Sam (S.S.) Crocker designed the 19′ 9″ pocket cruiser Sallee Rover as a yawl in 1953; later, in 1955, he drew the sloop-rigged version seen in the accompanying photographs. Making just a few changes to her for aesthetic purposes, Joel White built this sloop in 1967 for his father, E.B. White, and named her MARTHA.
E.B. White enjoyed sailing her for many years in the waters of Eggemoggin Reach and nearby bays. With the passage of time and E.B.’s eventual health problems, his use of the boat diminished, and MARTHA would sit at her mooring in Center Harbor for most of each sailing season, used only occasionally by grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I was encouraged by Joel, along with a few others, to use her as often as I liked, and over the next few summers I grew comfortable, confident, and at home sailing E.B.’s little sloop.
I’ve had numerous visits of good fortune in the 24 years I’ve been working here at WoodenBoat School in Brooklin, Maine, and high on that list is getting to know and work alongside Joel White at Brooklin Boat Yard in the mid-1980s and, more important, becoming friends with him. I will treasure that friendship my entire life.
Photo by Matthew P. Murphy
MARTHA is an example of S.S. Crocker’s Sallee Rover design built in 1967 by Joel White, for his father. Here, Keenan Hilsinger, age 11, shows considerable facility at the helm.
After managing the WoodenBoat School shops for seven years, I took over the Director’s helm in 1991. I had recently brought my father up to the area from Pennsylvania and was helping him adjust to life at the Island Nursing Home in nearby Deer Isle. He had suffered a stroke and was battling dementia, so between caring for my dad and my new responsibilities at work, my plate was full. At times, it felt overloaded. Joel happened to phone me at work one day during this chapter in my life and asked if he could come over to the office that afternoon. There was something he wanted to discuss. In those early days of WoodenBoat School, we were often at Brooklin Boat Yard asking to borrow this or that. As the time approached for Joel’s visit, I feared we had overstepped the boundaries and either requested the tap-and-die set once too often or damaged one of the yard’s tools. Within minutes of welcoming him into my office, I was relieved and quite surprised when he explained that his family had decided to sell MARTHA and were hoping I would be interested in becoming her new owner. He asked that I think it over and get back to him. If I wasn’t inter-ested, another individual in town was, and it was important to Joel and his family that the boat remain in Brooklin.
My initial thought was, “Why now? I’ll never find the time to use her with all I’ve got going on.” I resigned myself to the fact that it just wasn’t the right time to take on the commitment of owning such a boat. Later that evening I felt myself drawn over to the boatyard just to take a look at her. She was sitting in her cradle in one of the storage buildings, and as I approached her, it took all of a few seconds to realize that this special little boat was exactly what I needed to help cope with all the anxiety I was often feeling. Returning to the boatyard the following day, I asked Joel if he was certain the family wanted to let her go. After explaining that they wanted to see MARTHA used and appreciated, I accepted his proposal and we shook hands, which sealed the deal. I was profoundly touched that the White family would entrust me with this heirloom, and, as one might expect, MARTHA has brought me and my family countless days of joy under sail exploring the same waters E.B. loved and wrote about.
With her small house, low topsides, spacious cockpit, and simple deck plan, MARTHA is the quintessential pocket cruiser. Her round-fronted cabin trunk fits perfectly with the clipper-bow profile and strong sheerline. Whether sitting on her mooring or out under sail, she always draws admiring looks. Down below, the cabin is small and simple. Two settee bunks, one on each side of the centerboard trunk, suffice for overnight cruising for my 11-year-old son, Keenan, and me. Adequate storage exists under these bunks and forward of the mast. A cedar tabletop fits into the trunk for meals, or a game of cards. Cruising with the basics, we do just fine with an ice cooler, a small camp stove, and a cedar bucket. For the two of us, small is beautiful.
Photo by Matthew P. Murphy
A self-tacking jib and uncluttered foredeck make MARTHA a delight for short afternoon excursions. Her painted surfaces are simple to maintain. MARTHA’s owner estimates he spends 8 to 10 hours per year readying her for the water.
The hull is of shallow draft and wide beam, sort of a cross between a catboat and a Muscongus Bay sloop. She is ruggedly built. The keel is 7″ 9″ white oak and her stem is sided 41⁄2″ and molded about 8″.These are big timbers for a boat only 20′ overall. This hull structure alone incorporates much of the ballast required, which simplifies the construction process. She is planked with 1″ Northern white cedar over 1 1⁄ 4″-square bent-oak frames on 9″ centers, and 1 1⁄ 2″-thick white oak floor timbers. Her deck is 1⁄2″ plywood covered with Dynel and epoxy fastened to oak beams. With both the designer’s and builder’s expertise, she is an extremely stiff and strong boat and is enjoying a long life. Approximately 700 lbs of lead ballast are stored under the floorboards on both sides of the centerboard trunk, and combined with the heavy backbone and 7′ 7″ beam, MARTHA holds her own in a breeze.
Sallee Rover is a project well suited for someone with prior boatbuilding and woodworking experience. In fact, she’s such a great example of classic carvel construction that her construction details were drawn by Sam Manning and published by WoodenBoat as a poster over two decades ago in the tenth anniversary issue (“ The Anatomy of a Wooden Boat,” WB No. 60). Individuals interested in building to the Sallee Rover design may purchase the six sheets of plans. They won’t be disappointed in the process, or in the results. Weighing 4,000 lbs, MARTHA is easily trailerable by car, pickup truck, or tractor.
Once rigged and in the water, she provides a steady platform with no unexpected motion. And she is stable. Complementing MARTHA’s reassuring initial stability is her deep, self-draining cockpit. Her marconi mainsail and self-tending jib total 218 sq ft, which allows the boat to sail well on most points in moderate and strong winds. The main is rigged with a single row of reefpoints, which come in handy if the wind blows over 15 knots. MARTHA performs best off the wind on a reach or a run. With both sails trimmed and pulling, she sails herself, and all I need to do is adjust the jibsheet from time to time. Sheisa relaxing boat and not sensitive to shifting weight. Her helm is pleasant, with a steady feel and just enough weather helm to keep one attentive. She answers her barn door rudder instantly—even to tiny corrections. The oak tiller is the only varnished piece you’ll find aboard.
Photo by Matthew P. Murphy
Although she’s only 20′ long and displaces about two tons, MARTHA feels like a big boat and will accommodate two for a weekend excursion. At the end of the season, you can haul her home with a small truck.
Of course, a builder can choose a highly polished finish if desired, but MARTHA’s painted surfaces look right on this workboat-inspired hull, and yearly maintenance is minimal. I do all of this work on MARTHA myself. During the winter months, she lives in WoodenBoat School’s lumber barn, which has a dirt floor, the ideal storage environment for a wooden hull.
Drawing only 2′ with the centerboard up, MARTHA can take us into shallow waters most bigger boats avoid. An 8-hp, single-cylinder Palmer Baby Husky gasoline engine is installed under a big hatch in the cockpit floor. I very rarely use this anymore and, for a variety of reasons, am planning on switching over to a small, solar-powered electric motor in the near future.
These days, Keenan is handling MARTHA quite ably on his own, and it’s fun listening to him dream about additions he would like to make down below, changes to the rig, and which distant ports he’d like to visit when he calls the boat his own. We share a lot of good times on the water and I savor every one of them. Over the years I’ve found MARTHA to be extremely gratifying to sail— exhilarating really, when conditions are right—and I’m certain my son will experience similar sensations in the many sailing seasons to come.
S.S. Crocker drew this boat as a yawl in 1953; the sloop rig came along two years later.
Boat plans are available from The WoodenBoat Store, P.O. Box 78, Brooklin, ME 04616; 800–273–7447.
Is there a boat you’d like to know more about? Have you built one that you think other Small Boats Magazine readers would enjoy? Please email us!
This boat is a pint-sized version of a well-known and respected type that worked Lake Michigan from the late 19th century until the beginning of World War I. It’s called a Mackinaw boat—though historically that name applied to a range of boats that have only tenuous family connections.
The plans for this 18-footer, designed by Nelson Zimmer, appeared in WoodenBoat magazine in July 1978. The first example was built as an exhibition in the lobby of a bank. Subsequent accounts of that project suggest that it remained on display there, never to be launched.
The WoodenBoat design review stated that “The spars and gear are simple, inexpensive, and not particularly finicky. An unusual detail is the main and mizzen halyards’ arrangement, combining peak and throat into one line for each sail.” A single halyard for a gaff-rigged boat cuts the volume of spaghetti in half.
Photo by Matthew P. Murphy
A Mackinaw in Maine. The 18’ Nelson Zimmer–designed Mackinaw boat, with her ample sail plan, takes full advantage of a dying southwesterly. Although the plans specify a single halyard for each gaff sail, the boat shown here has both throat and peak halyards.
The boat we sailed for this review was launched by Doug Hylan, a designer-builder and frequent WoodenBoat contributor, in 1982. (In a way, the boat launched his career.) Hylan did not use the single halyard specified, instead opting for separate throat and peak halyards. Twenty-five years later, he says he’d revert to Zimmer’s rigging plan, jokingly calling the boat the “world champion for number of feet of line per foot of boat.” There are other complications, too, though they are easily remedied. “I think the rig made sense,” said Hylan, “when the boats were 26′ long.”
Why?
“Because they had half the complications per pound of displacement.”
Hylan’s boat is now in the fleet at WoodenBoat School. I’ve long been fascinated with the type, and finally sailed WoodenBoat’s in August, trading the helm back and forth with my colleague Aaron Porter, an editor with Professional BoatBuilder magazine and a veteran schoonerman. The boat went like a freight train in a 7–10-knot breeze. She was also a handful, which I’ll describe in the form of a short digression into nomenclature and sheet leads. First, this boat is a ketch, though it looks like a schooner. The masts are of equal height, but there’s a few square feet of difference between the mainsail and the mizzen. The mizzen is set on a boom, and its sheet leads to the helmsman’s hand—sort of like a mainsheet would, except it’s a mizzen sheet. There is no cleat for it, though there’s archaeological evidence of one, in the form of four screw holes in the sole. Hylan’s boat sat for several years before coming to WoodenBoat, and the fate of the cleat (a swivel-based cam cleat, Hylan said) is lost in the mists of time. Its presence seems to be a linchpin to good solo sailing: you need a place to belay the mizzen while tacking the boat.
Back to nomenclature: The mainsail, then, is the forward gaff-rigged sail, and it is boomless. It has two sheets, as would a jib, and these lead to jam cleats near the helmsman, and are meant to be controlled by the crew. The reach to them is awkward for a solo sailor. A turning block and an ergonomic lead across the boat—and a means of easily belaying (and casting off)—would ease the job of tacking.
The jibsheets lead to jam cleats on the side decks, and need no further comment—except to say that the reach to them would be awkward, but manageable, for a solo sailor. This boat is set up for two or more.
I’ve gone on a bit about the shortcomings of the running rigging of our example boat. None of this is meant as a criticism of Hylan, whose catalog of designs and list of new builds and restorations speaks for itself. This boat sat for several years after Hylan had been using her regularly (and singlehanding with ease, he recalls), and a critical cleat has gone missing. As a school boat, she usually has ample crew, and so-staffed, the sheet leads as-rigged are not an issue. But for the solo sailor, they matter. I’m glad in a way that I experienced her like this; the absence of these things clearly defined the need. Once tacked and settled down, the Mackinaw sailed beautifully. Did I mention that she goes like a freight train?
Photo by Matthew P. Murphy
The Mackinaw has a boatload of sheets to tend. But, rigged efficiently, the design can be singlehanded. Note that the mizzen halyards are belayed on the mast. If they led to the thwart instead, they’d add some security to the rig.
This paragraph from the old WoodenBoat review sums up the 18′ Mackinaw boat’s niche: “Anyone looking for a roomy, shoal-draft boat which would give a good account of herself in a broad range of wind and sea conditions, and with a variety of loads, would do well to consider this boat. She would be great fun for several people to sail or row, and she could also be a good friend to one seeking solitude. With her shoal draft she could sneak into some pretty tight places, or ground out at her mooring at low water without trouble. She wouldn’t be too big to haul up the beach when winter comes, either.”
Doug Hylan, however, questions the boat’s utility as a camp-cruiser. “She’s too heavy,” he said. “You get tide-nipped, you’re there.” He’s right about that, of course. There are many boats on the market that have this kind of volume—or even more—and yet are lighter. A sailor shouldn’t be completely swayed against camping in this boat, however. A properly rigged outhaul anchor will get it to deep water for the night.
Twenty-five years of hindsight have helped Hylan form another opinion about the boat: He thinks it should be a sloop, rather than a ketch. He’s had more experience with the boat than most people around here—indeed, he nearly dumped her in a sudden squall. I must say, however, that I’m rather taken with the rig (sheet leads aside) as configured—and not just because it looks right. The colossal sail plan would be a delight (is a delight) in evening zephyrs, and shortening options are numerous. Here they are, gathered during a conversation with builder Hylan: For the first reef, you reduce the mizzen. For the second reef, you douse the mizzen entirely, and proceed under full main and jib. For the third reef, you douse the jib, sailing under mainsail alone. A quick study of the sail plan suggests that the boat will remain balanced. Finally, you can reduce and then dump the mainsail, proceeding under bare poles.
Those masts, by the way, are unstayed, and this simplicity of standing rigging provides a great counterbalance to the relative complexity of the running rigging. But, sailor beware: WoodenBoat’s waterfront director reports that the mizzen has jumped its step in the past, on the mooring in a lumpy blow. The remedy for this behavior is simple: cleat the halyard on the partners (the after thwart) rather than on the mast, as it’s done now. The tension of the halyard will keep the mast put.
Photo by Matthew P. Murphy
This 18’ Mackinaw will sail in a range of conditions, though the first reef must be taken early. The reef nettles seen flying here are on the mainsail; they’re the last of four options, before dousing everything and proceeding under bare poles.
Here’s another quote from the 1978 design review, addressing the matter of construction: “She would be a moderately easy boat for the experienced amateur to build, with no particularly complex structures to deal with, and no need to be very concerned about saving weight.”
Which brings us to ballast. My colleague, after being surprised at the boat’s short “carry” when shooting the mooring on his first attempt, reckoned our example could use several hundred pounds more ballast. Hylan concurs; years ago, when he still owned the boat, he removed a portion of her inside ballast and melted it into a shoe that he bolted to the keel, freeing room inside for more lead pigs.
Doug Hylan reckons the boat would take a professional builder 1,200 to 1,500 hours, and thus cost about $40,000 to $50,000 to have one built. As great as this design is, that price has some stiff competition in the marketplace. A professional builder is not likely to make a career building Mackinaw boats. But this should be an inspiration, and not a deterrent, to would-be amateur builders. This figure supports John Gardner’s notion that the survival of traditional small craft like the Mackinaw boat rests in the hands of amateurs. (Gardner was a boatbuilder, a teacher, and the Curator of Small Craft at Mystic Seaport Museum. His writing and teaching inspired many builders to the profession—and many more amateurs to the avocation.) Boatbuilding is fun and rewarding, and to re-create a Mackinaw boat in one’s garage would be a wonderful way to spend 1,500 hours—far more wonderful than two or three years’ worth of sitcoms, in my opinion.
I’m reminded of a story I was told once of a woman who’d built a boat, and was asked how long the project took. The questioner expressed surprise at the hours, and at her dedication. Her simple retort: “It would have taken that long not to build it, too.”
With the after sail a few square feet smaller than the forward one, the Mackinaw is labeled a ketch. The plumb ends and deep forefoot are hallmarks of the type, as is the straight keel with no drag (or slope).
It rarely gets cold enough here in Seattle to keep me from getting out on the water, so I’ve been getting year-round exercise and recreation paddling my Struer K-1 trainer on the canal that connects Puget Sound to Lake Union. The launch ramp is only 1-1/2 miles from my home and I’ve made this outing hundreds of times, so often that it has become an efficient routine that takes well under two hours from the time I decide to take a break from work to being back at my desk, rejuvenated and clear-headed.
This dock, at the ramp just 1-1/2 miles from home, is where I’ve launched the Struer kayak many hundreds of times to go paddling on Seattle’s inland waterways.
When there was a break in the wind and rain on the last Sunday of last November, I changed into my paddling wet suit, loaded the kayak on the roof racks, and headed for the ramp. The news being what it was in 2020, I usually didn’t listen to the radio, and instead put the seven-minute drive to good use, often doing memory exercises. On this particular Sunday, I was trying to remember cast members from the movie Young Frankenstein. Gene Wilder was easy and I could picture Peter Boyle, both as the monster and as himself; his name wasn’t long in coming to mind. I knew that the name of the actress who played the ingénue laboratory assistant was one I’d be able to recall, but I got stuck on the similar-sounding name of Vikki Carr and it took me a while to come up with Teri Garr. Later in the drive, out of the blue, the face of a neighbor I hadn’t seen in over a decade came to mind, and his first name dawned on me in a few seconds: Craig. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to come up with his last name, but a half minute later, after I’d given up trying, it too popped into my head.
Within a couple of hundred yards from the ramp and feeling pretty good that my memory wasn’t too far gone for a 67-year-old, I heard a thump on the car roof and caught a glimpse in the driver-door rear-view mirror of a brown diagonal shape crossing the field of view. The kayak had flown off the racks.
I pulled off the street and walked back to the delicate, 30-lb Struer. It had flipped over and come to rest upside down on a diagonal across the edge of the roadway, half on concrete, half on the dirt and gravel of the median. The car coming up from behind had plenty of distance to stop and the driver rolled down his window and asked if I needed help. I replied “No, thank you. I’ve got it.”
I picked up the kayak, got it out of his way, and carried it back to my car to inspect the damage. Aft of the cockpit there was a T-shaped crack in the deck. It was as big as my hand and had a gumball-sized rock wedged between the jagged edges of one of the tears. The rudder blade was bent from vertical to nearly horizontal and there was a 1′-long hole in the bottom, just ahead of the rudder. I looked up and down both sides of the road looking for a missing piece but didn’t see any stray bits of the hull. I didn’t realize until I got home that the skeg, which guards the rudder, had been punched into the hull and stayed there.
I suppose I could have been angry, but I was numb with disbelief, not by why my kayak could have flown off the car, but by how I could have missed something I had never failed to do in nearly a half century of driving boats to the water: tying one down on the roof rack.
In the instant I saw the kayak in the rear-view mirror, I knew what had happened: I had made one small change in my routine. I have been loading the Struer the same way for years: I open the twin doors to the garage, slide the kayak off the carpeted eye-level shelf it shares with my lapstrake canoe and my son’s two paddleboards, and carry it to the car where I set it on the foam cradles and tie it down. On this Sunday, right after I’d put the kayak on its cradles, I glanced at the garage. The doors were open, as they always are at that point in the routine; I don’t close them until after I tie the kayak down. But one time last year I’d forgotten to close and lock the doors, and I was surprised to see them open when I came back from paddling. Not wanting to forget this, I walked away from the car and closed the doors. By the time I had returned to the car, I had slipped into the rest of the routine—the steps I do without thinking— got in and drove off.
If the bow of the kayak were visible from the driver’s seat, I would have noticed it bouncing and swaying; if I were heading to a distant put-in, I would have, as a backup to memory, rolled the window down, reached up and checked the tension on the rope.
The kayak stayed put for five turns, four stops, a 1/4-mile of arterial westbound at 25 mph, and 3/4 mile of boulevard southbound at 20 mph. It might have been a bump in the pavement that lifted the bow enough for the kayak to take its short flight.
The fall of the Struer from my car’s roof racks left the rudder’s stainless-steel shaft bent nearly 90 degrees.
The skeg, which keeps weeds from getting caught on the rudder, got punched into the hull. I couldn’t find any missing pieces on the road and was lucky that the skeg didn’t fall out through the hole on the drive home.
When I first picked the kayak off the road, the longitudinal part of the crack in the aft deck was tightly holding a piece of gravel; I couldn’t tell what had hit the deck here.
While the stern sustained the most damage, the bow took a hit, too, probably on a bounce as the kayak turned upside down.
As bad as the damage was, I had fixed the kayak once before and already knew how to approach the repairs. It had been air-freighted, brand new, from the Struer factory in Denmark, protected only by a soft, translucent cocoon of bubble wrap and a “Top Load Only” label. The label had evidently been ignored and the kayak made the flight to Seattle under a pile of other cargo. The deck and hull had pancaked, splitting the seam between them and breaking deckbeams free of the gunwales. The corner of a box or a crate had pushed through the bubble wrap into the foredeck, tearing through the plies of hot-molded mahogany. I’d put the kayak in slings and left it hanging from the ceiling in my basement for about two years as I mulled over how I’d put it back in working order.
Repairing the damage done to the Struer in transit from Denmark was rather complicated. Bringing the collapsed deckbeams back into position would restore the boat’s shape; planking clamps could work on the deckbeam forward of the cockpit and the rest required bicycle spokes inserted through the hull—their flared hub ends hooked under the beam ends—and drawn up with blocks of wood and slotted wedges.
The seam between the deck and hull had split in several places. Masking tape limited the spread of epoxy and packing tape drew the edges back together. Blocks of wood under the packing tape pushed the edge of the hull back in line with the deck’s edge.
The cracks made by a box during shipping required gluing a piece of 1/8″ mahogany plywood to the interior side of the deck. A piece of 3/4″ plywood inside temporarily backed the mahogany. Clear plastic food wrap and Plexiglas provided a surface to pull the damaged area flat and provided a view as drywall screws squeezed everything together.
The finished repair of the shipping damage was as smooth as it had been new. I didn’t bother tinting the epoxy to match the mahogany and hide the boat’s history.
Afloat for the first time, the repaired Struer proved a great pleasure to paddle and provided great exercise. It became my most frequently used boat, taken out well over 150 times each year. This time, it won’t take two years to make the new round of repairs. I’m eager to have the kayak available again for the outings I’ve come to rely upon for physical and mental wellbeing. I trust the Struer’s new scars will make an equally indelible mark on my memory, a prompt to tie the kayak tightly to the roof racks.
Harold “Dynamite” Payson, famed small-boat builder, wanted a boat he could row out to the islands of coastal Maine in the morning calm and sail home in the afternoon breeze. He wanted to be able to row standing up, facing forward, as he had done earlier in his life when tending lobster pots off Metinic Island. He was thinking of a sturdy Maine peapod, but wanted something lighter, like a light dory, only more stable. He asked Phil Bolger to design the boat for him and together they brainstormed ideas until both were satisfied. The result was the Sweet Pea.
It’s a cross between a peapod and a surf dory, primarily a rowing craft, 15′ in length, 4′ 4″ of beam, and 150 pounds or so when fitted with the spritsail sailing rig, slipping keel, and inboard rudder. For rowing, the sailing rig can be left behind altogether, the slipping keel and rudder removed from their wells, reducing the weight to just 125 pounds.
Ingrid Code
There is no centerboard or daggerboard trunk taking up precious space in the cockpit. On the deck at each end of the foot well, note the green protruding tongues with fids holding the slipping-keel in place. The tiller is folded back to rest in its notch on the sternpost. All spars and oars will stow inside the cockpit. This Sweet Pea is tender to the schooner NINA and hangs in the davits when cruising; a stainless-steel eyebolt with heavy backing plate at the mast partner (mirrored aft) serves as the attachment point for the lifting tackle.
In our case, we were looking for a tender to NINA, our 45′ Pete Culler-designed scow schooner. We were cruising full time and needed a rugged tender capable of carrying a heavy load of supplies or ferrying guests out to the schooner at anchor. We didn’t want a rubber dinghy with an outboard, but something that fit the aesthetics of the schooner—beautiful, in other words. It had to be a good rowing boat, but we thought it would be a lot of fun if we could sail it, too. Dayton Trubee, NINA’s captain, called Dynamite about a new rowing dory that could have a sailing rig also. Dynamite suggested the Sweet Pea design as the perfect boat for our needs. Dennis Hansen of Spruce Head, Maine, built it for us over the winter of 2002–2003, and delivered a work of art as beautiful as it is functional.
Sweet Pea has a multi-chined plywood hull designed for tack-and-tape construction and the resulting rather open seams are filled and shaped with putty before the hull is fiberglassed. Foam flotation beneath the side decks and the buoyancy compartments at either end of the boat will keep it afloat even if swamped. The bulkheads for these compartments, along with the ’midship frame, give support to the hull and help form its shape as the sheer panels are put in place. The bilge panels go on last, completing the hull.
Ingrid Code
The full-length slipping keel rests against the 1/2″ bottom and is secured only by the two fids fit through the ends of the tongues, which slide into the two wells at each end of the boat. The inboard rudder extends only to the end of the bottom. Sweet Pea’s straightforward, hard-chine construction is evident here.
The two wells for the full-length, 3″-deep slipping keel need to be included in the build only if the boat will be sailed. The slipping keel is an interesting way to go, and eliminates having a centerboard or daggerboard trunk crowding the middle of a small boat. As Phil Bolger describes, the slipping keel is based on those of England’s Norfolk Wherries, 50′- to 60′-long cargo vessels whose keels could be slipped off, while still afloat, before navigating shallow waters, and replaced upon return to deep water. The Sweet Pea’s shallow, full-length keel has two vertical tongues, one at either end, that slip up into small wells that are braced by the bulkheads and decks of the buoyancy chambers. A fid slipped into a hole at the top of each of these two protruding tongues holds them in place above the deck and the keel snug against the bottom.
The round rudderstock has its own deck opening aft of the slipping-keel well; the rudderstock pivots between the coved aft end of the slipping keel and the rounded aft end of the well. The rudder is kept from swinging free when rowing by the wonderfully efficient method of folding the tiller back all the way—180º—to set its end in a notch on the sternpost.
The rowing seats are built in five parts over a jig and are moveable to any part of the boat interior, resting on the parallel ledges that support the cockpit’s side decks. The plans call for two seats, but we’ve found that an extra seat aft (making one deep seat) adds considerably to the comfort of the passenger and doubles as a foot brace for the long-legged rower in the primary rowing position. It works for us because the two seats are butted up against the aft bulkhead. Heel cleats are indicated in the plans, but they’re absent in our boat. When using the forward rowing station, the ’midship frame works well as a foot brace. A savvy builder or owner could add foot braces to fit.
According to Payson, a skilled boatbuilder could complete a Sweet Pea in three weeks to a month working full time. Dynamite Payson’s meticulous instructions on building Sweet Pea in his book, Instant Boat Building with Dynamite Payson, give a detailed account of each step in the process, with a few modifications from Bolger’s suggestions in the plans. All in all, these directions are straightforward and clear, accompanied by photographs at each stage in the process. It would be well-worth studying these 21 pages with care before diving into the project.
Dennis built our Sweet Pea without the stacked foam panels filling the buoyancy chambers as indicated in Payson’s instructions. He left them empty and provided access to the enclosed space with watertight access ports in the bulkheads, two at each end. We’ve found these compartments most useful as places to store a dinghy anchor, a set of stand-up oarlocks, or our lead-weighted sounding line.
