Nearly all wooden boat enthusiasts and amateur builders know of an Iain Oughtred boat. The Australian-born designer and builder developed his 7′10″ Acorn as a dinghy for oar and sail and expanded on the popular design to create its now most popular 11′8″ and 13′ versions. This family of lapstrake skiffs draws inspiration from the famous New York and Boston Whitehalls of the 19th century. They have sharp forefoot entries, slack ’midship bilges, and twisting garboards that finish on a heart-shaped transom. The Acorn 17, the longest of the versions, is a dreamy rowing instrument.
While kits are available for the Acorn 17, I built mine from plans. The 17’s plans are the same as those for the Acorn 15 but with the station spacing stretched 13.5 percent. The seven-sheet set includes lines, construction plan, rig, spar, and oar options, all to scale. Three of these sheets are full-sized drawings for the 11 station molds, the stems and knees, as well as the fore and aft transom faces to aid with proper beveling so no lofting is necessary to set up the jig. The instructions include a packet with a discussion on thwart layout suggestions, depending on the intended number of rowers and passengers. There is a handy materials and tools list included with a few paragraphs on construction notes.
Photographs by the author
The Acorn’s glued-plywood lapstrake hull gains strength from seven laminated floor timbers and laminated quarter knees and breasthook, and stiffness from a tapererd outwale and spacered inwale.
To build the 17, the builder simply increases the spacing of the 15’s station molds from 15″ to 17″. The stem and transom bevels can be cut according to the plans to start, then the inboard edges trimmed back until the bevels are flush with a fairing batten. Oughtred most often depicts the Acorn hulls to be glued lapstrake with 6mm marine plywood, seven strakes. The plans note that a traditional build—lapstrake plank-on-frame—would have 3⁄8″ planking with 5⁄8″ × 5⁄8″ frames at each half station, and that the hull could have eight strakes instead. The construction notes explain wood species options, depending on what is available to the builder. These planks, likely eastern white cedar here in Maine, would be copper-riveted to and between frames, and the laps should be bedded rather than glued. This traditional version would also add a full-length riser to support the thwarts, rather than the partial risers glued under the thwarts in the glued-lap plywood version.
The boat has seven laminated floor timbers that support a five-board sole. Additional structure is supplied by laminated quarter knees and a breasthook. The sheer is stiffened by a tapered outwale and a spacered inwale, as well as laminated thwart knees that make the curve to the gunwale but don’t fill in the angle between them and the thwart and planking. The plans show a two-piece stem, which can be beveled before assembling, a process easier than cutting a rabbet in a one-piece stem. Oughtred notes a traditional builder might opt for a single stem with a rabbet, though he states, and I agree, that the inner/outer stem system is best. The number of laminates needed to build the various parts suggests milling a nice pile at 3⁄32″, leaving them rough-sawn for better gluing.
Owing much to the Whitehalls that influenced its hull shape, the Acorn 17’s fine entry and deep skeg below a classic wineglass stern, provide excellent rowing capabilities with one or two rowers.
While the Acorn skiffs are primarily for rowing, Oughtred drew the sailing rig for the Acorn 15, and didn’t revise it for the 17. The standing-lug, spritsail, and gunter options each offer 60 sq ft of canvas. Spars are to be made of fir or spruce and the spar diameters are detailed along their lengths. Iain’s plans show a partner interrupting the forward thwart and the trunk landing between the sixth and seventh stations, through a widened keelson. The rudder and daggerboard are laid out on a grid to aid in scaling up the drawings to full-sized patterns.
The plans detail both flat- and spoon-blade oars with cross sections of the loom and blade. According to the plans, 8′ oars are best for the 15. The 17 is not specified but most oar length formulas go by the beam, thus with the same beam it’s safe to say 8′ will work.
The Acorn 17 is perfectly trimmed for a single rower sitting amdships using the aft rowing station. If joined by a passenger, the rower would move to the forward station to balance the passenger in the stern. The Acorn’s fine lines give her an efficient performance through the water, but being beamier than most rowing shells or canoes, she has good stability making her suitable for novice and experienced rowers alike.
Adjustable foot braces, included in the construction plans, are highly recommended. These are notched lengths of wood that capture a dowel stretcher, which allows the rower to choose a comfortable position for their feet. With solid wood thwarts, rowers of the bony-seat type may want a strap-down foam pad for long rows. While a drain plug is not indicated in the plans, I built my Acorn 17 with one under a sole for cleaning purposes and draining rainwater. The plans don’t indicate flotation either, but float bags could be considered to make the boat recoverable if capsized or swamped. I opted to add plywood bulkheads and decks forward and aft with watertight hatches to serve as dry storage as well as flotation. Fiberglassed garboards, sacrificial bilge runners, and brass half-rounds provide abrasion resistance underneath. A removable sliding seat, which Oughtred does not mention, is always up for discussion with a boat this size, to allow the rower’s legs to supplement the power of back and shoulders over a daylong trip.
Even built as light as possible, at 130 lbs this boat is not one to be carried on a roof rack; it is best trailered or docked. My compact SUV comfortably tows the 17 and its trailer. Getting aboard from a dock is somewhat like stepping into a typical canoe so it’s best for many to start from sitting on the dock. A rig would immediately solve this athletic move. Departing from a beach, the rower will get just their feet wet if the boat is parallel to shore. At rest ashore on its keel and bilge runners, it lists about 15 degrees.
The Acorn 17 can be built to sail, but if built solely for rowing, adding a stern deck gives it additional buoyancy in the event of a capsize or swamping. It also provides a backrest for a passenger on the aft thwart, as well as a location for a mooring cleat and a couple of fairleads for docking lines.
Stretching the 15 while the beam remains 46″ adds waterline length and yields a greater theoretical hull speed for the 17, which rarely disappoints. By the second stroke the rower can feel the boat’s consistent momentum through the water, even with a low stroke rate. The long keel has little rocker and when combined with the 6″-deep skeg, the Acorn 17 tracks nicely. Some effort is required to make sharp turns when gunkholing. As with most lightweight rowing skiffs that have shallow draft and high freeboard creating windage, a stiff wind can cause some leeway. The heavier traditional build, while not as handy for beaching or hand-hauling, may track better on windy days. In some significant chop, first time rowers will stay confident in the Acorn’s stability. Most are tempted during their row to stand up and stretch.
Ample space allows a singlehander to stow cruising gear evenly fore or aft of the ’midship rowing station. With a passenger aft, the rower takes the forward station to trim the waterline. When tandem rowing, everything should be stowed aft to avoid being bow heavy.
With two rowers and a passenger in the stern, the Acorn 17 glides along, tracking well, and maintaining momentum even if the rowers slacken the pace.
I built the Acorn 17 to serve as an attractive rowboat for use on the Maine Island Trail and similar recreational waterways. Overall, this longest of Oughtred’s Acorns is a delight and yields satisfying speed without the tender stability of some narrower pulling boats. It can provide excellent low-impact exercise opportunities for the solo rower, ample space for a comfortable picnic outing for two, and exciting performance with two at the oars.
Plans for the Acorn 17 are available from Oughtred Boats for AU$194 (AU$210 outside of Australia). In the U.S. Kits are available from Hewes & Co. for $2,368.
Is there a boat you’d like to know more about? Have you built one that you think other Small Boats readers would enjoy? Please email us.
The Newfound Wherry, which began in 2004 as a rowboat and now has an add-on sail package, was created by Michael Vermouth, the founder of Newfound Woodworks of Bristol, New Hampshire. The design went through several modifications of the sail placement and centerboard in 2007 but was laid aside in early 2008. When it was resurrected in the fall of 2022, I built the updated version—equipped with a daggerboard and a larger spritsail—with the help of the Newfound Woodworks team and the Chase Small Craft team of Saco, Maine.
I bought the plans and complete kit provided by Newfound Woodworks. The kit came with a bundle of 18′ strips of western red cedar, northern white cedar, and Alaska yellow cedar for the hull; oak and ash for the tiller, keel, skeg, and daggerboard; a strongback and precision-cut forms; fiberglass and epoxy; varnish and hardware needed to build the boat. The plans consist of two 2′ × 3′ blueprints that clearly depict how the boat fits together, a 31-page step-by-step instruction book with dozens of detailed colored pictures. The large-format blueprints are generated by a computer-aided design program that provides information regarding spacing, angles, length, and specific assembly details.
Newfound Woodworks
Building the hull upside down, the strips are laid from the sheer up to the keel, glued to one another and temporarily held in place with staples through to the forms.
I also purchased a Newfound Woodworks Pre-Kit: a 75-minute strip-building video instruction DVD with more than 100 detailed color photos of all phases of construction, a fiberglassing video instruction DVD, a CD with dozens of construction pictures, and Woodstrip Rowing Craft: How to Build, Step by Step, a 288-page color-illustrated how-to book by Susan Van Leuven.
The Pre-Kit gave me ample guidance to build the boat. As questions arose, the Newfound Woodworks team was always available, friendly, and ready to help via a phone call or email. The Chase Small Craft team had developed the wherry’s sailing rig and helped me build the spruce bird’s-mouth 10′ 1″ mast as well as the sprit and sprit boom in a three-day seminar.
While I had already built three of Newfound’s kayaks, constructing the boat is straightforward and requires only basic woodworking skills. After assembling the strongback and positioning the forms 12″ apart (which took me a day), the transom is attached to a form at the stern end of the strongback. Next, the inner and outer stems are laminated, followed by shaping the inner stem and attaching the bottom board before stripping begins. The bead-and-cove cedar strips are attached from the sheer up to the keel and glued to one another. Once the strips are attached, planing and sanding fair the hull. The bow’s outer stem is glued and screwed in place, then shaped. The hull is sheathed in 6-oz ’glass and epoxy: a first layer to the hull exterior from the keel to the waterline, and a second layer for increased strength. The exterior required three filler coats of epoxy to smooth out the fiber weave. A layer of bias fiberglass is applied to the keel and skeg from the transom to the tip of the outer stem at the bow.
Jim Creighton
The timeless interior layout is defined by a pre-assembled wrap-around bench seat in the sternsheets, two solid cedar thwarts, and the daggerboard trunk.
Once the exterior is sanded smooth, the hull is lifted off the forms and flipped over for cockpit fitting. The interior of the boat is sanded and faired prior to applying a coat of epoxy and a layer of fiberglass and bias ’glass at the bow and the perimeter of the transom. Only one coat of epoxy is needed over the fiberglass, as the texture of the fiberglass weave is helpful for traction in the interior of the boat.
The kit includes a pre-cut U-shaped marine-plywood bench cockpit. Two 9″ × 48″ Spanish cedar thwarts brace the daggerboard trunk, which has a 10″ slot in its forward end for insertion of the daggerboard. The daggerboard has holes drilled at 4″ intervals to allow for a pin to adjust its depth in the water. The foredeck is built with two shaped pieces of 6mm okoume plywood, which have circles cut halfway into the ply to properly place the opening for the mast. The deck is covered by cedar strips and sheathed in fiberglass. A piece of 2″-thick hardwood is epoxied into the hull on the centerline to serve as a maststep that will set the mast at a 5-degree rake.
Working in my free time, it took six months for me to build the Wherry. When construction was complete, I put four coats of varnish on the deck and on the hull. The 95-lb Wherry tows well and glides off the trailer easily. To rig the sail, the mast is guided through the opening in the foredeck and seated into its step. The sail is permanently attached to the mast with a 1⁄4″ line which wraps around the mast and through eyes in the sail. Once the mast is set in the foredeck, the sail is hauled to the top of the mast and the halyard is anchored by a cleat located on the aft edge of the foredeck. The sprit is 8′ long and 1 1⁄2″ in diameter. I opted to add a 7′ boom to the rig to spread out the foot of the sail for better downwind performance. The ends of the two spars have 2″-long notches to accept snotters inboard and loops of line at the clew and peak on the outboard ends. Stepping the mast, raising the sail, and setting the boom and sprit is a simple process that takes me less than 5 minutes.
Jim Creighton
Even in light airs the simple boomed spritsail powers the boat smoothly through the water. Note the partially raised daggerboard held in position by a pin slotted into holes drilled through the board at 4″ intervals.
The hull provides plenty of stability for standing in the boat, without feeling unsteady even with a 75-lb Labrador retriever moving about. The cockpit is well appointed for daysailing and there is plenty of room for two sailors, a large dog, a cooler, and a picnic basket. Four adults could fit comfortably with plenty of legroom.
Newfound Woodworks
Initially meant for rowing, the Wherry has fine ends and is sensitive to weight in the sternsheets. The crew here, seated amidships, could improve the trim by sitting farther forward to balance the skipper seated well aft.
When the wind is up and the main is trimmed, the Wherry picks up speed quickly and handles well on a reach or closehauled. It is fun to sail in light or heavy winds, although the boat tacks best with wind speeds over 5 knots; below that it can get sluggish. We have sailed in winds gusting to 10 knots, and control and maneuverability improve as the wind speed increases. The boat performs well in light and moderate wind with minimal splash over the bow. The kick-up rudder blade has enough bite to turn the boat in all the current and wind conditions we have encountered.
The boat tacks well with the skipper in the sternsheets and the crew on the forward thwarts. I placed cleats 2″ aft of the after rowing station’s oarlocks to assist in mainsheet control. The daggerboard is adjustable as needed for water depth, wind, and point of sail. Fully deployed for reaching and beating, it keeps leeway to a minimum.
Mike Kilian
Conceived as a rowboat, the Wherry performs well under oar. With one oarsman and no passengers the aft rowing position provides the best trim. With two rowers or a passenger in the stern, the forward rowing position can be used.
When the wind dies or if I want to go rowing or fishing without the sail, I use a pair of 7′ oars as auxiliary power. Each of the two rowing stations has its oarlocks positioned 14″ aft of their respective thwarts. The boat was originally designed as a rowboat and performs exceptionally well under oar power; it glides straight and true. With every stroke the Wherry seems to leap forward as it slips through the water. It maneuvers easily. When there is not enough wind for sailing, I take the boat out for a satisfying workout or to catch fish in local lakes.
Newfound Woodworks
With a family crew aboard, the Wherry trims well and glides well.
I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of building the Newfound Wherry. It is ideal for an intermediate craftsman who loves to sail on lakes and bays. It has proved a perfect vessel for family outings, picnics, and adventures on the inland waters of New Hampshire.
The Honorable Jim Creighton is a retired Army colonel whose love of the outdoors led him to Antrim, New Hampshire. He serves as a state representative in the New Hampshire State Legislature and works as a member of the Crotched Mountain Ski Patrol. He is a leadership coach at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and runs a small wilderness guide company, Ursa Major Northeast Guides, LLC, which provides healing experiences for the Wounded Warrior Project and experiential leadership courses for Tuck and other schools. Jim spends his winters in his basement where he has built three Newfound Woodworks cedar-strip kayaks and the Wherry. He lives on the North Branch River where he paddles his kayaks to prime fly-fishing spots almost every day during the summer. He built the Wherry at the behest of his wife, Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Tamasine Wood-Creighton, who has renewed her lifelong love of sailing. The boat is named SEANMATHAIR—grandmother in Irish—in honor of the skipper’s grandmother, Anne Nee of Rosmuc, Ireland.
Someday in the not terribly distant future, I will realize a long-held dream: I will set sail, alone, in a boat I have built myself, on a west-to-east voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. The boat will be a version of a cat-yawl I’ve already built and sailed, with some important modifications: it will have a single square-rigged sail; it will not have a rudder; it will be 31″ long, with a 12″ beam. Me? I’ll lie snug below for the entire voyage, however long it may last. I’ll be dead, reduced to a few pounds of ashes, stowed below deck in the cabin.
People weaken with age; dreams don’t. I’m 84 years old, in pretty good health, with enough marbles left to know that I shouldn’t make plans that extend too far into the future. No regrets; I’ve lived a full life, and it’s still an ongoing pleasure.
When I started building boats as a pastime almost 30 years ago, I thought a solo transatlantic voyage in a home-built hull would be a nice project. I did my research: I admired Blue Moon—the Thomas Gillmer 23′ gaff-rigged yawl—enough to contact someone who had built one. But it would have been a bad choice; I would probably be still planking it today.
I settled on Iain Oughtred’s 22′ Grey Seal, which I thought had the bones and stones for the passage. I had built his 14′ Whilly Boat, a superb design that offered good lessons for building Grey Seal. I talked to Iain, and he didn’t try to dissuade me. He did suggest building the centerboard rather than the keel version; he thought it might slide down the face of a wave better. Maybe that was meant to dissuade; it didn’t.
Photographs by the author
PIAF, the Phil Bolger Micro I built a few years ago, was the inspiration for CROW, the scaled-down boat that will carry my ashes to sea. The design offered a nice combination of simple construction and ample space for gear and passengers—and it sailed well.
The plan quickly ran onto a shoal: My wife thought it was unwise; still does and never will be persuaded otherwise while I’m alive. I understand. She was and is quite reasonably concerned that the voyage might kill me. But a thought came to me: What if I were already dead? No risk. No worry. That got her hesitant assent.
Though I was free to scheme, I put it off for a decade or so: Who thinks about dying when the wind’s fresh, the sea beckons, and there are other boats to build? But advancing age at last got me thinking. I won’t call old age a curse—it’s interesting if you take it the right way—but as Bette Davis observed, it’s not for sissies. Strength goes, pain arrives. There’s an Irish saying, “Death is the poor man’s doctor.” Death is also the old man’s inevitable companion; decent company, though, if you wish him to be.
As these thoughts arose, I finally turned to the task. I found there was much to plan. First, the boat. It would have to carry about 5 lbs of ashes, which would take up about 200 cubic inches—about the same as a six-pack of beer. It would have to be carried by hand, because I was planning to have it taken aboard a boat and launched as far offshore as possible—out from Montauk or, better, the elbow of Cape Cod—to give it the best chance of clearing North America. And it would have to be simple to build. I work slowly.
I thought it best to find plans for a full-sized boat and adapt them to my needs. It took about five minutes to realize that Grey Seal was not going to be the solution. I had taken Paul Gartside’s excellent course on boat design at WoodenBoat School and remembered that every vessel is a symphony of physics—it cannot have sour or misplaced notes. Shrink a 22′ lapstrake hull to a tenth of its length? Think about it if you wish, but don’t hope to send it across an ocean.
The original Micro plans, copied at twice the original size, gave me patterns that only needed to be traced and cut out for CROW. I modified bulkheads B, C and D to create a single enclosed “cabin” under a slightly raised cockpit deck.
But I had to come up with something. As it turned out, someone already had: Phil Bolger, he of Boats with an Open Mind. He called it Micro. I had, in fact, already built Micro—twice. One was full-size—15′4″ long with a 6′ beam and a cat-yawl rig. The other was a 1:12 scale model.
The full Micro and the model were (as our British friends say) a doddle—an easy task. Micro’s hull is a box, sides plumb to the bottom, shaped around four bulkheads to meet bow and stern transoms. For the model, I simply traced the parts from the 1″-to-1′ plans onto basswood sheets and glued them together. Building the full-sized Micro was the same process, just on a larger scale. I built it alone, only needing help to turn the ballasted hull right-side up to build the deck and interior. There came a time when I was able to lie below in the unfinished cabin and imagine evenings at distant docks or anchorages. It was deeply satisfying. Fifteen such minutes would refresh me, send me back to building with a new enthusiasm.
Something similar happened when I began planning my posthumous voyage. I found myself imagining the passage, feeling the boat’s roll and pitch, hearing the thunder of a breaking wave, the quavering note of wind in the rigging. If the weather worsened, I thought, what should I do?
At first, I laughed at myself: I would not even have a finger to lift to help my boat. I would be ashes. But I allowed myself to think: Might I be an observer? I am agnostic about the afterlife, though I incline strongly to the belief that The Big Sleep is much more likely than The Heavenly Choir. And yet…
I had already built this 1:12 model Micro, half the size of CROW. It shows the open wells fore and aft in Bolger’s design. I decked these over in CROW to create flotation chambers.
Some months ago, I was talking to a close friend in his last hours.
“Frank,” I said, “if you find anything on the other side, try to send me a message. Make it about…”—I thought of our mutual fondness for birds—“Make it about crows.”
Later, after he was gone, I received a posting in my inbox by an artist I didn’t know and had never heard of. It was a picture of three crows. The title was, “Dark Angels.” When we put Frank’s ashes in the ground, six crows arrived and sat on the church steeple. When our little ceremony ended, they left.
Proof? Certainly not. But it did give me license to think about the voyage in a different way: as a participant. Which meant that I really owed it to myself to optimize chances for success. And it gave me a name for the boat: CROW. This fit well with my big Micro’s name: PIAF, French for sparrow.
Micro checked a lot of the necessary boxes: It would be easy to build a robust version with enough room below for my remains. I took my old plans to a copy center and had them printed double size to make the hull about 31″ long and 12″ wide. I traced the sides onto 1⁄8″ okoume plywood; I used 1⁄4″ okoume for the bulkheads and transoms.
Even models demand a lot of clamps. Here, CROW gets her rubbing and sheer-strakes. These have a structural role in both the full-sized Micro and the model.
I altered the bulkheads to maximize cabin volume. On the real boat, the cabin is a 6 ½′-long space between the first and second bulkheads, A and B on the plans. Aft of the cabin is a space under the cockpit defined by the second, third, and fourth bulkheads—B, C, and D. Forward of A, and aft of D, are open wells.
First, I partially cut back the second and third bulkheads—B and C—to create an open cabin space about 21″ inches long. By raising the cockpit deck—no one was going to be leaning back against the sides—I got about 220 cubic inches of space below. I replaced the cockpit footwell with an 8″ circular plastic hatch, giving access to the now-enlarged “cabin” below.
I extended the cockpit deck over the aft open well to create a flotation chamber and decked-over the forward well to serve as a mast partner with flotation under. The undecked hull went together with fillets of thickened epoxy and strips of 6-oz fiberglass cloth. I epoxied wood strips in place to support the decks.
To be honest, the inside of the boat is not pretty. It was awkward to work in the confined space, and I had other fish to fry; I rushed the work. If I were to build another, I could and would make it nicer. But who needs a second coffin? This hull is sturdy and watertight. It will serve.
CROW may spend a long time at sea, so she wears a coat of ablative bottom paint. Changes to the underbody are evident: The Micro’s long, shallow keel runs twice as deep on the model, and there’s no rudder. CROW will run downwind, period.
At this point, I had solved the easy problem of how to build the containment vessel, but now I faced a much more daunting task: figuring out how to get it across an ocean. I thought first—please don’t laugh—of rigging CROW as a cat-yawl, just like its big sister. I spent rather too much time studying self-steering systems for model boats. They exist and have the same limitation that such systems have on big boats: they are slaves to the wind. If it changes, they alter course with it. They are elegant in design, but they’re complex and have moving parts that can fail.
Eventually, I bowed to some incontrovertible facts: the little Micro would have to submit to nature. It would be at the mercy of the winds and currents; it could only go where they sent it, when they sent it. This was not a killer problem for a west-to-east passage across the Atlantic. Despite global warming, the Gulf Stream is still running, and for much of the year the prevailing winds are out of the west. It is sometimes suggested that all one needs to do to make the crossing is to bring enough food and water, stay afloat, be patient and let nature take its course. I wouldn’t need food, water, or even patience.
Hence the squaresail—with no running sheets or braces—and the modified keel. The sail is small, of 1.9-oz ripstop nylon, set on carbon-fiber-tube yards lashed to a carbon-fiber-tube mast. I have some reservations about the carbon fiber; it is very rigid and very strong. I spent some of my youth as a merchant seaman; I went through three Pacific typhoons, and I know the sea can be…difficult. Even if CROW can run, pitchpoling is possible, and I do have fears that the rig might wrench or lever-apart the hull. In that case—hello, abyss. I’ll end up under two miles or so of water. Can’t be helped.
Bolger’s Micro has a long, shallow keel with 412 lbs of lead ballast. For CROW, I designed a keel that, in profile, looks more like a Friendship sloop: shallow forward, deep aft. Built to Bolger’s lines, the model would draw 3 1⁄2″. My modifications give it a 7 1⁄4″ draft.
I also modified CROW’s decks, keel, ballast, and rig to make her fit for purpose. As soon as the hull was partly assembled and ballasted, I loaded in 6 lbs of lead “cargo”—the expected weight of my ashes—and set her afloat to check trim.
The idea is to keep her sailing downwind. If the wind falls and current takes over, CROW will, in my thinking, turn to breast the current and drift. If it’s wind against water, I’d be surprised if the result were a perfect balance. More wind, she sails; more current, she drifts. We’ve all sailed backwards against real-life tides at one time or another. When it happens to CROW, it’s not likely that I’ll care.
The real Micro’s ballast is a lead slug, shaped and sandwiched inside a box keel. When I built my full-sized Micro, I didn’t want the bother of casting lead. I thought and calculated a lot and decided to make the keel box wider and to use recycled lead shot set in epoxy instead.
It worked, so I used the same system with CROW: a lead-ballasted box, wider than the plan. Like its big sister it has lead shot set in epoxy but carried low in the box rather than up against the boat’s bottom. The ballast shape in profile resembles but doesn’t match the plan; I had to calculate how much the new keel would displace and rejigger the ballast placement to keep CROW on her waterline.
I am an overthinker. I recently found my planning notes for a weeklong hot-showers circumnavigation of Deer Isle I did by kayak some years back. I had to laugh at myself. The notes didn’t cover tsunami or meteor impact, but they did cover everything else.
The cockpit from aft, with a look into the cabin. There’s no running rigging; Kevlar-cord sheets are doubled, fixed and fastened to pad-eyes port, starboard, and amidships. Port and starboard control a lower yard; amidships an upper yard.
As I was overthinking CROW’s ballasting, I realized I was planning—well, overplanning—for events that could have no effect on me. Nothing was going to make me more dead than I would already be.
Did this change my approach? Not in the least. I was solving problems in the here and now that could only strike in the by and by. I was doing everything I could to get a boat across a vast and often angry ocean. I had my hands and wits, a few tools, some epoxy, fastenings, cloth, wood, and carbon tubes. Would I win out against the Atlantic? It didn’t matter. I was again enjoying the great gift of boatbuilding—of always having a sweet problem to solve. Who among us hasn’t drifted off to sleep on that tide of thought?
One lesson that boatbuilding—and boating itself—reinforces is that problems often don’t have or need perfect solutions. For the after end of the keel, I could have brought the sides together in a fair trailing edge, as one naturally would with a rudder. But this would have made calculating the keel’s volume and geometry—and hence its displacement and required ballast weight and placement—more complicated. So, after some bedtime thought, I just squared off the keel aft, drag be damned. I won’t be in a rush to get wherever I’m going.
This willingness to compromise reached its peak in the rig, where I jettisoned thousands of years of sail evolution in the interest of simplicity and durability. No elegant curve between the clews for CROW; the foot of the sail is rolled and glued around the lower yard, as is its head. The leeches are reinforced with 100-lb test Kevlar cord and are glued with Gorilla fabric glue, which impressed me with its tough, waterproof bond. There will be little belly in the sail for the wind to fill. It will be a surface with a non-compound curve.
Under full sail, thanks to an electric fan. The original idea was to paint CROW’s decks and house white, but the okoume looked so good in its natural state that I decided on varnish.
