I prefer to anchor out when we are camp-cruising, but with Alaska’s 20′ tide range that isn’t always an option in some of the shallower coves. Boats with flat bottoms wide enough to keep them upright will ground comfortably on a falling tide, but our Caledonia yawl, with its narrow keel, will come to rest heeled over. This is where beaching legs, also known as sheer legs, come in handy. This decidedly low-tech gear is just the thing to keep your boat upright on the beach, allowing the continued use of your boat as a base camp between tides.
Without her beaching legs, this Caledonia yawl would be resting on her planking and heeled at about 10°, the angle of her deadrise. With the legs she’s level, supported by her keel and gunwales and fit for habitation.
Captain Ahab’s spares? The author’s yellow cedar beaching legs were a driftwood solution to the problem of sleeping aboard on a falling tide that would leave the boat high and dry in the middle of the night.
Although it would be tempting to make an adjustable set of legs, the sort used on larger boats, this isn’t necessary. I made a simple set from an Alaskan yellow cedar pole I salvaged from the beach on one of our camping trips when it became obvious that we were going to spend the night high and dry. They worked so well, I brought them home and refined them a bit.
The length of the legs was determined by holding the boat level on a flat beach and measuring from the bottom of the outwale to the ground. To that I added 12″, so there would be enough above the rail to secure the legs to the boat. The legs are notched to tuck under the outwale, providing a good strong contact point with the boat. It is better to err on the short side from foot to notch, since you want the keel taking most of the weight. Mine are then tapered toward the foot, which was also left wide for a nice bearing surface on the ground. If the ground is especially soft, a flat rock or a slab of driftwood will keep the foot from sinking.
A thole pin serves as the simplest of attachments for a beaching leg. The pin pulls the notched leg in tight so the load can be taken by the outwale
The upper end of each leg has two Velcro straps, secured with screws and finish washers, which are wrapped tight around the tholepins (something that could easily be adapted to a more conventional oar lock). On big boats it was standard practice to through-bolt the legs to the hull and run guy lines fore and aft from the foot of the leg to the rail, but this doesn’t seem to be necessary on a small boat.
When the legs aren’t in use they’re easy to stow. Their simple attachment makes them easy to deploy while still afloat, for times when you’re going to dry out in the middle of the night. Just be sure you know what’s under you; it would be a shame to be surprised by a big rock in the wrong spot.
Beaching legs are simple to make and quite useful for those of us who camp-cruise in tidal waters. Make a pair and see for yourself.
Jim Danner is an IT manager for the state of Alaska. When he’s not working he’s spending time with his family or messing around with small boats. His article about cruising with his family appeared in our September 2014 issue.
Editor’s notes:
After reading Jim’s article I decided that my Whitehall needed a pair of beaching legs. Varnished inside and out, it wasn’t intended for rough handing on shore. While it has a narrow plank keel and will balance upright on its own, a pair of beaching legs would assure that it wouldn’t rest on its bright-finished Port Orford cedar planking.
Christopher Cunningham
The detachable foot of the beach leg keeps it from sinking into soft ground.
The Whitehall has oarlocks instead of thole pins so I followed up on Jim’s suggestion to fabricate a way of connecting the legs to the rowlocks. A ½″ rod fits perfectly into the rowlocks socket. I bought a 2′ length of mild steel rod at the hardware store for a few bucks. Brass or stainless steel might have been a better choice but not so easy to find nor as inexpensive. Aluminum would have worked well too but I am not familiar with heating and bending it.
The rod required a bend of about 80° to go from the nearly vertical hole in the rowlock to the horizontal hole through the beach leg. I made the bends before cutting the rod to length—the extra length gave me a lever cool to the touch. I heated the rod with an ordinary propane torch. It took about 4 or 5 minutes to get the steel to glow red. I kept the flame aimed at a single spot to focus the heat, and thus the bend, in a small section of the rod. Only an inch or so was glowing brightly when I turned off the torch and went to the vice to make the bend. After cooling the rod in water I cut the ends to length with a hacksaw. With a new blade the cuts don’t take long.
Christopher Cunningham
The block attached to the bottom of the steel rod transfers the load taken my the beaching leg to the inwale, a strong structural element.
For the rod to keep the beaching leg in place it has to be kept from sliding up. There was no easy way to use a cotter pin, so I made an oak block to attach to the rod. To make a groove to fit the side of the rod I clamped the two blocks together and drilled down the center with a ½” Forstner bit. Each top of each block would press against the bottom face of the inwale, keeping the rod in place and transferring any strain to a structural part of the boat. I drilled a 17/64″ hole in the block and drilled and tapped the rod for a ¼″ x 20 thumbscrew.
Christopher Cunningham
The straight side of a hairpin cotter pin rests in a kerf, keeping the beaching leg vertical.
The beach legs are ¾″ oak. A ½″ hole fits over the rod. On the tablesaw I cut a kerf through the hole to make a passageway for a hairpin cotterpin. The pin holds the beach leg against the outwale and the slot captures the pin to keep the leg pointed down.
At the bottom of each leg I cut a shouldered tenon and made a foot with a loose-fitting mortise. A bungee cord laced through the foot and leg keeps the foot in place. The loose fit adapts to uneven terrain and makes it easy to remove the foot when the beaching legs are stowed.
Christopher Cunningham
The parts of the beaching legs fit in a small fabric bag that’s easily stowed.
For about $20, and a mostly pleasant afternoon in the shop, I was in business. I did have one moment of despair: One of the holes I drilled for the cotter pin angled well away from the center of the rod. There was no way to drill a new hole and I thought I’d have to start over and make a new piece. Fortunately the hole was just the right size to drive a 16-penny nail through. I cut the ends flush, dabbed on a bit of flux, and hit it with the torch and a bit of silver solder. That saved the day. The new hole went in straight and true.
The Rocker Stoppers nest when not in use. Weight is provided by a homemade mesh bag loaded with beach rocks.
I enjoy sleeping at anchor. There’s something soothing about the gentle rocking of the hull. Gentle rocking. I don’t enjoy being jostled about when waves find their way into what had started out as a quiet anchorage.
On many nights I would have traded my favorite pillow for anything that could keep my boat from rocking and let me fall asleep. Rocker Stoppers look like they’ll do the job. They’re orange plastic gizmos that look like they could do double duty as sombreros for Chihuahuas. Hung in multiples from each side of a boat, their resistance to vertical movement will help hold a boat steady. For boats up to 26′ the manufacturer recommends using three from each side of the boat with a 5- to 10-lb weight at the end of the line running through them. A mushroom anchor is suggested as a handy weight—it will nest inside the Rocker Stoppers—but I’d rather not lug two more anchors around. I used some mesh bags filled with beach rocks.
In gentle waves, the kind I’d expect in a small, protected anchorage, the Rocker Stoppers, hung from the sheer, did dampen the roll. My inclinometer rolled through an arc of 10 to 12 degrees without them and about half that with them. After the Rocker Stoppers had some time in the water, the hitches capturing them on the line snugged up, widening the gap between knots and allowing more play. Getting the knots close together (solid braid line is easier to work with than three-strand line) more effectively restricts rocking motion.
The Rocker Stoppers were most effective when deployed well away from the gunwale. A pair of oars served as outrigger booms.
While deploying the Rocker Stoppers from the rail produced measurable results, there wasn’t quite the wow factor I was hoping for. The label on each Rocker Stopper says: “Sailboats can use the end of a boom or a spinnaker pole.” So I set a pair of oars up as outriggers, handles outboard and blades tucked under the opposite gunwale. The effect was dramatic. Getting the Rocker Stoppers another 5′ out from the rail all but eliminated rocking.
The inclinometer wavered through only 2 degrees (see video). I could see the looms of the oars flex, an indication of the amount of force going into stabilizing the boat. With a little adaptation my mainmast could be employed as a single stout outrigger for both sides. I didn’t try the Rocker Stoppers in anything but small waves and rolling boat wakes. If I had to spend a night where the water was going to be choppy, I might set the boat at anchor, but I wouldn’t sleep aboard.
Each Rocker Stopper is 14″ in diameter and 6″ tall. They nest compactly together when a line isn’t threaded through them, but the stack of six ready to deploy takes up some space that can be hard to find aboard a small boat. Be that as it may, I place a high value on a good night’s sleep, and the Rocker Stoppers would earn a place aboard.
Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats Monthly
Manufactured by Davis Instruments, Rocker Stoppers sell for $13.99 each.
The most common and useful electronic device aboard large boats is undoubtedly the depthfinder—it keeps them from running aground. With most small boats you can often see the bottom before you hit it, and if you do run aground you can usually shove off with an oar or get out and push, as I did in in Florida Bay during the Everglades Challenge (see my story in this issue). There are times where water depth is an important piece of information for small boats, particularly when anchoring in coves where a rising tide can diminish the scope of your anchor rode and a falling tide can set you on the rocks in the middle of the night. Knowing the depth can also help you find good fishing holes. The H22FX HawkEye Handheld Sonar System by NorCross Marine gives us a way to determine depth up to 200’ quickly and accurately.
No bigger than a flashlight, the H22FX is small enough to fit just about anywhere. Simply add four AA batteries and the unit is ready to go with a flip of a switch. All you have to do is place the front of the device in the water and get a reading on its backlit LCD screen. The sounder floats and is rated waterproof to 3′.
In my sea trials aboard my fishing skiff, the sounder accurately measured depths from 3′ up to 80′ on trial depths on a variety of bottoms, verified by my onboard depthfinder. The H22FX was also useful in checking my depths when I went spearfishing from my kayak.
In addition to measuring depth, the H22FX can also be aimed horizontally to find distances to shore or submerged obstructions. It has a built-in thermometer to provide air and water temperature and doubles as a 20-lumen LED flashlight with easily changed clear, red, blue, and green lenses. The LED can flash SOS, a nice nod to safety, but it is not a substitute for Coast Guard–approved distress-signaling devices.
The H22FX has a fish indicator feature to help locate fish, and it did display the fish symbol when fish were present. While that’s a nice-to-know bit of information, any experienced fisherman knows that even more sophisticated sounders that show you a picture of the bottom and the fish are primarily used to find underwater structures and contours where you are most likely to catch fish.
The H22FX is capable of shooting through aluminum or solid fiberglass hulls but not through wood. In a small boat the water is within reach.
The H22FX is a useful tool. Depths marked on charts don’t have the details in the shore-side waters frequented by small boats, and taking soundings with your anchor before setting it is clumsy and time-consuming. With the H22FX, determining depth is quick, easy and reliable.
A native Floridian, Thomas Head grew up working on his father’s home-built stone crab boat in the small coastal town of Inglis. He has 19 years of service in the U.S. Navy. His account of racing in the Everglades Challenge appears in this issue.
With 130 square feet of sail set, the Coquina slips along in light air.
Joe Brennan’s as-yet-unnamed Herreshoff Coquina is a cold-molded version of the lapstrake cat-ketch that Nathanael Herreshoff built for himself in 1889. This is Joe’s first boat, built to test the idea of a career as a boatbuilder: “So I had this silly idea . . . ,” he said.
He purchased plans from Doug Hylan of Brooklin, Maine. The plans for the 16’8” by 5′1″ Coquina, developed by Doug with Maynard Bray, include directions for Herreshoff’s original construction of white cedar on oak as well as for glued-lapstrake plywood. Joe enlisted the help of Terry Schuster, a craftsman in Pittsburgh who brought his knowledge and experience as a boatbuilder to the project.
They chose to build the Coquina in cold-molded red cedar. Using a CAD program they drew out full-sized patterns for the stations and all of the parts, except the planking. Western red cedar planking measuring 17′ x 5″ x 1/8″ came from Baird Brothers Fine Hardwoods of northeast Ohio.
Joe and Terry book-matched all the planks that would show inside and outside of the hull. The building of the hull was done one side at a time. The inner and outer layers were laid horizontally, and the middle layer diagonally. After each side was planked it was removed, sanded, and finished, then put back on the molds. A bead of 3M 5200 and silicon-bronze screws secured the hull halves to the keelson. The builders installed white oak mast steps and knees to hold the side decks and the seat cleats. The seats are white oak and mahogany. The decks are marine-grade plywood with highly figured African mahogany faces. The transom is sapele.
Ed Rombout Photography
The cold-molded construction provides a clean interior and a light but strong structure.