Paula Gillikin
Rowed solo from the primary rowing station, the boat is considerably lighter and easy to maneuver. The slipping keel and rudder are still attached in this photo, but can be removed.
There are two conventional rowing stations as well as the stand-up rowing station amidships. The two rowing stations are too close together to allow for tandem rowing but can be used to row solo from whichever rowing station achieves the best boat trim. The Sweet Pea rows well even when carrying a heavy load. We’ve had four adults aboard at one time or two adults with schooner provisions.
Paula Gillikin
An unusual feature of the Sweet Pea is its stand-up rowing station amidships. The rower faces forward “to see the rocks before hitting them,” as Dynamite Payson would say. The boat is surprisingly stable when standing. Stand-up oarlocks are essential for this practice.
The amidships station is used for stand-up rowing with tall stand-up oarlocks. One stands aft of center facing forward, propelling the boat by pushing on the oar handles. The motion feels different physically as one rows by pushing forward—and facing forward—rather than pulling the blades backward through the water, looking over one’s shoulder. It’s quite fun! The perspective is different, reminding me of stand-up-paddle-boarding, and approaching shoals are visible well before feeling the surprise of hitting bottom with an oar blade. And the boat is so stable there is no difficulty in being able to stand up and keep your balance. Only a powerboat wake caught beam on will prove momentarily challenging.
We usually row without removing the slipping keel, hoping that we might get in an afternoon sail. It’s easy enough to remove the keel for rowing only, though Payson suggests a skeg be made to fit the aft well to help the boat track straight. Without it, it’ll happily spin in its own length, as I’ve found, and curve off in one direction or the other if I’m momentarily resting on the oars. With the keel in place, coming alongside the schooner or a dock is easily done and the shallow keel will hold the boat in place, keeping it from sliding sideways at the wrong moment. Only a strong side-current or an unusually strong wind will make things difficult, though I suspect that would be the case with any small boat.
Paula Gillikin
When rowing with a passenger, the boat is well balanced using the forward rowing station and bracing one’s feet on the midship frame.
We’ve beached our Sweet Pea many times while out exploring. The breasthooks at each end do make it easier to haul the boat up the beach. It’s doable with one person, but easier with two. We make sure to lift the rudder clear of the sand when beach launching to avoid grit or mud getting up between the rudder and slipping keel, to prevent it jamming the rudder and making it hard to turn. Since we leave the slipping keel in place, even for beaching, we slide a cushion or small fender under the chine to keep the boat upright. We’ve found removing or replacing the keel on the beach requires two people, one to hold the boat up on one side, the other to handle the keel and rudder. It could be done solo if there were a post or tree nearby to lean the boat up against. The operation can be slightly finicky. Because the rudder is braced against the aft end of the slipping keel, we’ve always found we needed to remove the rudder also when removing the keel, and that means removing the tiller with its associated acorn nuts and washers, which have a tendency to slip out of your fingers and vanish down the well. Early on, we removed the rudder and slipping keel much more often—and contemplated having a skeg made for rowing only that would utilize the aft well and lighten the boat. In the end, we’ve found it suits us to leave the keel in place, have the option of sailing more frequently, and accept whatever drag it creates as an improvement in the exercise we get while rowing.
We keep the spars and sail inside the boat most of the time, even if just back from running an errand onshore, in case a breeze pipes up for a little sail. Payson talks about chocks on the fore and aft bulkheads to hold the spars off the ’midship frame and bottom panel, but without chocks in our boat and all spars and sail rolled snugly in one long canvas bag that fits inside the cockpit, the rig is secured with a single lanyard amidships and tucked up half under the side deck and out of the way. When not in use, the 7′ 6″ oars get stowed in their own protective bag on the opposite side, beneath the seats and under the other side deck. It doesn’t take long, 10 minutes at the most, to pull the canvas bag off and set up the little sprit rig. We move the seats into a neat, nested stack forward or aft and sit on the bottom of the boat to sail in light air. There’s more room that way and, with the center of gravity lower, the boat feels more stable. We ended up adding a visibility panel in the sail because it was hard to see under the sail at times.
Paula Gillikin
In the right conditions, the Sweet Pea will move along at a nice clip under sail with her spritsail rig, especially bearing in mind her shallow keel and primary purpose as a rowing craft. On the day this photo was taken, the Sweet Pea took off in a rising wind and favorable current, leaving the photographer in the chase boat calling out, “Slow down!”
With the Sweet Pea rigged to sail, the slipping keel shows that it works well in a little sailboat that’s more concerned with rowing and carrying gear than high-performance sailing. The boat doesn’t really like to go to windward, but then that was never the point of the design. Sailing with a nice breeze on or aft of the beam, it goes along smartly and is a lot of fun. For a while we sailed it without the boom—one less thing to carry aboard—but for close-hauled work or running the boat does better with it. We run the sheet through a block attached to a small cleat in the sternpost and it feels more controlled that way, lighter in the hand. In light airs we’ve occasionally “motor-sailed” (rowing while the sail is up), though we’re more likely to take the sail down and just row.
A year or so after we’d got our Sweet Pea, we corresponded with the designer, Phil Bolger, about the boat. His own Sweet Pea was built for rowing only and he was curious as to the performance under sail. He wrote:
“I’ve been wondering if another inch and a half on that keel would gain more in sailing ability than it would cost in rowing effort. This is prompted by an anecdote of a big, three-masted schooner, wall-sided and deep-loaded, which showed an allegedly dramatic improvement in windward performance by a quite small (proportionately!) addition to her salient keel. (She had no centerboard.)”
A home boatbuilder with time to experiment may want to make up a second, deeper slipping keel to see if Bolger’s musings on this improve her sailing performance any without too-great a detriment to rowing.
When I’m out for a row just for the fun of it, maybe to get some exercise, or to explore some new harbor, the Sweet Pea rows along smoothly at a decent pace, steady as can be. In a steep chop, the bow will stomp or slap a little. If the stern is weighted down (usually with me, while Captain Trubee is at the oars), some spray will make its way aft when pulling into a headwind. I’ve never noticed much spray, if any, coming aboard when rowing solo. Payson said the same of the boat. Bolger gives the Sweet Pea a hull speed around 3½ knots, 4 knots if rowing hard. It’s not a race boat and there are some craft she just won’t compete with that way. Recently I rowed with a friend in an Adirondack guideboat fitted with a sliding seat. His paper-light boat flew along, gliding across the water with great ease and speed. But, on quick reflection, I considered how tender his boat is, how limited the conditions are for safely taking it out, the loads it can’t carry, its lack of a sail, and my momentary envy yielded to a solid appreciation for Bolger’s sweet design.
We once had our Sweet Pea out in a bad squall, trying to row back to the schooner out at anchor; the wind gusted across the tops of the waves, rain poured down, and lightning was all too close. Our success that night was partly due to the skill of the rower, but also to the boat itself with its seaworthy design and solid construction. We never felt at risk of being swamped and knew even if we were, the boat would stay afloat.
After more than 17 years of continuous service, very little about her has needed attention, besides cosmetically. The one area that should not be neglected is the insides of the slipping keel wells and the tongues on the slipping keel. We had left the keel in place a little too long and it was only on removing it for maintenance that we discovered some wood hidden up in one of the wells (and along the corresponding slipping keel tongue) that needed the attention of a shipwright. Take care that these areas are well sealed in the building process and then remove the slipping keel and rudder periodically to inspect. Otherwise, our Sweet Pea was remarkably solid after considerable, hard usage as tender to the schooner.
The Sweet Pea is the perfect little hybrid vessel that fits our needs perfectly. It’s a handsome boat with pleasing lines and, despite the modern construction, has a heritage in its workboat ancestors. It’s an able, sturdy, rowing/sailing, weight-carrying double-ender with a graceful sheer and a penchant for exploring beautiful harbors and creeks in myriad anchorages, sailing along the sedge, taking us for picnics on deserted islands, and carrying loads of provisions out to the schooner. It tows well behind the schooner when the need arises and is light enough to be carried on the davits with ease. We’ve cruised NINA from Bar Harbor, Maine, to the Dry Tortugas and all points between, and our Sweet Pea has been an indispensable part of that—a great joy to row and sail.
Ingrid Code is a sailor, freelance writer, and musician who sails aboard the Joel White-built scow schooner NINA. Currently sailing south for the winter, she has spent the last twenty years exploring the rivers, creeks, bays, sounds, and byways of the US East Coast.
The Droleen, a 12′ lapstrake catboat, was designed in 1896 by W. Ogilvy of Bray, a town on the east coast of Ireland. It was intended to be launched off a stony beach and to be sailed “in any weather, plenty of wind and sea—not infrequently encountered off the coast of Bray,” according to H.C. Folkard’s 1906 book, Sailing Boats from Around the World.
Eight boats were built—some, if not at all, by Mr. Foley of Ringsend, Dublin—but it is thought that the development of the class was hampered when some of the original owners, who were in the British Army, were called away to fight in the Boer War (1899–1902) in South Africa. There was, however, some class racing up until the First World War, after which the boats gradually disappeared. None survive today.
Photographs by the author
The trailing edge of the 3/16″ galvanized steel centerplate is fully exposed when retracted in the open-topped trunk.
The plans survived somehow and in 1996 they were redrafted by the renowned naval architect and small-boat designer, George O’Brien Kennedy. This allowed the Bray Droleen Heritage Association—founded in 2013 and led by the late Frank de Groot—to build two new boats, the first of which was launched at an Old Gaffers Association event on Dublin’s River Liffey in 2014. When Irishman Michael Weed enrolled at the Boat Building Academy (BBA) in Lyme Regis, U.K., he was keen to build one. He managed to get hold of a set of drawings from Jim Horgan, who runs the Galway School of Boat Building on the west coast of Ireland.
Before the lofting process began, BBA course tutor Mike Broome decided that there should be five molds instead of the three shown in the plans. This, and other anomalies in the plans, meant that the lofting process was more problematic than it might have been, but it allowed Mike to then produce a significantly more accurate lines plan and table of offsets.
The boat was built the right way up, and the construction process began with the dead-straight 1-1/2″ x 1-3/4″ sapele keel being laid on top of a temporary strongback. The triangular oak deadwood was fitted aft, and then the 1/2″ x 3-1/2″ sapele hog was laid on top of it and the keel, all glued with epoxy. The keel and the hog already had the centerboard slot cut into them. The 3/4″ oak transom was fitted along with its 1″-thick oak knee, while the laminated oak stem and apron—each 1-1/2″ thick and together forming the rabbet for the forward ends of the planks—were scarfed-in forward. The five temporary molds were then put in place.
The Droleen has 11 strakes of 5/16″ planking. The 6′ beam in the 12′ boat gives the hull a notably full shape.
The planking starts with the garboards. The plans called for 11 or 12 strakes, and it was considered that 11 would be enough, despite the extreme beam. Two strakes have full-length planks, but all the others have scarfed joints, some of them two. To cope with the bend and the twist, about 3′ of the forward ends of the bottom three planks had to be steamed. The planks are 5/16″-thick larch with 3/4″ laps between them. Once all the planks were fitted and fastened to each other with rivets, three struts were taken up from each sheer to the roof beams to allow the molds to be removed without the hull losing its shape. The inside of the hull was then primed.
Most of the steam-bent 9/16″ x 1/2″ oak ribs are continuous from sheer to sheer, but the two most forward are divided by the maststep, eight amidships by the centerboard case, and the aft two by the stern knee. After the ribs were bent in place, they were allowed to cool, then removed to be primed before they were riveted into place.
The internal fit-out began with the 13/16″ sapele floors, which also serve as sole bearers. The plans called for just four, all of them aft of the centerboard case, but it was decided to fit seven in all, partly for extra strength, but also to allow later fitting of sole boards over a greater area. Next came the 1-1/8″ x 3/4″ oak seat risers. It was initially thought that these would need steaming, but it was just possible to fit them without. The centerboard case—made of 5/8″ sapele with varnished oak trim—had previously been dry-fitted, and this was now fixed into place. The centerplate —3/16″ galvanized steel—was “originally a quadrant shape, meaning a large portion of it stuck up into the boat when raised,” said course tutor Mike. “I just tweaked the shape to a more conventional parallel-sided one to avoid this.”
Next came the 7/8″ x 1-5/8″ inwales, the 3/8″-thick caps, and the 3/4″ x 1-1/8″ rubbing strake, all in oak. The latter had to be steamed. The three 7/8″ oak thwarts were then fitted. The 8″-wide forward and middle thwarts gain some support from the centerboard case (the latter also with a knee fixed to the aft end of the case) and each of them also has two knees per side, while the 10″- wide aft thwart has a 5/8″ support, 3″ deep amidships tapering to 1-1/2″. The quarter knees are 1″ oak, while the breasthook, which doubles up as the mast gate, is 1-5/8″ thick. This is brought 17″ aft along the inside of the inwales—not as far as shown in the plans, but it was thought that they would become too thin to contribute any strength if they were brought farther aft. On top of the breasthook between the mast and the apron is a custom bronze fitting through which bronze pins are fitted to allow the mast to be lashed firmly into its gate.
The 7/8″-thick sapele blade pivots within a 2-7/8″-thick oak rudderstock. The tiller is also oak. The spruce spars are of hollow bird’s-mouth construction with oak cappings to seal the end-grain. The predominant feature of the unstayed cat-rigged sail plan is the length of the boom which, at 14′ 6″, is 2′ 6″ longer than the boat. It is thought that this was originally to allow a seaworthy low-aspect rig.
The aft end of the breasthook has a notch that serves as the mast partners. The mast is lashed in place with turns anchored by a pair of bronze belaying pins forward.
Stepping the mast is a simple enough job for one person by placing the heel into the maststep, pivoting it forward into the breasthook, and then lashing it there. The sail plan also shows a second sail which is referred to as a “jib/spinnaker,” but in truth it seems to be not really either. It is set with its tack on the end of a conventional spinnaker pole but is too small to be an effective spinnaker. Michael plans to make such a sail and pole at some time in the future, but for now the boat just has the single sail.
Although the Droleen in only 12′ long, it has plenty of room for a crew of four. The 112 sq ft sail has a boom that’s 14-1/2′ long, keeping the center of that sail area low.
I had the chance of a sail the Droleen on the BBA’s Launch Day when I climbed aboard from a RIB, swapping places with a couple of students. It was blowing a Force 3, with occasional Force 4 gusts; by the time the transfer was complete, the Droleen was in irons. Wishing she had a jib to back to turn the bow away from the wind, I put the tiller over the “wrong way” as we began to go backwards. I fully expected that when I then pulled the mainsheet in to fill the sail, she would just luff up again, but it immediately started sailing very easily. It then proved itself to be a very enjoyable and easy boat to sail on all points of sail, at all times well balanced and responsive. I had been a bit intimidated by the length of the boom and wondered how it would be to jibe. But I did so a couple of times with no issues at all, each time partly pulling the sheet in beforehand to give some control over the boom.
At one point the Droleen touched 5 knots in a gust on a close reach while the centerplate hummed satisfyingly. The massive beam gives the boat not only a great deal of internal space but also great stability. There were three of us on board—and there would have been plenty of room for two more—and while I steered from the stern seat to windward, my two shipmates sat each side of the centerboard case, sometimes on the center thwart, and sometimes on the sole where they were well clear of the boom. At one point when sailing to windward we had a bit of a gust and the leeward crewman instinctively began to move to windward. Before he could do so, however, the boat’s angle of heel stopped at about 10 degrees and he realized there was no need for him to move.
A pair of 9′ oars proved to be a good fit for the 70″ span between the oarlocks.
The Droleen also makes a nice rowing boat. Michael was concerned that the beam of the boat would make it difficult to row from the center thwart where the rowlocks are spaced 70″ apart and that it would be easier to use the forward thwart where they are 65″ apart, although he would need to make a raised seat to cover the centerboard’s handle, which lies across the thwart with the board up. As it happens, there was no difficulty rowing from the center thwart with the 9′ oars.
The Droleen is a versatile, well-behaved boat whose extreme beam gives plenty of space and stability, and it is great to see that the class is experiencing something of a revival after all these years.
Nigel Sharp is a lifelong sailor and a freelance marine writer and photographer. He spent 35 years in managerial roles in the boatbuilding and repair industry, and has logged thousands of miles in boats big and small, from dinghies to schooners.
Droleen Particulars
[table]
Length/12′
Beam/6′
Draft, board up/6″
Draft, board down/32″
[/table]
The Droleen lines and offsets, drawn by BBA instructor Mike Broome, are provided here. For more information, email Mike at the Boat Building Academy.
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On a warm midday in November, I cast ARR & ARR’s lines off from the dock at Goose Island State Park and rowed into the fickle breeze coming down the double row of low pilings marking the channel to Aransas Bay on the south-central Texas coast. The channel was only 100′ wide, too narrow to beat to weather in the light air with a balanced lug—at least for me—especially with fishermen or hunters speeding back to the park’s ramp in their high-powered skiffs and airboats. Instead, I rowed across the shallows between the channel and the park’s 800′ fishing pier.
Photographs by the author
After a 3-hour drive from my home in Austin, I left my car and trailer at a campsite at Goose Island State Park while I explored the bays. The landscape of the Texas Coastal Bend is flat with sand and shell beaches, brackish marshes, and bay depths of only 10′ to 15′. While mild conditions are the norm in early November, northers can blow through and drop temperatures 20 or 30 degrees in only minutes and build up a steep chop. I was fortunate to have five straight days ahead with afternoon highs near 80, overnight lows in the 60s, mostly clear skies, and winds rarely over 15 knots.
Near the steps that lead down from the pier into the water, two anglers in waders cast lines in long arcs. A kayak fisherman floating just past the end of the pier reeled in a slack line little by little. He paid no attention to me as I rowed past him on the side of his kayak opposite his fishing line, but a man and a boy standing on the end of the pier waved to me. I returned a wave and rowed another 1/4 mile into Aransas Bay. The bay was crinkled by wavelets in the light air. I had only 5 miles to go that afternoon, so I took my time stowing the oars, fenders, and dock lines before raising the sail.
I would rendezvous with another seven or eight boats across the bay at Paul’s Mott, a point of scrub and shell jutting about 1/4 mile into the bay from San José Island, for our first of two nights camping together. Most of them had set sail from Rockport an hour or two earlier. I would have launched from there as well, but I planned to spend an extra two days and nights exploring Aransas Bay by myself after they all headed home, so I left my car and trailer in the Goose Island campground where the gates are locked at night, giving me peace of mind and allowing me to relax completely.
Roger Siebert
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Oyster reefs run out into the bay in a broken line from Paul’s Mott. In the light air, waves wouldn’t break over the reefs, and with the murky water, I doubted I’d be able to see them. The Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) crosses the bay left and right about two thirds of the way to Paul’s Mott. Crossing the navigational channel at its marker 15 would keep ARR & ARR well away from the reefs, so I sailed closehauled south-southeast, as close to the marker’s bearing as I could while still maintaining 2 or 3 knots.
Within half an hour, the wind freshened to the 5 to 10 knots that had been forecast. It was easy sailing under a clear sunny sky, exactly the stuff I had wanted after months of being cooped up with a computer in what had become my office at home.
Tugboats pushing barges paired end-to-end crossed in the distance from left and right. I studied their courses through my monocular and made out the ICW’s numbered markers, green square and red triangular signs set on piles driven either side of the route. Two tacks put me back on track toward marker 15 and put more distance between ARR & ARR and the reefs, and I crossed the ICW during a lull in the barge traffic. By then, the wind had picked up another few knots, so I was able to point higher and made Paul’s Mott after only another hour on a single tack of easy sailing.
While I was still 200 yards from the point, where the chart shows a dip in the reef to a depth of 2′ to 3′, I raised the daggerboard and crossed the reef on a reach. Once on the other side of the reef and back in 5′ to 10′ of water, I put the board back down and closehauled back toward shore, where two boats were beached near a large portable canopy with a peaked fabric top.
Oddly, neither boat had a mast. I tried to recall if any of the group I planned to meet were to arrive in powerboats. I’d figure out what was what after I beached ARR & ARR. To cross the last 100 or so shallow yards to the beach, I dropped sail, unfastened the sheet’s lower block from its anchor point on the main thwart and moved it to a quarter cleat, swapped the daggerboard for the slot’s rowing plug, and set to rowing.
I heard “ARR & ARR, ARR & ARR, this is MYSTERY MACHINE, over” from the handheld VHF clipped on the front of my PFD. Matt, the sailor who had organized the trip, informed me that our group was not at Paul’s Mott—that the spot had been occupied when they had arrived—but about a mile southwest instead. I noticed a cluster of five masts then, well down the coast.
I decided to row instead of raising sail again and bent to the oars. I hadn’t rowed regularly in months, and it felt good to work my back and arms again. ARR & ARR slipped past the coast of waist-high cordgrass dotted with tiny oyster shell beaches, chest-high mangrove clumps, and narrow gaps where sloughs led into the island’s interior.
At our first night’s camp on San José Island, Matt, Ziggy, Dave, and I pitched our tents on the higher ground near the vegetation line. The island beaches in Aransas Bay are mostly oyster shell, and the water from the bay, at left, seeps through the sieve of piled-up shell to and from saltwater pools, at right, making them rise and fall with the tides.
MYSTERY MACHINE, Matt’s modified Bolger Featherwind, and MARILYN J, Glenn’s Mayfly 16, were already pulled up on the shell beach; Bobby and his wife Pam, with PILGRIM, a custom Princess 22 cat ketch, floated about 20′ off the beach on a bow anchor and a stern line run ashore; and CHICKEN PARTS, a MacGregor 26, swung on anchor about 100 yards out. I rowed ashore between MARILYN J and PILGRIM, stepped out, and pulled ARR & ARR’s bow as high as I could onto the beach.
The beach was mainly broken oyster shell piled into ridges paralleling the water and varied from as narrow as 10′ where I had beached ARR & ARR to as wide as 40′ interrupted with a saltwater pool so wide that cat’s-paws scurried across its surface.
Behind the beach, where soil mixed with the shell, thick vegetation transitioned through narrow, distinct bands. Closest to the shell beach and spreading onto parts of it were ankle-high saltwort, salt-tolerant succulents with pink runners and thick, light-green, inch-long leaves. Behind that was a dense, soft, shin-high layer of saltgrass, its narrow dark-green leaves in herringbone patterns that reminded me of the softer evergreens. Interspersed with the saltgrass were patches of prickly pear and knee-high sea oxeye daisy, some with dark, dried flower discs long gone to seed. The ground behind dipped back down into swampy swales and sloughs lined with cordgrass. Twisted limbs of scrub oak reached skyward above bushy, dark green mangroves.
As I unloaded ARR & ARR to make my camp, two WindRider 17 trimarans arrived, one skippered by Ziggy and the other by Dave, whom I had met the year before on a similar excursion. The three of us set up our tents at the edge of camp, on the flatter, higher ridge of shell running along the back edge of the beach’s wider stretch, next to the vegetation and separated from the shoreline by that pond-sized saltwater pool.
The tide would rise only 6″ or so overnight, and the wind was forecast to lighten and continue blowing across the island and out into the bay, so Ziggy, Dave, Matt, and I—those of us with tents—left our boats pulled up on the beach with anchors set on shore. Glenn planned to sleep aboard MARILYN J, so he repositioned her just off the beach with a stern anchor and a bow line running to shore.
Dave and I caught up over our dinners, he on his chair next to his tent and me, maintaining safe social distancing, on my two-gallon bucket next to mine.
Michael sailed in on RED TOP, a highly modified Lehman 12, and anchored about 15′ off of San José Island. The barge in the background stayed in place overnight and was on its way early the next morning before we got underway.
While we ate and chatted, a tiny red and green boat sailed in from the direction of Rockport and dropped anchor just 15’ from shore. It was RED TOP, a highly modified Lehman 12, now with a lugsail, leeboards, and a cuddy cabin. After stowing the sail, Michael, its skipper, came ashore and joined in the still-scattered reunions and conversation.
Most of us had brought firewood along—driftwood being rare on these bay beaches—and soon after dark, Matt had a fire going. An inflatable tender motored in from CHICKEN PARTS and Nick and his young son Mason disembarked. We gathered in ones and twos around the fire until the whole group of nine or ten was present. The air was pleasantly warm, so we didn’t sit in a circle around the fire but sat in a rough line stretched along the narrow beach facing the bay instead. I sat on my bucket at one end of the line, vigilant about keeping the recommended 6′ from anyone else whenever in company for more than a few seconds, but with the wind blowing across our line and out into the bay instead of along the line, even that was probably unnecessary.
I mostly listened, taking in the others’ stories and plans as much as I did the breeze and the deepening black sky. Mars shone bright and orange high in the southern sky, and Jupiter and Saturn stood poised above the horizon where the sun had set.
After daylight the next morning, we took our time breaking camp. I made a cup of coffee and sat on my bucket outside my tent. An airboat hummed in the distance and a bird trilled from somewhere in the cordgrass or mangroves, then went silent at the dull thud, thud of hunters’ distant gunfire. Ducks flew in wavy lines over the island.
The air was only slightly cool. I hadn’t even pulled my sleeping bag from its dry bag the night before, but had instead slept directly on my sleeping mat, comfortable just wearing jeans and a fleece shirt.
I walked down to the boats with the last of my coffee. The wind blew across the island from the east, so the waves were small but fell obliquely against the shore and had pushed ARR & ARR beam-to the shell beach. With her V-shaped hull, she rolled with the waves and ground against the shells. I knew it had probably done a number on the paint job during the night but hoped the double layer of fiberglass I had laid over her keel when I built her had provided adequate protection. I couldn’t see any damage, and I wouldn’t know for sure until I had her out of the water at the trip’s end, but this was exactly the type of camp-cruising wear and tear I had built her for.
I changed from my camp clothes back into the previous day’s quick-drying hiking wear and neoprene booties, broke camp, loaded the boat, and started to rig her for sailing. I had left the rowing plug in the daggerboard slot overnight, and now it was jammed in place by bits of shell that had worked their way into the slot.
I pushed the boat a few feet into the water, rocked her to work the water in the slot, and tried to wiggle the plug loose, but it didn’t budge. Using my push pole’s unattached duck foot, I pried the top of the plug away from the top of the slot, and the plug finally came out, the bits of shell grinding and squealing between the plug and the inside of the slot. I scooped water into the slot with my bailer to rinse away any remaining shell.
We planned to camp that night on 3-1/2-mile-long Mud Island, only 7 or 8 miles southwest, at most a couple hours’ sail, so most of our group were sailing back to Rockport to have lunch at a dockside bar and grill. I had been avoiding public places, and even though Aransas County had reported only one or two confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the previous week, I joined the others to head straight to Mud Island to see if the 2020 hurricane season, particularly Hurricane Hanna, had left either of two naturally fluctuating passes through the island suitable for our boats and tents. I also wanted to explore Blind Pass, the 60-yard-wide gap between Mud and 19-mile-long San José Island, for possible future overnight trips. Satellite images I’d studied showed what looked like promising beaches flanking the pass.
