully attest that she’s a fine rowing boat. She balances very well with two people aboard, and she gave the impression of being ready for much more. The freeboard seems just right to me for a tender—with a good load of all the cruising provisions and a couple of guests, she would still row very comfortably. I wasn’t able to try a sailing version of the boat, but I’d be willing to wager that she’d be a fine gunkholer, too, just the ticket for getting into those tight, private spaces and tempting beaches where the big boats can’t go. She has the stable and solid feel of a no-nonsense boat going about her task with competence and honesty.
Rocque had Jacobssen fit lifting rings to the boat—two on the transom and one at the inside of the forefoot near the stem—so she can easily be hauled out of the water with the block-and-tackle rigged to davits on his big boat. At about 120 lbs, the boat comes aboard easily. He later also had Edgecomb Boat Works install a stainless-steel bracket on the Egg Harbor’s rail aft, into which a fitting on Sunshine’s gunwale slips, easily allowing the boat to be held very securely in position.
Photo by Carol Rocque
Hanging in davits off the stern of a finely restored Egg Harbor 27, the tender looks right at home.
“She hangs on davits very easily,” Rocque says. “She actually tows, and if you’ve ever towed a tender, you know what a pain in the rear end that can be. If you give her enough tether, she will tow perfectly straight and stay dry. People walk by and say, ‘Geez, that’s a wonderful little tender,’ which is always better than having an inflatable hanging off the stern. What would it look like having an inflatable right here? They have no shape, they’ve got no style. You can’t row them, so you’ve got to have an engine on it. They’re nasty as hell if you’ve got anything resembling a chop. They don’t carry any type of load. And as I say, when was the last time you had somebody walk past a plastic inflatable and say, ‘Boy, that’s a nice- looking dinghy’?” Strike three.
Rocque purposely avoided having a sailing rig, too. The man likes to row. “She doesn’t need a sailing rig,” he says. She balances so well on the oars—a fine pair made by Shaw & Tenney in Orono, Maine—that he sees no need for any further propulsion. Taking to heart family concerns that maybe he was rowing too much, he bought a 5-hp outboard for one of his earlier boats. “I have actually contemplated using it for a mooring block. It’s noisy, it’s smelly, it’s not fun to run, and it cavitates like hell unless the balance is exactly right. In fact, Eric asked if I wanted to use an outboard on this boat; he would have been willing to make some modifications. I told him, ‘Not likely—not even at gunpoint.’” Now, that’s Eric Jacobssen’s kind of customer, and no doubt Walter Simmons would nod his approval, as well.
Walter Simmons of Duck Trap Woodworking in Lincolnville Beach, Maine, based his Sunshine design on a 1915 boat. So good were her qualities that Simmons ended up building 40 of the boats for clients.
This Boat Profile was published in Small Boats 2009 — for more information and to purchase plans, visit Duck Trap Woodworking.
MARCUS NOER is a particularly fine example of a traditional double-ender from Denmark, with a shapeliness to her hull that will take your breath away. The design is one descendant—one of many—of a Nordic boatbuilding tradition that should properly stand beside the great cathedrals of the world and the sculptures of antiquity as among the loveliest creations ever made by man.
This design is not for beginners. It is, however, absolutely a design that any beginner should aspire to, in my view. A boatbuilder young in experience should choose a much simpler boat first, or maybe a succession of two or three, perhaps working with other builders or taking one of a number of specialized classes before attempting such a boat. But as he does so, he should know that each saw cut made straight and true and each plank line sweeping an honest curve will contribute to the understanding of something greater. Each boat built should contribute to the understanding for the next boat.
This 17′ 81⁄2″ lapstrake-planked double-ender can stand comparison to the finest of yacht design, and yet this hull comes down to us from an everyday craftsman for a common fisherman. The original “jolle” was built in Frederikssund in 1900 for one Marcus Noer of Ejby, in Isefjord, Denmark. His catch, sole, and flounder, was kept alive in a wet well, essentially a box built into the hull, which had holes bored in the planking to allow water to fill the box. This replica, built in 1980, is faithful to the original design and all-oak construction—with the exception of refraining from boring holes in the planking.
Photo by Tom Jackson
The lovely curves of a traditional Danish Frederikssund jolle are accentuated by the lapstrake planking lines.
MARCUS NOER is one of the boats in the collections of the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde. This museum, which is in a mid-sized town about an hour’s train ride west of Copenhagen, is noted for its archaeology and its exacting replica constructions, but it also has amassed an impressive collection of small craft, several of which would be excellent examples of boats for home builders. These boats inherit and share characteristics that came down remarkably unchanged from Viking times. The museum boatyard’s purpose is to preserve traditional skills in addition to the boats themselves.
Anyone who doesn’t want to take the time—which would be considerable—to build one of these boats can have one custom-built, and not just MARCUS NOER. Want an exact replica of the faering, or four-oared boat, that was recovered with the famous Gokstad Viking ship in the 1880s? The museum boatshop can build one. Among the small-craft collections, any number of boats would be likely candidates, but for me, MARCUS NOER has that “just right” feel. I see that I’m not alone in this, because when I was at the museum in May 2008, two of these Frederikssund boats were on the pier, newly constructed for private clients and ready for shipping. Inside, a similar type called a Lyneasjolle was days away from launching, and an ancient-looking faering was in for restoration.
Søren Nielsen, the boatshop director, says that he builds the boats right-side-up over molds. “Traditionally, that was, as you know, not the way to do it,” he says. “Our plan is, however, after we have built a few more of these boats, to throw the molds away and build them ‘as in the old days’—without molds but with a few measurements in the right places. You just have to have some experience before you do that, because you have to know exactly where the important measure has to be taken to build a good boat.” The boat’s rounded stern presents challenges even for experienced builders.
The interpretation of the Frederikssund jolle plans would be a challenge in its own right. For openers, the particulars are typically reported in metric measurements, but the plans sheets themselves, drawn by historian Christian Nielsen in the 20th century, are in feet and inches. However, if you do the calculations, you’ll see that the translation doesn’t quite work out. Take the overall length as an example: 5.4 meters equals about 17′ 81⁄2″. But on the plans sheets—which were completed before Denmark adopted the metric system—the length is clearly shown as 17′ 3″. Why the difference? The answer is that the Danish inch was historically a little longer than the English inch—26.17mm instead of 25.4mm. (There’s one more reason the metric system took hold!) Just interpreting the plans sheet will involve some understanding of the history of changing measurement systems and will call for judgment on the part of the builder.
Photo by Tom Jackson
The boatshop at the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark, builds boats for clients, and two Frederikssund jolles just like MARCUS NOER, built almost entirely of oak and newly oiled, were among the boats constructed in 2008.
The plans are available on a CD supplement to a book published by the Danish Maritime Museum; getting them onto a plans sheet that would be useful might involve a trip to a printing or engineering office that has a large printer. (Here at WoodenBoat, we had trouble opening the CD in a Macintosh computer.) In the end, redrawing the plans to a chosen scale may be the best way to go and will significantly ease the task of lofting the plans out full-scale, which will be essential in any event. Builders will also notice that these plans do not have an accompanying table of offsets, that list of all-important measurements—or at least if they ever did, they haven’t survived. From redrawn plans, the builder might be well advised to develop his own table of offsets before lofting.
Sourcing materials could also be difficult. White oak planking, which is the traditional choice, would be excellent because it steam-bends so beautifully. Where white oak is scarce, finding adequate stock would be difficult or expensive. But larch and pine also have been used to good effect. For the backbone timbers, any good structural wood—superior Douglas-fir, say, or purpleheart, or angelique—would do nicely.
The builder willing to accept up-front complexity will be rewarded later by the simplicity of the boat’s setup. With a couple of exceptions, fitting out would be simple. There are no complicated systems. The jibsheet fairleads are the simplest imaginable, hewn of wood. Other than copper rivets, the boat uses very little metal, and the original fittings were meant to be simple and inexpensive. The museum boatbuilders use galvanized steel fittings for the two complex metal pieces (the exceptions mentioned above): the stemhead fitting and the rudder gear. Galvanized steel won’t last nearly as long as bronze, but it’s in keeping with the ways of the original boats. Of course, with the price of copper and bronze heading for the stratosphere these days, maybe it’s time to leave off this demand for bronze in every instance and think seriously about a return to galvanized ferrous metals for certain kinds of boats. Not every boat has to be a yacht.
The finish on this boat is equally simple: a 50:50 blend of pine tar and raw linseed oil. The mix stays tacky for a while, hardening in a few weeks, especially in the sun. It turns the wood black as can be, but on this boat that just seems natural and right. The entire interior, the spars, and the topsides are all finished this way. The only paint on the boat is bottom antifouling.
This boat is heavy, at about 1,984 lbs, with a very deep keel—what the Danes call a “high” keel. Getting the boat on and off a trailer would be difficult, but doable: the museum tows the boat to various festivals, near and far. But launching off a trailer isn’t something you’d want to do every day. Paying a yard to haul the boat with a Travelift would make easy work of it, but the fact is that this boat would be happiest in a marina or at a mooring.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. That heavy old fish boat, oh, my God, she’s going to sail like a slug. You’ll have to get an oar out to work her around every time you tack, and while all your friends with super-lightweight plywood-epoxy craft are out there on the beach finishing off their lunch, you’ll still be back in harbor trying to tack your way clear.
Think again. She’s an amazingly sprightly sailer and a joy to handle. She comes about like a dinghy, with a light touch on the tiller. The jibs have to be backed briefly, but the boat comes about cleanly and with little fuss. She picks up speed right away on the new tack. Her topsail sets and strikes easily, with no specialized gear. The snotter—that sling that holds the heel of the sprit—is held by friction alone, so adjustment is dead easy: push the sprit heel up to gain some slack, then slide the snotter wherever you want it to increase or decrease sail tension.
