Lowering the centerboard and “tacking” can make rowing to weather easier than fighting the wind head on.
When comparing rowing and sailing strategies for an oar-and-sail boat, it is easy to assume that rowing a direct leg upwind might prevail over a sailing a zigzag course to weather. Fighting for the short, straight line with oars makes sense. But does it always?
When I want to go rowing, wind is not usually a deterrent. A good stiff row is sometimes just what the doctor ordered. I have dealt with strong headwinds, and while feathering the oars helps to a point, and adrenaline does wonders, a couple of years back I got stopped dead in my tracks. Mind you, this was merely a day outing with plenty of residences and docks lining the lakeshore, nothing terrifying or life-threatening, but the wind piped up on the nose with an unexpectedly strong punch and brought my 16’ sail-and-oar boat to a standstill.
After a determined effort got me nowhere, I tried something different, something I had read about and dismissed: I lowered the centerboard and began tacking upwind while rowing.
As soon as I bore off, the motion of the boat eased. With the influence of the centerboard, the boat settled on its own heading and everything became easier. The oars were not laboring directly against a headwind. The boat heeled a little bit from the force of the wind, but this was not a hindrance. I made steady progress to windward with a relatively relaxed stroke. It took a few hard pulls to bring the bow across while I was “short-tacking,” but that was nothing compared to beating my brains out directly against the wall of the wind. I could have carried on like this for some time.
On another occasion I was rowing upwind with the centerboard down and matched tacks, with a close-hauled 25′ sailboat, and we reached our common destination at about the same time. I don’t think the other skipper was greatly experienced and could have made better speed, but the wind that day was quite strong and my unwitting competitor did, by and large, keep his sails filled. On another day out in the wind I traded a couple of tacks with a fast-looking 30′ sloop. He was pushed over hard a couple of times and was probably making 6 knots against my 2, so there was no pretense of keeping up, but what struck me was that we seemed to take very similar headings on our respective tacks.
In more moderate conditions I will row straight away to windward without the added drag of the centerboard, making perhaps a couple of knots. I can take a break and bear off, at which time employing the board will dramatically reduce leeway. I don’t make much more speed and eat up far more ground, but rowing is relaxed. The reduction in leeway seems worth the additional wetted surface and drag of the board.
This business of tacking with the centerboard employed while rowing seems to work best with a whole lot of wind. This could be useful if you’re trying to get to weather under sail and are overwhelmed. When my 16-footer is reduced to three reefs, the ability to work to windward is greatly hampered if not eliminated, and skating on the edge of a knockdown is not fun. When I bear a few degrees off rowing into a strong headwind, the boat pounds less as the waves are quartered rather then met head-on. But without a centerboard or a daggerboard, most boats will make a lot of leeway. Lowering the board will eliminate leeway, dampen the roll, and bring the boat up closer to the eye of the wind rather than beam-to or worse.
Carrying on with the oars, the sensation is similar to that of being under sail. Some of the forces at work under sail seem to be at work here. In my experience, eliminating leeway is not a dramatic enough description for what is occurring when tacking under oars into a strong wind. There may be more at work than greater directional stability with the board down. I suspect lift is being generated. Rowing straight into the wind, the board will have no angle of attack and so would generate no lift, but bearing off, the hull slips sideways to some degree; coupled with forward motion, the centerboard would have a positive angle of attack and create lift.
Exactly how and when a centerboard becomes of benefit to the rower will vary with every boat and skipper. But there is no question in my mind that when the wind pipes up, the centerboard represents another tool in the rower’s quiver. Rather than turning away and retreating, forward progress might still be possible.
Eric Hvalsoe of Hvalsoe Boats builds and restores boats in Shoreline, Washington, and cruises the waters of the Salish Sea. He wishes to thank to Ian McColgin for “this crazy idea.”
You can share your tricks of the trade with other Small Boats Monthly readers by sending us an email.
The IceMule cooler is a dry bag within a dry bag with insulation in between the two.
Meat and cold drinks are two commodities I consider essential for a weekend on the water. To keep the former at a safe temperature and the latter chilled, a bulky rigid cooler is the usual solution. But why would you crowd a small boat with an item that takes up a lot of space, performs only one function, and is useless once its contents are gone?
Enter the IceMule cooler: it looks like an ordinary dry bag, but it incorporates an insulation system designed to keep iced food and drinks cold for up to 24 hours. Once the food is consumed, you can roll the IceMule up into a compact, easily stowed package, or use it as a dry bag.
IceMule makes several different models but the cooling system for all of them is the same: an exterior of coated material and inner waterproof liner sandwiching a layer of insulation. A valve is used to inflate the enclosed pocket of air to provide additional insulation or increase the amount of padding the cooler can provide if it’s being used as a dry bag to protect fragile equipment. Once contents are loaded into the bag, the top is folded down and clasped with snap buckles.
A shoulder strap frees up your hands to carry other things. The valve near the top of the bag allows you to add air to the interior layer of insulation to help trap cold and deflate the bag to roll it up for storage.
I tried the 15-liter Classic Cooler on a couple of 80-degree days. Its exterior and interior materials were similar to urethane-coated nylon and felt tough and durable. Fully loaded and with the top rolled and secured, the Classic Cooler is approximately 10″ in diameter and 18″ from bottom to top. When empty the cooler was easily rolled up and secured in a mesh storage bag measuring 4″ in diameter and 15″ long. Its soft exterior and single padded shoulder strap made carrying a full cooler comfortable, even on a half-mile walk. The IceMule Pro coolers are made more like backpacks and have two shoulder straps and a waist belt.
Using a frozen bottle of water (here with the orange cap) saves the melt water for drinking but doesn’t keep the contents of the IceMule as cold as loose ice does.
I packed the IceMule with a variety of provisions and found that it easily held a gallon of milk or eight 12-ounce beverage cans. Even without adding ice, previously chilled items remained cool for a few hours, long enough for an afternoon outing. I like to take plastic bottles of frozen water on a trip; they serve as ice packs and as they melt they provide cold water for drinking. However, when used in the IceMule they kept chilled only the items they were in contact with. Packing the cooler with loose ice cubes or chunks of block ice produced the best results. After about 16 hours there was still plenty of ice in the IceMule; after 20 hours there was still a small amount of ice remaining, and after 26 hours the drinks, sitting in now-cool water, were still cold enough to enjoy. As with any cooler, the downside to using loose ice is the resulting water is wasted and fresh products like meat and vegetables must be kept in waterproof containers.
For weekend outings and for traveling between ports where ice and fresh supplies are available, the IceMule Classic is a sturdy and effective cooler. As the weather cools with the coming of fall, the cooler can be used to carry a hot meal with a heated gel pack. Good food and cold drinks make happy sailors.
Bruce Bateau sails and rows traditional boats with a modern twist in Portland, Oregon. His stories and adventures can be found at his web site, Terrapin Tales.
IceMule coolers are available online from the manufacturer and at numerous outdoors retailers. The medium Classic reviewed here retails for $59.95.
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.
The Mantus anchor has a sharp tip to cut through seaweed.
I’ve been using the same anchor for about 45 years, and I had never given much thought to more recent models until I saw the Mantus dinghy anchor. Its shank and fluke can be separated to make it a more compact bundle for storing, and it has a point so sharp that it needs a guard to keep it from getting into mischief.
Four studs hold the stock to keyholes in the fluke. The small hole accepts a spring-loaded locking pin.
Mantus came on the scene in 2012, and the company web site notes this smallest version of their anchors is “designed to be used as a kayak anchor or a dinghy anchor. This anchor weighs only 2 lbs and is recommended for boats to 16′.” Mantus has a sizing chart for their anchors and there the dinghy anchor is designated as suitable as a lunch hook for boats up to 16′ and 1,000 lbs. Their lunch-hook category is defined as use in “expected winds under 25 knots.” In a well-protected anchorage, the dinghy anchor should be able to keep you secure for overnight stays.
I tested the 2.5 lb Mantus, a 4-lb Danforth, and a 4-lb Bruce with a 4′ length of chain and a 36′ rode.
I pitted the Mantus against two heavier anchors: a 4-lb Bruce and my old 4-1/2 lb Danforth. While the Mantus is listed as a 2-lb anchor, my scale had it at 2 1/2 lbs. I measured the area of the Mantus fluke at 21.25 square inches, significantly smaller than the Danforth’s flukes at 35.5 square inches.
The Mantus could bury itself in just twice its own length.
In the wet sand uncovered by a low tide, the Bruce anchor behaved more like a plow than an anchor; it clawed a furrow for as long as I pulled it. The Danforth’s points dug in quickly and it buried itself, as much by heaping sand up over itself as by digging deep. The Mantus dove into the sand and buried itself by going deep under the surface. Both the Mantus and the Danforth travelled about 5′ when they stopped cold. (Tested underwater, the anchors traveled farther in sand before stopping. In a measurement I made at home a 20.8-oz beach rock weighed only 14.3 ounces when suspended in water. The weight of sand underwater must be similarly reduced by the amount of water the sand displaces, perhaps by 30%, and would offer less resistance to and anchor.)
None of the anchors could get a purchase on a rocky stretch of the intertidal. The Bruce skipped merrily over everything. The Danforth and the Mantus would occasionally catch hold, but neither could get deep enough in rocks averaging 2″ to 3″ in diameter to stay put. The Mantus had a slight edge over the Danforth: It never flipped, caught more often, and offered more resistance when it did. To be fair, this area of rocks would be poor holding ground for any anchor a small boat might carry. I returned to the beach with my old fisherman’s anchor. It is 34″ long, spans 20″ between the tips of the flukes, and weighs 19 1/2 lbs. It was harder to drag across the same rocky area, but drag it did. It couldn’t bury its fluke more than about 3″. (Its performance on wet sand was erratic; more often that not it dragged a fluke rather than bury it.)
I didn’t have a bed of slippery seaweed for trials so I used four layers of 4-mil plastic sheeting, secured at one end to keep them from sliding. The blunt-tipped Bruce and Danforth, as I expected, skated right across, but the Mantus, with its sharp point, poked right through, tore a hole, and dug into the ground. I suspect it could dispatch kelp with equal ease.
The bag and tip guard, included in the kit, keep the anchor and rode isolated from other gear.
Mantus has a one-piece version of the dinghy anchor in galvanized steel with the shank and fluke welded together. Both versions come as a kit with a 50′ length of 5/16″ double-braid line that has a stainless-steel thimble spliced in one end, and a heavy-duty, roll-top bag. The bag is built like a dry bag but it has five grommets to let the water collected by the rode drain out.
I was impressed by how well the Mantus measured up, especially in comparison to my larger and heavier Danforth and even my big fisherman. The dinghy anchor’s sharp point and effective geometry give it a very big bite for its size.
Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats Monthly.
Nate was used to sailing a sloop and found that the trimming of the sails on the schooner had more impact on steering than speed.
Nate Morrison wanted a small, easily managed boat that he could use for fishing and sailing during the day and sleep aboard at night. He spent months looking for an affordable used boat that would fit the bill, but came up empty-handed.
Undeterred, he expanded his search to include plans for a boat he could build for himself. It took him several more months to find plans for a boat that would meet his requirement and not exceed his skills. “I was not a woodworker, or any kind of craftsman, for that matter, so building a boat would be a big deal.” His search came to an end when he found the Schooner 18, designed by Fred Shell of Shell Boats.
Nate Morrison
The Schooner 18 is designed with sturdy skeg and a pair of bilge keels to give the boat a level stance when pulled up to a beach. The zebrawood transom makes a handsome accent to the painted hull.
Shell describes the 18′ boat as “a luxurious daysailer for two to four, with pretenses of being a basic cruiser for one or two.” The hull has a skeg and a pair of bilge keels, so it sits upright and sails without having to deploy a centerboard or daggerboard. The unstayed masts slip into sleeves in the leg-o’-mutton sails, and the sprit booms are quick to rig and self-vanging. Removing the sprits and rotating the masts to roll up the sails is all it takes to strike them. The Schooner has just three lines to tend to: a single sheet for the foresail and a double sheet for the main. These features met Nate’s requirements for a simple rig. The cabin has a 6’6” sleeping platform that Nate says “works well for one person, but you have to be willing to spoon if there are two of you.”
Dilsie V. Morrison
During long lulls in the wind, Nate wraps the sails around the rotating masts. The crutch forward and the gallows aft support the rig when it’s taken down.
When Nate taped the plans on the garage wall, he already had a name for the boat he was about to build: BOB, for Boat On a Budget. He was afraid he’d make costly mistakes as he figured out the building process, so he built a trial hull with cheap plywood. He worked out the bugs on a full-sized model when he got everything to fit together properly, he disassembled the trial hull and used the pieces as templates.With his confidence bolstered, he began the glued-lap construction with good plywood.
Nate Morrison
Nate rigged an umbrella for protection from the merciless Arizona sun. This square one with straps on the corners is designed for use on boats.
Nate went shopping for some mahogany for the transom, but at the lumberyard he found a beautiful piece of zebrawood that he “could not live without.” He also prettied up the plywood deck with some vertical-grain Douglas-fir from the deck of a derelict keelboat and trailer he’d been given to salvage.
Nate went the extra mile with his boat’s electrical system. Tucked under the cockpit bench and accessible from the cabin, he has a stereo and amplifier, a solar charge controller, a fuse block, and wiring and controls for a bevy of comforts. Nate’s able to enjoy a stereo and amplifier, LED running lights, speakers that include a subwoofer, a reading light, a cooling fan, and some lighting strips recessed under the deck to give the cockpit a blue glow at night. He modified the rudder to take an electric trolling motor.
Bill Onley
When there isn’t enough wind for sailing, Nate can leave the sails ashore and head out under power. BOB’s rudder has an electric trolling motor built in.
BOB was a year in the making. Nate had to stop working for two months following open-heart surgery, and during the time he spent recovering he daydreamed about his boat. “It gave me a reason to get well,” he says.
Dilsie V. Morrison
The winds on the Arizona reservoirs are often light; the boat needs breezes of about 10 mph for the helm to respond well.
He now sails BOB on Arizona’s inland waters, including lakes Pleasant, Powell, Roosevelt, and Patagonia. His little schooner is a fishing boat, a rowboat, and a family picnic boat, and, as Nate puts it, the result of “limited skills, limited tools, and unlimited dreams.”
Have you recently launched a boat? Please email us. We’d like to hear about it and share your story with other Small Boats Monthly readers.
As I was working on our review of sound signaling devices in our August 2016 issue, I took a look on the web for homemade foghorns. I found quite a number of websites and videos that showed how to make foghorns and train horns out of common plastic pipe and fittings. A trip to the hardware store for some 1/2″ PVC pipe and fittings, and 30 or 40 minutes of puttering in the shop was all it took to come up with a few configurations that made a sound that I liked.
The parts are common plastic pipe and fittings. Only the two reducers need modifying: The one at the back of the horn (left) is shortened and the one at the front reamed out to let the pipe slip through.
The core of the horn is a 1″ x 1″ x 1/2″ T fitting and two 1″ to 1/2″ reducers. One reducer gets shortened up with a hacksaw. (Don’t try using a bandsaw—cylinders like plastic pipe do dangerous things in one.) The cut then gets sanded flat. The other reducer needs to have the stop inside removed so that 1/2″ pipe will slip through. The short reducer is inserted into one end of the T with a piece of freezer bag. The other reducer goes into the other end of the T, and a piece of 1/2″ pipe slips through until it comes in contact with the freezer-bag membrane. You blow through the small hole in the side of the T and adjust the 1/2″ pipe to get a tone. You can change the mouthpiece angle with pipe and angled joints. The length of the pipe slipped through the reducer will determine the horn’s pitch. You can use a long pipe or a short length of pipe—about 6″ so you can still get a grip on it to adjust it—and, if you like, connect a funnel to the pipe. The sound I liked best came from a 24″ length of pipe. It had a deep, resonant, rattling tone.
If I were on the water and heard the deep sound of that 24″ horn coming through the fog, I’d start making tracks fast, thinking I was about to get run down by a freighter. And there’s the problem. You can’t give other mariners the impression that you’re something you’re not. The USCG Colregs specify the frequencies that vessels can use: 70–200 Hz for a vessel 200 meters or more in length, 130–350 Hz for a vessel 75 meters but less than 200 meters in length, and 250–700 Hz for a vessel less than 75 meters in length. (If you’d like to hear what those ranges sound like, check out this online tone generator.)
It looks like a horn and has an authoritative voice but this version with the long funnel has a low tone that only a ship can rightfully use.
I sometimes have trouble distinguishing octaves coming from different instruments and couldn’t compare the sound of the tone generator and the horn with any certainty, so I loaded a free tuning app (Pano Tuner for Android) on my phone and found my 24″ pipe was 130 Hz, two octaves below middle C on the piano. If I were to use that horn aboard the biggest of my boats in the fog, I’d be masquerading as a vessel between 250′ and 650′ long. Too bad, I rather like the sound. The lowest tone I can use is 250 HZ, or just a bit below middle C. That’s a 12″ pipe.
While the funnel my have the look of a horn, a straight pipe has a sharper more distinct sound.
This homemade horn may look like it belongs under the galley sink but it is loud and measured up well against all of the lung-powered horns we reviewed. It is practically indestructible and the parts cost less than $5.
I found it easy to get carried away with making horns. I thought a dual horn might be worth investing a couple of dollars more, and indeed a two-tone horn has a sound that’s hard to ignore.
It’s easy to join two horns with a T fitting. This dual horn sounds like a big-rig truck.
Pete Markantes and his son Jason built DAWN PATROL for hunting, crabbing, and fishing in the waters of the Pacific Northwest. Their Honker is one of Sam Devlin’s suite of small, hunting-oriented outboard-motor boats. Its broad cockpit and stable garvey-style hull make for a workhorse of a boat, and its straightforward construction allows novice boatbuilders to create a functional, adaptable craft that can accommodate a group of fishers or hunters.
When I asked Pete, “Why not just get an aluminum jet sled, like everyone else?”, he smiled. “It’s the customization.” A home-built boat is not at all like a factory-made model, where buyer is stuck with features decided upon by the manufacturer. Even as they were building the boat, Jason put a lot of thought into outfitting it. “I just stared at it in the garage. What if we put a second depthfinder over there, and a rod holder there…?”
video and photographs by the author
The customizations to this Honker keep fishing gear readily accessible and out from underfoot. Just visible to the helmsman’s right is an additional cutaway in the aft deck to accommodate a trolling motor.
The Honker plans call for an 18′3″ hull, with a beam of 7′ and a capacity of 1,580 lbs. The drawings are detailed enough to enable assembling a seaworthy boat and yet leave plenty of flexibility for options to suit the builder’s needs. Pete opted to stretch the hull to 20′, which provided an extra 2′ of cockpit length over the stock design, allowing DAWN PATROL to carry two small layout boats, each capable of carrying and concealing single duck hunter. The chines and sheer run straight and parallel from about amidships aft, so for builders wishing to lengthen the Honker, Devlin notes that “the hull lines on the panels are very easy to extend, and we have had fully half of the boats built as the longer version, by simply adding onto the aft ends of the side and bottom panels.” He also recommends cold-molding an additional 1/4″ layer of plywood onto the bottom of the boat to make it stiffer and stronger for heavy-duty use.
The open cockpit easily seats four adults and their gear. The 14″-wide side decks make a useful spot to perch while under way, fishing, or hauling in a crab trap. The width of the decks and straightforward plywood construction supporting them provided the structure for the Markantes to add small shelves and trays for hunting and fishing gear.
The Honker was designed to take a 60-hp outboard and make 30 knots.
The plans call for Devlin’s stitch-and-glue method, which consists of temporarily joining plywood pieces together with wire, then bonding them together permanently with epoxy and fiberglass. All exposed wood is coated with epoxy to protect it from the elements. The hull, deck, and cockpit sole are made of 1/2″ okoume marine plywood. The plans don’t recommend a specific paint treatment, but Pete found that two coats of Kirby’s flat marine alkyd enamel has proved durable. Pete had previously built two other boats, so he had the skills and the tools to build the Honker in about 350 hours, which is close to the designer’s estimate of 320 hours.
Pete initially powered the Honker with a Yamaha F115 four-stroke outboard, which can readily switch between prop and pump propulsion by changing the lower unit, but at 377 lbs it proved too heavy, resulting in poor trim and uneven performance at speed. He replaced it with a Yamaha F60 four-stroke outboard at 249 lbs, which gave the Honker better balance and as much power as it can comfortably take. Devlin recommends a 70-hp motor, but 10 years ago, when DAWN PATROL was constructed, the F60 was the best choice—its weight was the equivalent of today’s 70-hp outboards. An electric-start, power-tilt Yamaha T8 is used for trolling and alternate power. Pete’s Honker cruises at about 22 to 25 mph even when it is fully loaded with gear and four adults.
The fuel economy is excellent, Pete reports, noting that only about 4 to 6 gallons of fuel are consumed “after a full day of fishing, which consists of 2 hours of running on plane with the F60 and 4 to 6 hours of trolling with the T8.” The fuel tank location is not specified in the plans, but based on previous experience Pete chose a custom-made 21-gallon fuel tank, which he installed permanently under the fore deck. The location of the tank and weight of the fuel help to balance the boat for improved performance, compared with storing gas in portable tanks in the rear. The fuel lines are run under the side decks, instead of the bilge, making it easy to check for leaks and to conduct maintenance.
The V in the forward sections of the hull smooth the ride when running in a chop.
Some Honkers have been constructed with side-console steering, but the boat is intended to be steered by the outboard’s tiller. The helmsman can stand or sit on the aft bulkhead or a folding chair set in the cockpit. Standing provides the best field of view. Pete is 5′8″, and when he’s seated in a folding chair the view over the bow is acceptable at modest speeds, and slightly better when he’s seated on the aft deck. I’m 6′1″, and I found sitting on the deck and standing to be equally good since the bow didn’t rise much into my field of view ahead.
DAWN PATROL is used extensively on the Lower Columbia River, where the influence of tide, river current, and wind can cause challenging conditions. Spray sometimes comes over the bow, but Markantes finds the boat capable of handling wind and waves comfortably. Devlin is confident in the Honker’s seaworthiness close to shore and on open-water and I found that DAWN PATROL was steady and smooth in mild chop and when crossing the wake of other motor boats; no matter how the four passengers were arranged, the trim felt even. The boat goes from a standstill to plane in about five seconds.
Devlin writes that “duckboats are overloaded most of their lives, are used in inclement weather most of the time, are run in waters too shallow most of the time, and encounter sea conditions that would turn a normal boat’s hair white. They also have to maneuver well in tight conditions and have passengers constantly boarding and exiting the boat with lots of weight and gear.”
Pete customized the boat with an electric system based on a 12V absorbed-glass-mat (AGM) battery. He installed tachometers and digital run-time counters for each motor, as well as running lights, power outlets, GPS, depthfinders for both the skipper and guests, LED lighting under the gunwales, and a removable LED spotlight on the foredeck.
In accordance with Coast Guard guidelines, DAWN PATROL was equipped with flotation. Markantes diverged from Devlin’s recommendation—solid foam with air space around it to prevent rot—choosing instead a combination of solid and two-part foam poured into three separate, enclosed compartments, one located at the bow, and two on either end of the stern.
Devlin offers a removable plywood pilothouse option for the Honker. It provides standing head room aft, from which one could steer with a side-console setup, as well as a lower area forward that covers approximately half of the cockpit. The structure would keep the crew dry in rough water or rain, and could serve as a humble cabin for an overnighter. To avoid taking up valuable cockpit space, Pete decided against the cabin and created instead a custom-made blind covered with artificial grass that allows the boat to transform from fishing vessel to camouflaged hunting craft in about half an hour. “With all this cockpit space, we can have three or four people hunting at once,” he told me.