I shoved off and joined MYSTERY MACHINE, MARILYN J, and RED TOP on a broad reach under full sail south along the protected west coast of San José Island. Except for a few puffy white clouds just above the horizon, the sky was an unbroken expanse of blue. The wind grew from gentle to moderate, and soon we were sailing at 4 or 5 knots through only wavelets in the lee of the island. Dolphins converged on our boats and swam along for 15 or 20 minutes, moving mostly as a group from one boat to the next.
Dolphins are common in Texas bays, and the pod that accompanied ARR & ARR in Corpus Christi Bay seemed especially engaging, sometimes swimming so close that their puffy exhalations misted my face. On the low line of land on the horizon sit Point of Mustang and, tiny at the right, Port Aransas, marked by the towers of three deepwater drill rigs.
When we reached Mud Island, we sailed west along its northern side looking for the two cuts and beached our boats in what we thought was the smaller, easternmost one. A 15-yard-wide channel flowed north to south through the island between oyster shell beaches. The western beach was too short and steep to pitch tents on, but the eastern beach was a good 100′ by 50′ and curled around in a short hook at its southern tip, creating a sheltered cove that had deep water right up to shore along most of its length. The surface of the water flowing through the cut churned in eddies and swirls in a 4- to 5-knot current. Dolphins surfaced in tight arcs in the cut, likely after fish.
Like the beach we had camped on at San José Island, this beach consisted primarily of oyster shells piled in ridges, with a few wide depressions in the beach’s middle, some with shallow pools.
We relaunched and continued west looking for the larger cut. After a mile or so of sailing by nothing but narrow, steep shell beaches backed by unbroken mangrove thickets, we realized that we had landed in what had been the larger cut and that the smaller cut must have closed up, so we returned to where we had originally landed, beached our boats in the hooked cove, and scouted out tent sites.
The predominant plant on that part of Mud Island is black mangrove, growing too thickly to easily walk through and ranging from knee- to chest-high, with stiff, dark-green oval leaves only an inch or two long and seeds the color and shape of large lima beans. Sea ox-eye was thick there too, along the edge of the mangroves, and salt-tolerant succulents grew here and there. Sea purslane sprawled across low stretches of bare shell in the depressions, the purslane’s pink runners and 1″ leaves looking like saltwort at first, but with flat leaves instead of the bulbous succulent ones and with five-pointed, purplish pink flowers the size of a pinky fingernail.
Having found several good patches of flat ground, we returned to the boats. We had the entire afternoon remaining, so Matt and I decided to circumnavigate the eastern part of the island. We walked our boats from the sheltered cove, around the hook, and against the current along our side of the cut and launched from the cut’s entrance. We both set sail, and Matt pulled well away from me in only five or ten minutes. MYSTERY MACHINE bettered ARR & ARR in both pointing and footing.
Not wanting to admit that Matt was simply the better sailor, I decided that ARR & ARR was undercanvased, so I set a new jib I had been eager to experiment with. To accommodate the addition of the jib, I moved the main aft by setting the balanced lug as a standing lug. I moved the boom vang to the tack to serve as a downhaul, and let the downhaul move aft to become the vang. I set the little jib flying, and with the new sail plan’s center of effort properly set, ARR & ARR, now a sloop, took off.
I had not yet installed cam cleats for the jib sheets, so I had to hold both sheets, jib and main, in one hand while managing the tiller with the other. The boom still stuck a bit forward of the mast, and on each tack, the jib sheet caught on it. But the boat did make good speed and pointed higher.
I found Matt waiting for me at Blind Pass, and we sailed together through it. MYSTERY MACHINE drew less than ARR & ARR and my daggerboard hit the bottom several times. Although I quickly released both sheets, spilling most of the air from the sails, ARR & ARR pivoted on the grounded board and turned her beam to the wind. I pulled the daggerboard up and sheeted the jib to turn the bow downwind to get moving again.
We sailed on a broad reach up the southern side of Mud Island. This side of the island didn’t have beaches but was more of a wetland, with mangrove islets of all sizes scattered among inlets and flats. Although the water was opaque with mud and the chart showed less than a foot there, I didn’t run aground again.
At our second camp, on Mud Island, the little cove on the south side of the cut was deep enough right up to the beach that even PILGRIM and CHICKEN PARTS were able to nuzzle up to shore still fully afloat.
We beached back in the cut’s little cove, and before long we were joined by the four boats that had gone to Rockport for lunch. The cove was deep enough for even PILGRIM and CHICKEN PARTS to nuzzle up to the shell beach while fully afloat, and set anchors ashore on dry land.
RED TOP left by early evening, and two other boats joined us, CHEESE CUTTER II, a Hobie trimaran with skipper Chris aboard, and a Westsail 32. The Westsail came in under full sail and anchored a good 1/4 mile off Mud Island’s northern shore, and its crew—Chris, Cathy, and dog, Gus—sailed into camp on its lug-rigged tender with a tanbark sail.
At dusk, we collected the rest of the firewood we’d brought and gathered around in the warmth and light of the fire as Jupiter and Saturn set and Orion rose high in the darkened sky. I mentioned wanting to spend the next day sailing 15 to 20 miles north to explore Cedar Bayou, the 3-mile-long natural cut that separates San José and Matagorda islands and sometimes connects Mesquite Bay with the gulf. Matt suggested that, given the north wind forecast for the next day and the south wind for the day after that, I should go with the wind instead of against it to some beaches he had seen on Mustang Island’s Corpus Christi Bay side on a previous trip. Sailing with the wind abaft the beam both days was appealing, so that became my plan.
Glenn, Dave, and Matt (left to right) enjoyed fishing, coffee, and chatting on the second morning, at the cut through Mud Island, while maintaining safe social distancing.
The next morning was calm. On the south side of camp, the still water in the cove reflected the boats’ hulls and masts and the wetlands’ little islands of cordgrass in a perfect mirror of the sky’s growing gray-orange light. A haze on the eastern horizon separated the mile-long stretch of Mud Island’s mangroves from a line of palm trees on San José Island beyond. To the north, toward Rockport, the water rippled in the distance but had only dull crinkles next to shore. Dull thuds of duck hunters’ gunshots and the distant thrumming of engines carried through the still air but, with the air so heavy with moisture, I couldn’t tell which direction the sounds came from.
The saltwater pools in our beach’s wide depressions had risen overnight. The water in one had even reached the foot of Matt’s tent. It surprised me, because the night had been calm and dry, except for the heavy dew. Matt and Glenn surmised that the rising tide must have seeped through the coarse shell ground as through a sieve, which would explain why the depressions at our camps had water in them, despite no visible inlets and no recent rain.
In the early orange light, Rockport’s lone spheroid water tower and row of two-story buildings were strung along the northern horizon, like a string of pastel-colored beads. A haze over the rippled bay thickened until the entire horizon dulled and then disappeared.
The haze moved toward us in a thick bank. Fog. On the Coastal Bend. It is rare and was a first for me.
To the southwest, where I had decided to go, the water and horizon were clear. Even three deepwater drill rigs in Port Aransas were visible though low, tiny, and washed-out from the 6 or 7 miles’ distance. A moderate southwesterly breeze was forecast, and an encouraging hint of that breeze touched the back of my neck.
I was eager to get going, before the fog could reach Mud Island, so I said my goodbyes to the other sailors and raised ARR & ARR’s sail, leaving the jib stowed this time. I set the downhaul snug but not tight, so the sail could stay out perpendicular in the light air and catch what little there was. Chris, CHEESE CUTTER II’s skipper, gave ARR & ARR a good push to set me on my way, and I drifted from Mud Island at a turtle’s pace. The water had gentle dull ripples, like wavy window glass in a century-old home.
Sailing at a lazy pace, ARR & ARR didn’t need my full attention, so I gazed over the stern and watched the others leave the campsite for Rockport. One by one, they set sail and vanished into the fog. Whenever one hailed another on the VHF, I switched with them from 16 to the working channel and eavesdropped. I wanted to learn what sort of coordinating they were doing in the fog, and it made my departure feel less abrupt. Eventually, even their radio calls were out of reach.
ARR & ARR drifted past one of the lima-bean-looking black mangrove seeds floating on the bay, then another. I counted the seconds it took one seed to travel the 15′ from bow to stern—five or six seconds, which meant I was moving at only about 1-1/2 knots. I settled in on the sternsheets on the starboard side of the tiller, resting back against a dry bag, and enjoyed the easygoing morning.
A couple of hours passed before the breeze picked up, but by noon I was sailing up the channel to Port Aransas on a reach past the Lydia Ann Lighthouse, a 68′-tall tapered octagonal tower of red brick with four low, weathered wooden buildings tucked about 200 yards back into the surrounding mangrove marsh. Just past the lighthouse, on its south side, a bayou led from the channel into the marsh and next to the lighthouse.
In the nearly two centuries since the lighthouse was built, Aransas Pass—the channel separating Mustang and San José islands and connecting Corpus Christi Bay with the gulf—has shifted a mile south, so it wasn’t until the lighthouse was well astern that I rounded the point and sailed down Corpus Christi Channel.
ARR & ARR, sailing on a run down Corpus Christi Channel on the third day, passed three deepwater drill rigs under construction or repair in Port Aransas. The oarlock sockets on ARR & ARR’s transom allow me to use an oar as an emergency rudder if the need arises.
I was especially glad to have the wind driving ARR & ARR along the channel, while I watched for ship and barge traffic. About 1/2 mile down the channel, the ferries shuttling between Harbor and Mustang islands timed their 1/4-mile crossings to avoid me, and I was glad I didn’t have to hold them up too long.
On my approach to Sting Ray Hole, a 1/2-mile-wide pass between the sand-spit ends of Pelican Island and Point of Mustang, two white pelicans flew overhead, their black wingtips stark against their bright white plumage. Once through the pass and into the easternmost part of Corpus Christi Bay, I skirted the East Flats, a 2-mile stretch of shallows and low, mangrove-covered islets, and sailed closehauled toward the shoreline just south of the flats. The closer I got to the low stretch of undeveloped greenery, the more patches of white I saw between it and the water. I pulled the daggerboard up 8″ or 10″ to reduce draft without sacrificing too much pointing ability and aimed for the windward side of one of the larger white patches.
I pulled ARR & ARR ashore to camp on Mustang Island. The beaches in Corpus Christi Bay are white sand with clamshells instead of the piles of oyster shells that make up Aransas Bay’s beaches. Visible at left on the horizon are the storage tanks of an oil-export terminal at Ingleside.
I approached three beaches, the first two about the size of a modest kitchen, and settled on the third one, which was larger and higher than the others. Instead of mounds of oyster shells, these beaches were white sand just peppered with clamshells.
Beyond the mangrove wetlands, Port Aransas was still visible on the horizon from the three deepwater drill rigs—small and hazy in the northeast—to the low dark, angular spread of downtown buildings and the sprawl of two- and three-story homes to the east. Across Corpus Christi Bay, an oil export terminal’s spread of wide, squat, cylindrical storage tanks glowed with a bright splash of white sunlight.
All around me, silent except for the shush of wavelets on the sand and the occasional quack of a duck, was the wide, nearly motionless lapis and teal bay. Vast spreads of navel-high mangroves were interwoven with brackish bayous and sloughs. A quarter mile toward the thick spread of homes to the east, a man in waders fished 20 yards from a boat half hidden by mangroves. A skein of ducks flew overhead, all black except for flashes of white with the upward movement of their wings. This part of Mustang Island was an island of its own, an oasis of wild in the midst of human development.
I ate dinner cold: chowder straight from its can, the last bits sopped up with flatbread. It was simple and surprisingly good.
Although my mostly screen tent would have been comfortable with the light air and the pleasant temperature, the heavy dew that sets in overnight warrants setting the fly. After pitching the tent, I could change into dry camp clothes and hang up the day’s damp clothes to dry on paracord run between the tent’s inside webbing anchor points.
It was nice to be camping by myself. While I was sitting on the bucket watching the sun set, my shoulders and back relaxed and I felt as if my body’s weight had settled into my hips from its perch on tense shoulders. I had thoroughly enjoyed my time with the other sailors and was eager to see them again on future trips, but I prefer to do the social thing only in bits.
As darkness fell on Corpus Christi Bay, the oil export terminal at Ingleside lit up the horizon. The bright orange light, the fire on top of the flare stack, was clearly visible from the previous night’s camp at Mud Island, 14 miles away, and even discernible from Paul’s Mott, at 22 miles.
The last of the sunlight faded. The lights of Corpus Cristi and Port Aransas filled the horizon and spilled their glow into the night sky, masking all but the brightest stars.
I heard a puffy exhalation coming from out in the bay. I didn’t see a disturbance on the water’s surface. If it had been a dolphin, it could have covered a lot of distance before surfacing again. I didn’t hear it again.
I put my bread-mopped chowder can in with the rest of my double-bagged garbage, sealed the bags inside the bucket, and set the bucket on a clear spot of sand and shell 30’ from my tent. I crawled into the tent and fell asleep within minutes.
I woke up cold in the middle of the night. The half moon had risen and my tent was glowing in its light. I crawled out of the tent, pulled my sweatshirt out of its dry bag, and put it on over the fleece shirt I had been sleeping in. The bay was like glass, without the slightest of undulations. The light breeze, coming from over the land, didn’t stir the water’s surface for as far as I could see. The tide had come in, and ARR & ARR floated, motionless, 1’ from the beach with her stern pointed straight out into the bay. Having warmed up, I stayed up for a while and took in the stillness.
I turned in and when I woke again in the early morning light, the gentle breeze was still blowing across the land and into the bay. Low, thin puffs of gray clouds drifted north. ARR & ARR still floated free of the beach, but tugged gently at her anchor line.
I ate a breakfast of granola with boxed milk, broke camp, and set off to return to Aransas Bay. The breeze pushed ARR & ARR at only a knot or two; the sail’s sheet drooped toward the water between the boom and the gunwale. A lone brown pelican swooped down and glided across the bay, so close that its shadowy reflection almost merged with its breast.
Four or five dolphins swam in close and surfaced in ones and twos. Some surfaced gently, as if half asleep; others, quickly and tightly arced, as if diving after fish. They’d swim off 100′ or so and then return. Once, while they were farther from the boat, one leapt completely out of the water. Each time they approached the boat, one would swim right up to my quarter, turn on its side still beneath the surface, and watch me watching it, and a couple of times, when they surfaced on my windward side, their exhalations misted my face.
The wind steadily grew, and just after noon I was sailing a good 4 knots in Aransas Bay back toward Mud Island. A sea turtle with mottled skin on its fist-sized head surfaced soporifically just off my starboard bow and then ducked back beneath the water with a plop.
I was all alone at a midday break at the cut through Mud Island, where our entire group had camped two nights before. These cuts and beaches are in constant flux. The spattering of olive green near the shoreline are hundreds of black mangrove seeds that have washed ashore. Given enough time between hurricanes or other storms, some will set down roots and make this spit of shell more permanent.
At the cut through Mud Island, I spilled the air from my sail and coasted to a stop as the bow growled into the shell beach. I pulled the boat higher on the shore, had an apple and an energy bar for lunch, and refilled my water bottles from my 3-gallon jerry can.
I thought I might be able to make it back to Goose Island State Park before dark, but I wasn’t sure. I knew, however, that I could make Paul’s Mott. I decided I’d rather be camping alone on an island than in the park in the middle of a row of RVs on the mainland. Opting for the park would also mean driving the boat through the waves on the leeward side of the bay, and crossing the ICW, and navigating through the oyster reefs, all possibly at the same time, and all likely after dark.
I walked the boat through the cut and set sail to close the distance with San José Island. In its lee, the waves were small, and I sailed on a reach with full sail in the freshening breeze. The wind thrummed the sail’s leech, and water gushed away from the hull in foamy surges. It was an absolutely thrilling sail.
On my final night of camping, at Paul’s Mott, Aransas Bay was calm. Jutting partially from beneath the tent, just below the door, is a 2′ piece of an old foam camping sleeping mat that I pull out and rest my knees on while working at the tent’s door, to protect my knees from the jagged oyster shells. I tuck the mat between the tent and the ground tarp when not in use to prevent the wind from carrying it away.
When I arrived in the waning evening light, Paul’s Mott was deserted, save for a few shore birds alternately skittering toward and away from the swoosh of wavelets on the beach, and a mockingbird singing from the highest limb of the point’s thicket of scrub oak, tanglewood, prickly pear, and other undergrowth. An undulating line of brown pelicans flying low over the bay crossed over the island and disappeared.
The shells that make up the point’s beach were so coarsely piled that when I tried to set the anchor ashore, even a light pull would drag it plowing through the shells and clanking down the beach. I finally set it in a bit of scrub, where the roots bound the shells together and held the flukes tight. For good measure, I pulled the boat as high onto the beach as I could and set a second line with a bit of chain at its end around the trunk of one of the little oaks.
The next morning, I woke before first light. A fat crescent moon high in the sky cast the tops of the clouds in a silvery light and left their bottoms a deep catfish blue. Between the moon and the clouds, Venus and Mercury flanked Spica, the brightest star in Virgo. The water’s horizon was a sprinkling of lights. Wavelets plashed occasionally against the shell shore, and the mockingbird chirped from within the thicket. The air was still but not stale, and a heavy dew soaked the tent’s fly. I had my coffee and oatmeal while daylight crept into the sky.
I casually broke camp and, as I loaded the boat, a powerboat of about 25′ motored leisurely to the reef just off the tip of the point. Two more soon followed. My first thought was that they were fishing charters, but they soon set to work dredging for oysters. The closest had a 6′-wide panel running from its port gunwale down into the water. Chains and machinery clanked and banged, and a dredge ground its way down the panel and splashed into the water, was dragged grumbling across the bottom, and then was pulled clanking and banging back up the panel, over and over. The boat’s engine clattered at just above an idle, and boom-box music with thrumming guitars, an accordion, and Spanish lyrics carried through the air. I was glad I hadn’t been trying to sleep when the boats had arrived.
After I had ARR & ARR ready to go, I still couldn’t feel any wind or see any cat’s-paws on the water. The forecast was for light wind and then calm in the afternoon, but I raised sail anyway. I pushed the boat into the water and, wading knee deep, walked it around the tip of the point so I could launch on the same side of the reef as the state park and wouldn’t drift near the oyster boats.
I pushed away from shore with one foot and clambered aboard. ARR & ARR moved 20 yards, slowed, and coasted to a stop. There wasn’t a whisper of wind. I put the oars in the locks and rowed away from the land.
After about a half hour of rowing, with Deadman Island nearly abreast and the ICW markers in sight, having already covered nearly a third of the distance to the state park and still with no sign of even the slightest breeze, I lowered the sail and set in to row the entire distance. I didn’t mind, really. Moving under oars is where ARR & ARR comes into her own—the Flint was designed primarily as a rowboat.
The row to the park turned into a hot one, with the sunlight glaring off the water as well as from the sky, and I paused often to wipe the sweat from my eyes. But I didn’t mind at all. I’d had everything from arduous rowing workouts to drifting lazily along like a mangrove seed to flying at hull speed on nearly flat water. I had enjoyed the company of friends, made new friends, and recharged in silent solitude. For such a disruptive year, the trip had been a perfect relief.
Roger Siebert is an editor in Austin, Texas. He rows and sails his Flint on local lakes, and has trailered it to a few of his favorite places on the Florida coast.
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.
When sailing masters aboard tall ships needed to call out commands to the crew, they used speaking-trumpets, a type of megaphone, to aim and amplify their voices so they could be heard the full length of the ship and up to the topmasts. On a small boat, it’s not likely you’ll have trouble making yourself heard by anyone on board, but your voice may not carry well to people on shore, lockmasters, or other boaters in the area, especially if the wind and waves are making a lot of noise.
Cupping your hands around your mouth is instinctive and will help a bit, but megaphones are much more effective. For short distances, they can be small, like the pre-electronic type coxswains wore strapped to their heads to reach all members of the rowing crew; for more range they can be larger, like the traffic-cone-sized megaphones coaches once used to communicate between their launches and their crews.
Photographs by the author
Megaphones come in many shapes and sizes. In general, the longer and larger the better, but the more compact ones are easier to keep aboard a small boat.
As you’d guess, megaphones work by focusing sound in a particular direction, but there’s another factor at work that accounts for the perceived amplification of sound: acoustic impedance. The sound energy produced in the small space of your vocal tract can’t effectively make the transition to the wide-open space around you. I have to admit I don’t fully understand how this works, but I think of it this way: If you poke your finger into still water, it won’t make much of a splash or generate anything more than a small ripple. If you hit the water at the same speed with the flat of your hand you’ll make a splash and a wave. The megaphone effects the transition from a small area of impact at one end to a larger area at the other, setting more air in the open space in motion. A writer on one web site put it more accurately: a megaphone “acts as an impedance-matching acoustic transformer to efficiently couple the sound from your mouth to the open space.” And the effect isn’t restricted by the direction of the megaphone. I’ve noticed that rowing coaches using non-electronic megaphones are very easy to hear even when their megaphones aren’t aimed at me.
The most familiar acoustic megaphones have conical shapes (properly called frustums, as they are cones with their pointed peaks lopped off). Bullhorns and electronic megaphones flare like the horn of a trumpet. A conical megaphone may not be as efficient, but it is much easier to make, and I’ve made a several from plywood, aluminum, leather, and PVC drainpipe.
Staved plywood
This eight-staved plywood megaphone is 22″ long and 9″ across at the wide end. It greatly amplifies the sound of a voice.
My largest megaphone, and the loudest, is made of 1/8″ mahogany plywood. I cut eight staves 22″ long and 4-3/4″ wide at the bottom, 7/8″ at the top. It’s a bit much for my smaller boats.
I have a simple sled for cutting tapers on the table saw. It’s a piece of plywood with a strip on the bottom, which rides in the slot. Scraps of plywood tacked to the top orient the megaphone staves. The staves are stacked at right, The thicker piece of wood on the sled was made to hold the staves flat while being cut.
I had intended to join the staves with copper wire, stitch-and-glue fashion, but getting them to line up edge-to-edge wasn’t working. I went back to the table-saw sled that I set up to cut the staves and beveled the edges at 22.5 degrees.
Rather than wire the newly beveled staves together, I taped them together, flipped the bunch over, and brushed the edges and inside faces with epoxy.
After brushing the interior surfaces and seams with epoxy, I folded the bunch of staves to bring the last two edges together and close all of the joints tight. I taped the last seam and slipped hose clamps loosely over the megaphone to set its shape. A lightly applied bar clamp fine-tuned it.
After the epoxy cured, I sanded the exterior smooth, supported the megaphone on a horizontal stick, and gave it a layer of 2-oz fiberglass and epoxy. A coating of epoxy to fill the weave was followed by varnish. A brass window-sash handle finished the job.
Sheet Pattern
Many common megaphones have been made from sheet material. To make one in that manner, you need to create a frustum pattern.
Draw a side view of the megaphone you want to make and extend its centerline. For the small end of the megaphone, I use a diameter of 1-3/4″. The length and the diameter of the large opening of my sheet-material megaphones were somewhat determined by what I had available to work with. The pattern here has a length of 10″ and a large opening of 8″.
Extend one of the sides to intersect with the centerline. The is the center point of the arcs that follow.
With a compass or a trammel bar, swing arcs from the top and bottom of the side of the megaphone profile.
The circumference of the 1-3/4″ circular opening plus 1/2″ for the overlap at the edges comes to 6″. With a compass set to 1″, walk off 3″ on each side of the centerline.
Draw lines from the center point through each 3″ mark on the top arc.
Cut out the pattern and trace it on whatever sheet material you’ll be using
Sheet metal
All of the megaphones here were made from scraps I had around the shop. I wanted to make one from brass, but I didn’t have any suitable material, so I worked with aluminum.
This commercially made brass megaphone is the one my father used for coaching crews. It is 8″ long and 4-3/8″ in diameter at the large end.
Aluminum is easily worked and makes an effective and durable megaphone. A piece of vinyl tubing, slit along its length and glued over the mouthpiece with vinyl cement, covers the edge of the aluminum. The opening is contoured to fit around my mouth. A handle bent from 3/4″ x 1/8″ flat bar, is riveted over the seam.
I had some aluminum which had been liners for bear-proof food containers. It was 1/64″ (0.5 mm) thick, quite stiff, and big enough for a megaphone 10″ long and 7-1/2″ at its widest.
The aluminum, cut to the pattern, is ready to be curved into a frustum. The piece still had the curve of the bear-proof container, but it didn’t resist taking the new shape for the megaphone.
Hose clamps squeeze the aluminum to shape. I drew a line for the 1/2″ overlap in red Sharpie. Alcohol will remove the line later.
A 2×2 clamped to the workbench provides a support for drilling holes along the seam. I used 1/2″ aluminum tacks as rivets.
To form the rivets in the small end, I clamped a steel pipe in a vise and hammered clipped tacks in the holes from the outside. This didn’t flare the trimmed ends of the tacks, but folded them over, which was good enough.
Leather
I thought leather was an unlikely material to use for a megaphone, but it was commonly used prior to the development of plastics. A handle is useful for a megaphone that is too large to hold with one hand. A leather strap works here. The small end, contoured to fit around the user’s mouth, adds to the effectiveness of the megaphone.
Stiff leather was once used to make megaphones, typically those used by cheerleaders. Metal rings were usually fit to the ends, but they aren’t necessary if the leather is stiff. A scrap of leather I had—2.5mm vegetable tanned full-grained cowhide—was just big enough for the pattern I made for the aluminum megaphone.
To cut the 1/8″ leather, I drew the pattern on it and marked the intersection of extensions of the edges. With a stick with one hole pivoting around an awl at that intersection, I pushed a knife point into holes drilled to cut the two arcs. Cutting freehand works too.
Some of the old leather megaphones had a metal strip along the seam to stiffen them. I predrilled a length of 1/8″ x 1/4″ brass, set brass canoe tacks in the holes, and tapped them through the leather (without pilot holes) to clench inside against a piece of pipe.
PVC Plastic
My first PVC megaphones had their overlapping edges held by pop rivets and were painted with silver hammered-finish spray paint.
PVC is a versatile and remarkably tough material that can be coaxed into new shapes by heating it in a kitchen oven to 170 degrees F. I’ve used some 4″ drainpipe—with walls about 1/16″ thick (Standard ASTM D 2729)—for other projects and it’s well suited to making megaphones.
Starting with a 16″ length of pipe, I drew a centerline and measured 3-3/8″ from either side of the line on one end. The section of pipe removed between these two marks will take the small end to a diameter of 1-7/8″ (with a 3/4″ overlap). Draw a line from each mark to the centerline on the opposite end. A file folder makes a flexible straightedge.