The masts, booms, and yards are Sitka spruce and were built by Max Peterson of Max’s Woodworks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. They were delivered ready for sanding and varnish. Tom Bell of Bell Sails in Washington, Pennsylvania, made the Dacron sails—an 83-sq-ft main and a 47-sq-ft mizzen. The centerboard is high-strength steel and the rudder is aircraft aluminum. Steering is as designed by Herreshoff: a rope through the transom and running around the perimeter of the interior. Joe, on his “crazy tangent,” worked nights and weekends in a rented shop for about three years. He launched the boat in the summer of 2013 on a small lake near the shop to see how she would row. “At the first stroke of the oars she took off like rabbit,” he said. Later, he took her out for a first sail. “She stood up to the wind, rain, and chop. She stayed dry for the most part and was a pleasure to sail—a dream come true.” The boat still awaits a christening, a name, and an owner. Joe is now working on a Rushton wooden canoe, a project that is much more manageable and less expensive.
The Golant Ketch is a 20′ hard-chined camp-cruiser designed by Roger Dongray. Dongray is perhaps best known for his Cornish Shrimper, which he designed in 1976 with the intention of building only one in plywood, for himself. But after various friends showed an interest, 10 more plywood boats were built, and in 1979 Cornish Crabbers started building them in fiberglass and have now delivered 1,132 of them. At first glance the Ketch and the Shrimper seem to have similar hull shapes, but this is perhaps only because the eye is distracted by their wide-plank clinker-effect construction. The Ketch is actually slightly longer and wider, and also has a finer bow, a fuller stern, and a less-raked transom.
In September 2013, after a 24-year career in the wine business, Keith McIlwain enrolled in the Lyme Regis Boat Building Academy’s nine-month Boat Building, Maintenance, and Support course, in which about half the students get the opportunity to build a boat for themselves. For some years Keith had admired the 18′9″ round-bilged Golant Gaffer—another Dongray design, from 1993—but was worried that her fixed keel and 2′9″ draft would make her difficult to road-trailer. So when he came across the Gaffer’s centerboard cousin, the Golant Ketch, of which just one had been built at that time, he knew that this was the boat for him.
all photographs by Nigel Sharp
The foredeck is recessed to keep lines and gear from going overboard.
It was by no means certain that he would be allowed to build one, however, because the Academy staff needs to ensure that the boats produced by each class will give the students a wide range of experience in terms of construction methods and materials, and that it will be possible to complete them all during the time available. In fact it is unusual for any boats longer than about 16’ to be built. What won the day for Keith was the Golant Ketch’s plywood construction—as opposed to the more time-consuming cold-molded or strip-plank options for the Golant Gaffer—and the fact that Dongray had produced particularly detailed drawings.
The construction began with five permanent transverse bulkheads and partial bulkheads, all of ½″ plywood, set up, upside down, on a temporary framework on the workshop floor. Longitudinal bulkheads defining the cockpit were then added, and glue-fastened with epoxy. The keel was then fitted, it being of 5”-thick Douglas-fir with the centerboard slot cut through it; it was fastened in place with silicon-bronze screws and epoxy.
Chines of 1¼″ x 1″ Douglas-fir—three per side—were notched into the bulkheads and beveled to provide suitable landings for the 3/8″ plywood hull planks. Once the hull was planked, its exterior was sheathed with two layers of 6-oz plain-weave cloth and epoxy resin before a capping, laminated from ten layers of 1/8″ khaya, was fitted to the stem and around the forefoot. The outside of the hull was then faired and painted with Coppercoat, the copper-filled epoxy resin said to negate the need for antifouling for at least 10 years, being applied below the waterline. The topsides were painted with a two-part polyurethane, and the transom and stem cap finished bright.
A cradle was then built over the hull with the corners cut away on one side to allow it to be easily turned over. As soon as that was done, all of the plywood intersections on the inside of the hull were epoxy-filleted and two coats of epoxy resin were applied to the entire inside of the boat.
For accessibility, most of the interior fitout was carried out before the deck went on. The foredeck well, coach roof, and cockpit were all constructed of 3/8″ plywood supported by a Douglas-fir structure. To avoid the need for a mast support post in the middle of the cabin, the mast and chainplate loads are taken by a substantial deckbeam made up of six 5/8″ x 3″ Douglas-fir laminations sandwiched between two layers of ½″ plywood. Most of deck was painted with Hempel Multicoat (a combined primer and topcoat) while various pieces of khaya, such as the gunwales, cappings for the cockpit coaming, the companionway hatch and trim, and the surround for the foredeck well, were coated with Rustin’s Danish Oil for easy maintenance.
This pulley and axle provide a mechanical advantage for raising the lead-weighted centerboard.
For ballast, 880 lbs of sheet lead was secured in the bilges adjacent to the centerboard, effectively by laminating it together with PU adhesive. The centerboard was made up of four layers of plywood totaling 1½″, with a large section of the two inner layers removed and replaced by 112 lbs of lead. The rudder is predominantly plywood but has a lifting stainless steel plate which limits its draft to no more than that of the fixed keel. It has two pintles on the transom and a third one on a stainless-steel tubular structure that is connected to the aft corner of the keel to provide some protection to the outboard motor.
Dongray’s drawings included the specification and position of every deck fitting, and also details of some parts that needed to be specially made, including the centerboard control system, tabernacle, and other mast fittings. Throughout the build Keith rarely strayed from any of the drawings and even then only in minor ways after consulting Dongray himself.
Keith built the spars of spruce. Jeckells Sailmakers made the sails; when they were complete, Keith managed to step the rig inside the workshop by maneuvering the boat under the highest point of the roof.
The course’s finale is Launch Day, when all the new boats are launched into Lyme Regis Harbour one after another, to great fanfare. This deadline accurately reflects the real world of commercial boatbuilding and the students cheerfully put in the hours to make sure their boats are ready. Keith’s latest night was quarter to one in the morning, but on a couple of other occasions he got up at 3 a.m. just to apply a coat of paint on part of the deck so it would be dry when he started work properly after breakfast.
The Golant ketch caries 235 square feet of sail.
The new boat was christened DAYDREAM as she slipped into the water for the first time on a glorious sunny day in June. Unfortunately, Launch Day also brought with it a great deal of wind, and so Keith had to make do with a short outing under reefed headsail alone. The next time he got to sail DAYDREAM was with me, one week later. The day was again sunny, but the breeze a gentle 4–6 knots. Despite the slightly disproportionate chop, DAYDREAM made her way effortlessly through the water. She had a reassuring small amount of weather helm and she tacked through about 90 degrees, albeit slowly. This was hardly surprising given her long keel and the sea state, but the plus side of that is that she tracked straight. All the sail controls are led back to the cockpit, and it will be possible to reef by reaching the main gooseneck when standing in the companionway. The mainsail didn’t come down very easily, but Keith thinks that is just a question of coordinating the easing of the throat and peak halyards more effectively. That will be important as Keith anticipates he will sail the boat with just the mizzen and jib in strong winds.
Stainless-steel tubing supports the rudder and protects the outboard.
DAYDREAM’s 6-hp Mariner outboard is mounted in a well—into which the cockpit drains—immediately forward of the rudder, and its controls can be reached comfortably. Although it is possible to steer by turning the outboard through almost 90 degrees, thanks to its prop-wash over the rudder it is unlikely that this will be necessary when going ahead.
The practical interior includes a V-berth forward with an infill to form a double, and a quarter berth to starboard; a small seat to port adjacent to a compact galley area containing a two-burner gas cooker; a chemical toilet below a hinged lid by the companionway; and a shelf outboard on each side. Most of the interior is painted, but varnished khaya shelf fiddles, centerboard trunk, and companionway trim provide a pleasing contrast.
Keith is planning to set up his own boat building and repair company, called Daydream Boats, near his home in Bristol. From there he plans to sail DAYDREAM in the Bristol Channel, where there is a massive tidal range of 43′. But he is also looking forward to putting her on her trailer and taking her to less-demanding estuaries in other parts of the West Country, to Ireland, and to the Continent.
Nigel Sharp is a lifelong sailor and a freelance marine writer and photographer. He spent 35 years in managerial roles in the boat building and repair industry and has logged thousands of miles in boats big and small, from dinghies to schooners.
The Penobscot Wherry from Cottrell Boatbuilding of Searsport, Maine, is based on the Lincolnville salmon wherry, a beamy high-volume boat used to remove salmon from weirs in the days when there was a commercial salmon run on Maine’s Penobscot River. “Wherry” is a nebulous term generally used to describe a relatively light rowboat. This particular wherry has a narrow, flat bottom with lapstrake sides, making it a specialized type of round-bottomed dory. “Bottom board” boats such as this one are found all along the Atlantic coast, both with transoms and pointed sterns; these boats include sea skiffs in New Jersey, tuckups and duckers on the Delaware, Staten Island skiffs, and Great South Bay’s Seaford skiffs. This general hull form is also found inland in Adirondack guideboats. The common element among all of these boats is a flat bottom board in place of a timber keel—a feature that allows the boat to sit upright when pulled up onto a beach or trailer.
all photographs by Matthew P. Murphy
The shapely wineglass transom tapers down to the garboards and the waterline of a double-ender.
Transom-sterned boats of this family have a narrow “boxed” stern with the garboards coming into the keel at almost 90 degrees, creating a hollow skeg at the stern below the water, and a wineglass shape above. For the Penobscot Wherry, builder Dale Cottrell had naval architect Richard Lagner work up the basic design. The resulting shape is elegant. At the waterline the hull is double ended. A raked, curved stern is both pleasing to the eye and useful in a following sea, lifting much more readily to waves than the squared-off stern of most rowing boats. The rake in the stern is complemented by an easy curved raking stem, a shape that makes it possible to work a little flare into the bow, which helps keep the boat dry when rowing to windward.
A nicely sculpted stem head punctuates the intersection of the curves of the sheer and the stem.
Dale Cottrell likes to build small rowing boats and dinghies. While he can do a fine job of plank-on-frame construction, his boats are primarily of glued lapstrake plywood, which makes them handier for people whose boats live on trailers, as the plywood planks do not shrink and swell with changes in moisture content. This construction also produces a lightweight boat as compared with a plank-on-frame hull. Like the products of most small boat shops, Dale’s boats need to go out the door to customers. The boat we trialed, however, is one of the rare ones he chose to keep for himself and his wife, Lynn. They call her OLIVE. OLIVE measures 15′ with a 52” beam. She is set up with two seats for pair rowing or single rowing with a passenger. The freeboard is relatively low so that 7’6” oars work well at the rowing stations. If someone wanted a single amidships thwart, 8-footers might be needed. Ten nicely lined-off planks per side make the complex shape of the stern and the bit of flare in the bow possible. She has an open interior that could be equipped with floorboards. The seats have a subtle pleasing curve when viewed from above—something I’d not seen before in small boats; they have a stiffener fastened to their undersides. OLIVE has fixed stretchers set up to catch the rowers’ heels. Amidships, the section is veed for about four planks going out from keel, then curves smoothly up to the gunwale. This provides stability when heeled but a lively feeling when rowing. The boat reminds you to sit in the middle, but provides plenty of stability when you slide to the gunwale. As with most fast rowing boats, stepping into the middle and grabbing the gunwales when boarding is a good idea. Fifteen feet is a great minimum length for a fixed-seat rowing boat. Any shorter and there is not much benefit rowing with a partner. Here two can have a fine row and there is nice power when there is wind. Customers have set up their Penobscot Wherries with a sliding seat for more leg power, but this is not ideal for this boat—it pitches with the rower’s weight moving back and forth. This is a fixed-seat boat, at heart.
The glued-plywood lapstrake construction creates an interior that is uncluttered and easy to maintain.
We’d planned for a still and clear early morning to test OLIVE, but got only some of that. It was a clear early July morning with great light, but we were served with a stiff northwesterly breeze running down the mile or so of harbor, kicking up a chop with the odd whitecap. It gave us a good chance to test the boat in conditions where many rowers might stay ashore, breezy enough for testing the reefing gear on a small sailboat. It was a great day to see how the boat handled in the wind.I first tried some laps with tight turns. This demonstrated how easily she spins—and indeed she spins quickly. She sits lightly on the water, so only a few strokes are required for a 180-degree turn (as compared to plumb-stemmed, straight-keeled Whitehalls which have a much wider turning circle). Dale then joined me, rowing stroke, to see how she behaved with two aboard. Which brings us to the matter of trim ballast. Small rowboats really benefit from trim ballast. The problem is that when a boat is set up to trim level for pair rowing, if rowing single the bow or stern is high depending on the seat chosen.