Photos by Tom Jackson
Left—Tholepin rowing, combined with a simple shroud tie-down and a wooden jibsheet fairlead, show the simplicity of MARCUS NOER’s fittings. Right—Hemp rope has such good friction that no mast fittings are needed to set the snotter line, a sling holding the heel of the sprit.
I sailed MARCUS NOER on a cloudy day with moderate breezes off Roskilde with Dylan Coils, a New Zealander who has worked at the Viking Ship Museum as a sailing teacher for years, and with Max Vinner, a retired curator. Max never tired of sailing MARCUS NOER, which for his many years at the museum remained his boat of choice for singlehanded daysailing after work.
With her broad hull, MARCUS NOER is stable and powerful. The very broad side decks give her the equivalent of a great deal of freeboard, and yet her sheerline is low, originally to give the fisherman easier work in hauling his catch. Those side decks give the crew a very comfortable seat when the breeze requires a bit of weight on the weather rail. With both jibs and her topsail flying, all set with the simplest of gear, she takes the wind like a stallion. We would not expect her to point to weather like a modern racing yacht, and yet her windward abilities would come as a serious surprise to racing sailors.
Ashore, her rig is easily handled. The time-honored way to furl the sprit mainsail is to remove the sprit heel from the snotter, sway it aft until it is parallel with the mast, and then, starting with the leech, roll the sail up in the sprit like a carpet until it comes right up to the mast. A simple length of line binds it all together neatly. The topsail rolls on its spar, too, and that bundle fits inside the cockpit. All very simple, with a minimum of fittings. There are lessons in these workings for boatbuilders of any kind.
At the time I sailed MARCUS NOER, I was in that odd position of being simultaneously almost finished with one boat and just on the cusp of looking around for what might be next—after a respectable interval of time for house projects, of course. I suspect that for my next boat I’ll look no further than MARCUS NOER.
Among us there are some—and perhaps, quietly, many—for whom the number of boats built, measured in total or over a given period of time, is of no consequence. We may be professional in other things, but not in this. At the end of the day (to take a weary cliché back to its original meaning), we hang measurable outcomes and paradigm shifts on hooks alongside our hats and coats. In our own workshops, we work a piece until it pleases the eye and feels good in the hand, and for this one part of our lives that is our only unit of time. To those who prefer to work in this way, the only boat design that makes any sense is one that makes our hearts yearn. This Frederikssund jolle is such a boat.
The Frederikssund jolle was documented at a time when Danish inches were still in use; therefore, interpreting the lines and construction plans will pose some challenges. For a motivated person with some experience, the result will be worth the effort.
This Boat Profile was published in Small Boats 2009 and appears here as archival material. If you have more information about this boat, plan or design – please let us know in the comment section.
I’ve been exploring my local areas by bicycle for as long as I can remember. In the mid ‘70s I was living in Edmonds, Washington, and took a ride about 8 miles north to the outskirts of Mukilteo, a town on the shore of Puget Sound with a little-used airfield on its eastern inland side. An industrial park had been established in the two-story white clapboard buildings that had been left behind by the Army Air Corps. JanSport occupied one of the larger buildings with its production facility and customer service was housed in a smaller one with unpainted cedar siding, which had turned almost black with age on its south-facing side. A large green dumpster was set right alongside the larger building; it was about 18′ long and 7′ high, so I had to climb the welded-on ladder rungs to see what was inside.
What I found wasn’t at all garbage. All of the sewing scraps from the shop in the upper floor had been tossed through an open window. There were remnants of ripstop, coated nylon, Cordura, leather, webbing, zippers, cord—everything that went into the backpacks and dome tents that JanSport was making then. There were also rolls of new fabric still on cardboard tubes, thrown out because there wasn’t enough left to supply the pieces needed.
I’d been raised by parents who lived by a credo that my sisters and I adopted: Don’t buy what you can make, make do with what you can find. I’d been sewing since I was 10 and in the dumpster I found everything I’d need to outfit myself for backpacking in grand style. I couldn’t carry anything home by bicycle, so I decided to return with my mother’s car to make a haul.
I borrowed her navy-blue Volkswagen squareback and came back that evening and loaded it up with everything I thought I could use to make my own outdoor gear. That was the first of many trips. I kept a low profile and watched the buildings before approaching the dumpster. I noticed that the people working in customer service would fill a garbage can with returns and damaged products before leaving for the day at 5. About 30 minutes later, a truck would come and haul the contents of the garbage can away. At a quarter past 5,I’d take what I could carry, leaving the can half full to avoid suspicion, and walk it back to the car.
Almost everything from customer service had been slashed with a razor or utility knife, I assume to assure employees wouldn’t collect it or sell it, but the damage wasn’t a deterrent for me. The tents had been slashed while in their stuff sacks so the damage to the tents themselves was quite irregular.I repaired two 3-person dome tents, a wedge tent for two, and a few backpacks of different sizes. They all had an Edward Scissorhands look after I sewed them up but were as functional as they were when new.
I made many visits to the dumpster over the course of a few months, but the harvest came to an end when it was replaced by one with a screened lid and a padlock. I wasn’t too sad about it—I had collected enough material to make a lot of gear—nor was I too surprised. My father had told a few of his students, kids about my age, about the dumpster and I suspect they had been less discreet than I had been.
I had a dozen or so roll ends of fabric. One of them had several yards of light-blue coated nylon. I recognized it as the material JanSport used to make the tent rainflies I’d salvaged and I used it for stuff sacks, rain chaps, and a tarp. I didn’t use the tarp for backpacking because my tent and fly were my shelter from the rain. But I did take the rainfly on my first small-boat cruise. I brought it mainly as a ground cloth for shore camping and hadn’t anticipated the many other ways it would make itself useful when I had to sleep at anchor or wanted to make use of a light breeze. The tarp became part of my regular kit and accompanied me for over 4,000 miles of cruising and even provided a couple of hundred miles of surprisingly effective service as a sail.
The simplest use of the tarp was as a boom tent. Rather than use the mast to support the boom, I made crutches from driftwood. The mast tended to thump when the boat rocked, a noise that kept me from falling asleep. I took this photo during a 700-mile cruise of the Inside Passage.
On that first Inside Passage cruise, I rowed and sailed a 14’ Chamberlain dory skiff. For light following wind I used the blue tarp as a spritsail and set it opposite the boat’s regular spritsail, using the topmast as a sprit. While spritsails usually have a high peak, Norwegian snekker have spritsails that are very nearly rectangular. The tarp nicely balanced the sprit mainsail, set here, but mostly out of frame to the left. With the nearly symmetrical rig, the skiff had a neutral helm.
Set on a line spanning a creek that empties into the Ohio River, the blue tarp was my shelter for a rainy night spent in my sneakbox.
One of the other shelters I made with the tarp used the camera tripod for support.
I picked a raft as a place to sleep on an especially cold night just off the Ohio River. The tarp kept some of the frost off me but nothing more. I didn’t sleep at all. I would have been better off sleeping in the boat where I would have found a bit more protection from the cold.
On a downwind run off Florida’s Gulf Coast, I ran with the main set to port and the blue tarp to starboard, helped out with a board I found on the beach to serve as a whisker pole.
When the sneakbox took the wind over the starboard quarter, I sailed on a broad reach and moved the whisker pole forward. With the tarp, jib, and main all drawing well, the sneakbox got up on plane.
I hadn’t finished the squaresail for the Gokstad faering I built for my second Inside Passage cruise and it took a few evenings of sewing to get it ready. In the meantime, the tarp served in its stead, using the tiller extension as a yard and the squaresail’s yard as a mast.
Alaska’s Seymour Canal is a 34-mile-long inlet that separates Glass Peninsula from Admiralty Island. When a very light breeze from the south ruffled the water, I was ready to take a break and sail. The squaresail wasn’t providing much speed, so I rigged the tarp to quicken the pace. The only way to hoist it was to tie its gathered end on the mast’s backstay; an oar tied to the tarp’s bottom edge spread it out.
With the tarp to starboard and the tiller extension holding the squaresail to port, the faering caught as much wind as it could and moved a bit more smartly.
I joined a group of kayakers for a three-day outing/paddling tour of Ozette Lake on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. When the morning of the second day offered a wind that would take us directly to our next camp, I was reluctant to pass up the free ride and talked the group into rafting-up to sail. There were six of us when we began sailing, but the kayaker who had been on the left side got peeled off when we got up to speed and couldn’t catch up. I dropped back to take some photos and with a short sprint I was able to rejoin the group.
It has been over 40 years since my JanSport dumpster dives and the tarp, the rain chaps, the stuff bags, and the tents are all gone. The coatings peeled off and the fabric took on an unpleasant odor. All I have left is a backpack with the stitched-up scar running from top to bottom. I still don’t buy what I can make—there’s great satisfaction in that. And I still make do with what I can find, nurturing an appreciation for a generous world’s gifts of serendipity.
At the age of 60, a widower and an empty nester, I wanted to build a boat not because I needed one but because I needed a new focal point for my life. Having grown up with runabouts in my family, I went to the Cleveland Boat Show looking for one but, after roaming aisle after aisle of fiberglass and aluminum boats, I found nothing appealed to me until I found some handsome wooden boats built by members of the Cleveland Amateur Boatbuilding and Boating Society. Inspired, I joined the group and decided I’d build a runabout.
I browsed the web for runabout designs and settled on the Alamitos, a 15′ V-bottomed dory designed by Jeff Spira of Spira International. The plans come as six 18″ × 24″ prints at 3/4″ scale along with detailed step-by-step layouts and easy-to-read measurements. Included with the prints is a 50-page booklet explaining procedures for building the strongback, cutting strips of plywood to accommodate the twist of the bottom at the stem, and handling fiberglass and resin, along with recommendations for interior outfitting such as building a console and seats.