Saw along both lines. A fine-toothed Japanese saw cuts PVC quickly though almost any handsaw will work. Sand or plane the edges to smooth them.
Draw a line 3/4″ along one edge and curl the other edge toward it. Hose clamps hold the overlap of the edges against the resistance of the PVC. Sticks on the outer edge hold it flat for the next step. Heat the whole set-up in a 170-degree oven for 8 minutes. This will relax the PVC and allow it to hold its new shape.
After the PVC has cooled, the hose clamps can be removed and the edges will remain overlapped. Drill a 1/16″ hole near each end, 1/4″ from the edge, and tap a 5/16″ copper tack in each, clenching them with the megaphone slipped over a steel-pipe bucking iron. Drill the rest of the holes 1″ apart and clench copper tacks in them. (On other PVC megaphones, I’ve also used pop-rivets to fasten the laps instead of copper tacks. I prefer the tacks.)
The ends of the megaphone will need to be flattened either by sawing or sanding them. On the disk sander, because of the megaphone’s taper, the small end needs to be elevated on a V-block.
The mouthpiece end is sculpted on a 2″ drum sander to create a contour to fit the face. PVC takes spray paint well (when the surface is scuffed), so a sanding with 150-grit paper follows.
I made two PVC megaphones as gifts for my son and daughter and spray-painted them with a pattern derived from the Cunningham coat of arms and house flag.
Curved Megaphone
This wooden megaphone with a flared shape was surprisingly effective.
While the conical megaphones work well enough, I wanted to see if a more sophisticated shape would make a difference. Exponential curves shape the horns for hi-fi speakers and P.A. systems. I couldn’t make sense of the exponential formulas I found online, so I just copied a section of a graph that I found.
I copied a section of a more complete exponential curve from a graph I found on the web. To my eye, it is close enough to other megaphones of the type.
The paper pattern, here folded in half, was used to shape pieces of 1/8″ three-ply birch plywood. I drilled holes every 1″ for stitching the pieces together, but only needed a few copper-wire stitches to get the piece bent to shape—a good thing since my hands didn’t fit very far into the opening to insert wires. I brushed epoxy along the seams and filleted the joints. After the epoxy cured, I removed the wires, heating them to release them from the epoxy.
With everything sanded smooth, I sheathed the exterior with epoxy and 2-oz fiberglass. I shaped the small opening for a good fit at the mouth. Although I don’t have a similarly-sized megaphone with straight sides as a comparison, this curved megaphone did seem to project my voice louder than I had expected.
ADDENDUM
Reader John Bishop, in the comments below, thought that a megaphone would be useful, but rightly guessed it would be bulky aboard a small boat. He wondered about making a leather megaphone that could be stowed flat or rolled up to take up less space in a small boat. A century ago, several inventors filed patents for easily stowed megaphones. Here are a few:
Zellers’ 1905 patent, the last of the four above was for “a foldable trumpet or megaphone consisting wholly of a sheet or blank of flexible material, like heavy paper or cardboard….” It could work for the leather megaphone John had in mind. I didn’t have any more scraps of leather large enough to make the Zellers megaphone, so I bought a $9 flexible plastic roll-up snow sled. It wasn’t as thick as I thought it would be, but rigid enough to hold a cone shape.
I drew the frustum pattern on the sled with a 1-3/4″mouthpiece (with 1/2″ overlap) and an 8″ diameter. The length of 15″ , fits within the 17″ width of the sled.
After the drawn shape is cut out, the snaps are located while the plastic is curved into the megaphone shape. The handle, at right, slips into two slits in the triangle on that side of the megaphone.
The Zellers-style megaphone rolls up to an easily stowed cylinder.
The handle makes it easier to grip the slippery plastic. The megaphone produces good voice volume when in use.
I came up with my own pattern for a square folding megaphone that could be stowed flat. I had in mind to make it with corrugated plastic (Coroplast) and the only piece I had was a neighborhood sign I’d put in my front yard to remind passing cars to go slow. I painted it gray.
I made a stiff paper pattern and traced it five times on the twin-wall plastic panel. The fifth tracing was modified to create a tab to insert in a slot that I’d later cut in the first traced panel. I cut the shape out with a ruler and a sharp utility knife.
To make the folds, I clamped a ruler on the panel and creased the plastic along the fold lines with a pizza cutter. (The cutter doesn’t have an edge sharp enough to cut the plastic.) After rolling the crease, I folded the outside panel up to make the bend against the ruler.
The tab, inserted into the slot cut for a tight fit, holds the folded megaphone together.
Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats Magazine.
You can share your tips and tricks of the trade with other Small Boats Magazine readers by sending us an email.
Skipper, her father Cap’n Jack, and I have tried a lot of varnishes over the years, looking for one that hits the sweet spot at the convergence of ease of application, nice finish, durability, and maintenance. After Jamestown Distributors introduced TotalBoat Halcyon Rugged Gloss in 2017, we began using it in 2018 and it has lived up to our expectations.
Halcyon is a one-part water-based polyurethane varnish that comes in pint- and quart-size flexible plastic pouches. We like saving money, and the pouches keep varnish from going to waste as it does in cans when the air space increases after each job. We have found Halcyon varnish was ready to go several months after we first opened it, with no skinning over. For information on this type of container, see “StopLossBags.” We also like saving time, and we’ve applied up to five coats in one day without sanding in between coats. At 72 degrees, it takes just a one-hour interval between coats. For applying additional coats after 12 hours, a light scuff with 320-grit sandpaper is recommended to ensure proper flow and adhesion.
Photographs by the authors
The soft-sided bag allows storing the unused varnish without the airspace that causes skinning over and waste of varnish sold in cans.
Halcyon pours well out of its pouch without the dribble that comes when pouring canned varnish, and does not require mixing or thinning. It can also be applied with a roller or sprayer. If thinning is required, water can be added up to a 20-percent mix. It has an application range of 50 to 90 degrees F, and from 0 to 90 percent relative humidity. There is little to no odor with water-based varnish, so working indoors with it is a possibility. Using a medium-quality sash brush designed for oil paints, we can brush out the varnish without leaving any bristle ridges. Halcyon is self-leveling and doesn’t puddle on flat surfaces, and isn’t prone to sagging or dripping down vertical surfaces. This varnish can be applied over epoxy—cured, deblushed, and sanded—and provides UV protection. It is also compatible with one- and two-part varnishes for refinishing. Cleanup is easy with soap and water.
We decided to use Halcyon to refinish our daggerboards and paddles: we sanded them back to wood, and Halcyon leveled nicely over the grain without needing filler to provide a smooth surface. It flowed on smooth with the brush, dipped directly out of a work cup. Halcyon dried quickly into a gloss finish, even with just three coats, and we were able to use the paddles the following day. We prefer the subtle finish, so we have not experimented yet with more coats than three to see how deep a luster can be achieved.
Brushed on mahogany, the Halcyon Rugged varnish filled the pores and leveled itself to a smooth surface.
The Amber Gloss Varnish has a nice hue that accentuates the beauty of wood. Its finish is harder than a traditional spar varnish, so it will hold up well in high traffic areas. Halcyon is designed for interior and exterior use above the waterline, and is available in clear gloss, amber gloss, and clear satin. The satin finish, which was added to the Halcyon Rugged line in 2019, should be applied over a base layer of gloss. Our applications of it have held up well so far in our Florida Panhandle tropical marine environment, with no signs of chipping, cracking or peeling. We will continue to use Halcyon on new and old projects, and are very pleased with the performance on our fleet bits. It hits the sweet spot.
Audrey (Skipper) and Kent (Clark) Lewis row, sail, paddle and motor the coastal waters of Northwest Florida in their fleet of small boats. They blog their mess-about adventures at Small Boat Restoration. They are unpaid ambassadors for Jamestown Distributors.
The Halcyon Rugged finishes in stop-loss bags are available in clear and amber, gloss and satin, in pints and quarts with pints at $17.99 and quarts at $31.99.
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.
As a backpacker in the early ’70s, I wasn’t picky about the food I carried; it just had to be light. Textured vegetable protein was a staple, though it was like dog food packaged for humans, and my gourmet dinner was Knorr’s powdered leek soup thickened with Ore-Ida potato flakes and cooked on a Svea 123 stove. When I switched to camp-cruising, my boats carried the weight and I could afford to indulge in better food and cooking equipment. For the past few years I’ve been doing almost all of my cruising cooking with portable table-top butane stoves. I recently added the Gas One Mini to my galley kit. It’s a dual-fuel stove that burns propane as well as butane, and I’ve been pleased with its performance, so when I saw Gas One’s 7,200 BUT dual-fuel portable camping grill, I was eager to see how it could expand my cruising cuisine.
The 8-lb 10-oz grill measures 16-1.2″ x 11-3/8″ x 4-5/8″. That’s larger than my standard butane stoves (13″ x 12″ x 4-1/4″), so it won’t fit in the galley box I built for them. It goes aboard in its plastic case. The griddle is made of cast aluminum, has a cooking surface that measures 12-3/8″ x 9-7/8″, and has a non-stick coating. Beneath it is a fat pan (stainless steel, according to the manual, but strongly magnetic) with a spout that lets drippings flow to a tray that slides into the bottom of the stove. The fat pan rests on an enameled steel support that’s open to the burner, which produces two 7″-long rows of flame. A piezo spark ignites the flame. The grill houses an 8-oz butane canister and has a hole in the back for the passage of an adapter hose when using a 1-lb propane canister.
Photographs by the author
Butane fuel canisters fit in the compartment to the right, here with its hinged lid open. The griddle has been removed to show the burner element and the two rows of blue flames that it produces.
The stove is easy to operate: press the lever down to engage the butane cartridge (if that’s what’s being used), turn the dial until the igniter starts the flame, then adjust the flow of gas. The fat pan can be a chore to clean, but the griddle easily sheds grease and grime. I weighed the canisters after several cooking jobs, and while how long they last depends on the setting of the dial, the calculations I made with it in the two-thirds to three-quarters range came to 1 hour 45 minutes for butane and 4 hours 20 minutes for propane. These figures may be a bit generous, as fuel delivery is better from a nearly full can than a nearly empty one. The griddle is for outdoor use; the instruction manual has a carbon monoxide warning and cautions against using the griddle indoors. Some foods—raw chicken, for example—can produce a fair bit of smoke that needs someplace to go.
The grill has provided several welcome additions to my cruising cuisine, including kebabs, grilled chicken, turkey burgers, and toast.
The fare I had in mind for the griddle—dishes I was unable to cook with pots and pans on my stove—all worked out well on it. Turkey patties, salmon patties, veggie burgers, kebabs, mahi-mahi fillets, and chicken all got their stripes on the griddle and had a taste and texture that pan-frying can’t achieve. (Although I gave up beef and pork decades ago, I’d venture that they would cook just fine, but perhaps produce more drippings.) Skinless, boneless chicken was the slowest to cook of the foods I’ve tried, so cutting it into quick-cooking strips will save fuel and time.
Having a cover quickens the cooking, especially in cold weather. The chicken thighs outside of the cover here took several minutes longer to cook than those under it. To burn propane, an adapter hose and fitting connects the stove to a 1-lb canister.
An open-face sandwich with melted cheddar on grilled chicken warmed up nicely under the cover while resting on a bit of foil. Crinkled and folded into four layers, the foil kept the bread from getting scorched.
I used the grill on a couple of cold evenings (down to 44 degrees) and that slowed cooking, so I bought an 8″ x 10″ x 3″ stainless-steel baking pan to use as a cover. There was no way to get a hold of the cover when hot, so I added a pair of stainless-steel pad-eyes, fastened with rivets made of aluminum nails. The cover speeded up cold-weather cooking significantly, and because the pan does not completely cover the griddle, it doesn’t seem to affect the function of the grill. When not in use, the pan holds two butane cartridges and serves as a wash basin.
A dream come true: pizza at anchor. A 10″ cook-pot lid turns the grill into a pizza oven. With the heat on low, the cheese melts before the crust chars.
Using a cover with the grill makes it function like a toaster oven, an unexpected bonus, and I’ve happily added pizzas, toast, and open-faced grilled-cheese sandwiches to my camp-cruising cuisine. Foil, crumpled then straightened out and folded, makes a good insulator to keep bread and crust from charring as the toppings are warming and the cheese is melting. French fries, grilled under the cover, also worked out well. I just cut 3/8″-thick strips, rotated them a time or two and in about 10 to 12 minutes, they were ready.
Fish ‘n’ chips. Mahi-mahi fillets cooked quickly and tasted great. A russet potato, cut into french-fry sticks and brushed with olive oil, cooked surprisingly quickly.
In my 20s and 30s I relished roughing it and was quite content to suffer through cold, wet weather and get by with meager meals. I got over that, and now I like cruising in comfort with meals that I can look forward to. The Gas One Griddle opens up a lot of possibilities.
Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats Magazine.
In 1936, Kenneth With bought a 24′ cabin cruiser, secondhand, for $595. It had a compact but comfortable cabin, just right for taking his young family cruising among the myriad of islands of Ontario’s Georgian Bay. The cruiser, BLACKDUCK, needed a tender, and in 1945 Kenneth consulted with his son, Ritchie, who had already taken an abiding interest in wooden boats at the age of 10. The two looked over the boat design catalogs Ritchie had collected and decided on the Bantam Pram, a 6-1/2′ plywood rowing boat designed by Charles G. MacGregor in 1939.
Photographs courtesy of the With and June families
This volume in Ritchie’s collection of catalogs provided the plans for the Bantam Pram, Design No. MM-10 by Charles G. MacGregor.
MacGregor was a prolific designer of boats large and small; between 1906 and 1949 he published 58 designs in TheRudder magazine. From 1930 on, most of his designs were intended for plywood construction, breaking new ground in boatbuilding. The 25′ Sea Bird Yawl is one of the best known from this period.
MacGregor’s design patent for the pram provided 14 years of protection for the form and appearance of the boat. It’s not a utility patent protecting the idea of a pram.
The plans for the Bantam Pram note, in handwritten capital letters: “THIS DESIGN IS PROTECTED BY U.S. PATENT.” The patent for the boat appears to be Design Patent 112,120, granted in 1938, stating: “Be it known that I, Charles G. MacGregor, have invented a new, original and ornamental Design for a Row Boat.”
In 1945, Kenneth ordered Bantam Pram plans and materials and got as far as cutting out the plywood panels before setting the project aside. A salvaged dinghy was pressed into service as BLACKDUCK’s tender. The plywood pieces were squirreled away in the With family home (then near the shores of Georgian Bay), and later moved to a new home in Toronto on Lake Ontario, then to Midland on Georgian Bay, and finally to Sarnia on Lake Huron. The parts of the pram were always near the water, but the boat was never built. Kenneth passed away, Ritchie grew up and had a family of his own. His son, Greg, grew up, married Tammy June, and they had four children: Logan, Sawyer, Sarah, and Jasper.
One afternoon, early in the pandemic, Tammy and Ritchie were visiting in their back yard, and Ritchie recalled his fond memories of boating on Georgian Bay and spending summers at the With family’s island retreat. He mentioned the Bantam Pram, his father’s unfinished project. Tammy was well acquainted with the plywood pieces, having helped to haul them with each of Ritchie’s moves. When Ritchie expressed an interest in seeing the boat built and launched, Tammy saw it as both an opportunity to occupy her kids during the pandemic and a way to connect them to their grandfather and even the great-grandfather they never knew.
On the first day of construction, Ritchie and daughter-in-law Tammy examine the plans and decipher the pieces rescued from the garage attic.
She wasted no time in getting the ball rolling. She located Kenneth’s original plans and asked her husband Greg to retrieve the pieces of plywood from Ritchie’s garage attic. There were no instructions and no one in the family had any boatbuilding experience, so they watched a lot of online instructional videos.
The last time Ritchie, left, worked on the boat he was ten years old. Tammy, right, is the principal boatwright and her daughter, Ritchie’s granddaughter, 4-year-old Sarah, supervises the project.
Sawyer is the first of the grandchildren to try his hand at sanding. He works his way along the center edge that will be drilled and stitched together.
Tammy set up shop in her family’s back yard in a space bordered by the garden, garden shed, and swing set. Her two older kids helped at times, but their attention often wandered and Tammy’s motherly tasks limited her work to small windows of time. The boatbuilding lurched along in five-minute increments.
The pram was designed for construction over eight molds set on a strongback, but the stitch-and-glue plywood method they’d seen in the videos seemed like a quicker way to get the boat built. Kenneth had cut the bottom and the side panels, but there was no sign of the 3″-wide plywood chine pieces—the element that likely had given MacGregor’s Bantam Pram the distinctive shape he had patented. The budding With family boatbuilders, given their study of stitch-and-glue construction videos, can be forgiven for mistaking the measurements on MacGregor’s half-breadth drawing as a pattern for the chine panels; they cut curved pieces from new plywood. The pieces would have, in fact, been nearly straight, and would have taken their shape on the molds.
Frustrated but determined, Tammy attempts to attach the chine to the bottom panels. Soon after, the chine was removed and the side panels attached directly to the bottom panels.
The chine piece—laid flat and nearly parallel with the bottom panel when the two were stitched together—was clearly not the right shape. Not one to give up, Tammy decided to forge ahead without the chine panel and stitch the bottom directly to the side panels. The edges went together as if that’s the way it was meant to be. The pram would be a bit narrower and have less freeboard, but better that than abandon the project.
Time had taken its toll on the old 1/4″ plywood. It yielded easily to the drill bit making holes for the cable ties, its edges were rounded soft, and it was thinner than the new 1/4″ plywood. Tammy decided to fiberglass the hull and give its exterior two layers of ’glass to restore some of the strength that the old plywood had lost. After the seams were all stitched, Tammy called on her father, Rick June, to help with filleting and taping the joints.
Rick and Tammy apply the first layer of boat cloth on a steamy August morning.
Rick’s professional experience working with fiberglass came in especially handy on the day for the fiberglass sheathing. It was the hottest day of the year, approaching 90 degrees, and the work had to be done quickly before the epoxy kicked. With Rick’s help, they got the job done. Days of sanding and painting followed. Sarah, the youngest child and the only girl in the family, pitched in wiping the hull down after sandings.
PUDDLE DUCK waited 75 years from the beginning of her construction to her launching.
Sawyer and Greg take PUDDLE DUCK for her maiden voyage. She needs a few adjustments to get her to float on her lines.
Rick, left, and his son Derek carried PUDDLE DUCK back to the van after her launching and first trial.
The kids decided on PUDDLE DUCK for the boat’s name, and the With and June families gathered on September 5, 2020, to launch the pram at a park pond. Before the boat took to the water, Ritchie, now 84 years old, gave a speech about its origins 75 years ago and then he and Tammy christened the boat with a splash of sparkling cider.
His son Greg and grandson Sawyer rowed together on the maiden voyage. Sawyer couldn’t be pried out of the boat and stayed aboard while others took their turn with him. The kids—all of them Kenneth’s great-grandchildren—took advantage of what remained of the warm weather to get PUDDLE DUCK afloat. One neighbor had a pool, so the boat was secured to a wagon and Sarah took it in tow there with her tricycle.
Sarah towed PUDDLE DUCK with her tricycle to her friend’s pool. She captured the interest of many passersby as she pedaled down the street in her pink dress.
Tammy enjoyed building PUDDLE DUCK and has been looking at plans for a boat to build with her father next summer. MacGregor’s little Bantam Pram may only be 6-1/2′ long, but this one has bridged four generations.
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.
This fine gunning skiff from the bays and coastal lagoons of southern New Jersey might have evolved from the lapstrake beach skiffs that worked the exposed Atlantic beaches of the Garden State. Similarities of line and construction between the beach skiffs and the melonseeds seem too powerful to ignore.
The melonseed’s dates are not certain, and some debate swirls around their history (WoodenBoat No. 180, page 50). Howard Chapelle (American Small Sailing Craft, W.W. Norton, 1951) mentions 1882 as the earliest written reference to the boats. They certainly coexisted for a time with the more famous Barnegat Bay sneakbox, a much easier boat to build. Most observers seem to agree that the melonseed came about in a search for a gunning skiff that could work in more open waters.
The sneakbox, which curiously does resemble a seed that we might find in a melon, works well in marshes and protected waters. In rough water, the sneakbox behaves as we might expect a seed from a melon to behave: it stuffs its low teaspoon-shaped snout into the first appropriately steep wave and submerges. If we clamp an outboard motor to a board bolted through a sneakbox’s transom, the little sliver of a boat will point its bow to the sky and pound our kidneys into submission.
The melonseed, with its sharp-yet-buoyant bow, knows enough to slice right through tiny waves and to climb over the big ones. Firm ’midship sections grant it stability and the ability to carry sail. A shapely, and relatively broad, raked transom eases our concern about waves that might come down on us from astern.
Photo by Benjamin Mendlowitz
Although evolved from a Barnegat Bay duck-hunting boat, the melonseed skiff is well suited to recreation. There are several plans available for the type; the one shown here was recorded by Howard Chapelle.
By the time I arrived at the Jersey shore in the 1940s the type almost had disappeared. I never saw an original working melonseed, but the old gunning skiff left a legacy of daysailing catboats along the shores of Barnegat Bay and other shallow estuaries. These often were longer than their forebears (they ranged from about 17′ to 21′ ), and they almost always carried the fashionable gaff-headed sail in place of the gunning skiff’s spritsail. Hunters, then and now, would view the gaff rig as too heavy, too complicated, and too expensive for their purposes.
Most of the melonseed’s descendants carry pivoting centerboards in place of the original’s daggerboard. We’ll find the pivoting board far more convenient to use when sailing across the endless flats of the Jersey bays. So why did the old fellows employ daggerboards? Because day-sailing wasn’t their occupation. They were in the business of shooting ducks—lots of ducks. The longer trunks necessary to house the pivoting centerboards would have been much in the way, and they tended to leak in those pre–plywood-and-epoxy days. They were (and are) slightly more expensive and time consuming to build than the shorter, boltless daggerboard trunks.
As a further convenience, the first builders of melonseeds located the daggerboard trunk far forward below the deck, which cleared the cockpit for the job at hand. A scimitar-shaped daggerboard moved the center of lateral resistance back to where it needed to be. And it allowed the gunner to insert, raise, and lower the board without standing up. The board could be inserted almost horizontally into the trunk.
Many of the original melonseeds appear to have gone together lapstrake fashion, as did nearly all beach skiffs that worked in the surf on the Atlantic side of Jersey’s barrier islands. Other ’seeds were planked smooth— perhaps to account for some hunters’ prejudice against lapstrake hulls, which they considered “too noisy.”
Today, the nature of a melonseed’s construction might be determined by its intended use and by the extent of its builder’s experience. Smooth, plank-on-frame hulls tend not to survive life on a trailer so well as strip-built or lapstrake hulls. Given epoxy, high-quality plywood, and detailed plans, glued-lapstrake construction can be reasonably beginner-friendly. No matter how we decide to plank our ’seed, its backbone will be a sprung plank keel that we’ll bend over molds set up on a building jig. Let’s steam-bend the frames…quicker, cleaner, less expensive, and more fun than laminating them.
Photo by Benjamin Mendlowitz
When the wind fades, the melonseed’s simple sail can be brailed up, freeing space in the cockpit for rowing, poling, or paddling. The forward sections are fine, but still sufficiently buoyant and stable to float the crew.
As for construction plans, experienced builders might consider Howard Chapelle’s well-drawn “melonseed of 1888.” He traced the lines shown here from unpublished plans that had been found in the files of Forest & Stream magazine. Large-scale reproductions of these drawings are available from the Smithsonian Institution, Ships Plans, P.O. Box 37012, NMAH–5004/MRC628, Washington, DC 20013; order plan ASSC–78. The drawings describe a particularly handsome boat, and they often were employed by builders of melonseeds during the type’s revival in the latter half of the 20th century.
Along time ago, I had several occasions to sail a melonseed built directly to the Chapelle drawings. The good little boat belonged to Dennis Caprio, former editor of Small Boat Journal. We sailed along the shores of western Long Island Sound. I recall one early autumn morning when (typical of that area) the breeze came on just a notch above slick calm. The melonseed ghosted well. As our weight heeled the tiny skiff, gravity seemed to fill the 51-sq-ft spritsail more easily than it would a modern jibheaded sail (particularly when the sprit rested to the weather side of the canvas).
As we tacked out from the gentrified Westport waterfront in search of a real breeze, a powerboat’s wake caught us broadside. The resulting violent rolling caused the rudder’s pintles to lift from the transom’s gudgeons. The shallow rudder now trailed uselessly astern, towed by the tiller. On its own, the melonseed immediately rounded up into the faint breeze…directly into the path of a huge express cruiser (well, it likely measured about 26′ on deck—big enough). I grabbed the free-swinging rudder blade and sculled the skiff out of harm’s way. Sometimes there’s much to be said for small, maneuverable, easily manhandled boats.
Photo by Benjamin Mendlowitz
When the wind fades, the melonseed’s simple sail can be brailed up, freeing space in the cockpit for rowing, poling, or paddling. The forward sections are fine, but still sufficiently buoyant and stable to float the crew.
In fact, the little melonseed always seemed to do everything better than the design numbers might have predicted. Given any breeze at all, it sailed faster than the diminutive rig would have suggested. It sailed drier than a boat of such slight freeboard had any right. It sailed with an easy motion, and the small cockpit and flat deck seemed acceptably comfortable…at least for a not-yet-old crew.
Sprit rigs, when properly set up, deliver about as much drive-per-dollar as any arrangement. We’ll need to keep adequate tension in the snotter (the line that secures the heel of the sprit to the mast). In strong breezes we’ll snug up the snotter. As the wind dies, we’ll ease the snotter just slightly. If we should ever have to make a sprit for one of these boats, I’ll suggest cutting the stick slightly longer than seems necessary. A little extra length will be, at worst, an easily correctable nuisance. A too-short sprit can ruin the sail’s set and the boat’s performance.
When the time comes to purchase a new sail, let’s visit a maker who boasts more than a little experience with four-edged sails. Folks who cater solely to the racing fleets might want to cut the sail too flat. The spritsail should have considerable draft (fullness) by modern standards, and the point of maximum draft should be farther forward than in a highly strung sloop’s mainsail. Thanks to the current revival of traditional arts and design, we’ll find competent makers of four-edged sails along many waterfronts.
Yes, the melonseed’s shoal draft, likable sailing characteristics, and casual trailerability all contribute to the continued popularity of this 19th-century design. But some of us are convinced that it survives primarily because it is a beautiful boat…well worth building, even if we’re not inclined to blast unfortunate ducks out of the sky.