And yet, this should serve. The sail won’t be asked to assume a complex shape for sailing closehauled. All it need do is run downwind. To arrange this, I pop-riveted small pad-eyes inside the bulwarks near the stern transom. I’ll fasten fixed-length sheets of Kevlar cord here from the ends of the lower yard—doubled, in case one carries away. Same aloft, to a centered deck pad-eye.
CROW’s first sea trial was makeshift. Because the rig’s weight is inconsequential—mast, yards, and sail together weigh 7 oz— as soon as I had the keel fastened, I put 6 lbs of lead in the cabin, put the hatch and cabintop in place, and set her afloat in Coecles Harbor, Shelter Island, at the east end of New York’s Long Island. She floated on her lines as she should, a bit down at the stern because of the absent rig and haphazard cargo stowage.
This encouraged me to finish the boat with some leftover bottom and topsides paint, red below and green above, like her big sister. I had planned for white decks and cabintop, but the natural okoume looked so good I slapped on some varnish. Overall, it’s a decent 4′, maybe 3′ finish: get any closer and my haste will be evident.
A second sea trial with rig, sail, and proper stowage resolved all doubts: CROW sat to her marks and, yes, sailed before the wind to the end of a tether. (I used Bolger’s design waterline, wondering only later if that, too, needed rethinking. We—or rather you—will see.) Wind vs. current tests will be done later in an operational setting, with me aboard.
CROW holds course in my workshop/studio—about two-thirds of the space is for boatbuilding, the rest is for painting and graphic arts. A sampling of my art is on Instagram @drewfetherston. Building a boat is easier than drawing one.
If the eventual voyage goes well, my hope is that CROW will be found on some distant shore, and that my survivors will learn who found it, where and when. To encourage this, I wrote a note to be put in the cabin:
This boat contains the ashes of Andrew Fetherston, 1939–20___, of New York. Please scatter them near where you stand. The boat was launched from the East Coast of the United States on __________, with the hope that it would cross the Atlantic Ocean. You will find half of a $100 note. If you inform the persons named below where and when you found the boat, they will send the other half. They will also pay you a fee and all shipping costs to send the boat hull back to them, if you wish to undertake the task. Contact them for details. Thank you.
Using Google Translate, I made copies of this note in 13 languages, covering all countries bordering the North Atlantic from the United States across and down to West Africa: English, French, Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Irish and Scots Gaelic, Dutch, Frisian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic and on down the African coast to Dakar.
There remains a very big IF: the boat must be found, and the request understood and answered. There is a lot of history about such voyages, and the odds don’t favor success. People have been setting notes afloat since bottles were invented, and the rate of response in the North Atlantic region is about 3%. Lucky American bottle-tossers sometimes hear back from European finders in a matter of weeks. Others take longer. Much longer. Some spend more than a century in the water, waiting to be discovered.
The first true sea trial, in the chilly late-winter waters of West Neck Harbor on Shelter Island, NY. Seventeen pounds empty weight, plus six pounds of lead tire weights for cargo. She rode nicely to her marks.
Sometimes, bottles launched off the East Coast turn up on Caribbean beaches after a year or two in the water, having journeyed around the entire North Atlantic gyre, bypassing Europe and Africa to return to the New World. And many bottled messages are found, despite the odds. Clint Buffington, a Salt Lake City musician, has made a hobby of finding bottle messages and tracing their histories. He’s found more than 100 since 2011 and chronicles his efforts on his website.
I’m encouraged, too, because these are bottles, less noticeable and more fragile than a 31″-long boat with, perhaps, a surviving mast and sail. So the odds of someone finding CROW and me may be better—10%, maybe 20 or even 25%? I can hope, but I can’t say.
There is one further step I could take to let those I leave behind know where I have gone: I could mount a small solar-powered satellite tracking device on CROW. The cost and weight are not prohibitive, and twice-daily location reports would cost a few dollars a month.
And the wind bears her away—at least to the end of a tether. If these light-air-fair-wind-flat-water conditions were to last indefinitely, my back-of-the-envelope calculations say CROW would reach Europe in about nine weeks. The Gulf Stream might shorten that.
I am of two minds about this. Yes, I would like the people I leave behind to know of my progress, of the success or failure of the venture. If CROW showed herself on some foreign coast, they might try to initiate a search. At the least, they could know where the journey ended, even if on some isolated, weather-wracked, and rocky shore.
And yet, I’m drawn to the idea of a simple disappearance, a vanishing, a lingering mystery of what happened. We sent him off in CROW. No one ever learned what happened. Perhaps he’s still at sea. Perhaps he’s lost on some coast. Perhaps his boat is on someone’s mantelpiece, and he still aboard. Perhaps he’s in the abyss of the ocean. No one knows. Mysteries have a long life. I still cannot help but wonder what happened to Henry Hudson, John Cabot, and Amelia Earhart.
The author and his creation.
There is, of course, another possibility: a burlesque ending, the kind the gods seem to enjoy. Sometimes the prevailing winds don’t prevail, and things that are expected to sail eastward are driven west. A stretch of weather like that, with lots of east wind, would send CROW ashore in New England or Nova Scotia. Consider the Long Island high-school class that, at their teacher’s suggestion, tossed a message in a bottle into the Atlantic Ocean in 1992. It wasn’t found until 2024. In its 32-year journey it traveled to Shinnecock Bay, also on Long Island, a scant few miles from its launching point.
Andrew Fetherston, born in New York City, has owned boats since he was 11, including eight (not including CROW) that he built himself since retiring from a career in journalism. He is an artist and the author of two books. He worked on tugboats, freighters, and railroads in his youth. He has three grown children and eight grandchildren. He and his wife, the writer Amanda Barton Harris, live in Manhattan, Shelter Island, and Pestillac, France.
If you have an interesting story to tell about your adventures with a small boat, please email us a brief outline and a few photos.
I’ve built a few boats using traditional methods, and they would all look just like boats from over a century ago if not for the bright white synthetic rope I’ve used for halyards, sheets, and painters. Manila cordage would have been used on those earlier boats, but that natural fiber isn’t as readily available, strong, or affordable as today’s ropes made of nylon or polyester. Unmanila, a three-strand rope made of tan-colored polypropylene, is a good match for traditional boats, but it’s not to be found in local hardware stores or even marine suppliers.
A few months ago, I saw a beautifully appointed Caledonia Yawl, rigged with what I thought was Unmanila. I asked the builder, Mark Bratton, about it and he said the running rigging was ordinary white nylon three-strand that he had dyed a lovely café-au-lait hue. Nat Wilson, a Maine-based master sailmaker specializing in sails for traditional ships, had told Mark how to dye synthetic rope, and Mark passed the technique along to me.
The dye Nat and Mark have used is Cabot’s Salt Marsh water-based exterior stain. When I began looking for it on the web, I was quickly bewildered by the variations. Stains come in transparent, semi-transparent, semi-solid, and solid, indoor and outdoor, water-based, and oil-based; and in off-the-shelf colors or tinted at the store.
Looking for an easier path to follow, I tried dying nylon rope with Rit fabric dye, the stuff I’d used in the 1960s to make tie-dyed T-shirts. It didn’t work at all well, even though I followed the instructions for nylon, getting the water up to 140 degrees and adding vinegar. The tan dye I’d bought turned the rope green (I might not have stirred it soon enough or thoroughly enough before putting the samples in) and didn’t color the five test samples to the same degree; one was merely tinged. I trudged back to the web to resume my search for stain.
Photographs by the author
There are many types of stain. Water-based exterior stain in solid or semi-solid is what to look for. My favorite is Valspar’s Solid One-Coat Exterior Stain & Sealer tinted Spicy Brown.
At Home Depot I bought a quart of Behr Premium Fast-Drying Water-Based Wood Stain in Golden Oak. I diluted as directed by Mark’s instructions, and it worked beautifully, giving all the test samples a rich color. It was only afterward that I noticed, in small type on the back of the can, that it was for interior use. My boats are stored under cover, out of the sunlight and rain, so the stained cordage isn’t likely to fade. But it wasn’t what I was aiming for.
Lowe’s, the other local big-box home-improvement store, has Cabot’s One-Coat Exterior Stain and Sealer in four grades from transparent to solid. Each is a base for the color to be mixed in, and only the solid version is water-based. I also found a half-pint can of the Cabot’s solid stain in Salt Marsh. It’s a soft gray color that looks good on Mark’s boat, but not what I envisioned for my boats. I did buy a small can of Cabot’s Salt Marsh in oil-based semi-transparent. It took to the rope well, but I much preferred working with the water-based stain. Nylon is not degraded by mineral spirits—the bristles of many paintbrushes are nylon. The mineral spirits solvent used to dilute the stain is slower to dry and has a strong odor.
Lowe’s also carries a line of stains from Valspar. Their One-Coat Exterior Stain & Sealer are all water-based, have UV protection, and come in three formulas: Transparent, Semi-transparent, and Solid. I bought a half-pint can of the Solid and had it tinted Spicy Brown, a coconut-shell hue that I thought would look right. On the color chart at the store, it was a bit darker than what I hoped to achieve, but I knew it would be lighter when applied to rope. It didn’t take long to dye the samples, and it was right on target for color and ease of application.
About 16 ounces of the diluted Spicy Brown solid stain in a small bucket doesn’t cover the rope but mixing it by hand saturates the fibers.
Here’s how to give ordinary white nylon rope or cord, braided or laid, some appealing color:
•Buy a half-pint can of water-based stain in either solid or semi-solid. When diluted you’ll have a quart to work with.
•In a plastic bucket that you don’t mind getting stained, dilute one part stain with three parts water. Stir well.
•Drop the rope, loose, into the bucket. Wear rubber gloves and keep the rope moving for 1 or 2 minutes.
•Fish one end of the rope out of the bucket.
•Pull the rope through a closed gloved hand to squeegee out excess stain, letting it drip back into the bucket.
•Hold a rag around one end and pull the rope through to wipe off any remaining stain.
•Flake the rope on a sheet of plastic to dry.
•Let the rope dry thoroughly.
The Valspar solid water-based stain worked well and had consistent color across the nylon samples from 1⁄8″ braided to 3⁄8″three-strand twisted rope.
The stain penetrates the rope well, but if you’ll do any splicing, it should precede the staining.
A quick sanding on the stained rope (above) will sever some of the fibers to give the rope (below) an old-time look.
Another touch that will make new nylon laid rope look even more like old-time manila, is to sand it with 150-grit sandpaper to cut some of the outside fibers. I don’t think it would significantly reduce the strength of the rope. The sanding will create uniform tufts of fiber and make the rope look a bit like a caterpillar. A going-over with a heat gun will give the fibers a random look, more like an old rope.
This new 3⁄8″ nylon rope was annoyingly bright in sunlight. Stained, it is much more pleasing to look at.
Braided nylon cord was introduced in World War II, so it’s not a good match for boats designed in the 19th century, but it is useful nonetheless. The length that I stained had been in use for years and was likely contaminated with substances that resulted in some irregularities in the color.
None of this, of course, serves any practical purpose, but if you’ve built a wooden boat and appreciate the beauty of traditional construction and brightwork, giving the rigging the right look is worth doing and hardly any trouble at all.
Christopher Cunningham is editor of Small Boats.
You can share your tips and tricks of the trade with other Small Boats readers by sending us an email.
Growing up we had a string of small wooden boats. My parents took care of the daysailers, while my sister, brother, and I were expected to take care of the dinghies. In our early years, that meant sanding, sanding, and more sanding. Eventually we would take on more interesting jobs, but the sanding never went away.
My father had a variety of softwood blocks to wrap the sandpaper around. Having a block in hand was easier on the fingers than holding a piece of paper, and it didn’t seem to take away from the quality of the finish. Ever since those early years, I’ve continued to cut and wrap sheet sandpaper around wood blocks.
Photographs by the author
3M’s Stikit hand blocks are ergonomically designed to fit comfortably in an adult hand—large or small.
A few years ago, I took a part-time job in a local boatyard that carried painting and varnishing products; among them were some bright-yellow foam hand-sanding blocks. They were not cheap, and yet we sold several every fitting-out season. I pooh-poohed the idea of spending good money on something I could pull out of the offcuts pile, but one day, after I’d spent the previous evening sanding my own boat at the yard, one of the varnishers noticed me flexing and stretching my hand. He handed me his yellow foam sanding block and a short strip of self-adhesive sandpaper and said, “try it.”
That 3M Stikit Soft Hand Block felt good in my hand. It was flexible and soft enough that I could sense the surface below, and it molded to the curves on which I was working, rather than sanding right through them. Indeed, I seemed to get a smoother, more even surface, not only with less effort, but also in less time. I tossed the wood block back into the offcuts bin and have never looked back.
If the vinyl pad is dusty before applying the sandpaper the corners may lift, but the paper stays attached and the performance remains unaffected.
The bottom of the Stikit Soft Hand Block is faced with vinyl and measures 2 3⁄4″ × 5″ to work with 2 3⁄4″-wide self-adhesive sandpaper. The flexible molded body is curved and sloped to fit comfortably in the palm with the thumb resting in the groove along the bottom edge and fingers curling around and pressing down on the top. It can be used for sanding flat and gently contoured surfaces, and replacing the sandpaper couldn’t be easier.
After years of use the hand block continues to do good service. The foam has become discolored, but the texture remains soft and comfortable in the hand, and the foam has not stiffened.
The Stikit paper adheres well to the vinyl face and stays put when being used but is easily peeled off when you need a fresh piece or a different grit. 3M says the paper can be peeled and reused but in my experience the adhesive’s grip loses its effectiveness. If I do peel off paper that still has useful grit, I tend to keep it for using by hand without the block. The 2 3⁄4″ width is a standard size and there are several brands available, but I have only used the Stikit. Depending on the grit, it comes in 15-yard to 45-yard rolls and local stores will often sell it by the foot.
The Stikit paper itself has provided an unexpected bonus: In recent years I have found holding a piece of sandpaper becomes quickly uncomfortable. For gentle finish sanding I have pressed down on sandpaper without holding it, which is fine until you’re working on a vertical surface and release the pressure—many a piece of paper has ended up beneath me in the bilge under the foredeck. With the Stikit paper, I simply tear off a short piece and stick it to my fingers. Now, when I release the pressure, the paper stays attached to my hand.
Both the hard and soft hand blocks have vinyl bottom faces 2 3⁄4″ wide to take 3M’s Stikit Gold sandpaper.
The 3M Stikit Soft Hand Block is not the cheapest on the market and square-inch to square-inch, the Stikit paper is pricier than 9″ x 11″ sheets, but I have never regretted paying more. Sanding has never been easier, nor my finishes better, and I seem to have far fewer scraps of sandpaper lying around the shop.
Jenny Bennett is managing editor of Small Boats.
The 3M Stikit Hand Blocks are available from many hardware retailers and online vendors and are currently priced starting at around $28. The 3M Gold Stikit paper is available in grits ranging from P100 to P500; a 45-yard roll of P220 is currently listed at $69.20.
Is there a product that might be useful for boatbuilding, cruising, or shore-side camping that you’d like us to review? Please email your suggestions.
Transporting a canoe, kayak, or a small skiff on a pair of car roof racks is a convenient way to get to the water, but once the boat is on the racks, access to it is not at all convenient. I’ve seen some boaters bring ladders to the launch site, but they are bulky things to pack in a car with all the other gear brought along for an outing.
Photographs by the author
The Tooenjoy (above) and Ekepin (below) car-door steps are compact enough to stow easily in a glove compartment or car-door pocket.
Rodney Lewis of Santa Barbara, California, realized that cars didn’t need ladders, they just need a step. Coming up with a step was easy; how to support it was the hard part. The genius of his solution was recognizing that vehicles already had built into them the place to attach the step: the door striker plate. The striker is attached to the vehicle frame and anchors the door latch. It’s strong enough, as required by federal regulations, to keep a door from flying open in the event of a crash, so it can easily support a person’s weight. The cast-metal step Lewis created has a horizontal platform to stand on and a vertical hook that engages the striker and hangs from it.
His concept was patented in 2017. It went to market under the name Moki, after the steps carved by the ancient Anasazi of the American Southwest as handholds and footholds to climb vertical cliff faces. Since 2017, many devices that serve as car-door steps to get access to loads carried on roof racks have appeared on the market with the Moki. I bought two: one has the step below the striker, like the Moki but hinged to fold flat; the other, also folding, has its step at the level of the striker.
The Ekepin Foldable Car Step closely resembles the original Moki in size, shape, and function, but its hook isn’t fixed. It folds into a recess in the step so it’s easier to store when not in use and won’t take up much room in a glove compartment.
A slip-on rubber cap prevents the inboard end from marring the car-door frame, and a low conical insert on the outboard end is designed to break tempered auto glass in an emergency. The step measures 5″ × 3″—room for one foot—and has a diamond pattern for traction. It is very easy and intuitive to hang from the striker and is rated to support up to 440 lbs.
The Ekepin has a textured platform with a slot for the pivoting hook. The shiny conical point is for breaking auto glass in an emergency.
With the Ekepin step, I can reach over or into any canoe or kayak on the roof racks. There is only room for one foot on the Ekepin, so I stand on one leg and steady myself with the other.
The Universal Car Door Step with 5 Gear Adjustment from Tooenjoy also folds for storage, but its step is on the same level as the vehicle’s striker. It is supported by a pivoting steel arm that rests against the door frame below the striker and can be adjusted to accommodate the contours of the frame in the rear doors of a four-door car. The 7″ × 2″ aluminum step provides enough room to stand on it with both feet. Its top has a series of raised ridges and a textured coating for a non-slip surface. The support arm has two pivoting rubber feet that won’t mar the car’s finish. When installed and in use, the step and support arm grip around the striker like pliers, ensuring it won’t accidentally slip off. A quick adjustment is required to find the best of the five ratcheted settings to bring the step to a horizontal position. It has a load rating of 400 lbs.
The Tooenjoy pinches the striker securely when weight is applied to the step. The fittings at the bottom pivot and compress slightly to prevent damaging the doorframe’s finish.
Even though I wear size-13 shoes, I can get both feet on the Tooenjoy step. It sits at the level of the car’s striker rather than hanging below it. I’m 6′ tall, so I don’t need the extra height, but those who are shorter in stature or have a taller vehicle will welcome the higher perch.
The Tooenjoy’s support arm is ratcheted and can change its angle to accommodate different door frames.
While the rear doors of many four-door vehicles have to accommodate the rear wheel wells, both steps can work in the contoured opening. The Ekepin is short enough to fit the available vertical space and the Tooenjoy, seen here, has a support that can be adjusted to fit.
Both of the steps have performed well for me and provide a solid platform to stand on. The car-door frame around the strikers on my SUV show no signs of flexing when my full weight is on either step. I’m 6′ tall, so I don’t need the extra 3″ of height provided by the Tooenjoy, but I like having the room it provides for both feet. Climbing up on either step requires both hands on the car, so it’s not practical to lift a canoe or kayak to roof racks while ascending. Once in position, it’s important to take care to stay upright and solidly planted. The height the steps provide is helpful for checking straps, hatches, and cockpit of a kayak carried upright on the racks. They also make a good perch for cleaning the roof of a car. Just remember to remove the step before slamming the door shut.
Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats.
When Cooper and Lucca were eight and six years old, their dad, Nathan Greenawalt of Madison, Wisconsin, decided to build them a boat. Cooper had just started learning to sail in Optimist dinghies, and Nathan thought it would be fun for the brother and sister to have their own boat, but one that was a “little bigger, a little more stable, a little safer, a little cuter.”
Nathan had been introduced to both sailing and woodworking when he was 16. He had built some wooden tables at home, and when his family moved to a house on a small lake his brother bought an old fiberglass dinghy. The boys sailed it together, and when the wood trim needed fixing one summer, Nathan made the repair.
Photographs by Nathan Greenawalt
Nathan’s design called for a curved bow. Wrapping the plywood around the 40″-diameter arc drawn onto the bottom sheet caused him some headaches but he persevered.
In more recent years he bought a 26′ sailboat, which he sails with friends, and he’s done a bit of kayaking. And while there has been no more woodworking beyond the occasional repair around the house, Nathan had wanted to build a boat for as long as he could remember.
“I really wanted to build something from scratch, design it myself from the ground up,” he says, “but that seemed like a project I might never actually move forward with. So, one fall, I bought a stitch-and-glue kayak kit and set myself up in the basement of our house.” He built it over the winter and, by the end of a “really enjoyable project,” had a “great little boat.”
The foredeck, also curved, was cut from the same sheet of plywood as the bow. Wrapping the bow introduced a few minor cracks, but Nathan reinforced them with extra fiberglass and epoxy.
The experience whetted his appetite, and a year later Nathan was “ready to do my own design. I really wanted to go buy lumber and do it!”
Bringing a Homemade Plywood Sailboat to Life
Nathan loosely based his design around the Optimist. He wanted to keep things simple, and determined that the length should be no more than 8′, “so I could use one sheet of plywood for the bottom.” He also decided to use Optimist spars and sail for the rig. He drew a few loose sketches and went off to buy three sheets of 1⁄4″ plywood and a 4 × 8 sheet of 2″ pink insulation foam board.
The side panels and side-to-bottom panel joint were strengthened by two standing knees on either side.
Nathan had in mind a stitch-and-glue, flat-bottomed plywood sailboat built of one sheet for the bottom, one for the bow and foredeck, and one for the transom and aft section of the two side panels.
The only tricky part of the construction, says Nathan, was the bow.
The interior faces of the bench seats were formed with foam board. Nathan filled the cavity between these and the outside panels with expanding polyurethane foam for flotation.
“I built that first. I wanted to create a nice curved, angled bow. It took me awhile to figure out the curve, but I worked out the beam of the boat, drew the curve on the bottom sheet of plywood, and cut it out. Then, I wrapped the bow sheet around and stitched it to the bottom panel as I went. Eventually I managed to make the 40″-diameter semicircle. There was some minimal cracking, but I reinforced those spots later with extra fiberglass. Once the plywood was completely wrapped around, I used a laser level to define the top edge, and cut it out.”
What Nathan hadn’t foreseen was that the arc of the bow would lift the forward end of the bottom panel and introduce some shape athwartships. “It worked out nicely,” he says, “but it was pure accident. I had expected the bottom to be completely flat, but there’s curve there too.”
The bench seats were created with plywood tops and the bottom of the cockpit was lined with ’glassed and epoxied foam board. The daggerboard slot was reinforced with a solid alder block, which doubled as a mounting block for the maststep.
Once he had wrapped the bow panel, Nathan built the foredeck. Again, he wanted the deck to have a sweet curve and eyeballed it. He suspended a string from two pins, set apart by a distance equal to the beam, to create the arc he wanted and cut a deckbeam out of a leftover piece of plywood. He screwed and glued that to the sides, cut the deck panel out of what was left over of the bow sheet, and laid it across. The arched deck was quite rigid and required only the one deckbeam.
The finished boat. The foam traction sheet that lines the cockpit sole was added after a mishap with the rig. The spars and sail are standard Optimist-dinghy parts.
After that, Nathan’s boat was all straight edges. He stitched and glued the aft sections of the side panels, attached the transom, and then glued in some standing knees—two per side—to add some strength and rigidity to the sides. He wanted the cockpit to be more comfortable and less cluttered than the Optimist’s where the daggerboard and ’midship bulkhead divide the boat in two. He did away with a daggerboard trunk, opting instead to have the daggerboard set into a simple slot and, not wanting to sit on the floor or gunwale, he boxed in side benches, using pink foam board for their inboard faces and plywood for their tops. Before installing the tops, he filled the cavities with expanding polyurethane foam for flotation. He also laid foam board on the sole between the benches and for the length of the cockpit.
The uncluttered cockpit and full-length bench seats mean that Cooper and Lucca have plenty of space to sail together even though RIPPLE is only 8′ long.
With the interior nearly complete, he installed a block for the daggerboard slot and an adjustable stainless-steel maststep that makes it possible to adjust the rake of the mast to balance the rig. Nathan cut the slot for the daggerboard and reinforced it with offcuts of alder. Because the opening of the slot was above the waterline but low in the boat and would let water slop aboard occasionally, he cut two holes low in the transom for valved scuppers to make the cockpit self-draining. Everything was coated, inside and out, with ’glass and epoxy, and finished with epoxy paint and varnish.
Not wanting to get into designing and building sails and accessories, Nathan had bought Optimist parts: “the sail, the spars, the hardware for the rudder, everything.” By the time the boat emerged from the basement, the kids were ready to go. Rigging the boat for the first time was an exciting moment, but it was then that Nathan had his first mishap. “As I was getting everything ready, I dropped the sprit, and it pierced the epoxy, the ’glass, and the foam in the cockpit—right through to the plywood.”
Courtney Greenawalt
Nathan Greenawalt sailing RIPPLE on Lake Mendota, proving that three sheets of plywood, a simple rig, and a bit of determination are all it takes.
It was a low moment but a good wake-up: “It was pretty clear that I needed to reinforce the cockpit sole. But I didn’t want to add weight.” He fixed the hole and then laid a skin of self-adhesive EVA foam traction sheet on the sole. “It’s been great, looks good, protects the pink foam below from abuse, and it’s nonslip, which is a bonus.”
Since launching RIPPLE, named after the title of a Grateful Dead song, Nathan and the kids have used her at every opportunity on Lake Mendota. “She’s very stable,” he says, “With the kids sitting on the windward bench it would take a lot of wind to tip her over.” Even without the daggerboard trunk, RIPPLE rides high enough that the kids can go out on their own and stay dry. “If I go with them, water comes in through the slot, but it goes straight out through the scuppers so it’s just our feet that get wet.”
Cooper and Lucca sail RIPPLE together. With just the two of them in the boat everything stays dry. If Nathan joins them some water comes in through the daggerboard slot but drains out through the scuppers in the transom.
The family hasn’t yet sailed in company with an Optimist pram, but given that she’s a “touch longer and a touch shapelier,” Nathan thinks RIPPLE would be just a little faster. Cooper agrees. “She cuts through the water really nicely,” he says. “And she’s more comfortable than the Optimists.” Lucca, too, is happy with RIPPLE. “I like it because not very much water comes in,” she says. Nathan laughs, “Always important to keep the water out.” Cooper nods, “Dad did a good job.”
Jenny Bennett is managing editor of Small Boats.
Do you have a boat with an interesting story? Please email us. We’d like to hear about it and share it with other Small Boats readers.
Small boats are not small undertakings, not if we are contemplating their creation in our own garages from piles of wood. If we’re amateur builders, particularly first-timers, the prospect is daunting, maybe even frightening. We don’t know how to do this. We don’t know if we can do it. We’re about to commit epic blocks of time, money, and emotional capital to a project with no guarantees, except that—trust this formula!—it will cost twice the estimated budget and four times the projected hours to complete it. But if we stick it out, we will have not only refined our problem solving and tool skills, but also burnished our character. And we will have a boat to be proud of.
Courtesy of WoodenBoat School
One way to gain an understanding of various methods of construction is to take a class. At WoodenBoat School in Brooklin, Maine, for example, students in a two-week Fundamentals of Boatbuilding class learn several styles of traditional hull construction. In the foreground, a students fits a floor timber to a carvel-built boat, while in the background students fit a lapstrake plank.