Tom Baugher
The plans call for frames constructed of common dimensional lumber and fir plywood for the bottom, sides, and transom.
I started building the frames from big-box-store 2×4s, as the plans suggested, but I started to feel nervous about the wood. I called Jeff about the construction-grade 2×4s, and he said there are many options for sealing wood and no matter what type of wood is used, if the boat is left outside and uncovered for months, it will start to rot. The longevity of a wooden boat is directly related to its care.
I thought that adding 4″ to the height of the sides would create a more comfortable sheer height for me, and Jeff saw no problem with the increased freeboard. He advised me on making the necessary changes: just raise the frame sides transom and stem by 4″.
I used a 4×8 sheet of 3/4″ marine plywood set on two sawhorses as a work table; it would later become the transom, keelson, and stem. With wide sheets of kraft paper on top, duct-taped in place, I marked the rib measurements from the scaled drawings. With my power miter box set next to this table, I cut 2×4 frame parts to size and laid them down on the paper to position them for fastening with epoxy and 3-1/2″ stainless-steel deck screws. After I had assembled all nine frames, the 3/4″ plywood table top then became the transom and keelson parts. Marine plywood is optional in the Spira instructions; the primary recommendation is for the more common and less expensive AC plywood.
The frames, stem, and transom are secured on a strongback made of two 16′ 2×6s. The chines and inwales follow steamed in a plastic bag, 10′ sections at a time, to make the bends required for them to fit in notches cut in the frames. After the steamed pieces dried, they were epoxied and screwed in place.
Ed Neal
As with many Spira boats, the interior arrangement is left up to the builder. The author opted for the foredeck, center console, and stern storage compartments seen here.
Each of the 5/8″ plywood bottom panels is installed in two pieces, butted together and backed by plywood butt plates. There is a lot of twist in the forward ends; Jeff recommends cutting the 5/8″ plywood in 1 1/2″ strips spanning the keel to chine, a method I used to cover the last 3′ to the bow. I then filled the gaps and faired the surface with epoxy thickened with sawdust and ’glass fibers.
The plywood’s seams at the chines, keel line, and butt joints were then covered with staggered, overlapping strips of 4″ fiberglass tape. The entire hull was sheathed later in 6-oz fiberglass cloth set in epoxy, with three layers of cloth overlapping the bow to add stiffness.
After painting the hull’s exterior, it was time to find a crew to turn the boat over. Once flipped, the boat sat on a boat trailer to await completion of the interior. The layout is a matter of personal preference, and while several options are provided in the Spira booklet, the ultimate configuration is up to the builder. I followed some suggestions provided in the booklet for building the center console, and added a few elements of my own: a storage compartment on each side of transom and in between them, a splash well for the outboard.
Ed Neal
With a 1986 70-hp outboard providing power, the Alamitos can hit 40 mph.
I acquired two older outboards, a 1986 70-hp Johnson (the plans call for 75 hp, max) and a 1988 9.9-hp long-shaft kicker. When I first tested the 70-hp outboard, it was not able to get the boat on plane nor do more than 12 mph at full throttle. I took the boat and motor to a marina shop, and the 21″-pitch prop, meant for a lighter, faster boat, was replaced by a 15″-pitch and the motor was tuned. Wow, what a difference! The boat jumped out of the water, quickly got on plane, and hit 40 mph. But then it started porpoising badly at high speed.
The shop folks said to place a wedge on the transom to pitch the motor back 5 degrees, add a dolphin fin to the lower unit, and mount transom trim tabs. Back on the water with these additions, the Alamitos remained stable up to full throttle with just minor bouncing at top speed.
Ed Neal
With the bow elevated, the forward end of the keel added to improve handling is visible.
The boat’s wide, smooth bottom and shallow-V aft made for very wide, skidding turns. I decided the boat needed a keel and designed one on my own. I used a 12′ length of 2-1/2″×6″ white oak for the keel. I cut a V-shaped channel in the top side to match the mating surface of the hull’s centerline, then tapered the keel from a beveled end near the bow and a 4″ depth at the transom. I fixed it in place with epoxy and fiberglass and various lengths of stainless screws.
Ed Neal
The folding canopy is a personal touch added by the author for protection from the weather.
With the keel, the Alamitos handles much better, even in rough water: the dory turns quickly, handles heavy chop much better, and drifts less in heavy wind.
Building the Alamitos was quite rewarding. It took me four years to complete, and that’s working mostly outside in northern Ohio where you have to be patient with the weather. I take the Alamitos out whenever I can to explore fishing sites or to just cruise the lakes. The boat looks great—the custom canvas top adds to its appeal—and always receives positive comments from passersby.
Tom Baugher, a retired housing inspector, has built and remodeled several homes and made various types of furniture—along with building a boat, the most rewarding experience of them all. He wishes to thank Jeff Spira for answering questions about the Alamitos, and the Cleveland Amateur Boat Builders and Boating Society (CABBS) for advice and access to tools.
The Rhodes 19 is a daysailer with a strong and enduring history as a competitive one-design. It began life soon after the end of World War II as a wooden centerboarder designed by Philip Rhodes and called the Hurricane. It didn’t catch on back then: there was only one fleet, at Greenwich Cove, Connecticut, and it soon faded. The design resurfaced, however, in 1947, when the Southern Massachusetts Yacht Racing Association (SMYRA), seeking a new one-design class, commissioned the Palmer Scott Yard of New Bedford to finish out a fleet of bare Hurricane hulls, fitting them with keels rather than the originally specified centerboards. The new boats also had aluminum masts. Renamed the SMYRA class, a fleet developed on Buzzards Bay and around Martha’s Vineyard.
In the 1950s, when fiberglass was gaining favor as a boatbuilding material, a company called Marscot Plastics took a class-sanctioned mold from a SMYRA-class boat. Marscot later joined forces with American Boat Building of East Greenwich, Rhode Island, and George O’Day, a gifted sailor from Marblehead who at the time was importing molded wooden dinghies from England. The fiberglass SMYRA became popular, and by 1958 O’Day had sole proprietorship of the boat’s production. That year he obtained Rhodes’s approval to rename the design “Rhodes 19,” and he immediately sold 50 of them; the first Rhodes 19 in Marblehead, sail No. 41, went to Dr. Randal Bell of the town’s Corinthian Yacht Club. Through the 1960s, sales skyrocketed and fleets were established in various locales—including Marblehead’s Fleet 5. The first national championship took place in 1963, and the first meeting of a new national class association was held at the Larchmont (New York) Yacht Club in 1965.
O’Day was a particularly skilled, even fearless, downwind sailor. He gained his racing chops in a hand-me-down Starling Burgess-designed 14’ cat-rigged Brutal Beast in Marblehead. He was not afraid to push his boat to the limit—and beyond. On one particularly eventful July day in 1942, having graduated from Brutal Beasts, he capsized his 24’ C. Raymond Hunt-designed 110-class sloop, VINCEMUS, under spinnaker. He was inspired in his downwind sailing by the great British dinghy sailor, designer, builder, and author Uffa Fox, who pioneered the concept of planing in dinghies. Years after his formative years in Marblehead, O’Day would establish his eponymous boatbuilding company and join forces with Fox, who designed the now-ubiquitous O’Day Daysailer. The Daysailer is a step down in size, in the early O’Day fleet, from the Rhodes 19.
Alan Bell
Dr. Randal Bell brought the first Rhodes 19, sail No. 41, to Marblehead in the 1950s. Sales of the boat skyrocketed through the 1960s.
O’Day’s foundation years in his Brutal Beast and 110 gave rise to a sailing—and sailing-industry—legend: he would go on to collect national championships in several different classes, including the 210, Firefly, Jollyboat, and International 14. He also won gold at the Pan American Games in 1958, gold again in the 1960 Olympics at Rome in the 5.5-Meter class, and he served in the afterguards of the winning AMERICA’s Cup crews in 1962 (WEATHERLY, designed by Rhodes) and 1967 (INTREPID, designed by Olin Stephens). He founded the O’Day Company in 1958 and built more than 30,000 fiberglass-hulled boats that would bring the sport of sailing into the financial reach of the middle class—and in the process change the face of sailing at Marblehead and beyond. Uncounted kids in Marblehead and elsewhere learned to sail in the company’s Widgeon-class sloop (a Bob Baker–designed 12-footer of refined shape and proportion); Marblehead’s Frostbite fleet sailed in tiddly O’Day Interclubs for many years, and the Daysailer model remains popular on the New England used-boat market to this day. The Rhodes 19, however, has endured in popularity like no other O’Day boat. Most of the one-design fleets at Marblehead have diminished in number since the 1980s, but the Rhodes 19 fleet remains strong.
Facing rising materials costs and a poor economy, O’Day had discontinued production of the Rhodes 19 by 1980. That could have been the end of the class, but its officers kept calm and carried on for the next four years, through fits and starts with new potential builders. In 1984 Stuart Marine, a company set up by a Rhodes 19 sailor, Stuart Sharaga, for the express purpose of building the class, turned out the first of its Rhodes 19s.
Jim Taylor, a Marblehead-based naval architect, developed the production methods and tooling that allowed Stuart to turn out quality boats at a profit. One of these early Stuart boats was displayed at the Corinthian Yacht Club during the 1985 national championship and was roundly applauded by the fleet cognoscenti. Stuart boats did not replace the O’Day ones: although a Stuart model won the nationals in 1995, 1996, and 1997, an O’Day won in 1998, and the two models remain competitive with each other to this day. Kim Pandapas, a former Fleet 5 president and current scorer, noted in a 2010 Marblehead Reporter interview, “The old ones can be restored to peak competitiveness.” Pandapas sails an O’Day-built Rhodes 19, sail No. 982.