DAWN PATROL illustrates just one variation that can be created using the Honker form as foundation. The plans are detailed enough to produce a solid boat that is highly customizable to suit intended use. Based on a classic and simple form, the Honker is a really practical boat, capable of adventuring in big water, yet with a shallow enough draft to ply backwaters, or even land on a beach. For its size, the Honker has a lot to offer.
Bruce Bateau sails and rows traditional boats with a modern twist in Portland, Oregon. His stories and adventures can be found at his web site, Terrapin Tales.
John Welsford’s Navigator is a 14 1/2′ centerboard beach cruiser and daysailer built in glued-lapstrake plywood. Welsford offers several rigs for this pretty little boat: Bermuda racing sloop, a lug yawl, and a gaff yawl. Being attracted more to traditional boat types and rigs, I chose to build the gaff yawl. The combination of the Navigator’s jaunty sheerline and yawl sail plan gives her character, and indeed, she can be built with as much character and tradition as the builder would like without appearing quaint. The choice of rig, sails, materials, and paint and finish schemes can place her comfortably in the 19th or 21st centuries or anywhere in between.
Scott Koss
If the Navigator reviewed here is not large enough to meet your needs, Welsford offers plans for a larger version called the Pathfinder. It is 19″ longer and 7″ wider than the Navigator.
Welsford’s plans show an option to mount a small, low-powered outboard on the boomkin, but most builders have opted to mount outboards up to 5 hp on a bracket fixed to the transom. I use a 24-volt, 1-hp electric outboard to help move her along to and from the dock and to get me home when the fickle Midwest winds die. The instructions note placing oarlocks 350 mm (13 3/4″) aft of an optional seat installed for rowing, and many builders equip their boats for rowing. I did too and found that the Navigator is not well-suited to long-distance rowing because of its 5′10″ beam and challenge of placing rowlocks either on the cockpit coamings or gunwales. I mounted locks on the coaming, which leaves about 9″ between the lock and the gunwale, causing the oars to rub on the gunwale. The Davis pattern fold-down oarlocks I used brought the lock inside the coaming. Side-mount or angled-mount rowlocks mounted outside of the coaming would provide more clearance for the oars over the gunwales. My seat for rowing is on top of the centerboard case, which gets me by but is not ideal for any long stretch of pulling. Doing some experimenting with the rowing accommodations and geometry may improve upon the arrangement I currently have.
The Navigator has a near-vertical stem giving way to a sharply curved forefoot and a very fine entry, enabling the boat to slice through a stiff chop with a minimum of fuss. The forward sections have a nice flare above the waterline that helps to keep the bow from diving too deeply into waves. The hull’s flat bottom and firm bilges provide for excellent stability. The sheerstrake curves gently upward and inward to meet the slightly raked transom with a touch of tumblehome.
Welsford originally designed Navigator as a race trainer to serve the needs of a local sailing club near his New Zealand home, but the club opted for an existing class boat. He later modified the design for another client wanting a dinghy for extended open-boat cruising. The changes included a large locker forward of the mainmast as well as two side lockers under the cockpit seats to keep gear away from spray and from any water that might enter the boat. These also form airtight compartments to lend buoyancy in the event of swamping. These compartments, the openness of the cockpit, and the space under the side decks provide ample storage space for camp-cruising and still leave room for four to enjoy an afternoon’s sail.
John Florance
Battens set in the frames and bulkheads simplify shaping and fastening the planks. The mizzen mast is set to port to keep from interfering with the tiller.
Building a Navigator is a straightforward proposition. Welsford provides 11 detailed sheets of plans that include a comprehensive accounting of fastenings, materials, and hardware, as well as helpful suggestions for rigging. Welsford’s concise building instructions have just enough detail to point novice builders in the right direction for getting things done properly and efficiently, while allowing them to make decisions based on personal preferences. Being able to choose between aluminum or hollow bird’s-mouth spars, plywood-sheet or laid-teak decking, fancy do-it-yourself wooden blocks or hardware-store pulleys, and varnish or paint is much of the great fun in building a Navigator.
The project fits nicely in a single-car garage; perfect for the amateur builder who may not have access to a dedicated shop. Navigator is put together upright on a strongback. Bulkheads and frame stations are cut and assembled from marine-grade plywood and attached to the bottom panel along with the keelson, stem, and transom. Longitudinal stringers connect the bulkheads and frames and provide the builder with glue-and-screw landing places for the plywood plank edges. The amidships frames anchor the centerboard trunk, while the compartments in the bow and the cockpit seating provide flotation to both ends of the boat. Four strakes bring us up from the bottom to the sheerline. Once the hull is planked up, the boat is flipped upside down for fiberglassing up to the waterline, the addition of the keel, skeg, false stem, and outside finishing work.
At this stage, I reconfigured the strongback lumber to create a cradle on casters that would allow me to move the boat within the garage as well as roll the project outside or back in as necessary for decking, interior appointments, and rigging.
Welsford specifies either a box-laminated wooden mast, or an aluminum one. I opted to build a hollow mainmast of Sitka spruce using the bird’s-mouth method; dimensions are fully specified in the plans. The mast is just under 14′ long, and the gaff-yawl version of the boat allows all the spars to fit comfortably within the length of the hull for easy transport. The boom, gaff, bowsprit, mizzen, boomkin, and sprit boom are solid, laminated of spruce or pine.
The mast for the yawl rig I chose is stepped through the foredeck just ahead of the cockpit coaming; the mast of the sloop rig is stepped through partners just aft of the coaming. To make rigging easier, I chose to build-in a mast hinge, which saves me from having to step the mainmast by myself when solo sailing, and keeps my boat almost completely rigged as it sits on the trailer. The mast is designed with tensioning stays to keep the jib’s luff straight, and the standing rigging makes a hinged mast a reasonable modification. I made sails from a Sailrite kit cut to the dimensions specified in the plans; there are finished sail packages for this Navigator available online from several sailmakers.
Scott Koss
The plans call for a motor mount on the boomkin, roughly square to the normal orientation. Most builders use a conventional bracket fastened to the transom.
I launched my Navigator, PUFFIN, on June 5, 2016, after two-and-a-half years of working on the boat nights and weekends. Dedicated builders have completed it in a few short months; the build time is largely dependent on the builder’s choice of fit and finish, and, to a lesser degree, by one’s skills at the outset of the project. This being my first scratch build, my learning curve was steep, and much time was spent on the “pondering stool” and repairing mistakes that simply couldn’t be overlooked.
The Navigator is a good little boat. PUFFIN weighs in at just over 350 lbs, a bit heavier than the 309 lbs listed in the plans. She is easily trailered, and with a hinged mainmast (see WB No. 237, March/April 2014), I can rig her at the boat launch and get her in the water in 10 minutes or less. Joel Bergen, the man behind the informative Joel’s Navigator Site, has posted a video in which he rigs his Navigator, outfitted with a standard mast, in just under 30 minutes.
John Florance
The control lines are lead aft along the centerboard trunk for easy access while solo sailing. The decking covering the plywood seating is a personal touch by the author. The spaces under the foredeck and seats provide ample room for stowing cruising and camping gear.
The Navigator’s initial stability is excellent for a boat of its size. I am a solid 200 lbs and have no difficulty standing in the boat while it’s afloat and moving through the cockpit for rig and trim adjustments. For a lightweight dinghy, Navigator handles open water gracefully and with an easy movement, and is faster than it looks. It sails wonderfully on a reach or a run; into the wind, it neither points as high nor runs as fast as I would like, but that may be typical of a gaff rig. If you’d like your Navigator to do better to weather, the alternate Bermuda rig with an aluminum foil-sectioned mast would be the better choice. In 15 knots of wind, my Navigator stays remarkably dry and upright and can do 8 knots on a broad reach, even while fully loaded. Without a cargo of four people aboard, she heels more and offers a more thrilling ride, and can certainly reach higher speeds. One advantage of the yawl rig is the ability to sheet the mizzen in hard and drop the main and jib. This allows her to heave-to with her head pointed nicely into the wind while the crew enjoy a break or take in a reef or two on the mainsail.
Scott Koss
The gaff yawl rig has a 28-sq-ft jib, an 88-sq-ft main, and 21-sq-ft mizzen. The insignia on the main is the author’s personal mark for his Navigator, PUFFIN.
My plans for PUFFIN include daysailing around the Milwaukee harbors and marinas, inland-lake sailing, camp-cruising the Apostle Islands, and possibly even an attempt at racing in the Everglades Challenge. Welsford’s Navigator is good-looking, well-founded, and perfectly suited to those adventures, either singlehanded or crewed. For boatbuilders aspiring or expert, she represents a doable, enjoyable challenge that will provide years of admiring glances no matter where she sails.
John Florance was raised in Mexico, and as a child learned to sail Hobie Cats on the Bay of Acapulco. He has sailed extensively on Lake Michigan, in Mexico, and the Caribbean. He and his family often vacation in the Caribbean and sail -chartered monohulls among the islands. PUFFIN is his first scratch-built boat. He has posted a video of PUFFIN under sail on his YouTube channel.
Brian Megaw, a river guide on New Zealand’s North Island, thought there must be a better way to run the Whanganui River. On this historic river that meanders through the verdant mountains and canyons of Whanganui National Park, commercial trips were limited to paddle-your-own canoe rentals. From what Brian saw, most couples zigzagged back and forth arguing, capsized in the river’s small rapids, and got to camp exhausted, having completely missed the enchanting beauty of the steep, sinuous, forest-draped gorge. Why not bring dories to New Zealand? They would fit right into the scenery and the ancient Maori traditions of the river. Passengers could relax, soak in the beauty, eat a decent meal before dark, and enjoy the skills and knowledge of trained boatmen. Brian had seen the Grand Canyon dory in the States—an elegant, stately wooden boat that gives a great ride and brings pleasure to the eye and soul.
After a roundabout search and many missed connections, Brian found a master dory builder, Andy Hutchinson, in Dolores, Colorado. Andy builds decked dories in the stitch-and-glue method, which requires a good deal of fiberglass work. Brian was hoping for something a bit quicker and more affordable, without decking. And he wanted two boats. Andy called a boatbuilder friend of his in Flagstaff, Arizona: me.
I build plywood-on-frame boats. They come together quite quickly, especially with the free-form assembly method I prefer. It is an old-fashioned way to build, but it eliminates the need for a strongback and provides a good, durable construction method for the kind of open boats Brian wanted.
“Yo, Brad,” said Andy, “Wanna go to New Zealand and help build a couple dories?”
“Hard to say no.”
The boats we planned to build were the classic Briggs Grand Canyon dory, originally designed and built in 1971 by Jerry Briggs of Grants Pass, Oregon, for environmentalist Martin Litton to use in his fledgling company, Grand Canyon Dories. At Litton’s behest, Briggs designed a modified form of his classic Oregon drift boat, the Rogue River Special, and called it the Grand Canyon dory. It is still—even 45 years later—considered the most beautiful, most functional, sweetest-rowing river dory ever built. Of the 36 boats Briggs built over the next dozen years, all but one are still serviceable. The originals are considered by dory aficionados to be the Stradivarius boats of the river. Andy, his wife Kate, and I are proud owners of three of them.
To build a boat in the free-form method I use, you need very accurate plans. It’s a bit like stitch-and-glue in that you don’t need to build a massive form to fit the pieces to, but all of the pieces must be precisely cut before they’re assembled. Previous attempts to perfectly define and replicate the unique, sexy lines of a Briggs had fallen short. Fortunately, Andy’s dory, COTTONWOOD, had never undergone a full rebuild and was one of the last Briggs-built boats still in its original form. We used it to pull off an extremely precise set of measurements. I lofted the lines, adjusted for errors, and packaged the drawings to hand-carry to New Zealand.
With our tight schedules at home, we had less than a month to build both boats. Insane, but possible, we hoped. Andy finalized arrangements with Brian, and we left for New Zealand. Well, I left. Somehow Andy’s work visa got stuck in the process. It was up to me to get things rolling, and rolling fast.
Brad Dimock
The pasturelands of New Zealand are almost painfully green. Armies of sheep keep it as well manicured as a golf course.
Brian met me at the airport in Palmerston North on New Zealand’s North Island. We bought tools: a cheap tablesaw and a beautiful set of cordless hand tools. We drove an hour north to the small farming town of Taihape, headed east on a narrow winding road to a rural area called Pukeokahu, then up a narrow, steep dirt track to a weathered, gray sheep shed on top of a hill. No matter what direction I looked, the rolling, mountainous terrain was everywhere shorn to an electric green, and dotted with thousands upon thousands of sheep. In New Zealand, where sheep outnumber people, it’s not an uncommon sight.
Inside the sheep shed was a cluttered chaos of old busted tools, plumbing parts, boxes of archaic farming gear, and a large pile of lumber. An enclosed room within the shed was our designated shop, big enough to build one boat. An attached open bay would house the second boat once we cleared away a mountain of old machinery. On the far side of the bay was a pen full of a half dozen orphaned lambs. Their incessant bleating was my musical entertainment for the duration of the project; their odor became mine. Although there was electricity (most of the time), there was no phone, no cell coverage, no Internet. The wind howled. It was cold. It rained. Our insane schedule–two boats in three-and-a-half weeks–no longer looked that good.
Brian and I climbed back in the van and descended into the narrow gorge of the Rangitikei River, where Brian, his wife Nicola, and their married daughter Janey run a lodge in the Rangitikei River valley. In addition to food, grog, and lodging, they offer horseback riding in the hills and whitewater rafting trips. It is a regular stop on tourists’ itineraries, and business had been good. A large dinner and plenty of beer improved my spirits, and I soon collapsed in my room.
The next morning Brian dropped me off at the sheep shed with a pack lunch, a coffee pot, and a handheld radio to communicate with him and with the lodge. I began clearing and organizing the shed, moving the aforementioned mountain of debris into a back room. I unearthed a small woodstove in the corner and started a roaring fire–my salvation in this drafty shop. I built a lofting table by the window, made tool shelves, and organized the lumber Brian had acquired: marine mahogany plywood for the skin, clear Port Orford cedar for framing, and white oak for the gunwales and chines. I knocked together a couple sawhorses. Brian and I hauled a large load of lumber into a cabinetry shop in Taihape to be surfaced and ripped down to sizes I could work with. Finally ready to begin, I laid out our new and untested plans and began cutting and assembling the frames.
Brad Dimock
On a sunny New Zealand morning outside the sheep shed we assembled the first free-form hull. We immediately began using the hull as a form on which to steam-bend the chines and gunwales.
Each evening Brian retrieved me, plied me with dinner and a bottomless mug of beer, and sent me to bed. Each morning, after coffee and breakfast, he dropped me off at the shed. I would start a raging fire and get to work, all the while hoping Andy’s visa would come through soon.
I had built quite a few drift boats and dories before and had devised many tricks and techniques in my well-equipped shop back home. But here in my mountaintop exile, most of my familiar tools—bandsaw, router jigs, hundreds of unique hand tools for different angles and tolerances—were missing. I had to devise new ways to cut scarf joints, clamp 4′-wide seams, and many more commonplace things that had suddenly become quite challenging. I made crude jigs from scrap lumber, employed wedges to make clamps. Fortunately most of my inventions worked.
Kate Thompson
After steam bending and scarf-jointing a full-length chine log, Andy and I finished the precise compound-angle end cuts to fit it tightly into the hull.
For steam-bending chines and gunwales, Brian and I cobbled together a steambox made from plastic sewer pipe with wooden end plugs, an old 5-gallon solvent can for the boiler, and a large but terribly old and rusty stove burner to supply a propane flame. The gas orifice was missing, so, having no alternative, I hammered a piece of hardwood into the gas port and drilled a small hole. Common sense would advise against making a wooden part for a gas stove, but it actually worked. It had kind of a sooty, yellow flame, but it was plenty hot.
The clock ticked on. I started early in the morning, cut wood, assembled parts, glued up side-panels, oiled the wood, stoked the fire, ate, drank, slept. A week went by. Fortunately Brian could occasionally break away from the lodge to help. A couple of Brian’s boatmen stopped in from time to time to land a hand. Derik, an American guide, was my stalwart helper when his schedule allowed. Kirk, another American, showed up a when he could.
Brad Dimock
The sweet sweep of a Briggs boat’s gunwales—and the relief of completing a hull–brought a gratified smile to Andy Hutchinson’s face.
I tried to keep my materials coming before needs developed, sending in my shopping lists by radio. Most days someone from the lodge was making the half-day run into Taihape, and could buy basic hardware or lumber for us, or the full-day run to Palmerston North where most everything else was available if you knew what the Kiwi name for it was: “Lodge to Dory Central. Brian is leaving for town. Do you need anything today?” Skreeech. “Dory Central to Lodge. Tell Brian we need another liter of turps. And a hundred more 40-cm stainless-steel coach bolts. And we need the Tasmanian Blackwood if it has been cut.” Squawk.
By the tenth day we had finished all 20 frames, two stems, and two transoms–and all were sanded and oiled. We had cut and scarfed–but not yet bent or glued up–eight chines and gunwales. And we had scarf-cut and glued together all four 20’ side panels and both bottoms.
Brad Dimock
The inspector general approves the new hull. The young Kiwi farm girls painted our favorite lamb blue.
Brian had left for Palmerston North that morning with a large list of odd items to hunt down. And—hurrah!—picked up Andy, whose assistant I had originally signed on to be. Andy had flown in the night before with his wife Kate–also a boatman and good hand in the shop. They rolled up to the sheep shed late that afternoon. We embraced with relieved smiles all around, and celebrated. We knew it was overly optimistic, but we still hoped to finish the boats in time to do an overnight trip on the Whanganui. We had fourteen days to turn this pile of sticks into two finished boats.
The following morning we cut out two side panels, marked and drilled them for screws, and assembled the first hull. With proper preparation, free-form hulls usually come together suddenly, in just over an hour, a gratifying reward after long preparation. No doubt the Kiwis were thinking, “Thank God the real boatbuilder finally arrived and we can see some results.” With one hull shaped we fired the steambox and began clamping all the oak chines and gunwales into shape, gluing them into full-length pieces as soon as they were cool and dry. The next day we built a second hull. For the next week we danced between steam-bending, gluing chines and gunwales, installing chines and bottoms, and rolling the boats upright to begin notching the frame heads for inwale installation.
Brad Dimok
With seat and oarlocks in place and her paint stripes and varnish still drying on a New Zealand hilltop, we called her done.
Every day each assemblage of raw lumber looked more like a boat, more graceful, more refined, and even sexier as completion crept ever closer. The gunwales were fit tightly, bolted into and onto the boat in graceful arcs, sanded smooth, all corners routed to a round edge, and then oiled. The crude forms abruptly and dramatically became elegant art, first one boat, then the other.
We employed the old Oregon-style finish, sealing the outside with epoxy, varnish, or paint, depending upon its exposure. We went with a varnished exterior with an earthy color stripe painted along the top third. We oiled the gunwales and interiors to preserve and show off the beautiful woodwork. Eight days after Andy and Kate arrived, the hulls were complete.
With growing optimism we began outfitting: seats, floorboards, oarlocks, fly decks, bow and stern eyes, and a host of other finicky details. Another five days passed, and late one Friday we cut and installed the final piece—the floor of the last sidebox—on time, with hours to spare, even. Champagne flowed.
Brad Dimock
In the howling wind Brian Megaw and I crafted the double-stack loading system, assembled from an old farm trailer, weathered planks, rotting carpeting, two barn hinges, and a box of drywall screws.
On Saturday, Andy and Kate took the morning off to paddle the Rangitikei, while Brian and I headed for Taihape to borrow a trailer and invent a loading and transport system for two dories. Two padded planks bridged the gunwales of the lower boat. A pair of carpeted wooden ramps pinned onto these cross planks allowed us to side-load the upper dory with its rockered bottom nesting in the lower boat’s sheer. Another miracle: it worked. That evening we hauled two very sexy boats down to the lodge. By a small, calm stretch of the river, we unloaded the top boat for a test run. She rowed like a dream. She was most definitely a Briggs. After several victory laps around the eddy we reloaded the boats and packed them full of gear for our inaugural float down the Whanganui.
Richard Player
Hours after completing the trailer modifications, we parked by the shore of the Rangitikei to see if the boats would actually float. An open boat like this weighs only around 300 pounds.
Brian’s dream of dories on the Whanganui was a tremendous gamble. It was a new concept and had to pass through labyrinthine layers of government inspection, inquiry, and approval. More importantly, the idea had to be embraced by the Maori iwi (tribes), through whose homeland the river flows. The Whanganui is unique, being the first river in the world to be granted personhood, with rights of its own–a concept confusing to the western capitalist mind, but perfectly natural to the Maori.
The machinations of government are slow, and the deliberations of the Maori iwi are slower yet. Brian had long enjoyed working with the Maori, if not the federal bureaucracy, and the giant leap of faith we were engaged in was his best bet: Build beautiful boats, prove they can work on the river, present his case, and cross his fingers. He believed the wooden boats would resonate with the heritage of the Maori wakas (dugout canoes) that once plied this river. He asked the Maori to help name the boats.
Over drinks one evening, Brian talked about Martin Litton, who brought dories to the Grand Canyon during his victorious fight against proposed dams there. I was amazed at how familiar Brian was with the details and nuances of the tale. For him, Litton was a true hero and role model. Brian, an ardent environmentalist in his own right and a man of great heart, hoped to use his own company to bring awareness to regional issues and work toward solutions. He told me, “I don’t really give a damn if this makes money. In the end, I just want to have made a difference.”
Richard Player
It is always an emotional moment when a new boat first kisses the water. This 100-yard stretch of the Rangitikei is a rare calm moment in an otherwise frothing cascade.
Early Saturday morning we piled into the van with Brian, Nicola, and two friends: Tommy, a Maori horseman who worked with Nicola, and Sam, a Sri Lankan guru of sorts who had been encouraging the Megaws to pursue their wildest dreams. We drove past the great snow-capped Ruapehu and its brother volcanoes, Ngauruho and Tongariro, which gave birth to this island and formed the headwaters of the Whanganui. At Taumarunui, where the Ongarue River meets the Whanganui, we stopped for the typical Kiwi snack, meat pies. On a point of land where the two rivers meet, we unloaded the boats, dropping one into each river. Nicola’s father, Old Brian, waved goodbye and headed to Whakahoro to meet us downriver the following afternoon.
Brad Dimock
At the confluence of the Whanganui and the Ongarue we loaded the new boats for their first journey. We quickly floated out of civilization and into the Whanganui Gorge.
We were at the beginning of the so-called Whanganui Journey, one of New Zealand’s nine “Great Walks” and the only one that offers the option of traveling on a water trail rather than a footpath. It officially ends some 90 miles downstream at Pipiriki. Although we only had time to go partway, we were giddy to have finished the boats in time for this overnight trip. The boats ran every bit as beautifully as we had hoped. The natural wood and earth tones of these graceful hulls exquisitely complemented the jungle-green walls of the gorge.
Brad Dimock
Andy Hutchinson recognized the familiar feel of a Briggs boat as he entered a rapid on the Whanganui River. Oregon drift boats like these are rowed with the boatman facing the high prow, which is, technically, a highly evolved stern—and transom behind the boatman is a truncated bow.
Andy, Kate, and I took turns rowing one boat, while Brian and Nicola traded off in the other. Sam paddled merrily along in an inflatable kayak. Even our Maori friend Tommy, who was far more comfortable on a horse, took the oars. As we floated, Tommy pointed out different trees, birds, and landforms, and told us of their lore.