Reviewer Ben Fuller takes the Penobscot wherry out for a solo row with some ballast in the bow to keep the boat in trim.
For the trial Dale picked up a large beach boulder and put it in canvas bag. Not knowing that, I had a soft five-gallon water container with me, which is what I usually take along in my larger dory. When rowing single from the after seat, I’d slid the stone ahead of the forward seat. With Dale aboard, we tucked the rock under him, as I’m a bit bigger. Doubling the power with the same windage made pulling into 15 knots or so of wind seem like rowing into a light breeze. As expected, with two aboard, and the boat deeper in the water, some coordination was needed for a quick turn.
Matthew P. Murphy
With two at the oars, the wherry wasn’t significantly slowed by a 15-knot headwind.
Then I took her out for a solo spin around the harbor. Surreptitiously, I’d slid my GPS onto my rowing thwart. First I went downwind—the easy way—and was hardly working while running at an easy 4-plus knots, surfing wind waves. Thoughts of a couple of drybags of gear and Islesboro and an island campsite a dozen miles to leeward crossed my mind. With my weight in the stern seat and the ballast stone under the bow seat, she was quite well behaved going straight without wanting to turn up into the wind. Coming back was more work, but a steady pull into the teeth of the wind gave me better than 2 knots. I slid the ballast rock quite far forward to trim the bow down. Perhaps most interesting was rowing across the wind, which is where many rowing boats will misbehave. Three knots was easy, but what impressed me the most was the ability of the boat to stay on a straight line without needed hard pulls on the windward oar—something that is often the case. In big dark puffs, the boat just slid sideways a little. After I gave OLIVE back to Dan and Lynn, they jumped in, pulling well together upwind. My last sight of them that day was their turning around after a mile upwind to the head of the anchorage. If I were not overequipped with boats, I’d add this one to my to the fleet. She is great for anchorage and estuary cruising, poking up narrow coves, or heading across a broad harbor. Her flared bow and raking stern keep the water out if a sea is running. Her size is ideal: light enough to be easily maneuvered onto a beach or light trailer but capacious enough for two or three on a picnic. Dale could put a sailing rig in her, but I’d not bother with this as she slides along nicely without one under oars alone. While a competitive racer might seek a longer boat, this wherry is about as big as one might want for solo recreational rowing. A foot or so longer and narrower would be faster, but at her current size, the low wetted surface makes her an easy pull, a boat that you can row faster than you can walk, all day long.
Ben Fuller, curator of the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, Maine, has been messing about in small boats for a very long time. He is owned by a dozen or more boats ranging from an International Canoe to a faering.
In early June in southern Montana the last light of day lingers for a long time. The mountains across the valley were still full of snow that would eventually melt and flow into the Missouri River. The day before the launch my friend Josh and I arrived at the Missouri Headwaters State Park in Three Forks where the Madison, Jefferson, and Gallatin rivers connect to form the Missouri. I was nervous, wondering how I’d maneuver my stand-up paddleboard with 100 lbs of gear, water, and food.
I secured my gear on deck. With my quick-dry pants rolled up and water shoes tied tight, I set a foot on the board, planted my paddle on deck for balance, and pulled my other foot out of the icy water and splashed it down on the deck pad. The water ahead was streaked with white. When a cowboy lingering outside the motel the night before said, “You know there are rapids on that river?” I’d brushed him off. Now I was fighting the urge to kneel on the board for balance. River rocks flew by as I gained speed. I took the rapids head on, hoping I wouldn’t slam into a submerged rock. Water crashed against my well-secured dry bags, as I flexed my knees to stay connected to the board. The water soon smoothed out, and I was still upright. My years-long dream was now my reality.
The first few small lakes were a much bigger challenge than I anticipated. After walking along shore I reached an area sheltered from some of the wind and was able to paddle to the last dam for about 240 miles.
After two days the fast water gave way to the first of nine lakes. During the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, 15 dams were built for flood control and electricity. This changed the river and made it harder to paddle. Canyon Ferry Lake is 44 miles from the headwaters, and at 25 miles long and as much as 5 miles across, was my first true test.
Huge white pelicans, surprisingly numerous, clamored on sandbars as I reached open water. It was dead calm, so I headed out, hoping to make the dam in a day.
The log I sat on to eat lunch was 30 vertical feet up the bank, evidence of how much the water level can fluctuate. Weekend fishermen headed back to the boat ramp as whitecaps rolled from the direction I needed to go. Within the next couple of hours headwinds had built to 30 mph. After covering only 8 miles, I wasn’t ready to call it a day and wanted to see if I could make progress walking the board. My feet twisted and slipped on softball-sized rocks as I pushed my board forward with my paddle and steered it with the bow line. I pushed forward at less than 2 mph.
After four hours, I headed for shore. I pitched my tent next to a dirt wall that looked like someone had sliced a hill in half with a knife; the hills surrounding the lake have been eroded in the 60 years since the dam was built. The sky went from pink to dark purple. My feet were in good shape for being submerged and pummeled on rocks all day, but I still had almost 700 miles of lakes still ahead.
My alarm jarred me awake at 4:55 a.m. There was enough light to see that the water was calm. I packed quickly, to get in some miles before the wind kicked up. Breakfast was bites of an energy bar between paddle strokes. The riverbanks were jagged yellow rocks, with coves fit for a seacoast. Fat carp darted everywhere. The Canyon Ferry Dam was just a couple hours away. My confidence had grown traversing the reservoir, and I’d learned to enjoy each day without worrying about what was ahead.
After watching an incredible sunrise fill the granite canyon I paddled downriver to a trailhead. A quick hike brought me to this lookout where Lewis and Clark had stood over 200 years before.
Meriwether Lewis wrote in July 1805, “This evening we entered much the most remarkable clifts that we have yet seen. These clifts rise from the waters edge on either side perpendicularly to the hight of 1200 feet… the river appears to have forced it’s way through this immence body of solid rock… from the singular appeaerance of this place I called it the gates of the rocky mountains.”
Here the sloped, green banks abruptly transition to walls of granite and the twisting river’s walls overlap, giving the appearance of stone gates. I paddled hard to enter these gates before nightfall in order to watch the sunrise fill the canyon the next morning. I set up camp on a rare flat spot on the inside bend of the river. The river didn’t flow fast enough here to produce a sound, and the birds were quiet as I lay tucked among the pines.
Fog hung over the river and moved toward me as clouds followed the canyon’s path. The reflection of both canyon walls on the river was revealed as the sun transformed the distant sky a bright pink. Trees high on the cliffs became more defined, and the dew on my tent glistened. I ate some instant oatmeal, not wanting to leave but eager to see what was around the granite-lined bend.
I walked into the blasting wind along the shores of one of the Missouri’s “little” lakes. Waves tried to rip the board from my control and throw it against the rocks. Swallows darted in and out of their nests 15’ above me.
I arrived at a campground by the Holter Dam. After setting up camp, I walked to a store in a marina. There was a freezer full of microwave food. The white-haired lady working the counter looked a bit concerned as I zapped an armful of frozen food while eating an ice cream sandwich.
The previous night I endured a hail storm so severe I though my tent was going to collapse. As I launched the next day just above Craig, Montana, the rain started again but I didn’t care. I was around the last dam for a couple weeks and I was flying along at 7 mph.
Thunder ripped into my ears. My tent poles strained against the wind and hail loudly reverberated off the nylon. I pulled a dry bag over my head, ready for my shelter’s collapse. I could feel water flowing under my tent.
After spending the morning drying everything out, I asked the campground host for a ride around the dam. As we approached the boat ramp, it started pouring again. I pushed off into an incredible current. My GPS indicated 7 mph. My worries vanished like the raindrops into the river. The cold water rushed over polished stone as colorful as a trout’s body. I flew past a dozen drift-boaters. Many called out, “Where ya’ coming from?” I’d reply, “Three Forks.” “Wow that’s a long way. Where ya’ headed?” A look of confused contemplation came across their faces when I replied, “St. Louis,” for the first time truly believing myself.
After a few days’ rest in Great Falls, my dad arrived to travel the next 150 miles with me in a rented canoe. We headed into the White Cliffs of the Missouri River Breaks. The current gave us a good boost without being overwhelming. For seven days we floated past white sandstone cliffs and wind-carved monoliths. The banks were ankle-deep with mud and thick with mosquitoes. The miles were easy, so we took many hikes, once being turned back by spooked stampeding cattle.
The current in the section I paddled with my dad was strong enough to allow us to make miles easily. We could afford to meander downstream and enjoy the unique rock formations— such as Citadel Rock seen here—around every bend.
Beavers slapped their tails on the water every 1,000 yards as we neared the James Kipp Recreation area. We lugged our gear and boats to the campground. It was hot, but we wore our rain jackets to get some relief from the worst mosquitoes I’d ever experienced. The fire pits were under the floodwaters, so I built a fire on an elevated cooking grate to smoke out the pests. My gear was filthy, and I’d never felt so grimy in my life.
I staggered out of my tent to pee, hoping get quickly back to the comfort of my sleeping bag. The brilliance of the Milky Way changed my plans and I went for my camera. It was hard to believe the sky was so dark only a half-day’s paddle from Great Falls.
In the morning we said goodbye and I turned my thoughts to Fort Peck Lake. There wasn’t a Montanan who didn’t warn me about how quickly things could deteriorate on the 130-mile-long reservoir. Sticking to the shoreline wasn’t possible since much of lake has long peninsulas that form coves a mile or more deep. I could save days by crossing 2- to 4-mile stretches of open water between peninsulas, but only if I got breaks in the weather.
My first day was calm. I woke at first light and stepped out of my tent. I was totally alone but more content than I’d been in years. The weather radio had been silent each time I’d tried. I was in one of the most isolated spots in the lower 48 and far from a signal. I packed quickly to get on the water while the conditions were still calm. For four days, I fought against persistent headwinds. Making 20 miles was a good day, and nights I’d drift off to a coma-like sleep.
When the conditions allowed I often cooked lunch on the board to gain a couple more miles. I was always eager to catch a free ride where the current flowed between the long stretches of still water in the reservoirs.
After reaching Fort Peck Dam I had a week of strong current, which carried me to Lake Sakakawea. There the current stopped and the river widened into the 160-mile-long reservoir. I hid my gear in the brush by a bridge and walked up to the road and stuck my thumb out to get a ride into the oil boomtown of Williston, North Dakota, to resupply. After just two minutes a dilapidated red minivan pulled over. I walked to the door and climbed in as the young driver moved a skillet holding his breakfast off the seat and added it to the pile in the back. He told me the oil fields were a tough place to work, but he pays for college in cash with his summer earnings.
It was my seventh day on Lake Sakakawea and I’d seen some big water. All night I’d endured 40-mph gusts blowing against my tent, so I was happy to be able to paddle. There was a 20-mph tailwind, but it was kicking up 4’ waves, holding my pace to half of what it would be in calm conditions. My progress was painfully slow. A wave crested at just the wrong time, and I took my first fall of the trip. My top-heavy board capsized. I was in the middle of the widest section of the lake where it takes a dogleg to the left. The extra layer I pulled on in the crisp morning clung to my skin under my PFD. I tried to remain calm and take inventory. The only thing that floated off the board was my water jug; the rest was tied on. I got my arms under the board and after two attempts righted it and scrambled back on and collect the stray jug.
Lake Sakakawea held the best sunsets I’d ever seen. The colors were different each night and were a reward for the work I’d put in that day. My campsite this night had trails up to the bluffs where I could see the vastness of the giant lake.
The following day continued Sakakawea’s routine for me, a 12-hour day of good conditions, followed by a day of wind so strong it would be foolish to leave shore. I stopped at a campground that sold ice cream and had gloriously hot, coin-operated showers. The previous day I’d been forced to spend the day ashore. I was in a rocky cow pasture exposed to the wind. The little things can make a big difference.
A few days and a lot of big waves later, I was on the other side of the Garrison Dam and just a couple days from Bismarck. A park ranger gave me a ride around the dam, and I paddled only a few hours before I had to stop on a sandbar in the shelter of a steep bank and set up my tent to get out of yet another oncoming thunderstorm.