The question of how to build this boat is a basic one that has to be parsed at the outset, while we’re sorting through designs and deciding which to build. There are about six ways of building wooden boats today, with variations on each. Our choices have proliferated just since 1950, thanks to the innovations of plywood, epoxy, and synthetic fabrics. No particular method can be proclaimed the best; each comes with its own suite of advantages and drawbacks. The type of boat and its intended use figure in. Even more does the level of skill and mindset of the prospective builder. A powerful determinant of whether we’ll end up with a real boat is perseverance, which is most sustainable when we find joy in the work. Some people will love the painstaking process of carvel planking, inserting themselves into a continuum of craft that has hardly changed in 500 years. Others will find this ancient discipline ludicrous, and will really groove on epoxy’s magic. For obvious reasons, it’s wise to contemplate all this before making the commitment.
There are serious passions and partisans afloat in these waters, so I expect challenges and complaints. I will try to stay objective and keep my own prejudices in the locker. I’ve built strip-planked and stitch-and-glue boats, and currently am engaged in a glued-lapstrake daysailer, so I’ve had experience with three of these six methods. I’ve also been hanging out at the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding, observing several boats being built with other methods, and I’ve been pumping the instructors for information (see WoodenBoat magazine No. 241). They’ve been generous in sharing both knowledge and opinions.
If you are a serial boatbuilder, you’ll find that your craftsmanship and problem-solving skills rapidly improve from one boat to the next. This is particularly true if you stick with one method. It’s like visiting France again and again—you feel more secure navigating; you begin to understand the nuances of the culture. But there’s also a powerful argument for exploring the new and unfamiliar. As the Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki proclaimed: “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.” Who’d have predicted, back in the 1950s when the future of pleasure boats appeared to be a sea of white plastic, that the 21st century would offer so many new ways to begin a wooden boat?
Here are the six common ways to build a wooden boat:
Cathleen Adkin
Carvel-planked small boats are typically built upside-down over a building jig. First, the backbone is installed and frames bent into place, then the planking starts. At right, students use a “spiling batten” to determine the necessary curvature of the next plank.
1. Carvel Planking
This, one of the classic methods of wooden boat construction, is what made Columbus and Magellan possible. Since a carvel-planked boat derives most of its structural strength from its frames—the rib cage, in effect—its size is not limited by the length of the available timber. A shiplength strake can be made from several shorter, butt-joined planks. Hence the astonishing 262′ WILLIAM D. LAWRENCE, a carvel-planked square-rigger launched in Nova Scotia in 1874. The largest wooden ship ever built in the United States, just short of 330′ on deck, was the six-masted schooner WYOMING, launched at Bath, Maine, in 1909.
But for our purposes here, we’re talking about small boats. Until the mid-20th century, many rowboats and sailing dinghies of 10′ to 20′ long were also built with carvel planking. They were probably better suited to that time than today, because boat owners tended to leave their small boats in the water all season, which allowed the planks to swell with water, closing up the seams. A carvel-planked boat left in the driveway on the trailer will dry out in the summer sun; as the wood dried, the planks shrink, allowing its seams to open, and only a few days in the water will close them up again. That’s not an ideal scenario for impulsive trailer-sailing.
Cathleen Adkin
Carvel planking requires close fits; here, a student working on the final plank, called the “shutter,” uses inside calipers to determine the exact width at a frame.
But carvel planking still has its adamant and loyal partisans. Jeff Hammond, who has taught traditional for 30 years, believes it’s still the best medium to teach craftsmanship. “It’s complicated,” he says. “Every step requires you to stop and think about what comes next. A lot of care has to go into each piece.”
And here’s the clincher, for Hammond: “It’s a relatively pleasant experience, as opposed to covering yourself in goop all day long.”
But the word “complicated” remains embedded in any discussion of carvel planking. It’s hard to describe the whole process in a digestible paragraph, but at terrible risk of oversimplifying, here goes: Set up a regiment of molds (cross-sections of the hull form at regular intervals, typically one foot apart) over which the boat will be built upside-down. Connect them with temporary stringers called ribbands. Steam or laminate the frames, which are the structural ribs, to precisely fit outside the ribbands. Sculpt the planking around the frames to form the skin of the hull, precisely beveling each plank edge to mate with its neighbor, leaving a slight gap on the outside as a caulking bevel. Screw or rivet the planks to the frames, bung the fastening holes, caulk the seams, and assiduously fair the outside surfaces to eliminate any unevenness.
Cathleen Adkin
Planks fit tightly together on the side of the hull but are given a deliberate bevel—a “caulking bevel”—so the seams can be caulked with cotton, followed by primer paint and then seam compound.
The most difficult part of the operation is likely to be the rolling bevels on the planks. The builder will cultivate the patience for many trial fittings and excursions back to the workbench—with each one of the 16 or 20 planks typical on a small boat. Sometimes planks have to be steam-bent. Sometimes they crack during the final fitting and you start all over. If one is meticulous about fitting and caulking, however, the leakiness that plagues some carvel-planked boats may be spectacularly absent: They can be built so tightly that they don’t ship a drop.
Pros and Cons to Carvel Planking
Pros
Teaches the builder to cultivate excellent craftsmanship
Many classic designs available
Damaged planks can be replaced with relative ease
Cons
Heaviest method of construction
Complex and difficult to master
Happiest living in the water, not on a trailer or in seasonal storage
Suitable materials may be difficult to find
Courtesy of WoodenBoat School
Lapstrake construction sometimes involves building right-side up— and in the case of traditional Scandinavian practices, without any cross-sectional molds. Few frames are required, and along with floor timbers and other interior structure, they are fitted as the planking proceeds or after it is all finished.
2. Traditional Lapstrake
Lapstrake planking is cool for several reasons, but the most obvious is aesthetic: Small boats constructed of shapely overlapping planks are inherently attractive. The parallel flow of sweeping lines with their tiny shadows creates a rhythmic vitality and makes the hull form seem more like an organic creation. We are naturally attracted to repetition in lines and forms; it’s an aesthetic principle that seems rooted as deeply in boatbuilding as it is in art, architecture, music, and even the written word. Perhaps it makes complex things more understandable by breaking them into their component forms.
How complex are lapstrake boats? Lining off the individual planks, warns boatbuilding author Greg Rössel, is “more art than science.” Individual planks, off the boat and on the workbench, may assume unbelievable, bizarre shapes—some will be fingernail-clip crescents, others vague, squashed-snake S-curves. If these planks aren’t lined off with care and precision, the boat will take on a misshapen, bloated appearance. It will, however, still function as a boat: lapstrake forgives small imperfections more graciously than carvel. Some designers have begun making full-sized Mylar patterns available for cutting the planks, which greatly enhances the amateur builder’s chances for accuracy. After the planks are shaped, they must also be beveled or rabbeted on their edges so they mate tightly with their neighbors, and beveled again at the forward ends so the strakes become almost a flat, carvel-like surface as they flow into the stem. These can perplex like the very Devil’s bevels.
The tradition of lapstrake construction reaches even farther back in history than carvel. The Norse Nydam boat, excavated in present-day Denmark, has been dendrochronologically dated to A.D. 310–320. The modern builder echoes its manner of construction closely, even down to the rivets or clench nails used to fasten the planks to each other at the laps. Why not epoxy the plank overlaps together? Because the solid wood planks used in traditional lapstrake (today, typically cedar or sapele) will swell and shrink, so the fastenings need to allow for slight movement. The unyielding hold of epoxy, which can cause planks to crack, must be reserved for use with another contemporary material, which enables the lapstrake variant we’ll discuss next.
Cathleen Adkin
To secure one plank to another, copper rivets are driven from the outside through holes bored in the two planks and also through a washer-like “rove.” Once the fit is tight, the rivet is nipped off short and peened over the rove.
Enthusiasts like to point out the uniquely pleasant sound, a little sonatina of chuckling, that a lapstrake-built craft makes as it parts the water. The hull efficiency is a matter of debate. The ridges of a lapstrake hull present more resistance to the water than does a smooth hull. But its light weight may let it float higher in the water, reducing the wetted surface area. Even if it’s less efficient, for some of us the simple beauty and immersion in a millennia-old tradition well compensates for reaching the day’s destination a few minutes later.
Pros and Cons to Traditional Lapstrake
Pros
Grace and beauty, including the possibility of a bright-finished (varnished) hull
Comparatively light weight
Cons
Complex, exacting craftsmanship needed in lining off and beveling the planks
As with carvel construction, suitable materials may be difficult to find
Courtesy of WoodenBoat School
Using plywood, glued-lapstrake relies on epoxy instead of mechanical fastenings to secure the plank overlaps, making a very strong hull and an exceptionally clean interior, with widely spaced frames.
3. Glued Lapstrake
This is becoming an increasingly popular construction method for small sailing dinghies, rowing boats, and even canoes. In this modern variation of lapstrake construction, marine plywood is used for the planking, and epoxy is used to glue the pieces together and seal them against water intrusion. Many designers in North America and Europe these days are deploying an even newer technology, pre-cutting pieces using CNC (computer numerically controlled) routers to achieve machine-perfect tolerances and thus supply the amateur builder with a kit for the hull. For do-it-the-hard-way purists who may disdain the idea of a “kit,” be assured that there will still be plenty of fabrication to do, such as the interior fitout, various hardwood pieces, and spars if it’s a sailboat. And many, many bevels.
Because the rigidly glued overlaps essentially function as longitudinal stringers, these hulls need little in the way of interior framing; they are more or less monocoque structures where the stressed skin of the hull creates its own structural integrity. They are wonderfully light and stiff. There is a lot of epoxy work—goop—involved, however, and it demands careful attention. If any exposed edge grain of plywood—any—isn’t thoroughly sealed, it will wick in water, inviting delamination and rot.
Cathleen Adkin
With glue spread on the overlapping part of both planks, a batten is temporarily screwed in place to clamp the seam together until the glue sets.
Some small-boat builders take a further step into composite construction by sheathing the garboards (the planks adjacent to the keel) with fiberglass cloth set in epoxy for better abrasion resistance in places vulnerable to damage when a boat is dragged onto a beach. A deep scrape by a rock or barnacle could allow water intrusion into plywood. At the Northwest School, instructor Bruce Blatchley recently oversaw the construction of a 22′ “glued-lap” Drascombe Longboat in which each plank on the entire boat was individually sheathed this way, sidestepping the impossibility of making the cloth stairstep over the plank laps. Purists may howl, but the result was one extremely tough, rigid, and lightweight hull.
Pros and Cons to Glued Lapstrake
Pros
Light weight
The grace and beauty of lapstrake
Rigidity and excellent sealing against water and weather
Cons
Except for the smallest boats (under 10′ ), the plywood must be scarfed; bright finishing is impractical
Major repairs will be difficult
Courtesy of WoodenBoat School
Strip-planking can be used for boats large or small, but it is especially practical for canoes and kayaks because of its very light weight. Woods of various colors can be used to accentuate the hull, often with great beauty.
4. Strip-Planking
Maybe you’ve seen a strip-planked kayak on a beach somewhere—kayaks and canoes are the most common products of strip-planked construction today—and after recovering from the shock of its sheer ravishing beauty, you worked up the nerve to ask what it cost. The answer, if a professional built it, will likely be in the range of $8,000 to $12,000.
If an amateur built it, however, it might consist of as little as $500 worth of materials, including wood, fiberglass cloth, and epoxy. The disparity, of course, represents the labor, of which there is a lot. Strip-planking is conceptually simple, but it takes a lot of time and care to execute it well.
You’ll first cut a series of molds from plywood or MDF that look like cross-sections of the boat, much as in traditional carvel construction. Mount them on a strongback (a stiff wooden rail) so the hull can be built upside-down, and line their edges with plastic to keep stray glue from adhering to them. Then you’ll prepare a flock of identical strips, which for a kayak could be as thin as 3⁄16″ and ¾” wide—and a little longer than the boat. Strips for larger boats could be significantly thicker and wider, but they should be able to bend to all the boat’s designed curves without steaming. The most elegant way to nest them on the hull is to cut a cove and bead into the opposite edges of each plank, which is easy if you have a table-mounted router.
Cathleen Adkin
After the first half of the hull is completed, excess strip length is carefully cut away at the centerline. Staples hold the planks to the molds until all the planking is done and the glue sets.
The fun comes in bending, twisting, and nesting the strips into place around the molds, and the beamier the boat, the more interesting the problems. A wide beam will require some very odd shapes for fillers. This isn’t a terrible problem if the boat will be painted, but everyone begins a strip-planked boat with visions of a lovely varnished hull.
After the hull is glued up, you’ll remove the molds, spend several days cleaning up excess glue and fairing the surfaces, then sheathe it with fiberglass cloth set in epoxy.
Strip-planking isn’t limited to kayaks and canoes. A student at the Boat Building Academy in Lyme Regis, England, used fir strip-planking for an adaptation of Joel White’s famed Haven 12 1⁄2 daysailer, originally designed for carvel planking. The Northwest School recently completed a 62′ strip-planked daysailer designed by Bob Perry— though with a beam of just 9’10”, the boat, named SLIVER, resembled a gigantic canoe, or a cedar moon rocket.
Pros and Cons to Strip-Planking
Pros
Light weight
Relatively inexpensive woods (cedar, fir, sapele) can be used and will yield a beautiful bright-finished hull
Cons
Labor intensive
Major repairs will be difficult
Cathleen Adkin
Diagonal planks are shaped and stapled in place. Plastic prevents inadvertently gluing planks to the temporary building jig.
5. Cold-Molding
If this treatise were a series of car commercials for TV, this is the episode that might be flagged “Professional Driver—Do Not Attempt.” It’s best suited, frankly, to professional shops and to producing multiple hulls from a single mold. Still, amateurs with the right mixture of patience, courage, and willingness to deal with large acreages of glue can successfully build in this way. Unlike driving a car sideways on a city street, cold-molding won’t kill anyone—but you must properly protect your skin and lungs from the toxic effects of epoxy.
When you build a cold-molded boat, in effect you’re fabricating a very large, exotically curvaceous sheet of plywood in the shape of a hull. First you create a form that consists either of a strip-planked inner hull or a mold with a great many stringers. Then you’ll bend diagonal strips of veneer, typically 1⁄16″ to 1⁄8″ thick, over this mold and laminate several thicknesses together with epoxy. It’s vital to apply even, consistent pressure to these skin layers to avoid air pockets between them. A professional shop will use a vacuum bag; home builders are likely to resort to staples—hundreds or thou-sands of them. After the epoxy cures and the staples are removed, the hull is faired and the exterior often sheathed in still more epoxy, this time with fiberglass cloth.
Cathleen Adkin
The second layer of planking is spiled for the opposite diagonal. For even pressure, such hulls are often vacuum-bagged in a single gluing operation.
Pros and Cons to Cold-Molding
Pros
Strong, lightweight, watertight hull
Adaptable to nearly any hull form
Cons
Very labor-intensive and messy
Critics complain that the hulls look “too perfect,” like production fiberglass boats
Major repairs will be difficult
Courtesy of WoodenBoat School
Stitch-and-glue is similar to glued lapstrake in that it relies on epoxy to secure joints; however, in this case planks are butted together at the seams and secured by epoxy fillets.
6. Stitch-and-Glue
This technique may have originated with the Mirror dinghy, concocted as a promotion by the London Daily Mirror in 1963. It was an extremely simple racing and recreational sailing dinghy that amateurs with little or no woodworking experience could build in around a hundred hours, and it was so successful that the Mirror now estimates that about 70,000 have been built around the world.
There is no simpler way to build a wooden hull. Cut five panels from plywood sheets—two sides, two bottom pieces, and a transom—drill pairs of holes a half inch inboard of the seams-to-be, and stitch the panels together with wire twists. The wires function as temporary clamps to hold the panels together. Then fill the gaps and fuse the joints with thickened epoxy, remove the stitches, and reinforce the seams with layers of fiberglass tape set in more epoxy. Most stitch-and-glue boats are then sheathed on the outside with fiberglass cloth set in epoxy, and the inside, too, is sealed with epoxy.
The medium is more versatile than the ubiquitous Mirror dinghies and kayak kits suggest. Sam Devlin, who designs and builds boats in Tumwater, Washington, has built stitch-and-glue motor cruisers up to 48′ and displacing 32,000 lbs. Since plywood thicker than 1⁄2″ is nearly impossible to bend into boat-like shapes, stitch-and-glue hulls longer than 25′ can be built up to the appropriate thickness by cold-molding additional plywood sheets onto the original hull form. This is possibly where stitch-and-glue construction’s easy-building appeal to the amateur begins to ebb, with the big boats best left to the pros.
Cathleen Adkin
Short lengths of copper wire make good “stitches” because if necessary they can be cut flush, and since the bits of wire left in the joint won’t rust, they’ll do no harm.
How easy, honestly, is stitch-and-glue? The basic technique is extremely simple; even if you’re a jigsaw goofus you can cut the panels safely wide of the line, then trim with a block plane and sanding block. Stitch-and-glue’s particular devil, however, is in the sheathing. There is a learning curve with fiberglassing a hull, and first-time builders may be doing a lot of tedious sanding to achieve a smooth and fair hull form. And stitch-and-glue boats more complicated than a Mirror dinghy will require the same kinds of appendages and furniture that any boat does.
One of the appealing qualities of a stitch-and-glue boat is its remarkable rigidity. All the interior components such as bulkheads, berth flats, and even cockpit seats become part of an eggcrate-like structure within a monocoque skin, so you don’t hear any groaning or creaking from pieces flexing and moving against each other. This also means good trailering durability. If you appreciate groaning and creaking as part of the intrinsic romance of wooden watercraft, you probably didn’t get past the word “plywood” in the second paragraph, anyway.
Pros and Cons to Stitch-and-Glue
Pros
Relatively easy and rapid hull construction
Strong, lightweight, abrasion-resistant and (nearly) rot-proof hull
Cons
Some designs (certainly not all) look relatively clunky; hard chines are inevitable
Since the entire hull and interior structures are essentially fused into one unit, some repairs and modifications are difficult
We launched this discussion some pages back with the admonition that “small boats are not small undertakings,” and the shower of phrases such as “labor intensive” and “exacting craftsmanship” that followed surely underscores the point. Do not be discouraged. Thousands of amateurs have successfully built their own wooden boats, some to extremely high standards and prodigiously ambitious plans. (A man on the Puget Sound island adjacent to the one where I live built a 43′ schooner as his first boat. However, it took him 33 years.)
If you’re in love with a particular design but not its intended method of construction, there is often room to maneuver. Designs of traditional carvel-planked boats can almost always be adapted for strip-plank or cold-molded construction with no external change in their hull shapes. Traditional lapstrake boats, which employ solid wood planks, can usually be executed in glued-lapstrake construction using marine plywood.
All Wooden Boat Construction Projects Start With a Plan
Whichever building method you decide on, you will discover one constant: You’ll begin with a vision of perfect beauty in your head, and if you’re an ordinary mortal, limits of time, money, and skill will inevitably force compromises along the way. Rather than plunge into a funk, the smart builder will set priorities: There are certain things that must be done right, those involving structural integrity or seaworthiness, while certain other details relating to aesthetics and the builder’s ego can be let go. Creating this rational hierarchy of values helps you keep momentum through the long process, and helps you feel good about yourself, even at the high tide of imperfection.
Here are some more techniques to help you build a wooden boat:
Living amidst many inland lakes and rivers, and near the north shore of Lake Michigan has turned me into a boatbuilder. It took a while to commit to building a boat, but in the winter of 2015 my wife, Sue, and I decided I needed an interesting snow-season project. I looked online for an easy-to-build rowboat that we could use for exploring local lakes and rivers, and perhaps some camp-cruising. I came across Dave Gentry’s Chamberlain Gunning Dory and was intrigued by its skin-on-frame construction and beautiful sweeping lines. I checked with Dave, and he agreed that the design should suit us well, so I ordered the plans.
The original Chamberlain gunning dory was built by William Henry Chamberlain of Marblehead, Massachusetts, around 1900. The type was popular for waterfowl hunting along the shoreline north of Boston. John Gardner took the lines off Chamberlain’s own dory in 1942 and presented his interpretation of the boat in The Dory Book and in Building Classic Small Craft, Volume 1. Gardner’s drawings were the basis of the Gentry skin-on-frame version of the boat.
Dave’s plan set includes a 28-page comprehensive, illustrated manual and a sheet of templates for the frames and stems. The plans are available as either full-sized printed drawings or digital PDF files for printing locally. The manual is excellent. It starts by describing the tools and materials needed for the project and then clearly explains each step of the building process. Throughout, it gives acceptable alternatives to the recommended materials. For example, we substituted locally available clear radiata pine in place of cypress for the keel, gunwales, and chines. The one “unauthorized” substitution we made was marine-grade Douglas-fir plywood for the frames because we didn’t have a nearby source of okoume or meranti BS1088 plywood. I have no doubt that the build would have gone more quickly, and the boat would be somewhat lighter, if we had used the better marine plywood.
Stephen Schmeck
Laminating the longitudinals in place makes them easier to install and better able to preserve the shape of the hull. The gunwales and inwales have laminates stacked vertically, and those for the chines are grouped side by side.
The frames and stems come out of one 4′ × 8′ sheet of 1⁄2″ marine plywood. The bottom, seats, breasthooks, and other small parts require two 4′ × 8′ sheets of 1⁄4″ plywood, although the plans state that you can substitute solid wood for some of the 1⁄4″ plywood parts. We used western red cedar for the bottom, cherry for the breasthooks, and a combination of cedar and cherry for the seats. The plans indicate that the finished boat should weigh between 120 and 150 lbs; it is likely that the use of solid wood contributed to our boat’s weight being closer to 160 lbs.
The build went smoothly, beginning with positioning the frame patterns on the plywood and avoiding, as much as possible, the eye-shaped patches made in the manufacturing of the fir plywood. I cut the frames out a little oversize with a sabersaw and then shifted to my 1930s-era bandsaw to cut right to the lines. We spent an afternoon filling the voids in the edges with thickened epoxy and sanding the frames.
We set up the frames and stems atop the keel on a 10′-long 2″ × 6″ strongback. The manual emphasizes that the gunwales and inwales should be made up of thin strips that get laminated in place. The laminates, unlike solid longitudinals, will be easier to bend around the frames and, as the manual notes, “will be both stronger and will permanently hold their shape, rather than forever after trying to straighten back out.” Once we had screwed and epoxied the gunwales and chines into notches in the frames, the structure began to look like a boat. The bottom, whether it’s 1⁄4″ plywood or a panel made of three 3⁄4″ cedar boards joined by cleats, is laid in place and traced along the chines to determine its shape. After it has been cut out, the bottom is screwed and glued to the chines at its perimeter. After the framework has been sanded and oiled, it’s time to skin the boat.
When we built the dory, we were able to purchase 13-oz uncoated polyester fabric for the skin from George Dyson, Baidarka & Co.*, which then had plenty of the material in stock. An alternative today, is Spirit Line Kayaks in Anacortes, Washington, which offers ballistic nylon fabric for covering skin-on-frame boats.
Susan Robishaw
At around 150 lbs, the gunning dory could be cartopped if the roof racks are wide and strong enough and have adequate space between them, but a small trailer makes transporting easier. This utility trailer has had a tongue extension added. Note: Local vehicle regulations may limit how far a boat can extend beyond its trailer.
We stretched the fabric lengthwise and attached it, gunwale to gunwale, with stainless-steel staples. At the stems we stitched the fabric into a tight roll with nylon artificial sinew. Running a hot clothes iron over the fabric took out almost all the wrinkles, and I used my pyrographic wood-burning tool as a hot knife to trim the edges of the fabric.
The manual recommends applying a thin coating of PL Premium construction adhesive to the bottom to increase abrasion resistance. This worked out well and by working the goop into the weave of the fabric a small area at a time, the bottom ended up with a smooth, tough surface. I painted the bottom with a few coats of oil-based enamel and then the whole exterior of the hull with four coats of oil-based spar urethane to make it waterproof. [Spirit Line Kayaks offers an exceptionally durable and translucent two-part urethane that is widely used by builders of skin-on-frame boats.—Ed.]
This was my first time building anything from plans, so I was pleased that it all went smoothly. From start to launching took only three months. I had built a lot of things over the years but never a boat. I’d say that anyone with basic woodworking skills and the discipline and patience to read and understand the plans, could build the Gentry gunning dory. Having access to common shop tools and a decent covered space, the size of a single-car garage, helped the project along. I learned a lot, like how to scarf short stock into the long pieces required for the build and, of course, the whole skinning process. I have since used those skills to build four more skin-on-frame boats and they all float!
Susan Robishaw
Rowing solo at the forward station keeps the dory in good trim with a passenger in the stern. Note the area of the translucent skin either side of the bottom where the water darkens it.
The finished dory is an open boat with no enclosed storage areas, so we tend to keep things organized and secure by clipping small duffle bags to the frames. Rigid insulation foam, cut to shape from the 4 × 8 sheets available from home improvement stores, is installed under the thwarts and end seats to provide flotation.
Like Gardner’s gunning dory, the Gentry version has three rowing stations. The two in the ends are well-spaced for rowing tandem. The center station is for rowing solo or with passengers in the ends. Sue and I usually take turns rowing at the forward station in half-hour shifts while the other relaxes in the stern. There’s not a transom to lean against, so I like having the back-support of a folding (foam) camp chair when it’s not my turn at the oars.
Although the plans mention that one might be able to cartop this boat, I believe it is more realistic to use a small trailer. I modified an inexpensive kit utility trailer by adding 8′ to the tongue, removing one of the spring leaves from the stack on each side to soften the ride, and carpeting the deck. At most ramps I slide the boat off and on the trailer without even getting the wheel bearings wet, but I did install a winch to help at particularly steep launch ramps. The boat rides well on the trailer and hardly affects the gas mileage of our older Prius. With a little planning it takes only a few minutes at the ramp to launch or load. Because of its flat bottom and light weight, the dory is a cinch to handle on the beach and we have safely launched into moderate surf.
Although the boat is relatively beamy, in the bottom its maximum beam is only about 20″ and when only lightly loaded the secondary stability is slow to kick in. When stepping aboard you need to step firmly into the middle of the floor and get seated quickly. Once you are seated all’s well. Moving about when under way— for example, when changing rowers—does need to be done with good coordination between crew. With four aboard (or the equivalent weight in low, securely placed gear or ballast) the boat is much more stable. Dave recommends 7′ 6″ oars. We have ended up with two pairs that are slightly different: Sue’s are 7′ 9″, while mine are 8′ 4″.
Susan Robishaw
The Gentry gunning dory is the same size as the one described in John Gardner’s books but is considerably lighter and will sit higher in the water while carrying a similar load.
I have not verified our rowing speed with a GPS but estimate that at an easy, sustainable pace in flat water the boat cruises at around 3 knots. It is quite dry with little spray coming aboard, takes breaking waves and wakes predictably, and seems to bound over larger waves. At first, this latter action can be unsettling, but you soon realize that the boat is doing just fine.
The three rowing positions allow a solo rower to shift forward or aft to compensate for wind, waves, and load. The frames are well spaced for foot bracing, though the under-seat foam flotation can make things a little tight for those with longer legs and larger feet—I’m 5′ 10″ and my size-10 shoes fit fine. A bit of planning and slight flotation modification could allow more room for longer-legged rowers.
The boat is highly maneuverable and glides well between pulls as long as it is not heading into a strong wind. In calm conditions it tracks well, but in windy conditions, if only lightly loaded, it can be a handful to keep on course. Waves don’t affect the boat as much as a headwind does. We have been caught downwind a couple of times when the wind has shifted through 180 degrees, forcing us to hug the windward shore to get back to our launching site. Adding people, gear, or water bags for ballast settles the hull deeper and makes it less susceptible to wind and waves.