We set up camp at Ohinepane and Brian cooked dinner. I wandered about the area and kept finding myself back at the river, looking at our two newborn “daughters” tied against the shore. I caught Brian and Andy staring at them as well. I rolled my sleeping bag out on the floor of one boat and drifted to sleep looking at the constellations in the Southern sky.
In the morning we loaded up, rowed, stopped to explore an old farm, and gawked at the many waterfalls along the way. The palms, tree ferns, and wide variety of deciduous trees changed textures endlessly. Dense, feathery, viney, rolling hills gave way to steep rocky cliffs. Late that afternoon we found Old Brian at Whakahoro, loaded the boats, and returned to River Valley, knowing that we’d only seen the warm-up act of the Whanganui. Andy, Nicola, and I packed for a long drive to the airport the next morning.
Brian Megaw
The dories enter their career of professional servitude on the Whanganui River amid a jungle of tree ferns and waterfalls.
A year passed and Brian’s vision fell into place piece by piece. His Whanganui River dories gained government approval. The Maori iwi accepted his business plan. Twelve months after the boats were completed, Maori elders convened at Pipiriki in a moving riverside ceremony to bless and christen the boats. In the tradition of Martin Litton, who named his dories as memorials to places of beauty desecrated or destroyed by man, the boats were named for two of the river’s tributary streams that had been diverted as part of the Tongariro Power Scheme: TE WHAIAU (The Current Follower) and OKUPATA (My Little Droplets of Water). The names could not be more fitting, in homage both to the watershed of the Whanganui, and to Martin Litton, who died at the age of 97, just weeks after our boats were completed. As the boats’ builders, we were honored and moved to have played a role in this story, and delighted to see the design migrate across the Pacific and take root in another magical place where a river is revered.
Brad Dimock builds all manner of boats at Fretwater Boatworks in Flagstaff, Arizona. In the summer he rows dories through Grand Canyon, and teaches Building the McKenzie River Dory at WoodenBoat School in Maine. TE WHAIAU and OKUPATA are still running the river for Brian Megaw and Whanganui River Dories.
If you have an interesting story to tell about your adventures with a small wooden boat, please email us a brief outline and a few photos.
Dyneema rope, with spliced-in stainless-steel thimbles and simple lashings, makes strong, do-it-yourself standing rigging.
For small boats with standing rigging, steel was once the only choice, and it had to be ordered from a rigging shop with its fittings installed. In recent years Dynex Dux and STS, made from Dyneema SK-75 high-modulus polyethylene (HMPE), have become available. While high-strength fiber rope has been around for some time now, it was very expensive and available for large yachts only. It now costs about the same as stainless-steel cable, and the fittings used with it cost less than turnbuckles and toggles. These ropes have low-stretch characteristics similar to those of stainless-steel cable, are lightweight and soft, won’t rust or scar brightwork, and can be spliced easily without special tools. For trailer sailers, these synthetic ropes will not kink and are easier to coil up and stow when the mast is down.
HMPE braided rope is stronger than steel cable, but it initially has some “constructional stretch” as the fibers are squeezed into a tighter braid as load is applied. Once the settling is complete, the rope only exhibits “material stretch,” the characteristic of the fiber from which it is made. Dynex Dux and STS have had the constructional stretch removed in the manufacturing process by being subjected to heat while under tensile load. Another stretch characteristic of these ropes, called creep, is the elongation over time when under load. Creep is virtually nonexistent in steel cables, but is measurable with synthetic fiber ropes. For both Dynex Dux and STS, the amount of creep in normal usage on small boats will not be a factor. Highly stressed, tall rigs with high standing preloads may require an occasional tightening, but for most small craft with relatively floppy rigs, or trailer sailers that are tensioned every time the rig mast is set up, it is insignificant.
The HMPE rope can be a direct replacement for steel cable, and the tensioning hardware can be changed to less expensive lashing lanyards. Colligo Marine offers an array of special thimbles, deadeyes, and other terminals designed for fiber rigging so a do-it-yourselfer can make shrouds and stays. Many of these fittings are designed to connect to existing tangs and pins for direct replacement of metal cables.
courtesy of Colligo Marine
A few of the Colligo fittings designed for use with Dyneema line.
For small boats, the stainless-steel rigging cable can be replaced with Dyneema SK75, Dynex Dux, or STS fiber rope of the same diameter as the metal cable. The fiber rope will be 50 percent stronger with similar stretch characteristics. The minimum diameter for Dynex Dux is 5mm; for SK75 Dyneema or Amsteel line it’s 3mm (1/8″). Amsteel isn’t heat treated, so use a size larger than metal cable to offset the additional stretch. For thimble terminals, use heavy-duty terminals or complete ring sailmaker’s thimbles about 50 percent larger than specified for the line diameter, for extra strength and to give a larger bearing surface for the lanyard. If the rope is larger than 3/16″, consider using the Colligo Marine Terminator fittings with tensioning lanyards. Colligo Marine offers lashing and splicing instructions and other helpful videos on their website.
High-strength fiber rope offers an attractive rigging system for replacement of metal cables or original construction. It costs about the same as stainless-steel cable, and the fittings cost less than turnbuckles and toggles. It is easy to splice, so the boat owner can make up cables to length very quickly. Colligo Marine is currently claiming a working life for of 8 years in the tropics, more in northern climates. Stainless-steel rigging typically lasts 20 years, but has been known to fail at the terminals in less time. For small boats that are often covered when not in use, the life of the fiber rigging is greatly extended.
John Marples has designed, built, and rigged many sailing vessels. His portfolio includes dozens of wood-epoxy composite sailing and power multihulls to 65′. He operates Marples Marine, a multi-hull design and engineering firm in Penobscot, Maine.
Editor’s notes:
The Brummel eye splice is commonly used for Dyneema rope. Passing both ends through the rope at the base of the eye locks the slippery braided line, and then a long tapered tail is buried inside. The simple Brummel splice works as a first splice because both ends can be threaded through. The second splice, on the other end of the line, requires a different technique because the eye can’t be passed through the braid. For details, refer to the Colligo Marine videos.
SBM photographs
If you don’t have fids for braided line you can make them from aluminum knitting needles.
Here a length of 3/16″ Amsteel line is going to be spliced around a brass thimble. The bight is pinched around the thimble and marked where the two sides come together. The tail that will be buried in the core of the line at the end of the process should be 72 times the diameter of the line.
Prior to inserting a fid, the line is pushed together to open the braid. The black mark made in the previous step is visible here in the middle of the loosened braid.
The fid takes the end of the line through the loosened braid.
The end of the line is pulled through until the marks meet each other.
The end of the long side of the rope is threaded through just below the mark.
The line now has each end threaded through, and when the eye is opened up for the thimble, the intersections will lock against each other.
The eye needs to pulled open forcefully to get thimble snapped in.
To make room for the end to be slipped through, a fid is pushed down the center of the line, loosening the braid.
The fid emerges after it has passed through several more inches of line than the tail will occupy.
After the fid is removed, the braid remains loose. A bit of tape around the end of the line stiffens it enough to slip through the loosened braid.
The loosened braid gets pushed over the taped end.
When the tip emerges from the opening left by the fid, it can be pulled out.
With a straight pin holding back the loosened braid, the tail is marked in 12 equal increments.
A single strand is pulled out at each mark.
When all 12 strands have been teased out, they are each cut with a sharp knife or scissors.
After the strands are cut the tail has a uniform taper. The pin holding the loosened braid back will be removed so the tail can be pulled into the line.
As the braid is pulled out, the tail disappears inside, leaving a long gradual taper away from the thimble.
—CC
Addendum
Reader Anthony Johnson asked how an eye can be spliced into the other end of the line if the long end can’t be passed through the hole. You could create the second eye in the same manner as described above, by installing the thimbles only after both eyes have been created. To make room for the first eye splice, enlarge the hole in the second eye splice that the long end passes through by prying two fids against each other in it. For occasions like Anthony’s stanchions, where the long end can’t be passed through the hole, there is the modified Brummel eye splice, illustrated here.
The eye for the thimble is to the right. At the point where an opening has been made to run the long end of the line through in the standard Brummel, the short end is inserted instead.
The short end is pulled to shrink the loop.
As the short end is pulled further, the loop disappears and the hole it has been passed through becomes inverted.
After widening the inverted hole with a pair of fids, the thimble’s eye is passed through.
Continuing to pull the eye through creates a small loop that will get pulled through the inverted hole and undo the inversion.
The Small Hatchet is a great tool for splitting kindling. Using a stick to keep the workpiece upright keeps the fingers at a safe distance from the sharp blade.
Daniel Beard, in The American Boy’s Handy Book, wrote, “At least one or two good sharp hatchets should form a part of the equipment of every camp; it is astonishing, with their aid and very little practice, what a comfortable house may be built in a very short time.” It’s no longer acceptable, as it was in 1882, to chop down live trees to build the cottage, beds, tables, and chairs Beard describes in his chapter on camping in the woods, but a sharp hatchet is still a useful tool to have while camp-cruising.
During my Inside Passage cruises (Sea Trial Part I and Sea Trial Part II) I used a hatchet to split firewood and kindling, to make and drive tent stakes, to make floats to keep a mooring line from snagging on rocks during a midnight low tide, and even to fashion a slender rudder to hold a steady course while rowing.
The hatchet’s slender blade can take a sharp edge, fine enough for whittling. Here a bit of maple, split from a fallen branch, is on its way to becoming a butter knife.
The finest hatchets I’ve owned are made in Sweden by Gränsfors Bruks, a small company founded in 1902. The steel they use is recycled and processed to create an alloy that is hard enough to take a good edge yet not so hard that the blade is brittle. The cutting edge that comes from the factory is almost razor sharp and stays sharp, even after chopping through well-dried hardwood. The handles are made of hickory—a tough, dense wood long used for tool handles because of its impact resistance and a degree of flexibility that absorbs some of the shock of chopping so the vibration isn’t all transmitted to your hands. The handles are soaked in linseed oil and then finished with beeswax. Each tool from Gränsfors has the initial of the maker stamped into the steel alongside the company seal—a crown over the initials GBA. Both of my hatchets have “LP” on the side of the poll indicating they were made by Lennart Pettersson.
The Small Hatchet is small enough to be tucked into a pants pocket.
My Gränsfors Small hatchet has a 10″ handle and weighs just 12 1/2 oz. The blade, with its cover on, is 5″ long and fits in my back pocket. It takes an edge as sharp as the best of the chisels in my shop: the slightest nick of the blade will draw blood. The head of the axe fits nicely in my hand for carving. The poll and the blade came polished to a mirror finish. Pettersson, an avid fisherman, designed the hatchet and gave the poll smooth, rounded edges to make it suitable for use as a fish club. The blade is thin enough that Gränsfors even suggests it can be used to fillet fish. The handle is sanded smooth and slender enough for me to grip for carving. The leather is vegetable tanned, in keeping with the company’s goals to minimize environmental impact.
For heavier work, the Gränsfor’s Large Carving Axe has a textured handle for a better grip and a larger, heavier head.
My Gränsfors Large Carving Axe has a 14″ handle and 4 1/2″-long blade. It weighs 2 lbs 3 oz. The handle is textured, bearing the slight scalloped tooling marks of what I presume is a router lathe, providing a non-slip grip. The lower curve of the handle fits nicely into my hand, and the flared end knob keeps it from slipping through my fingers. I’ve owned this axe for at least a decade, and its head (like that of the Small Hatchet) is still solidly attached to the handle. Gränsfors dries the hickory properly so that it swells up under normal humidity and locks in the axe eye.
These tools will surely outlast me. I’ve stamped my initials on the head just around the corner from those of Lennart Pettersson. There’s room for more initials from the generations to come.
Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats Monthly.
Gränsfors Bruks distributes its products through retailers around the world. The Small Hatchet retails in the U.S. for $130. The Large Carving Axe is available in the U.S. for $185. The Gränsfors tools are handmade, not mass-produced, so filling an order may take months.
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A small boat in a crowded waterway is easily overlooked by other boaters. So what do you do when it’s imperative to attract the attention of another boater, especially one who is bearing down on you? A VHF radio is a key piece of equipment that’s usually useful for communicating with commercial vessels, but it’s not the most immediate way of making your presence known to pleasure craft. A whistle might help, but if you really want to be heard over the roar of a motor, what you need is a portable horn.
I went looking for a horn that is loud, compact, and durable. Because low-impact boating is my goal, I also wanted one that doesn’t require disposable compressed-gas cartridges. For vessels under 12 meters, Coast Guard regulations regarding air horns are vague—“A vessel of less than 12 meters in length…shall be provided with some other means of making an efficient sound signal”—but common sense dictates that a warning blast should be heard a couple of hundred feet away, and ideally further. A friend and I got out on the water and tested six horns over a distance of 500 ft and then 1,000 ft. Five models seemed worthy of consideration by small-boat users.
The reliable Perko horn has been around for decades and has a hole for hanging it up where you can get to it in a hurry.
The Perko Fog Horn ($25) is constructed of aluminum with a white, baked-enamel finish. It is approximately 12″ long with a 3″-wide flared end. The nylon mouthpiece creates a somewhat tinny, party horn-like sound. Blowing this horn required little effort, and it could be heard plainly at 500 ft, but was less discernible at 1,000 ft. It’s simple, maintenance-free, and easily stowed.
The Bellow horn has an unusual shape but a good sound and no metal parts that would be subject to corrosion.
Shaped like an old-fashioned cowl vent, Attwood’s 8″ by 2″ Bellow horn ($12) is made of thick, bright-orange plastic. The user blows into a small tube on the rear of the cowl. Despite its toy-like appearance, the sound produced is hardy, high, and clear, even at 1,000 ft. Unlike other horns, the Bellow can be blown softly as well as with more force, enabling the user to produce a variety of volumes, all at the same tone. The instructions note that the diaphragm on the bottom of the horn requires occasional replacement with “household plastic wrap,” but a piece of freezer bag or 4mm plastic sheet is much less likely to tear when installed.
SeaDog’s horn is small but produces a loud signal.
Measuring in at 7.25″ long by 1.25″ at the wide end, Sea Dog’s stainless-steel horn ($34) was the most compact model—it fits in a pocket—and the loudest for its size. It produces a sporty, trumpet-like toot and sounds more bold and definite than the Perko or Attwood horns, even at 1,000 ft. Its rigid body and solid metal mouthpiece make it unlikely to wear out from use or baking in the sun, and because of the sturdy construction, it would be difficult to crush or dent it accidentally.
Innovative Lighting’s electric horn comes with a mounting bracket to keep it handy.
Innovative Lighting offers an electronic horn ($25) powered by a common 9-volt battery. Made of water-resistant, molded plastic with rubberized surfaces on its pistol-style grip, it has a button operated by the user’s forefinger. A loudspeaker at the top emits a synthetic “ZZZ-T, ZZZ-T” sound that reminds me of an amped-up cicada. The non-traditional sound is clear and, rated at 112 decibels, is easily heard at 1,000 ft. It will certainly get someone’s attention, though, as a fog signal, it may not be readily understood by other boaters.
The EcoBlast horn has a very loud sound and is recharged with air.
Attwood also produces the Eco Blast Rechargeable Air Horn ($34). It consists of a canister and a 5″-long plastic horn. The horn has a threaded brass insert that screws easily onto the top of the canister. A small red button unleashes a powerful and unmistakable warning. The EcoBlast is rated at 120 decibels and louder than any of the horns I tested. The canister gets pumped full of air with a handheld bicycle pump. If the horn isn’t being used, the canister holds air pressure for days on end, and you can use a tire gauge to see how much air is in the can and charge it up before you launch. After around 15 short blasts or a continuous blast lasting 5 seconds, it needs to be refilled, and it takes a strong pair of arms to get it up to full pressure—100 psi—with a small hand pump.
These horns can all be found for under $40, making them a bargain on the safety-to-cost ratio. Given the circumstances small-craft owners are likely to meet—an encounter with other craft, various emergency situations, becoming fogbound—these horns can be an essential piece of your safety equipment.
Bruce Bateau sails and rows traditional boats with a modern twist in Portland, Oregon. His stories and adventures can be found at his web site, Terrapin Tales.
Editor’s notes:
To make measurable comparisons of the horns, I put a decibel meter app (Sound Meter for Android) and a pitch tuner app (Pano Tuner for Android) on my phone. The decibel meter didn’t seem to do well at close range—many of the horns peaked at the same level—so I set my phone by the front door and looked at it through a pair of binoculars, 40′ away at the back door. The measurements are lower than they would be if measured at the source and for comparison only:
[table]
EcoBlast/87 dB, 730 Hz
Innovative Lighting/72 dB, 133 Hz
Bellow/72 dB, 433 Hz
SeaDog/66 dB, 467 Hz
Perko/65 db, 440 Hz
[/table]
The do-it-yourself horn I made measured 67 dB, 258 Hz with a 12″ pipe, 67 dB, 206 Hz and with the 18″ long funnel, and 61 dB, 121 Hz with a 24″ pipe.
One short blast means “I am altering my course to starboard.” Two short blasts to mean “I am altering my course to port.” Three short blasts to mean “I am operating astern propulsion.”
When a power-driven vessel is leaving a dock or berth, she shall sound one prolonged blast.
In or near an area of restricted visibility, whether by day or night, a power-driven vessel making way through the water shall sound at intervals of not more than 2 minutes one prolonged blast.
When vessels in sight of one another are approaching each other, and from any cause, either vessel fails to understand the intentions or actions of the other, or is in doubt whether sufficient action is being taken by the other to avoid collision, the vessel in doubt shall immediately indicate such doubt by giving at least five short and rapid blasts.
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Dave’s canoe is as much at home on a muddy creek bank as it is in an art gallery—it was shown at the Galesburg Civic Art Center. Dave, a professional photographer, is no stranger to the art world.
Six years ago, a nearly fatal injury landed Dave Hupke in the hospital. While his life hung in the balance, he imagined what he would do if he were to have the good fortune to live beyond the age of 46. As a teen, he had been a Boy Scout guide at the Charles L. Sommers Wilderness Canoe Base in Ely, Minnesota, and later, as an Eagle Scout, led trips through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. He had fond memories of wilderness paddling and of the beauty of cedar-strip canoes. He decided that if he walked out of the hospital he’d build a canoe.
David’s father, Horst Hupke, had the tools and his skills as a woodworker to hasten progress on the canoe project. Note the splitter secured by the smallest clamp. It holds the work to the fence and keeps the cedar from binding on the saw blade.
Horst’s spindle shaper, equipped with cutters for matching beads (shown here) and coves, made it possible to do quick and accurate milling of the strips.
A month passed and although Dave was weak, scarred, and had lost 30 pounds, he had survived. He had a long road to recovery before he could begin work on the canoe. Three-and-a-half years later, he had his strength back and was back at work. He had the time and the energy to devote to building his canoe.
His father, Horst, had been a craftsman in northern Germany before immigrating to the States, and is, despite his 82 years, an energetic and adroit woodworker. Horst was eager to lend his support to Dave’s project and offered up his woodworking expertise, his woodshop, and his garage.
Dave and Horst used duct tape to hold the strips to each other and clamps and wedges to hold them to the molds, avoiding the use of staples and the holes they leave after they’re removed.
Dave searched the web for plans and came upon the canoes of Ray Klebba of White Salmon Boat Works in the town of White Salmon, Washington. Ray’s 17′ Kenosha design was very much like the canoes Dave had admired in his days as a Scout. Dave ordered a set of plans and even before they arrived, he and Horst started milling western red cedar into cove-and-bead strips. The 18′ planks were too long to handle in Horst’s shop, so they moved the tablesaw and then the shaper out to the driveway. A set of shop-made fences, hold-downs, and guides assured the strips were milled accurately and uniformly.
Dave’s woodburned insignia included two bottle caps to remind him of the Root Beer Lady of Knife Lake.
With the milling finished, Dave sorted the strips by color, from blond to chocolate brown. He added some birch to the building materials for bright accents and to pay his respects to the birchbark ancestors of his canoe.
With the hull ‘glassed, the canoe is ready for the gunwales, seats, and decks.
Dave and Horst worked together building the strongback, setting up the forms, and stripping the hull. With the planking complete, Dave designed an insignia for the bow of his canoe. The woodburning design included a hoop and feathers to honor the Native American origins of canoes. At the top Dave added a bottle cap, acknowledging The Root Beer Lady, Dorothy Molter. Molter made root beer in her cabin on the shores of Knife Lake and sold it to countless canoeists who paddled through what became the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA). When the BWCA was established as a wilderness area, Molter would have been forced to move, but the outcry from loyal canoeists led to permission for her to stay. She remained in her lakeside home until her death in 1986. Inside the outline of the bottle cap are the joined letters, HR. They stand for “Hol-Ry,” a greeting used by the canoeists of the Sommers Wilderness Canoe Base. Hol-Ry was the name of a rye cracker, made in a Duluth bakery, that didn’t break when stuffed in a pack, and didn’t spoil during backcountry voyages.
Rather than use pre-woven seat caning, Dave did the weaving himself, a job that takes time, patience, and focus.
Dave made two paddles for the canoe, one straight and the other bent-shaft, and decorated them with the same insignia he put on the canoe. He and his friend Andy Look won the wooden canoe division of the 13.5-mile Abe’s River Race on the Sangamon River in Illinois.
While the insignia on Dave’s canoe bears symbols of a fondly remembered past, the canoe itself grew out of hope in the face of an uncertain future. What better way could there be for Dave to celebrate a second chance at life than to take to the water in a wooden boat he built with his father?
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When I read Quill Goodman’s account of his Race to Alaska in 2015, I was amazed at how difficult the conditions were. He, Dylan, and Mitch were always working against headwinds and often sitting out storms. I’ve been up the Inside Passage twice, and my two experiences were so different from each other and from Quill’s that you wouldn’t guess it was the same place.
My first trip was gray and grim and I promised myself I’d never do the Inside Passage again.
In 1980 I rowed and sailed a 14′ Chamberlain dory skiff from Mukilteo, Washington, to Prince Rupert, British Columbia. I covered about 700 miles in a month, most of that by rowing. The weather was, with few exceptions, mild and I never stayed ashore to wait for favorable conditions. There was a lot of rain that year and some days were downright miserable. At the end of a wet day the palms of my hands would be saturated with water and almost completely white, looking more like cauliflower than human flesh. Before I could start dinner I had to dry my hands out over the camp stove to get them ready to do anything more refined than hook around an oar handle. My roll of toilet paper was protected in a Tupperware container that was only translucent but through it I could clearly see the black speckles of mildew. While I never sat out a storm, there was one that I should have. It crept up on me while I was on Gibson Island at the north end of Grenville Chanel. I’d been taking advantage of a rare southerly to do some sailing, and stopped on the north side of the island to have lunch and scandalize the sprit mainsail. The wind had been brisk, and with a 3-mile crossing ahead, I thought reducing sail would be prudent. I rowed out of the glassy water in the lee of the island, and the wind suddenly hit the sails like a sledgehammer. It was instantly blowing a near gale and I had to sit on the transom to keep the bow from plowing under. I didn’t dare go forward to cast off the sheets—I’d cleated the main while I was rowing. I held on and hoped I’d survive the crossing. I did and took a picture of myself upon landing, one of several I took during my lowest moments on the trip, as a reminder to never to row the Inside Passage again. The next day I rowed to Prince Rupert and called it quits.
My second trip was a walk in the park with fair winds and sunny skies.