The list price of a new Stuart-built keel model is $39,800; classic O’Day examples routinely appear on Craigslist in the $5,000 range, and commonly require new floor timbers, brightwork refurbishing, and hull and deck paint. There is also a long-popular cruising version of the design, called the Mariner; it is fitted with a small cabin rather than the Rhodes 19’s low-profile cuddy. O’Day built many Mariners, and Stuart continues the tradition.
Leighton O'Connor
The Rhodes 19 carries 175 sq ft of sail on a 27′10″ mast. An outboard motor of up to 6 hp can also be carried for daysailing.
Unlike some higher-performing one-designs, the Rhodes 19 has comfortable bench seating and, with its varnished mahogany coaming and well-proportioned cuddy, has good protection from spray. Sailing the boat doesn’t require excessive physical exertion, which makes it a level playing field for sailors of all ages. Many teams are composed of husbands and wives; one skipper about five years ago retired from the helm at age 84.
I raced Rhodes 19s as a kid, beginning in the late 1970s. My brother Frank and I would ride our bicycles on Saturday mornings from our home in Salem, Massachusetts, to the Boston Yacht Club in the adjacent town of Marblehead. There, we’d meet our mentor, Dick Welch, a Rhodes 19 sailor, who would assign us to a boat in need of crew. We bounced between the Rhodes 19 and Etchells 22 fleets, mostly, with an occasional foray into the Lightning, 210, or Town Class fleets, until we eventually landed full-time slots in competing gold-hulled Rhodes 19s. Mine was called TRISCUIT and was skippered by Davis Noble. Frank’s was SAFFRON, sailed by the husband-and-wife team of Peter and Debbie deWolfe. With Frank, then 15 years old, as crew, SAFFRON won the nationals in Chicago in 1978. Those were heady days for us, and especially for Frank, with that victory. But it wasn’t until much later that I came to really appreciate the significance and brilliance of the Rhodes 19 as a pure sailboat.
Lately I’ve been lingering on advertisements for used O’Day models. It has been many years since I sailed a Rhodes 19, but the mechanics of sailing this boat are muscle memory for me. In its basic form, the boat is a wholesome daysailer with a form-stable hull and iron-ballasted fin keel—although there is a less-popular centerboard model, too. The off-the-shelf rigging is quite simple, but the fractional rig, along with fine-tweaking with the addition of a mainsheet traveler, twings, barber haulers, cunningham, jib-luff tensioner, and adjustable jib leads—all led to a control console—give incremental speed advantages and keep the competition in this fleet hotter than one might expect.
Leighton O'Connor
The standard Rhodes 19 rig is quite simple, though numerous sail controls, including a jib-luff tensioner, cunningham, twings, Barber hauler, and traveler can be added to increase competitiveness.
I recall their light-air performance, which was aided by bringing the aftermarket Harken traveler well to windward and easing the mainsheet. Conversely, in heavier breezes the traveler was let down and the sheet strapped in tight, with the boom brought to centerline and the top batten parallel to the boom. Hiking straps along each bench seat allowed us to keep the boat flat in those conditions, though the iron ballast gave plenty of reassurance if we eased up on the effort.
Leighton O'Connor
Three Rhodes 19s ghost downwind under spinnaker in a regular-season contest of the Marblehead Racing Association.
The competitive boats looked like Harken catalogs. The stock layout had two long molded fiberglass seats that served as flotation chambers, but the added Harken traveler was mounted across these, just ahead of the helm station, dividing the cockpit. The console bar, studded with cam cleats, was typically slung under the after edge of the cuddy, with the sail controls within easy reach of the crew. The foredeck was spacious and the hull relatively stable, making end-for-ending the spinnaker pole, while jibing, a relative breeze. Spinnakers were typically launched and retrieved from the cockpit.
I sailed a different Rhodes 19 during the week in those days, too. This one had been a donation to the sailing camp where I taught for several years, and that boat had not been fitted out for racing. With its simple cockpit layout and sheeting, it provided a great contrast to the tricked-out racing version on which I spent my Saturday afternoons. It could comfortably carry six adults, and I recall one of my colleagues camp-cruising in it a few times with his wife and child. Indeed, a proper boom tent fitted over the cockpit of a Rhodes 19 would really open up the boat’s range.
Leighton O'Connor
One of the appealing features of the Rhodes 19 is that it does not require excessive physical exertion to be competitive. Some crews are composed of three generations of the same family.
Jim Taylor noted two more reasons for the Rhodes 19’s enduring popularity. First, “the boat is really well suited to intergenerational sailing, so that in addition to the husband-and-wife crews, there are lots of parent-child teams, too.” The second reason he noted is that that these “underpowered 40-or-more-year-old boats with fat bows and bad keels are drawing former college sailors who are accustomed to, and enjoy, sailing boats that are all equally slow. The competition continues right to the finish line.”
Leighton O'Connor
The 2014 NOOD (National Offshore One Design) Regatta at Marblehead, Massachusetts, saw a healthy fleet of Rhodes 19s. The class has flourished at Marblehead for more than 50 years.
The Rhodes 19 remains well represented in Marblehead. In fact, the nationals were held there this past summer; Steve Clancy and Marty Gallagher from the south shore of Massachusetts won the event. And No. 41, the boat that started it all in Marblehead, is back in town. Marblehead resident Peter Sorlien found her located in New York City and for sale on Craigslist.
Jim Taylor, who was instrumental in helping Stuart Marine keep the fleet alive, has a Rhodes 19, too. Sorlien put this fact into perspective: “Here we have one of the world’s leading naval architects, and what boat does he have for himself? A Rhodes 19.”
Matthew P. Murphy is the editor of WoodenBoat magazine.
This profile originally noted the ballast was lead, not iron, and that Marty Gallagher’s sailing partner was Chris Clancy rather than his brother Steve Clancy. The text above has been corrected and we apologize for the errors. —Ed.
The Rhodes 19 is available from Stuart Marine with a full keel for $39,800 or rigged as a centerboarder for $39,600. Used Rhodes 19s are also available via listings on the Stuart Marine website.
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The Lower Columbia River estuary has miles of back channels, broad expanses of shallow, wildlife-rich waters, a handful of charming, lightly touristed towns, and anchorages a-plenty for shallow-draft boats. When Frank and his wife, Julie—wide-ranging trailer-sailors from California—contacted me last spring, seeking advice about cruising in the Northwest, I signed on as their unofficial guide.
We rendezvoused at the Elochoman Slough Marina, in Cathlamet, Washington, a town of just 600 on the north bank of the Columbia River. Frank and Julie arrived in their little Subaru wagon with their Core Sound 20, WREN, in tow. The boat dwarfed the car and as they stepped the leg-o’-mutton cat-ketch rig at the top of the ramp, I felt a twinge of envy. With a sail area of 155 square feet, WREN might beat the pants off ROW BIRD, my 18′ Arctic Tern, a lug yawl carrying just 111 square feet of sail. And when I looked over WREN’s roomy cockpit and cabin, I suspected my new friends would not only be faster but also more comfortable to boot.
Roger Siebert
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To start our four-day tour of the Columbia River estuary, we planned to go downstream in the backwater sloughs and return upstream in the open waters surrounding the river’s main channel. Ours were the only boats in motion as we rowed through the marina’s mirror-smooth water. Lighter, and with a lower freeboard better suited for rowing, ROW BIRD moved far more swiftly. Frank had just gotten long, new carbon-fiber oars; he dug into the water at a steep angle from locks set on the high coaming, which made for slow going until he gained momentum.
Bruce Bateau
In the lulls, Frank used his new sectional 10′4″ carbon-fiber oars. With boat, rig, food, and crew weighing in at 1,000 lbs, WREN is not a fast boat under oars, especially when carrying its 450 lbs of water ballast. The high cabin and double masts make it hard to row against the wind.
A thick grove of 60′-high cottonwoods, their leaves fluttering gently, reached down to the sandy shoreline. When that first tickle of a morning wind made the flag on my mizzen mast flicker, I quickly pulled my oars aboard, tucked the blades together in the bow, and unfurled the mizzen. I set the strop on the lugsail’s yard over the hook of the leather-wrapped mast traveler, and hauled away, raising the main. I kept an eye on WREN as I pulled away from Cathlamet and headed across the 1/2-mile-wide Cathlamet Channel. A patchwork quilt of logged forestry lands draped the hills on either side of the broad Columbia River valley.
Bruce Bateau
With the Oregon shore to port and Tenasillahe Island to starboard, WREN sails wing-on-wing downriver along Clifton Channel.
It took WREN’s crew a few more moments to haul up each sail, adjust the sprit booms, and stow their oars than it did for me on ROW BIRD, and by the time WREN was halfway across, I was entering the unmarked slot between pastoral Puget Island and its low-lying neighbor, Ryan Island. Suddenly my centerboard struck a mudbank. “Plowing” is a common occurrence on the backwaters of the lower Columbia. Quickly, before I got stuck, I tacked into deeper water and startled Frank and Julie, who were approaching speedily. After completing another tack, I found the right entrance point, and they followed me toward the steep, conifer-rich hillside above Clifton Channel. A 1/3-mile-long wing dam of wooden piles at the mouth of the channel keeps most of the flow in the Columbia’s main stem. These structures pose a danger to boaters who might get pinned against them by the current or wakes, so when I called “Wing dam! Go wide!” they followed me around the upstream side and into the deserted open water of the channel.
