Articles - Page 7 of 51 - Small Boats Magazine

Valgerda

The hull design for this handsome jekte (Norwegian for this type of boat) should be credited to generations of builders along the shores of Hardangersfjord, Norway. We’re told that these double-enders enjoy a reputation for hard work and possess rough-water capability comparable to our peapods and Sea Bright Skiffs.

One day in the early 1950s, John Atkin and his father, William, caught a quick glance of an imported Hardangersjekte resting in a lot beside a busy New York highway. The hull form, perfected by evolution, moved them. Fortunately for posterity (us), the Atkins found a sister hull, and John set about taking off its lines. (That is, he recorded measurements from the boat and used the data to draw the hull lines on paper.) Because he suspected that a transplanted jekte wouldn’t be carrying its usual cargo- a healthy catch of fish – he drew a shallow ballast keel that housed about 106 lbs of lead.

An expert Norwegian builder had planked the Hardangersjekte with lapped and riveted ½” pine strakes that measured some 18″ in width. Aware that 20″ -wide boards of any usable species would be hard to find, the Atkins specified ¼” plywood for the hull of this boat. John’s drawings indicate that lapstrake construction gave way to multiple chines.

Because we now have access to epoxy, you might consider building Valgerda using the glued-lapstrake plywood method favored by Joel White for his Nutshell prams and their cousins (see WoodenBoat No. 60, page 100). This technique is faster than battened multi-chine construction in the hands of most builders, and it can produce a slightly lighter boat with a cleaner interior. Shadow lines cast by the laps will accentuate the hull’s shape, as they must have in the original Hardangersjekte.

Although similar boats had been fitted with tall, sloop rigs for racing and daysailing in their native waters, the Atkins gave Valgerda a solitary standing lugsail. William applauded the chosen rig as being “a most practical one for for hard use and thin pocketbooks; to say nothing of long life.”

In the interest of control and simplicity, you could replace the standing lugsail with a balanced lug. The modest ability of the latter to reduce sail twist might be appreciated in a boat with so narrow a sheeting base, and the gooseneck fitting would be eliminated. A slightly more robust mast and partner would permit dispensing with all standing rigging – at the cost of some what greater weight.

A long time ago, I had the pleasure of rowing a boat built to these plans. Strong effort was required to get her moving, but she consumed little power underway. Between strokes, Valgerda’s considerable momentum could have carried her into the middle of next week. She loved rough water and had sense enough to mush through the small waves and ride over the big ones. Rowing this boat was pure joyor would have been if the builder hadn’t installed a centerboard trunk.

-M.O’B.

Plans from Atkin & Company, Box 3005,
Naroton, CT06820.

Design No. 1

Working on the coast of Maine in 1985, Bob Stephens drew his Design No. 1 for the Williams College-Mystic Seaport Maritime Studies Program. The commission stipulated that the boat must carry seven adults, or fewer crew and considerable cargo, it should be propelled easily by a motor of moderate size, and it should be trailerable.

The young designer responded with this plywood launch. Considerable deadrise (“V” to the bottom) forward – considerable, at least, for a sheet-plywood hull – and a relatively high bow, reportedly result in good windward performance even in dirty weather. Back aft, the deadrise diminishes, giving the boat greater initial static stability than most of its deep V counterparts. In an effort to gain volume (for carrying large loads) and to spread out the displacement, Stephens drew the chines well forward before sweeping them upward to meet the stem.

The working drawings call for straight forward, traditional plywood construction. That is, you’ll have to make and bevel seven frames, real chine logs, sheer clamps, knees, all that good stuff. Some builders might prefer to see greater use of longitudinals, the elimination of some transverse frames, and, perhaps, stitch-and-glue construction. As may be, following the plans as drawn results in a stiff, relatively light ( 600 lbs) hull.

Good sheet-plywood outboard boats – really good ones- are hard to find. But they are out there if you look, Calkins’ Bartender, Dunbar’s Bristol Bluefish, Bolger’s Diablo, and others. By all reports, Stephens’ 18-footer can run in their company. Not bad for Design No. 1.