The next day I felt the welcome pull of the current and headed into Bismarck. I would have thought it was a holiday weekend from the amount of boat traffic that was on the river and not a regular Monday. I guess when your winters are as hard as they are here, locals have to make the most of their summer. Many of the boaters were significantly inebriated, judging by the dozens of slurred questions and beers tossed my way.
After a weeklong break in Bismarck, I was off to tackle Lake Oahe. At 220 miles, it’s the longest of the lakes. The shore was a never-ending wave of rolling green, treeless hills. Everywhere else on the river the scenery had changed enough to make me curious about what was around the next bend, but here for 10 days everything truly looked the same. While it might have been my most challenging obstacle of the trip, I got lucky with weather, for the most part.
After this storm passed I headed back out only to get trapped on the water by high banks. I settled for a muddy and sloped spot to make shelter as rain pelted me and lightning shot through the air.
As I drew near the Oahe Dam I knew a storm was coming, so I had kept paddling after dark and used the lights on the dam and my GPS to navigate to the ramp at the end of lake. I made camp in the dark and fell into a deep sleep. I woke feeling like a log washed up on shore. My creaky body was slow to get moving, and the air was thick with the humidity that comes right before a heavy rain. A south wind was ripping up the lake. I was ready to be in the civilization of Pierre, South Dakota, for a day off. I set out the next afternoon to begin knocking off miles. Ahead I had the last three lakes and 200 currentless miles.
The wind was ruthless. Most of the energy I put forth went toward just keeping my place. The camping options had been abysmal the last few days, so I settled for a patch of gravel under a 20’ vertical bank below a cow pasture, and cleared away driftwood to set up camp. I woke in the night to hear a rustling, but figured it was just the wind and passed back out. In the morning I awoke groggy, and turned my head to the left to see a few tiny brown objects in my hat. A mouse had chewed a hole through the side of my tent and pooped in my hat!
I had fought aches and a fever for a week but pressed on. Current was not far downstream beyond Gavins Point Dam, and I needed it. My final day on both Lake Sharpe and Francis Case Lake was spent walking miles along shore to make the dam. The wind continued, unrelenting for days, so there was no sense waiting for better conditions. All of a sudden the empty green hills were lush with pine trees and golden rocky cliffs. It seems as if I’d been transported back to Montana, and my mood lightened with the improvement in my surroundings.
A river angel named Jarett Bies contacted me on Facebook and offered to give me a ride around the dam and put me up. I spent the night in a comfortable bed, but I was dropped off at the river before first light so Jarett could make his early work shift. The river was barely visible in the dim bridge lights. Convincing myself that it wasn’t safe to head out on the water, but knowing I really just wanted more rest, I weighed my options. The grass was covered in heavy dew, so I opted for the dry bike path and let the sun be my alarm. A car door slammed shut. I opened my eyes to see the sun had risen. I remembered I was sprawled out on an asphalt bike path in full view of a parking lot that now held several cars. I’d camped in a city park in Yankton, South Dakota.
I looked down at the water as the floating dock slowly bobbed under my weight. Patches of foamy bubbles drifted by at a tortoise pace. I filled with energy at the sight. The water had finally been released from the last of the 15 dams on the Missouri. The tops of the trees were just holding on to the last edge of the sun as it rose over the far bank. Golden rays poured over the silhouette of the forest and landed on the fading fog hanging over the water.
Barges navigate the last 750 miles of the river. There is an immense amount of fear surrounding the danger barges impose on a paddler. I gave them plenty of room and enjoyed the site of them chugging along.
I had paddled over 1,500 miles, almost half on currentless lakes. The channelized section of the river was all that remained, and these last 800 miles would take just three weeks. It alone was longer than any trip I’d ever taken, but it would pass too quickly. The current was too good to be true. After cursing the winds and lakes of South Dakota for weeks, I couldn’t imagine such speeds as 5 mph. The forecast was for 100 degrees with strong winds, but I didn’t care. I loaded my board knowing that I’d make distance and wouldn’t have to walk alongshore again for the rest of the trip.
I had seen huge downed trees littered on the banks for almost 2000 miles but rarely saw one in the water. When I saw this one floating in the middle of the river just before Omaha I decided to stand-up paddle it until the next bend in the river.
Water lapped against my board as I pushed off. The current slipped under the flat surface of my board, and I just plunged my paddle in to grab a hold of it. It took just a few strokes to get moving, but I halted paddling to watch the riverbank move past. Current. Sweet, sweet current.
I paddled through Sioux City, Omaha, Kansas City, and many small towns in between. The river there is lined with riprap and hundreds of wing dams to control the flow to allow for the safe passage of barges. Many people warned me of the danger of a barge wakes, but they were nothing compared to the waves I encountered on the lakes.
My solo trip ended with friends and family paddling with me to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. I had the support of so many friends and strangers along the way that finishing surrounded by people was a perfect ending to the journey.
I ticked off 50-mile days. Nearing Glasgow, Missouri, a quaint town along the river, I fought off the impulse to count miles and relaxed. Thin clouds promenaded across the sky. As the day ended, blue sky met soft golden light and there was a slight chill in the late summer air. St. Louis drew closer and I enjoyed every moment. Life had been simple for 107 days. I had only what I could carry on my board. My pace of life slowed speed and I appreciated chance encounters and simple pleasures.
I will never see the Missouri River as a line on a map again. I’ll always feel its motion, hear its sounds, and see at every point along that winding line, driving rain and spectacular sunsets from the solitude of my camps. The journey far exceeded even my loftiest expectations.
Scott Mestrezat grew up in Michigan with a passion for the outdoors, but his college education landed him at a desk job in Chicago. He dreamed about getting away from the city and embarking on an expedition under his own power, and set his sights on the Missouri River. His website, Missouri River SUP, is devoted to this voyage, and on the site you can find a trailer for the movie he made about it, Big Muddy Moose.
The Kaholo Stand Up Paddle Board
My stand-up paddleboard is a Kaholo 14 from Chesapeake Light Craft. CLC has been selling precut small-boat kits for over 20 years and, in response to the growing demand of the sport, added the Kaholo after five years of prototypes. CLC worked with Larry Froley of Gray Whale Trading Company in California to design a kayak-derived shape that helps the board lift over waves and track well. The Kaholo 14 has a length of 14’, a beam of 29 ½”, and a thickness of 4 5/8”. The construction of 3mm and 4mm okoume marine plywood brought the weight to approximately 35 lbs. The only modification I made to my board was using 6-oz fiberglass instead of 4-oz to accommodate for the added weight and abuse I would dish out to the board.
The Kaholo 14 has a maximum load capacity of 280 lbs; my gear, water, and food weighed in at an average of 100 lbs and was secured in dry bags to the deck with bungees and eye straps. The weight of the gear was distributed on the bow and stern, with the heaviest supplies positioned closest to my feet. The weight caused the board to sit low in the water, but it maintained a high degree of stability.
There are certainly faster and longer boards on the market, but the added stability helped in the large waves of the lakes, and I thoroughly enjoyed the added connection of building my own board. I found a piece of fabric with the image of a moose, so I cut it out and laminated it under the fiberglass on the bow. As I stood at the headwaters of the “Big Muddy,” I christened the board with a can of Moose Drool Brown Ale and aptly named the craft the MUDDY MOOSE.
I spent 107 days paddling from the headwaters in western Montana to St. Louis, Missouri. My 2300 river miles encompassed five other states: the Dakotas, Nebraska,Iowa and Kansas. I averaged about 29 miles per day on days I paddled. The average for the big reservoirs was 22 miles per day, and for the channelized section it was 44 miles per day. My longest day was 58 miles, which happened on three occasions and 38 miles when no current was present. Average speed in calm lake conditions was 2.9 mph, never much faster but could be a lot slower. The average channelized speed was 5.2 mph and the maximum speed was close to 10 mph, which took place in the early days of the trip. —SM
With a pair of Y-shaped crooks holding the sails and spars and the oars on the foredeck, the cockpit is clear of clutter.
Oars, masts, and spars get you where you want to go in a small boat built for rowing and sailing, but those long sticks are awkward to stow when they’re not in use. I saw one interesting solution to the problem when I was kayaking the coast of Croatia.
This natural crook has a squared tenon to fit in a slot in the gunwale of a Croatian fishing boat.
In the island village harbors there were lots of small fishing boats equipped with natural crooks set in the gunwales. Some crooks had more than one branch, providing two places to set spars or oars. This crook has a squared tenon to fit into a square hole in the gunwale. Others are round and tapered to fit in tholepin sockets.
This Croatian work boat has metal “crooks.”
A few boats had metal equivalents set in oarlock sockets. A pair of these held long items, like the oars shown below, just above the gunwale and clear of the cockpit.
These maple crooks took only 30 minutes or so to make.
I’ve cut pairs of crooks from maple windfalls and used a spokeshave to take the bark off and taper the bottom end to fit tholepin sockets.
In rough conditions I’d opt for an arrangement that’s more secure and doesn’t interfere with the operation of the boat, but at anchor and on days of mild weather, having a place for spars and oars keeps the cockpit open and comfortable. I’ve seen many boaters stow oars in a pair of oarlocks in a manner similar to this, but the crooks have the capacity to hold more stuff. With the sails and spars you see here held up high, I have enough clearance for rowing.
Two pairs of oars secured to the foredeck keep them out of the way while I’m sailing or at anchor.
The crooks weren’t a good solution to stowing oars while under sail. I kept the oars inboard but they were always in the way. I decided to get them out of the cockpit and fastened pairs of chocks on the foredeck of my Caledonia yawl.
The mainsail with its yard and boom and the mizzen with its mast sit high enough that I can row at tholes between the crooks.
The crosspiece holding the oars has two jam-cleat-like notches for quick locking of the lashing to the cleat below.
Two pairs of oars rest in the chocks’ hollows and are held down with an oak crosspiece lashed to a deck cleat. The oars project beyond the bow like a bowsprit. I’ve come to like the look and having the cockpit uncluttered for sailing is a great pleasure.
Bob Kellett
The “bowsprit” on my Caledonia yawl is a pair of oars.
Different boats, of course, require different solutions to stowing oars and spars. If you’ve come up with a good solution to the problem, please email it to me and we’ll share it with our readers.
Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats Monthly. He has been building and cruising in small boats since 1979.
Secured on deck, the solar-cell panel gathers a charge while underway.
A 110-volt electrical outlet is hard to find while sailing coastal Carolina. Sure, if you grab the corner seat at the Big Trout Marina Café in Engelhard you can use the outlet there, or leave a tip at the ice cream shop on the Beaufort waterfront to use their power. But when anchored out on a beautiful creek, your camera battery weak, the phone battery about to die, you’re out of luck. My solution is to bring power along in the form of Goal Zero’s Sherpa Solar Kit ($409.97), which includes the Nomad 13 Solar Panel ($159.99), a Sherpa 50 Power pack ($199.99), and the Sherpa Inverter ($49.99).
The solar panel, compact, portable, and weather resistant, is meant for camping and backpacking. It works on small boats, too. Folded for storage, the panel measures 9″ x 10.5″ x 1″ with the junction box and cables stores neatly in a mesh pouch on the side. On my boat SPARTINA, a 17′ Welsford yawl, the panel fits in a Pelican box along with the power pack, inverter, and battery chargers.
Before launching I can charge the power pack from a wall outlet or from a car’s lighter socket. While I’m sailing, the Sherpa 50 can charge electronic devices—smartphones, cameras, tablets and laptops—through a USB connection, a 12-volt car plug or, through the inverter’s 110V AC outlet.
I usually pick clear skies for charging and, if I’m charging while under way, calm water. The panel can take a little salt spray, but I don’t want it soaked. (The power pack is not water resistant.) On a sunny day I’ll open the panel to its full 18″ x 10.5″ width on the foredeck, and position the panel to face the sun or nearly so. Fastened there with lines leading to the bow and side cleats, the panel can get the bonus of sunlight reflected off the jib.
The power pack has an inverter attached (left with the AC outlet) . It is installed under the foredeck, out of the elements.
A cable runs aft from the solar panel, drops into the cockpit, then goes up under the foredeck where it connects to the Sherpa 50 Power Pack. A pulsating blue light on the power pack indicates that the panel is charging the power pack, and a battery monitor indicates the battery’s strength. The inverter attaches to the power pack, and I plug my camera battery charger into the inverter. As the power pack charges the battery, the solar panel recharges the power pack. A couple of hours later I’ve got both camera battery and power pack at 100 percent.