Stephen Schmeck
With four aboard, the dory still has plenty of freeboard.
The wide expanse of the skin that would be the garboard and the first broadstrake on a traditionally built dory drums a bit in a chop, but I find the sound and being able to see the wave action through the translucent fabric of the hull are among the most enjoyable aspects of being on the water in this boat.
Our original thoughts were to do some cruising and camping, but so far, we have used the boat exclusively for day trips on local lakes, rivers, and in Lake Michigan’s bays. I do think it will work well for beach camping as long as we keep track of the wind direction and have the flexibility to wait out unfavorable conditions. If you’re looking for a boat that really gets attention at the ramps and beaches, is easily handled and relatively quick to build, Dave Gentry’s skin-on-frame Chamberlain Gunning Dory might be for you.
Steve Schmeck and Sue Robishaw are enjoying life on their off-grid homestead in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. When not building boats, they play old-time music, grow most of their own food, heat their home with wood and solar, and use a water-pumping windmill. They share their thoughts and practical advice with the wider world through their website, ManyTracks. They built the first of the Gentry gunning dories and provided photographs for the manual.
Chamberlain Gunning Dory Particulars
LOA: 18′ 4″
Beam: 4′ 8″
Weight: 120–150 lbs
Maximum recommended capacity is four adults plus gear.
Initially designed for millionaires, the Passagemaker skiff is also ideally suited to thousand-aires like me. In addition to being a manageable “investment” at $1,349, the Passagemaker proved to be less onerous to build than I originally imagined. On completion, this skiff lived up to its touted versatility and its ability to carry loads and loads of all kinds of boating stuff.
The Passagemaker was created by John Harris, chief designer and president of the Annapolis, Maryland, based Chesapeake Light Craft (CLC) at the behest of PassageMaker, a magazine catering to anyone interested in big, expensive, power cruisers. “The editor was very specific in what he wanted the boat to do,” Harris recalls. The design had to be small and light enough to be easily hoisted, probably in davits, onto the stern of a trawler-style cruiser. Its length was to be 11′7″ and include the option of breaking the down into two parts, each with its own watertight integrity, and easily reassembled. It had to be robust enough to carry three people and all their gear comfortably and safely in protected waters where the mother vessel was likely to be anchored, moored, or docked. It had to be propelled easily with an outboard motor, oars, or a sailing rig, and, finally, it had to be good-looking.
Undaunted by such a tall order, Harris self-imposed a 100-lb limit to the skiff’s dry weight, a goal he more than met by bringing the Passagemaker in at just under 90 lbs. This was achieved by drawing on the handsome form of traditional Norwegian prams and using modern materials and boatbuilding methods. The lapstrake design of the original prams lends itself to CLC’s LapStitch method for stitch-and-glue plywood. The overlapping joints are self-aligning and offer plenty of gluing surface area and an attractive appearance. Using mostly 1/4″ (6 mm) stock for the four strakes, bottom, and other pieces helped keep the weight down, while fiberglass cloth and epoxy added stiffness and durability. By the time the design was ready for the CNC cutter, Harris was well on his way not just to meeting all of the PassageMaker magazine specifications but also to creating a boat that would have a broad appeal. He introduced his Passagemaker in 2005, and since then CLC has sold more 500 of the kits.
all photographs by Joe Devenney Photography, photos.joedevenney.com
All of the CNC-cut pieces are shipped boxed and ready for assembly. Longer pieces are in the unopened box standing against the wall.
When my Passagemaker kit arrived via UPS, I anticipated few problems. The space needed to put the Passagemaker together turned out to be considerable, but I had the luxury of working in a big, open barn; a single bay in the standard two-car garage would be a pretty tight fit, making some construction processes more onerous than they might otherwise be. The MAS epoxy CLC recommends and sells exceeded my expectations. With several decades of experience working with other brands, I was impressed with how well MAS epoxy flowed and laid flat and even. It had essentially no odor and stayed perfectly clear on the surfaces I coated with it for protection. MAS epoxy is non-blushing and does not create a waxy film on its surface as it cures. That eliminates problems blush can pose when applying subsequent coats of epoxy, varnish, or paint.
All of the planks for the Passagemaker arrive in two parts and have to be made full-length before they can be assembled into bottom and sides. My Passagemaker kit was an early version, and plank pieces had to be scarfed together. Slathered with epoxy and clamped, the slanted surfaces slid against one another when pressure was applied by weights or clamps. CLC solved this problem by changing the scarf joints to puzzle joints that assure much greater precision, and eliminate the messy task of trying to keep scarf joints from moving about.
Pre-drilled holes for the CLC’s plywood panels are also a big improvement over earlier iterations of the Passagemaker kit. The locations of the holes are determined by computer and each pair is matched up directly across the lap, so wire ties ensure greater precision. I had drilled the holes myself on an earlier project, and ran the risk of having the assembled strakes ending up out of whack with each other at the ends. Pre-drilled holes also save a tremendous amount of time.
The construction of the Passagemaker is pretty straightforward, even if you’re a beginning do-it-yourselfer. The free customer support via telephone was excellent. I called only once with a question about an obscure aspect of the construction process. The CLC representative didn’t have the answer when I called, but he called me back in about 20 minutes with the information I needed. Two other CLC kit builders I know reported excellent customer support on many aspects of the construction process.
CLC has a list of tools and supplies you’ll need for the project. None of the tools needed to complete the Passagemaker are particularly expensive, and they’re all worthy additions to the shop of a beginner do-it-yourselfer. You can’t have too many clamps. A half-dozen C-clamps are particularly useful, and spring clamps, bar clamps, and deep-throat clamps come handy, especially if you are working alone. Having a wide variety of clamps can keep the work moving along if an extra pair of hands is unavailable. I clamp pieces together for a dry run before I mix epoxy. I know from experience that when parts don’t go together quite as expected after epoxy is applied, things can get very messy. The puzzle joints are virtually foolproof, but it’s always wise to work any bugs out before the epoxy gets stirred.
Chesapeake Light Craft estimates the Passagemaker will take 100 hours to build. The daggerboard trunk is standard outfitting, even for the basic rowing hull, making it easy to upgrade to sailing.
CLC’s website offers weeklong classes in which many of their boats can be built in a week and taken home for outfitting and applying a finish. Without the benefit of CLC’s shop, tools, and expertise, even an accomplished do-it-yourselfer cannot assemble a Passagemaker in one week and enjoy the process. It took me 125 hours to complete a Passagemaker, and that included painting, varnish, and setting up the sloop rig. With the new puzzle joints and the pre-drilled holes for the copper-wire stitching, the time commitment could be under 100 hours.
The bottom has enough rocker to keep the transom from dragging in the water, even with a much heavier load aboard.
On my first few rowing and sailing outings with the Passagemaker, I was alone and without any load aboard. The high volume of the hull makes the boat sit high in the water, and the generous rocker sets the ends high; the skeg is only partially immersed, and the overhanging bow can catch the wind. In a 12-knot breeze, having some sand-filled bags in the bilge settled the boat deeper in the water, and I was better off both rowing and sailing. Leeward drift in my sloop-rigged Passagemaker was significantly reduced by putting some weight in the bottom. To be fair, the boat was designed to be filled with up to 650 lbs of cargo—passengers, groceries, dogs, or whatever—and the more you fill it up, the better it performs.
With a solo helmsman sitting in the stern sheets, the Passaagemaker will settle down by the stern. Sitting on the bottom farther forward or carrying ballast in the bow will restore proper trim.
The boat worked best with lighter people and goods well forward or aft, and the larger, heavier portion of cargo amidships. Keeping the ends light makes the boat quicker to respond to waves and lift over them. At first, when I sailed alone, I sat well aft, handy to the tiller and rudder, but this set the bow higher than it needed to be. Sitting amidships put the Passagemaker in better trim and might have led me to make a tiller extension and new leads for the jibsheets. Before making any modifications, I tried loading my sand bags at the base of the forward seat. I found I could sit comfortably aft, and the boat performed very well. And only 100 lbs of sand was needed for good sailing results on my solo outings.
This Passagemaker carries the gunter sloop rig. The mast, gunter, and boom all fit within the hull for easy transport.
Designer Harris reports the single-sail lug rig is more popular than the two-sail sloop rig I built. I’d agree that the lug rig would make sailing simpler, but either sailing rig is well worth the investment: Sailing is the best way to enjoy the Passagemaker. The Passagemaker can carry an outboard from 2 to 4 hp. With my 3-hp motor I found it performed best when loaded, with the weight properly distributed fore and aft.
The latest version of Passagemaker is a take-apart model, one that breaks into two sections, and after the stern seat is removed and placed in the bow, the forward section nests in the stern section for very compact storage and transport.
Harris notes most Passagemakers are built for their own sake, not as a tender for a big trawler. “It’s an enormously versatile boat, and most people seem to build them for the self-esteem that a project like this brings,” he reports. I’d agree that the Passagemaker has much more to offer than mere utilitarian service as a tender.
Ken Textor has been writing about, working on, restoring, building, and living on boats since 1977. He lives in Arrowsic, Maine.
Particulars
[table]
Length/11′7″
Beam/56″
Weight/90 lbs
Maximum payload/650 lbs
Draft/6″
Draft with daggerboard/30″
Sail area/78 sq ft
[/table]
Chesapeake Light Craft’s library of videos includes Passagemaker construction, rowing, and sailing. Plans, an instruction manual, and a variety of kit options, including a gunter sloop or a lug rig, are available from Chesapeake Light Craft.
Is there a boat you’d like to know more about? Have you built one that you think other Small Boats Monthly readers would enjoy? Please email us!
On the west coast of Asterholma, a 1 1⁄2-mile-long island in Finland’s Åland archipelago, my wife Marlen and I loaded our boxes, waterproof bags, camping stove, and tent aboard STRYNØ, our 20′ 8″ traditionally built sail-and-oar double-ender. At the water’s edge a boathouse with walls painted barn red was surrounded by reeds, but much of the island’s shore was rock in striations of pale gray and beige left bare, smooth, and undulating by the retreat of the last ice age. With our gear loaded, we pushed off, stepped aboard, and set the two rectangular spritsails. STRYNØ coasted out of the slick in the lee of the island and drifted into a wind that just dimpled the surface of the Baltic Sea. Glittering ripples soon surrounded our downwind course, gurgling as the bow passed through them.
Photographs by the author except as noted
Thanks to her light weight and shallow draft, STRYNØ can be launched and recovered just about anywhere. At Asterholma we found a shallow spot by a boathouse and slipped STRYNØ off the trailer straight into a soft cushion of reeds.
It was August, and under a brilliant blue sky we were off to explore the islands of Åland, the autonomous region at the southernmost tip of Finland where Swedish is the official language. Of the more than 6,500 islands, only about 60 are inhabited. The larger islands rise as high as 100′ and are mottled in green, gray, and gold in a patchwork of dense woods, bare bedrock, and summer-dried grass; many of the rest are little more than low, nearly flat spans of rock with almost no vegetation.
As we were enveloped by the extraordinary quiet of the archipelago on a warm summer day, Marlen and I made ourselves comfortable aboard STRYNØ.
Christoph Busse
The rig of the tosmakke offers exceptional versatility in a wide range of wind strengths. In lighter winds the topsail and jib can be set, but as the wind increases these can be taken down and then the main and foresail can be reefed in turn to balance the sail area. Beyond STRYNØ in this picture can be seen LENE, a tresmakke from the Roskilde Viking Ship Museum. LENE’s hull shape is very similar to STRYNØ’s and her sailplan is similar with the obvious exception of the third mast.
I had built the boat from plans for a Tosmakke, a traditional Danish working boat. To is two in Danish—for the two sails—and smakke is the sound a spritsail makes in a jibe. These boats were traditionally built for hunting porpoises in summertime and dragging nets for fishing eel in wintertime.
We soon left the marked waterway to set off between islands 2 miles (all nautical in this story) away to follow another of the many marked waterways through channels as wide as 200 yards, as narrow as 50 yards. We had sailed about 9 miles by 6 p.m. when we landed on Måsgrund, an island just 200 yards long and 50 yards wide, with a weathered rounded summit that rose only as high as our masts. We eased the boat alongside a granite ledge that loomed above a fathom of sapphire-blue water. Hungry and tired, we offloaded our cooking gear and stepped ashore.
Roger Siebert
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Close by we found a spot to sit and lean back against the smooth granite, still warm from the day’s sunlight. Soon, we were lying down and stretching, luxuriating and unwinding our limbs after the long day of sitting in our small boat. We dined on a salad of beetroot, onion, avocado, and goat cheese dressed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, seasoned with fresh-milled pepper, and accompanied by some Swedish surdegs knäcke —a crispbread—with extra-salted butter.
Our first evening in the archipelago was typical—sunlit until well after 10 p.m., still, and silent. We tucked STRYNØ into an opening in the granite and settled in for the night on Måsgrund.
Afterwards, I set off to explore the island. I walked barefoot on smooth, warm rock slabs, and after the constant movement of the boat it felt good to stand on the unmoving ground. As I stepped away from the shore, the smell of seawater came with me on the light evening breeze but was soon replaced by the fresh scent of pine and juniper. The pine needles shivered in the wind. The rocks were overgrown by lichen and moss, in places dry and crisp beneath my feet, in others so soft that I sank up to my ankles, and everywhere ants had cut trails through the vegetation like miniature roads in a lichen forest. Near the center of the island the trees grew close together, and their branches cracked and broke as I made my way through; the sharp juniper needles bit at my hands and poked through my pants.
To the west of the island there was a 700-yard span of open water between a neighboring forested island where summer house was hiding between the trees. At the opposite shoreline reeds grew straight and tall—more like the shore of a lake than the Baltic Sea. In the quiet evening an oystercatcher was looking for food and a flock of swans had come ashore to sit at the rocks for a while. Arctic terns swooped and dove for fish and occasionally got into noisy fights. I heard the raucous cawing of ravens in the distance. Of course, there was the perfect spot for mooring the boat. I found a bay that was no more than a crack between rocks with deep water and just long and wide enough to enclose our boat, protected from the wind from three directions.
As I made my way back across the island, I found a 20″-long osprey feather lying on the moss and picked it up to bring to Marlen. I roused her from her repose on the rocks and together we rowed to the new mooring site. With STRYNØ secured, we went ashore, cleared the ground of pinecones and branches beneath a large pine tree, and pitched our tent on a soft bed of needles.
At Åselholm we came alongside the ferry dock and moored up for the night. After we had tidied up the boat, we walked across the island to fill our water bottles. We spent the night here under the tarpaulin cockpit tent.
After breakfast and a swim in the cold clear water we broke camp and sailed a few hours with the dying wind headed for Åselholm. We cruised slowly in the warm sunlight around the south end of the island with jib and topsail set. After covering 5 miles, we moored by a concrete pier for the ferry at the foot of an uneven wooden bridge with moss growing out of cracks in the planks.
We went ashore and the ½-mile walk along an ochre dirt road took us across the island, past fields, grassland, wild gardens, roadside flowers, and wild strawberries. We turned down the driveway of a lot that had several barns, a harbor with two piers, each with a wooden boathouse, and two windmills. We rang the doorbell at the two-story house to ask for water and met Jimmi. He filled our bottles and offered to show us his windmills.
The nearest of the two mills, a corn mill more than 200 years old, was about 15′ high and had the proportions of an outhouse with a steep-pitched roof. It stood on a platform of rough-hewn logs weighed down by lichen speckled stone slabs. The space inside was so tiny that we could only step one by one into the darkness. Flour dust on the floor rose from our footsteps and glowed in beams of light that filtered through the gaps in the wood.
We explored Åselholm’s two windmills. The larger of the two (seen in the distance) is unusual: Most Scandinavian windmills have four vanes rather than six and even rarer still, here the vanes power a sawmill housed within the round tower.
The second mill was much larger, round and shingled, and had six sails instead of the more usual four. Inside was a vertical sawmill with six blades driven by an overhead iron crankshaft. “Everything is there and it’s all working,” Jimmi told us, “but no one really knows how to operate it.”
We returned to STRYNØ and enjoyed dinner while sitting on the wooden pier next to the boat. To get ready for bed, everything in the area between the masts—cooler, camp stove, and tools in wooden boxes and the thwart for the forward rowing station—had to be moved to make space for sleeping on the floorboards either side of the daggerboard. After we set up the tarpaulin that covers the forward half of the boat, we had a dark, tiny, crowded but well protected and cozy space for two. We spent a calm night and slept soundly.
Early the next morning, to our surprise, the ferry came to the otherwise empty pier bringing a truck to collect trash. Two workers cleaned the corner of the pier nearest us twice, sweeping away gravel and dust just to take a closer look at our boat. We were still in our sleeping bags.
Soon after breakfast we sailed into a warm and sunny day heading 6 miles to the eastward to Iniö, one of the few places we could buy food. Just past noon the wind rose to 10 knots from the northwest, so we had easy sailing on our eastern course with jib and topsail added to the rig.
The opening to the harbor on the northeast coast of Iniö is protected by three wooded islets, and the marina, 1⁄4 mile in, is set among lush reeds 6′ tall. After shopping in the general store, we left to sail 3 ½ miles to Kalskär, one of the thousands of Åland’s uninhabited islands. It has a small bay open to the southeast on one side of an isthmus that connects the 400-yard-long main body of the island to its smaller sister, and another even smaller bay open to the northwest. The weather forecast promised a change of wind blowing from the south that night, so we chose the northern bay. The 13-knot wind blew right into the bay, so I took down all sails and let STRYNØ coast, carefully watching the stony ground and underwater rocks until the anchor found a hold in the rocky crystal-clear shallow water. The rode tightened and I made it fast to the sternpost.
We had to wait a long time each day to see the sun set. Here at Kalskär, it was just 30 minutes to midnight when the sun finally dipped below the horizon. It would stay hidden from view for just two and a half hours.
An evening walk along the steep west side of the island took us past pools of water trapped in fissured rock and rocky bars dotted with lichens and strewn with bleached skulls and skeletons from small mammals and seabirds, leftovers from ospreys that bring their prey to the pine trees at the top of granite banks. The wind fell asleep, the waves calmed, and the reflection of the sky lay over the rocky seabed under the still water’s surface. In the evening, after a refreshing cold bath, we had a fire in our wood-burning camp stove to warm ourselves, and with the last red beams of the sunlight illuminating our chart we decided we would turn south tomorrow for Näsby.
After breaking camp and teetering across slippery, algae-covered stones to load the boat, we set sail in light rain. Dull white clouds in front of a gray sky promised more rain to come. We worked STRYNØ, with topsail and jib added, against a 6-knot southeasterly wind that misted our faces with gray raindrops from clouds that left only a few blue gaps in the sky. Marlen was at the helm while I trimmed the sails, both of us enjoying sailing with the rising wind.
The sky cleared and the sunlight had brightened the islands around us for only 15 minutes before I decided to take down the topsail. “Why are you taking it down?” Marlen asked, still pushing STYRNØ at speed in waves now showing a bit of white at their crests. Only a few minutes later I hurriedly took down the jib. Soon we were flying with both spritsails heading hard against the wind, on the verge of reefing, picking our course between buoys, rock outcroppings, and islands. Steepening waves shook our boat and soon it was rolling like a rocking horse in cross seas. Suddenly, the wind blew away all the clouds and dropped as abruptly as it had built. Choppy waves in mixed directions brought the boat to a full stop. After a moment of confusion about what to do I set the jib again and the boat, still bouncing, started slowly moving through the waves.
At Hevonkack we found the only sand beach of our entire trip. We still moored STYRNØ with a beach rock and a stern anchor and enjoyed wading in and out for a swim rather than having to climb rocks to get out of the water.
We spotted an area of smoother water and as soon as we reached it, we began sailing normally, heading a last ½ mile to an exceptionally rare place in the rocky archipelago: a beach. The 50-yard-long crescent of caramel-colored sand on the lee side of Hevonkack was a very welcome place to bring the boat ashore. Some boulders, covering an area about the size of a small house’s footprint, rose only inches above the water and protected the shallow sandy bay. Marlen and I found a dry, sun-warmed place just wide enough for the two of us to sit with a view over the surrounding islands in the calming, sunny evening.
After breakfast and gathering blueberries, we left the wind-protected beach and sailed directly into a 15-knot southerly. Sailing toward Näsby meant tacking roughly 3 miles before holding a starboard tack to make a 7-mile passage along a natural channel formed by a gently meandering string of gaps between islands and rocks. The wind-scuffed waves slapped the bow and burst into white spray. As the wind strengthened to 20 knots Marlen and I had to move fast as we dove under the spritsails with each tack, holding our seat cushions tight lest they be blown away. The boat was making great speed but it was challenging to beat to windward, coming about every 500 to 1,200 yards, often between the foot of steep rock faces on one side and rocky shallows striped with white foam on the other.
At 5 p.m. we veered west and hoped to bear away on a steadier point of sail, but in the lee of a tall, forested island we could only try to sail puffs coming from changing directions. I relieved Marlen at the helm and helped to prepare some cheese bread. We had been too busy in the wind to feel our hunger and exhaustion. Dinner boosted our mood. We landed at Langnäs, an uninhabited islet composed of a trio of ridges connected side by side. We were still tired and hungry and had to have a second dinner—noodles and pesto—to restore our energy before we could set up our tent.
It was already afternoon by the time we left Langnäs headed for Näsby, the main village on the island of Houtskär. The weather forecast we heard before leaving concerned us; we had to look for a good shelter for a storm that would arrive that night and Näsby’s harbor is safely nestled among the peninsulas on the east end of the island. Set on pilings over the water at the bouldered shore were plain buildings with small four-paned square windows and vertical siding, some unpainted and weathered slate gray, some bright barn red, and others once red, turning gray. The building above the gas dock was built of logs, lapped at the corners, flattened on their sides and deeply checked with age. The buildings along the shore were backed with a thicket of trees in full leaf. Behind them were slender evergreens only slightly taller than a shingled church spire rising in their midst.
Marlen was at the helm as we approached a 100-yard-long pier and headed for the sole open mooring space among all the huge motorboats and even larger sailboats moored there. We were both nervous. We had no motor and there was too little space between the boats to row in among them against the wind. I prepared the lines, one at the stern, one at the bow, and lowered the jib, but still we were speeding along parallel to the pier heading for the empty slot. From the stern of every boat, people looked on as the strange little two-masted sailboat flew by. I set our two small fenders, let fly the foresail, and got ready to fend off as Marlen released the mainsheet and rounded up into the mooring space, as neatly as if she’d just taken a master class.
The two motorboats alongside us were twice as long as STRYNØ and there was barely room to squeeze the fenders between the boats, but we had made it. We breathed deep and set about tidying up. We left the boat to walk into town.
When we returned, we found a powerboat twice the size of our tosmakke had squeezed into our spot, pushing STRYNØ forward under the bow of two boats, nearly flattening all the fenders that separated our boat from them. The harbormaster, seeing our precarious situation, took pity on us: she had a liking for wooden boats and allowed us to move to a daytime-only mooring at the innermost end of the pier inside the harbor. We had a safe spot for the night.
The following day, many of the people walking about in the crowded harbor were interested in STRYNØ and stopped to ask questions about her and our cruise. We spent the time relaxing under the tarpaulin, walking into town to shop for food, and visiting historical houses and the church. Having spent one night and the day in the hustle and bustle of Näsby, we decided to slip away. We rolled up the tarp, maneuvered away from the pier, and set sail in a 10- to 15-knot breeze. It was 6:20 p.m. and our destination, Åvensor, was 6 miles away.
Marlen was happy to be at the helm once more and sailing smoothly downwind. In the warm evening, the sun came out and lit up our sails. I set the topsail and the jib. Reflected sunlight from the bow wave played upon the jib. Its concave curve gathered and amplified the sound of the bow cutting through the water, making it audible enough to be heard at the helm. The sound brought a smile to Marlen’s face. For an hour and a half, we flew across a glittering golden sea into the openness of the archipelago.
We went ashore at Åvensor to find the best campsite and left STRYNØ, her sails up, temporarily moored while we explored. Sometimes we were lucky and found a good place to pitch the tent nearby, other times we’d have to sail or row farther around the island. In the distance, to the right of this picture, can be seen one of the limestone kilns for which the area was once famous.
At Åvensor there are two 125-year-old quarries that were created to mine limestone for making cement. At the north end of the island, a natural bay 500 yards wide and about as long ends in marsh overgrown by reeds. It has a broken-down pier once used by ships taking the cement from the island to ports in Finland and Sweden between 1900 and the late 1950s. We tied up at the innermost end of the pier almost in the reeds and walked just 50 yards inland along a path that once was a road to the first quarry.
The water that had flooded the quarry was crystal clear and darkened from blue-green into black where the bottom is more than 100′ deep. Vertical walls 30′ to 60′ high surrounded the quarry. High above, surrounded by a new-growth forest of spindly trees and almost in ruins, were the lime kilns that looked like squat brick lighthouses. We clambered over the rocks and above the quarry to see the sunset and the waterway through which we had sailed. As we stood in the evening breeze with the low sun in front of us, a lone sailboat was winding its way through the archipelago of forested islands, rocks, and stony reefs.
Despite the fading daylight we wanted to swim in the still water of the quarry. We waded through the shallow water. In the darkness we could make out black finger-sized crayfish crawling across the stones at our feet.
We took a morning walk through the reeds to another of the island’s quarries, then loaded and launched STRYNØ. With her full foresail and reefed mainsail set, the gusting southwesterly pushed us on our northern course, speeding as fast as the foam-crested following seas. Behind us our wake lingered white across the waves. The forecast was for winds of 15 to 20 knots for the day. We had decided to set sail only after a lengthy discussion about if we should go and if we did, where we should go. Now, as we sped through the water for Lindö, we were a little tense but still confident in our decision.
For STRYNØ, a 23-knot wind is the upper limit. She is an open boat and at speed short, steep waves wash over the bow. One person must stay at the helm, leaving the other to manage the sails and lines. The weight of the crew in the boat is important for its balance—a sudden strong gust, and the crew must move swiftly to windward; in an unexpected lull they must shift to the center; moving too far to leeward can cause the gunwale to dip.
As we sailed on, the southwesterly steadily rose, visibly bending the unstayed masts. We left the protection of the leeward islands that kept away higher waves, and suddenly there were almost 2 miles of open water that we had to cross and the sea was becoming disturbed. Steep, dark gray waves broke over the port gunwale from bow to stern. STRYNØ was so steeply heeled that it was hard to find a suitable spot to sit. I spilled the wind in the foresail, holding it in just enough to stop it from luffing, and Marlen held both the mainsheet and the tiller tight. The boat leapt like a porpoise from wave to wave as the wind brought us ever closer to the rocky shore of one of the islands scattered along our route. We would have to come about to avoid it.
“Tack when the waves aren’t so high!” I shouted to Marlen. She waited for the right moment while I prepared myself with an oar to help with coming about. When Marlen pushed the tiller leeward, STRYNØ needed no assistance—she turned with ease and settled on her new course.