-Mike O’Brien

The Boston Whaler Montauks

Chutaro lives on Majuro Atoll in the Marshall Islands and needs a boat that will do a wide variety of things very well: carry his young family of five around the coral-studded lagoon, sit upright on a sandy beach, drift reef flats while fishing, navigate breaking waves, and ferry people and supplies across open ocean to distant atolls. For over 20 years, Ben’s do-it-all boat has been a 16 Montauk—a Boston Whaler that was built in 1974 and is 16′ 7″ long with a 6′ 2″ beam and a 9″ draft and powered by a 90-hp Honda outboard.

In addition to frequent trips in his 16 Montauk inside and offshore of Majuro Atoll, Ben has made scores of safe passages to outlying atolls. I’ve had the good fortune to join him on many of those trips including perhaps two dozen open-ocean passages ranging from 20 miles to well over 60 miles. For our most recent trip in September 2023, Ben added a slightly larger 17 Montauk to his fleet. Built in 2004, it is 17′ long with a 7′ beam and a 9″ draft.

By the time Boston Whaler built the first-generation 16 Montauk in 1973, the boat already had a distinguished pedigree. The design was a collaboration between Dick Fisher and his friend, Ray Hunt. Fisher was a Harvard philosophy grad who ran a small business near Boston, but he tinkered with novel small-boat designs and new fabrication materials and methods. Hunt was a prep-school dropout, champion sailor, and self-taught naval architect who would go on to find fame as a designer of fine motor and sailing yachts.

Their first product was the original 13′ Boston Whaler, which launched the company in 1956. That first boat incorporated three fundamental innovations of hull design and fabrication that were subsequently carried over, virtually unchanged, to the 16 Montauk. The most distinctive innovation was the cathedral hull that placed a pair of longitudinal runners or sponsons in the forward section of the hull on either side of a narrow and moderately V-shaped central hull—a configuration that required the wide hull that came to characterize the Montauk line. In the aft section of the hull, the sponsons and the central V gradually merge to form a generally flat surface for planing.

The cathedral hull remains an important part of the Whaler mystique today, but the company gradually phased it out in the Montauk line in favor of a moderate V-shaped hull that would provide customers a drier and more cushioned ride. Today all new Montauks have moderate V-shaped hulls forward with only vestigial sponsons that seem intended only to deflect spray and to maintain a visual connection with the Montauk heritage.

Photographs by the author

The first-generation 16 Montauk was essentially an enlarged version of the original 13′ Boston Whaler. Indeed, the Montauk maintained the distinctive Boston Whaler cathedral hull, the injected polyurethane foam between the inner and outer hull skins, and the self-drain cockpit and low freeboard. New to the Montauk was the substantial center console.

The second and perhaps most significant innovation was the polyurethane-foam core injected between the molded fiberglass interior and exterior. This revolutionary approach allowed the new company to mass-produce affordable boats that were strong, lightweight, durable, and unsinkable. Called Unibond construction, it remains a central feature of all Boston Whaler boats today.

The third innovation involved an elevated self-draining cockpit sole and a low freeboard to limit the volume of water that could accumulate inside the boat if swamped. Together with the buoyancy of the foam core, the result was a boat that would float even if full of water and weighed down by an outboard motor, passengers, and gear.

The boat and the company took off in 1961 when Dick Fisher appeared in a series of marketing photos in Life magazine and elsewhere that featured him, sporting a bow tie and Harvard tweeds, in the stern of a 13′ Whaler as a saw cut the boat in half. Fisher then motored back to the dock in the aft section of the boat while towing the bow section.

Boston Whaler began offering a 16′ 7″ hull in 1961, and the company soon rolled out diverse models and marketing plans targeting every possible use from yacht tenders to bass boats to Coast Guard boats patrolling the Mekong River of Vietnam. In 1973 the company distilled what had become a dizzying scramble of 16′ 7″ models to focus on what they called the 16 Montauk.