The Melonseed lines shown here were recorded by Howard Chapelle and published in his American Small Sailing Craft. They can be purchased from the Smithsonian by writing to: Smithsonian Institution, Ships Plans, P.O. Box 37012, NMAH–5004/MRC628, Washington, DC 20013
For a comprehensive list of available melonseed plans, see “A ’Seed Catalog,” WoodenBoat No. 180 , Page 54.
You can build your own melonseed or commission custom construction at one of the fine small shops that prosper, to varying degrees, along our coasts. If you prefer fiberglass, Roger Crawford makes ’seeds in that material to the Chapelle lines. He does business as Crawford Boatbuilding. His boats include considerable wooden trim. A good friend of ours refers to them as “fiberglass-hulled wooden boats.”
Is there a boat you’d like to know more about? Have you built one that you think other Small Boats Magazine readers would enjoy? Please email us!
In a sea of wooden boats that are out of reach for many of us, here is one that offers some respite—Dad’s Ol’ Outboard Skiff. She’s the brainchild of Michigan builder Mike Kiefer, who has been building boats and teaching wooden boat building at the Great Lakes Boatbuilding Company, for well over 20 years. Dad’s Ol’ Outboard Skiff is a glued-lapstrake plywood constructed boat with steam-bent sassafras frames and a mahogany transom. Virtually anyone with a little ambition and modest skills can build her. She offers a lot of pride for the effort.
On a cool Iowa morning in mid-July, my friend George Jepson and I took the boat out for a spin on Lake MacBride. A fresh breeze off the eastern Iowa prairie kicked up a few riffles on the water as George and I motored along the pastoral, grassy shore. Dad’s Ol’ Outboard Skiff is the type of boat that conjures images of summers on the lake and Dad in his high-waist shorts. An archetypal, 1950s-style family cottage boat, it’s handsome, roomy, maneuverable, and built icebreaker-tough. With outstanding initial stability and an excellent aptitude for tracking, she is a safe and enjoyable boat, designed and built for protected waters.
Dad’s Ol’ Outboard Skiff has an LOA of 14′ and a 5′ beam. She weighs approximately 250 lbs and draws about 6″ in fresh water, a dash less in salt. Though she may look dainty perched on her trailer, step aboard, and you’ll see that she has the feel of a much larger boat. Get her on the water, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised at her performance, too. These are some of the great achievements of the design.
Photo by Karen Wales
This is not your father’s outboard. Or is it? Builder Mike Kiefer and designer Ken Workinger created Dad’s Ol’ Outboard Skiff to have the look and feel of boats that were the norm during the 1950s. Glued-lapstrake plywood construction, the type already a coastal favorite, has proven to be a welcome alternative in freshwater areas, too.
Mike Kiefer is a boatbuilder’s boatbuilder. In 1978, having decided to enter the trade, he embarked on a tour of New England boatbuilding shops. At Lowell’s Boatshop in Amesbury, Massachusetts, builder Jim Lowell encouraged Mike to get a copy of John Gardner’s Dory Book and to build anything in there. He began with the Swampscott dory and has been building ever since. He opened his own shop, Great Lakes Boatbuilding Company, in South Haven, Michigan, in 1986.
Inspired by the family watercraft that companies like Dunphy, Wolverine, Larsen, and Thompson used to turn out by the hundreds, Dad’s Ol’ Outboard Skiff captures the romance of an earlier, simpler time. Romantic overtones aside, the builder is also pragmatic in his approach to serving today’s boat owner. Kiefer says, “I wanted this boat to be a little deeper and wider, since folks today are generally just bigger. The transom is fairly wide and gives good initial stability. Outboard bilge stringers, port and starboard, help with directional stability. It is a pretty thing on the water and scoots with the right horsepower.” Because Kiefer is also a boatbuilding instructor, he requires most of his boats to hold potential as projects for his classes. That practicality came into play in the design spiral of Dad’s Ol’ Outboard Skiff.
Photos by Karen Wales
Meet George Jepson. At 6′ 3″, he seems to dwarf Dad’s Ol’ Outboard Skiff when she’s dockside. But, once he’s aboard, it’s clear that the boat is roomy and comfortable, even for a man of George’s size.
I admire his humility. Some builders, by virtue of the fact that they have built a lot of boats, think that they are also qualified boat designers. While a small number of builders have had good results with this empirical approach to the design process, many more have not. Mike Kiefer knows that having a dream in your head is a long way off from having a boat that accomplishes your goals. So, in order to get it right, he asked designer Ken Workinger to help turn his parameters into a working plan. The result is a lovely and seaworthy boat that handily accomplishes the builder’s intentions. She is deceivingly larger than she looks. At 6′ 3″, owner George Jepson appreciates every inch of roominess afforded to him.
Dad’s Ol’ Outboard Skiff is a traditional-looking lapstrake boat, built with okoume plywood, using glued-lapstrake plywood construction. This type of construction is a particularly good choice for small boats that are to be used in fresh water. High-quality marine plywood is made from straight and tightly grained, stable woods. There is also a high glue content between veneers. Add to that the clear-coating of epoxy that occurs just before painting, and you have a construction type that is extremely rot-resistant.
Photo by Karen Wales
Called “A Sweet Alternative,” sassafras is the builder’s first choice for structural members like frames, risers, and gunwales. “Sassy” is more decay resistant and more limber than white oak. And, Kiefer adds, “It smells like root beer when you cut it.” What’s not to like?
I wondered why a glued-lapstrake plywood boat would also require steam-bent frames. After all, the planking seam glue joints already provide longitudinal strength and good overall stiffness. To me, installing keel-to-sheer frames on top of that seemed a belt-and-suspenders approach. The designer says that this element is mostly for the benefit of students. Bending-in steamed frames provides new boatbuilders with a fun and important lesson that transfers to more complicated work. Kiefer nearly always factors in a design’s suitability as a teaching tool in his classes. While not a common theme in glued-lapstrake plywood construction, the sassafras frames add stiffness to the hull and heighten the traditional look of the boat.
For such a round-appearing boat, Dad’s Ol’ Outboard Skiff is remarkably stable. Absent is the roly-poly feel that usually accompanies a round bottom. This impressive initial stability is a function of a combination of elements, the primary one being her deceptively clever shape. The lines indicate how her belly nearly flattens out for a good run of her length below the turn of the bilge. That, combined with her generous beam, provides the feel of a much larger, cushier boat. Stepping aboard, she feels solid underfoot. And she remains steady, even as a big fellow like George Jepson settles in at the helm. These elements make it an exceptionally good choice for family use…just as the name implies.
With all that, she handles extremely well; she can sweep around a turn with the grace of a young lady sashaying about her partner at a square dance. This agility is due in part to Kiefer’s careful placement of outer hull stringers. Found near the lap of the first and second broadstrakes on the outer hull surface, these outboard “bilge stringers,” as Kiefer calls them, run from about amidships aft, all the way to the transom. In addition to providing better tracking, the bilge stringers protect the bottom when the boat is dragged onto a beach.
Photo by Karen Wales
Spray rails and outboard “stringers” have been added to the outer hull, fore, aft, and below. Made to reduce spray, protect the hull, and improve tracking ability, they give the boat a saltier look too.
Located farther up each side at the aft area of the hull are two more “stringers” that designer Ken Workinger refers to as the quarter fenders. Like the bilge stringers, the quarter fenders also serve a dual purpose. Because Dad’s Ol’ Outboard Skiff has tumblehome, those areas of the hull that protrude beyond the sheer are vulnerable to damage from pilings, piers, and other boats. Workinger says that the quarter fenders protect the hull in these regions. He adds that they also manage unwanted spray that may be migrating up the hull. Finally, Kiefer placed a third set of stringers (spray rails) at the forward end of the boat. Their sole purpose is to deflect spray from the cutwater area. These are much appreciated by frequent bow riders like me.
There is some friendly contention among builder, designer, and owner regarding the appropriate size outboard motor for Dad’s Ol’ Outboard Skiff. The builder feels that a 10–15-hp motor is just right for this boat. The designer commented that she’s “Fun to run with just an 8-hp motor.” Yet the owner likes his 3-hp motor just fine. My only personal experience with the skiff has been running her with the 3-hp motor. It was fine—it felt appropriate for quiet motoring, which is her purpose on Lake MacBride. However, I can appreciate how a larger outboard might have gotten her up and out of the water more efficiently. I figure that puts me in the builder and the designer’s camp. Whatever floats your boat…
Photo by Karen Wales
To each his own…motor. For calm motoring, the owner prefers his 3-hp outboard. However, the builder, designer, and author concur that something ranging from 8 to 15 hp would give her more zip.
All in all, I am charmed by Dad’s Ol’ Outboard Skiff. She has an understated elegance that allows her to travel in any boating circle. Her roots are honest, her design well thought out. Produced by a longtime builder who has mastered his craft, she is destined to become a Midwestern classic—a yacht for the ordinary citizen.
Dad’s Ol’ Outboard Skiff is a lot of boat for her size. Her beaminess and expansive, almost flat bottom give her the wherewithal to carry a large payload of picnickers and remain unperturbed. Her plumb bow, the restrained sweep of her sheer, and nearly vertical transom cap off her classic look.
Update: This review of Dad’s Ol’ Outboard Skiff appeared in Small Boats 2008; plans are still available from Ken Workinger. For details, email him at [email protected].
Is there a boat you’d like to know more about? Have you built one that you think other Small Boats Magazine readers would enjoy? Please email us!
In 1985, the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving hadn’t been easy. I’d been rowing my sneakbox LUNA from Pittsburgh down the Ohio River and the days had been either wet, cold, or both. The rowing warmed me up but several nights just before had been especially cold and I slid into my sleeping bag fully dressed with my rowing pogies over my socks to warm my toes. Rowing day after day had inflamed the tendons in my right wrist, so I taped that hand to the oar handle so I could pull without taking the strain on my fingers. And my heart was acting up—every time I looked over my left shoulder it would take a hard, late beat. I stopped in the town of Cloverport, Kentucky, found a grocery store not far from the river, and bought a bottle of Gatorade, hoping the electrolytes would get my heart settled into a less worrying rhythm. Back on the river, I kept myself company by singing “Poor Wandering One” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance, though I remembered only a few verses of the song and improvised the rest.
On Thanksgiving Day, I rowed some 15 meandering miles from an unnamed hollow at river mile 705 to the Cannelton Locks. LUNA was the only boat locking through. That was usually the case, as recreational boating had come to an end with the approach of winter. In the chamber I slowly dropped about 40′ and the dark, dripping concrete walls pinched off the sky above me. A middle-aged couple peered over the railing as I descended beneath them and asked where I was going. I told them that I had rowed about 500 miles from Pittsburgh and was bound for Florida. They said they’d like to hear all about it and asked me to join them for a Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant not far away.
I found a safe place for LUNA just below the locks and the couple, Rosemary and Chauncy, drove me a few miles along the river to Tell City where a family restaurant was serving an all-you-can-eat Thanksgiving buffet. I washed my hands and face in the restroom; there wasn’t anything I could do about the rest of me. I’d been wearing my clothes night and day for almost a week, and the thighs of my wool pants were spotted with mustard stains where I’d made cheese-and-tomato sandwiches while descending in the shelter of the many Ohio River locks. It was midafternoon and Rosemary and Chauncey were between lunch and Thanksgiving dinner, so they didn’t order anything. I worked my way through a plateful of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes with gravy, and a square of cornbread and returned to the buffet. In between refills, I answered questions about the boat and my experience on the river, a small price to pay for some company and a hot meal. When I had eaten all I could, I thanked Rosemary and Chauncey for their kindness and they drove me back to LUNA. As I set to rowing again, my stomach ached. I wasn’t at all used to big meals—to fuel my rowing I snacked my way through the days.
I spent Thanksgiving evening and night in Muddy Gut, a small creek on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River. Just opposite, on the Indiana side, is the mouth of the Anderson River, where Abraham Lincoln operated a ferry service as a teenager, rowing a scow that he’d built.
About 10 miles downriver from the locks, I passed the town of Troy on the Indiana side of the river and found a creek mouth on the Kentucky side where I could spend the night. The creek, called Muddy Gut, was narrow and meandered between banks too steep for camping ashore, so I tied a line between trees on opposite sides of the creek and secured LUNA beneath it where the water was deepest—the river was expected to drop overnight. With a tarp covering the cockpit I had a quiet place to spend the night and LUNA would keep me warm.
During that winter of 1985, I often felt I was the only person for miles around, whether on the Ohio River or the Mississippi River, seen here south of Natchez.
By Christmas Eve, I had left the Ohio River hundreds of miles behind and was well on my way down the Lower Mississippi. Just north of Natchez, Mississippi, I was rowing a 10-mile-long straight stretch of the river when two johnboats raced toward me with wings of feathery white spray spreading from their bows. The first veered around me , but the second slowed down and idled a few boat lengths away. There were two men aboard, both dressed in thick camo clothing. The helmsman said, “You’re the craziest thing I’ve seen so far.” I answered, “I haven’t said two words and you’ve already decided that I’m crazy. It’s hardly fair.” That got him laughing. He promised to meet me at Natchez and buy me a drink and the two buzzed off downriver.
I made a brief stop in Natchez—there was no one waiting to buy me a drink—and then rowed another current-assisted 24 miles to Dead Man’s Bend. I came ashore on a narrow sand beach at the base of a brush-covered lump of land. The sky was only partly cloudy and the air was still and merely cool. I pulled LUNA up the beach, out of the water and set my tent on the high ground.
To celebrate Christmas, I dressed in red and hung a red wool sock from a bush that had red berries and the only leaves left after fall.
On Christmas morning, the sun rose in a clear sky. I was in the middle of a wilderness where only tree-lined banks bounded the river as far as I could see. As far as I knew, there wasn’t another human being within miles. Even so, I was as happy as a kid finding a pile of gifts beneath a brilliant tree on Christmas morning. I clothespinned one of my red wool knee socks to a bush next to the tent, tied my oars together at their throats to make a Christmas tree of sorts, and put on everything red that I had—red sprayskirt, sunglasses, pogies, and balaclava—and danced around camp in my black rubber boots. There were no gifts in boxes waiting for me, just the joy of being exactly where I had chosen to be, living out a dream I’d nurtured for years. And everything I’d left behind would be waiting for me when I returned. I don’t recall now if I sang Christmas carols, but I’m quite sure I didn’t sing “Poor Wandering One.”
In the spring of 1970, the Marine Historical Society, now the Mystic Seaport Museum, sent out a flyer inviting recreational rowing enthusiasts to a “Small Craft Conference–Rowing Workshop” sponsored by the Small Craft Laboratory, which had been started by then Associate Curator John Gardner. Topics would be pulling boat design, reviving recreational rowing, and comparing participating boats. The flyer also suggested that participants submit a design for the “perfect boat.”
Capt. Pete Culler took an interest in the design challenge. A yacht captain, boatbuilder and designer, he had designed and supervised building the schooner INTEGRITY for his friend and sometimes employer, Waldo Howland, owner of Concordia Company. Pete and Waldo discussed the idea and Pete sketched a simple 13-1/2′ flat-bottomed skiff, similar to a 15-1/2-footer he had built in 1968. Waldo liked the result, and mimeographed a pamphlet about it which was distributed at the workshop. In it he wrote that the new skiff was “a learner’s boat for rowing and sailing, and for fun and satisfaction. Suitable for instruction and general use in summer camps, in youth training programs and at home. Rowing is fun if the boat is the right model. Big enough to be useful, long and fine lined enough to row easily. With sufficient length, she will be stable. There are many uses for a good skiff besides rowing alone. Pulling up on a beach for swimming & picnics. Go fishing or clamming. Carry passengers or cargo. Imagination and a bit of water is all you need.”
Designed to be built by amateurs, the skiff received an enthusiastic reception and, after the workshop, Culler drew up plans for what has become a classic, the Good Little Skiff.
Ben Fuller
The plans don’t include a footbrace for rowing; a board spanning frames serves as a simple and effective stretcher.
I bought my 13′ Good Little Skiff, SMILE, in 1977 from Fred Kemp when he and I were working at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. I rowed and sailed her on Chesapeake creeks, then took it with me to Mystic Seaport where she was my commuter boat for more than a decade, then to Maine. The bottom is her second, as the galvanized fastenings into the chines used by Fred throughout the boat (except for the copper-riveted planking) had started to weep after 40 years. Lately she’s been in storage, and in honor of the 50th year of the Small Craft Workshop, I recommissioned her.
Traditionally built, the Good Little Skiff is perhaps 50 to 60 lbs heavier than a similar craft built today in plywood. It has more flare than most and a little powderhorn in the sheer, something Pete, unlike most designers, could get away with. Its raked transom and stern rocker make it extraordinarily unsuitable for outboards, probably no accident.
The flare is nice. Besides making the skiff distinctively handsome, it provides the width to swing an 8’ oar. Since there is a continuous riser following the sheer, the flare gives you a place to sit or squat against when sailing; if you want to shift forward or aft of the center seat, one can perch on the flare and riser as kind of a narrow bench.
Pete didn’t give the skiff much freeboard. For rowing on the open Penobscot Bay, my friends, Sam and Susan Manning, raised the sheer on theirs several inches by adding another narrow strake. After work with a batten, they tapered the strake into the stem as if it were a rubrail, and added a piece to the outboard edge of the transom to match the height of the new sheerstrake. Amidships, the new sheerstrake pretty much hit the height of the oarlock blocks needed with the original sheer because of the low freeboard.
Traditional construction provides some maintenance challenges. There are a lot of different angles, planes, and nooks to sand and paint when it’s that time. That said, a good, sound interior paint job lasts many seasons, with maybe some attention to the chines where water can pool and the seat tops, worn by sun and use.
Culler left many construction details to the builder, so I expect that no two Good Little Skiffs are the same. Following the Chesapeake tradition in which he was schooled, he called for a tight-seamed cross-planked cedar bottom. It needs to swell tight before use, as the planks shrink when dry and the seams let light through—I use “boat blankets” and a hose. You can trailer the Good Little Skiff with a traditional bottom, but you’ll have to manage the swelling. Better is to use 1/2″ marine plywood in a continuous sheet instead of cross planking.
David Cockey
With the author aboard, the Good Little Skiff sits right on its lines with the transom just above the water’s surface.
This skiff, like most very small boats, is really sensitive to fore-and-aft trim. Pete drew in just one thwart, so when rowing with a passenger, the bow will aim skyward. It is a simple fix: add a removable seat forward of the rowing station; the seat just rests on the riser. Mine stows under the sternsheets when not needed. There is more freeboard forward so the second set of oarlocks can be mounted on the sheer without blocks to elevate them.
Culler assumed, I think, that the boat would be sailed by two, since the tiller can’t be reached from the amidships seat. For solo sailing I added a tiller extension that is about as long as the tiller. It is just right. With my weight on the center thwart the skiff is in good fore-and-aft trim, and sitting sideways lets me slide athwartships or move to the rail to respond to heeling.
I’ve reengineered the sternsheets to have a movable section in the center, which makes painting under the seat—something recommended by Pete—a less painful process. As it happens, you can lower that section down to rest on the stowed bow seat and use the space to hold your boat bag. The bow seat becomes a shelf to keep lunches and sweaters out of the bilge, a handy feature for a boat not equipped with floorboards.
As designed, the skiff has no stretcher to brace your feet against when rowing. I used to use the end of the short keelson to which the skeg was bolted. In the recommission, I tried a plank set on edge on the chines and braced it against the frames and, after some tapering and other tuning, it proved perfect.
I’d forgotten how much fun the Good Little Skiff is—as long as the water is suitable. You can move around in the skiff without it feeling uncomfortably unstable, something that can be a little more difficult in some of today’s lightweight and often twitchy craft. What it does well is proceed under oar and sail at an easy 3- to 4-knot pace, which is doing well for a boat with a hull speed of about 4-1/3 knots. It doesn’t like a chop. Rowing in a chop where the bow slaps into the waves is miserable. And the skiff is ill-suited to open-water whitecaps.
David Cockey
The loose-footed spritsail is equipped with a brail that can quickly furl the sail and the sprit against the mast.
Pete gave the skiff an ample loose-footed spritsail of 70 square feet. Rigged with a brail to bundle it up, it is simple to set and douse. It moves the boat well in light summer breezes, but when you start seeing whitecaps, if you are solo, you will need a reef. Like most spritsails, it is easier to reef when the rig is struck.
Sailing to windward against a 1- to 2-knot tidal current, my tacks take me straight across my river and back a lot but don’t make much progress. It is simple to brail up the sail, pluck the mast out of the step, and lay it down over the bow. Taking to the oars, I can make steady headway uptide.
One of the things I don’t think Pete realized is how well balanced the Good Little Skiff is. As long as there is not a sea running, you can straddle the center seat and sail it without bothering with a rudder: lean forward and to leeward and the boat turns upwind, flatten it out and lean aft to turn downwind. You can keep it straight running with a bit of windward heel. It’s so easy that I mostly don’t bother to bring along a rudder when sailing, and just take along my old sculling oar, setting it into the transom’s notch for a little help turning.
David Cockey
The skiff has good stability for standing while sculling over the stern. The boat’s heavy construction keeps it from wagging excessively.
And the Good Little Skiff sculls beautifully. Light dinghies and skiffs can be sculled, but they don’t have the weight and fore-and-aft resistance to keep them from being wagged by a seriously wielded sculling oar. There is plenty of stability to stand and lean into the oar. My old oar has a 4′ blade and a 10′ shaft which, like duck hunter’s oars, has some curve in it. As you scull, the oar blade digs deeper.
The Good Little Skiff does skiff stuff: poking along the river shore on a leisurely afternoon sail in a nice 10-knot breeze, checking out craft in a harbor, idling the tide downriver on a calm morning under oars to explore tidal shallows, lunching on a tide-revealed sandbar, then catching the afternoon breeze and turned tide to ride home. Pete’s Good Little Skiff is hard to beat. As Howland put it in his pamphlet about Culler’s boat: “A good skiff is a fine boat and for many uses no one has ever figured out anything better or ever will.”
During the turn of this century, Jon Persson, a boat designer based in Westbrook, Connecticut, wanted to create an open-water rowing craft that would be not only economical and simple to build but also accessible to someone new to the sport and yet still please those who were more experienced.
Persson began the design development with inspiration from the Francis Herreshoff–designed and John Gardner–drawn pulling boat the Green Machine, a beautiful lapstrake affair with dozens of steam-bent frames, and along the way incorporated aspects of the Chamberlain Gunning Dory. After several half models and prototypes, Persson finalized the design as the Atlantic 17 Dory—a symmetrical, double-ended, 17′-long boat that has a 48″ beam with the speed of the Green Machine, the seakeeping qualities of the Gunning Dory, and a very simple plywood-on-frame construction process.
I recently ordered Jon’s plans. They include profile and plan drawings, full-sized frame and stem patterns, and four pages of written instructions, which include a technique that ensures fair planking. The hull has two strakes, a flat dory-like bottom, and a small skeg. Construction is straightforward and detailed in the plans, and is within easy reach of an amateur who has some previous woodworking and epoxy skills.
Christophe Matson
The flotation compartments in the ends are not included in the plans but are an easy modification to make when their bulkheads are combined with the frames.
The dory requires four sheets of 6mm okoume plywood for the planking and one sheet of 18mm meranti for the frames. The hull is constructed upside down on a strongback using its five frames as molds. On each side, three battens—a chine, a seam batten where the two planks meet edgewise, and an inwale—span from stem to stem. The seam battens need to be beveled to accommodate the plank joints. The joining of the battens to the stems without twisting the stems out of vertical is the most technical aspect of the build. The frames do not need to be beveled; gaps are backfilled with thickened epoxy.
The oversized plank blanks are plotted onto the plywood from scaled plans and then trimmed to fit on the boat. The plank sections are joined with butt straps which, used in combination with the batten construction, allows the planks to be clamped and glued onto the boat in an unhurried process—one piece at a time—without wrestling with full-length planks. If care has been taken in trimming the planks neatly to the seam batten, only a little detail work should be needed to fill the joints between the garboards and sheerstrake with thickened epoxy. The planked hull is ultimately ’glassed on the exterior with 6-oz cloth.
Christophe Matson
The parallel risers allow for easy adjustment of the slip thwart. The two sets of combs for the stretcher accommodate the switch from rowing alone to rowing with a passenger.
The thwarts are laid out on two straight and parallel seat risers that are supported by the three center frames. The thwarts are not permanently secured to the boat and can be moved anywhere on the risers to accommodate any rower’s size and preferred distance to the oarlocks. The thwarts are specified at 10″ wide, but I made mine 8″ since they are infinitely adjustable. Also, the risers extend past the two #2 frames by 6″, which allows for a passenger to place an 8″ thwart as far aft as possible and face forward with additional space for legs. A wider thwart would be cantilevered beyond the risers and could invite an unwanted backward spill.
The only items not fully described in the plans are the oarlock pads to accept the sockets. In every Atlantic 17 I have seen there is a different solution, from neat little pads that don’t add any height to the gunwale, and nylon blocks with multiple sockets that allow for fine adjustments to the trim of the boat, to large pads that extend out from the gunwale. Since I am over 6′2″ tall, I decided to pad the solo position and forward position straight up by 1-3/8″ from the gunwale to help the looms clear my knees. I left the aft socket at gunwale height for my wife, who is shorter, to row from this position.
My boat, including the buoyancy tanks fore and aft that are not in Persson’s plans, came to 106 lbs. Even with the extra weight, the boat is effortless to trailer, hand-carry by two, or trolley from trailer to water. I even entertained ideas of cartopping but found the 17′ length to be a bit unwieldy, though a longer car with a wider roof rack and a second strong person could make this more feasible.
Allison Grappone
The author, here at the oars, has been able to push the Atlantic 17 to a speed just over 5 knots.
The boat, with its narrow bottom, is initially tender when stepping aboard or standing up, but once the rowers are settled on the thwarts, the boat becomes stable and predictable. The wide garboard acts as a hard stop when the boat is heeled and provides enormous secondary stability. I swim off this boat and can climb back in amidships with ease with only a few cups of water slipping over the gunwale during the maneuver. The high stability is also appreciated when rowing broadside to rollers.
The foot stretchers for the solo and forward position are adjustable and drop into notched ladders that are glued to the inside of the thwart risers. The aft rowing position, per the plans, places the foot-stretcher set into a notched spine that is glued to the bottom of the boat. I decided this 16″ x 5″ spine would take up room for camping equipment and left it out of my boat. Some Atlantic 17 boats have employed other methods to add a less obtrusive foot-stretcher system, such as cleats glued to the inside of the garboards which accept a board slid between them.
Rowed solo the boat pulls and accelerates quickly. Oar length is not specified in the plans, but I use 8′ spoons for the center and forward positions. A second rower in the aft station could use the same length or 7′ 10″, depending on preference. A friend with another Atlantic 17 uses 8′ 6″ oars at the solo position with much success. Once the boat is up to speed, it carries almost two boat lengths after the last stroke before slowing down. Using my GPS, I found that a gentle sightseeing pace gets 3.5 knots, pulling harder (but still at a long-term sustainable amount) achieves 4 knots, and pulling all-out I indicate slightly over 5 knots. Add a second rower and the speeds at the same efforts conservatively increase by half a knot.