Gusts laid white stripes across the dark sea, and all around us the waves were cresting. After sailing free of the rocks, we turned again and held on, heading for the lee of Biskopsö. We made it to the northern side of the 1⁄2-mile-long island, and in the lee of its wooded hillside I dropped the sails. Marlen and I stretched out on the smooth granite, exhausted by the first 5 intense miles of the day. I quickly fell asleep. When I woke, the sky was darker, and the telltale ash-gray streaks beneath the clouds indicated showers were coming our way We decided to press on. If we kept to leeward of the island chain to the northwest, we would have milder wind and smoother seas.
As we plowed on, the clouds flung heavy raindrops that pelted us and soon soaked us through to the bone. As evening drew near the wind shifted and we were able to shake out the reefs and set full sail as the wind came around to our beam. The backside of the storm brought clear weather, and we made landfall on the south shore of Lindö island in the evening light.
Lindö is located on the northwest quadrant of Mossala Fjärden, a circular body of water about 3 miles in diameter, encompassed by a fragmented perimeter of islands, many of them curved around a common distant center. I had been looking forward to visiting this landscape of concentric circles of rocky islands that show so clearly on the charts. The islands are the remains of a magma intrusion that penetrated the Earth’s crust over a billion years ago. Standing on Lindö we could clearly see the round shape of this distinctive bay.
Throughout the trip we used the portable camp stove rather than make fires on the granite. The intense heat from a direct fire can cause the rock to break, sending out an explosion of hot embers and rock fragments.
That evening the wind fell from the stormy afternoon to a gentle whisper through the pine needles, to absolute silence. With the weather now again calm, the sky turned blue, and the sunset was seemingly endless, stretching from about 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. But even when the sun had finally slipped below the horizon, it was never truly dark, and even though there were no clouds it wasn’t dark enough to see the stars in the 2 1⁄2 hours that the sun was below the horizon.
The boat was safe at anchor, and we had the island to ourselves. The rhythmless burble of the ripples against the ledges and boulders faded to near silence and then all movement and sound stopped. As we lay in our tent surrounded by stillness, I heard only the beats of my pulse and the ebb and whisper of my breath.
We decided to sail westward to return to Asterholma. We had three days to get to the ferry at the neighboring island, Lappö, and to roll aboard with our boat. The weather forecast promised winds from the southwest, sunshine, and a chance of showers.
The islands surrounding Mossala have smooth but steep sides of polished rock, and those facing Lindö form a kind of channel 100 yards wide. A series of short tacks in the channel brought us to a wider area and our course turned more to northwest. The wind rose, and I took down the jib. We could sail with the two spritsails speeding STRYNØ along while Marlen and I sat comfortably in the cozy niches between boxes with drybags as our seat cushions.
The towering cumulus clouds pushed from the southwest across the luminous blue sky slowly turned from white to gray and soon changed shape into a large, dark anvil. As the wind picked up, we searched for the entrance to a marked waterway that would lead us in short, winding turns through the chaos of rocks and islets. Both of us shifted to the windward gunwale to balance the boat as we rushed past a white pile of stones, the mark we had been looking for. We needed to tack and had only four boat lengths to the next mark. The waterway markers—red and green sticks stacked on rocks or sunken boulders—took us through three 90-degree turns within 300 yards. With two more quick tacks and a jibe we threaded through the narrow section, leaving a foaming white wake that disappeared behind a veil of rain under another dark cloud. The wind died down a little as we tacked into another narrow passage and sailed another mile, slipping around the dark clouds and into bright sunlight with veils of rain on both sides of us.
Most evenings, the wind would die away and the clouds, if there’d been any, would also have retreated. The smooth granite rocks, like those here at Tjuvö, did not always offer useful cracks for mooring lines so, to hold STRYNØ perpendicular to the shoreline, we would set a stern anchor and wrap her painter around a loose rock we would find nearby.
With the wind continuing to die down, we turned northwest and made landfall on the north end of Tjuvö. The island offered a good anchorage in 6′ of water, and granite ledges just 1′ above water level formed a kind of natural pier 50 yards long. We pitched our tent on another bare ledge just in front of a forest. That night I woke from a heavy downpour pounding the rain fly, but soon felt asleep again.
As we sailed away from Tjovö, wisps of clouds over curved curtains of rain preceded a gray monster that was slowly drifting toward us. We knew there was wind over the blackened water in the distance. We prepared for wind and rain by packing away all loose stuff, taking down the jib, and wrapping ourselves in the tarpaulin. Marlen hid under it with the foresail sheet and I was at the helm with only my head sticking out. We were just 1 mile from the northern end of Asterholma when we were overtaken by a heavy shower that reduced visibility to 100 yards. Cold drops hit the tarpaulin with heavy impacts, bursting into spray. The sea was smooth and black under a pearly shimmer of bursting drops. Trickles of water ran through my woolen hat into my eyes and down my neck. The wind picked up and I had to change my ice-cold hand at the tiller from time to time.
On the last day of our trip, we sailed through a heavy shower. But in the calm of the evening, while Marlen prepared dinner, we raised STRYNØ’s sails so they could dry in the sun. The island, Asterholma, is named for the asters that bloom in the rock pools along the shoreline.
The cloudburst did not last long and as visibility improved, we felt it would soon be over. But as we approached our anchorage, I had to take down all the sails in the rain and got entirely wet. We needed to drift with the wind as slowly as possible into the shallow bay, which was littered with rocks just beneath the surface. The rain finally stopped. We pulled the rudder off, lifted the daggerboard, and rowed into the bay. Marlen stood at the bow calling out shallows and stones while I maneuvered the boat in the just-deep-enough water. When we reached shore, it was hard to find a level space for the tent. We fought our way through juniper thickets and had to settle for uneven ground.
We rose at 7 and on a calm sunlit morning set out for Lappo. Arctic terns flew tight circles and dove to catch small fish. After rowing out of the bay at Asterholma, I set the jib and topsail. STRYNØ glided last 2 miles of our trip through a glittering silvery blue sea. Marlen and I sat smiling, listening to the sound of the water tumbling at her bow. We never grew tired of it.
Sailing the Baltic Sea became a dream for Sebastian Schröder while kayaking around the Danish island of Bornholm in 1996. Since then, coastal cruising in small, open, traditional wooden boats has become a passion. Living close to Leipzig in the southeast of Germany, he frequently sails the nearby region of Neuseenland where old open-pit coal mines have been flooded to create new lakes. His work as a live illustrator in creativity workshops and conferences gives him the opportunity to sail and kayak the Baltic Sea and to build wooden boats in traditional Scandinavian style as Feinspiel.
If you have an interesting story to tell about your adventures with a small boat, please email us a brief outline and a few photos.
Floorboards are wonderful things for keeping us out of the bilge, but they are traps for dirt, leaves, and the other detritus of small-craft adventures, so it’s best when they can be easily removed for cleaning. Wood screws can hold floorboards in place, but they’re not suited for being removed and reinserted. Wooden turn-buttons are an effective approach in many cases, but in smaller craft, where floorboards double as seating, they can be obtrusive.
I searched for a method of securing floorboards that has a lower profile, permits easy removal and contributes to structural strength, and adopted threaded brass inserts. They can be purchased in a kit with the proper-sized drill bit and a tool for installing them. A hole is drilled in the floor and the insert is simply screwed into the hole until flush with the top of the floor. Matching machine screws secure the floorboards.
Photographs by the author
The brass inserts provide a durable connection between a small boat’s floorboards and floor timbers and they don’t wear out like holes for wood screws can.
The process is straightforward enough, but I have a few suggestions. Before driving in the inserts, coat the hole for the insert with epoxy to seal the wood grain against the intrusion of water. The inserts have a very aggressive outer thread and are equally happy being inserted at an angle as they are straight, so whether using the installation tool or a screwdriver, take care to align them properly as you begin to drive them in. The brass inserts are somewhat soft, so if using a screwdriver, be sure it is a good fit for the insert’s slots and go easy to avoid camming out.
On new construction, it is much easier to install the inserts in the floor timbers before they’re installed in the hull where they’re harder to reach and keep aligned.
Bear in mind that the strength of the inserts depends upon the strength of the surrounding wood. For floorboards, they are more than adequate but the inserts are not recommended for use in plywood or in higher-load applications.
Floorboards can be secured with a few inserts to keep them in place or with inserts at every floor timber to have the floorboards strengthen the hull.
Locating a source for a suitable machine screw to secure the floors took some searching. For my first attempts I used large-head steel furniture bolts. These had nice broad low-profile heads, but they quickly corroded and left deep stains in the floorboards. I have since switched to brass button-head hex-drive screws, which hold up much better and have a more traditional appearance (assuming one doesn’t look too closely).
The result is floorboards that are solidly secured but that can be removed in a jiffy to clean out the bilge or carry out other maintenance. It’s a great relief to be able to remove them as often as necessary without the worry of stripping out the threads from wood screws.
Walter Gotham operates Chadwick Pond Boats, a small shop in Haverhill, Massachusetts, specializing in lapstrake plywood small craft.
Threaded inserts (EZ LOK or similar) can be readily found from most hardware suppliers or online. They are available in stainless steel as well as brass.
The brass button-head hex-drive screws shown here are available from McMaster-Carr.
Editor’s Notes
After I installed floor timbers in my secondhand Piccolo lapstrake canoe I began to mull over ways to fasten the floorboards I’d made to them. I had secured floorboards in a different canoe with screws, an unsatisfactory method, and I wasn’t drawn to the labor required for making toggles. When I saw Walter’s method it seemed like the obvious choice. I saw that brass inserts are available online and at the big-box hardware stores, but I bought a set at my local hardware store. The inserts were brass and the furniture connector bolts were, as I later found out, brass-plated steel.
Before installing the inserts, practice on scraps of wood that are the same as the floors to ensure you can drive them in without damaging the wood. My tests on mahogany went smoothly; driving inserts into Douglas fir required developing measures to avoid splintering. The inserts have slots that make them removable after you do a few trial runs.
This and all following photographs by Christopher Cunningham
The tools for the job included, from front to back, a brad point drill bit, brass inserts and bolts, and an insertion tool made of two nuts locked on a bolt with its head sawn off. The inserts may have fine threads or coarse, like the ones I used. The furniture connector bolts with the large flat heads were brass-plated steel, vulnerable to corrosion, so I modified round-head brass bolts.
I set the floorboards in place on the floor timbers with a 1⁄4″ gap between them and weighted them down with sandbags. I set combination squares with the blades set to bump up against the side of the timber and used a ruler, set against the blades, to transfer the timber location to the top of the floorboards.
The lines transfer the location of the floor timber to the top of the floorboards. The 1⁄4″ space between the floorboards is narrow enough to keep pencils and pens from rolling through. I put a short 1⁄4″ dowel in the two floors where I’d install inserts, to hold the floorboards apart not just for drilling the inserts but also to make it easier to reposition the floorboards when they need to be removed for maintenance.
I marked the location of the insert at the midpoint of the outlined area of the floorboard. For this step, I drilled just the start of the hole. The inserts I bought require a hole drilled with a 5⁄16″ bit. I used a brad-point bit because its sharp point makes it easier to get the hole started in the right place. I would drill through the floorboard and into the floor timber at the same time. The hole in the floorboard is oversized for the 1⁄4″ machine screw that fits the insert, but the extra space will later make it easy to position the screw and get it threaded into the insert.
Keeping the bit anchored in the dimple, I slipped the block to the floorboard and held it firmly as I drilled through the floorboard and into the floor timber. When the tape hit the block, the correct depth had been reached.
The floorboards can be removed for the installation of the inserts.
There are tools for installing the inserts but you can make one that is just as effective: it’s a 1⁄4-20 machine screw with the head hacksawed off with two nuts locked against each other. The screw extends ½″ beyond the bottom nut, the same length as the insert. The inserts have slots, which will accept a screwdriver, but the threads tend to set the insert at an angle as the lead thread cuts into the wood. I found a screwdriver was useful only for removing an insert for trial runs on scrap wood. When installing inserts where they are meant to stay, I think it’s best to get them driven in right the first time. A second effort will most likely make an additional unnecessary cut in the wood. The insert’s threads are sharp and as they slice into the wood they can lift splinters as the insert begins to advance. Adding a countersink to the hole gets the thread started deeper in the wood and can eliminate the splintering. (Countersink bits cut more smoothly when they precede the drilled hole, but in this case the 5⁄16″ hole has to come first. The countersink bit will chatter less at a slower speed.) Get the insert centered in the hole, push down hard, and start the drill.
The inserts don’t require glue to give them holding power, but a coating on the outside of the insert and the inside of the hole drilled in the wood will prevent water from making its way in and causing rot. Epoxy would be the usual choice but I had a waterproof one-part adhesive handy and used that. I applied Vaseline to the threads of the machine screw insertion device to keep the epoxy from getting inside the insert.
The inserts will be hidden under the floorboards, but I’ll paint over them to finish them. I’ll thread a 1⁄4-20 into the insert while I do the painting to keep the threads clean.
When I hacksawed one of the furniture connector bolts (left) to shorten it, I realized it was brass-plated steel. That turned out to be the standard for the type. I like their broad, flat heads but I’ll replace them, as Walter did, with brass bolts to avoid corrosion. Brass round-head 1⁄4-20 bolts (center) are common. With a drill and a 1″x30″ belt sander I lowered the profile of the round heads (right) and polished them so they would be less apt to snag.
My canoe didn’t need the additional strength that liberally-fastened floorboards can provide, so I used only two fastenings for each floorboard.
Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats.
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For a decade, Audrey and I had a waterfront home in the northwest corner of Florida, east of Pensacola, on the shore of the shallow East Bay. As we explored the edges of those waters from 2011 to 2021, a push pole could take us through shallows and reeds that we’d avoid if we were paddling or rowing.
The push poles used in the mudflats and marshes in the East Bay area have lengths ranging from 12′ to 18′. There are many different attachments for the bottom end of the pole, and they play an important role. They should provide enough foundation for the pole to push against without sinking too deep into the muck. We tried a few different attachments while in Florida and they performed marginally well. On a few occasions we glided quietly away from our pole after I couldn’t pull it from the soft bottom in time to keep from going overboard with it.
Photographs by the authors
When force is applied to the push pole the Duckbill Head opens up to a 12″ span to increase the area pressing against the mud.
When we relocated to Virginia, we came across the Duckbill Head from H&H Outdoors, a company that specializes in gear for duck hunters and marsh fishermen. We ordered one and received the attachment promptly.
The Duckbill Head attachment measures 10 1⁄2″ long when folded, 4 1⁄4″ wide, and the widest part of the flared bill measures 2 3⁄4″ across. The bills have 3⁄8″-wide flanges around the edges and are hinged so they can open and close. When the powder-coated aluminum bills are opened, they span 12″.
When pulled, the Duckbill closes to make it easier to pull free from a sticky bottom.
The Duckbill can be attached to any 1 1⁄8″-diameter handle, wood or metal. The socket has a countersunk hole for a screw to secure the pole. Our wooden pole had a slightly undersized end, so we glued-on the new Duckbill with thickened epoxy.
We knew just by looking at the Duckbill that it would spread the pushing force across a wide area, and that the hinged mechanism would allow the device to be pulled easily from a soft bottom. And the attachment did, indeed, work quite well in our new local waters, which are bordered by marsh in many areas, especially around launch ramps, where the reeds interfere with oars. It has also been handy in shoal waters, where we have only a few inches to spare beneath the 8″ draft of our boats when it is impossible to lower a rudder, centerboard, or motor.
In mud, the duckbill attachment has a distinct advantage over fixed push pole heads: it won’t sink as deep or resist being pulled out.
With the Duckbill, we can exert as much force as we like without getting the pole stuck in the muck. In our new waters we have about a 4′ tidal range, and at low tide many areas are accessible only with a push pole.
Audrey and Kent Lewis frequent the coastal marshes of the Middle Atlantic states. Their adventures are logged at Small Boat Restoration.
In all my early cruises, back in the 1980s and before I had boats big enough to carry a portable head, I did my business on shore in cat holes dug and buried in out-of-the way places. While that was still accepted practice then, river runners, to preserve the places that saw lots of use and abuse, had already begun packing-out all waste. I got with the program for the last sea kayaking cruise I took, along the Gulf coast of Florida where the islands were small, sandy, and easily spoiled. I carried newspaper to catch and wrap waste and stowed it in a cylinder I’d made of plastic drainpipe with a watertight screw-on lid. It was the right thing to do but by no means pleasant.
With my latest larger cruising boats, I’ve become accustomed to the comfort and convenience of portable heads, but they’re too big to carry aboard my canoes and small rowing boats. I’d still like to cruise in those smaller boats, but I won’t revert to cat holes, and I’d much rather sit than squat.
photographs by the author
The collapsed toilet fits in a zippered bag that ensures it stays closed when it not in use. The roll of 10 liner bags fits in the toilet when it’s collapsed.
I had cut down a 5-gallon bucket for my Small Boats Head System to make it more compact for my rowboats, but it’s still a bit large for carrying aboard my canoes. The XL Retractable Portable Toilet from TripTips is even more compact and is easy to fit aboard any boat. Packed in its zippered case it weighs just under 3 1⁄4 lbs. It is 13″ in diameter—the same as systems using 5-gallon buckets—but only 3 1⁄4″ tall. In use, its eight telescoping sections rise and, with a small twist, lock to hold the seat 13″ high. That’s just 1 3⁄4″ shy of one of my toilets at home. I’m 6′ tall and setting the toilet on a throwable boat cushion gets it up to a more comfortable height. For children, the seat can be lowered in eight 1 1⁄2″ increments by not engaging all the sections. TripTips makes another retractable toilet that has a maximum height of 19 3⁄4″.
The 8-gallon liner bags fit the collapsible toilet are well as 5-gallon bucket systems. They have a draw cord at the top for closing the bags after use.
The toilet is made of ABS plastic and is rated to support 440 lbs. It can support my full weight—with my feet off the ground—and feels very solid. An instruction manual and a roll of 10 plastic bags for waste collection are included. A bag is installed by lifting the lid and the seat, folding the bag over the opening, and keeping it in place by lowering the seat. After use a plastic strip in a sleeve at the top of the bag draws it tight. The two extended loops of the strip can then be used to tie the bag tightly closed.
The seat holds the bag in place and the lid folds down out of the way.
TripTips offers Poo Powder, separately, for use with the toilets. The scented powder solidifies liquids into a gel to prevent leaks, spills, and odors. (Similar gelling agents are available from other outdoor equipment suppliers.) The base of the toilet is an open compartment 9″ in diameter and 2 1⁄2″ deep in which used bags can be stored. Those used bags are ultimately disposed of as trash destined to landfill. Wherever possible, I take advantage of shoreside facilities that are connected to a wastewater treatment plant to minimize the environmental impact.
Packed in its case, the portable toilet is compact enough for canoes and can even fit below decks in some kayaks.
With the lid that covers the toilet seat closed, the unit can be used as a camp stool (putting that throwable cushion on top adds height and comfort). The toilet can also be used with a waste bag in place as a trash can for keeping a campsite tidy. Even for the smallest of small boats, the TripTips Retractable Portable Toilet is a good fit and makes it more convenient and less unpleasant to keep the places we visit unspoiled, which is the right thing to do.
Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats.
When Erik W. was growing up in rural New Jersey, his father would take him on adventures in a 15′ Old Town canoe, fishing on small local lakes and paddling whitewater stretches of the Delaware River. When Erik entered high school, he joined the whitewater kayak team, playboating standing waves and creekboating through fast-moving whitewater in tight creeks and rivers. Those early experiences instilled a love of the water and of paddling that has never left him.
After high school Erik joined the Army and went to West Point where he trained in mechanical and aeronautical engineering. It was a natural fit for the young man who loved to see how things come together and how a design can turn into a functional, physical object. He was, he says, “the kid who took things apart, but who also built things like tree forts and pinewood derby cars.”
Erik W.
Before DORCAS was rigged for sail, she was used as any other canoe, for paddling and occasional camping trips. Erik and his father have also ventured with her into some whitewater stretches of the Delaware River.
All things wood and floating went on the back burner for Erik’s nine years in the military, but in 2012, returning from a final tour of duty in Afghanistan, a friend suggested bareboat-chartering a 42′ Hunter sloop in the Florida Keys, and Erik fell in love with sailing.
Upon his return to civilian life, Erik set himself up making fine furniture for a living. Largely self-taught, he specialized in chairs. He was drawn to the craft, he says, because “you’re constantly trying to figure out how to do things, how to transform ideas and designs in your head into things that have beauty, purpose, and longevity. I particularly liked chairs because they’re very technical; they have to have an aesthetic, the right ergonomics, and be structurally sound.”
Erik W.
The scale drawing that led to DORCAS’s rig was worked out on a whiteboard in the shop. The house flag—a combination of a W (the family’s initial) and a trident—is flown at the masthead whenever Erik goes sailing.
Erik ran the woodworking business with two employees for three years, but inevitably, he says, “when you turn a hobby into a profession it robs the fun. I stopped enjoying it.” He closed the shop to commissions, “entered the professional world,” and went back to having fun with woodworking. In 2017 that “fun” led to the building of a cedar-strip canoe.
It was a return to his roots. He still dreamed of sailing, but paddling was more immediately attainable and familiar. He set out to build a cedar-strip version of the 18′ 6″ White Guide, a 19th-century canoe with enough carrying capacity to accommodate himself, his wife, and then-baby daughter, Wendy. “I thought it would be good to build something the whole family could enjoy, something we could take out for two or three days and not have to come back in to restock supplies.”
Erik W.
Before venturing out onto the water, Erik tested the outrigger (ama) set-up in the garage. The outrigger arms (akas) are tied to the gunwale mounting blocks with Dyneema line. Erik stands DORCAS in the cradle blocks when he rigs her at a launching site and has made similar cradles for the ama.
Erik began the project with high hopes and high energy. His original idea was to assemble all the parts, mill the bead-and-cove strips, set up the forms and strongback and then, with the help of two friends, get all the strip-planking done in one four-day weekend. “We worked furiously,” Erik says, “and by the end of the weekend we’d gotten half of it done.”
His friends departed, leaving Erik with half a canoe hull. Like so many builders before him, he discovered that even after all the strip-planking was done there was much to do. “There was sanding, fiberglassing, and fitting out.” Some of the construction, he says, was fun. To guide him in the process he had two books—Illustrated Guide to Wood Strip Canoe Building by Susan Van Leuven and Building a Strip Canoe by Gil Gilpatrick—but found that there was never quite enough detail to get him through. But he enjoyed the figuring out. “I don’t like the ‘paint-by-numbers’ approach to construction, so I was fine with that.”
Erik W.
The canoe, ama, and all other parts can be transported in the back of Erik’s truck. Apart from the maststep, the only permanent fixtures that were added to the canoe were the rudder gudgeons and the stemhead fitting for the jib furler.
Along the way, Erik tweaked the design here and there. Wanting to improve the rigidity and strength of the gunwale, he increased the width of the spacers between the inwale and the hull from 1⁄2″ to 3⁄4″. He changed the decks from solid cedar to cedar strips to match the hull and installed bulkheads for additional flotation in the ends. He was glad of this last modification when, the following summer, he and his father almost swamped the canoe coming down the Delaware laden with food and camping gear. “We were well loaded,” he says, “and hit a wave train that was just too high. We would have swamped without that flotation.”
Between the figuring-out and the fit-out there was “always the sanding…so much sanding.” Faced with the tediousness of the task, Erik found himself veering away from the canoe to other “more interesting” projects and so the weeks became months, and the months became years. “I just wasn’t very engaged,” he says. “When it eventually came time to finish and name it, I was so frustrated that I chose what I thought was an appropriately terrible name, DORCAS.”
Erik W.
The forward aka also serves as a partner to support the mast. At the port end of each aka is a small seat for hiking out. On the inaugural outing, DORCAS’s mast was unstayed but Erik decided it wasn’t stiff enough and has since added shrouds.
Despite his early antipathy, DORCAS—both the name and the canoe—grew on Erik once she was out of the shop. For the next couple of years, he used her extensively. He and his father went whitewater paddling—“We’ve only cracked her three times hitting rocks… I never forget to bring duct tape, but I guess people don’t normally go whitewater canoeing in a cedar-strip”—and Erik would take his family out for less adventurous outings on a local reservoir, making the almost 1-mile crossing to a favorite beach for picnics.
All through the build and subsequent paddling, Erik continued to dream about sailing. He snatched up any opportunity to sail that came his way. He went on a weeklong camp-cruise in Annapolis with Warrior Sailing, a program for veterans, and delighted in being part of a sailing community. He considered buying his own sailboat, looked at some 21- and 22-footers that were for sale, but realized that he didn’t want “a trailer with a big boat on it” sitting in the driveway. He also knew he didn’t want to take on the commitment of a bigger boat with all its associated upkeep and maintenance.
Jackie W.
The golden eyes painted on the bow of the ama were inspired by the adornments once seen on Greek triremes. Erik chose gold for the irises because “it’s the symbol of shapeshifters in literature.”
Instead, Erik imagined putting a sailing rig on DORCAS, and as he developed the idea, he came up with some design parameters: The rig had to fit inside the back of the truck. The canoe and all its parts had to rest on his truck’s cab and tailgate and be strapped down, as it always had been. The additions to the canoe had to fit in the garage, out of the way of his wife’s car. It had to be exciting but safe under sail, and he didn’t want to be hiking out the whole time. It had to incorporate an outrigger with enough trampoline area between the outrigger and the canoe for the whole family to come along for the ride in comfort.
He eventually devised and built an outrigger, ama, with a compartment in the middle for water-ballast and flotation in the ends. The curved laminated-white-ash outrigger arms, akas, are inserted into sockets on the ama and held in place by locking latches. The akas are lashed to blocks bolted to the gunwale.
Jackie W.
Wishing to avoid an offset tiller from astern Erik designed a system of pulleys and lines leading from the rudder yoke to a ring mounted beneath the sheet bridge. He steers with a short tiller mounted on the ring. The removable bridge is also the mount for all the running rigging lines.
“I didn’t want to make any significant changes to the canoe other than installing the rudder gudgeons, the stemhead fitting for the forestay, and ’glassing in a maststep,” says Erik. He also wanted the process of rigging the canoe to be simple and quick. “There are five lashings to attach everything to the canoe,” he says. “We don’t always put on the trampoline, but even if we do, start to finish, it can be rigged and ready in under an hour.”
To keep everything short enough to fit in the truck, Erik considered a gunter rig to keep the length of the mast down, but “it felt like there’d be too many moving parts.” Instead, he went with a leg-o’-mutton mainsail on a 14′ mast with a furling jib. In its original iteration the rig was unstayed, but on the first outing Erik realized the mast was too unstable, so he added shrouds. A leeboard to starboard reduces leeway and improves the canoe’s maneuverability.
Erik completed the rig in May 2023 and sailed DORCAS five times that summer. “I changed the rig each of the first four times, but by the fifth it seemed pretty well sorted out. Once I’m set up for sailing I’m pretty much committed, but I can still paddle her. I designed it so the forward paddler can work on either side. The aft seat is blocked by the outrigger to starboard, but I can compensate with the rudder. Plus, she tracks really well with the leeboard down. Under sail she’s very responsive. She scoots around in 5 knots of wind. I’ve sailed her in 18 knots, but I did spill a lot from the sails. There are no reef points, but I can furl the jib and she sails really well with just the main.”
Erik W.