In 1976 Boston Whaler modified the 16 Montauk hull shape within the same overall dimensions and changed the name to 17 Montauk. Bob Dougherty designed the new hull to moderate the extremes of the early cathedral hull—reducing the sponsons and moving them inward slightly, increasing the width and depth of the central V in the forward section, and flattening the aft section a bit more. The narrowed sponsons were carried upward and inward as “reverse chines” to meet smoothly in the center. This created a wraparound bow chine that helps deflect spray and gives the bow an expressive lip that Boston Whaler calls a “smirk.” The 17 Montauk increased the finished hull weight from 750 to 900 lbs but kept the minimum and maximum outboard ratings at 35 and 90 hp.

The 170 Montauk was introduced to accommodate the heavier four-stroke engines which, by the early 2000s, were rapidly overtaking two-strokes in the marine-outboard market. The new 170 model retained the general Boston Whaler appearance despite significant changes to the hull below the waterline and increased height in the freeboard.

In 1998 the 17 Montauk hull weight was increased to 950 lbs and the maximum outboard increased to 100 hp. Some of the increase is likely due to a shift in materials that started in the 1990s and has now replaced more than half of the 30-odd plywood reinforcement pieces with fiberglass-reinforced composite board. These hull reinforcement pieces are required in places where extra strength is needed and where deck and hull fittings are mounted because the foam core and fiberglass shell are not strong enough in themselves. Plywood inserts are cheaper and lighter than composite board but are susceptible to rot.

At about the same time, Boston Whaler created a Commercial and Government Products Division that offered boats with even more robust specs for special uses. These boats often become available to the public as surplus, even though the boats still have decades of good use ahead of them. Ben estimates there are between 100 and 200 Boston Whalers on Majuro Atoll, and, like his 16 Montauk, perhaps 90 percent of them are military-spec boats that people on Majuro acquired as surplus from the U.S. military base on Kwajalein Atoll.

In 2002 Boston Whaler completely redesigned the boat—increasing the length to 17′ 0″ and the beam to 6′ 10″, modifying the hull further toward a V-shape, and eliminating the smirk. The name was changed to 170 Montauk.

The larger, heavier hull of the 170 Montauk was made necessary by the rapid adoption of four-stroke engines, which are much heavier than two-strokes of the same horsepower. Additional reinforcement was also added to the transom to support a small kicker outboard alongside the primary motor. The weight of the 170 Montauk increased to 1,440 lbs, and the minimum outboard size increased to 60 hp. Improved manufacturing processes reduced labor costs so much, however, that Boston Whaler reduced the suggested retail price 25 percent compared to the 2001 boat.

In 2018 Boston Whaler again redesigned the boat and increased its size once again but retained the 170 Montauk name. The length increased to 17′ 4″, the beam to 7′ 3″, and the draft to 12″. The hull shape was modified even further toward a moderate deep-V hull—again with the goal of providing a drier and more comfortable ride—while still retaining a visual link to the past. The hull weight increased to 1,700 lbs—more than double the weight of the 16 Montauk—and the minimum and maximum outboard sizes increased to 90 and 115 hp, respectively. This is the current design.

With a 50-year production run and roughly four design generations, the approximately 17′ Montauk has been in production longer and sold more copies than any other stock boat. Following its success, Boston Whaler currently offers the Montauk in nominal lengths of 15′, 17′, 19′, and 21′.

At speed the 170 Montauk is drier and smoother than the smaller, lighter 16 but, even when not fully laden, the most comfortable position for a passenger is standing alongside the helm at the center console.

Even the early Montauks were well built using high-quality materials and fittings; Ben’s 49-year-old boat is still going strong. Old boats generally require some repair and refitting, and like many other Montauk owners, Ben has done that work himself. A common task in old Montauks is to cut out and replace sections of floor where the foam core and plywood reinforcement pieces have become spongy. Cracks in the surface gelcoat and underlying fiberglass or leaks that develop over the decades around deck and hull fittings require repair and filling because water can seep through them to the interior core, eventually degrading the foam and migrating to any plywood reinforcements, which eventually rot.