In 1987 I did the Inside Passage again, from Anacortes, Washington, to Juneau Alaska. I’d built a 21′ replica of the Gokstad faering for the trip, and my then wife and I had an easy time covering 1,000 miles in eight weeks. Only four days of rain interrupted the sunny days. Warm and very pleasant following winds, “dry sou’easters” as they were called, gave us many opportunities to raise the square sail and relax under clear skies as the miles slipped by. With the calm conditions we had a wide choice of anchorages and never had to negotiate breaking waves to get ashore. The only damage to the boat in the entire trip were scratches in the varnish, one from nicking a dock in the Powell River marina, and the other from sliding the boat off the tram into Oliver Inlet after making the portage by rail at Admiralty Island. The worst part of the trip was a toothache that forced us to stop a couple of days in Nanaimo while I got a root canal.
As I write this, the winner of the 2016 R2AK is already in Ketchikan, having sailed the Inside Passage from Port Townsend in 3 days, 20 hours and 13 minutes, beating last year’s winning time by more than a full day. A lot of the Inside Passage quickly slips by at that pace. We’ll have to wait to see who comes in last this year. If that team’s experience has been anything like Quill’s, that’s the story I want to hear.
Rollin Thurlow has been building and restoring wood-and-canvas canoes for 38 years. This spring, Rollin took a short break from his shop, the Northwoods Canoe Company in Atkinson, Maine, to paddle the Allagash Wilderness Waterway in celebration of its 50th anniversary. As always, he ventured out in his beloved Atkinson Traveler, the same canoe he’s been paddling for 25 years. “I wouldn’t paddle anything else,” he says. He designed the boat in 1982, as one of a series of plans to be included in The Wood & Canvas Canoe, a revered building guide that he wrote with Jerry Stelmok of Island Falls Canoe, also located in Atkinson.
Back when he designed the Atkinson Traveler, Rollin began with what he most respected, the working boats that E.M. White built in central Maine beginning in the late 1880s; White’s designs were the mainstay of the guides, foresters, and wardens of the era. Rollin believes that White’s 18′6″ and 20′ Guide models, built to handle Maine’s often shallow and rock-strewn rivers, neared perfection for a regional craft.
all photographs by the author
This special commemorative Atkinson Traveler was built to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway. The cedar ribs and planking come from the AWW, the rails were made from Baxter State Park spruce and the figured maple is from northern Maine’s Piscataquis County.
As Rollin turned to his own design, he realized that a shorter vessel that maintained the versatility of the Whites would provide a novel addition to the field of wood-and-canvas wilderness tripping hulls. He opted for an overall length of 17′ 6″; at 75 lbs it weighs in about 5 lbs under the White 18′6″. The most notable change that Rollin made was to alter the White’s fine entry, which made the designs very fast, but that sharpness at the bow led them to dig their nose into larger waves; Rollin gave the Traveler a more balanced entry, making the bow a bit fuller, giving his design more buoyancy in uneven water. He added about ½″ of rocker to the Traveler, bringing it up to 1-1/2″. The 35-5/8″ beam is very similar to the 18′ 6″ White and increases the Traveler’s stability and carrying capacity. The Traveler’s 5 degrees of tumblehome, gently curved sheer, and overall profile remain nearly identical to the White, which gives both boats a minimalist’s elegance at first glance and links them to the White’s ancestor—the Penobscot bark canoe.
While Rollin’s design is foremost a river boat, the Traveler’s shallow arch bottom, another trait inherited from the White, does slightly reduce initial stability (compared to a flat-bottom) for river use, but not enough to compromise the boat’s proficiency at poling, which requires standing and is an all-important skill for canoe tripping in Maine. The shallow arch also reduces wetted surface—and the drag associated with it—making the canoe faster. The Traveler draws about 6″ when loaded with a week’s worth of gear. The design is well rounded enough that it converts many first-time users with its virtues, and it’s not uncommon for paddlers to proclaim it “the ideal canoe.”
Garrett Conover, a veteran North Woods guide, has paddled tens of thousands of miles, and much of it at the helm of an Atkinson Traveler. According to Garrett, the trick in designing a wilderness hull is to find just the right balance of opposing design parameters. A high functioning design must excel at all aspects of wilderness travel, including flatwater, whitewater, downstream and upstream. Garrett explains that the game changer for a tripping hull is its ability to mesh high load capacity with superb handling, and notes that such a balance is very difficult to achieve; Rollin does so by the placement of compound curves in and around the quarters whereby the hull masterfully combines the speed attributes of a sharp entry with a sudden flare to accommodate load capacity as well as add buoyancy that keeps rough water on windswept lakes and whitewater on fast moving rivers from filling the boat.
Upstream travel was an essential skill when traveling in Northern Maine until the mid-20th Century when roads became more prevalent. The region’s shallow and rocky rivers were best ascended in a long canoe with shallow draft. Nothing poled as well as the Whites and the Atkinson Traveler carries on this tradition.
“The Traveler is nimble in whitewater,” he says. “It poles well, it paddles well, and it’s small enough so it’s not quite as heavy as some. It portages well in any country.” Garrett’s personal preference is the Deep Traveler, which carries 15″ of depth amidships compared to the conventional Traveler’s 13″. The Deep Traveler is the design of choice for those, like Conover, who routinely head out on self-supported trips for weeks on end. “To me,” says Garrett, “it’s the pinnacle of wilderness canoes thus far.”
Elisa Schine worked as an instructor at a wilderness canoe camp before landing at Northwoods Canoe Company. She recently took her boyfriend on his first canoe trip and chose to borrow one of Rollin’s Atkinson Travelers, instead of using the round-bottomed Prospector she owns, because of the Traveler’s stability and ease of handling: “I didn’t want to tip him into the river the first time he got aboard a canoe.”
On a bright spring day, I traveled to Atkinson to paddle in the town’s namesake Traveler. Rollin, who celebrated the thousandth canoe to pass through his shop in 2014, had recently finished a special commemorative Atkinson Traveler. The stripes of its tiger-maple thwarts morphed from light to dark and undulated as I move around the boat. The bird’s-eye maple decks’ swirling made them look like old contour maps. The rails were made from Baxter State Park spruce. The gunwales of the standard-issue Atkinson Traveler are also spruce, though many choose a mahogany, cherry, or walnut outwales. If a hardwood is chosen for the outwales, it is also used for the thwarts, decks, and hand-woven caned seat frames—otherwise ash is the standard wood used. The weave of #10 mildew- treated canvas is filled with an oil-based sealer and usually painted in its entirety; many opt for the traditional finish of shellac below the waterline, which slides over rocks and is easier to maintain than paint. Brass stem bands protect the white-oak stems at the bow and stern.
The heart-shaped decks and hand thwarts date back to the earliest wood-and-canvas canoes, as does the hollowing out beneath the deck. Rollin first observed these features while restoring E.H. Gerrish boats and was drawn to their aesthetics. He likes to include hand thwarts to give paddlers a ready handhold for carrying that dissuades them from using the deck to lift the canoe.
Rollin has sold about 400 sets of plans for the Traveler and highly recommends that homebuilders take the time to build the requisite mold—a sturdy hull form akin to a very heavy strip canoe. Steel bands are attached crosswise over the mold and used to clench the tacks that fasten the planks to the ribs. The hand tools required, include a clinching iron, canvas pliers, a tack puller and a small carpenter’s hammer with a 7-oz head. Builders will need to be set up for steaming ribs, and a jig is necessary to bend the stems. The average homebuilder takes years to complete a wood-and-canvas canoe.
On the water, my paddling partner is Elisa Schine who has worked in Rollin’s shop since 2013. I’m immediately struck by the boat’s speed and a lightness that slices the water and gives it lasting glide. The varnished cedar ribs and planking radiate warmth in the morning sun. The hull is stable when it needs to be as well as agile within the confines of the small pond.
After planting my knees against the sides of the canoe around where the half ribs end, I warned Elisa that I was going to wobble the boat. I rocked it gently, then more aggressively. The initial stability is not as solid as secondary, but the boat is such a comfort to paddle that I scarcely thought of stability for the remainder of the outing. We leaned in and practiced gradual arcing turns and spun it around with hard draws; the Traveler does it all with élan. When I poled the Traveler solo it held a line, even with the bow unweighted and thus a tad high.
Elisa says of the Traveler: “It’s a pleasure to build. With a lot of the models we build, it’s challenging to put planking on ribs, but with the Atkinson Traveler the planking lays across the ribs with no problem.” She believes that Rollin’s expertise unites aesthetics with function. “What looks good to Rollin is going to be the best design as well.”
Rollin has a long history of sharing his designs and hires young builders so he can pass along his knowledge. He has licensed his Atkinson Traveler design to a handful of builders, among them Jeanne Bourquin in Ely, Minnesota. She has been building the Atkinson Traveler since the 1990s and believes the Traveler is “as close to perfect as possible.”
Rollin mentioned that Becky Mason has paddled a Traveler. Becky, the daughter of legendary paddler and filmmaker Bill Mason, is a highly accomplished paddler and filmmaker in her own right, and has introduced thousands to canoeing through her teaching. Like Conover, she holds the Traveler’s capacity in high regard: “You just load those babies up and they take any weight possible. You get elegance—it’s so superbly designed. You get speed—it’s like a dart through the water. And you get maneuverability—it spins on a dime. You can do a beautiful canoe dance or swerve and miss a rock or back it up if you don’t like what you see. When it’s empty it handles like a little acorn on the water.”
“They’re works of art,” says Becky. “There’s an unexplainable quality. You can recognize a Rollin Thurlow canoe, just as you can a Leonardo da Vinci or a Van Gogh.” The subtle attention to detail—the beautiful hollowing along the underside of the deck, the tapering of ribs as they reach the gunwales, the sweep of the bow and the hand-painted waterlines—marks Rollin’s work as that of a true craftsman.
Many see Mason as the custodian to one of Canada’s most hallowed tripping hulls, the Chestnut Prospector, a design her father praised. She paid Rollin’s design the ultimate tribute: “I really think the Atkinson Traveler is an American version of a Prospector,” she says and adds with a laugh, “That’s a bit blasphemous, but I think the Traveler is just amazing.”
I wanted to learn how to sail, and was looking for a boat I could easily manage singlehanded and that had enough room for a few friends to join in the fun. I had no previous boatbuilding experience, and while I liked the looks of lapstrake, I thought it might be little overwhelming for a first build.
After many hours of research I settled on the Glen-L 15, a sloop-rigged daysailer. I liked the looks of it, its plywood construction appealed to me, and with a length of 15′1″ and a 6′ beam it was just the right size for me for both building and sailing.
Greg Johnson
In light air, a solo sailor can sit on the side benches, but as the wind approaches 10 knots, it’s time to take a seat on the side deck.
The plans for the Glen-L 15 come with a detailed instruction booklet and full-sized patterns for the frames, transom, stem, and breasthook assembly. There’s no need for lofting; this helps a first-time boatbuilder get started with confidence. I chose vertical-grain white oak for the frames, sheer, and chine logs. Spruce and mahogany are also recommended in the plans. All the wood that I would finish bright was sapele. The hull is constructed of 1/4″ marine-grade mahogany plywood fastened with epoxy and silicon-bronze screws. It goes together quickly, even for a first-time builder, and is easy on the budget.
After fairing and applying fiberglass and three coats of epoxy, the hull was ready for its finish. Paint is the most common finish and recommended in the plans, but I wanted a more durable finish that would require less maintenance. After doing a lot of research, I decided to give gelcoat a try. I ended up with a beautiful finish, and after two years there are no chips, no cracks, and no signs of failing.
Casey Johnson
The ample seating and uncluttered cockpit of the Glen-L 15 is well suited for introducing family and guests to sailing.
After the hull has been painted, it gets turned right-side up for the remainder of the construction. The two arched beams that support the foredeck need only minimal fairing to prepare them for the marine-grade mahogany plywood decking. The coaming is made of three pieces mahogany milled into 5/16″ x 7″ boards. The finished coaming is about 3-1/4″ high, but you need to start with wide boards to accommodate the crown of the deck. The coaming is steam-bent, then temporarily fastened into place with clamps and screws. After I scribed the designed shape, I removed the pieces, cut them to size, and reinstalled with epoxy and screws for final trimming and sanding.
The seats, floorboards, and rubrails are mostly left up to the builder. I designed the seats and floorboards to be removable to make any future cleaning and refinishing easier. For the seats, the most common method of construction for them that I saw on Glen-L’s forum was to use 1″ x 1″ pieces of hardwood and bend them to follow the curve of the hull’s sides. Instead of screwing the pieces from the top and into the frames, I through-bolted transverse pieces on either side of each frame and epoxied and screwed the 1″ x 1″ slats to them, creating single-piece removable seat. I built the floorboards in a similar fashion to make them in sections easily removed for cleaning and refinishing.
I milled my mahogany trim for the sheer and coaming. There were no instructions on the plans for a rubrail and trim to cover the screws holding the deck at its perimeter, so I made a cap and half-round to cover the sheer. For mounting an outboard motor, I fastened pieces of mahogany to the transom to take the wear and tear of the motor mount. The boat is rated to take an outboard up 7.5 hp.
Greg Johnson
The pronounced flare in the forward sections lifts the bow over waves and throws the spray to the sides, keeping it out of the cockpit.
After painting the cockpit and putting nine coats of varnish on all of the brightwork, it was time to think about spars. The plans offered a few options for making the mast. Instead of the hollow plywood mast, I chose to build the solid mast with the sail groove routered into the aft face. I used vertical-grain Douglas-fir 2x4s scarfed and laminated. The mast has the classic teardrop cross-section and is then square below the gooseneck. The boom is rectangular in shape, and there is just one method for building it detailed in the plans. Using the measurements and templates provided, the spar-building wasn’t as difficult as I had expected, and I was very pleased with the results. I ordered the rigging from Glen-L; it was all very high quality and each piece came with diagrams and descriptions to facilitate assembly.
Throughout the build I called Glen-L for guidance, and their staff was patient and knowledgeable and answered any questions I had. The sails were made in British Columbia by Leitch and McBride, sailmakers.
I had spent a year and a half of weekends and some evenings building the boat, and as the time to get ready for launching approached, I had a friend who’s a welder build a trailer using Glen-L’s plans and adding a few custom details. I practiced rigging the boat a few times, and I could get the mast up and the sails ready to raise in about a half hour. The mast is pinned through at the maststep, allowing the mast to pivot up and down. I found it quite manageable to get the mast up solo. The forestay holds it up, and then the two side stays brace it for sailing. A lighter aluminum mast would be easier to handle, but in my opinion the beauty of the wood mast is worth the little extra effort.
At the launch ramp for the first time, the boat slid off the trailer with ease. My father and I used a pair of 4′ paddles to make our way out of the shallows before raising the sails. There wasn’t much wind that morning on Shawnigan Lake, but it didn’t take much to get the boat moving. I was pleased by how effortlessly she glided through the water. Later the wind picked up, and we had a wonderful first sailing experience.
Greg Johnson
When tacking, the bow swings smartly through the eye of the wind and is unlikely to get caught in irons.
I learned a lot that first summer, sailing every chance I got. The Glen-L 15’s 114 sq ft of sail area provides spirited sailing. The centerboard is weighted and raised and lowered with a pulley system. When running downwind I found with pulling the centerboard up I could get more speed and still feel stable and in control. When turning from running downwind into a beam reach, I just need to remember to lower the centerboard well before I turn or the lateral pressure will not allow the board drop freely, especially in strong wind. On a broad reach I’ll usually pull the centerboard up about halfway.
I can control the jibsheet, mainsheet, centerboard, and tiller all from a seating position at the stern, so I haven’t found the need for a tiller extension. The arrangement is great for solo sailing and when taking guests out who just want to enjoy the ride rather than tend sheets. The boom sits high, so there’s good visibility forward and no need to duck when coming about. This makes navigating and taking care of passengers easy. I’ve sailed with four adults in light to moderate winds, and the boat performs well. The boat points high when working to windward. There’s plenty of room for three on one side bench when I need to counter heeling in strong winds. If I trim the sails properly, the Glen L-15 holds a course very well on all points of sail and has a near neutral helm—I never have to fight the tiller. When setting the mast rake I was careful to stick to the plans and get it right. I believe this was an important factor to creating a balanced helm.
The winds on my home waters—Shawnigan Lake—can change direction quickly, and large wakeboard-boat wakes makes for a challenging yet fun experience. The boat maneuvers extremely well; it’s very stable without compromising handling or speed. There’s plenty of room for four adults while sailing with ample storage under the foredeck for life jackets, picnic supplies, an anchor or whatever you might need for a daysailing adventure. I bought an electric trolling outboard for those lazy summer evenings on the lake; all the kids take turns playing captain. When the winds are down, the Glen-L 15 can easily be used as a runabout or for fishing
Greg Johnson
The boom and the foot of the jib are both set high, providing a clear view forward and eliminating the need to tell passengers to duck when coming about.
The Glen-L 15 has lived up to my expectations and has been a great boat for learning to sail in a variety of conditions. It usually draws a crowd and a lot of compliments and questions wherever I go. The experienced sailors who have seen the boat say I’d have no problem exploring the protected coastal waters of the British Columbia coast. My next project is to design sleeping arrangements for two on either side of the centerboard trunk for camp cruising. The Glen-L 15’s versatility would make it a boat almost everyone can enjoy.
Kelsey Johnson was born and raised in Victoria, British Columbia, and grew up waterskiing, surfing, and snow skiing on Vancouver island. A journeyman carpenter by trade, he and his brother own a construction company and build custom homes in Victoria and surrounding areas.
We had arrived at Port Townsend, Washington, a few days before the start of the 2015 Race to Alaska (R2AK) so we would have a chance to make any repairs after our sail there from Gabriola Island in British Columbia, and to watch the fleet arriving. Our 100-mile pre-race trip from Gabriola had been a success, and we felt good about our chances of winning the race—until the other boats started showing up.
Quill Goldman
Although we launched on the scheduled day of April 12, many rig details remained unfinished. The 6-week pre-race trial we intended to do was reduced to about 6 day trips. This little beach on the northwest corner of Valdes was part of one of them.
Early in the morning of June 4 we made our final preparations in the pre-dawn light, and then backed out of our slip. We were nearly cut in half by a racing shell tearing out of the darkness. Having narrowly avoided being skewered before even leaving the harbor, we hoisted our jib and sailed out past the hundreds of people lining the shores. We’d just cleared the jetty when again we were nearly broadsided, but this time by a guy on a paddleboard giving out hot oatmeal.
The one-minute gun went off, and we had to put our oatmeals down, raise the main, and sail back up to the line. We crossed right at the gun, ahead of the fleet of nearly 60 boats charging down on top of us. We were at the head of the pack—for a few seconds, at least, until the multihulls blew past us as if we were standing still. Catamarans, trimarans, and proas left clouds of blowing spray where their boats used to be.
The fleet was soon drawn out into two groups: the fast sailers, and the rest of us. It was blowing 15 knots out of the west, and we were happily sailing upwind at 6 knots, well behind the leaders, but upwind of many of the others.
Tad Roberts
We rowed into Victoria harbor at the finish of the first leg, somewhere near the middle of the fleet. Throughout the trip, weather conditions never remained constant for very long, and switching between rowing and sailing we often found ourselves struggling into and out of our dry suits.
We noticed a small red speck growing larger on the horizon behind us. By the time we were halfway across the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Roger Mann, in a 17′ outriggered kayak, caught us, and then stayed ahead of us the whole way to the entrance to the inner harbor of Victoria, British Columbia. Just as we passed the “No Sail” marker and dropped our sails to row in, a canoe full of what appeared to be women dressed for Sunday tea came blasting around the corner behind us. By the time we figured out what we were looking at, Team Soggy Beavers, in drag, had beat us to dock.
We covered 40 miles in just over 6 hours, pretty good considering 18 teams had already dropped out.
After a three-day layover, the race to Ketchikan, Alaska, began. The morning was sunny and windless, and when the starting horn blew, we made good time getting away and steadily rowed past other boats; by the time we cleared the harbor, there were only two ahead of us. We rowed up the inside of Discovery Island, and the catamaran FELIX tacked in toward Oak Bay. PURE AND WILD, a trimaran under main and spinnaker, soon overhauled us. We kept rowing until we saw the rest of the fleet come round the point under sail.
We raised our main, but a keelboat and a catamaran were bearing down on us under spinnakers. We shipped the oars and pulled up our big orange kite. The breeze was slowly building from 5 knots, but the big boats sailed past us as we entered Haro Strait. The Soggy Beavers, six guys in a 30′ outrigger canoe, were way ahead, making a blistering 6 knots in the calms to everyone else’s 4. Team SeaRunner, a catamaran with a crab-claw rig and pedal-powered propellers, had taken an early lead and were making for the San Juan Island side of the channel.
The breeze held and we were making about 5 knots, broad-reaching north in the bright June sunshine toward North Pender Island and closing on Team Grin in their Etchels keelboat. The chase was on until we were just drawing abeam of them, when they bore away for Active Pass, no doubt looking for wind. It was forecast to blow up overnight, and we chose to stay in the more protected waters of Trincomali Channel. With no competitors in sight, the boat sailing nicely, and the golden sun nearing the mountains of Vancouver Island, I went down for a nap.
I woke to the sound of the oars sliding through their locks; I’d been out for three or four hours. The night sky was full of stars, and the wind had gone. Dylan and I rowed between the puffs through the middle of the night while Mitch slept. Even with the light of a nearly full moon, we still managed to row into a tree with a rootball, and later had to fend off a beach with an oar when the shadows tricked our depth perception.
After gaining no ground on two tacks off Wallace Island, we took to the oars again. Mitch and Dylan traded places, and as the sky in the east glowed pink, we rowed along Galliano Island. The tracker showed that our labors of the night had gained us little. Team Boatyard Boys had spent the night in a small bay and were now only 2 hours behind us, making 3.5 knots to our 2.5.
We doubled our efforts, and soon we were at Polier Pass. The wind, forecast to blow up overnight, had never materialized, so we decided to go through the pass to look for a breeze in the open Strait of Georgia. As the flooding tide sucked us through, we struggled in the light wind to avoid a long row of short, steep, standing waves that extended out toward the mainland. A mile out the breeze filled in, but it was from the northwest and counter a northward-flowing current of the strait. Seeing a patch of flatter water about a mile wide along the shore of Valdes, we decided to short-tack up the coast. I took this opportunity to try to sleep.
About an hour later I was awakened by water coming over the gunwale. I was quickly out of bed and on the weather rail. The flatter water we’d been in had disappeared. The GPS told us there was a small channel inside the reef in front of us, so we tried to take advantage of what little protection it offered. Short-tacking close to a lee shore, we aimed the boat at the foaming pile of angry waves where the channel was supposed to be. Squeaking through with large brown rocks visible just below the surface, inches from either side, we were then able to tack away from that horrible sight.
Nearing our Gabriola Island homeport of Silva Bay, we struggled to sail up around Breakwater Island, the southernmost of the Flat Top group that would offer us protection. Pinching as hard as we could to get round the point, we were just about clear, when team Uncruise Adventures came blasting over top of us, stealing our wind. Once again we found ourselves clawing off an uncomfortably close lee shore. We aimed for the nearest sandy beach on Gabriola, and within minutes were high and dry. We were hardly ashore more than 5 minutes, when we were surrounded by a group of our hometown friends. A half dozen had been watching our track on their computers, and raced to us by water and land to see what was wrong. We told them our story, then made our way into Silva Bay to gather our wits, make some essential adjustments to our reefing system, and wait for the wind to ease. It never did.
Our check of the tracker showed that most of the other teams were also holing up. A few were just going back and forth out in the strait, moving fast but making no headway. We stayed the night, constantly checking the tracker and the weather report. The teams that had stayed out were battling 40-knot winds. The wind rattled the treetops around us, and we hoped everyone would make it through the night.