If the boat is appropriately balanced, the base of the stem should be sufficiently buried and the bottom does not slap. For such a light boat with a flat bottom and rocker, the boat tracks fabulously in a crosswind and does not exhibit much weathercocking as long as the rowers are correctly positioned. Someone along for the ride in the far aft passenger position can exert some weathercocking effect.
Allison Grappone
The dory handles waves with ease, holding its heading and its speed.
I recently went for a row in Casco Bay, Maine, during a blustery day with sustained southerly winds of 15 to 20 knots and higher gusts. The harbor opened to the southeast and was filled with short rollers and some windblown crests. The fine bow struck a clean path through the waves, and the boat rode nimbly up and over the crests. On the descent into the face of the next wave the flaring sheerstrake diverted the water and kept the interior of the boat dry. Unlike a heavier, traditionally built dory, the Atlantic 17 won’t punch through waves carrying its momentum; instead, it rides lightly on the surface. Without the extra mass a little more work needs to be expended to keep her going against both wind and wave, but quicker acceleration and lack of spray is paid in return.
Allison Grappone
The fine ends let the dory make a smooth passage through the water, leaving very little disturbance in its wake.
When I row downwind, surfing the rollers, the bow does not aimlessly veer but maintains solid directional integrity, an attribute that is much appreciated in an open-water boat. However solid its own tracking, the Atlantic 17 is also easily turned. At full speed on flat water, I can turn it 90 degrees from its course with three solid strokes on one side. At rest, the boat easily spins in the footprint of its own length.
This beautiful, sleek boat fulfills the requirements of a simple and economical build, with easy handling and safety for beginner rowers and speed for experienced ones. It makes a great day/picnic boat for two, and an efficient and safe camping vessel for one. The Atlantic 17 is a fine introduction to the joy of open-water rowing and has quickly become my most frequently used boat.
Christophe Matson lives in New Hampshire. At a very young age he disobeyed his father and rowed the neighbor’s Dyer Dhow across the Connecticut River to the strange new lands on the other side. Ever since, he has been hooked on the idea that a small boat offers the most freedom.
Atlantic 17 Particulars
[table]
Length/17′
Beam/48″
Depth amidships/15″
[/table]
Plans for the Atlantic 17 are available, in printed form only, from Jon Persson Designs for $60 plus shipping.
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A summer of sailing seemed like the perfect solution to a global pandemic. What better quarantine than a few weeks alone outdoors, aboard an open boat designed for long-distance cruising? As classrooms emptied overnight and the school year ground to a halt online, I established a nightly ritual of studying charts after the last papers were graded: Georgian Bay, Lake of the Woods, Lake Nipigon, the Pukwaska. In early May, my wife helped me wrestle the boat upside-down atop its trailer for a partial refit. Three coats of paint, inside and out; a few sessions of oiling thwarts, spars, and gunwales; a length of brass half-oval screwed to the stem to protect the forefoot; a new becket block for the downhaul—these small chores offered a welcome diversion to rising case counts, mortality rates, and other grim portents of the looming disaster.
By mid-June I was more than ready, but closed borders had thrown a wrench in the gears before I could even get started. There’d be no trip to the Canadian side of the Great Lakes this summer—no trips to the Canadian side of anything. Even travel within the U.S. seemed like a dubious proposition. Like Huck Finn, I wanted to “light out for the Territory,” at least for a while, but I couldn’t even make it out of my own backyard. I was thoroughly landlocked.
Roger Siebert
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Landlocked. Except…Wisconsin is surrounded by water on three sides. The U.S. side of the Great Lakes was inaccessible for now—the Apostle Islands and Isle Royale, the obvious choices, were closed to overnight visitors, and Green Bay was a COVID-19 hot spot—but the Mississippi River offered a West Coast of sorts. Here the dramatic bluffs and coulees of the Driftless Area—land untouched by the last Ice Age—lined the river for more than 250 miles along the Minnesota–Wisconsin border. Better yet, the broad flood plain was largely uninhabited, offering plenty of space for a small boat to pull in for the night undisturbed. Suddenly I could envision weeks of cruising possibilities, all of them starting just an hour or so from home. I could wander the sloughs and back channels by sail and oar, exploring the swamps and tributary streams, the islands and sand bars, and all the marshy backwaters that bordered the big river—coastal cruising, inland style. I ordered a complete set of charts for the Upper Mississippi and started packing my gear.
I put in at a public ramp on an island just off the Wisconsin side, 45 miles southeast of Minneapolis: not quite the very beginning of the Mississippi River’s run along the Wisconsin border, but close enough. Besides, I needed a landing that offered overnight parking, and this one fit the bill. Better yet, just a half mile from the ramp, the river spread out into a sprawling swirl of ropy islands that stretched for five miles downstream. After loading the boat with two weeks’ worth of food and gear—this would be a quarantine cruise, with no stops to resupply—I stowed the sailing rig and headed downstream under oars.
Even at my usual leisurely rowing pace—between 2 and 3 knots, but probably closer to 2—it took me less than 10 minutes to reach the islands. Almost immediately the riverbanks drew close on each side, offering impenetrable walls of midsummer greenery. Dead branches and even entire tree trunks rose from the water here and there like bleached bones, almost blocking the channel completely in a few places. The sound of police sirens in nearby Red Wing, Minnesota, drifted faintly across the water as I rowed, but the city itself was invisible; I could have been days from home, lost in a world of swampy forests and lowlands. Sloughs and side channels crossed and re-crossed each other at every bend, overhanging with oaks and cottonwoods, forming a network of overgrown canals with a vaguely post-apocalyptic feel—Venice, maybe, a few hundred years after its human inhabitants had fled. A belted kingfisher flashed by in a swooping rush along the bank on river right as I rowed past, its chattering call echoing behind me. It was the only traffic I encountered.
A thousand yards away on the Minnesota side, I knew, the river’s main navigation channel was busy with barges and powerboats hurrying along the foot of Red Wing’s tall sandstone bluffs. Nine hundred yards in the opposite direction, the wide Wisconsin Channel hugged the northern shore, offering a clear route for recreational power boats. But here in the center of the Pierce County Islands State Natural Area, my only company was the kingfisher I had seen earlier—and now, a pair of bald eagles that repeatedly fled downstream at my approach, only to be startled from each new perch a few minutes later as I rowed past again. It was a game I was familiar with, but one I associated with blue herons, on smaller rivers; this was the first time I’d played it with eagles. After a few more intermittent retreats downstream, they finally got tired of my interruptions and flew off for good, leaving me alone again in the winding back channels.
After 90 minutes or so, my winding route brought me to the edge of the islands at Lily Pond, within sight of the main traffic channel. I pulled onto a sandy beach at river left to stretch my legs. The day was overcast, and not too hot—perfect weather for rowing—but I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity for a brief stop ashore. Half a mile away, close in along the Minnesota shore, a nine-barge tow pushed past, just visible behind the long thin island that bordered the main channel. From my place on the riverbank, the towboat’s powerful diesel was barely audible. Eight hundred feet of boat and barges running a river barely 800′ wide, coming into a hairpin curve 3 miles long—a good reason for a small sail-and-oar boat to stay in the sloughs and backwaters.
Photographs and video by the author
The narrow channel into Catherine Pass looks like a detour from the direct route into Lake Pepin. In fact, a huge expanse of shoaling sandbars blocks the northern reaches of the lake, making Catherine Pass the better option.
After another hour of rowing and dawdling, I reached the eastern edge of the islands and slipped through a narrow passage into Catherine Pass at the upper reaches of Lake Pepin. Leaving the oars trailing in the mud-brown water as the slow current carried the boat downstream, I stood up to see over the tall reeds that lined the shore—the small-boat equivalent of posting a lookout at the masthead. There was open water ahead, and the first faint stirrings of a breeze rippling the water’s surface. The boat drifted past the mudflats on each side of the pass, each as wide as a city street, and coasted out into the lake in a silence broken only by the cry of seagulls circling overhead.
I rowed past the shoals at the mouth of Catherine Pass, rounded the corner into Lake Pepin, and stepped the mast, lifting it into the partner and tapping a couple of wedges in place. A few more moments later, I had the standing-lug mainsail up, a simple operation in such calm conditions. I tightened the downhaul, lowered the centerboard and rudder, stowed the oars aboard, and trimmed the sheet for a close reach. Once the sail was drawing well, I tied the sheet off to an oarlock with a slippery hitch and settled in.
At the upper end of Lake Pepin, the steep and exposed shoreline limits options for shelter in a real blow. In 1890, the 135’ excursion boat SEA WING overturned and sank just a few miles downstream, with the loss of 98 people. Fortunately, I enjoyed better weather on my passage to the Rush River.
Lake Pepin forms an elongated backwards S shape on the map—east, then south, and finally southeast again—running from Red Wing, Minnesota, to the mouth of Wisconsin’s Chippewa River 20 miles downstream. Here a broad sandy delta pours into the Mississippi, sediment from the 6,000 square miles drained by the Chippewa River in its 180-mile run from northwestern Wisconsin, forming the natural dam that created Lake Pepin. Elsewhere, the Upper Mississippi is drastically undersized for the valley through which it flows, which was cut by the much larger Glacial River Warren 10,000 years ago. Here in Lake Pepin, water fills the ancient flood plain entirely, forming a channel 2 miles wide, hemmed in by forested bluffs topped by 60’ sandstone cliffs.
Each tributary stream along Lake Pepin forms its own delta, and I was counting on one of these tributary deltas, at Wisconsin’s Rush River, to provide shelter for the night. Luck was with me. The faint afternoon breeze grew stronger, and veered toward the south, letting me steer a direct course toward my destination. With the sheet tied off and my line-and-bungee autopilot steering, all I had to do was enjoy the ride. After a 6-mile crossing that barely required me to touch the tiller or the sheet, I was closing in on the long sandspit at the mouth of the Rush River, just an hour ahead of sunset.
I cut the corner a little too closely. The boat ground to a gentle halt just off the spit, on a shoal that extended a bit farther than I had expected past the line of wading gulls I had been using for a channel marker. With the sail still drawing, I raised the board and rudder, hopped out in shin-deep water, and waded alongside for 10 yards before climbing back aboard to continue up the Rush River.
Wisconsin’s Rush River is, by all reports, a prime trout stream. Lacking the requisite fishing gear, permits, skills, and, more importantly, having no inclination to work for my supper, I had to be content with a carry-out pizza from Pizza Hut that I had stowed aboard.
I was running downwind against the current now, making slow but steady progress. The banks closed in, forming tangled green walls on each side, leaving just enough wind to keep the boat moving. I eventually pulled up on the eastern bank, alongside a low sandy ridge shaded by widely-spaced oaks and cottonwoods. Tying off the painter to a convenient branch, I carried my bags ashore. Expecting mosquitoes—I always expect them, and am rarely disappointed—I set up my tent on the flat sandy ridgetop under a massive oak tree and laid out my sleeping gear inside. Then, ready for a quiet evening ashore, I spent an hour or two wandering along the sandy beaches of the delta’s eastern shore.
The next morning, I packed up the tent and returned to the beach for a preview of the day’s route down Lake Pepin. Even this early in the day, a blustery southerly breeze was blowing, and knee-high waves were rolling up the lakeside beaches. Yesterday’s south wind had served perfectly for my generally eastward route. Today, as I turned the corner to follow Lake Pepin’s backward S to the south, that same breeze, stronger now, would be a stiff headwind.
As usual, I skipped breakfast to set out early, but then squandered my head start by rowing up the Rush River for a mile or so, until a house-sized pile-up of fallen trees blocked the stream from bank to bank, forcing me to turn back. Another kingfisher showed a flicker of black and white as it swooped across the stream, but only the quiet dip of the oars, stroke after stroke, broke the morning stillness. Soon enough I was back at the river mouth. My upstream diversion had cost me almost an hour, but I didn’t feel any regret about that. Diversion was the whole point of the trip.
The wind was still blowing when I reached open water, and still from the south. I had guessed that the region’s prevailing westerlies would carry me easily to the mouth of the Chippewa River, and I had guessed wrong. At least the broad channel, 2 miles wide, would provide ample sea room, with no need for short-tacking. It was a bright blue-sky morning, and perfect sailing. Sunlight glinted off the waves as the boat bumped along to windward, with a spattering of cool spray every now and then. With an open boat, an open calendar, and room to wander, I wasn’t going to complain about a few headwinds.
The sandy banks of the Rush River transition to thick mud along the water’s edge—a fact I discovered when I set foot on shore and sank in above my ankles. Still, the river delta provided a welcome sheltered mooring spot along Lake Pepin’s exposed shoreline.
A couple of hours later, after 3 miles of progress earned by 6 miles of blustery windward sailing in three long tacks, I was ready for a break. I sailed into the lee of Long Point on the Minnesota shore, where tiny Wells Creek had dumped enough sand to create a long spit that protruded from the river in an elegantly symmetrical dagger point. It looked like a perfect place to wait out the wind, in the lee of the spit’s low wooded ridge, but I barely had time to brail up the rig and drag the boat onto shore before I saw a dozen powerboats headed for the beach in close formation. Radios blaring, people shouting, outboards roaring—a typically overbearing Midwestern cheerfulness sustained by an excess of cheap beer, and painfully lacking in self-awareness. I wasn’t sure I could endure it all with any measure of grace. I took a brief look around me—the pale fine-grained sand of the beach, the network of shady trails running through the delta’s swampy woodlands, the marshy backwater I hadn’t even begun to explore—and re-launched the boat. After rowing a few yards offshore, I deployed the sail again. I was 100 yards out by the time the powerboats hit the beach. My quarantine would remain intact.
A narrow-beamed pulling boat isn’t at its happiest sailing to windward, but I kept bashing my way southward under full mainsail without too much trouble. It was slow going now, and not particularly restful, but it wasn’t until late afternoon that I started thinking about reefing, or getting off the water entirely. I made a final tack just outside the marina breakwater at Stockholm, Wisconsin, and headed back to the Minnesota side. Hok-Si-La Park, just upstream of Lake City at Lake Pepin’s Central Point, offered waterside camping. Or it had, before the pandemic started shutting down options. I wasn’t sure what I’d find now.
Although it’s essentially a narrow pulling boat, Don Kurylko’s Alaska does well to windward under full mainsail. Once it really breezes up, though, the shorter luff of the reefed mainsail doesn’t perform as well. Fortunately, I set out from the Rush River with a perfect breeze—not too weak, not too strong.
I reached the sheltered water on the north side of Central Point and coasted into a quiet bay at the mouth of Gilbert Creek—a creek too shallow even for my boat’s 8″ draft, and blocked by a large flock of geese that didn’t appear eager to give way. I dropped the rig, pulled out the oars for the final approach, and anchored 100 yards west of the creek, taking a line from the transom to a driftwood log on the beach. Despite the day’s unimpressive run—only 7 miles of real progress—I was ready to be ashore for the rest of the day.
Once the rig was stowed, I climbed the bluff above the bay to find Hok-Si-La’s campgrounds empty. There were a few cars in the day-use parking lot, and a few widely spaced families on the main swimming beach, but no one at all in the campground above my anchorage. A sign posted on the locked restroom building proclaimed that overnight camping was closed until further notice. I walked along the shaded campground loop again, past dozens of empty campsites. Not a single car, or a single camper. But on the edge of the campground loop above the lake, just a two-minute climb from the beach, I found a pit toilet still open. Good enough for me.
The morning sun woke me early at my unofficial anchorage at Hok-Si-La City Park, near the entrance of tiny Wells Creek. The park’s swimming beach and boat ramp are out of sight, just around the headland.
I returned to the boat and set up the platform for sleeping aboard—anchoring out would keep me within the letter of the law. The geese left Gilbert Creek and paddled by 30 yards offshore, then took flight in a sudden honking flurry to head off across the lake in a straggling V. A long-legged heron swooped in to stalk the shallows at the mouth of the creek, while a pair of eagles rode the thermals along the bluffs high above.
Before long, I had finished my onboard sleeping arrangements—platform, tent, and gear—but it would be hours before I needed them. The strong southerly breeze was reduced to a quiet stirring of leaves along the edge of the beach, and the warm sun felt good after a long day of beating to windward. I carried my folding camp chair ashore—a recent concession to comfort—and spent the afternoon reading in the shade of a tall cottonwood while the heron speared frogs from the creek. Out on the open water of Lake Pepin, keelboats and cabin cruisers bashed their way through the whitecaps. I was perfectly content to be ashore.
The next morning, a fierce southeasterly was blowing, even stronger than the day before. Out on the open water beyond Center Point, the waves were bigger than ever. Any upwind progress today would be slow, wet, and cold—stupidly so, in fact. But I couldn’t quite bring myself to give up on the trip and turn back to the car just yet, even though—secretly—I knew that I would end up doing exactly that. But I told myself I’d sail up to Lake City before deciding, a 2-mile test run.
I hoisted the sail, rowed out into the wind, and spent an hour beating into a whitecapping chop, making slow progress—and the wind seemed to be getting stronger, backing just enough to remain stubbornly opposed to my intentions. Just off the beach at Lake City’s Ohuta Park, in the lee of Lake City Point, I dropped the sail and set an anchor off the bow. Then I rowed in to take a line ashore from the stern, leaving the boat afloat in knee-deep water.
Once the boat was squared away, I walked to a bench overlooking the lake to enjoy a sandwich for breakfast. The wind was roaring, the open water all whitecaps and rolling waves. The mouth of the Chippewa River, with its islands and backwaters, was still 8 miles away, dead to windward. Enough was enough. I felt no more than a vague twinge of disappointment. Or, to be completely honest—not even that.
I returned to the boat, untied the shore line, climbed aboard, and drifted out over the anchor, 20 yards off the beach. I was coiling lines and tidying up when I heard someone calling me.
“Sir?” a quiet voice said. I didn’t see anyone. “Sir? Help, sir.”
A few yards out, a young boy was treading water—barely—with his chin just above the surface. Then he ducked under until the top of his head was all that showed for a moment before bobbing slowly back up. “Sir? Can you help me, sir?” he called again.
It wasn’t the least bit dramatic—but then, I knew from my experience as a lifeguard that real drownings rarely are. Moving quickly but calmly, I tossed one end of a line to the boy and pulled him over to me. With the boat’s low freeboard, he was able to pull himself aboard without much trouble. I rowed him to shore and left him with his mother, who had been watching helplessly from the beach while her son nearly drowned. A non-swimmer, he had waded out to the edge of the buoyed swimming area and lost his footing, drifting out into water well over his head.
Headwinds or not, I was glad I had decided to sail down to Lake City before turning back. The boy’s mother was even happier—pandemic or not, I wasn’t able to avoid several hugs and a series of tearful thank-yous. As I rowed away, she was escorting the boy back to their car—the only one in the lot—toweling his hair dry, hugging him over and over, and keeping up a running commentary that was more relief than anger: “What were you thinking? What on earth were you thinking? If that man hadn’t been there in his boat.…”
Smiling to myself at the thought of being known forever as that man, I rowed off the beach, tied a double reef in the mainsail, and stowed the oars. I’d come back another time to explore the Chippewa River delta. Meanwhile, these conditions were just what I needed to take me back to the Rush River at speed. Too much speed, maybe, but I was going to give it a go. Still smiling, I hoisted the sail, turned off the wind, and moved aft to put my weight where it was needed for downwind sailing.
Although it’s essentially a narrow pulling boat, Don Kurylko’s Alaska does well to windward under full mainsail. Once it really breezes up, though, the shorter luff of the reefed mainsail doesn’t perform as well. Fortunately, I set out from the Rush River with a perfect breeze—not too weak, not too strong.
White-topped waves rolled past, setting the boat pitching and rolling as we slowly steadied on our northward course. The sky overhead was gray and filled with rolling clouds. I eased the sheet for a broad reach on the starboard tack and felt the boat take off with a surging rush of speed, a sustained acceleration that continued until cold spray was flying past in tall rooster tails that reached well over my head. I steered for a tall headland 3 miles upriver on the Wisconsin side, a course far enough off the wind to avoid an unexpected and possibly disastrous jibe, and settled in for the ride.
The boat sailed northward in a wild rush between white curtains of spray, yawing slightly back and forth atop each passing wave, surfing and heeling and settling as wave after wave passed beneath the hull. It was a wet ride. I pulled on my rain jacket one arm at a time, managing the sheet and tiller carefully. Still, what would have been desperate sailing under full sail was merely exhilarating now; under the double-reefed main I had perfect control.
Five miles down the lake, my northward run halfway over, a foiling kiteboarder swept by at 20 miles per hour—the only other sailor in sight.
“Sweet!” he shouted, and then he was gone.
I knew exactly what he meant.
On my return journey, I camped again at the mouth of the Rush River. I tied up alongshore in the middle of a small cloud of mayflies, seen here flying over the river. They are short-lived insects that briefly emerge into adulthood—and flight—after a series of aquatic larval stages that can last a year or more. While they don’t bite, a large hatch can be big enough, and dense enough, to show up on weather radar, and can bury a beach or shoreline in dead mayflies in just a few hours.
On my way back home, I tried (and failed) to find a passage through the sandbars at the northern end of Lake Pepin.
Firmly aground a mile from shore. At one point in my ill-advised detour, I was forced to leave the boat parked securely in the middle of the lake while I wandered around the shallows looking for an escape route.
A mile wide and 1” deep. A good book and a comfortable chair can help a sailor deal with the inevitable setbacks of small-boat cruising. I’d eventually have to get up, put the book away, and find a way back to deeper water, but on a journey without a clear destination, there’s no such thing as getting lost.
END.
Tom Pamperin is a freelance writer who lives in northwestern Wisconsin. He spends his summers cruising small boats throughout Wisconsin, the North Channel, and along the Texas coast. He is a frequent contributor to Small Boats Monthly and WoodenBoat.
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.
This simple shop-made tiller comb drops in place in a few seconds and can be removed even quicker. The length of the comb and the fittings on its ends are determined by the boat it’s built for.
Dave Dawson has owned several boats and has tried a number of devices to hold their tillers to free both hands so he can relax or tend to other tasks. None of the bungee cords, ropes, and commercial tiller clutches he tried worked with a quick one-handed motion, so when it came to outfitting his canoe yawl, TERRAPIN, with a tiller minder, he decided on a simple, old-school comb. All it required was bits of wood and metal he already had on hand and an enjoyable afternoon in his shop.
In TERRAPIN, a Chesapeake Light Craft Autumn Leaves, the comb spanned the cockpit to accommodate the tiller’s full range of motion. The crosspiece, a length of 1″ x 3/4″ mahogany, has at each end an aluminum bracket that drops over the coamings. The brackets are bent from flat bar and lined with a thin minicell foam to hold the comb snug and protect the coaming’s varnish. The comb tines are 1/2″ dowels and their spacing was worked out in the boat, as the tiller requires a wider gap between them when hard over than it does when it is set amidships. The outermost pins hold the tiller in a position for heaving-to.
It’s easy to raise the tiller to steer or make course adjustments, then set it between pegs when the boat is on the right track. When the comb is no longer needed, it lifts free quickly and is put aside.
Portable Bench Vise
Tom DeVries
With a small bench, a pair of clamps, and a vise mounted on a thick plank, Tom DeVries can set up a workstation wherever the work is.
Tom DeVries bought a 4″ bench vise at a second-hand store—it was especially cheap because it was missing its handle, remedied with a lathe-turned length of ash—but he didn’t mount it on his workbench. Bolting the vise to its top would create an obstacle to projects that require the bench’s whole surface and its smooth and clean top was too nice to subject to the dings, burns, and sharp filings of metalwork that come with using a bench vise. Instead, he mounted the vise on a 48″ x 10″ remnant of butcher block (a similar length of heavy plank would do as well). Countersinks on the bottom keep the mounting bolts from protruding. When he needs a vise in his shop, he clamps the vise’s plank to the workbench.
Tom DeVries
To fit the decks of an old wood-and-canvas canoe, the vise can be set just a step or two from the canoe’s end.
For projects that don’t fit in his shop, like the 19′ wood-and-canvas canoe he restored, Tom clamps the portable vise on sawhorses or a short stool. The portable vise has also come in handy when he has worked on boats at the dock.
Vinyl Lattice Trailer Deck
Christopher Cunningham
The plywood deck of this utility trailer created a lot of friction when the Whitehall was dragged across it. The vinyl lattice made launching and retrieval much easier and wasn’t so slippery that the boat wouldn’t stay put when unstrapped at the ramp.
John Ernst has been using vinyl lattice on his boat trailer for years. The vinyl provides a low-friction surface for sliding a boat across a plywood trailer deck and the grid pattern offers enough grip for shoes. The lattice, available at home-improvement stores, is inexpensive—$21 for a 4′ x 8′ sheet and $13 for a 2′ x 8′ sheet. It is 1/5″ thick, easily cut with woodworking tools, and gets screwed down with flathead screws, just slightly countersunk.
Christopher Cunningham
The lattice is set back from the edge of the plywood so it won’t get snagged when lifting the bow to the trailer bed.
The lattice is flexible and can fit curved surfaces. John also uses lattice sheets laid on the ground to slide boats easily and without damage over cobble.
Rust Erasers
Christopher Cunningham
The jointer’s bed has been discolored by wet things set on it. The rust erasers remedy the damage.
Rod Koozmin runs a sharpening business, so he’s seen a lot of rusty knives and tools. To get them shiny clean again, he uses rust erasers. They’re made of a rubbery compound mixed with silicon-carbide grit and can be used dry or soaked in water before use. Rod also uses them with WD-40 to float away the abraded rust. He has used several different brands and favors those made in Japan, but notes they’re all good. The Japanese rust erasers here made by Kuniyoshi are sold by Amazon in pairs—one medium grit, one fine—for $18. Each polished section of all of these tools in the editor’s shop was done in less than a minute, using erasers soaked in water.
Christopher Cunningham
A few seconds of scrubbing with these two rust erasers brightened the steel of (from left to right) a Chinese cleaver, a combination-square ruler, a scraper, and the combination-square body.
Stubborn rust spots can be worked quickly by using the edge of an eraser, which concentrates the effort in a smaller area. The rubbery compound is quite durable and doesn’t noticeably erode with use. Because there is grit all the way through the eraser, it will continue to work even when it does wear away.
Rowing Hoop
Jim Tolpin
Jim Tolpin’s hoop supports an all-around white light high enough to to be seen from all directions and not interfere with his ability to see at dark. The mirrors let him keep close tabs on what’s ahead.