Understanding what repairs to do, and how, and finding the necessary parts and diagrams and other information for an old Montauk is made easier by the large base of existing boats, OEM and aftermarket parts, official documentation, and helpful owners. A wealth of advice, parts, used boats, information, diagrams, and other resources can be found online.

Ben keeps one of his Montauks on a mooring and the other on a lift. With relatively modest V-hulls, flat stern sections, and shallow drafts, the boats are easy to get on and off the trailers, and the low freeboard makes it easy for people to get on and off the boat from a trailer or a dock or from shore. The boats are so stable that an adult can sit or stand on the broad rail without dramatically altering trim. The 16 Montauk is particularly easy to move up and down a launch ramp because of its relatively light weight—with a 90-hp outboard, fuel, water, food and gear, the boat only weighs about 1,400 lbs. Even the larger 170 Montauk can be towed and launched by a family car or SUV.

Boston Whaler says that even the 2018 design of the 170 Montauk will fit, albeit tightly, into a standard-sized single-car garage. Most new-boat dealers offer 170 Montauks with a trailer that has a swing tongue that shortens the overall length by 2′ 8″ and makes garage storage possible.

No matter which design, all Montauks can be run up or pushed directly onto a beach, where they will sit comfortably, flat and upright, and are then easily pushed back off into ankle-deep water for loading. The 16, 17, and 170 Montauks all have the same 19″ freeboard, which makes loading and unloading and getting in and out of the boats very easy.

All Montauks are center-console boats. The outboard sizes are too big to be controlled by a tiller, and the combined weight of a large outboard motor and an operator would put the boat well out of trim. Of equal importance is the Montauk’s relatively hard ride in rough water. At planing speed, the ride is usually too hard to take sitting down except in the aft section of the boat. It’s best to stand at the console for support and have your legs absorb the pounding.

Fuel for the 16 and 17 Montauks and for the 2002, 170 Montauk is stored in two plastic fuel tanks under the skipper’s seat. The 2018, 170 Montauk has an integrated 25-gallon aluminum fuel tank.

Seen side by side the difference in the hull shape between the 170 Montauk (left) and the 16 Montauk is clear. While the 170 is less than 1′ longer and only 8″ beamier (the newest 170 is an additional 5″ beamier), the 170 is significantly larger thanks to the increased freeboard and flare forward. The evolved hull shape is also obvious having moved from the archetypal cathedral hull of the 16 Montauk to the narrower sponsons and wider forward v-section of the 170.

All versions of the Montauk have dry storage space inside the center console and an integrated storage space for an anchor and anchor rode built into the bow platform and covered by a plywood hatch. The 2002 and 2018 designs of the 170 Montauk both have storage space for two plastic trays of fishing tackle built into the starboard side of the console. Additional storage space and seating can be provided by strapping a cooler or heavy plastic storage box in front of the console and/or behind the captain’s bench. A big storage box placed aft of the captain’s bench doubles nicely as a seat for fighting big fish. The current 170 Montauk design has an optional cooler with cushions mounted forward of the console as additional seating.

The flat, open floor of the Montauk is ideal for stowing additional fuel, stores, and gear. On our recent three-week fishing expedition, both the 16 Montauk and the 170 Montauk were crammed with hundreds of pounds of fuel, stores, and gear—all carefully positioned and tied down. Once that cargo was removed, the flat, open cockpit floor and the bow platform made excellent casting platforms—one in the bow and one in the stern.

The Montauk’s hull is relatively short compared to its beam, and its aft section is nearly flat. The waterline length of the 16 Montauk is just a bit over 14′, and at planing speed it tends to bounce and pound a bit over short, choppy waves. The hull can come down hard, and any passenger not in the stern will likely be standing by the console with a firm hold on the grip rail.