We were up early, checking everyone’s progress. The three or four boats in the front had extended their lead, while most of the boats near us had stayed put. Those who had stayed out in the strait had been punished. Team Turn Point Designs and team Pure and Wild, retired from the race and were heading back south. Team Sea Wolf, sailing in a 17′, roto-molded hydrofoil, were unable to tack into the giant waves, and unable to bear away for fear of pitchpoling. With their boat nearly awash, they were slowly being driven down on to the Fraser River delta. Shortly before dawn they radioed the Coast Guard and abandoned their vessel for the safety of the rescue cutter.
Team Boatyard Boys and team Super Friends had also come into Silva Bay. We spent the day chewing our nails, checking the marine weather, checking the tracker, driving to the windward end of the island to confirm the conditions, and hiding from people we knew in the grocery store. “What are you guys doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be doing that race?”
Late in the afternoon on the third day, the wind was still blowing 30–35 knots where we were, but all the weather stations in the area were reporting moderate winds of 20–25 knots.
The lead boat, ELSIE PIDDOCK, a 25′ trimaran, was making unimaginable progress, and their lead seemed unassailable. In a momentary lull we cast off and sailed for Sechelt. It was rough, but manageable, and we had an exciting sail across the Georgia Strait. When the last of the light disappeared from the sky, we still had a couple hours of sailing ahead to reach the nearest bay. The white wave crests were all we could see, and when we sailed into Seargent Bay at 2 a.m., we were too exhausted to anchor and instead tied up to the dock of a large, empty-looking house. Spreading our mats out on the dock, we would get up at first light to continue.
Well, we all overslept, and we were surprised to see a man and woman coming down the ramp from the house. Fearing we’d be beaten with sticks for trespassing, we were quick to answer their questions. They had heard of this race, and instead of giving us a thrashing, they invited us up for breakfast. Fortified for our journey, we set sail once again.
The wind was much lighter and we enjoyed the day, sailing across to Sabine Channel where we tacked in the sunset glow between Lasqueti and Texada islands. We pulled into a nice bay at the top of Lasqueti, unloaded our gear on shore, anchored the boat, made a fire and dinner, and turned in.
Quill Goodman
We expected to be sailing in snow and icebergs, but over 90% of our race was in sunshine and puffy little clouds. After the three days of high winds that had kept us pinned down in Silva Bay, the 10-15 knots of breeze that took us west across the Strait of Georgia from Sergeant Bay to Lasqueti was a welcome respite.
We were up at first light and ready to go, but the ocean was about 500′ from where our boat was sitting in the mud. We tried moving the boat to the water, but the beach was so flat that even if we moved it halfway, it would only get us floating an hour or so sooner. It wasn’t worth the effort, so we resigned ourselves to watching the tide come in.
The wind was back up again, and in no time the north end of Texada was off our starboard beam. The forecast was for 25–30 knots of wind to continue through the night, so we sailed for Comox. The waves were big, but long, and we were getting used to this kind of sailing. Even still, with four reefs tied in the main and the setting sun shining through mountains of green water, we were relieved to round Goose Spit an hour or two after dark and sail into the Comox marina under the orange glow of sodium lamps. We dropped our main just inside the breakwater and soon had our beds unrolled under some trees in the park.
The wind had increased overnight, and in the morning a seafood festival was setting up not far from us in the park, and their tables and decorations were rolling across the field like a bunch of tumbleweeds.
A check of the tracker on the iPad showed us that our dreams of winning this race were over. Barely five days from the start, ELSIE PIDDOCK had pulled into Ketchikan. We were barely a hundred miles into the race, with 650 left to go. It was too windy to go sailing, so we spent the day loitering. A friend took us to his house for the night where we had dinner and slept in his yard. The next morning we were up at first light, determined to carry on. There were still a few fast boats nearby that would be fun to race against, and after all, this was a race to Alaska, dammit, and we were going all the way!
The wind was moderate, and Seymore Narrows was less than a day’s sail away. During the run along the Vancouver Island coast from Comox to Campbell River, I took a nap up in the bow, and noticed when I awoke the spare rudder was being used. One of the blades had drifted off, and no one had noticed it go.
We had missed our window to get through the Narrows on this tide, so we stopped in Campbell River. An hour later and we were back in the boat, headed for a bay close to the Narrows to wait for the next ebb to carry us through.
We found a fish farm, and thinking their floats looked more inviting than a night on the hook, we tied up to one, at the bottom of the ramp that led ashore. We went up to the little house at the top of the ramp, and knocked on the door. The guy who answered was very interested in what we were doing, let us tie up for the night, and invited us to sleep in the three spare bunkbeds. We tucked ourselves in early so we could get a predawn start to catch the ebb through the narrows.
We cast off in darkness. As we sailed off the dock, we could see team Excellent Adventure beating along about a half mile ahead. We chased them through the Narrows and up Discovery Passage into the freshening 15-knot breeze. As we rounded Chatham Point into the notorious Johnstone Strait, the scattered clouds had disappeared, the sun was out, the breeze had settled into a steady 10 knots, and by the time we passed Blind Channel at the bottom of Thurlow Island, we were certain that we were gaining on Excellent Adventure, but they suddenly veered hard to starboard, toward Knox Bay. So we sailed on, working the eddies along the shore, and doing well against the current.
Quill Goldman
Although funds were tight for this project, we made getting excellent dry suits a priority. I wouldn’t contemplate doing the trip without them. They served as “personal watercraft” while swimming from our anchored boat to the shore and kept us warm and dry while underway.
Mitch had gone down for a nap, and Dylan was settling in on the trapeze as we passed Kelsey Bay, when we spotted a white line on the horizon. It was approaching rapidly, so we called Mitch on deck and tied in a reef.
It hit us like a wall. The wind doubled instantly, and the lazy current became a churning frenzy. We tied in the second reef, but it was still building, and within minutes we were skipping the third reef and tying in the fourth. Still overpowered, we pinched as close as we could and let the current sweep us along past the top of Hardwicke Island. The waves were rising and falling beneath us and on top of us.
Desperate to get out of this maelstrom, we steered for the channel between two small islands, Clarence and Yorke. We had to get into the lee of Yorke’s east side, but couldn’t safely bear away, even under four reefs. Dropping the main completely, we turned and ran. There wasn’t much of a bay on the east side of Yorke, but the white beaches of Hardwicke Point looked like heaven. They faced west, into the wind, but were in Yorke’s lee. A sandy beach on a falling tide sounded like just the respite we needed.
The beach on Hardwicke was not sand, but rocks, between fist and head size. The moment we reached shore, Mitch ran up the beach and while Dylan and I struggled to hold the boat in waist-deep water, Mitch was frantically trying to peel his off dry suit to relieve a bout of explosive diarrhea. By the time he staggered out of the bushes, we were trying to haul the boat ashore. We tried stuffing logs under it to slide on, but the waves would wash them away before we could drag the boat onto them. Dylan found a large cooler on the beach. He tied the bow line to it, filled it with rocks until it was just floating, dragged it out into neck-deep water, and sank it with a final armload of rocks. This would be enough to keep the boat out of the breaking surf. After tying a pair of stern lines to logs above the high-tide mark, we were ready to light a fire and dry ourselves off.
Mitch had chosen the only flat, open spot around to do his business, so we had to make camp down the beach, underneath a low-hanging cedar. The boat would start to dry out around 6 a.m., so we went to bed early, so we could help guide it safely on the rocks in the morning as the tide went out. We lay down in the deep moss and listened to the wind rip through the big cedar branches above.
I woke up at 4 a.m. to check on the boat, and it was already high and dry. There was nothing to be done about it, so I crawled back into my bag and slept in till late. Once the sun was high in the sky, we went down to the boat to find it high-centered on a large rock. The Kevlar-sheathed bottom had held up, and a little paint would put it right again, but we had to spend the day waiting for the tide to float the boat.
Quill Goldman
The farther north we went, the less hospitable the beaches were. Finding protected anchorages was not often a problem, but places big enough for three people and all their gear wasn’t always so easy. A beach line off the bow, and a haul back to an anchor off the stern was our most common form of mooring.
Our third, and last, handheld waterproof VHF radio had stopped working, so we were unable to listen to the marine broadcast. The wind had held steady since the previous day, at what we later learned was around 40 knots. When our boat was afloat we didn’t even bother putting up the sail, but rowed the 300′ or so from Hardwicke Island, to a small nook on the east side of Yorke. As we came in, we dropped the anchor over the stern, and paid out the rode until we could unload our gear on the beach. Once everything was ashore, I hauled the boat back out to the end of its bow line, tied off the stern, zipped up my dry suit, and swam ashore. We lit a fire, made dinner, and laid our sleeping bags down among the scrub pine along the shore.
Quill Goldman
Although we were again shorebound by high winds for a few days on Yorke Island, the decommissioned World War II military outpost there was very interesting, and the view of windswept Johnstone Strait couldn’t be beat.
The wind had eased some overnight and we were eager to go, but continuing on without a VHF was a risk we weren’t willing to take. While I was washing the breakfast dishes, a sailboat motored close by; I flagged it down and a man got aboard a dinghy and came to help us. I asked if he had a spare handheld VHF he’d sell. He didn’t, but he gave us the phone number of a guy, who had the number of another guy, who referred us to a store that sells VHFs to fish farmers. I had a cell phone and coverage, but none of us had a credit card, so Mitch had to call his sister in New Brunswick to get her credit-card numbers. We made the purchase; a boat working the fish farms would deliver the radio on their usual rounds.
Now all we had to do was wait. That was made easier by the fact that a weather station less than a mile away was still reporting winds of 30–40 knots. The next morning though, the wind had eased to a reasonable 10 to 15 knots, the tide was favorable, and we could see on the tracker that the other teams near us had been on the move since first light.
The call we’d been waiting for came on my phone: The boat with our new VHF was on its way. So we set off in the direction we were told we’d find the nearest fish farm. We hadn’t gone too far in the wrong direction down Sunderland Channel before the delivery-boat skipper found us. He’d been zigzagging up the channel, checking every sailboat on the way. Apparently the farm we had been directed to had been moved a couple years ago.
With this critical piece of equipment delivered, we set our sights for Port Neville, about 10 miles to the north. The old store and post office had been closed for years, but we tied up to the dock and went up to the house to see who was home. The friendly gray-haired people who lived there had company in the kitchen, but were happy to let us fill up our water jugs from their garden hose. The sun was out, but a strong flood would be against us for the next couple hours. When the current eased, we cast off once again. It was well after noon by the time we were underway in earnest, but we covered 18 miles and pulled into Boat Bay not long after dark.
Scrambling around on the bluffs with our headlamps, searching for a secure place to tie up, we came across a handful of tent platforms and a small cabin. Owned by the parks, this station on West Cracroft Island overlooked Robson Bight and monitored whales traveling the Inside Passage. The door was open, and reasoning this was park property, we let ourselves in and unrolled our mats on the bunks.
Quill Goldman
I had big plans of documenting our trip with photos and videos, providing plenty of updates for fans and sponsors, but in reality we had a hard time keeping our batteries charged. When conditions were good enough that we could take time for the camera, there wasn’t enough action to bother filming. When things did get exiting, we were too busy sailing the boat to mess around with dead batteries and tiny digital storage chips. Fortunately I managed to capture a little of the fun we had on our way from Alert Bay to Sointula. Left to right: Quill Goldman, Mitch Burns, Dylan Davenport.
We pulled our anchor early the next morning, but the wind had died, and we spent most of the day rowing 15 miles to Alert Bay in a light drizzle. The boiling current pushed us around as we rowed through Pearse Passage, and by the time we drew close to Cormorant Island, we were pulling hard upstream in the pouring rain.
Two people riding bicycles near the shore waved at us, gesturing us to follow them along the road that paralleled the beach. Pulling for all we were worth, we inched past the moss-covered pilings that held up the remains of former fish-processing plants. Our welcoming party showed us which dock to tie to and gave us two jars of canned salmon. They were fans of the race and had followed us on the race tracker.
There was a restaurant a couple of blocks away, so we got some burgers for lunch. Our constitutions restored, we put our dry suits back on and prepared to head back out into the pouring rain. Coming out the door after us, the cook brought us a freshly baked loaf of bread.
The rain eased, a light breeze sprang up from the south, and for the first time since the start of the race, 11 days ago, we hoisted our spinnaker. For about 30 minutes. Then the breeze, about 5 knots’ worth, swung around on the nose, bringing a torrential downpour.
It was only 5 miles to Sointula on Malcolm Island, but we were relieved when we finally began rowing past all the derelict marine railways that lined the bay. Our friend Nate lived on the island, and when we tied up to the government dock he was there in his truck to meet us. He took us home, let us spread our wet gear to dry by the woodstove, cooked us a big spaghetti dinner, put up his couches for us to sleep on, and took us back down to the dock in the morning.
It turned out to be another day of light, variable headwinds, with periods of rain. Our GPS showed it was 22 miles across Queen Charlotte Strait to Blunden Harbor. Tucked behind Robinson Island, it looked to be protected from any winds.
We dropped our sails as we came to the entrance to the harbor, and rowing in, the prospects for camping ashore didn’t look good. The cedar trees and salal grew thick at the water’s edge, and the only open areas were foul with sharp, pointy rocks. The light was getting dim, and the overcast sky was heavy with the rain that would soon be falling hard and fast.
As we came around the corner of the Augustine Islands, we saw a new galvanized steel-grate dock on plastic floats. A little cabin not far down the beach was just visible through the trees. A sign at the top of the dock proclaimed the land is a native reserve of the Nak’waxda’xw. The trail to the cabin followed the shore and some recent clearing of brush along the edge of the forest revealed the remains of an old settlement.
The cabin was a 16′ by 16′ plywood box, bare inside but for a woodstove and three sleeping platforms. A plastic pipe carried water from a well on the hillside to a laundry sink on the porch; firewood was stacked under the house. The door was open. We lit a fire in the stove and made dinner, and went to sleep listening to the rain thunder down on the roof.
The next morning we packed up our stuff and tidied the cabin. We were just casting off our lines when an aluminum boat roared into the bay and coasted up to the dock. There were 10 or so people on board, half of them Nak’waxda’xw natives, half of them anthropologists. We told them what we were doing and hoped they didn’t mind that we had stayed in their cabin. They were glad it had kept us warm and dry. They were here to survey the area of the old settlement we had seen traces of in the forest and along the shoreline.
It had been a village for centuries, with plank houses and boardwalks on pilings until 1964 when the department of Indian affairs made it necessary for everyone to move to a reservation in Port Hardy. Many preferred the old life, however, and some moved back to their traditional village. The department of Indian affairs responded by throwing everybody’s stuff onto the beach, and burning the entire village to the ground.
Now, 40 years later, people still want to move back; elders want to return to the village they had grown up in. This new dock and the survey were the first steps in that direction. The man standing in front of us said his mother’s body was laid to rest in the tallest tree that grew on one of the tiny islands in the bay. We thanked them and sailed out into a sunny day and we once again set a course straight into the wind.
The race had been won for over a week, and all we knew of our closest competitors was that they had last been seen days ago. We were on an expedited cruise at this point, and the farther we sailed from Port Hardy, the farther we sailed from our last chance to quit this race. We had been sailing straight upwind under quadruple- reefed main for nearly two weeks in an open boat; many other boats had long since thrown in the towel. We could have gone home, and been pleased with having come this far. But we didn’t. The boat had held up beautifully, we knew what to expect from it, and with the pressure of competition more or less removed, we had an opportunity to take the time to explore this beautiful coast.
After beating past the Richard Islands in Millar Passage, we ducked into Shelter Bay and found a nice hole to anchor in behind some islands just off Westcott Point. Once we pulled in, we could see that the beach was sandy, and the tide falling, so we decided to let the boat go aground for the night. After a short walk through the old-growth forest to watch the sun disappear into the Pacific Ocean, we lit a driftwood fire to help keep away the mosquitoes, laid our bedrolls in the sand, and went to sleep under the bright starry sky.
The boat was floating when we woke at sunrise the next morning, so we quickly packed and pushed off. The wind was too light for sailing and a thick-but-bright fog had settled in, so we rowed for a couple hours with the open ocean swell gently lifting us on its glassy surface. Somewhere around the Storm Islands the breeze began filling in, so we held our tack toward Japan, ghosting out to sea in a circle of visibility 100 yards across.
Preceded by a deep rumble, a southbound tug with a barge-load of logs appeared out of the mist in front of us. We tacked back toward the land, when all of a sudden, 50 yards ahead, there was a white line of ocean swells breaking against the bluffs of Cape Caution. We quickly came about, looking for sea room. Eventually the fog lifted and we set a course for Table Island at the mouth of Smith Sound.
Quill Goldman
It wasn’t absolutely necessary that we stop at the old cannery in Namu, just south of Bella Bella, but it was a point of interest, and had played a major role in the history of this part of the coast. Considered by many an environmental disaster that was abandoned by those responsible for it, the reclamation by the surrounding forest has a certain undeniable beauty to it.
We’d come about 25 miles since morning. Sailing into the channel between Table and Anne islands, we found another sandy beach on a falling tide on Anne Island, and ran ashore. Our boat was moored on the east side of the island, where the undergrowth was a little thinner under the ancient canopy overhead. We collected an armload of giant mussels and gooseneck barnacles from the west side, where the waves sucked out between the cracks in the rocks. It was the longest day of the year; we cooked our seafood feast over the campfire before settling in to watch the last of the light fade from the summer sky.
After our breakfast of cream of wheat with hippie grains and dried fruit, we set sail and headed north with fair winds and a clear sky. We took the route inside Calvert Island, and then spent most of the day close reaching up Fitzhugh Sound in 10 knots of wind. As we approached Hecate Island, it picked up to 15 knots, before dying away as we crossed Hakai Pass. We wallowed in a wicked slop with waves too big to row in yet not enough wind to sail. The chop washed in through our open transom, and washed back out again. The wind came back suddenly, shifted 90 degrees, and blew about 20 knots.
Quill Goldman
The only bear we got close enough to hear on this trip was in Namu, so we built a protective barricade to isolate us out on this pier.
We tied in our fourth reef and beat all the way to Namu, once the largest cannery on the B.C. coast. The crumbling remains of the fish plant were falling into the sea, the rows of houses swallowed up by the forest. In an old gymnasium, the maple basketball court heaved and curled, acoustic tiles sagged from the ceiling. The old roads were grown in so thick with trees that they were barely even trails. Bugs, which had slowly been growing more abundant the farther north we went, were ferocious and swarming. No amount of bug spray would keep them away, and only by burying our heads in our sleeping bags could we find any relief from their pestilential attack. So we suffocated instead.
The heat of the morning sun chased away enough of the bugs that we were able to emerge from our cocoons. We spread our sail out on the mossy planks of the pier to repair the reefing system. It had become tangled through constant frantic use. We finished up our rigging and loaded all our stuff back in the boat. We raised sail, but there wasn’t any wind, so we rowed for a few hours up Fisher Channel, until a following breeze sprang up and we were able to hoist our big orange spinnaker. We carried it all the way along Lama Pass on the approach to Bella Bella, the second of two race checkpoints.
The wind turned the corner of Denny Island with us and took us right to the Shearwater dock. We had picked up cell-phone coverage in Lama Pass, so I had called ahead to the pub and ordered a pizza and burgers; our meals would be waiting for us when we pulled in.
Colin Mason
We had very few opportunities to put up our spinnaker. Our friend Colin Mason came out to meet us in a friends boat as we pulled through the final checkpoint at Bella Bella.
After eating we unrolled our beds under the cedar trees on the front lawn of the fishing resort. It was good we were under the trees that night, because a heavy mist settled in, and by morning had turned into a proper drizzle. I was awakened by a dog sniffing in my ear.
We plugged our electronic devices in to charge at the laundromat while we went for bacon and eggs at the local restaurant. A few extra provisions from the grocery store, and we were ready to go. We sailed around Cypress Island, into Gunboat Pass, then west into Seaforth Channel. We were aiming to go up Laredo Sound, but first we had to cross Millbank Sound. There was a big swell running in, and the forecast was to blow up for the next couple days, so we took a more protected route to Laredo Sound between Watch and Ivory islands.
Boat Inlet, at the end of long and narrow Reid Passage, looked like the perfect place to spend the night. We had become used to sleeping ashore, but a quick survey of this shore showed us that this wasn’t going to work. The sky threatened rain, but we only had one tarp. There wasn’t a place big enough for the three of us to lie down under it, and some fresh bear scat convinced us we wouldn’t want to even if there was.
We spread the tarp out over the boom as the first heavy drops began to fall; as we settled in to make our dinner, the drops became a deluge and thinned the cloud of mosquitoes and blackflies that had grown around us. Mitch tucked himself under the foredeck for the night, but judging by his cussing, he wasn’t any better off up there. Dylan and I had the tarp over our heads, but it didn’t do much for the water that fell on the rest of the boat. It flowed down around our mats. I carefully folded my drysuit on top of my pad, then carefully laid my sleeping bag out on top of the drysuit, pulling all the loose edges of the sleeping bag underneath me to keep moisture up from wicking up from the pool my bed was floating in. I then pulled the sleeping bag over my head in an attempt to hide from the bugs, which were under our tarp, hiding from the rain.
The next morning I awoke to find I had somehow, miraculously, stayed mostly dry. Mitch, however, was soaked. It was a gray, misty morning, as we rowed out and set sail in Mathieson Channel. There was a 9’ swell running when we got to Millbank Sound, but the wind was just 10 knots, and there was a kind of queasy excitement riding those big swells under that leaden sky. The wind picked up quickly from astern, but was far too much to fly our big kite. We tied in the third and fourth reefs, then dropped the main completely, and were surfing at 9 knots under the jib alone.
When we came around the first corner of Higgins Pass, the wind eased a bit in the lee and we were able to put the smallest piece of our mainsail back up. At the first narrows, we tacked in vain against a powerful ebb current. It was a couple hours before the tide turned, so we ran back and anchored in the lee of a small island by the entrance to Higgins Lagoon. We went ashore and lit a driftwood fire to warm up to. Exhausted after the wild downwind run, we were soon asleep on the rocks by the fire.
Quill Goldman
Most of our camps were characterized by an explosion of dry bags and gear. The surrounding barbed wire made this one a little different, but we assumed it was the remains of an old homestead’s cattle fence. Instead it was meant to keep out hordes of Japanese invaders that never existed.
We woke as the tide was beginning to flood. The pass wasn’t navigable at low tide, and when we got to Lohbrunner Island we chose the shorter, but narrower, southern route around. With our boards up, just a little piece of rudder in the water, and our oars ready to fend off, we ghosted through with an inch or two to spare underneath and to either side.
When we came out from behind the cluster of islands that cover the western end of the pass that runs between Price and Swindle Islands and into Laredo Sound, there was still some swell, but the wind was a fraction of what it had been in Millbank Sound.
As the light grew dimmer and we neared the southern end of Aristazabal Island, it died away, and we had to row to a little bay around the corner of Tildesley Point. The GPS screen flashed, “This accessory is not supported” and winked out forever. We still had Navionics on the iPad, but it used too much power, and we could only afford to turn it on briefly. The GPS had kept track of every tack and jibe, and although we were only half way into the 750-mile race, it had recorded that we had traveled 1,500 miles over the ground. Losing the GPS wasn’t quite as crippling as the VHF, but was felt even harder, as we used it constantly.
Aristazabal offered us a sandy beach on a falling tide. By the light of our headlamps, we rolled out our beds above the tideline between logs half buried in the sand, and went to sleep to the gentle pitter-patter of sand fleas jumping on our sleeping bags.