Seated forward of both the mast and the forward aka, the bow paddler can work to port and to starboard. The red bag to port is holding the anchor and all the anchor line. It’s attached to the gunwale with a soft shackle. When needed, the anchor is taken out of the bag and the line is then paid out, being stopped with a Prusik hitch to another soft shackle.
For Erik, the sailing rig has been a great addition to the canoe. His daughters—Wendy, now five, and her two-year-old sister, Robyn—have had a mixed response. Robyn loves it and sits with Erik at the helm excitedly shouting, “Go Daddy, GO!” while Wendy is less enthusiastic. Erik thinks she was having a bad day when she came out with him but admits that she’s also used to “just sitting around on the cushions of her grandfather’s 31′ powerboat while he cruises her around.” Not to be daunted, Erik is planning a couple of overnight trips this summer and hoping to meet up with other sailing-canoe enthusiasts at the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association’s gathering at Paul Smith’s College in New York.
As for DORCAS, she has risen from time-consuming chore to much-loved family boat. And Erik has even changed his opinion of the name. “Turns out dorcas is Greek for gazelle,” he says. “Given her speed under sail, that seems very appropriate.”
Jenny Bennett is managing editor of Small Boats.
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I almost didn’t go rowing yesterday. After spending too many long hours at my desk, I needed to get out of the house to clear my head. In the early afternoon, I studied the sky to the north through my home-office windows. Beyond the black filigree of leaf-bare tree branches, the sky was dimmed by a leaden overcast. The dull gray sky threatened rain and I balked at all the work it would take to get ready for a short afternoon row. I’d have to clear a path through scattered boxes and lumber to get the Whitehall out of the garage, gather foulweather gear, hook up the trailer and make sure the lights work, lubricate the locks and the oar leathers, and load a PFD and a fender aboard. I got busy and in about a half hour I was ready to drive to the ramp.
The last thing I had to do before I backed the trailer into the waters of Seattle’s ship canal was put the rubber stopper into the Whitehall’s drain. It slipped in easily enough, but when I flipped the lever to expand the rubber for a watertight fit, the plug was still loose. I adjusted it several times, hoping this outing would be worth the effort.
I didn’t need to wait long for the reward. The first three strokes left my lethargy in the Whitehall’s wake and returned me to a feeling of vitality that rowing had been giving me for decades. My hands had been at the keyboard and the mouse for days, and the pressure of the oar handles triggered in them an impulse to pull just as the pressure of a harness does to sled dogs and draft horses. I could feel the contact of the blades with the water not as vibrations of the handles in my hands but as if my sense of touch and proprioception extended to the blades themselves.
During the summer, the Lake Washington Ship Canal is crowded with recreational boats motoring between Puget Sound and the two lakes that surround Seattle’s city center. The waterway is a more peaceful place to row in the winter, when there is almost no boat traffic to steer clear of and the water is not deeply furrowed by wakes.
The sky to the north was just as gray as it was when I’d looked at the rectangular patch framed by the window sash, but the rest of the sky was an intricate tapestry of color, shape, and texture. To the west, resting on the sawtooth silhouette of peaks on the north end of the Olympic Mountains, was a smear of toothpaste-blue sky. Above it were clouds in a shade of gray that had a touch of lavender at one moment and then periwinkle the next. The expanse of overcast above was mottled pewter gray with darker patches the color of unpolished silver.
The sound of car and truck tires whined and growled in their varied pitches as they crossed the steel grating of the bascule bridge that spans the canal. A biplane flew by to the west, its radial engine making the distinctive rumbling that my mother, who had flown biplane trainers and multi-engine bombers stateside during World War II, always looked up for, as I have since childhood. The laps of the Whitehall’s planks gurgled with the lapping of the ripples. In the silence of my home office, hours can go by and all I hear is the clatter of the keyboard in front of me and the hiss of tinnitus inside my head. On the water I sat in the middle of an immense sphere brimming with sounds that gave depth and life to the space that surrounded me.
While I’m at my computer, I’m never aware of the air. It is stock still and even the lightest pieces of tissue paper lie lifeless on my desk for hours. I can hear myself breathe, but if I feel my lungs at all it’s their emptiness. Out rowing on this afternoon, the air leaves its mark everywhere. Flags are lifted and undulated, the water is rasped into ripples, my windward shoulder is chilled, and I feel the air’s chill, briefly, as it enters my chest and dissipates.
My father started me rowing when I was five or six years old, about the same time I learned to ride a bicycle. I’ve been rowing and riding with few interruptions since then. In my 60s I noticed the speed that I rode had gradually diminished. I didn’t have the power I’d once had for climbing hills, and the speed calculated by my bicycle speedometer confirmed I couldn’t sprint as fast as I’d used to. While my rowing speed surely must have diminished too, I don’t feel it and GPS readings give me numbers that don’t press home the somber news that I’m getting older.
My father, an oarsman and sculler for most of his life, rowed racing singles into his early 80s, giving up only when he had to accept that he no longer would have the strength to get back aboard after a capsize. My interests in rowing have always been for recreation and cruising rather than racing, and the boats I row take more than a moment of inattention at the oars to capsize. I expect I’ll be able to keep rowing into my 90s, if I get that far. But as more gray creeps into my temples and eyebrows with each passing year, it will be even more important to take to my boat and row into the brilliant light that comes through even overcast skies.
The Wyman 12 is about as basic a boat as there is. It is simple to build, easy to row, stable, and can carry a load. Its flatiron-skiff design has been, and is still, the pickup truck of workboats along our Maine waterfront for many years. Ben Fuller, a preeminent small-boat guru, believes that the original flatiron skiffs, which had cross-planked bottoms caulked with oakum, originated in the United States around 1880, likely in the Long Island Sound oyster industry.
Soon after my wife Susan and I relocated to Blue Hill, Maine, I realized that we would need a boat to get to the sailboat that we’d moored in Blue Hill Bay in front of our house. Shortly after moving in, I attended the annual meeting of the Downeast Chapter of the Traditional Small Craft Association. There was so much boat knowledge and experience in this group that finding advice about a skiff, or just about anything concerning boats, was an easy task.
Haley Blake, Wilson Museum Manager of Community Engagement and Museum Experience
The ’midship frame has a slight curve from side to side and the lower planks, when angled and bent from stem to transom, create a fore-and-aft rocker for the bottom. The resulting compound curve stiffens the 3⁄8″ plywood bottom. Note that the jog in the sides of the transom allows the simple overlap of the planks to run all the way aft.
Shortly after that meeting, David Wyman, a respected naval architect and engineer, asked me to stop by his boat shed to see the 19′ yawl that he had designed. While there, I noticed a skiff propped up against a wall and mentioned that building one like that was next on my list. David didn’t hesitate to offer to design one for me. It was probably David’s easiest design challenge, as his impressive designs catalog includes everything from submarines for Navy Seals to VIRGINIA, a 51′ pinnace.
David’s plans for the Wyman 12 could not be more straightforward. They include two sheets of drawings: one with plan, profile, and body views, and the other with measured drawings for the planks, transom, stem cross section, and ’midship form. A page of construction steps and a materials list complete the set. There is no table of offsets, as lofting is not needed. David drew the plans knowing that I had some boatbuilding experience, so he didn’t include a lot of construction details.
Haley Blake, Wilson Museum Manager of Community Engagement and Museum Experience
The twin skegs are visible beneath the transom of this finished Wyman 12.
To simplify the construction of the Wyman 12, David specified 3⁄8″ marine plywood for the bottom in lieu of cross planking. The materials list notes #2 white pine for the planking, transom, gunwales, and thwarts, and white oak for the stem and side frames. I opted for western red cedar for planking because it was available at the local hardware store. I used cherry for the transom and gunwales, a bit fancy for a workboat, but I had a good supply of it on hand. I carved a rabbet in the stem, a slight variation from David’s plans, which specified separate inner and outer stems.
The lower planks, which start out with straight and parallel edges, are attached to the stem with screws and glue, then bent around a white-pine ’midship frame. The aft ends of the planks are then fitted and fixed to notches in the transom that make beveling or cutting gains in the laps between the bottom and upper planks unnecessary.
The plywood bottom, slightly oversized, is set in place. The bottom edges of the ’midship frame and transom are both curved and give the plywood a 1″ camber as its perimeter is secured to the beveled lower planks with Monel ring nails and polyurethane. After the bottom has been fastened, it is trimmed flush with the lower planks and the transom bottom.
Steve Brookman
Designer David Wyman took a turn at the oars of the author’s skiff. After seeing the boat built according to his plans, he decided to raise the sheerline from amidships to the stemhead for a livelier look.
For most of their length, the top planks have a 1″ lap with the lower planks without bevels. The plans don’t specify how to work the laps at their forward ends, so I opted for an 18″-long gain at the bow to bring the planks flush with each other at the stem. I secured the laps and plank ends with PL Premium polyurethane construction adhesive rather than the Titebond III or 3M 5200 specified in the materials list.
The instructions specify fiberglass tape on the outside chine to keep it leakproof. I opted to cover the entire bottom with Dynel and to add a couple of runners to show some respect for Maine’s rocky shores. The instructions call for a keelson and two sister keelsons. The bottom gets two skegs, one on each sister keelson. On the inside of the bottom I added a strip of black locust for a heel brace, which is not in the plans but is very useful for rowing. David recommended 7′ oars; I carved mine from leftover ash.
White cedar is used for the seating: slats oriented fore-and-aft in the ends, and a solid thwart amidships. They sit on the top edge of the lower strake. The ’midship thwart also has white-pine knees, but I made mine from 3⁄4″ marine plywood. Rigid foam, glued under the seats and thwart, provides flotation.
Steve Brookman
The bright-finished cleat spanning the bottom aft of the thwart is not indicated in the plans, but is a useful addition that anchors the rower’s heels to put more power into the stroke. The 7′ oars proved a good length for the boat’s 52″ beam.
I didn’t keep track of the time or expenses, but it took a few months of occasional work to build my skiff. Over the past few summers, a group of volunteers and I built two Wyman 12s at Castine’s Wilson Museum, working just a few hours two days a week while talking with visitors and getting kids to help.
I estimate the Wyman 12’s weight to be about 150 lbs. I transport it using a bed extender on my midsized pickup, and Susan and I manage to get it in and out of the truck without much difficulty. We first launched my Wyman 12 at Blue Hill’s town wharf without fanfare—after all, this is a simple working boat. The boat was not particular about how it was boarded, and stable no matter where that first step landed. The 7′ oars were the ideal length. I was impressed with the boat’s rowing ability as it tracked nicely, leaving a straight wake. It was very maneuverable and, while approaching a dock, I found it quite easy to turn with just a few strokes. Two large golden retrievers that I ferried to a nearby island hopped about in their excitement and barely rocked the boat. When I had to rescue one that jumped overboard, lifting that heavy, wet dog by her doggy life jacket was a non-event as the boat had more than enough secondary stability to handle the shifting weight. When any water gets aboard, from wet dogs, spray, or rain, the open gunwales allow for complete draining when the boat is tipped on edge.
Soon after launching, I met David at a local pond with my boat so he could row it. He was pleased, and the only change he made to the plans was to give the sheer more spring by adding a piece of planking forward, increasing its height at the stem by 2″; bending the outwale upward along that piece establishes the curve for the sheerline.
Susan Brookman
The author, seen here at the oars of his Wyman 12, built the skiff before the side frames were added to the plans. In six years of use, the boat has not suffered from their absence.
With a 40-lb, 3-hp electric outboard hung on the transom, the boat needs a passenger or weight forward for proper trim. For another skiff we recently built at the Wilson Museum, David modified the design to accommodate an electric trolling motor. Moving the after seat forward created space for the battery. It has not been launched as of this writing.
My skiff has held up well over the last six years while setting moorings, being dragged up on rocky beaches, and sitting in the mud twice a day enduring the 10′+ local tides. It still has the original black locust runners. I kept the cherry varnished for a few years, but then it and the oiled thwarts gave way to more easily maintained paint. I added lengths of 1″ three-strand rope to the outwales, and fire hose to protect the transom. It now looks like the workboat it was designed to be.
Boats have been a major force in Steve Brookman’s life. He grew up near a lake in northeast Connecticut, and spent as much time as possible on, or under, the water. Family vacations on their 26′ classic wooden bassboat cemented his love of being on the water. He even attended “boat school,” the U.S. Naval Academy. While flying in the Navy he spent years dreaming of boats, studying them, even attempting to design them. For a few years he got to live on and cruise sailboats. After retiring from an airline career, he and his wife Susan moved to Blue Hill, Maine, largely for the boating. Her love for snow, sugaring, and the charming small town of Blue Hill made that retirement decision easy.
Wyman 12 Particulars
Length: 12′ 3″
Beam: 4′ 4″
Depth amidships: 14″
The complete plan set is available here for free download:
A year ago I reviewed the Fine, a fast sliding-seat rower from Oyster Bay Boats, a shop in Madeira Park, British Columbia, run by Rick Crook, designer and boatbuilder. I was impressed by the boat and pleasantly surprised that I could row it even after I’d intentionally swamped it. In the past year Rick developed another fast rower, the Salish, a coastal rowboat that can’t be swamped. Rick described the Fine in his website as a “full-body workout machine…wider than a rowing scull, thus more stable, and suitable for ocean rowing, in reasonable conditions.” About the Salish he wrote: “Salish is built for enjoying and exploring coastal waters. She is self-bailing, and by virtue of this, will handle conditions that open boats like Fine may not.”
Christopher Cunningham
A gasketed hatch in the foredeck provides access to the voluminous forward compartment, which is one of four watertight flotation chambers.
Like all Oyster Bay Boats, the Salish is strip-built with cedar, and sheathed inside and out with ’glass and bio-based epoxy. The deck has inconspicuous specks where staples once held the strips to the molds. The boat is finished bright, and the cedar has an appealing warm glow, but the finish isn’t brought to the high shine of strip-built boats that span the gap between boatbuilding and art. The Salish is meant to be used and accumulate the scars of adventurous service without tormenting the rower.
Christopher Cunningham
The rowing station has a flotation compartment under the sliding-seat deck. A plastic port provides access.
Rick weighed the Salish seen here and it came in at 69 lbs. He saved some weight by using cedar strips that were 3⁄16″ thick, thinner than the 1⁄4″ strips he usually uses, but they made building more difficult. Subsequent builds using 1⁄4″ strips would come in a bit heavier, perhaps 72 lbs. That’s more than I’d be able to lift safely all at once onto a set of roof racks. The outrigger is easily removed by spinning the wingnuts off the four bolts that secure it to the deck, but lifting the boat from its middle would be virtually impossible because there are no handholds there. To load the Salish to a cartop without help would require lifting one end at a time. I’m able to do that with my 18′ 9″ decked lapstrake canoe, which weighs about 80 lbs.
Christopher Cunningham
The stretcher sits in a footwell that limits how much water can get aboard without flowing out through the open transom. The sloped aft well allows water to flow up and out when the boat surges forward when rowed at speed.
Getting aboard a speedy sliding-seat boat can be awkward, especially if you must step between the tacks/slides on an elevated deck and rely on your oars to stay upright until you get seated. The Salish has excellent stability, better than I had anticipated, and Rick pointed out that there was no need for the boarding method I had been accustomed to. I could just let go of the oars, turn my backside to the boat, and sit down on the side deck. The boat would support me while I lifted my legs aboard and planted my feet at the stretcher.
Christopher Cunningham
The bottom of the open transom rides right at the water level. The fitting on the port side is a vent and drain for the stern’s flotation chamber.
The rigging geometry was a good fit for my 6′ frame. During the drive, the handles traveled at a comfortable and effective level that was level with the bottom of my sternum. At the recovery, the handles were high enough that they wouldn’t hit the tops of my legs if the boat were rolling when the waves kicked up. The outriggers felt very firm and didn’t flex or creak, even when I pulled my hardest. The stretcher has a plywood footboard equipped with plastic heel cups and Velcro straps. It’s set at a comfortable angle and offers a solid surface to push against and its position is adjustable. The seat has a double-acting carriage rather than ball-bearing wheels and rides on aluminum tracks. It’s a system commonly used in racing shells and is smooth and reliable.
Christopher Cunningham
The Salish has surprisingly good secondary stability for its 34” beam. I could very comfortably and safely sit on one side.
For my speed trials, on flat water with no wind, at a relaxed pace the boat held a steady 5 knots. At a sustainable aerobic level of effort, the Salish did 5.7 knots. In short-all-out sprints, the reading on the GPS fluctuated a good deal as the hull sped up while I moved sternward on the recovery and slowed down as I moved toward the bow during the drive. The average speed in between was about 7 knots, a satisfying clip, made especially exciting because the boat trailed a little rooster tail in its wake.
Christopher Cunningham
At the catch, when the weight of the rower (here designer/builder Rick Crook) is well aft, the transom remains right at the water level.
The Salish tracked very well, due, I expect, to the skeg and the long waterline. Pivoting the boat through 360 degrees took 10 strokes, pulling first with one oar then backing with the other. It was easy to maneuver. On one of my speed runs, a stand-up paddler surprised me by paddling across my line of travel just as I was drawing near. I had been checking over my shoulder at the water ahead and saw the paddler just in time to slam the blades into the water with the starboard oar especially deep to veer away. I was able to stop the Salish with just a kiss of its bow on the paddleboard. The paddler remained standing.
Christopher Cunningham
At the finish, the bow has enough volume to keep the rower’s weight, shifted forward, from settling noticeably deeper in the water. The Salish maintains good trim throughout the stroke.
I rowed backward to see how the open stern would behave. A normal slow speed I’d usually use for maneuvering didn’t do much so I applied more power and used the full slide to get my weight as far aft as I could at the end of the stroke. That pushed the transom into the water and, as I kept rowing, I was able to get water to flow up to the footwell and even to the deck under the sliding seat. The boat didn’t feel at all unstable with all that water aboard and the sliding seat kept me high enough that my pants didn’t get wet.
Christopher Cunningham
The Salish’s broad foredeck is the result of the flare in the hull’s forward sections. The flare provides secondary stability when the boat is heeled, and lift while rowing into waves.
I only had a few boat wakes to row through so couldn’t get a sense for the Salish’s rough-water ability, but I’d expect that the hull would provide reassuring stability. The flare forward would send spray outward and any water that came over the foredeck would soon make its way through the cockpit and footwell and drain out the stern. The closed-deck Salish can’t be swamped. Its ability to support my full weight seated on the side deck is a good indication that a rower would fall out of the boat before it capsized and be able to crawl back aboard without having to rely on the oars to provide stability. (Rick experimented with a self rescue over the stern and documented it with a video.)
Todd Dickens
I rowed stern-first at a brisk pace to see how much water would come aboard. While I flooded the footwell, the Salish suffered no ill effects, and its stability wasn’t diminished by the weight of the water.
Todd Dickens
A couple of strong forward strokes forced almost all of the water out of the footwell and onto the aft deck to flow out.
If the Salish is indeed “built for enjoying and exploring coastal waters,” it should be capable of carrying enough gear to make multi-day cruises in comfort. There is sufficient volume enclosed by the deck and hull to contain much more gear than a well-equipped backpacker can carry and the only impediment in the Salish I rowed is the lack of access to the potential protected storage areas. The hatch on the foredeck would work well for day excursions, but the opening is only just wide enough for a sleeping bag and any gear pushed forward into the bow would be out of reach without a tether. Since the boats are built to order, having a larger hatch would better suit a Salish intended for cruising. The Salish shown on the company’s website shows a round plastic hatch on the recessed aft deck. There wouldn’t be as much storage space there, but it would be a good place for heavier items such as water, tent poles, and cookware that could balance the bulkier but lighter items in the bow and maintain the boat’s proper fore-and-aft trim.
The Salish has the stability to give a novice a good introduction to sliding seat rowing, the full-body exercise a fitness buff craves, the speed to satisfy an experienced recreational rower, and the seaworthiness to take an adventurer on explorations of coastal waters.
Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats.
Salish Particulars
Length: 18′
Beam: 34″
Draft: 4.7″
The Salish is built to order by Oyster Bay Boats for $6,800CAD. The price includes carbon-fiber composite oars.
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Our lopsided skin-on-frame vessel yawed and flexed and the lashings creaked as the swells rolled up astern. The following sea propelled us forward while I wrestled with the rough, axe-hewn steering oar to prevent broaching and a potential capsize. The driftwood mast strained against paracord rigging as the wind billowed the slapdash tarp sail. The sky was clear. The winds were strong, but in our favor. We reached across several miles of open water, aiming to skirt the next closest island. A lobsterman turned his boat away from checking traps, crossing over to run alongside.
“Are you OK?” he asked. “Do you know where you’re going? Winds and seas are supposed to build over the day,”
“We are fine,” we told him.
“Are you boys flying a f—ing bedsheet?” he said.
We weren’t, but I liked the idea. “Yes, we are flying a bedsheet,” I replied.
My cousin Ross and I have a long history of planning and occasionally embarking on harebrained adventures. We have traveled and sailed all over the world and have discussed many voyages that we have yet to, and may never, embark upon. This particular adventure, however, started off as a question, a question about what to pack in an emergency ditch bag for a sailing voyage. Many cruising boaters pack a ditch bag and stow it where it’s easy to grab if everything has gone wrong and they have to abandon ship as the vessel begins to sink out from underneath them. The survival equipment in the bag is meant to keep them alive until they can be rescued. The question we contemplated was, if we were to find ourselves stranded on an island with a ditch bag that was equipped with minimal tools, would it be possible for us to build a small craft to navigate to the safety of an inhabited shore? We wanted to find out.
Ross Beane
Our friend Kipp waited on the dock at Isle au Haut as Derrick arrived in his lobsterboat. Ross and I prepared to load our gear aboard for the nighttime voyage to the island where we would be stranded.
For years we worked on a plan. Where would we maroon ourselves? What equipment should we bring? How authentic should the experience be? The plan easily could have been filed away with countless other bad ideas and eventually forgotten, but it sounded like too much fun. Over the winter of 2019, we began planning for real.
Given the time constraints imposed by our usual obligations, we decided that the most feasible type of boat to build during our marooning would be a skin-on-frame vessel. Traditional Arctic kayaks and umiaks were skinned with animal hides, but hunting to get skins wasn’t on the table for a variety of reasons and this led to the first of many concessions to our plan. Ballistic nylon coated with two-part polyurethane is a common covering for contemporary skin-on-frame kayaks in the Greenland and Alaskan style, so we ordered enough of those materials to wrap an 18’ open boat.
Ross Beane
After we felled a straight birch, I used a wooden wedge and an axe to split out the gunwale pieces.
Our plan got a boost in an email from Kipp, one of Ross’s college friends who had become a Downeast Maine fisherwoman. She had caught wind of the plan and made an offer that eliminated the last major hurdles and added an element of authenticity we could never have accomplished on our own: Kipp knew of a suitable uninhabited private island that the owners would allow us to use. She and a lobsterman friend of hers, Derrick, could take us to the island at night to keep us from knowing the exact location and geography of the island.
We picked a date in mid-summer to make our “shipwreck” as pleasant as possible. The plan was to start our adventure by bailing out over the side of our delivery vessel and swimming to shore, each towing a drybag that would be our ditch bag. Since this was all for fun, mid-summer water temps would avoid making the swim a potentially life-threatening endeavor.
Ross and I waited, planned, ordered supplies, and went over our gear list during animated phone calls. Then, as often happens, our responsibilities got in the way and pushed back our schedule—first to early September, then to late September, and finally, due to a tropical storm, October. Because of the change in season, we modified the challenge and packed cold-weather gear and tents that weren’t practical or realistic to keep in a sailboat’s ditch bag. We decided that the goal was to build the boat—not to be rescued while being stupid. Days before the scheduled drop, a local lobsterman who fished off the undisclosed island told Kipp about a shark, perhaps a great white, that had been aggressively chasing traps as he hauled them. Kipp and Derrick were not willing to drop us into the ocean in Maine in October at night in shark-inhabited waters before steaming off into the dark, so there would be no swimming start. Ross and I agreed it was a reasonable modification of our plan.
Ross Beane
Sitting near our campsite, I began cutting and shaping the stem from a curved piece of driftwood.
The day we began, we rendezvoused with Derrick at a commercial pier in Stonington where he kept his 41′ open-sterned lobsterboat. After we stacked our gear on the deck and got aboard, he cast off and eased the vessel away from the dock. He steered out through a few moored boats, and then throttled up. After we wound through the serpentine channels and out into bigger stretches of ocean, the open water started to look a little wide for whatever rough-hewn boat we were planning to build. We stopped on Isle au Haut long enough for a dinner with Kipp and to pick up a small flat-bottomed skiff that would take us ashore to the island without having to swim.
As we motored off into the night, Ross and I both studiously averted our eyes from the glowing chart plotter. For a while, the harsh glow of nav equipment was the only break in the darkness of the ocean at night. After a time, the soot-black silhouette of the mystery island gradually emerged from the surrounding darkness. As we rounded a headland, the engine wound down to a sputtering idle as Derrick angled in toward a small, well-protected bay. I was relieved not to be going over the side into 50-degree water for a swim to shore.
Ross Beane
We propped up the beginnings of our boat frame so that we could visualize the next steps of construction.
After a quick ride in the skiff, Ross and I scrambled over the bow onto seaweed-slippery rocks and unloaded our gear on the cobble beach. The departing lobsterboat swept its spotlight back and forth searching for shoals until it rounded the headland. Its engine revved up as it hit open water. Then there was only the dark and the sounds of the ocean—small waves gently lapping at the beach in our protected cove, and the distant thunder of swell pounding a far-off rocky shoreline.
Packed in our pile of drybags we had food and shelter as well as basic hand tools, nylon fabric for a boat skin, and artificial sinew (also nylon) for lashing. We had only a vague idea of our location. We were in Maine’s Penobscot or Jericho Bay region and knew that the island was much too far out to swim to the mainland. Until we could figure out how to build a boat, we had none for the voyage home.
After shuttling our gear by moonlight the short way to the head of the beach, we dug into our bags to find headlamps. Seeing the place for the first time by their narrow beams, we took stock of our surroundings, both of us grinning and excited to kick off this adventure. Quickly scouting for a camp, we discovered that just beyond the head of the beach there was a brackish marsh. To the south was thick underbrush, but off to the north the headland was covered with grass and scattered raspberry bushes. We decided it was a suitable spot for the night, and set up the tents, planning to seek out a better camp the next day.
Ross Beane
In the comfort of the Boatshop, protected from sun and wind, I lashed in a fire-bent rib.
In the morning the island was blanketed in thick fog—a familiar weather pattern in Downeast Maine. Our tents turned out to be in a great location, so we remained camped there. After a breakfast of tea and instant oatmeal, we set out to take stock of our surroundings and see what useful materials we could find. Walking the perimeter of the island quickly revealed that, like most islands in the area, it had no shortage of washed-up lobster gear and driftwood. Amongst the flotsam, Ross spotted an old canoe paddle, its varnish baked off by the sun, but otherwise in good shape. Farther along, we came upon two washed-up boats: a canoe and a small rowing dinghy. The dinghy was heavily damaged, but the canoe, while broken, could have been repaired in a pinch. If we were truly trying to self-rescue, fixing the broken canoe would’ve been the best option. This wasn’t the adventure that we had come for, however, so we passed it by.