Twice a day, the current in the river reverses as each flood tide pushes in from the Pacific Ocean, then races to the ocean with the ebb. For now, the ebb was working in our favor, carrying us downriver; the wind was light and variable and we drifted with our sails up, pulled more by the movement of the water than by any breeze. Low clouds revealing only patches of blue sky appeared over the leafy treetops of Tenasillahe Island to starboard. After about an hour, we entered Prairie Channel, aptly named as the islands flanking it are low, marshy grass-covered mounds that are often inundated by the tide. From the low seat of my boat they appeared as endless fields of grass. As beautiful as this is, it is wet and muddy and we wouldn’t land here. To avoid getting stuck in hidden shallows on the falling tide we wove around the hummocks.
Our destination for the night was Blind Slough, a rarely traveled 2-1/2-mile dead end with a remnant stand of ancient, moss-laden Sitka spruce trees that line the banks for the first mile. Due to the water-logged soil in which they grow, these trees are rarely more than 40′ high, despite their age. Nearby, a rust-streaked barge listed on the north shore, its deck overtaken by head-high grasses and willow shrubs. We skirted a low ridge of mud that had been exposed by the falling tide, and a grassy islet that obstructs the slough’s mouth, and passed a moored salmon-fishing boat; a net was neatly rolled on a giant spool at its bow. Farther up the slough, abandoned fishing and work boats were crumbling at the high-tide line. We anchored near the barge in 10′ of water. In the stillness, birdsongs filled the air. Before settling in for the night, we rafted up and stretched a big white tarp across both cockpits just as a thick mist settled in the slough.
Bruce Bateau
Drawing just 9″ with the centerboard up, WREN moves comfortably in shallow water, even under sail. Navigating around a mudflat, WREN enters Blind Slough.
As we were eating crackers and cheese and sipping wine, an outboard whined farther up the slough and a drab green duck-hunting boat soon approached, circled us, and slowed down nearby. A bearded man behind its wheel had a puzzled expression. l lifted a flap of the tarp and said, “I guess you don’t get many visitors here.” “Nope. You going to be here long?” he asked, without really waiting for answer. “That’s my bowpicker,” he said, pointing to the moored boat, “I’m going to be setting up some nets here tomorrow.” I assured him we’d be on our way early in the morning.
Bruce Bateau
Anticipating wet weather, Frank sewed a prototype cockpit tent for WREN out of a white polytarp. It came in handy while at anchor in Blind Slough. A commercial fishing boat known as a bowpicker is to the left.
At dusk, we separated ROW BIRD and WREN and I set my own anchor nearby and unrolled my cockpit tent, securing it like a Conestoga wagon cover over three hoops between the main and mizzen masts. All night long there was a steady tapping of showers on the tent and the occasional trickle as water pooling in the creases of the cover spilled overboard.
By dawn on Sunday, the rain had lessened enough to merely dampen our gear, but not accumulate in puddles. The sky pressed down on us with thick clouds, and we lingered under our tents. The current would soon be turning in our favor, so I gave up on waiting it out and donned my raingear. Just then the clouds thinned and sunlight streaked across the sky.
We got underway and rowed slowly along the soggy edge of Marsh and Karlson islands. A half-dozen cormorants paddled through the shallows, diving and resurfacing, sometimes emerging with pencil-thick fish in their beaks. A pair of bald eagles surveyed the scene from the treetops. We didn’t encounter another boat all morning, as we wound our way through the rest of the Prairie Channel, poking into little divots and cuts into the sea of grass. The channel was so still at times that droplets falling from my oars formed pinhead-sized spheres on the river’s surface.
Around noon, the afternoon sea breeze made our westward progress slow. Although WREN had a small motor on her stern, Julie, laboring at the oars, seemed determined to reach the day’s destination under her own power. I was rowing hard myself and my shirt was sticking to my back as I rounded the west tip of Minaker Island, where the west–northwest wind would help us get to the John Day River, a tidal tributary some 10 miles away.
Julie switched places with Frank to put him to work at the oars, and WREN inched forward. When we both finally made the turn, we set sail. WREN and ROW BIRD were surprisingly similar in speed here in the protected waters upriver from Russian Island, but as we reached the edge of a water prairie, the wind waves made ROW BIRD pound, slowing my progress dramatically despite a full sail. WREN hardly took notice, cutting through the chop smoothly, leaving a bubbly wake as she sped down the South Channel.
Frank San Miguel
A mild headwind made the going slow on the lower John Day River, even though I had lowered the main and mizzen masts to reduce windage. There are two rivers with this name along the Columbia, though most boaters are more familiar with the one about 200 miles upstream, on the dry side of the state.
A 150′-tall bluff, covered in emerald-green fir trees, towers over the mouth of the John Day River. To get to my friend Harvey’s dock for the night, we’d need to go upriver, past an abandoned railroad swing bridge left partially open. We arrived a little earlier than expected, and the tide was still coming out of the river instead of going in. With wind swirling near the bridge, we took to oars and pulled hard to get past the 45-yard-wide constriction between the bridge abutments. Once past them, the river widens as it flows through a broad floodplain and the current lessens, but Frank was rowing more slowly than he had been earlier and was barely moving. Julie took the oars and Frank moved aft and tugged the outboard’s starter rope. The engine gurgled to life and WREN was soon alongside ROW BIRD; I gladly accepted a tow. I stood in the back of my boat as we motored along a small lush valley where forested hillsides in shades of green from lime to jade stood in contrast to new clearcuts littered with stumps and slash.
Farther upriver, we passed floating cabins built with hipped roofs, double-hung windows, and clapboard siding, some dating to the early 1900s. Harvey’s place is nestled in a community where lawn chairs clutter the decks. After tying up the boats and retrieving the hidden keys, I unlocked his boathouse. Julie stretched out in the golden afternoon sunshine that flooded the back porch and its Adirondack chairs. We relaxed, sipped wine, and nibbled dates. At day’s end, despite the cozy cabin available to us, we opted to sleep on our boats at Harvey’s dock, preferring the convenience of having our possessions within arm’s reach.
Bruce Bateau
On the way down the John Day River, WREN passed by 1920s-era floating cabins. On this third day, Frank realized that he’d left water ballast in his tanks throughout the cruise, which had made his new oars feel sluggish. Rowing was noticeably easier after he had pumped the tanks dry.
Our tour had reached the turn-around point and I was determined to play the tides perfectly on the morning of our third day. I hoped for an easy time, catching the last of the ebb down the John Day River, then 2 miles north in the John Day Channel to the 1/2-mile-wide channel entrance between Mott Island and Tongue Point, where the backwaters meet the main stem of the Columbia River. If we arrived there at slack tide, we’d be pulled upriver when the flood tide turned. We made a late start from the cabin, and when we reached the swing bridge at the mouth of the John Day River, the tide was rushing in against us, instead of pulling us out.
Frank San Miguel
Departing the John Day River, I left the masts raised since I anticipated wind when we reached the more open waters downstream. I kept a careful watch for strainers, half-submerged fallen trees. They are common along the shore and dangerous when moving downriver—the current can pin boats against the branches.
The last 2 miles to the Columbia would take at least twice as long as anticipated, since we’d be bucking the tide the whole way. When ripples appeared on the channel and willow branches swayed on shore, Frank and Julie set sail, and tacked against the current, but never made headway. I’d fallen for that trap before and knew to row as fast as I could, before the full force of the tide flowed against me.
I hated to rush ahead of WREN, but I only had two days to make the 20 miles back to Cathlamet and then be home on time. If the wind and tide worked in my favor, that could easily be accomplished in one day; without that help, I’d have to battle the elements and I’d be lucky to make it home in three. When I finally reached the north end of Mott Island, I spotted dozens of fishing boats at anchor in the Columbia River, all facing west, a sure sign that the flood tide was flowing upriver. I rowed a few more strokes to get in the flow and radioed back to WREN, to tell Julie and Frank that I couldn’t wait. “If you can escape the current, I’ll see you at Skamokawa.”
A sea breeze brushed my face and started to turn ROW BIRD abeam, so I stowed the oars, and set sail up river. In the broad shallows south of the dredged ship channel, I had miles of open water to myself. There were no wakes or other boats to watch out for, but I had to navigate the sandbars that punctuate the area. When the water around the boat was dark, I sailed with centerboard and rudder down. Before long, I heard the familiar grinding sound of the centerboard hitting the sandy bottom and pulled it up. Ahead, I noticed a lighter color reflecting from a patch of sand on the bottom; up came the rudder. I steered by leaning to port or starboard. On a broad reach, ROW BIRD went faster and faster with the strengthening flood tide and an increasing westerly breeze. Fortunately, the water started to darken and deepen. I approached the ship channel just as a bulk carrier was heading upriver. Staring up at the vacant decks and three-story superstructure, I wondered if the crew even noticed my tiny craft.
Water sprayed and splashed aboard as the wind raised steep, sharp crests in the shallow water. ROW BIRD bucked and plunged as waves washed past. I was starting to feel on the edge of losing control, and had decided to heave to and put a third reef in the mainsail, when WREN appeared between me and Welch Island.
Frank and Julie used their outboard motor to escape the worst of the ebb’s adverse current, then kicked it up and started sailing upstream parallel to me on the more southerly route along the Woody Island Channel. The channel is deeper, but poorly marked. WREN has a fishfinder on the transom and they used it as a depthfinder. While he was at the helm, Julie kept an eye on the finder’s display and navigated away from shoaling water; using this method, they were able to sail quickly and safely upriver and never ran aground.
Frank San Miguel
As Frank sailed WREN upriver along the Woody Island Channel, Julie checked the chart looking for deep water between shoals.