An ocean passage in the 16 Montauk becomes tiring after a couple of hours even in only moderately rough conditions, but we have endured passages longer than eight hours when we were slowed by a brisk headwind and steep swells. In such conditions, Ben constantly works the throttle to manage the boat’s speed—getting up to plane whenever possible but backing down quickly when the boat begins to pound or heads into a big wave.

The ride in the 170 Montauk is noticeably softer and drier than in the 16 Montauk. Motoring at about 20 knots on our four-hour outbound passage, with a 10-knot wind and 1′ waves over confused 3′ swells coming onto the port bow, Ben and I only caught occasional spray in the 170 Montauk while Kimi Takiah and my son, Paki, were frequently hit with spray in the 16 Montauk. We expect the newer 170 Montauk design to be even more comfortable, but we don’t have direct experience on that boat.

Both the 16 Montauk and the 170 Montauk have very good lateral stability at all speeds and sea conditions. Both track and steer easily at all speeds—even when creeping slowly over shallow reefs with the outboard tilted up so just the bottom half of the prop is in the water. In that mode, both boats can operate safely in 1′ 9″ of water with only the outboard’s skeg and prop at risk. When necessary, we can tilt the motor all the way up and get out and walk the boat through water no more than 1′ deep.

Both boats readily rise to plane at about 3,000 rpm when lightly loaded and with only a light chop on the water. The 16 Montauk rises a bit more quickly—likely due to its significantly lighter weight—but the 16 Montauk was driven by a Honda 90-hp with a loading prop and the 170 Montauk was driven by a Yamaha 100-hp with a standard prop. Both boats run smoothly on a plane at about 20 mph as measured by GPS. The 170 Montauk runs at 22 mph at 3,300 rpm and at 37 mph at 4,600 rpm. We didn’t test it at higher rpm.

On the three-hour return passage, the 170 Montauk carried two people, 15 gallons of gas, 5 gallons of water, food, and gear. With a light breeze on the quarter and 3′ swells, the 16 Montauk planed at 22 mph at 4,200 rpm and 23 mph at 4,300 rpm. On that passage, the 170 Montauk averaged about 4.5 mpg; the 16 Montauk is more fuel efficient, averaging about 0.5 mpg better than the 170 Montauk. Two weeks later, Ben and Kimi made the same return passage on the 170 Montauk in much heavier weather with rough seas and crossing winds up to 20 knots; the 170 Montauk averaged only 3.0 mpg because the seas were too rough to maintain planing speed consistently.

In common with other planing hulls, neither Ben’s 16 Montauk nor his 170 Montauk can maintain a speed that is just below the boat’s planing speed. Both boats will generally plane at around 20 mph and 3,000 rpms when lightly loaded, but reducing the rpms to 2,800 does not decrease the speed proportionally. Instead, the boat goes off plane and slows to 12 or 14 mph because it no longer has the power to climb the bow wave. Revving up to 3,000 rpm or so again puts the boat back on plane and increases the speed from 12 or 14 mph all the way to 20 mph. It is not possible to speed up a little bit when running just below planing speed or to slow down a little bit when running right at planing speed. Running too slow and climbing the bow wave wastes time and fuel, but running too fast on a plane in a stiff chop or heavier seas can quickly get very rough and wet. The solution is to work the throttle constantly.

The 16 Montauk is light and nimble: easy to handle under power, easy to maneuver and to back down, and easy to manhandle whether at a dock, a ramp, or a beach. When the 16 Montauk became stranded on a beach during an overnight camping trip, Ben, Paki, and I were able to push the boat across coconut-frond skids off the beach and then 75 yards until we reached deeper water. Another advantage of an old, used 16 Montauk is that it might be acquired and refit inexpensively. Ben’s was already 30 years old and in need of TLC when he got it, and his DIY repairs and salvaged accessories don’t look out of place. We both like the boat.