Direct sunlight is key. A light overcast will reduce the charging ability; with a heavy overcast that little blue light will stop glowing and you won’t be getting a charge.
I’ve been watching product reviews on portable solar panels for years. The ratings were inconsistent, at least until now; Goal Zero has come up with products that are proving to be reliable. My particular system is not cheap, but it gives me freedom to cast off and sail, and not have to worry about getting back to the dock to charge my camera and phone batteries.
Steve Earley built and sails SPARTINA, a John Welsford-designed Pathfinder. His blog, The Log of Spartina, includes many accounts of his cruises in Pamlico Sound in North Carolina and the Chesapeake Bay.
Goal Zero has a wide selection of solar panels from 7 to 90 watts and power packs from 8 to 98 watt hours. Kits range from $120 to $1800.
Editor’s note:
There are many portable solar charging systems available for small boats where it may be impractical to have a permanently mounted waterproof panel. The Goal Zero system Steve Early uses supplies DC straight from the Sherpa power pack and AC through the inverter. Most of the devices I use aboard my boats operate on DC with AA batteries: GPS, camera, lights, and weather radio.
With these devices I can get by with a stock of AA batteries, either rechargeable or the ubiquitous alkaline versions, but my VHF radio and cell phone require recharging. I’ve had VHFs that have the option of an AA battery tray, but my current radio requires a charger that plugs into 110-volt AC wall outlets at home. An inverter, like the one Steve has, would be required to recharge my VHF from a DC power cell. Until I get an inverter, I keep my VHF off when I’m not using it.
I can charge my cell phone at home or in my car. While I’m cruising I can charge it with a solar power system using a USB connection. Most of the areas that I travel by boat have cell coverage, and my phone provides a valuable connection to my family back home. There have been a few occasions where my plans have had to change unexpectedly, and by calling home I can update my travel plans and prevent the kind of undue concern that can lead to unnecessary calls to the Coast Guard.
The SunVolt case holds the solar panel to face the sun.
It folds up into a carrying case
I have been using two systems to keep my cell phone charged. My Gomadic SunVolt Portable Solar Power Station is built into a nylon carrying case with nonskid feet sewn to the side that becomes the base when the panel is in use. Opened, the case is designed to set the solar panel at various angles to optimize its exposure to the sun. The storage battery has five blue LED lights that indicate the level of charge.
A pocket on the outside of the case provides a place for the battery and cables, and has room enough to protect the devices being charged from the heat of direct sunlight. On a sunny day the SunVolt can charge the storage battery with enough power to recharge the phone a couple of times; on an overcast day the panel will still gather enough energy for a single charge.
The Solar Wrap Mini unrolls to expose the flexible solar panel.
The Bushnell Solar Wrap Mini is quite compact, only a bit larger than a roll of quarters. The solar cells are on a flexible panel that wraps around a cylinder equipped with a storage battery, a charging port, a charging indicator light, and a USB port. I leave the Mini out in the sun during the day and recharge my phone in the evening.
Rolled up, the Mini is smaller than the smartphone it charges.
The Mini is not rated as waterproof, but it survived a heavy downpour that had water flooding the streets. (There is a Bear Grylls version of the Mini that is waterproof.) I’ve grown quite attached to the Mini; it fits in my pocket and will even charge my phone there.
Bushnell’s Solar Wrap Mini lists for $79.95 and sells through Amazon for $52.
Sometimes it’s nice to be able to drift. But just drifting means your boat usually ends up broadside to the waves and slipping downwind. If you want to hold a position comfortably in deep water, that’s what a sea anchor is for. Paratech’s parachute-like sea anchor Boat Brakes is well made, with webbing and stainless hardware to take all the loads. It has provisions for a main towing line and a light control line to invert the ’chute and reduce the drag it creates. Billed by the manufacturer as “The Fisherman’s Sea Anchor,” it’s designed to keep a boat over a good fishing spot, or slow a boat with a motor whose trolling speed is too fast. It’s also for emergency use to keep a boat’s bow into the waves and reduce the risk of swamping. It can also be really useful for a small sailboat when reefing. Many small boats want to lie cross-wind or run off downwind, which makes sail handling in breeze challenging. Deploying Boat Brakes would make this much easier.
I tried a 24″-diameter Boat Brakes and set it from my 16′ Swampscott dory. There is a float sewn into the perimeter at the top and a weight sewn in on the bottom. You can toss it in the water, and it will sort itself out. I didn’t use a control rope, just the main towline. I used about three boat lengths of line, which seemed to work fine.
It was a snappy day on Maine’s St. George River with 10–20 knots of wind coming several miles straight upriver, an opposing knot or two of current, and whitecaps aplenty. There was enough wind so that the dory heeled in gusts hitting abeam. Just drifting, my GPS showed we were moving at half a knot to a knot downwind into the current with the dory riding uncomfortably beam-to-wind. I set the Boat Brakes over the stern (the dory’s transom is quite narrow), and immediately the stern pulled into the wind. Lobster trap buoys nearby showed I was stopped. Gradually the current took over and pulled me at about half a knot into the wind. I rowed a half mile upwind to a spot where the current ran harder, with whitecaps more numerous, and tried it again. Again a dead stop and then gradually progress into the wind.
On much lighter day I deployed the Boat Brakes from an 18’ aluminum outboard skiff with a modest outboard on the stern in a light breeze without measurable effect. The boat stayed broadside, and did not slow. This was clearly a larger boat than was intended for the 24″ model; Paratech’s recommendation would be for a 36″ version. Set from my canoe-like 16′ Delaware ducker on a local lake, the 24″ Boat Brakes stopped me dead.
I can readily see adding Boat Brakes to the kit of a small boat to ride out in weather, manage sails while comfortably luffed, or just take a break.
Ben Fuller, curator of the Penobscot Maritime Museum in Searsport, Maine, has been messing about in small boats for a very long time. He is owned by a dozen or more boats ranging from an International Canoe to a faering.
I started using a 36″ Paratech sea anchor in 1990. It’s similar to the Boat Brakes reviewed here, but it’s made with parachute cord instead of webbing and lacks the float and weight sewn into the edge. It’s quite useful when I’m ready to drop the sailing rig and head for the launch ramp. (The ramp is hidden from view by a breakwater and if it turns out to be crowded I prefer to approach under oars instead of sail.) The two boats I sail most often have mizzens so I can bring the bow into the wind by sheeting the mizzen in hard and letting go of the main sheet and tiller. I can then easily drop the main while hove to, but I’ll drift downwind and have to hustle unless I deploy the sea anchor.
My son uses the sea anchor while he and his friends swim from his 19′ Escargot canal boat. It has a lot of windage and a very shallow draft and can move quickly even in a light breeze. With the sea anchor deployed it stays put.
In the video above I deploy the sea anchor from my Caledonia yawl. You can see the downwind drift is significant even in light air and without the sea anchor I would have lost much of my windward progress during a long and leisurely lunch break. I used to think that sea anchors were just for riding out storms on open water, but I’ve found mine very handy for less dramatic purposes.
Nearly six years in the making, Tom Santoro’s kayak takes to the water near his lakefront home.
Tom Santoro and has wife Carol had a cottage on Blind Lake, one of seven lakes on a chain of lakes in Michigan’s 11,000-acre Pinckney Recreation area, 60 miles west of Detroit. After Tom retired, they rebuilt the cottage as their year-round home. Tom had always enjoyed working with wood, and carved decoys, built wooden model ships and planes, and did simple furniture projects. In 2006, his daughter Amy gave him a copy of Kayaks You Can Build: An Illustrated Guide to Plywood Construction, by Ted Moores and Greg Rössel. It piqued his interest in building something on a larger scale and that he could paddle on Blind Lake.
Tom Santoro
The cockpit has a custom-fit closed-cell foam seat and sculpted thigh braces.
After some research, Tom purchased a Spring Run kit (the 16’ version) from Joe Greenley of Redfish Kayaks in Port Townsend, Washington. He worked on it mostly in the spring and fall—summer was better spent outdoors, and Michigan winters weren’t practical for building the boat in an unheated garage. During the winter of 2011–12 he had a furnace installed in the garage, and progress picked up. He launched the kayak last summer.
Tom has shown his kayak at three wooden boat shows, two of them juried. In August of last year, it took first place in the Contemporary Replica division at the Les Cheneaux Islands Antique Wooden Boat Show. Held in Hessel, it’s Michigan’s largest wooden boat show. Tom’s kayak also won Best Classic Small Craft at the Boats on the Boardwalk wooden boat show in Traverse City.
Tom Santoro
The hatch covers, held in place by magnets, are almost invisible and have no fittings to detract from the patterns of cedar strips.
Tom chose a kayak with cedar-strip construction because of the beauty of cedar in its many colors and its possibilities for artistic license in the designing a pattern. While he had no experience with epoxy and fiberglass, the woodworking was within his capabilities. He had made strip-built model ships, so moving up to a 16-footer was simply a matter of scale. He built without using staples and eliminated the blemishes they make in the cedar. This slowed the construction process somewhat but paid off in the clean look of the finished kayak.
Monkey’s fists serve as grab handles at both ends of the kayak.
Having put so much careful work into the patterned deck, he thought long and hard about cutting hatches into it. Going without hatches would mean he’d lose the benefit of bulkheaded cargo/flotation compartments and gear would have to be stuffed in through the cockpit. After much deliberation, hatches and bulkheads won out. The next major decision was how keep the hatch covers securely in place. He didn’t like the look of hold-down straps, so after some research and advice from Joe Greenley, he chose to use rare-earth magnets with a foam seal. The results were worked well and kept the decks clean look. Monkey-fist knot grab handles added another personal and elegant touch.
Tom and daughter Amy have taken to stand-up paddling. Carol wants a rowboat with a sliding seat, and Tom wants to complete the 3′-long wooden, radio-controlled tugboat that has been set aside for too long. He’ll busy again this winter in his warm garage.
Long before Europeans ventured to the new world, sailing dugout canoes fitted with outriggers sailed the waters in Southeast Asia and were used for migration throughout the Pacific region. The obvious seaworthiness of these boats was demonstrated by their ability to undertake remarkable voyages. Their twin-hulled form gave them stability, and the slender hulls gave them speed and seakeeping qualities that the western world could only dream of. Today, the recreational market offers many two- and three-hulled vessels for voyaging or daysailing. The Outrigger Junior is a modern adaptation of these early outriggers designed for beach sailing and fast spins around the bay.
Once you step aboard this boat, you will realize that it is different. First off, it is not symmetrical. The sweeping curved akas support an outrigger hull on their port end and a cockpit seat to starboard. The outrigger side has a seat also, which is the only symmetrical arrangement in the boat. The boomed lateen rig has a stub mast, raked forward about 15 degrees. When the sail is hoisted, the yard is almost vertical and boom tilts up slightly with a large triangular sail between. The boom sweeps very low when eased out, but rises to clear the seated crew when centered. The outrigger-always-on-one-side configuration should cause a slight asymmetrical feel to the helm. But that does little to affect its sparkling performance, often sailing at close to wind speed.
Outrigger Junior is asymmetrical, with an outrigger on the port side only. The hull form, lashings, and lateen sail are all reminiscent of features used by Pacific islanders.
Outrigger Junior was designed by John Harris, who has the advantage of modern technology and materials; his company, Chesapeake Light Craft (CLC) of Annapolis, Maryland, is producing the boat in kit form. The boat has a single outrigger, and is meant for construction by the amateur builder. The hulls of the Outrigger Junior are stitched together from plywood components, not unlike later versions of the old Polynesian sailing canoes—only today we use fiberglass and epoxy, rather than woven coconut sennit and sealant putty made from tree sap.
The lateen rig has similarities to the crab-claw sails of the early boats. And like the old boats, this vessel platform, composed of hulls and crossbeams (akas), is lashed together, but now using space-age cordage. Instead of deep hulls and a steering oar, the CLC version has a modern pivoting centerboard and kick-up rudder to facilitate operating from the beach or sailing in shallow water. I would imagine that the old waterlogged dugout hulls were quite heavy and required considerable muscle to drag up the beach, whereas this new boat is very light and can be handled by a young couple.
Chesapeake Light Craft of Annapolis, Maryland, supplies kits with pre-cut parts for the boat’s stitch-and-glue hulls, which are relatively easy to build.