The diminishing daylight hours of fall and winter weren’t going to keep Jim Tolpin from rowing, but he needed to do something to improve his visibility, both seeing and being seen, at dawn. Front-view mirrors would take care of the former, and a battery-powered all-around white navigation light would address the latter, he just needed a place to mount them. A post anchored on the centerline could work, but it would make it difficult to move about in the boat and require a likely obtrusive fitting to anchor it, so Jim created a hoop to support mirrors and a light. It is a laminate of four strips of 3/16″ white oak. The ends are thinner, sized to slip between the inwales and the sheer plank.
Jim Tolpin
The mirrors were designed for computer work stations. They’re slightly convex to give a wide-angle view over the bow.
The hoop is kept upright by a steam-bent frame on one side and a block screwed to the inwale on the other. The hoop is high enough to keep the white light out of his line of sight; wearing a baseball cap conceals it entirely. The mirrors are designed for computer work stations and each has a spring clamp and a flexible neck. The slightly convex mirrors provide a wide view with distances a bit foreshortened. They’re not designed for outdoor use, so the metal will corrode if not greased or coated with anti-seize compound. The hoop is strong enough to use as a handhold while getting in and out of the boat. It’s easy to imagine making a second hoop for the bow to support a canopy.
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Our small fleet of boats comes with a lot of tires. They’re attached to trailers, dollies, and towing vehicles. In the past we had to position the gear near our compressor, but recently we discovered a fast and easy way to keep the fleet maintained: a cordless air inflator. We already had several DeWalt 20V cordless tools, with batteries and chargers, so we went with the DeWalt 20V Max Inflator.
The inflator is light, just 5 1/2 lbs, and compact for its capabilities. It measures just under 10″ high, 12″ wide, and just over 5″ deep. The inflator can use three different power sources: the included 12V DC cord that stows in a compartment with a latching door, or (available separately) DeWalt’s 20V Max batteries, and a 115V AC power adapter.
Kent and Audrey Lewis
The DeWalt inflator has a high-pressure hose for auto and dolly tires. The corrugated hose at the right can be used for inflatable mattresses and boat rollers.
We first used the inflator powered with one of our DeWalt 20V Max batteries to air up vehicle, trailer, and dolly tires. That project went quickly, with no need to drag long hoses, endure a noisy compressor, and hold the air chuck to the valves. We have several 20V Max batteries, rated from 3 amps up to 5 amps, and they all did the job with the larger amp-hour batteries, as expected, providing air at a faster rate. The 3-amp-hour battery, fully charged, lasts long enough to air up 10 to 12 dolly tires.
The inflator has an auto-shutoff feature that allows the target air pressure to be set on a digital display, and then shuts itself off upon reaching that pressure. This has been a timesaver, as we can attend to other tasks while the inflator takes care of the tires.
We’ve used the inflator with the 12V DC plug on our largest vehicle, an RV. Plugged into one of the vehicle’s lighter sockets, the 15′ cord got the inflator within reach of all of the wheels. The RV’s tires require the inflator to pump to 75 psi—not a problem—its top pressure is 160 psi. The 115V AC adapter has a 5′ cord, so for the RV we needed an extension cord.
The inflator’s auto pressure setting is very useful as there was no need to keep remove the fitting to check the air pressure. The high-pressure rubber hose is 29″ and can reach the valve on any size of wheel. Its screw-on fitting stays securely on a wheel’s valve stem while the tire is being inflated, an advantage over the clamp-on type, which doesn’t have as reliable a grip.
The inflator’s high-pressure hose can be used with the included nozzle to blow dust and debris out of small spaces, though not as forcefully as an air compressor can. The inflator also has a low-pressure/high-volume hose for inflating and deflating air mattresses or other water inflatables. An LED flashlight is built into the carry handle, and molded clips on the right side hold the nozzle for the high-pressure nozzle, a Presta-valve adapter, and a ball-inflator needle. The DeWalt inflator is versatile and takes up very little space, important considerations in our world of small boats.
Audrey and Kent Lewis command a small armada of kayaks, a canoe, and sail and motor boats when not inflating dolly tires. Their small-boat adventures are chronicled at Small Boat Restoration.
I’ve been guilty of not taking care of my tires. I inflate my bicycle tires regularly because they go soft so quickly, but I haven’t attended to my car, trailer, and dolly tires unless I see them bulging where they meet the pavement. I keep a 12-volt electric pump in my car and use it when I have to but it is slow to top off a tire, awkward (because of the long power cord), and, with its tiny dial gauge, not very precise.
Christopher Cunningham
Milwaukee’s portable air inflator, has a single use—inflating tires—but it easily earns its keep making cars and trailers safer on the road and preventing uneven wear on tires.
I was inspired by the Lewis’s article above to get a pump compatible with my Milwaukee M12 system so I could use the batteries and charger I already have. I bought the M12 Compact Inflator, tool only, from Amazon for $79. It’s not as versatile as the DeWalt—it has a single hose, an inflator nozzle, inflation needle, and a Presta adapter—but it has made itself very useful. It is much faster to inflate tires than was my 12-volt pump and it stops when it reaches the required pressure, so I don’t have to stand in the street dodging cars while keeping an eye on the gauge.
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I’ve carried aerial pyrotechnic flares for more years than I can recall but I’ve never fired a single one. When the flares reach their expiration date and no longer meet U.S. Coast Guard requirements, I’ve replaced them with a new set to remain in compliance. I’ve chafed at the expense for things I’ve never used (and intend to keep it that way) but they’ve been like auto insurance—I have to have it, keep it up to date, and hope I never truly need it.
So, I was pleased when a battery-powered flashing light—the SOS Distress Light from Weems & Plath—was approved to meet the requirements. I’ve carried one since it came on the market early in 2016. It is no longer listed on the Weems & Plath web site, but in April of this year, a similar device, the ResQFlare from ACR Electronics, received USCG approval. It’s a significant step ahead: brighter, lighter, less bulky, and less expensive.
Photographs by the author
The ResQFlare’s watertight housing contains two common C-cells and keeps the device afloat.
The ResQFlare is powered by two C-cell alkaline batteries; the SOS Distress Light took three. The ResQFlare has a rubber O-ring to provide a waterproof seal between the top and bottom, and while it has a rating of IP67—waterproof for 30 minutes at a depth of 1 meter—it floats with the lens above the water. The SOS Distress Light required a soft, detachable foam ring to keep it afloat.
The ResQFlare is submersible and floats with its lens above the water’s surface.
The ResQFlare weighs less than 10 oz and is 8″ long and 2-3/8″ at its greatest diameter, not quite compact enough to fit in a PFD pocket, and is a bit too bulky and slippery to be held strapped to a PFD lash tab, so I’ll continue to carry on me my usual array of safety gear, including a rescue laser flare and a waterproof VHF radio. A lanyard is attached to the bottom of the flare to help keep it from going astray. It comes with a daytime visual distress signal—an orange synthetic fabric flag measuring 3′ square and bearing the black square and circle—that must be carried with the strobe to qualify in the USA as a replacement for pyrotechnic flares.
While the signal flag may not seem like an effective signal device, carrying it with the ResQFlare is required if pyrotechnics aren’t aboard.
The top of the ResQFlare twists to turn on and off and to open the case to replace the batteries. It flashes sequences of three short flashes, three long, and another three short, Morse code for SOS. The SOS Distress Light flashed the same pattern, and used a single LED (Light-Emitting Diode) bulb for its light source and a transparent cap molded to direct its light in a horizontal plane. Some of the light was transmitted through a lens that surrounds the bulb and some of the light emitted from the top of the bulb was reflected by a conical dimple in the top of the cap. The ResQFlare has seven SMDs (surface mounted diodes); six rectangular chips in a hexagon facing outward and one on top facing upward. The transparent cap has a torus-like lens surrounding the hexagon and a circular lens on top. The plane of light emitted both horizontally and vertically by the ResQFlare has a brightness of 75 cd (candela), which is three times the USCG requirement, and stated by the manufacturer to be visible for over 6 miles. It is notably brighter and covers more area than the SOS Distress Light.
I may still carry my aerial flares and the pistol to fire them as a backup; when help is needed, the more resources, the better. The ResQFlare can also make itself useful in an emergency and will keep me in the good graces of the Coast Guard if they ever decide to check up on me.
Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats Magazine.
The ResQFlare from ACR is available from the manufacturer for $59.95 and from online and marine supply retailers.
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Richard Nissen really didn’t need another boat. At the beginning of the year, he already had a small fleet of at least eight small boats, not counting the houseboat he lives aboard on the River Thames. We have seen two of his boats in previous Reader Built Boat features—a skin-on-frame Walrus kayak and a Venetian s’ciopon. Nonetheless, in the spring he decided to build another boat, not so much to get afloat, but to occupy the time at home during the pandemic.
George Nissen
George has gone into business designing and building a new peacetime version of his great-grandfather’s invention. The lumber left over from building this hut was what made it possible for his father to build the skiff.
He started the project in March at the beginning of a three-month lockdown in England. Under the restrictions imposed, “no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse,” so anything Richard chose to build would have to use the materials he had on hand. He happened to have a lot of 1/2″ tongue-and-groove pine that his son George had left over after building a prototype for a new kind of Nissen hut, or Quonset hut as it is called in North America.
Courtesy of George Nissen
Major Peter Norman Nissen, of the Royal Engineers, left, was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for his service to the United Kingdom on the Western Front during World War I. Having invented the Nissen Hut as a serving soldier, he received no compensation for his design, but was allowed to patent it after the war.
Richard’s grandfather, Peter Norman Nissen, invented the Nissen hut in 1916. The iconic semi-cylindrical corrugated metal buildings were used to shelter British troops during World War I, and they proved to be good protection from bomb blasts and shrapnel. The American military adopted and adapted the design in 1941 and named them after Quonset Point in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, where a Navy construction center was building them. George designed his Nissen hut as a residential backyard retreat that could be used as a home office. His prototype had the signature Nissen curved metal roof and walls; the ends and the interior were sheathed with the tongue-and-groove pine. The leftovers of that stockpile were what Richard had available, so it was what he’d build a boat with.
Courtesy of Richard Nissen
Richard, here standing at the back of his shop, is not one to be idle. He worked as an architect, moved on to develop a virtual office system, then set up a plumbing company called Staunch and Flow, and now putters with small boats and maintains a website devoted to the mysteries of animal navigation.
Richard also needed plans for a boat that would be simple to build and not too fancy for the knot-speckled pine that would go into it. He found an article by Greg Rössel about cross-planked flat-bottomed boats in a 20-year-old issue of Watercraft magazine. The article drew on a design originally presented in a boatbuilding manual published in 1917. It suited Richard’s vision for the project, almost. The boat would have had a beam of 5′ to 5-1/2′, but the oars he intended for the boat (given to Richard by his next-door neighbor) wouldn’t have been long enough for it, so he narrowed the beam to 4′.
Richard Nissen
The skiff’s cross-planked bottom was backed up with another layer of tongue-and-groove pine, laid lengthwise.
In 1917, each side of the boat would have been built with a single, wide plank, all but impossible to find these days, so Richard glued up each 17″-wide side from five pieces of the tongue-and-groove pine, using Gorilla Glue as an adhesive. Then, following the method from the 1917 book, he pinned the ends of the sides to a rabbeted stem, bent them around a single mold, and fastened the aft ends to the transom.
Courtesy of Richard Nissen
Richard’s son, George, brought his daughter to try the skiff out before the paint went on.
During the lockdown Richard worked on the boat every day, leaving home only for exercise allowed under the restrictions. He was building the boat outside and neighbors, taking their constitutionals on the path along the Thames, stopped by regularly to check on his progress.
After the sides were secure, chine logs installed along the bottom edge provided a place to fasten the cross-planked bottom. The interior face of the bottom later received a second layer of pine, laid fore-and-aft.
The double tholes on the skiff harken back to Richard’s days rowing as a schoolboy.
The main thwart in the boat was cut from a piece of 1″ Douglas-fir Richard happened to have in the shop. Instead of installing metal oarlocks, he equipped the boat with the same type of flat wooden tholes that he used as a schoolboy when he first started rowing, in lapstrake skiffs built in the 1920s. His father rowed with that same type of tholes in eight-oared shells he raced while a university student during World War II. In fact, the same kind of tholes have been in use on the Thames since the 14th century.
Courtesy of Richard Nissen
Richard, in the red shirt, introduced the skiff to the River Thames, at the bulkhead next to his houseboat.
Richard painted the hull exterior a bright red with the paint left over from the boot stripe on his 1920s motor launch. The paint has scarcely had time to get a few scratches in its comings and goings on the Thames but Richard is already at work on two more boats: a stitch-and-glue pulling boat he’ll equip with a sliding seat and racing sculls, and a Rob Roy canoe from the 1860s, given to him and in need of restoration. There’s no doubt that the time he spends at home staying safe will be time well spent.
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Have you noticed all of those kayaks riding along atop cars and trucks on their way to waterborne adventures? Their owners have seen the light. These slender double-ended boats require little initial investment, not much maintenance, and can be put on the water in seconds. In them we’ll cross open water, and when we get to the other side, we can follow an unspoiled creek to its source deep in the woods…far from the everyday annoyances of an intensely populated shoreline. Along the way, we’ll rest in shallow coves and watch as the life struggle of the bottom community plays out like a movie six inches below.
Nick Schade, a highly regarded designer-builder of kayaks, works out of Glastonbury, Connecticut, where he does business as Guillemot Kayaks. The inspiration for the Night Heron came from his ventures into rough water. The striking 18-footer is fast, able, and more stable than its 20″ breadth might suggest.
On a clear day in late summer, Nick stopped by at the WoodenBoat waterfront here in Brooklin, Maine. His Subaru Forester carried two bright-finished strip-built kayaks of his own devising: the Night Heron and the longer, wider (19′ 21″) Expedition Single.
Photo by Edith Royce
The Night Heron kayak is fast, narrow, and voluminous—a rare combination of good traits in a single boat.
Night Heron is a striking boat. Its ends sweep up in the style of native Greenland kayaks, and the edges of the decks are well rounded over. This is an organic creature…alive to our eyes. The designer explains the lack of sharp rails: “Sheer clamps ease construction; but after we’ve put the boat together, they’re just more weight to carry around.” The rounded-over “rails” reduce the chance of rapping our knuckles when working with the paddle held low. The lack of sharp edges lessens the possibility of tripping and rolling should we get caught abeam
in the surf.
We launched the boats into a rising 8-knot breeze out of the southeast, which allows a fetch that stretches to somewhere on the coast of Africa (if one discounts a few small islands). Heron’s sharply raked coaming (high forward, low aft) eases entry into the 31″-long cockpit opening. Still, the larger and less flexible among us might choose to lengthen the opening to about 36″—one of the benefits to building our own boats.
Despite its rounded-all-over appearance above the waterline, this kayak has what amounts to a V-bottom with radiused chines; and the hull’s volume is carried well out into its ends. For its type, Heron has what the naval architects would refer to as a “high prismatic coefficient.” The rest of us simply will say that the boat paddles more efficiently at relatively high speeds and shows surprising stability.
Photo by Steven E. Gross
Because of its rounded chines, the Night Heron can be built in strip planks or stitch-and-glue plywood. Strip planking allows a fair amount of creative design, as seen on the decks of this example.
When leaned, Night Heron stiffens quickly. Left to its own devices, the boat wants to spring upright firmly but not suddenly. When we reach the angle at which positive stability disappears, it departs gently and predictably. There’s no catastrophic transition that might leave us eye to eye with the local fish population.
Night Heron moves easily through a chop. It seems to throw more spray than do round-bilged, needle-sharp kayaks; but most of that spray stays low and away from our faces. Anyone who thinks he can remain completely dry while sea kayaking might consider taking up croquet.
This kayak’s sense of directional stability is strong, but not overwhelming. It likes going in a straight line, yet turns easily—particularly when leaned. No rudder is needed. No skeg is needed. Nick Schade got it right. Let’s not tinker with perfection. Too often, rudders seem fitted to kayaks in an attempt to overcome poor hull design and/or incompetent paddling technique. Rudders are expensive, prone to failure at inconvenient moments, pick up pot warp and weed, and often result in weak and imprecise foot braces. Good single kayaks in the hands of competent paddlers do not require rudders— no matter what the sales brochures might suggest.
As Nick and I paddle across Eggemoggin Reach, the Expedition Single and Night Heron seem to achieve about the same top speed. The smaller Night Heron requires less effort to propel at all speeds and much less effort at full throttle. The bigger boat’s greater wetted surface likely accounts for some of the difference, especially at low and moderate speeds. As we approach maximum speed, Heron’s slightly convex waterlines (and higher prismatic coefficient) prove more efficient.
Choosing the proper kayak for each of us seems more akin to selecting hiking boots than shopping for a boat. We don’t sit on top of a real kayak, we sit in it. After finding the boat that comes closest to a perfect fit, we’ll adjust the accommodations with strategically placed foam blocks and sheets. The fit should be snug but not too tight. Secure contact with the boat allows us to lean, brace, roll, and accomplish all of the other maneuvers that bring joy and safety to paddlers.
Photo Courtesy Guillemont Kayak
“Choosing the proper kayak for each of us seems more akin to selecting hiking boots than shopping for a boat.”
We’ll want to choose the type of construction that’s compatible with our building skills and patience. Nick helps us by offering plans and kits for several different Night Herons. The original design specifies strip-composite construction for hull and deck. Most of us will elect to build this model with bead-and-cove strips. These strips self-align along their edges. They mate well at various angles, which eases and quickens assembly. We’ll cover the whole boat, inside and out, with fiberglass cloth set in epoxy. Nick’s book The Strip-Built Kayak (Ragged Mountain Press, 1997) illustrates the procedure in clear fashion.
Those of us with larger than average feet (or who simply require more room for lunch or camping gear) might consider building the high-decked version of Night Heron. It’s not quite so sleek as the original, but….
Paddlers for whom launching day can’t come too soon, might select the stitch-and-glue Night Heron. As the name suggests, we’ll stitch together (with wire) and then glue (with epoxy and ’glass) pre-shaped plywood panels. The stitch-and-glue boat has exactly the same profile as the strip-built original. As built, it tends to track a little more stiffly than the stripper due to sharper deadrise (V-shape to the bottom) at both ends of the plywood hull. Because the plywood hull has a well-defined hard chine where the bottom and side panels meet, it responds to edged turns more readily. A foredeck “chine” provides clearance when we work the paddle close to the hull, and it creates more room below. As a design device, the multi-faceted deck looks just fine. On the whole, performance of both Heron hulls seems quite similar. And, yes, we can build a high-decked stitch-and-glue Heron as well.
And there’s more: we can build something called a Hybrid Night Heron, which mates a strip-built deck with a stitch-and-glue hull. The practical sense of this combination eludes me, but perhaps some folks will appreciate the marriage of a fluid deck with an aggressively angular hull. I don’t know…seems it might be better the other way ’round. If you wish, you can build a high-decked hybrid.
Finally, we have the option of building a Greenland Night Heron. In this model, Nick has lowered the after deck to ease layback Eskimo rolls (and perhaps because it looks nifty). The cockpit opening has been shortened, but the steeper rake to the coaming should ease entry and exit. In any case, all but the double-jointed will have to jackknife into the boat.
So, there you have Night Heron: a fast, able, reasonably stable kayak that you can build at home. If well crafted, it can be achingly beautiful. A strip-built original Heron resides in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Night Heron will bring great satisfaction to intermediate and advanced kayakers. It will tolerate prudent beginners and nurture their skills. Nothing, absolutely nothing, conveys the simple joy of being afloat quite so purely as a light paddling boat…but be careful out there.
Night Heron’s slight V-bottom makes for good directional stability, while the modest rocker allows for easy turning. The narrow beam is offset by firm bilges, for good initial stability.
Plans for Night Heron are available from Guillemot Kayaks.
Kits and plans for Night Heron are also available from Chesapeake Light Craft.
Is there a boat you’d like to know more about? Have you built one that you think other Small Boats Magazine readers would enjoy? Please email us!
I never met John Gardner, but I’ve spent many an afternoon with him. Leafing from one chapter of his books to another, it’s easy to get distracted by the down-to-earth practicality, the enthusiastic descriptions of traditional boats, and the ringing call to action to see these boats built anew and put to use. Just when you think you’ve got one picked out, you accidentally flip the page to another chapter, and your indecision is off on a new tack, evaluating the great Mystic Seaport historian’s solid reasoning on the virtues of yet another historic type.
Such must have been very much the way that Rick Hayden of China, Maine, spent an afternoon—or maybe many afternoons. Ultimately, he did what we all must do: he made a choice. The boat that suited his needs—the one that proved irresistible, the one he would see built— was the Moosabec Reach Boat, which occupies Chapter 3 of Gardner’s Wooden Boats to Build and Use (Mystic Seaport Museum, Connecticut, 1996).
She’s a 14′ 3″ boat, with a 4′ 6″ beam, two rowing stations, and a handsome and practical two-masted sprit rig. Andy Chase of Castine, Maine, bought the original boat, which may have been built in the 19th century, in the 1970s. It was he who brought it to Gardner’s attention. Chase also documented the hull during a work-study program at Mystic Seaport while still a high school student. Originally used for lobstering and fishing on Moosabec Reach near Jonesport, Maine, such boats followed the demands and needs of their owners and builders, rowing easily to get the catch home on a calm day, and sailing safely when the wind came fair.
Photo by Peter Simpson
Builder Peter Simpson worked directly from Gardner’s Wooden Boats to Build and Use to set up the boat’s molds—though he did find an error in the table of offsets.
Knowing the fine reputation of Rockport Marine, Hayden contacted the yard about the possibility of having the boat built there for him. It’s far outside of the yard’s usual repertoire of premium yacht work, which involves both new construction and restoration. Maybe in a couple of years they could fit it in, Hayden learned. But the yard’s purchasing agent, Priscilla Simpson, told him that her husband, Peter Simpson, one of the yard’s boatbuilders, might be able to build the boat for him at his own home shop during his spare time. Over the winter of 2005–06, it turned out to be an 800-hour project— and an enjoyable one—for Simpson.
One of the great things about Gardner’s books is that he includes plans and details enough to build the boats straight out of the pages—including the critically important table of offsets, those measurements of every design line in the hull that you must have for lofting, or drawing out the lines full-sized. True, a boatbuilder needs some experience to do this. Simpson, for example, found an error in the table of offsets in the plans developed by Chase, which he said was an obvious mistake and easily fixed during lofting. A novice, however, might have a sleepless night or two and moments of self-doubt over that discrepancy.
Decisions, decisions. The boat could be built in the traditional manner, of course, using the time-tested white cedar planking on white oak steam-bent frames. Simpson, however, used 3⁄8″ okoume plywood planking to meet Hayden’s specification for a glued-lapstrake boat. She’s a rather heavy boat when fully rigged and with all her gear aboard, and yet she’s easy enough to get on a trailer when stripped down to her 200-lb hull weight. And with her plywood planking, she can be led to new waters for different kinds of adventures without requiring time to “take up” and stop the seams from weeping.
Photo by Peter Simpson
The Moosabec boat is a traditional type, but builder Peter Simpson, working with client Rick Hayden, chose plywood-lapstrake construction for her.
The original boat, which is in the collections at Mystic Seaport, was planked in the carvel manner, meaning it had a smooth hull, with planks meeting edge-to-edge. In lapstrake planking, as the name implies, the strakes, or runs of planking, overlap, and when this is done very competently, the laps visually accentuate the shape of the hull. There isn’t any reason why this boat couldn’t be built in any number of different ways, including traditional carvel or lapstrake planking; glued-lap plywood, as in Hayden’s case; or even cold-molding, that technique of using veneers of thin planking glued up in several layers. The method chosen will reflect the builder’s experience, intended uses, and preferences.
The builder better know something of what he’s about, however. This isn’t the kind of thing a new boatbuilder should undertake, at least not without having done considerable research. It might be a good idea to have at least one glued-lap boat under your belt, completed perhaps with the aid of good instruction books or maybe even full-sized patterns for parts. A hull like this, built upside down over molds, will have to be carefully lined-off to plan where the planks and overlaps will fall. Then, the planks will all have to be “spiled,” or measured one-by-one. These traditional techniques are still necessary for this type of plywood-planked construction.
Photo by Peter Simpson
Glued-lap plywood construction makes a light boat, but many of the elements of building are as they would be with traditional lapstrake construction—including the use of multiple lap clamps.
On the other hand, it seems to me that John Gardner would have been the last person to try to frighten anyone away from taking on a boatbuilding project. Someone with good determination—which is something boatbuilders seem to have in common and in abundance— can gather the necessary skills. Gardner’s books are among the many excellent titles available for any boatbuilder’s library shelf. Better still, go watch someone like Harry Bryan of New Brunswick or Clark Poston of the International Yacht Restoration School of Newport, Rhode Island, or any number of other experienced professionals as they demonstrate boatbuilding skills at The WoodenBoat Show. If you can’t get there, look around: many other boat shows and festivals include skills demonstrations, too. One hour of listening can take all of the mythology and most of the fear out of something like spiling or cutting a stem rabbet. Also, there are lots of schools around these days that offer short courses in specific subjects, and WoodenBoat’s March/April edition always lists about 80 of them (including our own) on several continents. Spending time at boat show skills demonstrations or taking selected classes— or just talking with boatbuilders and asking questions—can save a great deal of time, and maybe even grief, later. The classes Gardner himself taught at Mystic Seaport as far back as the early 1970s were at the root of wooden boat building education, and no doubt he would have delighted in the forest of schools now branching out into specialties and widespread localities.
I had ample opportunities to watch the Moosabec Reach Boat under sail during WoodenBoat’s Small Reach Regatta (see page 20) in August 2007. For all-too-brief a time, I joined Rick Hayden and his friend, Sally Vernon, for a sail in fairly light airs on our final day. This boat is a centerboarder, so she comes about nicely even in a light breeze, but from all reports of her handling she can take quite a blow, as well. Hayden keeps the boat on what’s called a pond in Maine—a lake most other places—and his general feeling is that the boat could be rerigged to increase her sail area. In 15–20 knots of wind on our first day of sailing, Hayden found no reason to shorten sail, and the boat seemed comfortable with herself.
Photo by Peter Simpson
A modest sail plan makes the boat easy to handle, and in this boat any rig other than the original sprit-ketch might seem out of place.
The sprit-ketch rig is handsome and admirable. It simply looks right on this boat. Without the need for standing rigging, the setup and breakdown are easy. Brailing lines on both masts make sail control quick and simple. Coming in to a beach, you can get the centerboard up, brail the mizzen, then brail the main and ghost in on momentum. When the wind abandons you, the sails can be brailed up to clear the rig away and leave plenty of room to row. Hayden and Simpson favor having the forward oarsman face aft, as usual, and the helmsman face forward from the stern sheets and push on the oars. This gives good visibility all around—and it’s a sociable way to row, too. In a very high wind, one mast can be stowed and the other moved to a third maststep located in the forward thwart, aft of the forwardmost mast position, allowing good helm balance with the shortened rig.