The boat was floating again by 9:00, so we set out under full sail and a sunny sky. The wind was light, and on the nose and we tacked up Laredo Sound. At dusk we were near a lagoon halfway up the west side of Princess Royal Island. On a rising tide we pushed our way with the oars through one of its narrow entrances, and found ourselves surrounded by jagged rocks that seemed to rise up out of the water in unpredictable places.
We found a section of shore where the sharp, pointy rocks were small enough that we could lay our beds down on them, and scavenged around for wood to build a fire. What we could find was too wet, and no amount of tinder or carving away the wet outer layers seemed to work. We blew on it until we were too exhausted to blow anymore, then, just as we were falling asleep, it caught.
We got under way shortly after daylight the next morning. The water was glassy calm, and there were humpback whales blowing and jumping all around us in the golden morning light. We drifted along, rowing only when the wind failed completely. The whales drifted off, but a couple of curious sea lions followed us.
Dylan Davenport
The beaches of Campania were among our favorites of the many beautiful places we stopped. Our stay on one of its long white beaches was brief, with a quick snack and a refreshing dip while we waited for the current to ease and the breeze to build.
We rowed across Squally Channel, and up the west side of Campania Island. The sun was hot, the current running against us. We rowed through kelp and over a sandy white bottom where hundreds of flatfish shot off in all directions. We beached the boat and stretched our legs in the pristine white sand. There were wolf prints all over the beach. We found a small stream and I took off my clothes and washed the salt off them and myself.
The wind filled in, so we cut our stay short, and headed out into Nepean Sound. There was only about 7 knots of breeze, but it was a little more west than north, so we made good progress and sailed another 20 miles before we stopped in a small bay on the southwest corner of Pitt Island. We collected firewood in the failing light and camped where the edges of the forest met the scrub bush that grows along the shore. The moss was so thick we needed mats to keep from sinking into it.
At the first light of day we ate a breakfast of blueberries from the bushes surrounding our camp and filled one of our jugs from a stream nearby. As the pink morning glow crept down the mountains of Banks Island to the west, we sailed into Nepeah Sound. The wind was steady but light, and at midday, as we reached Principe Channel, the current took us backward faster than then wind could pull us forward.
We were debating whether to pull out the oars or land to wait out the tide when a couple of aluminum speedboats approached and several native fishermen pulled alongside. When we told them who we were and what we were doing, they looked at the boat, then looked doubtfully at us. They asked us if we wanted any salmon. We said sure, how much? “Oh, no charge,” they said, “we just caught 200 sockeye. How many do you want?” We didn’t think we could deal with more than two, but they gave us three anyway and wished us luck. We hit the beach to dress the fish. Giant cruise ships motored past on their way to Alaska, and we speculated on the contrast between their trip and ours.
The wind picked up enough that we could outsail the current, and before long we passed Anger Island. The sun disappeared as we crossed Petrel Channel, and behind the Cliff Islands we found a nice little rock to spend the night on. We built a fire and put the fillets of two salmon on wet cedar driftwood as close to the fire as we could without the cedar bursting into flames. While they were cooking, we ate the third salmon raw with soy sauce. The sky was especially big and starry that night, and the rock we slept on radiated the day’s heat.
We set a course down Principe Channel. The breeze was a steady 12–15 knots and we made good speed through the water, but the current was against us, so we didn’t cover much ground. A pod of humpbacks went by, making much better progress. As we sailed into Browning Entrance, our 15 knots of wind suddenly became 25 and a big swell from Hecate Strait, combining with a strong current ebbing out of Ogden Channel, made for some very tense sailing. With four reefs in, it was all we could do to sail into the lee of a small island for shelter, but when we got there, a strong current threatened to suck us into the rocks. We quickly took to the oars to move away, then had to stow them just as quickly as the current swept us back into the maelstrom. We tacked into the lee of another small rock and put ashore to catch our breath, collect our wits, and have some lunch.
There was nothing to do but go straight back out and get as much sea room as possible. We put up the main with four reefs and braced ourselves for the ride. The wind blowing in from the Hecate Strait was behind us, and when we got into Beaver Passage the confused seas turned into a steady, long, following swell. This was definitely our best speed of the trip, but we didn’t have our GPS to tell us how fast, and we were too busy hanging on to risk fishing the iPad out.
As we turned around Spicer Island, the wind veered, whistling down the mountains and out of the inlets, and we beat our way past the village of Kitkatla, the first sign of human habitation we had seen in five days. There was still an hour or so of daylight left, so we carried on to Porcher Island.
There wasn’t a good place to camp, so Mitch fought his way back into the salal until he found a spot big enough to lie down underneath it. Dylan and I made our nests on the beach. The only spots reasonable to lie down on were between big old logs at the high tide line. The spaces between them were filled with driftwood and bits of plastic flotsam, so we rearranged little sticks until only a few were poking up. We wrapped ourselves in our hot, suffocating sleeping bags against the bugs, and went to sleep with the ocean gently lapping, inches away.
At dawn our boat was hanging at the end of its beach line, bow up at a 45-degree angle in a pile of boulders. There didn’t seem to be any damage, but the boat was in too precarious a position to move, so we had to wait for the tide. It was already on its way in and eventually lifted the boat as gently from the rocks as it had set it on them.
We rowed out into a calm Ogden Channel and the breeze began to fill. By the time we got to Arthur Passage at the south end of Kennedy Island, it was raining and we were beating our way upwind in 15 knots. When we got to the top of the island, the sun came out, and the wind seemed to ease. The tide was flooding, so we decided to risk running over a sandspit the Skeena River had deposited on the top of Kennedy Island. With boards and rudders up, we charged through the breaking waves, with unknown inches of brown, muddy water beneath us and into the calmer water beyond.
We decided to take advantage of the respite to cook some spaghetti for lunch. By the time Mitch got all the stuff out, and the onions chopped, I had noticed a white line on the horizon, moving in our direction. I suggested to Mitch that he start putting everything away. He tucked some stuff away, but continued cooking. The current in Marcus Passage quickly carried us closer to the white line, and it soon showed itself to be a wall of towering waves with foaming crests. They just stood there, unmoving, while we were inexorably swept into them, as though carried down a river. We punched into the wall; green water poured over the bow, flooding the boat instantly. With 6″ of water sloshing around in the cockpit and bits of food floating everywhere, I yelled at Mitch to put the goddamn lunch away. The hatches were now underwater, so he shoved what he could up into the bow.
The current was pushing us more than our sails were, so we had little steerage and struggled to keep from being smashed into the rocks of Smith Island that were speeding by close to starboard. What waves we didn’t go through, we went over, falling off their tops, slamming into the narrow troughs beyond. We had never been so appreciative of our open transom, as most of the hundreds of gallons of green water that poured in over the bow, carried right on out the stern.
The pounding diminished as we neared open water past the Lawyer Islands, but then the river flow coming out of Inverness Passage hammered into us. We continued our fight to stay upright, until we were near the coal ports of Ridley Island, where the water flattened out, and the waning breeze turned to follow us into Prince Rupert Harbour.
As we came abeam of the big cranes at the shipping terminal, a speedboat came out to meet us. It was our friend Colin once again. We called a cab for the ride into town from the dock where we were tied up. Unfortunately the kitchen was closed at the pub, so we had a few Caesars—Canada’s much better version of the Bloody Mary. On our way back to the boat, we stopped at a 7-Eleven to buy a bunch of junk food. Back at the boat we ate our greasy “food” before unrolling our beds on the dock.
We woke up early and set sail for Venn Passage, a narrow channel between Digby Island and the Tsimpsean peninsula. Working the eddies alongshore, we crept through the kelp beds. It was sunny with about 12 knots of breeze, and soon we were reaching up Chatham Sound. The wind went light at Dundas Island, and a strong current was heading east through notorious Dixon Entrance. We played the eddies behind Holliday Island, to get well north and west before we sailed into the current. The sky was pink, and a big oily swell lifted us as we sailed across the line that marked our entry to Alaska. It was dusk as we neared Cape Fox on the mainland and completely dark 4 miles later when we passed the Tree Point lighthouse.
Mitch and Dylan wanted to go ashore for the night, but the southerly that had been forecast still hadn’t come, and I wanted to be on the water when it did. We were nearly at our goal and close to the cutoff day for completing the course: We had to reach Ketchikan before the official sweep boat could pass us and put us among the boats officially listed as “Did Not Finish.” We were in a race against the clock and the grim sweeper.
Barely ghosting along upwind, Dylan lay down to try to get some sleep. Not long after, Mitch did the same. Our solar panel wasn’t charging our iPad—we turned it on only when absolutely necessary—so I steered by the stars and the silhouettes of mountains until the clouds and the rain moved in, and then I steered by the wind coming down Revillagigedo Channel, and kept the bow pinched into the wind. Up ahead I saw a flashing light and checked the iPad to see what it was. The only light it could have been should have been astern. I realized that the wind had turned and was coming from the south, and I was now going the wrong way. I turned to sail with the wind at my back and the bow to the north.
A vessel overtook us, rumbling into the night, so I followed it, steering by its stern light until it was swallowed up by the low, wet clouds. By about 3 in the morning, traces of light were showing over the mountains to the east.
We had come about 10 miles in the dark, and were in the middle of Revillagigedo Channel off Foggy Bay as the southerly began to fill in with the coming dawn. Mitch and I hoisted the big orange kite. We set a course for Mary Island, and broad-reached through narrow, rocky Danger Pass into Felice Strait.
We made great time under spinnaker with humpback whales blowing and splashing all around us. When we rounded Ham Island, back into Revillagigedo Channel, we fell into a lee, where we wallowed for a bit, until about Bold Island, where it picked up again, but on the nose. We made our final approach with Mitch on the helm, until he had to answer the call of nature and nearly capsized the boat while trying to steer with his knee and look over his shoulder to hold his course.
Nick Reid
Our bid for the cash prize may have been cut short early on, but we spent more time on the course and saw more of the coast than most of the other teams. Of the six boats built specifically for the first edition of the R2AK, two never made the starting line, and three never made the finish. While 28 boats set out from Victoria, only 15 made it to Ketchikan. It may sound like something your mom would tell you after a challenging day, but I think we really were the “Final Winners.”
A boat with some race staff came to see what was taking us so long, and make sure we knew where we were going. We did, but we weren’t sure how much room was in the harbor, so we dropped our mainsail before entering the basin. We pulled up to the dock at 2 pm on July 2, 25 days from Victoria. The race organizers came through on their promise of a cold beer and a warm bed. We were the 15th and final boat to finish. We had been beaten by a 60-year-old guy in a kayak, and yet we hardly tasted the irony of our title, “The Final Winners.” We had made it in one piece. All the way to Ketchikan.
Quill Goldman grew up on British Colombia’s Discovery Islands, and spent most of his early years in boats, traveling from one island to another. He was interested in boats, their maintenance and construction, and enrolled in the Silva Bay Shipyard School on Gabriola Island. His boating adventures range from maxi-yacht racing in the Baltic and Mediterranean, to shipping concrete ballast from the bilges of steel ships. Quill is the owner of Barefoot Wooden Boats and has participated in all of the shipyard raids that were once popular on the North American west coast during the early years of this millennium. He is eager to see interest in these types of adventures once again take hold. You can reach him at Barefoot Wooden Boats.
The Barefoot 5.8
The Barefoot 5.8 was designed by Tad Roberts for Barefoot Wooden Boats to compete in the 2015 Race to Alaska, a 750-mile, unsupported, engineless race from Port Townsend, Washington, along the entire coastline of western Canada to Ketchikan, Alaska. She was drawn as a yawl but launched as a sloop because we ran out of time before we had to head to Port Townsend for the start. The 210-sq-ft main, 110-sq-ft jib, and 365-sq-ft asymmetric masthead spinnaker fly from a 30′ carbon-fiber mast. The main and jib are PX15 Mylar, by Evolution Sails. The nylon spinnaker was made by Storch Sails. All standing and running rigging is Dyneema, and was supplied by New England ropes. Blocks and hardware are from Harken. The hull has a fine entry, low deadrise, and a flat run aft. The waterline is narrower than a sailor might wish, but we expected to cover many miles under oars, so we made a compromise.
In keeping with a Barefoot/Roberts theme of classic style and modern performance, the construction is a hybrid: all lumber was salvaged from either windfall or off the beach, and above the waterline the red cedar plank laps are fastened to each other with trunnels, and bronze ring nails to sawn yellow-cedar frames; below the waterline 1/4″ stitch-and-glue plywood is shaped over a torsion-box frame and sheathed and bonded in Ecopoxy and Kevlar. Eight watertight hatches provide access to four separate compartments beneath cockpit sole. The sole, set 4″ above the waterline, and an open transom allows any water shipped aboard to flow freely out the stern.
The twin rudders and twin, asymmetric bilge boards are red-cedar, strip-planked and sheathed in Vectorply 12-oz quadraxial carbon fiber. The bilge boards are angled in about 12 degrees, and the rudders kick up and lift vertically. An 8′ carbon-fiber bowsprit is held in a bronze stem fitting fabricated by Bob Wyche. Side decks are 1/4″ marine ply, glassed, and covered in full-length, 1/4″ sprung yellow cedar. All ply is painted with Aquagard water-based marine enamel. The oars are 11′ Sitka spruce and are pulled from two modified, extruded aluminum, home rowing-machine seats and tracks, lashed to the cockpit sole. Stainless-steel T nuts are bedded in the sole on top of every frame to accept eye bolts where needed.
Construction began in the middle of December 2014, and the launch was on April 12, 2015. We christened the boat DICK SMILEY, after our late friend and founding partner of Barefoot Wooden Boats, Richard Lyons. During the construction period, I was a single dad on alternate weeks, and for the weeks in between I worked on the boat some 70 to 80 hours. We devoted four weeks to rigging and tuning before we set sail from Gabriola Island bound for Port Townsend for the race start. The DS could have been built lighter, but I wanted a boat that would last for years and wouldn’t break open like a piñata halfway to Alaska.
Of the six boats that were built specifically for the 2015 R2AK, two never made the starting line, and three dropped out. It weighed in 25 lbs over her designed weight of 500 lbs; fully loaded it should displace 1250 lbs, but we probably left Gabriola closer to 1400. –QG
Barefoot 5.8 Particulars
[table]
LOA/19′0″
LWL/19′0″
Beam/6′5″
Draft,hull/6″
[/table]
If you have an interesting story to tell about your adventures with a small wooden boat, please email us a brief outline and a few photos.
The first time I rowed up the Inside Passage—from Washington’s Puget Sound to Prince Rupert, British Columbia—I used a long loop of line to pull the boat to and from the anchor during my stops on land. But it required an awful lot of line and wasn’t worth the trouble unless I was going to spend the night camped on shore. It wasn’t until I ended my trip that I was shown a better way. A native fisherman from Metlakatla, a Tsimshian village a few miles to the northwest of Prince Rupert taught me how the locals anchor their boats when they stop ashore.
all photographs by the author
In 1987 I used the Tsimshian system frequently with my Gokstad faering on a second cruise up the Inside Passage. The anchor is ready to drop over the side with the retrieval line secured to the stock and the chain, rode, and painter joined to the shank.
The technique has been called Siwash anchoring. The Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, published in 1909, defines siwash simply as “Indian.” More recent sources list the French sauvage, meaning savage, as the origin of the word. Siwash is now regarded as a derogatory term, so if it is time to retire it, we can use Tsimshian instead.
Ashore for the night on one of British Columbia’s Gulf Islands, I gave the faering a hard shove to send it out to deeper water.
The fisherman who showed me the technique tied one end of a long line into the stock of his anchor and tied the other end on shore above the high-tide mark. He set the anchor on the edge of the foredeck and flaked the chain, rode, and the long retrieval line on the deck. The rode was flaked first with the chain on top, and the retrieval line flaked with the shoreside on top so both would pay out without tangling. The fisherman gave the boat a hard push away from shore, and when the last of the retrieval line had gone over the side, it pulled the anchor overboard, and the chain and rode followed. Because the boat was still moving the chain didn’t pile up on top of the anchor and foul it.
After all of the anchor-retrieval line had slipped over the side, the anchor dropped overboard.
When I rowed up the Inside Passage a second time, I used the Tsimshian anchoring technique frequently. The replica of the Gokstad faering I’d built for the trip was finished bright all around, even on the bottom, so I preferred to have it afloat even for short stops ashore. A canvas foredeck was an ideal platform for staging the anchor, chain, and line, and protected the varnish.
The next morning, the tide was out but there was still enough water under the boat to slide it farther out to get it fully afloat.
For overnight stays in areas where the tide would run 10′ to 12′, I needed to get the boat quite far from shore when setting the hook on a high tide. With a double ender like the faering I could arrange the anchor on the bow and shove it out stern first. If your boat will coast farther and straighter going out bow first, you can still set the ground tackle on the bow while it is nosed up on the beach and then turn the boat around for the big shove. I always checked all of the connections between the anchor and the shore side of the retrieval line several times before pushing the boat out. You can give the retrieval line a tug any time you want to drop the anchor.
When it’s time to get the boat back, pulling the retrieval line frees the anchor from of the bottom, and its flukes trail as you bring it in. The boat follows like a dog on a leash.
Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats Monthly.
You can share your tricks of the trade with other Small Boats Monthly readers by sending us an email.
The water-cooled stone makes quick work of sharpening tools without affecting their temper.
When I started building boats in 1978, I used a blade guide, a large diamond hone and three Japanese water stones to sharpen my tools. I was proud of the mirror-shiny finish I could put on the blades, but after I had an opportunity to use the Makita Blade Sharpener when I was teaching at WoodenBoat School, sharpening tools by hand suddenly seemed quite tedious. I didn’t waste time getting a Makita for my shop at home. That was 21 years ago, and it is still working and spinning the same waterstone wheel.
The motor enclosed in the base turns the wheel at 560 rpm and makes an easily tolerated whirring sound. A reservoir at the back drips water onto the stone, keeping the blade cool and preventing the pores of the stone from filling with metal. A circular wheel cover, raised slightly above the surface of the stone, collects the water and slurry and sends it out through a tube to be collected. A rail supported by two posts at the front of the machine can be adjusted to support blades and edge tools at whatever angle you choose. For sharpening jointer and planer knives (up to 15-3/4″ long) there’s a blade holder included that slides back and forth on the rail to move the knives across the stone. The wheel guard has to be lowered to allow the knives to reach the stone so it no longer collects the water; it spins out in all directions and has left a stripe on my shop wall and apron. With the guard down you can touch up the flat side and remove the burr on chisels and hand-plane blades, but you have to be very careful: the stone can grab the blade and pull it out of your hands. I’m happy to report that I’ve never lost my grip on a blade nor seen what damage it could do spinning around. It’s safer to use a regular water stone to dress the blade backs. I have a cotton buffing wheel that I use to remove the burr.
The 7-7/8″ wheel included with the sharpener is a 1,000-grit stone. Stones of 60 and 6,000 grit can be purchased separately, but the 1,000 grit is all I’ve ever needed. It removes metal at a pace fast enough to take out small nicks in blades and yet is fine enough to leave a mirror-like surface on the steel it sharpens.
I’ve sharpened my planer and jointer knives, saving the expense and down time of sending them out. Working the long blades over the stone also trues its surface, assuring that plane blades get a straight cutting edge. I also sharpen knife blades on the Makita when the guard is down. For safety’s sake I’ll hold a knife with its cutting edge facing away from me first on the right of the machine to hone one side of the blade, then on the left to hone the other.
The sharpener sells for around $350, and that may seem rather steep unless you consider the time you can save over sharpening tools by hand and by working wood with sharp edges. With the Makita, sharpening doesn’t interrupt your work, it speeds it up.
Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats Monthly.
As an expedition rower, I need to be safe, dry, well fed, and well rested on a rowing trip; it’s the well rested aspect that is the source of my greatest consternation. I’m like the princess and the pea when it comes to my sleep kit. I’ve broken three vertebrae over the past 30 years, and for a sleeping pad to pass muster with me it has to provide good support for my injured and aging back. Beyond that, I don’t like waking up because I’ve slipped off the pad or because the pad is crinkling, crackling, squeaking, squawking, or whooshing air from one chamber to another. I’d rather not have to resort to earplugs to get a good sleep—there are sounds that I need to hear to stay safe in a marine wilderness.
SBM
The Megamat needs to self inflate for about 30 minutes before getting topped off in about a minute with the included mini hand pump.
I was keen to see if Exped’s Swiss technology could make a sleeping mat that would suit my needs. The Megamat 12 is the biggest sleeping pad in a stuff sack I’ve ever seen. Nicely designed with horizontal baffles and padding that create a flat surface, it is quiet, warm, and without sharp fabric and plastic edges. In about a half hour it self-inflates to a full 4″ thick, and then you top it off with the included mini pump. After you get aboard you use the deflation valve to adjust firmness. You can get a soft contour-accommodating fit without bottoming out. The mat’s internal polyurethane foam is an effective barrier to ground chill—the mat has an R-9.5 rating and is recommended for use in temperatures down to –54 degrees F.
Deflating and rolling it up small enough for the stuff sack was a bit of a chore for this 130-pounder. I’d consider getting a larger sack for it. Exped recommends the Megamat as a base-camp or camper-van mat, but if you have a large tent, cockpit, or cabin and room to stow the rolled-up mat, it will please even the fussiest princess. Even I had a good night’s sleep on it. It easily passed muster.
SBM
The Synmat Mega is inflated by means of a bag called a Schnozzel Pumpbag that comes with the mat. It takes about 90 seconds and three fillings of the Schnozzel to bring the Synmat Mega up to a firm pressure
The Synmat 12 is a more compact mat. Packed in its stuff sack, it has the circumference and length of a football. The bag has a clever sewn-in flap on one end that I can grab for pulling it off the fold-and-roll mat. I took the Synmat 12 with me for a solstice row and made camp at 5:30 a.m. Inside my tent, I inflated the Synmat with Exped’s Schnozzle, a roll-top, ripstop-fabric dry bag that captures up to 3 cubic feet of air that you can squeeze into their sleeping mats. It spares you a lot of dizzying huffing and puffing, and avoids filling the mat with moist, mold-prone air from your lungs. In my sleeping bag I can adjust firmness of the mat with the deflation valve at my head to meet my body’s needs at the end of a long rowing day.
The mat’s fabric is quiet, and it has raised side baffles to keep you from sliding off it. The five central air chambers inflate to 4-3/4″; the two outer chambers go to 6″. Its microfiber insulation has an R-5.3 rating, good for temperatures down to -4 degrees F. You can feel the warmth reflecting back at you moments after lying down on it. I woke from my two-hour morning nap well rested, wanting to stay in the comfort of a bed that fit my body like a glove.
Excellent quality and smart design can be a challenge for my wallet, but if they lower the risk factors arising from lousy sleep, the expense is worth it. At $200+, Exped’s Synmat 12 is a no-brainer, and I can easily stow it for rowing. If you have a bigger boat with room for the Megamat, it too is a wise investment.
Dale McKinnon began rowing in 2002 at the age of 57 and in 2004 rowed solo from Ketchikan, Alaska, to her home town, Bellingham, Washington. In 2005 she rowed from Ketchikan to Juneau.
I had an opportunity to try the repair kit on a very small pinhole in the side of a Synmat. The textile glue in the repair kit included with each mat was all that was required to seal the hole. While a single application of the glue, followed by a self-adhesive patch, is recommended as a quick fix, I had time to do the long-term repair of three applications of glue, which doesn’t require the patch. When the glue dried the repair was complete; it took just 15 minutes.
I tested a second Synmat by inflating it, setting a stiff panel on top of it and adding 100 pounds to that. The mat showed no signs of losing air during the week it had the weight on it.