Another cargo ship appeared on the horizon to the west, heading upriver, and I didn’t want to tangle with it. I motioned to WREN to head toward the slough at the base of the town of Skamokawa’s historic bell tower. The ship was about 2 miles away, and we could speed across the shipping channel on a reach and slip into the backwaters that flank the town. Well before the behemoth rounded the bend in the river that runs past Skamokawa, we reached the safety of Steamboat Slough, a 100-yard-wide, 1-1/4-mile-long waterway that separates the thickly wooded Price Island from the mainland.
I hove-to alongside WREN about 800 feet into the slough, which was calmer than the river, but it still was so windy that we had to raise our voices to be heard. As we parted, our hulls grazed each other, and the wind caught WREN’s sails, sending her on a collision course with a dock on the north shore. I drifted back, hitting a mudbank just aft of them. Ultimately, no harm was done, but lesson learned: use the VHF to communicate in rough conditions.
Tired from a full day on the water, we were too worn out to row back to Skamokawa’s town center. We sailed past a two-story Victorian-era inn with tall windows and fancy wooden scrollwork, then a Craftsman bungalow with a deep porch facing the slough, but soon spruce and alder trees dominated the shoreline. We passed a lone net shed on the shore of Price Island. The roof was caved in, and its front tilted precariously toward the water. The structure and a mooring buoy were the only signs of humanity, and we decided it would be a peaceful place to spend the night.
After WREN was securely anchored at a bend in the slough with a wooded hillside to the north and the mossy forest to the south, I rafted up and climbed aboard. Julie brought out nuts and dried fruit that we munched on as we admired the view. An occasional gust shifted the boats but there wasn’t enough wind to ruffle the water. An osprey passed silently overhead, and a family of three otters scampered across the muddy shore of the island and disappeared into the brush. As dusk approached, the sky turned an indigo blue. I rowed off and set anchor a few hundred feet upstream.
Bruce Bateau
While WREN was at anchor in Steamboat Slough near the town of Skamokawa, the air was so still that the ground fog did not move.
Come morning, ground fog rolled across the slough, wisps and drifts of white threading through pilings capped by shrubs and between the branches of shore-side conifers. Shafts of sunlight pierced the mist, which looked like steam rising off a giant cup of coffee.
Bruce Bateau
Dawn is my favorite time to be on the water because the light and the sky change so rapidly. I had just rolled back ROW BIRD’s cockpit tent and stood on the mizzen deck to watch as the ground fog began to burn off in Steamboat Slough.
After it cleared, an unexpected morning northwest breeze started to blow upriver. Despite the beauty of the anchorage, the wind made me eager to get under way. Frank and Julie had another day to spend in the backwaters and seemed content to linger, but to me, the wind was my opportunity to sail home. I said my farewells and headed toward the upstream end of the slough.
Frank San Miguel
Departing from Steamboat Slough, I found it fun and useful to steer standing up. This gave me a good view into the water to look for shallows and snags.
A mile farther south, I reached the slough’s end and entered the main stem of the Columbia. ROW BIRD was still under full sail, with both main and mizzen drawing well, but making no progress against the current. I sat listening to the water rushing past the hull, staring at a boulder on the shore that I couldn’t get past. I was less than 4 miles from Cathlamet, and was in no hurry. Soon my sails went limp and I rowed toward shore, where I found a gentle eddy that carried me upstream to the northern entrance of Elochoman Slough.
As I circled in the eddy, unable to proceed further, I felt lucky to see this place so clearly and to have the leisure to more fully appreciate it. When the wind filled in and pushed me forward, I set sail for home, moving as slowly as possible.
Bruce Bateau, a regular contributor to Small Boats Magazine, sails and rows traditional boats with a modern twist in Portland, Oregon. His stories and adventures can be found at his website, Terrapin Tales.
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.
In 2010, a 12-year-old boy was walking home from school when he saw a strange-looking boat in a pile of garbage at the side of the street. The boat was long, double-ended, and surprisingly light for its size. It was covered with some kind of fabric, like the upholstery of an automobile seat. Underneath was a spindly wooden framework. The boy dragged it home, in desperate hopes that somehow an outboard motor could be mounted on it to make it go very fast. The boy’s dad is a cabinetmaker in Fort Pierce, Florida, and was known to perform minor miracles in the realm of things that were important to 12-year-old boys—but he could not invent a way to put an outboard motor on a fabric-covered sea kayak. So, they loaded it into the pickup truck and brought it to me, at Riverside Marina Boatyard.
I instantly knew what it was, as the Folbot name-plaque was still affixed to the cockpit coaming. But what it really was, was a basket case. The fabric covering was worn, torn, and poorly applied. The hull was covered with what looked like gray Naugahyde; the deck with green fabric of the same type. The sheer clamps were riddled with hundreds of tiny bronze ring-shank nails holding the fabric in place. The framework was made of spruce longitudinal stringers over plywood frames with a plywood keel plank. Many of the stringers were broken or missing, and the frames were damaged with rot pockets and what looked like very large rodent bites. The wood around the fastenings was suffering from metal sickness. The bronze nails and screws holding everything together were little more than yellow powder.
The kayak was old. And big. And clearly meant for the garbagemen. It was beyond rescue—and yet I couldn’t quite bring myself to break it up and toss it in the dumpster. Because it was also beautiful—a very far-gone piece of functional art. The model was Folbot’s largest two-person expedition kayak—an early model, from the late 1950s or early ’60s. The fabric covering was certainly not original. I eventually stripped the fabric off the frame, and broke the frame into its two halves, where the Folbot kit pieces were joined. All the stringers and the bottom plank were attached with screws and butt-blocks so that the boat could be reduced to two sections about 8′ long.
I left the halves intact, and they followed me around for 11 years—up to Maine, in and out of storage, and eventually into the pole barn I built in Appleton, out in the farm country where I now spend half of each year. This summer, as I was reorganizing the loft of my barn, I looked with dismay at this pile of garbage that had once been a beautiful kayak, and decided it was time to either burn it or restore it. I happened to have several sheets of Shellman okoume African mahogany plywood on hand, in 3mm and 4mm thicknesses, and that decided the Folbot’s fate. Despite the fact that Folbots are meant to have fabric covering, I always knew that if I ever restored this one, it would be as a plywood-planked boat. I dragged the sad remains out of the loft and under a tent on the slab of the house I should have been building instead of messing around with rotten old boats—and went to work.
Photographs by the author
I reattached the two halves of the kayak and reconnected what was left of the original longitudinal stringers, and contemplated what I should do. The rigorous approach would have been to take careful measurements of all remaining components and replace them entirely with new ones. But I decided I wanted the soul of the old boat intact—in so far as possible—and instead I saved everything I could save.
Much of the wood was severely damaged, but still retained its shape. All the stringers were shot except for the sheer clamps, and I should not have tried to save even them, but I did.
Most of the 1/2″ plywood frames had fairly superficial damage, like the one above. I chiseled out the punky spots and took complete advantage of the gap-filling properties of epoxy putty. I sanded the frames down and routed new edges where necessary, using a 1/4″ quarter-round bit in a trim router. I made new longitudinal stringers from rock maple (the longest material I had on hand) and installed them in place of the originals. In many cases I had to epoxy fill the old screw holes and drill new ones. I used stainless-steel square-drive self-drilling/self-tapping screws. I reassembled the new and old frame components using a pre-thickened epoxy compound.
The longitudinals, which have square sections here, would work for a fabric-covered hull, but they’d have to be beveled for plywood planking.
I used a high-speed body grinder with 60-grit paper to bevel flats to the angles required. The large disc bridged the adjacent longitudinals, taking the guesswork out of sanding at the proper angle.
I used wood splints to coax the old bottom plank into some semblance of fairness. The reassembled frame indicated that the bottom plank was intended to be almost perfectly flat and straight—with no rocker at all. The splints were used to achieve that end. But to avoid any possibility of “hogging,” I built in a very small amount of rocker (about 1/4″ overall). The plywood-plank bottom had its edges rounded to work with the fabric covering. For the plywood garboards, I cut rabbets along the bottom’s perimeter to receive the 4mm plywood.
I spiled and dry-fit the 4mm garboards, using the first one to generate the opposite side one. When they were ready to be installed I epoxied them to the keel-plank rabbets and the beveled chine logs. I butted the joints between the plank sections and then eventually taped them with 2″ fiberglass tape, inside and out.
I made the remaining two strakes from 3mm okoume plywood. I fastened the planks to the chine logs with epoxy and galvanized brads installed with a pneumatic nailer. In places, I had to push or pull the stringers to achieve fair curves.
After installing the sheerstrakes, I countersunk and epoxy-puttied all nail holes and gaps, then sanded the hull fair. The original surviving bottom plank was some kind of double-sided MDO plywood. It was in better shape than any other original part of the boat, and I was careful not to sand through the MDO covering except where I had to hollow it out slightly for 2″ ’glass tape at the butt joint.
I turned the hull over (it was surprisingly light) and cleaned up the interior, sanding and puttying where necessary. I made and installed the cockpit carlins and deck stringers using both new rock maple and some of the original spruce, where I could salvage it (with cockpit carlins and deck stringers installed).
I taped all butt joints with ’glass and epoxy and saturated the hull interior using epoxy reduced with a 50/50 mixture of methyl ethyl ketone and toluene.
I turned the hull back upside down and finished the exterior, fairing the hull with a low-speed body grinder, seen on the floor, which was equipped with an 8″ soft pad and 80-grit paper. I then taped all underwater seams and butts using 2″ fiberglass tape soaked with epoxy. When the epoxy had cured, I sanded the taped seams smooth to a feathered edge using the grinder. After a final application of epoxy putty where needed, I later finish-sanded the hull in stages: 80-grit, 120-grit, then 180-grit.