Ben got the 170 Montauk this September mainly because it provides a softer and drier ride than his 16 Montauk. After 20 years, he was tired of the pounding on long ocean passages. I was, too. The other advantage of the 170 Montauk is that it is larger and roomier, so it provides more space for people and cargo and a larger platform for casting. Three people is a bit of a crowd when fishing from the 16 Montauk but not from the 170 Montauk.

Ben’s old 16 Montauk and his newer 170 Montauk represent the first and third generations, respectively, of the 17′ boat in Boston Whaler’s Montauk line. Both are well built, stable, stylish, and durable. Many thousands of owners use the boats as yacht tenders and for family excursions, water-skiing, and fishing inshore flats and ocean depths. A few, like Ben, use the boats to carry people and gear on long ocean passages. Military and law-enforcement personnel even use them as patrol boats. Both boats perform well over a wide range of activities, with the 16 Montauk excelling most at being light, nimble, and maneuverable, and the bigger, heavier 170 Montauk providing a roomier interior and a drier, more comfortable ride. And, in keeping with the Boston Whaler traditions, both are unsinkable.

Tim O’Meara grew up sailing and otherwise mucking about in small wooden boats on Lake Okoboji in northern Iowa during the 1950s and ’60s. In college he was fortunate to sail 30′ sloops on San Francisco Bay as a junior member of a club team, and during two summer breaks crewed on a wooden 50′ Rhodes cutter off the California coast and then around the Hawaiian Islands and back to San Francisco. After graduating in 1970, he set off with two friends and a brother and sailed around the Caribbean for a year in an aging fiberglass sloop. A lost year soon followed, during which Tim built a cold-molded version of the tender for Herreshoff’s yacht COLUMBIA; the tender now hangs in his garage above his 20′ Whitehall. Three graduate degrees in archaeology and anthropology were followed by 13 years of teaching at universities in the U.S. and Australia and then 25 years working as a consultant on economic development projects focused on the Pacific Islands where he learned to sail traditional wood canoes: in 1973 on the island of Taha’a in the Leeward Society Islands, and in 1988 and again in 1993 on Ifaluk Atoll in the Western Caroline Islands. Tim is now retired and spends as much time on the water as possible.

Classic 16 Montauk Particulars

LOA: 16′ 7″
Beam: 6′ 2″
Horsepower, min/max: 35/100
Dry Weight: 900 lbs

170 Montauk Particulars

LOA: 17′ 4″
Beam: 7′ 3″
Horsepower, min/max: 90/115
Dry Weight: 1,700 lbs

New 170 Montauks can be ordered from Boston Whaler in one of several colors and configurations at a base MSRP of about $47,697. Many options and accessories are available. Used Montauks of every type are widely available. Support for working with used Boston Whalers can be found at Continuous Wave, Whaler Central, and Classic Boston Whaler Owners Group.

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!

Banjo 20

Before Sam Devlin fired up the motor and backed the Banjo 20 from the dock, the two of us relaxed in the cabin and chatted about boats each of us had designed and built, family, and getting older. Before even casting off, the trailerable 20′ outboard pocket cruiser Sam had designed had lived up to one of its primary purposes: providing a comfortable place to welcome company. The geometry of the interior’s conduciveness to conversation was not incidental. The footwell has room to sit facing one another without crowding feet or knees and the benches are comfortable and set the cabin occupants neither too close to nor too far from each other.

I had met with Sam to take notes on the Banjo 20’s underway performance, but I was content to let the time slip by with the boat still tied to the dock. We did eventually cast off and get underway.

Photographs by the author

The airy cabin has a pair of 7′ 2″ benches. Six portholes and a skylight hatch brighten the space.