To get both mats rolled up tightly, it makes a big difference to roll the mat up once, squeezing out most of the air, then unroll the mat and roll it up again. The second rolling gets the last bit of air out and the mat will then fit easily into its stuff sack. I’ve been doing the second rolling with self-inflating mats since I bought my first one back in the ’70s.
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.
The Candlefish has comfortable seating for the whole family and plenty of freeboard.
Scott Rowley, his wife Amy, and their daughters Elli and Livvy live on Steamboat Peninsula, near Olympia, Washington, at the south end of Puget Sound. The aluminum boat that they’d been using was getting on in years and needed to be retired; with the waters of Eld Inlet just beyond their back yard, going without a boat was out of the question. When Scott saw our Boat Profile of Devlin Designing Boatbuilders’ Candlefish 13 in our April 2015 issue, he decided he’d build one as the family’s next boat. He had done some woodworking, but had never built a boat before, and he looked forward to the project as a pleasant diversion from the pressures of his work as a pediatric dentist and the stress of having a new office under construction.
Thomas Rowley
When you’ve used truck-bed liner for paint, you don’t have to worry about dragging the boat up on the rocks.
He called Sam Devlin, who happens to live just 4 miles away as the crow flies, and ordered a Candlefish 13 kit. The package arrived with all the pieces for the stitch-and-glue construction of the 13′ 4″ skiff. He set up shop in the garage after agreeing with Amy that her car would still have its spot in their two-car garage and Scott would park his car outside. Scott was at first daunted by the challenge of turning a stack of flat plywood panels into a three-dimensional curved structure, but as he proceeded with stitching, the transom and the bottom and side panels came together easily and the hull took shape more easily than he had anticipated.
Thomas Rowley
What was designed as a hunting skiff serves as the family’s water taxi, getting to shoreside destinations quicker than they could drive to them in their car .
Construction took bit longer than he had expected, which is to be expected, but the work was enjoyable and his daughters enjoyed seeing the boat take shape. When the hull was ready for finishing, Scott visited Sam for his advice. Sam encouraged him to use a tough-as-nails truck-bed liner. It would protect the hull when the boat was hauled up on the cobbles, and also the cockpit when the kids would get aboard with sandy shoes, or their dachshund, Tina, would be set in the cockpit with sandy paws.
Thomas Rowley
The Rowley’s home waters provide impressive views of Mt. Rainier, Washington’s tallest mountain.
After LADY LOUISE was launched on the New Year’s Eve last year, she’s been kept busy. Taking her out is a pleasure in itself, but she gets the family many places in less time than they could drive. Ice-cream and Sunday brunches at the Boston Harbor marina are just five minutes away by boat, almost straight across Eld and Budd inlets, while it takes 45 minutes to drive around the inlets to get there. Olympia is 7 miles away by boat, 17 miles by car, so in good weather the skiff is a reasonable way to get to a downtown restaurant, and a much more enjoyable ride. A rope swing on Harstine Island and the state park on Hope Island are other popular destinations for the Rowleys. They also do a bit of crabbing with the boat and use LADY LOUISE as a tender on overnight excursions aboard their sailboat.
Sam may have had three hunters and a moose in mind when he designed the Candlefish 13, but LADY LOUISE does very well with a family of four and a dachshund.
Have you recently launched a boat? Please email us. We’d like to hear about it and share your story with other Small Boats Monthly readers.
I needed to pull the centerboard out of my Whitehall and make it a bit thinner so it would operate more smoothly. I wasn’t looking forward to dragging the boat off the trailer, setting it on the lawn, and rolling it on its side to get at the centerboard. That job really needs one person handling the boat and another managing the trailer. If I could just lift the boat up while it was still on the trailer, it would be a whole lot easier and I could do the job alone. It occurred to me that I could use my inflatable beach rollers as air jacks, like those used by rescue workers to lift wrecked cars. If I could slip the deflated rollers under my boat and then pump them up, they might lift the boat.
I didn’t know if the pump could handle the air pressure required to lift the boat, but it became evident that the weight, say 200 pounds, would be divided by the contact area, say 25 square inches at the full lift, to bring the pressure down to a manageable 8 psi.
It worked better than I had imagined. The boat will roll—I figured that out when I got some air in the second roller and the Whitehall started to move—so it has to be restrained fore and aft. The pump I used was for rubber rafts and designed for volume, not high pressure, but it was good enough to get the Whitehall raised 7″ or 8″. That wasn’t high enough to drop the board straight down out of the trunk, but the unexpected benefit of using the rollers for the lift was that they cradled the boat while I rolled it to one side to provide enough room to pull the board. All the while the hull was safely supported on the soft, conforming surfaces of the rollers.
The flatbed trailer provided a good base for the rollers, even when one of them had to conform to the bunk boards.
All it took to lower the boat was pressing the rollers’ valves to bleed off the air. The boat pinned one roller to the deck of the trailer and I couldn’t lift the boat and pull the roller out at the same time. I tied a bungee cord to the roller and stretched it out; when I raised the end of the boat, the roller slipped out.
There may be more heavy lifting ahead for these rollers.
Afterword
My chance to do some more heavy lifting with the rollers came soon enough. I use the same trailer for my Caledonia yawl as I do for my Whitehall, and after I got the Whitehall’s centerboard reinstalled and took it for a few outings, I was ready to take it off of the trailer and put the Caledonia on. After I used the rollers, inflated, to scoot the Whitehall off the trailer, it was time to move the much larger Caledonia. It’s too heavy to slide on the lawn, so I wouldn’t have been able to set a roller at the bow and push the boat up on it, but the bottom has enough rocker that I could slip a deflated roller under the bow. After I had pumped that roller up I had clearance under the middle of the boat to get the second roll, flattened, slipped in. The second roller not only raised the whole boat— lifting close to 400 pounds—it leveled it side to side and kept it stable. It took very little effort then to roll the boat to the trailer and winch it home. When it’s time for the Caledonia to come off the trailer, the rollers will ease it back to the lawn and keep it elevated while I get some blocking under it to keep it off the grass.
The first roller slipped under the bow
First roller inflated, making room for the second roller to be slipped under closer to amidships
Both rollers inflated, the boat raised, leveled, and ready to roll to the trailer
In 1982, when Eric Hvalsoe was fresh out of a two-year boatbuilding program at Bates Technical college in Tacoma, Washington, he launched the first Hvalsoe 13 (then named the Valso 13), a lapstrake skiff he designed and built for a client who wanted a boat that would perform equally well under sail and oars. The boat exceeded expectations and was followed by the Hvalsoe 15 and Hvalsoe 16. Eric most recently designed a larger version of the boat for Seattle small-boat aficionado Tim Yeadon to cruise the inland waters of Washington and British Columbia, and the first Hvalsoe 18, built by Tim in the garage of his Seattle home, was launched in 2015 and christened HAVERCHUCK.
The Hvalsoe 18 measures 18′6″ by 5′4″, and while it is easily recognized as one of the Hvalsoe series of boats, it is not, writes Eric, “just a blown-up HV 16.” His goal for the design was “to create a boat that was comfortable to inhabit—in the oar-and-sail sense of inhabit—for long days on the water.” Among the differences in the new design is some extra fullness in the ends to keep them riding high in rough water and to provide extra stability for stepping and unstepping the masts while afloat. The midsection is fuller and flatter than the previous models. And while the HV 18’s stem has the same look above the waterline as his previous designs , instead of meeting the keel at an angle as with the previous models, it curves into it below the waterline, the better to endure the wear of beaching the boat.
all photographs by the author
The HV 18’s midsection is fuller and flatter than the previous models. The midsections of the Hvalsoe 13 and 16 look almost semicircular in comparison.
Eric favors traditional methods and draws his designs by hand, pencil on paper, and makes area calculations with a planimeter. He also prefers traditional lapstrake construction, and the HV 18 could be built in that fashion. Tim had taken one of Eric’s classes in lapstrake boatbuilding and had built a Matinicus peapod with cedar on oak, but built his HV 18 in glued-lap plywood—largely for the option to incorporate buoyancy chambers for safety’s sake—and Eric followed suit with the HV 18 he’s building in his Shoreline, Washington, shop.
Hull #2 is under construction in Eric Hvasloe’s shop. The planking is laid over an inner keel and stem assembly, then bevelled to receive the external elements.
Eric drew the lines for the HV 18 with smooth curves for sections, leaving it up to the builder to line the hull for lapstrake planking and determine the number of strakes required. There are no patterns for the 18, and between the lofting required to make the molds and the lining and spiling required to shape the planks, this project is best suited for builders with a fair bit of boatbuilding experience or the patience and tenacity to learn the skills on the job. Tim and Eric settled on 11 strakes, the minimum number required to take the designed shape without having to cut facets into the curved edges of the molds. While I might balk at planing so many running feet of bevels and gains, the results are worth the effort. The narrow strakes create a beautiful pattern, and the shadows of the laps emphasize the hull’s curves rather than its planes and angles. The hull brings to mind the ventral pleats under the chin of a blue whale.
What Eric calls his “beach skeg” is shaped from a timber wide enough at the forward end to cover the keel. The extra width gives it a very solid attachment to the keel and helps the boat “ski” over cobble without digging in. A 1/2″ thick shoe will cover the skeg and keel.
The hull is built around seven molds, and in the finished boat the 9mm okoume plywood planking is supported by the 12mm-plywood bulkheads for the flotation compartments and two laminated frames in the cockpit. A narrow plank keel supports a sturdy skeg that covers the keel’s full width and tapers with it to the transom. The skeg, along with the rocker and drag in the keel profile, are designed to strike a balance between tracking under oars and easy tacking under sail. The skeg’s tail end is cut to a generous radius and covered with a strip of high-molecular-weight polyethylene to better absorb the punishment of coming ashore stern-first on a rocky beach. There are 90 lbs of ballast under the cockpit sole: six 15-lb cast lead bars secured to bolts anchored to the inside of the hull on either side of the centerboard trunk.
The HV 18 was designed with a simple cockpit and good stability even with your weight in the ends so “you can walk upright from one end to the other,” notes Eric, “rather than crouching from one thwart to the next.”
After Tim completed the hull, he built the sailing rig to take a Sooty Tern mainsail and a Ness Yawl mizzen, both sewn up from Sailrite kits for those Iain Oughtred designs; Eric’s drawings for the lug yawl rig reflect that arrangement. The masts are built bird’s-mouth fashion. There’s not much weight to be saved by making a spar as small as the boomkin hollow, but it’s well worth the effort: the mizzen sheet is run through the boomkin, which not only serves as the fairlead to bring the sheet into the cockpit, it also allows the sheet to emerge from the tip of the boomkin, making it impossible for it to get fouled when coming about. A Norwegian tiller steers clear of the mizzenmast, and the rudder blade clears the water when retracted for rowing.
The cockpit sole provides good footing for moving about in the cockpit.
Tim later modified the thwart, outfitting a section of it with sturdy hinges, to open up a space for sleeping aboard.
The interior arrangements were inspired by Oughtred’s Arctic Tern. A thwart amidships braces the centerboard trunk and provides seating for a lone rowing station. Tim recently cut a section from the thwart’s starboard side and reinstalled it with sturdy hinges so it could be pivoted up out of the way for sleeping on the cockpit sole. When it is returned to its normal position, two stout bolts secure its outboard end and the thwart resumes its role of bracing the hull and centerboard.
You don’t have to hold the mainmast fully upright to get it stepped. The elongated box guides the heel in; then you can push the mast upright and lock it into place.
Just forward of the centerboard trunk there is a removable trapezoidal box to keep the anchor, chain, and rode neatly stowed and their weight low to contribute to the boat’s stability. The deck of the aft compartment makes a comfortable perch for sailing, and the curved side benches and long tiller allow the helmsman to slide forward to get some more weight closer to amidships on the windward side. The rest of the aft deck makes a convenient place to set things to keep the clutter out of the cockpit and have the sheerstrake, rail, and transom prevent them from rolling overboard. The bulkheads that seal the flotation compartments have oval hatches, though Tim has those sealed and semi permanently installed; they’ll be opened only for maintenance work. The 10″ composite deck plates offer easier access to gear and a quick watertight seal. The masts are stepped in boxes that guide their heels in and keep the flotation compartments watertight. Water that accumulates in them drains into the cockpit through copper tubes. The boxes are elongated to allow the rake of the masts to be adjusted.
Designed as a solo cruiser, the HV 18 has a single rowing station. Kicked up, the rudder blade is clear of the water and doesn’t interfere with rowing.
The first thing I noticed when boarding the HV 18 is its stability. The fairly flat bottom and full bilges contribute to the solid feeling underfoot, and the 90 lbs of lead hidden under the floorboards help drive the point home. The ballast’s inertia slows the boat’s roll, so it feels like stepping aboard a much larger boat. Eric weighed Tim’s HAVERCHUCK at a truck scale, and the hull, with ballast, came in at 520 lbs. Sailing rig and ground tackle added 125 lbs. The 9′11″ oars Tim had for the boat were a good choice for the weight of the boat and the 62-1/2″ span between locks. The oars’ flat blades were well suited for rowing with the dory stroke, a technique that eases the strain on the rower while moving a heavy boat. I could do a GPS-measured 2-1/2 to 3 knots at a moderate, sustainable effort—a respectable cruising speed when there’s not enough wind to fill the sails—and I could get the HV 18 up to 3-1/2 to 3-3/4 knots if I hustled along. A short sprint peaked at 4-1/4 knots. The HV 18 tracks very well under oars and yet spins around like a much smaller boat with one oar pulled and other backed.
The transom is raked at close to 30 degrees and not meant to take a small outboard, and the aft sections are kept fine at the waterline for rowing, and won’t take the weight of a motor and operator sitting in the stern. If a motor is required, Eric suggests installing a well, an option well suited to glued-lap plywood construction.
Having the mizzen sheet emerging from the end of a hollow boomkin prevents it from fouling when coming about.
During my first outing in the HV 18 the wind was light, and the sailing sedate, but the 120 sq ft of the lug main and a leg-o’-mutton mizzen provided enough boat speed to make sailing a better option than rowing. The boat coasted through tacks, never getting caught in irons; it will come about with the rudder left untended—sheeting the mizzen in to bring the bow into the wind and backing the main a few degrees to push it across, then easing the mizzen sheet.
For my second outing, Tim and I went out on a whitecapped Puget Sound with a brisk wind. My anemometer clocked sustained puffs of 22 knots at the launch site, and the weather station a mile upwind of us recorded the wind at 16 knots for the hours were sailing. Not long after we’d set sail, a gust snatched my baseball cap and dropped it in our wake a couple of boat-lengths back. Tim had tucked in two reefs in the main when he’d rigged the boat, and that turned out to be on the verge of being too much for the boat with two of us aboard. The helm was sensitive to the unreefed mizzen, and I often eased the sheet to lighten the weather helm. We took a lot of spray over the bow when working to weather, but we were both wearing dry suits and enjoying the ride. The HV 18 did 5 knots on all points of sail; I saw 6.2 knots on the GPS on a broad reach; the maximum speed recorded was 6.7 knots, and that was in waves only 1-1/2′ high, not really big enough for surfing to account for the impressive peak.
On one tack, the bow had just gone through the eye of the wind when a wave crest lifted it over a trough. The wind pushed the bow downwind, I got caught with the main sheet locked in the cam cleats, and the HV 18 was suddenly beam-to the wind. The leeward rail went under and Tim climbed to the high side as water poured in. I freed the mainsheet from the cam cleat, let it run out, and the boat popped right up. I noticed later that I hadn’t cleated the line that holds the rudder blade down, so while the partially deployed blade was covered enough to provide good steering, it wasn’t as deep as it should have been and may have lost its grip in a trough. That may have been another factor in allowing the bow to fall away so quickly. Still, I was pleased with the boat’s stability in that near knockdown. The rail could be “sailed” underwater and the point of capsize still lay beyond that extreme angle of heel. Tim went to work with the large diaphragm pump he has installed on the side of the centerboard trunk and all was well.
When Tim conducted capsize drills with HAVERCHUCK, the rig kept the boat from a full capsize and stabilized it lying on its side. The flotation compartments kept the centerline above the water, and Tim could slip under the mainmast without having to duck his head underwater to get past it. He pulled the boat upright with centerboard and, with the boat riding low in the water, easily crawled aboard over the rail. He said that taking up a position just forward of the centerboard trunk and keeping his weight low helped keep the boat upright while he bailed.
Tim’s plan for the boat is to cruise north from Puget Sound along the Inside Passage. He has several weeks off from work and will see how far he gets. I think the boat carry him safely and in comfort for as many miles as he chooses to travel.
Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats Monthly.
Particulars
[table]
Length/18′ 6″
Beam/5′ 4″
Weight/430 lbs
Ballast/90 lbs
Design displacement/750 lbs
Sail area/ 120 sq ft
[/table]
Finished boats or plans for the Hvalsoe 18 are available from Hvalsoe Boats in Shoreline, Washington.
Is there a boat you’d like to know more about? Have you built one that you think other Small Boats Monthly readers would enjoy? Please email us!
During a weekend in northern Michigan during the summer of 2009, I got a chance to take a spin in a couple of wooden boats that my daughter’s boyfriend had built with his dad and his brother. The thrill of coming up on plane and hitting a few waves in an 11′ boat with a 15-hp outboard put a smile on my face that persisted well beyond setting foot on land again. I had not operated a powerboat in many years, and way back then it was an aluminum fishing boat and 9.9-hp tiller-controlled outboard—not as exciting as operating a boat with a steering wheel and a remote throttle handle.
Lisa Lirones
The plans call for fiberglassing the deck, but adding mahogany covering boards and thin decking for appearance’s sake, gives the Squirt the look of a classic. The 11′ version of the Squirt has a longer deck between the cockpit and the motor well. Two 3-gallon gas tanks sit in the compartment under the hatch that Art designed and installed. To start the motor, he stands in the open hatch.
I came back home from that weekend with the plans for the boats they had built, and decided I would build a small boat to utilize that 9.9-hp outboard I had inherited. I talked with my co-worker Ted Gauthier about my plan, and he was on board too for building a boat too. His research took us to the Glen-L website and the wealth of plans they have available. Ted decided to build a runabout, the 14′ Zip. I wanted a smaller boat that I could build in my basement and get out without removing the living room floor. The Squirt model fit that requirement, and by using the plans’ option to stretch the length from 10′ to 11′, it fit my needs perfectly. I loved the look of the design with the pronounced tumblehome at the transom giving the sheerline a beautiful curve. The boat had a seat, steering wheel, and good lines, and Glen-L has a good builder-support system, so it was the choice for me.
Lisa Lirones
In his early trials, Art discovered the he was losing power to prop ventilation. He trimmed some height from the center of the transom to put the prop lower in the water and that solved the problem.
If you’d like to get off to a running start, you can buy a frame kit and have the parts for the transom, the two frames, gussets, stem, breasthook, and knees. I started from scratch with just the plans and full-sized patterns. I made a strongback elevated off the floor to provide a comfortable working height and on it mounted the transom, frames, and stem. The stretch variation was fairly straightforward—the spaces between the ends and frames all get increased by 10 percent—and once they were aligned they were connected by the keelson, chines, and sheer clamps. The hull and deck are constructed with 1/4″ marine plywood. The stretched version seemed to be a good investment because it provided more hull displacement and used material that might have just become scrap with the standard 10′ version.
The completed hull and deck get sheathed with fiberglass cloth and epoxy. This was recommended for the abrasion resistance that it provides and, having hit tree stumps and other water hazards on occasion, I think it is good insurance against getting a hard scrape that might gouge into the plywood bottom. I painted the hull before turning the boat upright and created a pattern that covered screw-head filler along the chines. The 1/4″ marine plywood planking is not thick enough for bungs to cover the screw heads, and the fillers I used were not always a good match for the color of the wood.
Lisa Lirones
Just picking up speed here, the Squirt, with 20 hp behind it, gets up on plane in 3 or 4 seconds.
As I was building the boat, I came to the conclusion that the 9.9-hp outboard I had on hand would not be of sufficient horsepower to provide the oomph I wanted. And my search for remote control hook-up for it was not successful. I liked the look of the 1950s Johnson and Mercury outboards, and my research showed their power-to-weight ratio would suit my boat well. After joining the Antique Outboard Motor Club (AMOCI), I got some advice that the 1956 Mercury Mark 25 was a good motor and was compatible with today’s fuel-system connecters. I followed a lead on one and took the plunge. A little tune-up and checking-over with a fellow antique-outboard enthusiast, and I was on my way. I still had a lot to learn about setting up and maintaining an older outboard, but I had the support of several people in the Great Lakes Chapter of the AOMCI when I had questions and when I needed encouragement.
Instead of ’glassing the 1/4″ marine plywood deck as called for in the plans, I added African mahogany planking on top for stiffness and looks. The resawn wood ended up at about 5/16″ thick and added a bit of weight, but the look can’t be beat and I have no indication that the weight compromised performance. The paint on the hull that hid the filler over screw heads also concealed some fiberglass reinforcement tape at joint lines that came out more translucent than transparent. The paint scheme evolved further to hide some sins along the sheerline, butt joints on the side panels, and joints between the transom and sides. While I covered some unblemished plywood in order for the paint scheme to make the boat look fast even when it was standing still, I was still able to preserve much of the natural okoume plywood along the sides for being finished bright. My daughter, taking her cue from the paint scheme, designed the seat cushions and gave them a retro look to go along with the 1956 Mercury outboard. I still picture a 1956 Chevy Bel Air in blue and white when I look at my boat.
Art Atkinson
Extra boards added between the structural battens in the cockpit create the appearance of floorboards.
The cockpit, with the exception of the seat cushions, is minimalist by choice. Adjacent to the seat there was a space between the cushion and hull that was the perfect place for a couple of large holes in the seat framing for holding drinks. I added floor battens in the area ahead of the seat where we step aboard; they fill in the gaps between the structural battens and create the appearance of floorboards. The result looks clean, and intentional rather than incidental.
The performance of the Squirt has exceeded my expectations. The Mercury, rated at 20 hp, gets the Squirt up on plane in 3 to 4 seconds with just me aboard, and my GPS-measured top speed is about 28 mph. I experimented with different propellers, and a three-bladed prop gave the best overall performance with getting on plane faster with a passenger and little change in top speed. I’ve had passengers weighing up to about 250 lbs aboard, and while it may take 25 seconds to get on plane, the top speed may only come down to about 24 mph. The Squirt never ceases to provide a thrilling ride. The extra weight of a passenger doesn’t significantly affect performance, so the stretch version was the right decision for me.
The boat’s handling is superb. I followed the plans for the center skeg, and it provides the turning ability that will allow the boat to corner at full speed as tightly as you are comfortable with. I think the best comment I received was from a friend who came back from his ride with a huge smile on his face. When asked about why he was smiling, he said something to the effect of “I knew your boat looked good, but I had no idea that it could perform like that—it’s amazing.”
Lisa Lirones
With a second person aboard, the 11′ Squirt loses only a few miles per hour.
I often ask passengers if they mind getting a little spray in their faces. If they’re game, I’ll make a fast circle across the wake and the spray will come up over the bow. I take screams as a good indication that they are getting a thrilling ride. The Squirt can handle 6″ to 8″ chop, but rougher water often requires coming off plane and slowing down the pace.
The boat trailers with ease. It is light enough that if I see that the boat has come out of the water crooked on the trailer, I can pick up the stern and slide the boat over. My trailer is set up so the boat’s bow eye snugs under the winch roller and two ratchet straps hook to eye-bolts cinch it down to the trailer. I had a custom cover made to protect the boat and motor when trailering. When I’m on the road, I hardly notice the boat and trailer from the driver’s seat, and I occasionally look back to reassure myself that they’re still there.