Partway through our exploration of the shoreline, the unmistakable sound of an approaching low-flying helicopter thumped through the thick fog. It whirled into sight, cutting past the island on a course farther out to sea. Its color and markings unmistakably identified it as a Coast Guard aircraft. We kept walking, but within a few minutes heard the helo circling back. Once again, they passed us flying low, but this time the crewman sitting in the open door raised a hand in a casual wave. We waved back, trying to look casual, too. Still, this encounter worried us, and we jogged back to camp to check on our emergency beacon to make sure it wasn’t somehow accidentally transmitting. It was not, but I powered up our handheld VHF radio to listen in on the Coast Guard pan-pan call. They were checking on a reported sighting of a red parachute flare. We hadn’t seen the flare because of the fog and had no idea where we were or our proximity to the flare sighting. At least we knew they weren’t looking for us, but it served as a reminder that these could be dangerous waters even for capable craft.
Ross Beane
We heated sapling rib-stock over two fires built roughly the boat’s bilge-width apart to put a bend in each side of a center section that would be flatter, providing better stability in the finished boat. While this rib has had its bark stripped, keeping the bark on the saplings was a more reliable technique for bending them without fractures.
After walking the perimeter, we walked two transects of the island to get a feel for the species of trees available, finding almost exclusively spruce and birch. Then, over a lunch of cheese and peanut butter on tortillas and more tea, we discussed a plan for the construction of our boat. I sketched in our logbook a rough drawing of the framework that I was envisioning for the boat and then we set off into the interior of the island to harvest a large sapling for the gunwales.
A few minutes’ walk from our camp we found a straight birch among a stand. Low swings of our axe made short work of severing the trunk close to the ground, preserving as much usable wood as possible. To split the log along the grain into two pieces, we fashioned a pair of wooden wedges. We sharpened them to a flat point with oblique swings to the end of a log, then cut the wedge off at a good working length with a folding saw. Splitting the birch took some time and sweat. While starting one of the wedges, I accidentally struck my hand with the butt of the axe head. The blow didn’t break my knuckle, but it drew blood and caused my hand to swell up. The mishap reminded us that we were indeed stranded and while we had the technology to call for help, it was best to slow down to avoid additional injuries.
We spent most of the rest of the day splitting out pieces for the gunwales and further shaping them with our camp saws and axe. Once shaped, we lashed their ends together and bowed out their middles with a temporary spreader rough-hewn from driftwood.
Ros Beane
We trued the boat frame by lashing scavenged nylon three-strand line to nearby trees. The L.L. Bean beavertail canoe paddle Ross found on our first day is leaned up against the boulder on the left amongst other pieces of driftwood from which we carved a second paddle.
With the remaining daylight, we scavenged the rocky shoreline for useful driftwood for the stems and keel, but a sudden rainfall sent us back to camp. Before calling it a night we hastily prepared a meal of beans and rice in the partial shelter of a broad pine tree.
The next day was clear and sunny, giving us our first views of surrounding islands and coastline. Both Ross and I had spent time working on the water on the coast of Maine, so we found our bearings pretty quickly. We still could not identify the island Kipp had stranded us on, but the direction to sail to reach the mainland was clear enough.
After breakfast, we began shaping the keel and stems. A split driftwood plank 12′ to 14′ long, likely washed away from an old dock, became the keel piece. We hewed the stem from a driftwood trunk of a tree that had grown curved out of a hillside.
The clear skies that day came with their own challenges: with the sun beating down on us, we were overheating and getting sunburned. We scouted to find some shade and found a narrow grassy gully close to our camp. It was an old overgrown camping site with the remains of a fire pit; spruce trees growing on either side provided shade and windbreak. We moved our boat frame and tools, and named the gully the Boatshop.
Tyler Sauter
Ross worked by headlamp late into the night to complete the rib bending and lashing.
In the cooler comfort of this new location, we finished lashing the keel-and-stem assembly to the gunwales and thwarts. Triangular braces, added at the two thwarts from each gunwale down to the keel, helped keep the frame somewhat rigid and solidified the structure and it began to resemble the bones of an actual boat. The next step was to bend in the ribs. This was one of the stages of the process that I was most unsure about. In a real boatshop, with nicely milled and still-green ash or white-oak ribs and a steambox, this is a straightforward process. But on an island with none of those things available, it was a different matter. As an experiment, I tried splitting rib stock from a length of birch log. This approach didn’t achieve consistent results with the tools we had. We discussed a few other options but were running out of daylight and decided to tackle this stage of the project the next day with fresh eyes.
In the morning, after testing a few techniques, fire-bending the birch saplings proved to be the most effective means of bending the ribs with the resources available. We built two campfires side by side, approximately the boat’s bilge width apart, and fashioned a rack system out of stones to hold the saplings over the fires. Once the saplings were heated through, they bent easily by hand into approximately the right shape. Lengths of cord tied to the ends, in the manner of a bowstring, held the ribs’ shapes while they cooled. We had roughly a 50 percent success rate with this technique, losing the rest to breakage. Because the saplings were full rounds with bark still on and tapered, they tended to bend unevenly. We had to tune most of the ribs after they had cooled. We did this by whittling away wood from the inside of each rib until the turns at the bilge matched as close as possible side to side.
Tyler Sauter
Ross lashed the chine rails on with nylon artificial sinew. The blade of our axe-carved paddle is visible just above the axe, at left.
Once the tuning process was complete, the ribs were lashed into the boat—first to the keel and then to the gunwales. Each rib was sighted from the end of the framework as it was installed and flexed to fair the hull as much as possible. As we started bending in ribs, we realized that the keel of our boat wasn’t true. Being made of driftwood, it was not entirely straight in the first place, but the unequal stiffness between the two gunwales had swept its middle to starboard. To straighten it, we tied lengths of scavenged three-strand lobster-trap line between three points on the keel to nearby trees. Tensioning the lines with trucker’s hitches successfully trued up the vessel but created three thigh-high obstacles in our “shop.” We worked hard throughout the day and continued bending and lashing ribs late into the night, working by light from our headlamps and campfire.
We woke the next day excited with the progress we had made. Our vessel’s framework was close to completion. It only needed the four chine stringers lashed to the ribs to complete it. While we could easily complete that task in a day, if we worked quickly and efficiently, we could also stretch and stitch the nylon skin to the frame and perhaps even coat it with polyurethane. We could possibly set sail the following day. Being this close to completing construction in four days was substantially faster than we had imagined we could build a boat under the conditions we had chosen. We had told everyone it would take a week to 10 days. We had provisioned for two weeks and had discussed food rationing options to stretch for longer, but now a completed boat was only a day or two away.
Ross Beane
The morning after we finished the canoe, I prepared to launch it for a test paddle.
We decided to break our self-imposed ban on using technology to check the weather forecast. Our goal from the outset was to test our boatbuilding skills in wilderness conditions, not to blindly face whatever weather might be coming in our small roughly built canoe. The forecast showed bad weather on the way in two days. We decided to go for it and worked hard for the day and finished lashing the frame, stretched the nylon skin, and, as the sun was setting, finally treated it to be watertight.
After the sun rose the next day, we ate a quick breakfast and then launched our makeshift vessel. A quick paddle to test seaworthiness revealed it to be somewhat tippy but quick. We hoped it would sit lower in the water and gain stability once all our gear was loaded aboard. Lashed-in floorboards, paracord standing rigging, and pieces of driftwood suitable as mast and maststep completed the final touches to the boat. With our camp broken down and gear stowed, we bent on a lightweight camping tarp as the mainsail. After double-checking our camp and boatshop, we pushed off from the beach.
The canoe, as we had hoped, had gained a reassuring stability. To play it safe, we paddled to the lee of the island before setting our mainsail. The gentle breeze in the lee eased us away from the safety of land. We gradually gained speed as our tarp/sail caught the stronger winds out of the shadow of our island. We began the first and longest crossing of our voyage. Pointing for the next island on our assumed course, our boat danced along before a favorable 12- to 14-knot breeze. Riding over ocean swells that felt bigger than they would in a more seaworthy craft, the canoe creaked and complained with every wave. About halfway across, a lobsterboat approached us, its skipper wanting to make sure we were safe and to ask about our choice of sail fabric.
Ross Beane
Part way through the voyage to the mainland, we stopped on some rocks near a small island to take a rest and switch out on the helm. We had rigged the tarp as a spritsail, but ended up sailing it the whole way scandalized, without the sprit; once we were out in open water, the winds where too strong to set the full sail.
Glimpses of familiar landmarks started to peek out between islands unknown to us. The seas were steep, and the winds were strong, but so far our vessel was handling both well. We jibed across the wind, correcting our course as we began to recognize familiar islands and sailed on, propelled by the following wind and waves.
Eventually, Stonington appeared in the distance between two islands in Merchants Row that had been blocking it from our view. Stonington would be the closest option to make landfall that, while still on an island, was accessible by car. We could land there and claim success, but the sun was shining, and our vessel was sailing well. We decided to push on. I made a few sweeps of the axe-hewn steering paddle and adjusted our heading to run through the islands on the eastern side of Merchants Row. This pointed us north-northeast toward Eggemoggin Reach and the town of Brooklin and WoodenBoat School where both Ross and I had worked in the past.
Ross Beane
During the first half of our sail from the island, I was at the helm, steering with the rough carved paddle. Ross rode in the bow with his driftwood canoe paddle stowed but at the ready.
The day of sailing was downright pleasant and our vessel, though of rough construction, made good time. Stopping mid-afternoon on the rocks in the lee of a beautiful little island with a small, seemingly unoccupied cabin allowed us a chance to swap positions in the cramped little boat. Ross took over steering and sailed us the rest of the way. At one point we crossed a shoaling bar that stood the seas up into sharp little peaks. To have broached at this time to take a wave broadside would have certainly rolled us, but Ross’s skill as a helmsman carried us through as our vessel surfed each wave that rose up behind.
Crossing the Reach, we were questioned by another concerned lobsterman, then sailed past Hog and Piglet islands to starboard and Babson Island to port before finally dropping the tarp/sail and unstepping the driftwood mast in WoodenBoat’s mooring field. We paddled in and ran our keel aground on the boat ramp. Stepping ashore brought an end to our adventure and answered our question: If we were ever shipwrecked on some far-flung mystery island, could we build a seaworthy vessel with rudimentary tools and scavenged materials and sail to safety? Perhaps, but probably not.
Tyler Sauter is a woodworker who lives in southern Maine. He has taught sailing and has worked as a carpenter in boatbuilding, cabinetmaking, and furniture-building shops. For a time he lived aboard a 30′ sloop following work along the northeastern coast of the USA, and going on longer international voyages. Now back on land, he tries to go on as many adventures as time allows in the rivers and along the coast of New England in canoes and small sailboats.
After graduating with a degree in Outdoor Education, Ross Beane has been relentless about sharing his love of wilderness travel wherever he goes. From guiding glacier travel in Alaska to teaching sailing in Maine, he delights in spending time with people in beautiful and remote locations to foster technical know-how and an appreciation of the natural world. Ross is a perpetual student of wilderness emergency medicine, and brings an understanding of risk management that keeps it safe without compromising the fun. As an avid sailor since youth, Ross has sailed in many places worldwide, taught sailing for WoodenBoat School, and co-founded the Sailing Collective Travel Co.
If you have an interesting story to tell about your adventures with a small boat, please email us a brief outline and a few photos.
Boatbuilding creates a lot of dust, and to keep it from spreading everywhere, including into my lungs, I have several vacuum systems to collect it. I have a two-bag dust collector that gathers the coarse sawdust from my tablesaw, jointer, and thickness planer, and I rely on two shop vacuums to catch the fine dust coming from sanders and to clean up whatever winds up on the floor and workbench. The filters in those two vacuums need to be cleaned periodically, and it’s a job I don’t much like. When it was time to clean a filter, I used to take it outside, hold it in an open grocery bag, and shake it. I wore an N-95 mask to protect myself from the powdery dust that drifted up from the bag.
There had to be a better way, and it didn’t take long to find one: let centrifugal force do the job. I’d already figured that out with my food processor: Rather than do an unavoidably ineffective job with a spatula, I pour out the blended batter and spin the blade in the empty processor bowl. It’s instantly clean. Spinning a shop vacuum filter is equally effective. All it takes are a couple of plywood discs, a machine screw with washers and a nut, and an electric drill. To contain the dust, a 5-gallon bucket and a piece of plywood big enough to cover its top will do the job.
Photographs by the author
My smaller shop vacuum had apparently been used to clean up after drywall work, and its filter was coated with compacted dust along with a variety of other debris. I had been given this vacuum, and it may have been used for many jobs without having the filter cleaned.
After removing the filter, I measured its inside diameter to make a plywood disc to fit.
Two plywood discs with 1⁄4″ holes in the center and a 3 1⁄2″ machine screw with its 1⁄4-20 nut and two washers are ready to install.
With the two discs sandwiching the end of the filter and held tight with the nut, the disc is ready to spin. The bucket will collect the dust, and the plywood square, with a 1⁄4″ hole for the machine screw, will contain whatever gets airborne.
Spinning the filter clockwise will loosen the nut, so the drill is set to run in reverse. The filter will wobble when it comes up to speed.
After a spin, most of the debris has been thrown off the filter. A few bits of caked dust in between pleats needed a little coaxing to break them up. Another spin finished the job. The drill’s chuck jaws can press into the machine-screw threads and the nut won’t come off the end as freely as it went on, but a wrench will coax it around.
This pile of dust came out of the filter. When the cleaned filter was put back into the vacuum, its suction was greatly improved.
While spinning a filter can effectively remove the material that it collects, preventing it from getting clogged in the first place will reduce how frequently you need to clean it. There are dust-separating cyclones that can remove debris before it gets to the shop vacuum. Unfortunately, these units are about as big as the vacuum and make it awkward to move the combination around and in and out of the shop. Inexpensive nylon mesh pool-skimmer socks happen to fit over shop vacuum filters and can catch debris. The dirty sock can then be removed, the debris shaken off, and the sock used again. Some of the finest dust can still get to the filter, yet it can do its job well without being excessively burdened by the coarse material that the sock collects.
I had recently replaced the filter on my larger shop vacuum, and to keep it from getting clogged quickly I pulled a pool-skimmer sock over it. Another sock is in the foreground to show its size before being stretched over the filter.
A good test of the sock was to vacuum the debris from my small vacuum, including the dust extracted from its filter, into the large one. That dust immediately gathered against the sock.
To get rid of the dust, I just needed to remove the sock and shake it into a garbage bag. The filter is no longer completely clean and white, but it doesn’t have a thick coating that would reduce the airflow.
A well-maintained shop vacuum will be a more effective tool, and the less time and mess that’s involved in keeping its filter clean, the less reluctant you’ll be to take care of it.
Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats.
You can share your tips and tricks of the trade with other Small Boats readers by sending us an email.
Rare is the small-boat enthusiast who has all the storage room needed for their boats and gear. Outside storage can be detrimental even with tarps or covers, particularly for wooden craft. When my daily routine of moving boats in and out of the workshop grew tiresome, I investigated fabric-covered “portable” garages as an auxiliary storage solution.
The ShelterLogic ShelterTube line is a step above the lightweight shelters sold in big-box stores. The framework is heavy-gauge 2″ × 2″ square steel tubing, powder-coated for corrosion resistance. I opted for the mid-grade heavy-duty shed, which has a 14.5-oz cover and roll-up zippered doors at both ends. This grade is not sold in retail stores and is only available directly from the manufacturer. Each unit is built to order, with a variety of sizes available up to 99′ long. For my space I chose a 12′ × 18′ shed with a 10′ height.
Photographs by the author
The assembled frame is made of 2″ × 2″ steel tubing and is considerably sturdier than designs with round-tubing. A flat and level surface is critical to a successful assembly.
Four weeks after I placed an order with ShelterLogic, my unit arrived by truck, neatly and efficiently packaged, with all the tube ends protected by plastic caps. As I unboxed it the quality of the components was impressive; this is a well-thought-out design. The standard of construction and the organization of the kit are excellent.
A solid and level foundation is recommended, and unless one already has a suitable location, the importance and time required to create one should not be underestimated. ShelterLogic recommends a concrete pad as the optimum base; however, that wasn’t an option for me and I instead used a base of crushed stone with carefully leveled solid concrete blocks under each of the 10 legs.
The IKEA-esque assembly instructions were almost entirely pictorial but proved comprehensive and easy to follow. Each connection is secured by eight self-tapping screws (hundreds are needed in total), so both a drill for pilot holes and a second drill or impact driver for the screws are a must. Several stages of the assembly, such as attaching the overhead beams and securing the cover, require one or more helpers. Otherwise, the assembly was straightforward with no surprises. Apart from tools, everything needed is provided, including ground anchors and a kit to roll up the doors with a pulley system. The manufacturer recommends a weekly check on the cover tension to snug it up as needed. I added LED shop lights to make the interior more functional at night or when the doors are closed.
Roll-up doors at both ends provide easy access to the interior. LED lighting (not included in kit) together with the white interior provides a functional workspace.
The real test would be how the shelter held up to extreme weather. Here in New England, I did not have to wait long for the shelter to be put to that test. Within the span of several weeks we had two winter storms with 50-mph wind gusts; sandwiched in between was a 15″ snowfall. The shelter has handled everything that a Massachusetts winter could subject it to without any issues.
The ShelterTube structure has met all my expectations, and I continue to be impressed by its strength and stability. I now have room for several canoes and a paddleboard stacked vertically on a rack, space for some storage shelves, and even a small workbench on the opposite side, and enough room left over to roll my 18′ Annapolis Wherry into the center before closing everything up.
Walter Gotham operates Chadwick Pond Boats, a small shop in Haverhill, Massachusetts, specializing in lapstrake plywood small craft.
The ShelterTube garage is available direct from ShelterLogic, 1–800–563–8383. Prices start at $1,599.99; the unit described was $2,399.99.
Is there a product that might be useful for boatbuilding, cruising, or shore-side camping that you’d like us to review? Please email your suggestions.
When we were on the lookout for a lightweight monocular to carry with us for waterway scanning and wildlife spotting, we checked with Orion, the company that made the telescope we enjoy using at home for stargazing, and discovered the Orion 10×42 Waterproof Monocular. It has turned out to be useful, durable, and reasonably priced.
Photographs by the authors
Orion’s 10 x 40 monocular is compact and has an exceptional ability to focus on objects as close as 20″.
There are many thoughtful features packed into this small, well-made package. The monocular weighs only 11 oz, is a comfortable size to hold, and has a good ergonomic feel to it, thanks to the body’s slim, straight design—made possible by its roof prism, which takes the inverted image coming from the 42mm lens and flips it vertically and horizontally without requiring the zig-zag shape a monocular equipped with Porro prisms has to have. The straight body of the Orion makes it much easier to aim—you just sight down the tube, then look in the eyepiece. The molded rubber armor provides a secure grip on the 6.1″-long monocular, and the focus-ring ridges are long and raised just enough to make them easy to turn, even if wearing thick gloves. The objective and eyepiece lenses are recessed in protective rubber rings, so the monocular can be set face down without concern of scratching the large objective lens. The monocular is listed by Orion as “waterproof,” but it isn’t given a standard IPX rating. Instead, the website says that it has “waterproof rubber-armored construction for viewing in virtually any weather—but submersion or scuba diving is not recommended!” A neck strap and a neoprene carrying case with belt loop are included, and the body has a standard 1⁄4-20 threaded mounting socket for a monopod or tripod.
The monocular comes with a case and a strap that attaches to a ¼-20 fitting that will fit most tripods.
A rubber eye guard provides cushioning for comfortable viewing. The guard can twist down so one can keep glasses on while using the monocular. There is a fine-focus ring on the eyepiece that has a more sensitive adjustment than that of the barrel ring, but we mostly use the large focus barrel.
The optics provide a clear, sharp view and the coated 42mm objective lens gathers plenty of light for a bright image even in fading dawn or dusk lighting. The field of view (309′/1,000 yards linear, 5.9° angular) provides enough of a viewing area to get the monocular quickly aimed at navigational markers and landmarks as well as to track other boaters. The 10× magnification provides a closer look with more detail than does the 7× magnification more commonly used aboard boats, which are usually in motion, so the more powerful monocular is better suited for use on calm water or on shore. On our beach we enjoy using the monocular to view flotsam. We can study the intricacies of migratory waterfowl without disturbing them and look for tiny treasures like small shells or sea life we might not otherwise spot hidden among common objects.
Orion offers an adapter that can connect the monocular with a smartphone for taking photographs and videos.
The monocular can focus on objects as close as 20″, which is great for our nature walks. In grocery store “field tests” we could read the fine print of ingredient labels of products on the shelves.
We also appreciate Orion’s adapter for the monocular, which holds a smartphone steady and in the correct position for taking photos through the eyepiece. It’s great fun to share photos of all the things that you can see, near and far, while using the 10 × 42 Waterproof Monocular.
Audrey (Skipper) and Kent Lewis mess about in the Tidewater Region of Virginia when not restoring or building boats. Their adventures are logged at Small Boat Restoration.
The Orion 10×42 Waterproof Monocular can be purchased directly from Orion with a 30-day money-back guarantee along with a one-year warranty. The monocular is also available from many retailers.
Is there a product that might be useful for boatbuilding, cruising, or shore-side camping that you’d like us to review? Please email your suggestions.
Derrick Burry can trace his family heritage back through multiple generations on Greenspond Island off the northeast coast of Newfoundland. On both his mother’s and father’s sides, his family have been seafarers through centuries. In recent times his paternal grandfather was a fisherman, and his father, born in 1931, worked in coastal shipping delivering cargoes around Newfoundland and up into Labrador.
Photographs Derrick Burry collection
Derrick stretched the boat’s length from 14′ to 17′ 6″ and used a borrowed set of three molds to establish the boat’s shape between the stem and transom.
Until the 1950s, few roads connected Newfoundland’s towns and villages, and the sea was everything. Families were self-sufficient and, says Derrick, if someone needed a small boat they would go into the woods, cut some lumber, bring it home, and build it. The culture was oral and local, communities tight-knit and isolated.
Derrick made 11 molds over which he would apply the strip planking. He planked the boat right-side up, working from the sheer down.
Derrick lived on Greenspond until he was six and, he says, was more accustomed to seeing boats than cars. “I can remember my first car ride,” he says, “but not my first boat ride.” His father built small boats, but unlike his forebears he built them for recreation rather than work. Outboards were becoming ever more popular in Newfoundland, and he built small powerboats, known locally as “speedboats.” He would build them one at a time, use them for a year or two, and then, when he got the itch to build a new boat, sell them on and go back into the woods to get some more lumber. Young Derrick joined him in the projects, going into the woods to help fell trees, lifting planks to be fit, holding the clenching iron while his father hammered in the clench nails.
The family moved to Gambo, a town at the western end of Freshwater Bay, a 15-mile-long inlet, where fewer people made their living from the sea, but Derrick’s father continued to build boats and Derrick’s love for small craft didn’t wane. One summer, when he was home for the long university vacation, he tried his hand at building his own boat. His father was away at the time, but Derrick believed he had the necessary skills to build a flat-bottomed outboard skiff. “I bought the lumber with money from my first summer-job paycheck, and built it by eye with hand tools,” he recalls. “It was a terrible boat. If it was empty it floated, but the moment anyone stepped aboard and the first seam went in the water, it leaked. I used it, after a fashion. I had an outboard and a bailer and wet feet.”
While Derrick strayed from tradition and designed an outboard well just forward of the aftmost thwart, in the bows he installed a small raised deck, known locally as a forechute—a feature found in many Newfoundland punts that combines a useful seat-cum-step and a small cuddy locker.
After graduating from Memorial University in St. John’s, Derrick remained in the city to pursue a career as a music teacher. He continued boating both in St. John’s and in Gambo, and then he restored a cedar-and-canvas canoe and became intrigued by boat construction. He helped a friend who was strip-planking a canoe, and the die was cast.
“At first,” he says, “I thought I’d build a ‘speedboat.’ I even got as far as buying some plans from David Stimson for his Ocean Pointer. But then I realized I wanted to learn to sail. My father had always spoken fondly about rowing and sailing punts in his youth, but I had never sailed. So, I changed tack.”
In Newfoundland, small working boats are known as either punts or rodneys. There seems to be little consensus as to the origins or true definition of either, although most agree that the rodney is the smaller of the two, typically no more than 16′ long, while both are smaller than 25′ with keels and round bottoms. Derrick decided he would follow tradition and build a punt for sail and oar.
Guided by the experience of strip-planking his friend’s canoe and having carefully studied Ted Moores’s book, Canoecraft, Derrick decided strip-planking was the way to go.
On launching day, Derrick was joined by his father, Edgar Burry, and dog, Rudy. At the time, CLEAR SKIES had just a single sprit-rigged sail, which could be wrapped around the mast and stowed within the boat.
“A local guy had a set of three molds that he was willing to let me use. Around here molds get used and passed along all the time, there’s no ‘intellectual property.’ Someone has it, they pass it along. The molds were actually for a smaller boat—about 14′ overall—so I had to stretch it out some. I wanted my punt to be 17′ 6″ and large enough to carry three people. I flattened the bottom some, and introduced a daggerboard, but it’s still a punt.”
Derrick built the boat by eye. He created patterns for the stem and transom, and bent battens around them and the three molds. Having thus determined the shape of the boat, he made 11 molds to provide a building form for the strip planking. “When I thought it looked right, I went with it. It’s how my father built his boats. I talked to him on the phone, and he advised me on things to look for as I went along, but I worked on my own.”
Derrick bought some 2 x 6 and 2 x 8 spruce, the best he could find, and milled it into 3/8″ x 1 1⁄2″ bead-and-cove strips. He set the molds up in his garage, built the keel, stem, and transom, checked and rechecked the profile, and started planking. “I planked her right-side up. Back in the day, my dad and other Newfoundlanders always planked their boats right-side up, working down from the gunwale and tipping the hull on its side to fit the garboard. So that’s what I did. It was all new to me, but I’d been around so many boat projects that I was comfortable with the process.”
In CLEAR SKIES’ first summer, Derrick sailed with just the mainsail. The simple arrangement meant plenty of space for his wife, Pamela, and the Brittany spaniel, Rudy.
Less easy was the configuration of the rig. “When I was building the punt in 2005–2006 I found very few sources to give me insight on the style of sailing rig the Newfoundland fishermen would have used. I came across the occasional archival photograph, but most of my searches came up empty. From Dad’s description of the sail rigs used in his youth around Greenspond, it seems clear that the sprit rig was the most common for small punts.”
Derrick went back to his research. The more he read, the more he liked the simplicity of the sprit rig. “All I’d need to set the rig in place was a hole in the bow thwart so the mast could pass through it into a simple maststep. The sail was small and simple and could be doused easily, rolled up, and stowed out of the way. It didn’t need any rope or wire stays.” He conceived a 70-sq-ft spritsail with a single reef to reduce it to 55 sq ft, and had it professionally designed and built out of Dacron.
On launching day, Derrick christened the boat CLEAR SKIES and was joined by his father for the first outing. “I had never sailed. Never. When we put the boat in, I was excited and apprehensive. Dad took the lead. He was in his 70s and I’d never seen him sail before, I don’t think he had sailed his whole adult life, but I was amazed by all the things he knew, and how comfortable he looked. It seemed as though he hadn’t forgotten one thing after all those years.”
Following the advice of his father, Derrick fitted a 25-sq-ft jib in his second season. Edgar, seen here sailing with Derrick, had identified that CLEAR SKIES had too much weather helm with just the spritsail and suggested adding the jib to better balance the rig for a more neutral helm.