The mainsail is loose-footed. The mizzen has a boom set fairly low, which can make moving from one side to the other a tight fit for the helmsman. But Simpson gave the tiller plenty of room to swing up out of the way, which saves the day. In any boat, the choreography involved in tacking or jibing takes only a few rehearsals to master.
Photo by Benjamin Mendlowitz
John Gardner of Mystic Seaport made a life study of traditional small craft, so when Andy Chase of Castine, Maine, brought him an original Moosabec Reach boat, he documented it knowing that someday later builders would carry on its rich traditions.
I love to row, but I didn’t have a chance to take the oars of the Moosabec Reach Boat during our outing. Everything about her hull form, though, with its transom stern tucking in to leave her waterline a nice, clean exit, points to easy and comfortable work on the oars. Gardner himself referred to the original boat as “surprisingly agile and easy to row,” which has been confirmed in this reconstruction.
I had never seen a Moosabec Reach Boat in the flesh before the Small Reach Regatta. This boat is the first that Hayden and Simpson had seen, too, and their sail number, MRB1, implies that there are no others, save the original. Is this possible? Can such a pretty hull and a practical boat have been overlooked for all these years despite Gardner’s high praise? If so, then the Hayden-Simpson collaboration has done John Gardner proud. May dozens more follow in her wake.
On a work-study project, Andy Chase documented his Moosabec Reach Boat for the Mystic Seaport Museum. The original boat may date to the 19th century.
Plans for the Moosabec Reach Boat are available in John Gardner’s Wooden Boats to Build and Use (Mystic Seaport, Connecticut, 1996).
Is there a boat you’d like to know more about? Have you built one that you think other Small Boats Magazine readers would enjoy? Please email us!
There’s something nearly archetypal about the Long Point skiff. This 15-footer has high sides and a flat bottom, and is driven by a small four-stroke outboard motor. “It used to be that everyone had one of these things,” said the designer, Tom Hill, as we skipped across a modest chop on Penobscot Bay in mid-August. “They ranged from Maine to the Chesapeake, and were called clamming or crabbing skiffs.”
Hill conceived his own version of such a skiff for fishing the waters around Provincetown, Massachusetts. He’d made frequent outings in an earlier, lighter skiff of his design. One day he found himself towing a big fish alongside that boat. The big fish attracted a school of sharks. The small skiff’s topsides were only 4mm thick, and the sharks were bumping the hull. That set Tom Hill to thinking about bigger boats. “To make a long story short,” he said, “we decided we needed a larger boat with higher sides.” (Hill all but defined lightweight boatbuilding in the 1980s. The cover of his book, Ultralight Boatbuilding, pictures him holding aloft a double-paddle canoe on the tips of the fingers of his right hand.)
Here’s how Hill describes the Long Point’s design brief on his web site: “I wanted a flat bottom skiff that would draw a minimum amount of water to allow us to negotiate the Pamet Harbor at low tide and also be good for fishing the flats and marshes. She also needed to be deep and have a high bow for trips offshore, 15 miles from home.”
Photo by Howard Mitchell
Tom Hill’s Long Point skiff is a robust derivative of once-ubiquitous working craft. With a flat, narrow bottom, she is both fast and efficient.
The designer-builder bought a used 15-hp Honda longshaft. “I couldn’t afford it, but Barbara [his partner] said she’d pay for the motor if I’d build a new boat. I knew I wanted a flat-bottomed boat because I wanted to go as fast as possible” with that minimal power, said Hill. Thus inspired, Hill made his first sketch of the boat in about 15 minutes. “Once I got the profile down, I wanted to keep the bottom as narrow as possible. And I wanted plenty of flare to keep it comfortable and dry. I then decided that I should change it—which is a mistake I often make.” He tweaked the lines and poked and prodded, but ultimately reverted back to the shape he’d developed in those first 15 minutes.
The skiff’s 11⁄2″ bottom is heavy and robust, and it feels like a sidewalk underfoot—especially in the choppy waters that are often the bane of flat-bottomed boats. The Long Point originally had a 3 ⁄ 4″ bottom. “I felt some oil-canning [deflection],” said Hill of his early trials in the boat. With that, he hauled the boat, removed the console, turned over the hull, and added another layer of 3⁄4″ plywood. He added a layer of 20-oz biaxial fiberglass cloth to this, making for a bullet—or beach—proof bottom.
“I wanted to be able to beach it,” said Hill. “We often beach for lunch. That’s another beauty of flat-bottomed boats: they beach bolt-upright.” The other beauties are speed and stability. The skiff’s ultra-heavy bottom acts as ballast. “You can step aboard standing on the rail,” said Hill.
Flat-bottomed boats are efficient, too. “I’m hard-pressed to use three gallons all day,” said Hill of a typical fishing expedition. He estimates that, with the throttle wide open, the 15-hp Honda on the Long Point skiff will burn one gallon per hour, with the boat (with just the driver) running at 20 knots. The highest speed Hill has recorded in the Long Point is 24.5 mph.
Photo by Howard Mitchell
The Long Point was designed around her motor, an economical 15-hp four-stroke outboard. More power would be overkill on this boat.
The simplicity, fuel economy, and “beachability” of flat-bottomed boats comes at a cost. There’s no way around it: Such a hull pounds in a chop. But one Long Point builder reports that there is a way to sidestep this pounding— literally: Stand to one side of the console, heeling the boat a bit while under way. This presents the “V” shape of the chine, rather than the pan-flat bottom, to the waves, smoothing the ride a bit. The prudent operator, however, will also slow down in a chop, improving the comfort of the crew.
The topsides are of glued lapstrake plywood. The garboards (lowest planks) are quite wide, suggesting that the hull would come together quickly. Construction is fairly conventional. It begins with a ladder-frame strongback that’s set right on the shop floor, and molds and profiles (describing the stem and stern) are erected on this. Ribbands are bent around the molds to describe the planks, and the planking stock is hung on the boat and scribed directly from the inside; there’s no laborious transferring of offsets involved in getting the plank shapes. When the boat is planked, the chines and garboards are beveled to accept the 1 1⁄ 2″ of bottom planking, and then the bottom is fiberglassed as described above.
Photos by Matthew P. Murphy
The Long Point skiff’s layout is simple and functional. A bucket (a Coast Guard requirement) does double-duty as an anchor rode locker; the console (designer–builder Hill is at the helm) is built of V-match pine glued to a plywood backing.
Hill prefers to paint his boats while they’re still on their building jigs, and that’s what he does with the Long Point skiff. The boat is held rigid, for sanding, and it’s much easier to work on a bottom “downhanded,” rather than crawling underneath an upright boat and working overhead, like Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. Painting a hull while it’s still on the jig, however, will require considerable restraint of a first-time builder. There’s a near-universal urge for beginning builders to get their hulls off the molds and see them freestanding.
The completed, partially finished hull is then removed from the building jig and flipped over for framing and fitting out. The frames are installed only on the topsides, to add stiffness; the bottom is sufficiently robust to do without them. Hill used white pine for the frames of the boat we tested. The wood is lightweight and holds fastenings well. “Every ounce you can save is one less you have to drive through the water,” he said. Fitting out follows, and includes quarter knees, breasthooks, seats, console, controls, engine, tanks, etc. Building time can vary considerably, depending on the skill and pace of the builder, and level of finish.
In addition to his reputation for balancing canoes on his fingertips, Hill is known for exquisite detailing. The Long Point skiff that we trialed—the original boat, at age 11—is painted in marine enamel and looks like it just rolled out of the shop.
Hill is equally detailed in his cost estimating, and is quite confident in what one should budget for materials to build a Long Point skiff. This includes 3⁄ 4″ sapele plywood for the bottom, four sheets of similar 1⁄ 2″ material for the sides, trailer, engine, 12 coats of paint (and its associated sandpaper), controls, fuel tanks, masking tape, anchor, cushions, VHF radio, and compass. The figure is $13,000. Hill acknowledges that builders have reported substantially lower building costs, but he said that his calculation includes the finest materials and all bronze fittings and fastenings. And he questions whether those lower figures include things like masking tape and sandpaper—small items that can quietly add up.
As of the day we tested the boat, Hill had sold 123 sets of plans for the Long Point skiff. He’d sent them to all sorts of builders, but noted that the design was particularly popular with commercial fishermen, who use their skiffs as bait tenders and the like. One pair of New York City tugboat operators built one on the deck of a tug. Indeed, it’s a hardy-looking little hull, one right at home alongside its working forebears. “One of the great things,” said Hill of his experience with the design, “is the response you get from commercial boats.”
It’s been said that every boat is a compromise among speed, comfort, and efficiency. Tom Hill seems to have hit an ideal balancing point with the Long Point skiff. The boat fits her niche. “In my mind it’s perfect,” said Hill, “and I’ve had it for 11 years.”
Wide garboards and only two additional planks suggest that the hull would come together quickly. Careful attention to detail will make the boat stand out.
My penchant for Scandinavian boatbuilding techniques once prompted Matt Murphy at WoodenBoat to tell me that it seemed as though I was trying to “get in touch with my inner Viking.” But when I look around, I see that I am hardly alone. Some aesthetics—think of Japanese architecture, Italian stonework, New England barns—have universal appeal and compel respect, and the double-ended Norse boats are in that world-class league. The fact that thousand-year-old workboat designs are widely influential even for modern plywood glued-lapstrake small craft is a marvel to me. One of the very encouraging trends in this direction is that a company specializing in the production of kit boats—most of them kayaks—has turned to Scandinavia for inspiration, too.
The boat I’m thinking of is the Skerry design by John Harris at Chesapeake Light Craft. Like other companies offering prefabricated kits for lightly planked plywood boats, CLC got its start in another great boat inspired by antiquity—the kayak. The widespread success of kayaks is no surprise—no other boat gets more use, since they’re so easily transported on a cartop and can be quickly launched in a wide variety of settings. Fifteen minutes after getting home from work, you can be on the water. But even for diehard kayakers, there’s a certain appeal in having the ability to sit up in a boat and move around a bit or to carry another person and some gear that needs to be easily accessible during the trek. And, why not let the wind do the work sometimes?
Photo by Corinne Ricciardi
A simple rig and a pleasing hull shape inspired by Scandinavian types make the Chesapeake Light Craft Skerry an easy daysailer to take out for coastal explorations.
A lightweight 15′ double-ender, the Skerry fits the bill admirably for those who want such a craft but may not be confident in complex traditional construction. Builders with experience or confidence can work from plans to turn raw 6mm and 9mm plywood sheets into a boat. Others will choose to work from a CLC kit. Almost everything in the Skerry kit—exceptions being the rubrails and mast—is made of plywood shapes precut to fit neatly together in what CLC calls the LapStitch method, their variation on stitch-and-glue construction.
The result will be a boat that strikes a balance, as any boat must. This balance is between performance under sail and under oars. An excellent pulling boat rarely makes a great sailer, and a boat tricked out with sailing as its primary function rarely rows very well. The Skerry doesn’t go too far toward either extreme.
Photo by Corinne Ricciardi
Intersecting curves and planes of plywood, well filleted with epoxy, give the Skerry strength and stiffness and also provide built-in flotation forward and aft.
She has two rowing stations, so that the right fore-and-aft trim can be struck with the selection of a rowing station. With a passenger aft, the boat will behave just fine if the oarsman takes the forward rowing station. To use that thwart, however, the mast will have to be shipped. For a solo outing, the hull will balance best while rowing from the center thwart, and in that case the mast can remain stepped where it is. In light air, the boom and sprit can be pushed up to vertical, bundled with the mast, and wrapped a few times and then knotted with the sheet to get everything out of the way. In much of a breeze, it will be best to get it all down and tucked away in the boat.
In many traditional Scandinavian boat plans, the sails generally look small, and the Skerry’s spritsail follows suit. Like her forebears, she has a sail that is suitable for general conditions and is simple to use and inexpensive to install. Sail arrangements can look a bit deceptive in two-dimensional plans. The rig can look odd in the sail plan, but the sail looks better on the boat than it does in the drawings. For those who take their practicality with a liberal serving of aesthetics, CLC offers a gunter sloop option.
The Skerry sail is set quite high up the mast by design, leaving room to row even with the sail up. It’s a little too high for my eye, and I think it could come down substantially with no harm; I’d be inclined to install a brailing line (to help haul everything to vertical) to get the rig out of the way when rowing. One great advantage in flying the sail high, though, is that it offers really good visibility forward and on all sides on all points of sail. When you look at the sail plan, the sail can look too small, too, but it is big enough to drive this hull, and in much of a blow you wouldn’t want anything any bigger. There are no reefpoints on the sail, but one depowering method is to “scandalize,” or take the sprit right off and let the peak fall, making, in effect, a triangular sail. If it’s still too much power, it’s time to get the rig down.
Photo by Corinne Ricciardi
The daggerboard, tensioned with a shock cord to keep it down, is essential when sailing, but it has to be removed when rowing—and the slot plugged to avoid a wet seat. Disconnecting the very simple mainsheet leaves nothing in the way on the thwart when switching to rowing.
The Skerry’s rig is meant to be simple, and it is. There are only three lines to handle: a downhaul, a snotter, and a sheet. On the boat I sailed, the boom was fixed to the mast by a simple gooseneck. For the sprit—that wooden pole running diagonally from the mast up to the highest point, or peak, of the sail—CLC uses a simple dowel set crosswise through the sprit to form a cleat onto which a line from the peak of the sail can be made off. A similar dowel-cleat is fitted at the heel. The heel receives the “snotter,” the traditional term for a line that, in addition to providing no end of linguistic amusement, performs the critically important task of controlling the sprit’s tension. The sprit heel is slung in the snotter, which is hauled to increase tension or eased to decrease it. The downhaul provides a rudimentary way to increase or decrease luff tension a bit—sort of like a cunningham line. The sheet, of course, controls sail trim.
Anyone sailing a new Skerry for even a short length of time will probably very soon start looking for ways to improve the rig. This is one of the joys of any boat, whether built from a kit or otherwise—finding ways to take ownership of it, to make it suit your own ways. I would probably try to find some way to loosely cleat the sheet, for example—something that would allow very quick release. A cam swivel base of the type used by racing dinghies might work, as would a fairlead and a cam cleat set on the aft edge of the thwart, providing that the part of the line leading to the helmsman’s hand comes from the lower block—and remembering that the oarsman will have to work around the gear. Even a simple belaying pin might work, too—just enough to take a turn (but never belaying, and never letting your hand off the sheet) so you can give your arm some help on long, easy tacks. A pin could be easily removed when rowing. If I chose any such method, I’d strengthen the thwart where the sheet comes aboard.
Photo by Corinne Ricciardi
A small sprit rig is simple and fun to sail, with only three lines to tend: the sheet, which controls the sail trim; the snotter, which controls the tension on the sprit and therefore the relative fullness of the sail; and the downhaul, which tightens or loosens the leading edge.
If I spent most of my time solo-sailing, I would also find a way to lead the snotter—and probably the down-haul, too—aft to be within easy reach of the helmsman. The snotter, especially, is a line that demands fairly constant adjustment. Hard on the wind, it needs a lot of tension, and unless you’re willing to tolerate saggy-looking sails, it will need to be tightened with some regularity. Downwind, it will need to be eased to let the sail find its best shape. In either case, the adjustment involves a line made off to a cleat near the base of the mast. Unless you’ve got crew, you’ll have to leave the tiller to go forward to the mast to make these adjustments—or, more likely, just live with the sail shape as it is. The ability to make such adjustments without leaving the helm would greatly add to the enjoyment of solo-sailing the boat.
Ah, yes, about that tiller…. The tiller-and-yoke system, which this boat uses, is traditional to some kinds of Norse double-enders, and it’s commonly used in, for example, the Caledonia yawl and other Scandinavian-inspired boats with which Iain Oughtred has found such widespread design success. It can take some getting used to, but that is quickly accomplished. Its greatest advantage is in allowing the helmsman to find the right place for his weight, both athwartships and fore-and-aft, especially when solo-sailing and even more especially in light air. This is particularly important in a double-ender. Instead of a traditional tiller forcing you to sit one side or the other—which may put too much weight outboard in light air—you can move to the athwartships point where the boat likes it best for any given force of wind or point of sail. Steering with the yoke is simple, rather like walking arm-in-arm.
Photo by Corinne Ricciardi
The yoke tiller can seem awkward at first, but it becomes second nature after a little while.
I’d find some way to keep the tiller aboard, though. If you’re going forward to deal with that snotter, or if you’re shoving off stern-first from a beach, the tiller has a nasty habit of going overboard, and it can easily get fouled. A light line with a slippery knot loosely looped around the tiller could keep it inboard in such circumstances.
At 90 lbs, the Skerry is in the cartoppable range. Depending on the car, it could be a pretty high and awkward hoist for two people, and the rack will have to be a sturdy one. I’d much rather choose a light trailer, which would provide a great deal more freedom, especially for solo-sailing.
Harris says that by summer 2007 his company had sold about 300 Skerry kits. It’s easy to see why. It’s a pretty hull. It’s a pleasure to look especially at the curve of the stern, which I think is just right. There’s an old saying, which I’m told is of Scandinavian origin: “Line for duty; curve for beauty.” There’s a reason why I’m not alone in admiring these curves and hull forms, which are distinctly well suited to glued-lapstrake plywood construction. They look at home on the water because they are.
The original CLC Skerry rig, left, shows a fairly small sail set rather high on the mast. Its advantages are excellent visibility, only one sheet to tend in tacking, and plenty of headroom. For a more rakish-looking sailing rig, more sail area, two sheets to handle, and better windward performance—but at greater expense and a loss of simplicity—an alternative sliding gunter sloop rig, right, is available.
The Pacific Northwest is half a world away from Scandinavia, and the Vikings never reached it on their voyages to North America, but their influence on contemporary boatbuilders did. In the ‘80s, when I began to take an interest in boatbuilding, I admired the Norse-influenced boats built by two of the region’s local builders: Paul Schweiss, who had trained in Norway and was building traditional Bjorkedal boats, and David Jackson, who built the faering that my friends Ginger Cox and Tish Davis rowed the length of the Inside Passage in 1976. The current and most prolific practitioner of Norse boatbuilding here is Jay Smith, operating as Aspøya Boats in the forested fringe of Anacortes, Washington.
For the past several years, Jay has been working with the Friday Guild: Leah Kefgen, her brother Per Brekke, Matt Fahey, Vernon Lauridsen, and Torolf Torgersen. The group, which had built the geitbåt featured in our September 2016 article “Building on Tradition,” is now working on a 17′ Nordford faering. The boat was documented in The Inshore Craft of Norway, and when the drawings were made in 1943, the boat was reported to be over 100 years old. When the faering is finished, it will be Leah’s “company yacht” for Best Coast Canvas, the maker of the Verksted Apron I reviewed this past spring. I’ve been keeping up on the progress on the faering through Leah’s Patreon posts and emails, and when she and Jay invited me to see the boat, I paid a visit to the boatshop on the first Saturday in September—the Friday Guild now meets on Saturdays, but kept the name. While the crew was busy installing sections of the sheer planks, Jay gave me free rein to wander around the shops and sheds.
In a shed at the end of Jay’s driveway, an 18′ Nordfjord faering is taking shape. The workbenches on either side are built with diagonal braces that extend beyond the front edge of the top and have notches to hold planks on edge.
Leah Kefgen
The Friday Guild is composed of, from left, Torolf Torgersen, Jay Smith, Leah Kefgen, Vernon Lauridsen, Per Brekke, and, not present here, Matt Fahey.
The wool yarn that goes into the laps to make them waterproof is called siggj, pronounced soy-ch, the Faroese term that Jay picked up during his apprenticeship on the Faroe Islands. The yarn is called sisnor in Norwegian, “a loose string of animal hair, well tarred, inserted between strakes before riveting.” Leah’s mother, Kristi, spun the yarn from raw fleeces from an Oregon flock of Herdwick sheep, a breed native to northwest England, the ancestors of which may have been brought by Norse settlers in the 12th century.
Torolf applies hot bedding compound to the sheer plank section he had been working on. It’s a mix of Dolfinite, linseed oil, underwater seam compound, and pine tar. It’s heated up in its can on the hot plate. The warm mixture is easier to spread and bonds better with the wood.
The twisted wool yarn sticks to the bedding compound to be sandwiched in the lap to keep it watertight. The lap is drawn tight over the siggj with a hollow cove, cut with a special plane, called a siggjhøvil in Faroese.
Jay, left, and Friday Guild members Matt, Vern, and Torolf bring Torolf’s sheer plank to the hull to clamp and fasten it in place. Each section of planking is made by one member of the Friday Guild rather than shared among them. It’s a traditional way of doing the work: Leah mentioned that the planks of surviving Viking ships bear several different decorative treatments, called pynt, planed or scraped along the edges by the builder who made the piece.
The most hard-won shapes in the faering will be hidden when the floorboards are in place. The floor timbers here reveal the curves across the width of the garboards, carved from slabs of Alaskan yellow cedar 2″ to 3″ thick. And the top of the T-shaped keel is concave, offering the garboards parallel surfaces to better hold the rivets.
The sign on Jay’s shop door, carved by Torolf in Norwegian in runic-like characters reads: Aspøya Boats, F J Smith Boatbuilder.
The 1,000-square-foot shop is well-lit by windows along its northwest and northeast walls. There are tools, benches, and pieces of wood everywhere, but the paths around them are clear and nothing gets underfoot.
Norse boats are built upright without molds, so this device, called a båtlodd or båpasser is used to determine the lay of the planks. The small plumb bob indicates the angle, which is marked along the curved edge.
This traditional form of bailer, auskar, sitting in the shop was handsomely carved from Douglas-fir. The block it rests on has the pattern drawn on it.
The bench on the northwest wall has, among other tools, a half-dozen spokeshaves, nine marking gauges, five plumb bobs, three radius planes, 35 wooden planes, four metal planes, two back saws, and a dozen chisels and gouges. The photograph at the back of the bench is of Jay’s 37’ POLARIS, launched in 2017.
Under that bench there is a collection of cow horns. Rings cut from the open end of a horn are used with shroud needles, devices to tighten the standing rigging. The ends get used as containers for the tallow used to lubricate oar leathers.
Jay Smith
Here’s a ring of cow horn on one of the geitbåt’s shrouds.
Jay’s cluttered workbenches are not without order. Here, markers, pencils, drill bits, files, screwdrivers, bevel gauges, knives, awls, and squares are all neatly arranged. I got the feeling that there was a place for everything and in time I could find my way around the shop if I needed to find a tool. The framed picture at the back of the bench is of a street sign in western Norway, pointing the way to Aspøya, the island where Jay served as an apprentice to a master boatbuilder, Nils Ulset, in the late 1970s.
Jay made this benchmark plane during his apprenticeship in the Faroe Islands. The oak has been smoothed and polished by four decades of use.
Known in Norway as a pynthøvel (pynt=decoration; høvel=plane), the plane has a custom-made blade to cut the grooves that are the distinctive mark of boats that emerge from the Aspøya shop. The peg guides the plane along the plank edge and can be put on the other side of the blade to cut in the other direction.
The pynt can be scraped as well as planed. The tool in the foreground, a båtstrek, has the decorative pattern duplicated on either side of a central pin that follows the edge of the plank. The tool can be used in either direction to avoid creating tear-out by working against the grain.
Yet another tool for creating the plank-edge pynt is this spokeshave-like scraper. This one may be nearly a century old.
Jay found this plane at a yard sale, and didn’t know what it was designed for but couldn’t pass up buying it. The width of its sole was an exact match for the laps of the planks for VALKYRIE, his largest boatbuilding project, and with the plane’s ability to cut to the edge, it was perfect for working the gains. After a little poking around on the web, I identified the tool as a coachmaker’s plane, and this one with a narrow handle on a wider sole is a T-rabbet type.
Wooden planes that don’t have places on the workbench are nested together under them, gathering cobwebs and dust.
Wooden planking clamps and the parts to make them were scattered everywhere in the boatbuilding sheds and shop. The darker older clamp has a metal hinge; the new clamps use a leather strap instead. I didn’t see any of the cam-operated clamps that I’ve made for my shop, but I work with a small range of plank thicknesses, so the limited capacity of the cams isn’t an issue for me. Jay’s version with a threaded rod works as well on the faering’s planks as on his largest projects.
There were several old traditional oarlocks that Jay had collected in Norway. Called kjeip (or kjæppa in dialect), these are cut from a tree trunk and branch, with the trunk providing the near-vertical pin the oar pulls against and the branch fastened at the sheerline.
This kjeip or oarlock on the geitbåt, is fastened at the sheer with two trunnels that connect it to the sheer plank and the outwale. A third trunnel connects the kjeip with the sheer plank alone. The grommet holds the oar loom in place at the recovery of the stroke.
Jay’s 12″ x 7′ jointer was made by Moak Machine & Tool Company of Port Huron, Michigan. The company closed in 1992 after being in operation since 1915. The jointer was set in the east corner of the shop and long stock could be fed across the sill of the open door.
To the east of the shop is Aspøya’s biggest shed—The Pavilion. In it is VALKYRIE, a 56′ scaled-up reproduction of SKULDELEV 6, a 990-year-old 37′ fishing vessel from western Norway.
In many ways, working on the VALKYRIE is very much like working on the faering, but while it is three times longer than the Nordfjord faering, it is quite a different project because the weights involved go up by the cube of that linear scaling. The center section of the three-piece maststep, for example, is a trunk and limb from an oak tree and weighs 1,400 lbs. A similar piece, if it were part of the faering, would weigh less than 12 lbs.
The stems of VALKYRIE have “wings” that meet the broad hood ends of the planks. I carved this type of stem on my reproduction of the Gokstad faering. There were only three strakes to that boat and it took me two weeks just to figure out how to approach the stems and then the best part of a month to carve them.
The steambox at Aspøya is propane fired and feeds a large wooden box set in the midst of all of the boatbuilding shops.
I counted four sheds built to shelter the lumber milled onsite with a portable bandsaw mill.
Tucked away among cedar and fir trees, another shed protects stickered stacks of lumber.
In the shed above there were some wide planks of flawless Alaskan yellow cedar. I put the dollar bill there for scale.
Traditional boatbuilding often required grown crooks. Jay had oak crooks piled on pallets at the edge of the brambles.
The geitbåt built by the Friday Guild in 2016 rests on a trailer near the shop that housed the Nordfjord boat project.
The geitbåt’s Norwegian-style tiller is made with a right-angled crook. It has a round pin through the rudderhead to provide a vertical range of motion, while a joint on its forward end allows its lateral range.
If Jay’s stock of lumber and tools is any indication, Aspøya Boats will be producing beautiful Viking-inspired boats for a long time to come.
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Photo by Matthew P. Murphy
Photo by Matthew P. Murphy
Photo by Matthew P. Murphy