As with many wooden boats, a good deal of the pleasure of owning them is in the reaction people have to it. My Squirt starts many a conversation about wood boats, older outboards, and fun on the water, and may have inspired others to get on with their dreams of building a boat. The handling of the boat is fantastic, the performance is a thrill, and the runabout design keeps you from putting more people aboard than the boat can handle. The Squirt is designed for the beginning boat builder and with economical use of material in mind. On the water it is best with people of average height and weight and taking kids for rides. It could also be perfect for a younger power boater learning to handle a boat.
Art Atkinson retired from Ford Motor Company after 31 years as an engineering supervisor at Body Engineering. He is currently the manager for Bloomfield Village Association in Michigan. Woodworking has been his hobby since high school and prior to building boats he made musical instruments, furniture, and kitchen cabinets.
In November 2013 I received a phone call from Tommy Hudson, good friend as well as one of my employees. After we chatted for a bit, he said he loved his job but there was something he really wanted to do: row across the North Atlantic. I was instantly inspired; I told Tommy he could go and I was going with him. He laughed and agreed.
Pete Fletcher
On arriving in Australia, MACPAC CHALLENGER took up residence in my garden shed. We started on what was to be just a new paint job, but we found lots of rot and removed most of the cockpit interior structure and even some of the hull.
We spent the next 15 months raising sponsorship and rebuilding an old, wooden, ocean-rowing boat that we hoped would survive the North Atlantic. Things started slowly, but then, thanks to the generous support of Macpac, an outdoor clothing company, and World Challenge, the organization where Tommy and I both worked, we began to make good progress, and our boat became MACPAC CHALLENGER, or MC for short. While the name conjured up an intrepid image, that was certainly unmatched by the reality. As we stripped MC bare with the help of Melbourne boatbuilder Dave Parker, we found more and more unsavory parts. She’d been left to sit out in the elements for two years after her third transatlantic crossing and the neglect showed. There was rot in the bulkheads and in the hull, and at one point Tommy put his hand right through the plywood with no effort at all.
David Briggs
When we shipped MACPAC CHALLENGER to New York, we had finished the main structure, rowing setup, and basic safety components, but still had to obtain and install the electrics and autopilot. The cabin pump, its hose visible on the left side of the cabin, could bail the cabin out in the event that it flooded while the boat was capsized. David Briggs made the decals in our absence and must have had a good laugh, sticking “Row, row, row your boat” decals all around the cockpit. After just two days at sea we vigorously scratched off most of the words, but it was too late and the song was indelibly etched in our heads.
The refurbishment was more extensive than we’d imagined, but it gave us the opportunity to redesign aspects of the layout for what would be a longer, more arduous crossing than the boat had ever undertaken. We repositioned the watermaker—our most vital piece of gear—inside the cabin for protection from the elements, replaced the deck with thicker plywood, and reinforced the main cabin framing.
David Briggs
MACPAC CHALLENGER was trailered to the Melbourne airport for her cargo-plane flight to New York. The scuppers visible in the side would drain most of the water that might wash into the cockpit, leaving only the footwell to pump out.
Our project ran long and over budget, but MC was eventually shipped from Melbourne to New York in February 2015 and we felt confident she’d be ready in time for a May departure.
The night before I flew to New York, Willow, my eldest daughter, just five years old, asked me why we were going. My answer—“To see what it makes of us”—was for both me and Tommy, even though he had told me only two days earlier, at our going-away party, that he had problems in his relationship with his fiancée, he’d been diagnosed with depression, and he didn’t know if he’d come on the row. Tommy was one of the only people with whom I’d embark on this kind of journey, but he had a difficult decision to make: If he came he risked losing his fiancée, and if he stayed behind he might never learn to live happily. I left Melbourne 24 hours before Tommy did, with the nagging question: If it came to it, would I go alone? It was a major relief the following night when I pulled up at the Newark airport and saw a smiling Tommy, standing in the chilly, springtime, New Jersey air.
With the help of ocean-rowing record holder, Simon Chalk, we got down to work. Our confidence in the preparedness of our boat was seriously misplaced. We still had to install the electrics and the autopilot, and we had no choice but to join the boat-shop queue with every other boat owner on the East Coast. The whole project had been a race against the calendar and we missed two good weather windows while we were in Brooklyn working on the boat.
Our autopilot was not meant for ocean-crossing rowing boats and there was no easy way to mount it and protect it from breaking seas. We finally installed it on the gunwale, but when we turned it on it didn’t work. Our fortunes began to change when Wayne, a talented marine electrician, replaced the motor and announced, at 7 p.m. on the 20th of May, that the autopilot worked. We were exhausted, our funds were depleted, and the sun was literally setting on our time in Brooklyn: With the wind from the northwest and the high tide at 10 p.m. that same evening, this was our chance to go.
We rowed west from the marina, staying north along the shore to keep out of a strong northwest wind, and then turned south for Rockaway Point. Wayne had warned us about breakers near the channel there and said, “Get ready to row like hell.” Our adrenaline must have been pumping, because at one point we radioed what we thought was a boat in our path only to find out, after the third unanswered call, that it was an oversized channel marker. The fast-flowing ebb shot us out toward the Atlantic; we set a course to the southeast to get offshore as quickly as possible.
In the morning we were disappointed that we could still see New York looming large behind us. Tommy noticed the compass wasn’t working, so we searched for a small screwdriver to remove and recalibrate it, but the smallest screwdriver we had didn’t fit! Although we eventually managed to remove the compass, I had the ominous feeling that we may have left other important equipment behind, and indeed the screwdriver would turn out to be just the tip of the iceberg.
On day four, the autopilot ram pulled out of the gunwale. We got it stuck back in place but eventually the motor blew. We were still within easy sight of the Empire State Building, and had no way to manage the rudder while we were rowing.
Pete Fletcher
Tommy cobbled together our foot-steering system and got it to move the rudder effectively. The failed autopilot ram is visible at lower left. The foot steering was an early success but an ominous sign of other trials to come, as Tommy later had to fix many of our other key components, including the compass, rear hatch, solar panel, and GPS.
I did my best to keep the bow straight in the waves while Tommy built a foot-operated steering system with odds and ends we had aboard. It looked makeshift but we could finally move the rudder with a twist of a foot. This old-fashioned steering would add days to our crossing, but our fortunes would no longer be tied to the hapless autopilot and the constant din of its motor. A calm came over the boat and for the first time in nearly two years there was nothing else to do. We were rowing; we were free.
That evening Tommy called me out of the cabin, telling me to bring the camera. I came on deck and was mesmerized by a huge shark swimming right next to us. It was majestic and over half as long as our boat. Tommy told me to put the camera in the water, and though I seriously considered throwing it to him, we were just four days out and I still felt I had something to prove. I knelt down and got my arm far into the water and came almost face to face with the shark. It let me keep my arm, and after a few moments moved slowly on its way.
Pete Fletcher
We painted our carbon-fiber oars pink in support of a breast-cancer support organization. We started with eight oars onboard, but dispatched two along with other marginally useful gear to lighten our load. Tommy and I wrote our contact information on the oars in case they showed up on some distant shore. Here, early in the trip Tom’s beard is meager and he is still looking robust in his black T-shirt–the first of three, each worn daily for one month.
With a northwesterly wind in the forecast, we made the decision to forgo the more direct, northerly route in favor of using the wind to reach the Gulf Stream to the south, where we knew we’d make better progress. We rowed hard, but hadn’t anticipated an unfavorable current that trumped both our tailwind and our puny efforts at the oars. After five agonizing days we finally started moving eastward in spite of a 15-knot easterly wind. We’d made it to the Gulf Stream! Frustrated by my arm-rowing technique, Tommy decided it was time to teach me how to row properly by driving from the glutes and quads, and with my improved stroke, a current in our favor, and the wind strengthening from the southwest, we flew along, hitting a new top speed almost every hour. As 15′ following seas began to break, we hurtled down from the crests. I feared MC would nosedive in the trough, but each time she lifted her bow just in time.
We covered over 250 nautical miles in three days and recorded a top speed of 17 knots, later learning that MC’s longest day, 116 miles, had broken the Ocean Rowing World Record for the greatest distance ever covered in 24 hours. We’d had incredible conditions, but MC, a wooden boat in her twilight years, deserved the accolade.
Tommy Hudson
The first time I deployed the sea anchor it was without the trip line, a mistake that could have cost us the anchor. Confucius came to mind: “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” I never again forgot the sea anchor’s second line. Deploying the sea anchor helped cut our losses in unfavorable winds, but resorting to it was often followed by a consolatory cup of tea as we watched our hard-won miles disappear.
Our first storm came a month into the crossing. The wind blew 40-plus knots from the south all day, creating 20′ seas. We were exhausted and at dusk debated whether we should stay on deck to keep the boat from going beam-on to the waves and potentially rolling, or hunker down in the cabin for the night. We decided to retreat and put a small drogue out to keep MC’s stern to the waves while we slept.
Tommy Hudson
It was rare for both of us to be in the cabin and usually that meant tough times, sitting it out on the sea anchor, with regular trips outside to look at the sea state determine the wind direction and strength. The quarters were cramped but with our photos and messages from loved ones, the cabin was our sanctuary.
Breaking waves crashed over the cabin with a mighty force but we were so tired that sleep came easily. It didn’t last, and we woke suddenly in the pitch black at around 2 a.m. as MC pitched violently to port. A moment later we were lying on the roof of the cabin surrounded by water. Our seat belts, which we used to strap ourselves to the cabin sole, had broken and with all the water around us it seemed as if the cabin had fractured. There was little we could do but trust that the ballast would bring us back up. MC rose and fell with several waves but remained inverted, so Tommy and I clawed up one side of the cabin and after few more waves, MC righted herself. I got my foulweather gear and harness on, got out on deck and closed the hatch as quickly as possible. In the dark it was hard to judge the extent of the damage, but it was clear that we’d lost the drogue, the stern bridle, and the main bilge pump.
When dawn emerged, we could fully assess the boat’s condition. The battery monitor indicated we were almost out of power and the GPS was completely shorted. We could have limped on without navigation and communications equipment, but we needed power to run the watermaker, so we simply had to maintain the electrics. We found water seeping through the hull into one of the battery compartments. To keep the water from destroying the battery, Tommy drilled holes down low in the battery compartment partition so water could drain into the footwell where we could easily pump it out.
Pete Fletcher
Low-pressure systems bringing wind and rain were a common occurrence and waves would often grow too large to negotiate with the foot-steering system. Here Tommy is holding the hand steering lines to keep the stern into the waves.
At our going-away party we’d had a sweepstakes to predict how long the crossing would take. Guesses ranged from 60 days to over 100, and Tommy and I guessed 75 days. With winds so rarely in our favor, it was 31 days before we notched 1,000 nautical miles out of over 3,000. Tommy and I were joined that day by hundreds of dolphins, and agreed that a swim with them was the perfect way to celebrate the milestone, even as late as we were getting to it, and give ourselves a much-needed bath. We must have underestimated our stench, because as soon as we took the plunge the dolphins vanished.
We discovered that roughly 40 percent of our food supply had spoiled, and our slow progress compounded the problem of not having enough to eat for the rest of the crossing. We couldn’t help but reflect on one of the comments my wife Beth and Tom’s fiancée Jodie had made during an interview before we left: “They’ll be fine as long as they have enough to eat.” Tom and I had previously discussed rationing, and though we desperately wanted to avoid it, we now had no choice. We worked out how much longer the crossing should take and divided our supplies by the number of days.
It was late in the crossing to establish the kind of routine that would give us the best chance of making it to England, but after we discovered the spoiled food we decided it was time we got organized. We stopped rowing together and settled on round-the clock 2.5-hour, solo rowing shifts. We also focused on our boat “culture.” We’d leave a hot flask on deck for the next person, and, when it was wet, do longer shifts to save us from both being miserable and reduce the amount of water in the cabin. We couldn’t expect to be on top of the world all the time, but with just two people onboard, managing emotions was crucial. We talked a lot, and one of our favorite pastimes was “Top Tens.” At first this was the usual stuff— influential movies, books, funniest moments—and then it turned to more philosophical topics—passions, people we look up to, and plans for the future.
provided by Israel Cannan via an onboard Go Pro
Rowing in tough conditions was risky as a lapse in concentration could easily result in catching a crab and taking an oar in the ribs or worse. The wind here was not yet blowing 30 to 35 knots, the point at which we’d generally clip in our safety tethers.
About a week after the first storm, we experienced another, and this time it was a direct hit. The wind blew 40-plus knots from the south for 12 hours, then at midnight it came in at about 60 knots from the north. The sudden change in direction played havoc with the waves, which rose to 30′ and marched in the dark from every direction. Tommy had been on deck at the change in wind direction, and when I relieved him in the early hours of the morning it was clear that he was physically exhausted and mentally rattled. He wanted out and I wouldn’t have been far behind him, but knowing we couldn’t actually get off the boat, we agreed to get some rest and then, like all members of the British Empire who find themselves in a crisis, we put the kettle on!
Anniversaries and birthdays passed by back home without us, and Tommy was desperate to get back to begin rebuilding his relationship; I sorely missed my three girls. But with the currents and particularly bad weather of 2015, the more we focused on the disappointing distance we had covered, the more psychologically harrowing the full length of the crossing became. Our journey was less a test of speed and more a test of endurance. This required a different mindset.
We talked about the few things that would put an end to the crossing, things like a man overboard, major injury, flooding the cabin, and running out of fresh water, which now had become a major concern. The decline in water quality from the watermaker was so gradual that at first we didn’t notice the increased salinity. Eventually I got stomach cramps and kidney pain, and inevitably crashed; Tommy did three rowing shifts back-to-back to cover for me. Our watermaker badly needed a service, and although we had the service kit, we’d lent its Allen key to a boat owner in Brooklyn and hadn’t got it back.
Tommy Hudson
Pete takes a shift at the oars on the home stretch. After some long delays the sea anchor (in its red bag to port) was finally packed away and with roughly 600 miles to go, rowing never felt so good. With its high windage, MC leaned away from a crosswind, so leaving some gear on deck on the windward side kept the boat on an even keel. By this time our signs of hunger were becoming ever more visible.
Tommy nobly had me drink from the 120 liters of bottled fresh-water ballast while he persevered with the poorly desalinated water. It was a selfless act that I now suspect impacted Tommy far more than I appreciated at the time. With both food and water now heavily rationed, our crossing became even more a race against time.
Around 600 nautical miles from England we found ourselves on the wrong side of two high-pressure systems that produced easterly winds for 8 out of 10 days, and with food so low we had to change our approach to meals. Instead of continuing with our structured rationing system, we divided up all remaining food and resolved to eat no more than what we needed to get through the day. To make the food go further I only ate before a shift and would immediately clean my teeth to mark the end of each paltry meal; Tommy made a powder out of his remaining dark chocolate and he’d dip his finger in it to savor the taste. With dried beef in the greatest supply, we created unusual hot drinks including “Green Tea Beef” and Tommy’s favorite “Boffee.”
While the easterlies blew, with nothing to do but hang on the sea anchor we nicknamed this time “The Waiting Place” in recollection of Oh the Places You’ll Go, by Dr. Seuss. I created a verse of our own:
Waiting for the wind to change
To go around to a better range
Waiting for the rain to pass
Hoping that the tins will last
Buying time for bums to heal
Hands to thaw and feet to feel
Sitting around fighting cold
Praying that the anchor holds
With so little food and so far to go, we couldn’t risk losing the sea anchor. Without it we’d have no other way to combat adverse winds and could lose 50 miles in a day. For the first few days the wind blew at a constant 15 knots, but then it gradually increased to 25 and 30 knots, the strongest in which we’d used the sea anchor. With 6′ to 10′ waves coming over the bow and so much tension on the system, we made the decision to pull in the sea anchor and allow Mother Nature to send us backward at 2 or 3 knots. While this was one of the toughest decisions to make, it was the closest we ever came to letting go of our plans and ambitions and accepting whatever came our way with equanimity. We were now in the hands of fate flying along in the wrong direction, thinking we’d probably be 100 days at sea before reaching shore.
We got a text message over the satellite phone from Glenn McGrath, whose late wife Jane founded the cancer charity we were supporting, urging us to keep going. The easterlies eventually abated and we got a great run toward home. To go into the record books as an unassisted crossing we had to reach 5 degrees west, the Ocean Rowing Society’s official finish line, after which we could accept a delivery of supplies. Our colleague Simon Drayton set about trying to organize the delivery. A Cornish fisherman, Jimmy, and his crew agreed to make a detour to us on their way to their fishing grounds. My wife Beth and three girls, who had moved to Cornwall for the summer, dropped food canisters to Jimmy, but the effort was in vain. A storm kept them in port.
Tommy Hudson
For two hungry men, cleaning a fish is a serious job. The throw cushion in front of the cabin door made it easy on our knees getting in and out of the cabin and also served as our kitchen countertop. A couple of cook pots melted circles in the covering.
On the evening of day 95 we received word of Jimmy’s delay and we were bitterly disappointed. On the dawn rowing shift after receiving the message—the morning of day 96, the day on which we would finally cross 5 degrees west—I went to the bow to retrieve one of the last bottles of drinking water, and came across the most wonderful sight. In the footwell of the rowing station was a 6″ fish delivered by the storm waves of the previous night. I was over the moon, and I immediately called Tommy out of the cabin to see what we’d inadvertently caught. Referring to divine intervention, Tommy said that at least He has a sense of humor! I cleaned the fish, cut it into six parts, quickly boiled it, and we enjoyed the most succulent meal of our lives.
Just before dusk, Tommy saw something on the AIS (Automatic Identification System) screen that we hadn’t seen in all our days at sea, a battleship. It was heading straight for us at 20 knots. He immediately radioed the ship and confirmed they were on their way to drop us a care package that would help get us home. Although we were absolutely thrilled at the prospect of having a proper meal, we were still a mile from reaching 5 degrees west, so we called Simon Chalk and confirmed that we could take the package without compromising the unassisted crossing as long as we crossed the line before opening the package.
The frigate HMS PORTLAND appearing out of the gray was a sight to behold. After being at sea for 96 days, I was so used to the two of us bearing the responsibility for anything that had to be done that I was working on a plan for the delivery. I asked Tommy how we’d coordinate it. He laughed harder than he had in days, and responded that in all likelihood Her Majesty’s Ship would coordinate us! The 436′ frigate left MC to starboard at a safe distance before deploying a rigid inflatable boat (RIB) with four personnel who were next to us in seconds. They gave us three large bags of food, two flasks of hot soup, and HMS PORTLAND caps, which we donned with pride. We thanked them profusely, and once the RIB was back on the battleship, its captain called on the VHF to say “Well done” and wish us a safe passage to Falmouth. We were impressed with the courtesy and generosity of the British Navy.
We packed the food down in the cabin before Tommy took to the oars in a very wet 35- to 40-knot southwesterly. Although it was uncomfortable on deck for him, with little energy between us left to row, it was the push we needed on the penultimate night at sea. After receiving the fresh supplies we knew we should ease back into food slowly, but this was easier said than done. Tommy was ravenous and ate seven meals in close succession before falling into a deep sleep.
Pete Fletcher
For the entire voyage, Tom had lamented having to survive without licorice and when the boat arrived to tow us from Lizard Point to Falmouth Bay, it brought a bag of his favorite candy. He was happy, and I was in peace!
Alone on deck at around 4 p.m., I looked over my shoulder and saw land for the first time in 97 days. At first I couldn’t remove my gaze for fear that it was an illusion, but then when I knew the sight was real, I was overwhelmed with joy and laughed aloud as tears rolled down my cheeks. With a full moon, clear sky, and 15-knot tailwind, the final night in the English Channel couldn’t have been better. The many boats and the flashes from the Longships and Lizard lighthouses were sure signs that civilization was only hours away.
In the morning we were very grateful to have a lift from the Deputy Harbormaster who towed us from Lizard Point up to Falmouth Bay, before releasing us to row MC to a waiting crowd at 10 a.m. on August 27. As we reached the dock, I heard Willow asking which one is her daddy and in the next moment my family was in my arms.
Nine months have passed since we stepped ashore, and perhaps Tommy and I did see what the crossing would make of us. Tommy feels like he was stripped bare by the ocean and all that’s left is potential that he can shape in any way he sees fit. He’s a new man and knows he can be anything he chooses. If there’s something that I learned, it has to be: Never set foot on an ocean-rowing boat again!
Peter Fletcher is the Managing Director of World Challenge, a youth-development organization that enables high-school students to develop life and leadership skills through challenging student-led expeditions overseas. Although originally from the UK, Peter now calls Australia home and when not working overseas, he lives on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula with his wife, three daughters, puppy, and the family chickens.
If you have an interesting story to tell about your adventures with a small wooden boat, please email us a brief outline and a few photos.
Stout ski poles offer a way to move upstream in the shallows while kneeling rather than standing in a canoe.
Poling is the age-old technique for propelling a canoe against rapids or up shallow streams where paddling is ineffective. Standing in the canoe, the paddler uses a straight pole, often 12′ long, to push against the streambed; a skillful poler can make this look graceful and effortless.
Preparing for a 2013 through-paddle of the Northern Forest Canoe Trail (NFCT) in a 14′ solo canoe, I was in the midst of making a two-piece pole when I accepted that standing in a small, narrow canoe in rapids was probably a recipe for disaster. I adopted instead to adopt a technique suggested by my wife the previous summer. Progressing up an Adirondack stream too shallow to plant a paddle blade in and with no long poles on hand, she suggested using a pair of sticks in double-poling fashion like cross-country skiers do. It worked astonishingly well, and immediately entered my repertoire of skills.
The poles I now carry are aluminum downhill ski poles. It is critical that the poles be stiff and strong. Wide flanges on the grips ease the need to clench hands so tightly. Removing the baskets makes them less susceptible to snagging rocks, albeit offering less resistance against a riverbed of soft silt, and removing the wrist straps allows quick release if they become wedged between rocks and when it’s time to resume paddling.
Double-poling can require considerable upper-body strength, and much of the propulsion comes from bending the torso rather than relying on arms alone. Kneeling in the canoe with the knees set especially wide offers better control of heeling and steering. It is worth trimming the canoe to be bow light so that, on entering the current, there is less risk of it being swept around.
For effective forward propulsion, the poles have to be angled well backward, tips planted roughly even with the hips. Steering is achieved by planting a pole forward of the hip and pointing away from the canoe while the other pole, planted well back, prevents downstream drift or, strength permitting, maintains forward momentum. I have yet to try tandem double-poling, but it promises to be highly effective, especially with the stern poler providing propulsion, while the bow poler steers by guiding the bow as necessary.
Double-poling has some advantages: the poles are lighter and easier to stow, and the kneeling position gives you a lower center of gravity and greater stability. It also has some disadvantages: less leverage and less propulsion than a long pole, and a smaller range of water depths in which it is feasible.
Poles sometimes wedge between rocks, so I recommend practicing this technique before relying on it for real. On the NFCT, double-poling propelled me in a fully laden canoe up Class I and lower Class II rapids on New Hampshire’s Upper Ammonoosuc and Androscoggin rivers and Maine’s Spencer, Little Spencer, and Caucomgomoc streams.
Following a career of teaching high school science in the U.K., Peter Macfarlane immigrated to Vermont to take up life as a musician. Playing and teaching the fiddle professionally has afforded him the time to indulge his passion for cedar-strip canoes, not only paddling them but also designing and building them as Otter Creek Smallcraft. The canoe pictured here is a Sylva, a solo touring canoe he designed, built, and paddled the 740-mile length of the Northern Forest Canoe Trail through northern New York, Vermont, Quebec, New Hampshire, and Maine.
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Christopher Cunningham