Father and son sailed together for many of the boat’s early outings, and each time they went out Derrick learned a little more. “I’d researched all the theory, so I knew how it worked in principle, but he taught me to sail, and passed on tips that I couldn’t get out of books.”
For the first summer Derrick sailed the punt with just the mainsail. But at the end of the season his father suggested adding a jib. “He said she’d be better balanced. Because I was new to it all I hadn’t recognized that she had significant weather helm.”
The following summer, CLEAR SKIES was launched with three homemade Tyvek jibs of varying sizes. Derrick settled on the 25-sq-ft version and had one professionally made. “Dad was right, the balance was better.”
CLEAR SKIES is firmer in the bilge than a traditional Newfoundland punt, giving her greater initial stability. Because of this, Derrick can comfortably row standing up using long sweeps set to the forward thole pins.
In recent years Derrick has also added a mizzen. Around Newfoundland, he says, wind strength can pick up quickly during the day. “It can be calm in the morning and blowing 25 knots by noon. I’d seen videos of Drascombe Luggers sailing in heavy winds with just the jib and mizzen and realized the additional sail would give me more options. Now, if the wind picks up, I brail in the main, keep the jib and jigger, and feel safe.”
Adding a mizzen provided more options for managing the boat and adapting to a wide range of wind strengths.
Derrick has been consistently happy with CLEAR SKIES’ performance. Under full sail in 10 to 12 knots, she moves easily at 5 knots and in heavier winds has often attained 6 and even 7 knots on a broad reach. She points high and has good stability on all points of sail but, he says, even after almost 20 years he’s still learning how to sail her and “on each outing I discover more of her characteristics and gain confidence in her ability to handle varying weather conditions.”
Today, CLEAR SKIES lives on a trailer in the garage where she was built, about 5 minutes from the launching area. Derrick has retired from teaching, so now, if the conditions are good, he drops everything and goes. The fall of 2023, he says, he had some of the best sailing he’s ever had.
With her daggerboard raised CLEAR SKIES has a very shallow draft, allowing Derrick to pull up to gently shelving beaches on calm summer days.
Derrick’s father died in 2021, but for as long as he could, he went on coaching and offering Derrick advice in boat handling and seamanship. From building to sailing, Derrick has learned every step of the way and built himself a boat he loves. And above all, he says, “I’m grateful for the opportunity to provide my father with another chance to experience the boating that he so enjoyed in his youth.”
Jenny Bennett is managing editor of Small Boats.
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Whenever my daughter Alison comes home to visit, I enjoy taking her to the airport at the end of her stay. During the 30-minute drive I get a chance to have one-on-one conversations with her and, because she’s a digital native, I also get updated on developments in technology. On our drive this past December, I was surprised to see her answer a phone call by talking into her watch, just like Dick Tracy did with the two-way wrist radio that he stretched out from the sleeve of his yellow trench coat. As usual, I asked Ali to check the traffic ahead on her smartphone to make sure we were on the best route to get to the airport without traffic delays. She brought up the app and when I glanced at her phone’s screen, I could see the blue bull’s eye indicating where we were with the map sliding in the background. I noticed there were other similar dots, something I hadn’t seen during previous drives. Ali told me they indicated the locations of her friends and other family members.
Ali mentioned that when one of her friends had gone on a first date with someone new, she and other friends tracked her in real time, and if the route her dot took gave them cause for concern, they could call her to see if she was okay and find her if she needed help. And in late November, while all of us in the family were waiting to hear from my son Nate about the birth of his first child (my first grandchild), Ali was watching, in real time, the signal from his wife’s phone as he drove her to the hospital for the labor and delivery.
In the ’80s, when I did my longest cruises, that technology didn’t exist. I could keep track of where I was only by paying attention to my surroundings and keeping an eye on my chart. And, for days if not weeks at a time, my friends and family back home wouldn’t know where I was.
I took whatever safety equipment was available and affordable at the time, but that didn’t amount to much more than a weather radio. If compact handheld VHF radios, tracking devices and phones equipped with GPS, and satellite messengers and emergency locator beacons had existed, I might well have purchased them. Fortunately, in thousands of miles of cruising, I had the good fortune never to have an emergency that I couldn’t manage on my own. I did get lost a few times, in as much as being lost meant finding myself unsure of my location and not knowing which way to go. Here are three of those occasions, all occurring on a paddling trip from Quebec to Florida:
My paddling partner and I got lost on the first day of a 2,500-mile canoe and kayak cruise from Québec City to Cedar Key, Florida. Our map didn’t indicate the broad tidal flats between the St. Lawrence River’s channel and the shore. We didn’t see any potential landing sites and paddled into darkness. We left the channel, paddled through a maze of boulders and walked probably 1⁄2 mile in the shallows while eels slithered around our ankles. Under an overcast sky on a moonless night, the only thing we could see beyond the beams of our flashlights was a single light, whose reflection is seen here just beyond the bow of my canoe. When we reached land, it was a railroad seawall. The only place to camp above the tide was at the base of the light tower that led us to shore. We set the tent up on the rock ballast at the top of the wall, 20′ from the railroad tracks. While I knew we wouldn’t get hit by a train, it was terrifying to have them race past so close by.
South of Charleston, South Carolina, we took a shortcut through the marsh. The passageways were much more intricate than they appeared on the chart, and with an overcast sky it was difficult to keep a sense of direction. I stood up frequently to get a better view forward, but it didn’t do much good. In case we had to return the same way we had come, I bent stalks of grass over to mark the route. It was slow going and saved us no time, but we eventually reached the marked channel of the Intracoastal Waterway and stuck with it thereafter.
After crossing the Okefenokee Swamp in northern Florida, we dragged the boats over the levee that separated the swamp from the headwaters of the Suwanee River only to find that there was no river, just a flooded forest. There were no landmarks among the trees and I was at a loss to know which way to go. The foam floating on top of the river made it easy to see the variations in current. Passages where the water was not moving would, I guessed, lead to dead ends. We let the boats drift and whenever we saw foam outpacing us, we followed it. The current eventually led us to the place where high ground appeared and funneled the water into the river channel.
Getting found again was just a matter of moving to a place where I could correlate landmarks around me to the chart or map. I was in no hurry to get somewhere, so I didn’t mind being lost. It was invigorating and heightened my awareness. I don’t think I’d have such lasting memories of finding my way if I’d had my head down taking my directions from the Global Positioning System.
Two years later, when I rowed a sneakbox solo down the Ohio River and the Lower Mississippi, it was virtually impossible to get lost. Both are just corridors between riverbanks, easily followed with no route finding required. While I was never lost, no one back home would be able to find me; I called my parents, collect, from pay phones, every week or so and in that time between calls I might be anywhere along a 200-mile stretch of river.
The Mississippi was especially remote; levees along both banks blocked towns, farms, and homes from my view from the river. And rowing during the winter, I had to myself all the land and water I could see. I recall seeing only two other recreational boats underway along the 950 miles from the Ohio River confluence to New Orleans.
I might still find the same wilderness along the Lower Mississippi, but if I carried even just a smart phone, the experience likely wouldn’t be the same. Being connected by this century’s technologies brings undeniable advantages in safety, but with it come invisible tendrils that make it difficult to find one’s own way and fully inhabit the “emptiness” of wilderness.
I count myself fortunate that I took advantage of the opportunities that I had 40 years ago and traveled without today’s technology, not by an unwise choice to dismiss it, but because it didn’t exist. I was drawn to solo wilderness travel when I was 18, in part to find out if I could meet the practical challenges but also curious to know what kind of company I could be to myself if I were alone. And in 1985, lost to the world on the Lower Mississippi, I’d found what I was looking for: aloneness without loneliness.
Our plan was simple: on Friday, April 30, 2022, Delaney and I would embark from Brooklin to make a 26-mile circumnavigation of the southern end of Maine’s Blue Hill Peninsula by way of Blue Hill Bay, Blue Hill Falls, and the Salt Pond and Benjamin River with a half-mile haul between the two along what once was an old Wabanaki portage. We were hoping that if we worked hard, we’d be able to make it back to Brooklin in three days, camping along the way on Long Island in Blue Hill Bay and at the Reach Knolls campground at the mouth of the Benjamin River.
The trip was conceived only a week earlier as Delaney and I stood in my parents’ garage in Worcester, Vermont, and looked at the 17′ Chesapeake Light Craft Northeaster dory my father and I started building in 2014 in a one-week class at WoodenBoat School. He and I thought it would be a boat I could cut my teeth on for boatbuilding and rowing, but we had never finished it. Since the class it had been languishing in the garage for eight years. WHISTLER—as we named the dory for my propensity as a 13-year-old to whistle while building it—looked forlorn as I ran my hands over the dusty hull, but all it needed to be ready for the water was interior paint and varnish on the rail.
Roger Siebert
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Last year, while working at WoodenBoat School, I’d heard the stories visiting Grand Canyon river guides had told about running dories through rapids, and while WHISTLER is a different kind of dory, I imagined running the Blue Hill Falls tidal rapids at the entrance to Salt Pond. Delaney liked the idea of running the rapids and taking on the circumnavigation, and we decided to cartop the boat, take it with us back to Maine, and get it ready to launch.
We worked on the boat in the shop at WoodenBoat the following week, and by Friday morning the paint and varnish we’d applied had dried. If we were going to do the circumnavigation, we had to start that day, as that last weekend in April was the only time we’d have together for several months, and the tides were perfect. The only problem: the wind was blowing 20- to 35-knots from the north, the worst possible direction for our row from the launch ramp at WoodenBoat School. Still, we were determined, until a small-craft advisory finally convinced us that launching to take on a 12-mile row from Brooklin to Blue Hill Falls would have been not only ill-advised but also rather dangerous. The new plan was to launch on Saturday from the South Blue Hill boat ramp 1-1/2 miles south of the falls.
By 8:00 Saturday morning, Delaney and I were at the oars, bashing WHISTLER into steep swells. I was at the forward station, with Delaney at the aft thwart; we struggled against a 15- to 20-knot wind on Blue Hill Bay. The bow rose over a rolling 2′ wave and when the flat bottom slammed hard into the trough, I felt a painful pinch in my lower back as it compressed. A 20-knot gust brought us to a stop and tugged at my oars even though I had the blades feathered. Each stroke moved us forward only a few feet before WHISTLER butted against the next wave.
I could feel the burning in my forearms even though we had only made it ¼ mile under the steel-gray skies and whistling wind. “Need a break?” I shouted to Delaney. “Not a bad idea,” was the reply, and I turned us toward a patch of beach 50 yards to port with the promise of a calm resting spot drawing us in. We beached on a bed of baseball-sized rocks covered in dark green seaweed and dragged the boat out of the water so it wouldn’t get beaten by the knee-high swell breaking on the beach.
Photographs by Delaney Brown and Tom Conlogue
After backing WHISTLER onto the beach, we did a reconnaissance run to the bridge to scope out the falls. The north end of the Blue Hill Falls bridge is visible above the dory’s aft thwart.
We sat on a smooth, waist-high boulder, watching the whitecaps roll by for five minutes, and caught our breath before pushing back out into the grim, green-gray water, white streaks trailing from the wave crests. I took short tugs on the oars to get us moving as Delaney shoved off and boarded over the stern. My oar blades dragged through mats of tangled seaweed until we were two boat lengths from shore. Delaney settled on the aft thwart, slipped her oars out through the locks, and we fell back into our rhythm, working our way to windward at barely over 1 knot. We stayed 30′ from shore, away from the waves as they steepened and crested in the shallows but somewhat protected by the land. Spray flung by the diving bow pelted my back. The water was loud on the hood of my jacket, ran down my back, and pooled around my feet to slosh back and forth between frames.
Delaney’s port oar dug in suddenly, as a wave crest caught the blade and sent it diving for the bottom. The grip was almost wrenched out of her hand as it tried to push her off the thwart. The oar dragged the bow around to port and we were no longer pointing into the wind. As the dory veered toward shore, I quickly pulled hard on my port side to correct our course while Delaney freed her oar from the water. A few strokes later it happened again, on the starboard oar this time. “I’m going to count how many strokes I can get in a row without catching a crab!” she yelled and began counting aloud as we continued to row. With Delaney chanting her stroke count aloud, we laughed every time she had to restart and cheered when she reached a new high score of uninterrupted strokes. After we had rowed for a half hour, I looked over my right shoulder and saw the sandy-gray arches of the Blue Hill Falls bridge, and we made for a beach just south of the bridge.
Blue Hill Falls is a short stretch of reversing tidal rapids at the entrance to Salt Pond. Four times a day water pours through the 100′-wide gap beneath the bridge, creating standing waves as the tide floods into and ebbs out of the 3-1/2-mile-long pond. While the safest way through is to wait for slack water, we had decided to go through at the peak of the flood when the current would be strongest and the rising tide would significantly shorten the portage at Salt Pond’s far end.
After beaching the dory and taking a quick water break, we walked over to the bridge to see what we had gotten ourselves into. After clambering up the scree slope at the side of the road and walking to the middle of the bridge, we looked down over its Salt Pond side at the flood tide’s standing waves. My worries about getting capsized instantly evaporated. While the rapid was moving fast, it wasn’t nearly as turbulent as I had remembered. On the north side, the water ran smooth and black under the bridge before plunging into a train of 3′ standing waves, but on the south side there was a straight shot through with only the occasional riffle disturbing the surface.
“This isn’t going to be nearly as exciting as we thought, is it?” Delaney said. “What do you think, should we go straight down the middle?” I replied, “Yep, let’s hit the medium-sized waves.” That approach would avoid the extremes, either too rough or too smooth. We climbed back down the rocks at the end of the bridge and walked gingerly among the softball-sized rocks along the shingle beach to the boat. We pushed off under a sky overcast with low steel-wool-gray clouds and maneuvered stern-first into the current upstream from the bridge.
Delaney took her seat and braced her feet on the sternsheets, and we let the dory get carried under the bridge. As WHISTLER picked up speed, the water turned from gray to dark green as it piled up on the bridge’s concrete footings on either side of us and funneled us through. Pulling occasionally on the oars to keep the stern pointed in the right direction, I steered us in between the fast, clean water off the starboard beam and the tumbling standing waves off the port beam. Below the bridge, we gently rolled over a smooth crest, then rose up the far side and crashed down. Looking past Delaney’s shoulder I saw just a tongue of water lap over the transom, and then we were past the waves and into the pond.
Choosing to take the middle route down provided a smooth ride, although in hindsight the line on the north side of the rapid would have provided a sportier experience.
Just past the Blue Hill Falls bridge, visible at the far right, and onto the Salt Pond, Delaney provided directions and encouragement while I enjoyed the easy rowing, good view, and occasional warmth from the sun.
In its narrow entrance, the wind was calmer and with the sun coming out we needed to peel off some layers, so about 500′ beyond the bridge, we cut diagonally across the current and made our way to the beach. After we took off our spray jackets, we pushed back out and rowed across the upstream current of a back eddy where leafy seaweed on the bottom waved gently toward the bridge. When we reached the main current, it again carried us southwest. Delaney moved to the sternsheets to take a break and watch the scenery slide by as I rowed us down Salt Pond with the wind and current nudging us along at an effortless 4 knots.
A half mile farther along, we skirted a rounded granite boulder that splits a channel where the pond narrows from 1/5 mile to just 80 yards. A half mile farther we saw a field of buoys ahead, arranged neatly in long rows 20′ apart. At the first buoy, Delaney peered over the side into the water at the fuzz-covered ropes hanging straight down and disappearing in the olive-green murk. “Mussels?” she wondered out loud; I shrugged. She did a quick Google search on her phone, which revealed it was indeed a shellfish farm, growing oysters as well as mussels.
By noon we had made it to the head of the Salt Pond, where it turned into Meadow Brook, a channel 10′ wide with grassy banks on both sides. We had timed it perfectly, and arrived at high tide, but the brook was still too narrow for the oars. We climbed out and used the bow and stern lines to guide WHISTLER up the winding stream, our boots crunching softly over the dead grass on the bank.
Nosing up to Meadow Brook, the channel became shallower and we dragged the dory over submerged rocks while avoiding the visible ones. The guardrail of the Hales Hill Road bridge was within sight, beyond the large boulder in the distance.
The brook quickly became too narrow for rowing, so Delaney and I hopped out and lined the dory up the last bit of the way to the beaver dam.
After navigating six bends in 60 yards and crunching the boat on a few submerged rocks, we were at the Hales Hill Road bridge. Its cement slab, supported by stacked rough-hewn stone blocks, spanned an opening just 6′ wide—barely enough room for the boat—and 4′ high, too low for us. The water running through the culvert was more than boot deep. Delaney scrambled up the embankment and crossed the road to the upstream side of the bridge, where she stepped over the metal guardrail, pushed through chest-high raspberry bushes, and poked her head and an arm over the edge above the water, ready to catch the boat. I gave WHISTLER a shove. The boat coasted smoothly upstream through the culvert for a few feet, before veering to port toward the rough-edged wall. Dangling as far out as she could without falling into the stream, Delaney grabbed the breasthook and saved the newly varnished rail from making contact with the rocks.
The water flowing under the Hales Hill bridge was especially deep, so we shoved WHISTLER through unmanned.
Just 50′ upstream from the bridge, we came to a 3′-high beaver dam of tangled twigs flanked by thick brush. Rounded granite boulders scattered around the dam had tan-colored bands marking the water level when the dam had been about 1′ higher. We had brought two large fenders to use as rollers for just such an obstacle as the dam and deployed them for protection from the rocks. We scooted WHISTLER safely over and into the still, pooled water upstream. Delaney crawled over the transom and stood up forward with an oar in hand, and we paddled canoe fashion up the beaver pond.
The rollers that we brought with us helped us clear the beaver dam with little struggle. Beyond the dam, the water was deep and clear, making the paddling easy.
As the water got shallower, poling became the only way to move forward. Despite the common knowledge that you should never push off the bottom with the blade of an oar for fear of it splitting, the width of the blade proved less susceptible than the handle to sinking into the muck below.
The smooth going was short lived. After only two minutes of paddling, the skeg started to drag in the mud below. We decided the best option was to drag the boat over dry land toward the tree line 1/4 mile away, and Delaney leaped from the bow for the streambank and landed on a tussock of grass. I thought she had made it, but then the tuft sank under her, and she splashed down into knee-deep water with a howl as her boots quickly flooded. She scrambled for firmer ground and eventually found a piece of grass that did not sink immediately. She stood up with a scowl.
I poled the boat a few more feet until the bow was nestled in grass, then gingerly stepped over the rail onto a firm-looking patch of grass. It shifted unsteadily below me. I knew we had to get the boat to firmer footing if we were going to drag it any farther. I braced my feet against two tussocks, grabbed the breasthook, and pulled firmly. The boat lurched forward no more than 1′, and then came to a halt with the screech of dry grass on paint.
From where we had run aground, it was a half mile to where satellite images we’d studied seemed to indicate the portage should have started. Realizing that we clearly were not going to make it to the Benjamin River that day, our new goal was to get the boat to the portage before dark. It was only 12:30, and that seemed like a realistic goal.
Abandoning what was left of the main channel, I began dragging the boat toward the tree line, hopping from one tuft of grass to the next to avoid the deep puddles scattered around them.
Getting ready to schlep the gear to lighten the boat, we took a quick break to feel sorry for ourselves before beginning the first long trudge to the tree line.
I began unloading some of the heaviest items: Delaney’s duffle, the cast-iron skillet, two 1-gallon jugs of water, and my dry bag backpack full of food and camping gear. Delaney worked her way toward me, lifting her legs over the tussocks and pushing through the chest-high grass, falling with almost every other step. Loaded down with gear, we scrambled toward a point in the tree line 1/4 mile away where we would stash everything and eat lunch before coming back for the boat. As soon as we set out, we knew we had made a mistake. What had looked like drier land was in fact just more tufts of grass, surrounded by water. Stepping from one clump to the next, I crushed each tussock down, throwing my balance off and sending me stumbling. Water poured into my boots, and thick mud beneath the water threatened to pull them off. My clothes were damp and sticky and my back prickled with sweat.
In most areas the grass reached Delaney’s chest. As we headed back to the boat after lunch, she gave me a distinctly displeased look amid the expansive grassy landscape.
Delaney, whose legs weren’t long enough to step up on the tussocks, slogged through the mud and water while carrying a gallon jug of water in each hand. Every few steps she fell from one puddle to the next and disappeared behind the tawny grass, but somehow remained smiling. By the time we had made it to the firm, dry ground at the tree line, it was 1:15. The carry with our gear had taken us 45 minutes to traverse a quarter mile, and we hadn’t even brought the boat.
Delaney crawled into the trees leaving a trail of wet socks and spray gear. I pulled a wool blanket out of the duffle and stretched it out on some moss amid the trees, then made BLTs from homemade bread and Delaney’s favorite vegan bacon. Munching on my sandwich, too hungry to care about the fake meat, I looked out over the expanse of undulating golden grass, and my optimism began to increase. “This ain’t too bad after all,” I said, looking at Delaney. She offered a half smile, and I noticed she was shivering in the light early spring breeze blowing through the trees. I scrambled over to my backpack and pulled out the space blanket I had stashed for just such an occasion. She lay down on the wool blanket, I spread the space blanket over her, and tucked the upwind side under the backpack. I curled myself around her back; the shiny silver rustled over our heads. Through chattering teeth, she cheerfully said she would warm up in no time.
Ten minutes later, her shivering hadn’t stopped. “Time to move,” I said. Delaney grumbled but got up and put on her wet spray gear and socks as I packed up our gear and piled it by the edge of the trees. To warm us both up, I set a brisk pace back to the boat; soon we were both sweating again, and once she started cursing again I knew she would be okay. After reaching WHISTLER what seemed like hours later, we sprawled in opposite ends of the boat while we caught our breath. “This may have been one of the worst ideas I’ve ever had,” I said, feeling bad for dragging her on this adventure. “Maybe make the next one an easy trip?” she offered, and we got ready to drag the boat.
It was slow, brutal work. With me pulling and Delaney pushing, we moved the boat only 2′ at a time before it came to a halt or one of us fell into the mire. The sharp bottom edge of the breasthook dug into my hands and the grass under the boat turned from gold to black as it was crushed into the water. Working slowly, we inched toward the tree line, leaving a dark scar through the brush behind us. The effort made my arms burn and left me panting.
A little over an hour later, we made it to the trees. Gasping and saying little, we unpacked the last of the gear and looked for a place to set up the tent. Even though it was only 5:30 and there was plenty of daylight left, this was as far as we were going for the day. We were completely burned out and needed to get out of our wet clothes before we got chilled. We found a flat spot in the trees, and pitched the tent; I crawled inside, lying face down with the warmth of the smooth nylon sleeping bag tempting me to sleep. Delaney joined me, using my back as a pillow and we remained motionless for a while, waiting for our strength to come back so we could make dinner.
At the beginning of the day, while we were launching WHISTLER at the boat ramp, we had met a lobsterman who, after hearing our plan, had invited us to stay on his land if we didn’t make it as far as we hoped. His only direction had been “on the left beyond the bridge at the end of the Salt Pond.” We were unsure if we were in the right spot, but we started gathering wood for a fire, hoping this piece of the woods we had found was on his property.
I kicked loose leaves and grass to the side and made a fire ring of soggy logs, and soon the warmth of the leaping flames provided a welcome relief from the chill of my damp clothes. We heated up dinner, an Indian rice affair, in a cast-iron skillet and scarfed it down as the dark crept in steadily. Fed, watered, and starting to warm, we sat by the fire for hours, socks spread around the flames like fallen flower petals. Around 10 p.m., Delaney did an especially jaw-cracking yawn, so we extinguished the fire and moved into the tent, with the pleasant scent of wood smoke clinging to us like an earthy perfume. In the dark, above the tent’s mesh panels, the sky had cleared to a kaleidoscopic view of stars, and we fell asleep to the sound of spring peepers.
I woke up late the next day, and, gingerly testing my muscles, was surprised to find I hadn’t locked up overnight. The weather began as the day before had with low puffy clouds, with occasional breaks that let the sun through. We packed up and were ready to get underway by 10:30, keenly aware of our dwindling time. Trying something new, we used two fenders as rollers, sticking as close to the tree line as we could where the ground was dry and the going a little easier. Delaney placed the fenders under the bow and pulled while I pushed and threw the fenders forward when they slipped out the back. It was slow going because fenders refused to roll over the hummocks and the dory bottom dragged across them. “Do you think we need these things?” Delaney asked, after half an hour of wrestling with the fenders. We threw them into the boat and dragged it, Delaney leading the bow with the painter while I pushed the stern.
It was a dramatic improvement. Compared to the day before, the sliding was much easier on the dry grass, and we could make it a full 10′ before I ran out of breath and had to take a break. Two hours later, after stopping for a half-hour lunch break in the trees, we had covered a quarter mile. We left the boat next to an abandoned cow pasture and walked up the remaining distance along the edge of the trees to where the portage proper should have started. It wasn’t good. Branches were tangled together in a thick wall and the trees were clustered close together; while a portage was definitely possible with a canoe or kayak, WHISTLER was far too wide to squeeze though. Our options were to go back the way we came, or try to cut up over to River Road, a quarter mile to the southeast.
Delaney led WHISTLER like a recalcitrant mule toward the cow pasture. As the ground evened out, it became easier to move the boat without the rollers and rely on strength and stubbornness.
Since retreating over the difficult ground we’d already covered was not an option—we had run out of time—we walked up the cow pasture toward the road, hoping to find a house with someone friendly enough to let us bring our car to pick up the dory. Walking up a gravel access road off one of the pastures, we strolled past a spent 12-gauge shotgun shell on the ground. Apparently, this was an unusual sight for a Florida girl, and Delaney grabbed my arm. “We’re going to get shot!” she said. “Relax,” I replied, “Most people at least have the courtesy to ask who you are before they shoot you.”
We crossed River Road and walked up to a farmhouse perched on the top of a hill, where a couple in their mid-forties were more than happy to help, insisting we have a drink of water before giving us a ride to our car.
Delaney and I drove back to the cow pasture and threw gear into the car. When we rolled WHISTLER over to lift her onto the roof rack, twigs and grass poured out. The bottom of the boat was scarred where rocks had cut through the epoxy, graphite, and fiberglass, and the topside paint had long pale streaks from brush dragging along the side.
After securing permission from the property owners to bring our car to their field, we faced the last challenge of the trip: hoisting the 100-lb dory onto the roof rack. Delaney apologized to WHISTLER for the rough treatment. At the beginning of this adventure, the hull didn’t have a scratch on it.
We had done only about 6 of the 26 miles of the circumnavigation of the Blue Hill Peninsula we’d set out to do, but we’d had more than our fair share of adventure. We might have made the whole loop if we’d had more time, or a more friendly weather forecast. We had underestimated the difficulty of hauling a 17′ dory to an ancient and inaccessible portage, and if we had done a little more reconnaissance, we might’ve known what we were getting into. But we had made an attempt, and managed to have a good time and keep each other going even while doing something that couldn’t be done.
Tom Conlogue is a former WoodenBoat School waterfront staff member who is currently feeding a crippling boat addiction as a student at Maine Maritime Academy. He can usually be found near some patch of water messing about in small boats.
If you have an interesting story to tell about your adventures with a small boat, please email us a brief outline and a few photos.
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Photographs by the author