The amateur builder should have no trouble constructing this craft. As with other products of CLC, it has CNC router-cut components, and an extensive construction manual. Long plywood sheet components are spliced together with puzzle joints that fit tightly to avoid any misalignment. Bulkhead tabs fit into tight slots in the planking to assure accuracy of placement. Predrilled holes correctly position all the stitch-and-glue joints. Assembly of each hull, crossbeam, and spar is almost foolproof. Finish quality, however, is dependent on the care taken during construction and final sanding. The prototype I sailed was varnished bright, showing off the marine-quality okoume plywood.
Sailing this outrigger feels different too. There is more boat hanging out one side than the other. On either tack the boat accelerates quickly when the sail is sheeted in. The difference in helm, from one tack to the other, is hardly noticeable. The steering is good and responsive, but not as crisp as you might expect. That may be due to a thin rudder and centerboard, a concession to simplicity of construction from two layers of 9mm plywood. The flat shaped foils show a tendency to stall at lower boat speeds. Hull forms with a deep V shape continuing aft to the transom also resist turning, acting like they are on rails, which further slows the steering response. All said, however, I was able to short-tack up a narrow channel in fluky winds with amazing speed. Maybe the only thing that is really different about this boat is how fast it is.
Nylon nets laced in between the components help keep gear and people aboard.
Unlike keelboats, multihulls gain stability with weight. That weight is usually positioned between the hulls so they can share the burden and keep the boat upright. Lightweight multihulls, especially single outriggers and proas, need to carefully balance the weight of the crew for stable operation. Without sail up, or in light winds, this boat can capsize with a single person sitting on the starboard seat opposite the ama. The boat looks intuitively stable, but due to the lightweight construction, the ama does not provide as much counterweight as one might guess. This fact gave me (a clumsy 200-lb, 70-year-old man) a swim after I slipped and fell on the outboard side tacking in light winds, causing it to capsize. The boat rolled slowly over until the mast was flat in the water and remained with sails awash. I soon recovered by swimming around to put my weight on the centerboard, which slowly levered the boat upright. I climbed aboard and sailed the rest of the afternoon more cautiously. Capsize at the dock is also plausible with no one aboard and sail over the starboard side. This suggests that a small amount of ballast in the ama might improve stability. But the orthodox multihull sailor would argue that it is heresy to use any ballast.
The forward-raked mast is a novel detail resulting in a nearly vertical yard (the spar at the top edge of the sail) and an increase in the sail area. When seen from a distance, the sail plan is distinctive. The gentle arcs of the spars add to the aesthetic quality of the boat profile. It almost looks like a sliding gunter rig with a long boom. A downhaul on the boom actually prevents the boom from moving forward since the halyard attachment to the yard is well forward of the center of gravity of the combined sail, yard, and boom. When the downhaul is slacked, the sail assembly rotates and the clew end of the boom becomes lower. In practice, the downhaul is not necessary since the mainsheet pulls down on the boom, but the boom needs to keep its position with respect to the mast.
As the sail is eased out, the boom sweeps down in an arc to become almost horizontal. Because the rig is positioned rather low, the sail obscures all forward view if you are sitting to leeward. You may not have the option to sit to starboard in light winds and so your view would be obscured when the boat is on starboard tack. The addition of a large window in the sail, near the boom, would be an asset in this situation. However, the window will be stiffer than the sailcloth and will cause difficulty with furling the sail on the spars for transport. One of the benefits of having two spars (a yard at the top, boom at the bottom) is the ease of furling. Drop the sail onto the akas and roll it up starting from the middle.
The two sweeping crossbeams, called akas, and the seats, are lashed to the hulls with nylon. The boat is easily disassenbled and stacks neatly for trailering.
A family car should have no trouble towing the weight of this boat on a small trailer; larger cars or small trucks could carry it on a roof rack. Two average-strength people can lift the 84-lb main hull, which is the heaviest component. The boat gains weight quickly as it is assembled, so select a spot close to the water. The fully assembled weight of about 260 lbs will require four strong people to slide or lift into the water. Simplicity always has a trade-off, and in this case it is cost and assembly time. Each lashing does not take long, but there are lots of them. CLC is currently working on a faster lashing method. Expect to take an hour to sail away, and two-thirds of that to return onto the trailer. Lightweight, very inexpensive kit trailers will accommodate this boat. The longest component is the yard, sail, and boom package. Some contrivance may be necessary to elevate this above the towing vehicle to avoid any overhang beyond the hulls.
Sailing this boat was pure fun, providing me with the exhilaration of speed. Watching it slice through the waves is fascinating, with its smooth and level ride. The boat speaks to one’s sense of novelty and adventure. The bold sheerlines, strong out-thrust bows, and forward-raked mast, combined with a gentle curve of the yard and boom, create a purposeful image. Even as it sits on the beach, the boat looks like it wants to go somewhere. Once aboard, you can conjure up thoughts of those Pacific Islanders making adventurous passages to discover new islands in the vast ocean.
John Marples is a yacht designer and marine surveyor (www.searunner.com) living in Penobscot, Maine.
Maximum payload/450 lbs
Sail area/165 sq ft
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Plans and kits for the Outrigger Junior are available from Chesapeake Light Craft, 1805 George Ave., Annapolis, MD 21401; 410–267–0137; www.clcboats.com.
Here’s a boat type one doesn’t see too often these days. It’s a modest-sized outboard designed not as a center-console but instead with a small cabin that will accommodate the adventurous camp-cruiser. For the less ambitious, it’s a boat that offers a place to have a nap, use the head in privacy, or take friends and family to a favorite beach, island, or fishing spot. Given its varnished cabin sides and shapely hull, it’s just the sort of craft that stops dock strollers in their tracks as they say: “Now what is that!”
This is really a boat that belongs to another era but one that, for several reasons, is well worth another look today. Plan Number 283 was developed by Samuel Sturgis Crocker in 1954. Crocker, a naval architect who trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was then 63 years old and well on his way to a portfolio that would eventually number 344 designs. While sailors most often associate Sam Crocker with his stout and able cutters and ketches, the designer himself enjoyed smaller boats very much. “Sam was more a daysailor and racer,” said his grandson, Skip, who is now the proprietor of Crocker’s Boat Yard, which his father founded in 1945 in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts. “He loved being out on the bay. It didn’t matter how far off another sailboat was. He was racing it.”
Sam Crocker’s design No. 283, developed in 1954, is a 19′6″ outboard-powered runabout. The boat is built of pine strip planks, with cabin and trim of mahogany.
Sam Crocker’s work also included powerboats, and No. 283 was designed expressly for Paul Whitin, a member of the Arundel Yacht Club in Kennebunkport, Maine. While the design is distinctive by any measure—just look at those shapely ports in the cabin sides—it’s her rather modest beam that might impress us today as unusual. In a retrospective article for Small Boat Journal in 1980, Whitin wrote: “Her 6′8″ beam made her an easy pushing boat and very economical to run. With the 18-hp Mercury, she planed off nicely with a top speed of 14 knots.” One would expect a contemporary hull this length to be as much as 20″ broader and have a 90- to 115-hp outboard on the transom. Today, this boat goes about her business in a notably quiet, fuel-sipping manner with a 40-hp motor.
A study of Crocker’s cabin plan quickly reveals what Whitin had in mind for his new boat. The drawings show a modest V-berth in the forward part of the cabin with open storage beneath. To port, between the bulkhead and berth, the plans show a single-burner alcohol stove outboard and a toilet inboard hidden beneath a box with a hinged lid. To starboard, by the bulkhead, is a convenient, small locker.
Whitin named his boat ’Long Shore (after a favorite book of poems) and, as far as he was concerned, it had “real cruising capability.” He wasn’t kidding. Besides trips along the Maine coast, Whitin trailered ’Long Shore to Moosehead Lake, Sebago Lake, and down to Buzzards Bay, where he visited Cuttyhunk “many times.” Whitin sold ’Long Shore after five years, replacing her with a 30′ version “though still outboard-powered and still designed by Crocker.” There was no way he could then have known that one day, some 20 years later, design No. 283 would once again enter his life.
“In the fall of 1978,” Whitin wrote, “I had a mild heart attack.” His options were to give up motorboat cruising for daysailing or buy a smaller motor boat. He drove down to Manchester to talk with Sturgis, who expressed interest in building the boat. A deal was made, the plans reviewed, and molds built.
Crocker is best known for his salty sailing yachts, and the hardware on this fine pocket cruiser evokes that sensibility.
"She was a winter project,” Skip recalled when I visited. “We built her upside-down right here in this office where we’re sitting now.” I looked around, trying to picture the building as it once had been.
“Do you still have the molds?” I asked. “No, the molds got turned into that flight of steps you just walked up here on.”
The new ’Long Shore was built, as was the original, of 3/4″ x 3/4″ pine strip-planking fastened with 2″ galvanized finishing nails and two-part resorcinol glue. The keel, 7″ deep at its after end but tapering down forward, was made of oak. A little coal stove was mounted atop the starboard-side locker, the Charley Noble poking through the cabintop. Curtains were made for the cabin side windows. The boat also was fitted with a bimini, a nice touch, to shade the cockpit.
This time, Whitin powered the boat with a much bigger motor, a 50-hp Mercury. The idea—and it worked out well enough—was that the 50 would seldom need to be run at more than one-half or two-thirds throttle. With a 12″ x 13″ propeller, the engine delivered 4 mpg. Not only did Whitin and his wife cruise to new destinations in Maine, but they made a five-day September voyage from Kennebunkport down to Manchester and then returned home. All this is impressive going for a 19′6″ outboard-powered boat with two aboard, but it also suggests something about Whitin’s seamanship skills. For safety’s sake, boating newcomers would be advised to gain useful experience in local waters before undertaking something so ambitious.
Opening ports in the cabin front provide ample ventilation for the spartan sleeping accommodations.
Details of ’Long Shore’s life after Whitin sold her are largely unknown, but the boat’s journey took a surprising turn in the mid-1990s. “One day when I was about 25 years old,” Skip said, “the second or third owner drove in with the boat. It was quite a surprise to see it. I remembered watching it being built when I was a kid. I told him that if he ever wanted to sell it, he should give me a call.”
Several years later, in 2005, the owner did just that. “He was asking such a low price,” Skip remembered, “that I thought it must be full of leaves and rot and I didn’t follow up.”
Eventually, however, Skip found himself in the owner’s neighborhood and called. He found the boat wasn’t in disrepair. In fact, it was in the owner’s garage where the brightwork had been stripped and the mahogany stained. Skip bought the boat, sold the old Mercury and, eventually, began working on ’Long Shore. He replaced the cabintop, which had been weakened by the addition of a hatch, and then replaced the beams beneath it. New floors were installed. Stern seats and rod holders were added, and so was a new helm station. Finally, the boat was entirely refinished. Skip launched the boat into the Essex River and spent a fun summer that included family outings to beautiful Crane’s Beach on Ipswich Bay.
The long keel helps this boat run straight. The soft chines—the area where the bottom meets the hull sides is rounded by comparison to a hard-chine’s sharp angle—deliver a soft ride but permit somewhat more roll in a beam sea. During our outing, there wasn’t much wind but there was a swell rolling in from Massachusetts Bay over Whaleback Rock in between House Island and Misery Island. The boat cut easily through the swell and, had Skip not been so busy at the yard, it would have been tempting to pass beyond House, turn to port, open her up, and dash east to Gloucester for lunch. As it was, we headed for home and soon entered the no-wake zone that leads to Manchester’s well-protected harbor.
As outboard motors became increasingly reliable before and after World War II, small, outboard-powered “cruisers” appeared with some frequency in boating and do-it-yourself magazines. These days, some such plans still remain for purchase. Crocker’s No. 283 differs from most such boats, however, as it was never intended for amateur construction. Lofting is required, and molds would need to be built.
Design No. 283 on Sea trials near the place of her designing and building, Manchester, Massachusetts.
Skip estimated that a skilled home-builder would likely be able to turn out a credible version of this boat with about 1,500 hours of work, or a year’s time working solo. Fiberglassing the completed hull would add durability and permit a handsome finish that could be expected to last for years. Material costs for such things as pine, oak, plywood, and hardware, might total approximately $5,000, depending, in part, on whether the hardware is stainless steel or the more expensive bronze. Skip’s boat has the original, opening bronze ports in the forward cabin coaming.