With the hull again righted, I lightly sanded the interior by hand and applied three coats of water-based white epoxy paint using an automotive “detail gun”—a small siphon-feed external-mix spray gun. After the first coat, I was able to see any gaps and flaws along the joints between stringers, frames, and planking (white paint is excellent for this). I used white epoxy putty to patch these areas. I faired the deck substructure and hull sheers after applying epoxy putty in the gaps between stringers and planking. Because the kayak had originally been fabric covered, the sheer clamps were rounded along the upper outboard edges, leaving gaps between clamps and planking. These I also epoxy-puttied.
I braced the deck structure and sheer clamps where necessary to achieve fairness, and sanded the surfaces smooth prior to laying the deck. The deck consisted of two halves forward, joined on a centerline longitudinal, two pieces for the side decks, and one piece for the aft deck. I had to cut a small “dart” on the centerline aft where the radius of the deck curve became too small for the 3mm plywood. After curing, I routed the deck edges with a 1/4″ quarter-round bit, and epoxy-puttied all voids. I sanded the deck using progressively finer grits (up to 180-grit) as I did for the hull, using a 5″ orbital sander.
I cut four long strips of 3mm okoume from which to laminate the cockpit coamings. The first laminate overlapped the cockpit carlins; a second narrower laminate landed on the deck edge. I epoxied and pneumatically brad-nailed the coamings in place, adding epoxy “finger-fillets” along the joints between deck and coaming.
I used rock maple to make caps for the cockpit coamings. I used the table saw to cut dadoes into the undersides of the caps so that they fit snugly over the coaming’s top edges and then glued them in place with epoxy.
I laminated the aft cockpit coaming in place using four layers of 3mm plywood. The last of these laminates is narrow (1/2″) and located on the outside at the top. It holds a spray skirt in place.
The original Folbot cast-aluminum hardware and name plaque
I sanded and puttied the coamings, rounding corners and shaping them to receive the original Folbot cast-aluminum hardware, which had miraculously survived for a half century (the real miracle was that I had not lost it!).
Note the large, unobstructed bow storage compartment under the foredeck. With the structural work completed, I turned my attention to puttying and sanding all exterior surfaces prior to epoxy saturating the okoume plywood deck and planking. I then sealed the planking with the same reduced penetrating epoxy. After it cured, I installed the original hardware, including bow and stern caps, prior to applying six coats of high-UV-filter varnish. I made seat platforms using 1/4″ mahogany plywood and installed them on the original Folbot cleats with bronze screws so that they would be removable.
I made new paddles using a 1-1/4″ hard pine dowel and 3mm okoume plywood. I painted the tips with white epoxy so they may be seen in the dark, as well as to protect them from abrasion. Folbot paddles of the kayak’s vintage would have had aluminum guards.
The original rudder, which would have had an aluminum blade, was lost so I made a kick-up rudder using ¼″ mahogany plywood. The stock consists of three laminates, the middle one being left smaller to permit insertion and pivoting of the rudder blade. I purchased cast-bronze pintles and modified them to fit the original cast aluminum Folbot rudder gudgeon. I used a yoke attached to a loop of line that passes around the cockpit coamings. Steering adjustments are made by reaching the line outside the coamings on either side and sliding the line fore or aft to turn the rudder. While this is not as convenient as having the original Folbot foot-pedal steering inside the boat, it is simple and effective, and I have used it before with success. I attached the original Folboat hardware using thickened epoxy and small stainless-steel screws. I made plastic hose lifting handles for each end of the boat. I made up a painter and stern line, and installed bungees attached at plastic eye straps following the pattern Folbot now uses for its Greenland, the new version of this antique model.
I emailed Folbot for background information prior to starting the restoration, and the woman who replied to me explained that their factory and offices were destroyed in a severe hurricane many years ago—before she came to work for Folbot. Evidently nothing survived: no records, photographs, or drawings of any of the old models. By comparing the size and proportions of their new Greenland model to my own, I could see that the boats were quite similar in size, shape, and accommodations. The new boats now have aluminum frames and Hypalon covers, and can be assembled in 20 minutes. Mine took me four months! (albeit part time).
I painted the kayak’s bottom with light gray epoxy paint to protect it from abrasion. I used manufactured Crazy Creek chairs, which fit perfectly and strapped to the kayak’s frames as is they had been made to. The seats fit perfectly on the plywood seat platforms in the boat, and may be easily removed for sitting around a campfire while cruising among favorite islands and sleeping on the beach. They are made with closed-cell foam and don’t absorb water.
The new Greenland Folbot boasts a 500-lb carrying capacity. My restored antique Folbot can certainly carry that amount also. Both models are nearly 17-1/2′ long and over 3′ in beam. The huge open cockpit seats two adults and a small child, with additional capacity for at least 100 lbs of food and camping gear. The cockpit can be fitted with a spray deck with skirts for two adults. I haven’t purchased one, but I suspect the new ones available from Folbot will fit the old model, as they have nearly identical cockpits.
The aft “Crazy Creek” chair folds down to allow access into the kayak’s big stern storage compartment. I installed the original Folbot plaque inside the aft cockpit coaming above.
The completed boat was surprisingly light—about 75 lbs. Two people could easily load it onto the roof racks of my VW Golf, although it certainly dwarfed the car!
My neighbors, Tom, Claire and Cabot Lokocz-Adams, went with me to nearby Sennebec Lake where we performed paddle trials on a perfect fall day. The kayak was very stiff and comfortable, with room for big five-year-old Cabot to sit in front of his mom. The boat showed a good turn of speed with minimal effort, and we didn’t need the rudder. On a windy and choppy day, however, I suspect I would have wanted it down to help with directional stability.
The Folbot restoration occupied much of my summer in Maine, even though I worked on her part time in between other projects. As with so many restorations, we do it because we love it, not because we have any delusions about getting rich! And, I have the satisfaction of knowing I saved one more special old boat from the dumpster, and that I turned it into something beautiful, useful, and durable. There are undoubtedly more old skin-on-frame kayaks deserving of the same treatment. In the winter that followed, I often sat in front of the woodstove dreaming about kayaking down the St. George River. The next summer, I did just that!
Reuel Parker is a yacht designer, boatbuilder, and author who regularly contributes to WoodenBoat and Professional Boatbuilder magazines. A lifelong cruising sailor, he currently lives in the Bahamas aboard PEREGRINE and sails seasonally between Maine and Florida. He ventures farther as time and tide permit.
You can share your tips and tricks of the trade with other Small Boats Magazine readers by sending us an email.
Whether you need to reach the shore, or fulfill a restless urge to explore, sometimes you just need to leave your boat at anchor and set off in a smaller craft. On a large boat, there’s room for a dinghy, but some small craft fall in that zone where the boat is a bit big to land on the beach all the time, yet too small to carry or tow a rigid tender.
Such is the case with TERRAPIN, my 18′ 6″, double-ended pocket cruiser. She has a beam of just 5′ and with so little space aboard, I at first thought that it would be impossible to carry a dinghy of any kind.
Then I discovered packrafts. While they may be sized like pool toys and when first pulled out of the box there’s not much there—typically under 10 pounds and quite compact—once they’re inflated, they become very useful little boats and are far, far tougher than the cheap vinyl offerings at the big-box store.
David Dawson
The deflated packraft is compact enough just rolled up, as seen here, but compression straps are included to make it smaller still. The paddle sections are all just 24″ long.
For TERRAPIN, I purchased a Hornet-Lite directly from the manufacturer, Kokopelli. The raft has proven very easy to inflate, deflate and stow on the cruiser. It weighs just 4.7 pounds and fully inflated, measures 85″ long by 37″ wide and can carry up to 300 lbs. The interior dimensions are 51″ x 16″. I ordered the breakdown kayak paddle offered by Kokopelli, and it’s a good match. It has a nylon composite blade and a fiberglass shaft, weighs just 2.6 l bs, and the four pieces, all under 24″ long, pack away easily.
The Hornet-Lite is a very comfortable boat and is easier to get in and out from the cruiser than I expected. The single inflated tube is wider and deeper aft to support the paddler’s weight correctly, but this also provides very good back support. The paddler sits on a separate, inflated cushion that tucks in snugly and is tied to the boat with a strap. The boat paddles like a short whitewater playboat, which is to say there is no directional stability. Running a straight line comes with technique. But once you have the hang of it, the boat scoots along very nicely. And it’s good fun, besides.
Caroline Dawson
The cozy fit braces the hips and provides back support, making it possible to paddle without sliding out of position.
The boat is sold with a bag that’s intended to speed inflation. This is the one shortcoming of the package. In theory, you open wide the unsealed end of the bag, which has two plastic battens attached to the opening, close it, then squeeze the trapped air through the valve at the other end of the bag into the boat. I’ve seen this system used successfully to fill air mattresses. But for the considerable volume of air needed for the Hornet-Lite, I found the bag much too small to make good progress.
Instead, I use a Coleman 12-volt QuickPump with an adapter for the Leafield D7 valve on the raft. Powered by a 300W lithium battery pack, the pump inflates the raft in a minute. I also use the pump to deflate the raft, not having a flat surface available on TERRAPIN to roll the raft to squeeze the air out by hand. The compression straps provided with it condense an already small package even tighter. A hand pump designed for larger inflatables would also work, but they are bulky items to tuck away on a small cruiser.
All-in-all, I’ve found thee Hornet-Lite to be a very useful tender for TERRAPIN, and when not in use, it’s incredibly compact. I’ve been more than pleased with it.
David Dawson is a retired newspaperman who has been hooked on boats since he was a boy, when his dad built a plywood pram. He does most of his cruising on the Chesapeake Bay, but has taken a variety of trailerable boats elsewhere to explore waters from New England to Florida. Nearer to home in Pennsylvania, he enjoys kayaking the local rivers, lakes, and bays.