Given the weight of today’s outboards, beefing up the transom would be recommended. “There’s a strong knee that reinforces the transom,” Skip said, “but we’d want to increase the transom thickness by an inch.” Because a comparatively heavy outboard could make the stern sit a bit lower in the water than originally intended, a 40-hp model should be considered the maximum for the boat.
Skip has thought about the boat’s sales potential and believes it could be built at a price competitive with higher-end fiberglass boats of its general size. He also thinks the hull would make for a wonderful, open boat, modestly powered, and with tiller steering. All things considered, this early-1950s outboard is worth a look from those with an eye for good looks, practicality, and fuel efficiency.
Stan Grayson is a regular contributor to WoodenBoat.
Crocker’s Boat Yard: Design No. 283
LOA/19′6″
Beam/6′8″
Weight/2,100 lbs
Recommended outboard engine/25–40 hp
Update, August 2022: Plans for Design No. 283 are no longer available.
There are so many things to see and explore in Southeast Alaska that can only be accessed by a small boat. In 2008, my wife, Leni, and I wanted to make sure that our girls—Gracie, then three, and Isabel, then one—didn’t miss out on those things for lack of a way to get to them. That’s when we decided to build SPARROW, a Caledonia Yawl, which we launched in 2009. None of us really were sailors back then, but, lucky for us, the Caledonia yawl is a very forgiving boat.
Leni Danner
The Caledonia yawl’s well mannered hull and simple lug rig made it easy for us to learn how to sail.
Over the past four seasons we’ve grown into SPARROW. Our list of camping gear has been slowly whittled down each season to a more streamlined kit: shovel, axe, cook stove, small galley kit stowed in a wooden box, fishing rods, sleeping bags, and a boat tent. That made room for extra gear for the crew, enough food to last a trip six times as long as whatever we might plan, and, of course, buckets for building sand castles.
For a while, I’d been thinking about exploring some of the old mining sites south of Juneau on Gastineau channel. With the girls now eight and six, and more eager to help sail the boat, Leni and I decided to make an overnight trip with them. We planned an itinerary that would take us fewer than 10 miles down the chanel, but a world away from Juneau. Gracie and Isabel, however, were only a little curious about where we were going, and mostly eager to simply have fun, sing, and have snacks that are forbidden at home.
I watched and waited for a good weather window. When Saturday, June 29, dawned warm and fair with a good forecast for light north winds, conditions were perfect for heading south from Juneau to the mining ruins down Gastineau Channel. We’d sail against the tide, something I usually avoid, but we needed to make an exception if we were going to slip into the Treadwell mine cave-in lagoon on the incoming tide. Excavated to more than 500’ below sea level, this mine had collapsed suddenly in 1917, leaving behind the lagoon. The basin where the mine collapsed is egg-shaped and about a hundred feet across at its widest point. Sheer rocky faces on three sides drop straight into the profoundly deep green water. The Treadwell operation had once been the largest gold mine in the world, employing more than 2,000 miners. Hours before the collapse, water began to flood in through fissures in the rock, filling the mine deep below the channel. The miners escaped but some of the horses working there weren’t so lucky.
After a quick breakfast we made the short hop down to the waterfront, where SPARROW was waiting for us. Because we keep SPARROW at the dock, it took no more than fifteen minutes to stow all the gear and get the sails ready.
Jim Danner
SPARROW lies ready and waiting for crew and gear.
Away from the dock, I pulled at the oars while Leni steered us clear of the moored boats and breakwater. Safely in the middle of the channel I stowed the oars, and Leni set the mizzen and sheeted it in. SPARROW quickly luffed and sat bobbing quietly, head to wind. Gracie was keen to help and asked if she could help raise the mainsail. Isabel immediately piped up saying that she wanted to raise the sail, too. The main halyard and downhaul turn at the mast partners and lead aft to jam cleats on the centerboard trunk, allowing easy access for our young crew who, with a little help from me, soon had the sail swayed up.
With the mainsail set and the crew safely seated and enjoying granola bars, Leni eased the mizzen while I sheeted in the main. The main filled, the bow fell off, and we were on our way. We eased the sheets and came around until we were pointed down Gastineau Channel, which is approximately fifteen miles long and a mile wide at its southern end. Dense forests of Sitka spruce and western hemlock cover Douglas Island to the west and the Juneau mainland to the east, with only the tallest peaks rising above this blanket of trees. Turning to run downwind, the noise and motion of the wind were suddenly gone and we were enveloped in a bubble of still air. The shore sliding quietly by was the only sign we were moving.
Even against the tide we were making good progress and soon passed under the broad concrete arch of the Juneau-Douglas Bridge and into the outer harbor. There were four cruise ships docked there, their thousands of passengers almost doubling Juneau’s population. Float planes were making their morning rounds, five of them taking off one after another. One returning plane roared overhead, its pontoons seeming to miss the masts by mere feet.
On the far side of the outer harbor is the Rock Dump, a commercial area built upon a peninsula made of rock excavated from the mountain mines. It sticks out like a huge thumb, making the channel wide enough for only one ship to pass through at a time. Beyond the harbor things got quiet once again. Gastineau Channel opened up and only a few faraway fishing boats dotted the water. On the south side of the Rock Dump there was a wide tide rip, a dark sapphire jumble of stiff crests half a foot higher than the surrounding water. There was no avoiding it. SPARROW’s forefoot crossed the line between smooth water and dark and the current slewed us to starboard. Leni quickly corrected.
Sailing toward the rising sun on this bright morning, we all huddled in the shade of the broad lug-rigged main while the ruffled water sparkled in the sunshine. The girls, bundled up under their life jackets, were toasty warm. They held silver pinwheels spangled with red and blue stars, looking for the direction that would make them spin the fastest and giving us up-to-the-minute reports on wind direction and speed.
Jim Danner
Leni, Gracie, and Isabel, with pinwheel anemometer, take a break between weather reports.
We’d been sailing for about two hours when we reached Sandy Beach on Douglas Island and passed the Treadwell mine pump-house tower standing at the water’s edge. Its concrete base has been eroded by the tides and only the rusted iron reinforcements now hold it up. We sailed another half mile, then hove-to and dropped the main. Seated at the forward rowing station and facing forward, I pulled toward the beach as the honey-colored sandy bottom came slowly up to meet us. All the while I looked for the channel that would lead us to an emerald-green pool beyond—the sinkhole marking the half-mile deep collapsed Treadwell mine.
I followed a twisting path of darker water through the shallows; there was a rasping sound in the hull when I strayed off it and scraped bottom. The girls were talking excitedly about playing at the beach and constantly asking “Are we there yet?” We glided over the last of the bar and beached the boat.
Jim Danner
SPARROW sits at the entrance to the lagoon.
Leni and the girls jumped from the bow to the hard packed sand with buckets, shovels, and a large canvas bag filled with sandwiches, chips, cherries, and other picnic goodies. The girls quickly fell to digging in the sand and amassed a pile of broken pottery from the old bunkhouse and tiles from the swimming pool that was once near the site of the cave-in. I tended to the boat.
Hauled up on a beach, SPARROW wants to fall over on its side. It’s not a light boat and I wanted to avoid wrestling it back to the water if the tide went out too far before we decided to move on. So I rowed across to the other side of the basin, set a grapnel on the opposite shore and then paid line out as I worked back across. Half way out I tied a loop in a bight in the line for my Anchor Buddy, a long sheathed bungee cord that stretches from 14′ out to 50′. I resumed rowing, stretching the Anchor Buddy out until I reached shore. I stepped out of SPARROW, paying out the bow line as the bungee drew her back out.
Leni Danner
An elastic cord off the stern pulls SPARROW away from a rocky beach.
With the boat resting safely over deep water I joined my crew.
We settled down to a lunch of sandwiches and cherries. After eating we stowed our picnic gear and poked around the mine ruins. Just up the beach an enormous cast-iron gear about five or six feet in diameter lay half-buried in gravel looking like the face of an ancient sundial, heavily scaled with flaking rust.
Treadwell is easy to reach from Juneau and a popular place to visit. The complex is crisscrossed with hard-packed dirt trails.
Jim Danner
SPARROW’s crew explores the overgrown ruins at the site of the Treadwell mines.
Down one path we found moss-covered concrete foundations, lime leaching from the concrete leaving white patches on gray slabs. The ruins of old mining structures thrust up through a dense green undergrowth of ferns and devils club like ancient temples, the wooden superstructures rotted away. Here and there old railroad tracks showed through the floor of the trail, the tops of the steel rails polished by hikers’ feet.
We came to what was once the office, a two story concrete structure with peeling yellow paint, windows and doors missing and a corrugated iron roof half rusted away. All around it are tall slender alder trees and low leafy plants. The girls were immediately drawn inside the cavernous interior where lime stalactites hang from the ceiling. They played hide and seek with Leni and me, tiptoeing behind pillars, corners, and walls. With the girls found, it was time to head back to the boat.
Jim Danner
SPARROW lies to her clothesline mooring on a falling tide.
The afternoon sky was a brassy haze and I couldn’t tell if it was overcast or not. The breeze had faded away. Isabel and Gracie were reluctant to leave but we needed to catch the outgoing tide to help us to our campsite. I pulled SPARROW ashore and we piled in and cast off. The tide had turned and that elusive channel was readily apparent now, a dark ribbon of shallow water bordered by soft sand sprinkled with palm-sized stones and white shards of broken crockery. Fortunately it was still deep enough for us to make our escape.
I poled SPARROW with an oar out of the shallows, and back out in Gastineau channel we set our sails, turned our backs to Juneau, and ran with the dying wind and ebb tide. In the distance we could see the end of the channel, where the evergreen-covered slope of Point Bishop meets the water on the left and Douglas Island does the same on the right. Beyond lay Stephens Passage, backed by high snow-capped mountains.
The plan was to camp in a little cove next to the old Dupont Dock. With a favorable current and following breeze we were moving at about three miles an hour and we’d be at our destination in two or three hours. The chill of the morning was long gone; it was a shorts-and-sandals afternoon. Gracie and Isabel succumbed to the warmth and the gentle motion of SPARROW. They curled up, one to port and the other to starboard, and were soon fast asleep.
Jim Danner
The girls take a well-earned rest.
Two miles down the channel the breeze faded away completely. I lowered the mainsail and took to the oars. The thunk ca-chunk rhythm of oars against thole pins filled the air as Leni steered us over glassy smooth water. A boat length behind us a dark brown head bigger than a football popped out of the water. It was a harbor seal, and it stared at us intently for almost a minute with eyes the size of silver dollars, nostrils opening and closing with each breath. It tilted its nose up, slipped beneath the surface, and was gone.
Our handheld VHF squawked to life, “Sécurité, sécurité, sécurité, this is the CARNIVAL SPIRIT departing Franklin Dock southbound Gastineau Channel.” To the north of us the upper decks of a cruise ship towering above the storage tank farm on the Rock Dump was under way. I rowed and Leni steered us south along the channel’s mainland shore. We chatted quietly about places we’d like to take SPARROW and watched the shoreline slip by. After an hour we switched places and Leni took over the rowing. CARNIVAL SPIRIT by that time was rapidly closing the distance between us. This wasn’t cause for alarm, as the channel is about three-quarters of a mile wide here with plenty of room for both of us, and we were well outside the shipping lane, a couple of boat lengths off the rocky shore on the Juneau side.
SPIRIT passed, wake creaming from its bulbous bow, white sides gleaming in the afternoon light, and tall red funnel streaming blue exhaust. The kids woke from their afternoon siesta and sat in the bottom of the boat reading books. We watched the long wake carefully as it approached us. Leni switched places with me again and took the tiller. We turned to meet the wake head on, and SPARROW’s bow rose steeply as the wave passed underneath us. I told everyone to hang on as we dropped into a 6’-deep trough. When the SPARROW hit the bottom of the trough I fully expected the bow to bury and the boat to swamp, but the boat just brushed it aside with a little splash and rode up the next wave as if it were a perfectly normal thing to do. The crew was completely unfazed: Gracie asked how much farther we had to go and Isabel asked if she could have another fruit snack. The wake crashed into the rocky shore with a roar, sending spray high enough into the air to soak overhanging spruce boughs.