The Hornet-Lite packraft and the Alpine Lake Paddle are available from Kokopelli. The packraft is $550 and the paddle $124.95; when purchased together, a discount brings the paddle to $74.95 and ground shipping is free within the U.S. and Canada. The Hornet-Lite and Alpine Lake Paddle both have a 3-year warranty, and the Leafield D7 valve has a lifetime warranty.
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.
For years, my favorite camp-cooking knife has been a Joyce Chen paring knife with a 3-3/4″ stainless blade and a plastic handle and sheath. It did most galley jobs well enough, but I can only get three fingers on the handle, the blade doesn’t extend far enough beneath the grip for cutting-board tasks, and the sheath, while dishwasher proof, has a slot that’s scarcely a millimeter wide and impossible to clean.
The sheath’s alternating openings make it easy to clean and dry its interior surfaces.
MSR’s Alpine Chef’s Knife has a 6-1/2″ blade with a modified Santoku shape, a Japanese style meant for mincing, dicing and slicing, the three uses suggested by the translation of santoku: “three virtues.” The plastic sheath solves the cleaning problem with alternating cutaways that allow all of the inner surfaces to be cleaned, while still providing full coverage for the cutting edge.
Photographs by the author
The stainless-steel blade holds a good edge and the offset handle is very well suited for chopping on a cutting board.
The stainless-steel blade takes and holds a sharp edge (you can see the knife slicing paper in the Small Boats video “Stropping” starting at 1:37) that can take neat millimeter-thick slices from a soft, ripe tomato. The drop point puts the whole edge close to a cutting board for chopping, while the offset plastic handle provides lots of clearance for knuckles.
With two pairs of my glasses hidden in the murky bottom of Lake Union and one pair in the cold depths of Puget Sound, I know that glasses sink. I was introduced to floating sunglasses years ago; if they go over the side, I have a good shot at recovering them. (I do have retaining straps to help prevent losing glasses, and wear them for rough-water passages when I have to focus on navigating, but I find them awkward when I’m frequently using cameras and binoculars.) My first pair has air chambers built into the temples. More recent versions are made of lightweight materials that are inherently buoyant.
For the past year I’ve been using two pairs of floating sunglasses from Rheos: first, the Eddies model, followed by the Reedy. They both have nylon lenses, polarized to reduce glare and coated for scratch resistance. The coating has worked well to protect the lenses and neither have visible scratches. The coating is hydrophobic—water will run off and any small beads of water that remain can be removed by tapping the frames. The lenses provide full UV protection.
Photographs by the author
There are subtle differences in the frames of the Reedy (left) and the Eddies (right). The temples of the Reedy are a bit more flexible than those of the Eddies and make contact with the wearer’s head at a gentler angle. The Reedy frame is the better match for large heads. The Eddies offer a tighter fit for average heads while remaining comfortable.
I opted for “gunmetal,” a neutral gray color, for the lenses of both glasses. They’re dark enough to tame the sunlight on a clear summer day but not so dark that the world grows dim under an overcast sky. The polarization has effectively cut the otherwise blinding glare when I’ve paddled straight into the sun late in an afternoon. The Eddies are described by Rheos as having a “tight-fitting wraparound frame,” and at first I thought that would serve to keep the glasses secure on my head, but after about a half-hour the pressure of the temple tips became uncomfortable. At the end of a 90-minute kayak outing, I was happy to take the glasses off. I have a large head—hat size 7-5/8—and those with smaller sizes are not as likely to find the pressure objectionable.
Both of the Rheos models are light enough to float.
Rheos sent out the Reedy model, which is described on their website as having “a medium to large wrap-around frame.” The temple tips have a different shape to better distribute the pressure, and the temples are more flexible. The Reedys are very comfortable even for all-day use and still secure enough that they don’t slip down my nose. At 0.9 oz, they’re even lighter than the 1-oz Eddies.
The Reedy sunglasses came with an ingenious case that forms a rigid, protective prism shape for the glasses, and folds flat when not in use. A magnetic catch holds the case closed.
The Reedy sunglasses do their job, and do it well, by slipping from my consciousness: I cease to be bothered by the sun, and I forget that I have sunglasses on.
Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats Magazine.
Paul and Sharon LaBrie live in West Gardiner, a rural community 10 miles to the southwest of Augusta, Maine, and while they are 25 miles inland from the state’s south-central coast, they don’t lack for access to the water. Their 7-acre lot borders Cobbosseecontee Stream, a gently flowing tributary of the Kennebec River. The couple have always shared a love of paddling. In 1976 they celebrated their first anniversary with an overnight canoe trip on Maine’s Narraguagus River. A short time later they bought a Grumman canoe—their first boat—and matching paddles, and throughout their nearly half-century of married life they have continued boating and camping together.
In 2005, Paul took an early retirement from a 21-year-long career in academic technology management, and established LaBrie Small Craft, a hobby business devoted to building and restoring boats. Among the boats he built were two reviewed in Small Boats: L. Francis Herreshoff’s CARPENTER and the E.M. White Guide Canoe. He and Sharon also joined forces for several years to do custom work for Island Falls Canoe/Old Town Canoe when customers ordered wooden canoes covered with fiberglass rather than canvas.
About eight years ago, Paul had designed a peapod and before he began construction, he and Sharon had a difference of opinion, the kind that can push even a long, happy marriage to the brink: strip-built or lapstrake. Paul had a number of good reasons to go with strip-built: “Twisting a slim 1/4″ cedar strip, as it leaves the flat bottom and makes a 90-degree twist to the ends of the boat, is easier than torturing a long piece of plywood. Strip-planked bottoms lend themselves better than lapstrake to various coverings like Dynel and a mix of carbon powder and epoxy—just the thing for the ledge and rough landings we often encounter here in Maine. Lapstrake-hull bottoms don’t lend themselves as well to ’glass coverings. And a ‘clean’ bottom, sans seams, is probably a more efficient one, especially for small, human-powered craft.” On the other hand, Sharon likes the look of lapstrake.
Their difference might have led to strife, but even the ancients could point the way to restore harmony to a marriage in such dire straits: De gustibus non disputandum est. Literally translated from Latin, that’s “Of taste there is no disputing.” Any effort to address matters of the heart with reason is as destined to fail as mixing oil and water.
Christophe Matson
Here Paul is rowing KESÄ during the 2021 Downeast TSCA early spring gathering at Tenants Harbor in Maine. This event was hosted by Small Boats contributor Ben Fuller. KESÄ is primarily a rowing boat but has a 40 sq ft downwind rig and rudder but no centerboard. She is a veteran of many Small Reach Regattas, among other adventures.
Paul and Sharon didn’t need try to sway one another; they could meet each other halfway, at the waterline. Paul would strip-build the bottom to give it every technological advantage, and from the waterline up, the peapod would be lapstrake with the laps and their shadows highlighting the hull’s curves. Christened KESÄ (Finnish for “summer”), the peapod quickly became their favorite, the “go-to boat” for coastal cruises, including many Small Reach Regattas.
In the past five years, the LaBries have devoted much of their time to building their net-zero home in West Gardiner and maintaining a 25-tree orchard growing heritage Maine apples. With the Cobbosseecontee Stream flowing past their front yard, they wanted to have two easily carried double-paddle canoes that they could launch on a whim. They settled on Iain Oughtred’s Wee Rob, and last winter Paul began work on the first of the two canoes. While the plans specify glued lapstrake construction, Paul used the method he developed during the construction of the peapod.
Paul LaBrie
After KESÄ had proved the concept of using strip planking below the waterline and lapstrake planking above, Paul began work on the first of two Wee Robb canoes. The building form is based on the one described by Tom Hill in his book, Ultralight Boatbuilding.
Paul LaBrie
Paul milled the 1/4” strips for the bottom from locally sourced northern white cedar.
Paul LaBrie
After the strip-built bottom was ’glassed, the first of the 3mm okoume plywood strakes went on.
Paul LaBrie
The bottom is not only uninterrupted by laps, but also well protected with sheathing of fiberglass and epoxy. Three strakes of glued-lap plywood finish the hull.
Paul LaBrie
The three plywood strakes will be fully visible above the waterline. The bits of the strip-built hull that will also show will easily be taken to be a fourth strake, completing the illusion of a fully lapstraked hull.
Paul LaBrie
The canoe was finished with inwales of locally-sourced spruce and outwales of red oak. The thwarts are also spruce; the forward has a hole in it and serves as a mast partner. The seat is designed for sit-on-top kayaks. The 230 cm kayak paddle, seen here at launch day, turned out to be a bit too short.
Paul LaBrie
To the left is part of the LaBrie boat collection, with their original 18′ Grumman canoe, KESÄ, a 18′ E.M. White guide canoe, and the newly launched Wee Robb. The setting is the LaBrie waterfront on Cobbosseecontee Stream and the occasion is their annual Cobbosseecontee Stream Downeast TSCA gathering, usually held in late May. The man in the black shirt is Ben Fuller, David Wyman is in the red shirt, and at right is Hildy Danforth.
Paul LaBrie
The LaBrie’s son, Jonathan, after launching from their dock on Cobbosseecontee Stream. Jonathan loves the canoe and has asked his parents to build him one.
Paul LaBrie
Jonathan paddled the Wee Robb out through some shoreline reeds to the open wasters of the Cobbosseecontee.
Of course, Paul could have built a lapstrake version for Sharon and a strip-built for himself, but he and Sharon wouldn’t be paddling toward a fiftieth anniversary if they didn’t believe that when two hulls—or two people—are joined together, the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts.
Correction: The photograph of Paul rowing KESA was initially credited in error. The shot was taken by Christophe Matson and the credit has beed corrected above. We apologize for error. —Ed.
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Photo by Bryan Gagner
Photo by Bryan Gagner
Photo by Bryan Gagner
Photo by Bryan Gagner