The Dupont dock, owned by the Dupont Powder Company, had been used to receive explosives used in the mines. The decking of the long-idle dock is missing in places and the structure is no longer connected to the shore. What remains has accumulated a blanket of bright green moss dotted here and there with young spruce trees. Behind the dock is a steep ridge of rock about twenty feet high topped with a concrete footing where the end of the dock once was.
The current was running strong through the pilings as we rowed past, trailing little eddies around the pilings. Beyond the ridge a small cove and steep gravel beach opened up to us. As we slid into the cove and beached the boat, the girls excitedly chattered about what we might find and the prospect of camping on the boat.
I hopped out and pulled the boat up a little higher so it wouldn’t get away, then helped the girls get out. Gracie and Isabel made a beeline for the ridge of rock the old footing was on and began climbing. They had found half of a small broken egg shell that had perhaps belonged to an Actic Tern or a gull of some kind and were pretending they were sea birds nesting in the cliffs.
With the camp stove and galley box ashore, Leni got to work cooking dinner on a log high above the tide line while I pushed off in SPARROW to anchor up. Sitting in the boat and looking out at the broad expanse of Stephens Passage to the south it was hard to believe we were only seven miles from town. Here the only sign of civilization was the ruined dock and the only sounds were the kids playing on the shore. It took a couple tries to set the anchor in the loose rocky bottom; when it finally held I paid out a clothesline loop—an “outhaul”—as I rowed back to the beach.
I set up SPARROW’s tent—a dome of red rip-stop nylon stretched over crisscrossed aluminum poles—and secured it to the masts and gunwales.
Jim Danner
With her dome tent pitched, SPARROW is ready to house her crew for a night at anchor.
In ten minutes our open boat was transformed into the cozy little cabin for four, with a spot for adults on a folding platform at thwart height forward and aft, and two snug floorboard berths on either side of the centerboard case.
After a dinner of spaghetti with meat sauce and garlic bread, we cleaned up our dishes and stowed our galley kit back in the boat. Then all four of us walked together down the beach hunting for driftwood dry enough to burn. Back at camp we roasted marshmallows over a fire, then played a few rounds of the animal guessing game. Full bellies and a warm fire soon took their toll on our crew.
We put out the fire and snuggled the girls into their berths. Wrapped in sleeping bags they were dozing in minutes, and Leni soon followed.
Jim Danner
Gracie and Isabel lie sound asleep on the floorboards.
I sat up a little while longer. It was calm and quiet in our little cove, not even the water against the hull making a sound. A high overcast had worked its way in adding just a touch more darkness to the long summer dusk. Leaning against the mast, I reflected on the day. It had been a good one, full of fun and adventure on our little ship, and tomorrow was looking good too.
Jim Danner is an IT manager for the state of Alaska. When he’s not working he’s spending time with his family—he and his wife recently added a baby boy to the crew—or messing around with small boats. The SPARROW is his first boat project and he has since built a few skin-on-frame kayaks. His review of the Anchor Buddy also appears in this issue.
The Caledonia Yawl
When looking for a boat to build, I wanted a design with a proven history of taking care of its crew in remote and wild locations, a boat that would allow our young family to break the orbit of town and explore some of the roadless wilderness of Southeast Alaska. At the same time it had to provide a reassuring platform that our young crew could grow into. I needed a boat that, while big enough for four, could be singlehanded. It had to be easily beachable; after all, what good is getting out into the wilderness if you’re stuck viewing it from the boat? Our kids needed to be able to explore those distant shores, scrambling along rocky ledges and over logs piled up from winter storms.
I found what I was looking for in Ian Oughtred’s Caledonia Yawl. It was love at first sight. While a well-proven design in its own right, the Caledonia Yawl is a descendant of the Shetland Yole, an open fishing boat used for nearshore work in the North Sea. At 19′6″ by 6′2″ the Caledonia Yawl fit the bill perfectly. It has lots of room for crew and gear, and it’s still easily managed by one person, and is beachable. A modern boat built with modern methods, the Caledonia is well suited to handling the rigors of summer travel in the Inside Passage. Its glued lapstrake construction makes for a light yet strong boat that is handsome and well within reach of expert and novice builders alike. A boat this size won’t break the bank or take years to complete, allowing you to be out sailing sooner rather then later. Oughtred offers two sail plans: a gunter main with jib and mizzen, or a lug main with mizzen. I chose the latter, a simpler rig without standing rigging and much easier to set up. –JD
With an almost 25′ tidal range, rocky shorelines, and steep beaches, the waters around Juneau are nearly impossible to cruise in a small boat without the ability to anchor while spending time ashore. Leaving a boat at the water’s edge where it would grind against the rocks or get stuck on the wrong side of a tide is a very real problem. Larger boats can carry dinghies for shuttling from anchored boat to beach and back, but on a smaller boat like our Caledonia yawl that’s not a practical solution.
There are a few ways to solve this problem. Setting up an outhaul anchor, or “clothesline loop,” from the anchor to the beach works well but it has its drawbacks—the primary one being that it requires lots of line that is easily tangled. It allows easy access to the boat, but for a short trip ashore it can be more trouble than it’s worth. There is also the Siwash method of anchoring: placing the anchor, chain, and rode on the bow with a long retrieval line tied to the anchor flukes, and shoving the boat out, letting the retrieval line trail after it. When the boat’s in deep water, a tug of the line drops the anchor. It’s easy to do but hard on the paint, and not convenient if you forgot the hot dogs. You’ll need to start over.
The Anchor Buddy is a length of 3/8″ natural latex tubing sheathed in a hollow braided polypropylene line, and unlike an equivalent length of bungie cord, it will easily stretch from 14′ to 50′ and it won’t get progressively harder to pull.
An option I like is an Anchor Buddy. I found it at my local marine hardware store when I was looking for a new anchoring solution. We’ve used the Anchor Buddy many times, generally securing its ends in loops tied in bights in the rode. The loops are 50′ apart so the rode picks up the strain at maximum extension of the Anchor Buddy. That’s helpful if the anchor gets snagged, and adds a strong backup to the Anchor Buddy if it were to fail for some reason—we wouldn’t lose the anchor or the boat. It takes a bit of practice to get it set up so you have full extension and can just reach the shore. When I drop the anchor and row my boat in, stretching the Anchor Buddy, it helps to have someone on shore hold the boat while I ship the oars and prepare to disembark. It’s best to start off with a long line between boat and beach, tied to driftwood or anchored with a grapnel. I can then set the anchor and pull myself in. We have also used the Anchor Buddy to span small pools or narrow inlets with the Anchor Buddy and bow line secured on one side and a stern retrieval line on the other.
The Anchor Buddy has done its job well, keeping our boat afloat and off the rocks while we have lunch on the beach or go exploring. I’ve been using it for a few years now and it has held up well, although its fittings, a zinc-plated snap hook and shackle, are starting to show the effects of corrosion—a minor problem I can easily fix with stainless steel replacements.
The Anchor Buddy is a handy addition to any small boat’s anchoring toolkit.
Jim Danner is an IT manager for the state of Alaska. When he’s not working he’s spending time with his family—he and his wife recently added a baby boy to the crew—or messing around with small boats. The Caledonia yawl SPARROW was his first boat project and he has since built a few skin-on-frame kayaks. His article on a family cruise in SPARROW, to the mining ruins of Juneau, also appears in this issue.
The Anchor Buddy is manufactured by Greenfield Products, and retails for $35.99 at West Marine.
One evening many years ago, on the Mississippi River, I rowed past sunset along miles of riprap. If I ventured close enough to shore to see anything with the flashlight I had, I risked being swept into the rocks. So I drifted for hours in the freezing December night air with spray coating my deck and jacket with ice. I eventually spotted the dim glow of white sand and landed, but by then I was desperately cold. With a more powerful flashlight I’m sure I could have been off the water much sooner.
Since then I’ve tried a number of high-intensity flashlights. They initially showed promise, but their 123 lithium cells weren’t universally available and a few hard-to-replace bulbs burned out. LED flashlights, once only good for use in camp, have now become powerful enough for use in a compact searchlight.
I’ve been impressed by Bushnell’s Rubicon T300L HD flashlight. It’s just shy of a pound and is powered by four common and inexpensive AA batteries. About the size of an old C-cell flashlight, it has a fish-eye lens on its business end. Behind the lens there’s a kaleidoscope pattern of green cat eyes. Peer into it and you’ll see a black square hole on a field of a white. That square is the shape of the beam the flashlight casts and the thick lens keeps the light quite uniform from edge to edge, just as a slide projector does without a slide. There are high and low settings for the light; you’ll need the low setting for close work, as the high can be painfully bright. The lens is encircled by a ring that emits a low intensity red light well suited for reading charts without wiping out your night vision.
Here we see the distinctive blue-outlined rectangle defined by the beam of the Bushnell Rubicon T300L HD flashlight, as compared with the beam of a car headlight.
As I walked with the T300L held horizontally, the square of light it cast was 6′ wide where it fell on the ground 24′ ahead of me. Some stray light radiated in a halo around the square and illuminated the ground around my feet. On the high setting, I could pick up the shine of retroreflective signs a measured 325 yards away, so it should pick up channel markers equally well.
During a midnight outing I paddled along a wooded hillside where there were a number of unlit houses invisible among the trees. At about 100 yards from shore the bright beam easily picked out their white trim. There was neither enough contrast nor shadows—my line of sight was parallel with the beam—to help distinguish one tree from another. At 50 yards, individual trees, weathered wood stairways, and concrete bulkheads were clearly visible. At 15 yards the T300L HD brought everything in the square into what almost looked like daylight. At a distance where I’d be looking to come ashore I’d easily be able to spot smooth beaches and open ground for camping.
I have only two quibbles with this flashlight. First, the switches are hard to find by touch. And second, the housing is black, which is not easy to find in the dark. While a smaller LED flashlight would be better for general-purpose lighting in camp, if you’re searching for something on the water or trying to find your way at night, the T300L will brighten your prospects.
Chris Cunningham is the digital editor of Small Boats Monthly.
The Bushnell Rubicon T300L HD has been discontinued. (Updated 11/26/22)
The Cummings family of Shelbyville, Kentucky, built GENERATIONS, a Bevins skiff, as a means of celebrating three generations.
GENERATIONS is a Bevins skiff built by Wayne Cummings, his wife, Veronica, and their four kids (all under eight years old). Launched April 3, 2014, in Shelbyville, Kentucky, the boat was built in honor of Charles Carlson, Wayne’s grandfather. Charles lived and worked in North Stonington, Connecticut, and built several wooden rowboats in the later years of his life. He built his last boat when he was 82 years old and named it MARY ANNA after his wife of 69 years. That boat is still in the family.
Growing up, Wayne spent many hours with his grandfather, who always took the time to share his stories and his wisdom. GENERATIONS was built as a symbol of the passing down of skills, precepts, and life lessons from generation to generation using the practical application of wooden boat building.
In July 2012, Wayne visited his grandfather, then 90. Grandpa Charles talked about his boats, and his passion for them was contagious. Wayne was struck with the idea of building a boat, something he had never considered. He did some research and got advice from Charles and from Bill Young, a friend and accomplished boatbuilder. They settled on a Bevins skiff.
The skiff takes its name from a German shepherd belonging to Joe Youcha, one of the designers who developed the skiff for the Alexandria Seaport Foundation in Alexandria, Virginia. Kits, plans, and instructions are available for purchase from the Foundation. Builders who involve kids in the project can get plans and instructions for free through the Building to Teach program. You can also download the plans at WoodenBoat.
Wayne and Veronica involved their kids in the construction of GENERATIONS to pass along a love of wooden boats and valuable skills, principles, and life lessons just as they were passed down from Grandpa Charles. They built GENERATIONS of white oak, spruce, and mahogany marine plywood. Wayne frequently called Charles for advice and every few weeks mailed photographs and handwritten letters to keep him up with progress. Charles’s short-term memory was fading, so he kept the letters and photos in an album he could revisit and refresh his memory. Months before GENERATIONS was completed, Charles passed away.
GENERATIONS was launched in the spring of 2014. The project had taken just over a year with Wayne, Veronica, and the kids working as time allowed. The family now enjoys the boat on the water, and continues to take lessons from it. The next project for the Cummings family is to restore MARY ANNA, Charles’s last boat.
Launched in the spring of 2014, GENERATIONS continues to teach hands-on lessons.
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Christopher Cunningham
Christopher Cunningham
Christopher Cunningham
Christopher Cunningham