The Banjo 20 is built of plywood in the stitch-and-glue method that Sam pioneered in the late 1970s and detailed in Devlin’s Boat Building: How to build the stitch-and-glue way, first published in 1995 and updated in a second edition released in 2023. Plans for Banjo consist of 16 sheets of drawings, clear and easy to read, computer-rendered in color. They include a partial list of wood needed for the hull and deck and measured drawings in metric and imperial dimensions for the seven 18mm bulkheads that serve as molds, the transom, the 12mm side and bottom panels, and the doubled 12mm “ski.” The ski is an elongated triangle with its 39″ base at the transom and its apex on the centerline, 8′ aft of the forward perpendicular. It creates a flat planing surface at the aft 12′ of the hull where there would otherwise be a deep-V.

A porta-potti hides under a hinged seat. Behind it is a hatch that provides access to a storage space and a shelf that serves as a galley. A wood-burning stove makes chilly days and nights more comfortable.

The plywood panel edges get a 45-degree bevel along half the thickness to avoid the struggle to accurately align sharp, 90-degree corners with each other. The seams are given fillets of thickened epoxy inside and 6-oz biaxial cloth is applied inside and out. The exterior of the hull is sheathed in 6-oz fiberglass cloth and a layer of Dynel.

The keel and stem are a laminate of three layers of 3⁄4″ marine plywood, cut to fit the contours of the hull along the centerline. Fillets of thickened epoxy fair the backbone pieces into the hull and ’glass finishes the connection.

The drawings provide the information needed to build the boat without lofting or spiling but do not include a step-by-step guide to construction; Sam’s book will serve in that capacity. For a newcomer to boatbuilding, a smaller stitch-and-glue boat would be a useful hands-on introduction to the method.

The companionway at the aft end of the cabin has a folding door and a hinged hatch that open to provide easy passage to the pilothouse.

The aft end of the cockpit is open for 49″ of its length. Flanking the outboard-motor well are decked-over compartments for fuel tanks, easily accessed by openings in the bulkhead.

The 3⁄4″-plywood cockpit sole is above the waterline and self-draining. It is slightly convex and that 1⁄2″ of sway guides any water that accumulates to a drain pit, set under the motorwell, where it can be pumped overboard.

The skipper and a companion are protected from the elements by the pilothouse, which is open aft in the standard arrangement. The plans include details for fully enclosed accommodations.

The 6′ 10″-long pilothouse roof provides cover for the skipper and a passenger, with 6′ 6″ of headroom except for the roof beams that take up just 2″ of that clearance. Pilothouse seats are not detailed in the plans; commercial pedestal seats are bolted in place. The roof also offers protection for the cabin companionway and a flat interior extension of the foredeck where charts and other items needed while underway can be kept. The accommodations for the motor controls, wheel, and instrumentation are left up to the builder. The last sheet of the 16 drawings provides details for enclosing the aft end of the pilothouse with a bulkhead and a 24″-wide hinged door.

The companionway has a flat hatch cover, hinged at its forward end. When open, a hook, mounted on one of the beams supporting the pilothouse roof, engages an eye fastened to the side of the hatch. A bifold door opens the passage to the cabin. It’s a 10″ step down to the cabin sole; with the hatch cover open, there is standing headroom, so there’s no need to duck while stepping into the cabin. Forward of the opening, there is about 4′ 10″ between the sole and the roof.

On both sides of the motorwell there is plenty of covered space for fuel tanks.

Three portlights on either side of the cabin, along with a foredeck hatch/skylight, illuminate the interior. All can be opened for ventilation.

The side benches have good headroom and the back-rest cushions, held in place by snaps to make them removable, are set at a comfortable angle. The benches are 7′ 2″ long and can serve as berths; at their forward end they are 26″ wide. A builder looking for more sleeping space could make panels to insert over the footwell and use backrests as cushions there.

The Banjo, with a 90-hp outboard, comes up on plane in just a few seconds and will do 28.5 knots at wide-open throttle.

A removable panel and cushion, set flush with the side benches at their forward ends, covers a space that accommodates a portable head. The bulkhead at the forward end of the benches encloses a storage compartment and supports a shelf that serves as a galley.

The gallows and canvas cover for the cockpit are an option indicated in the plans.

The plans call for an outboard of 60- to 90-hp; the Banjo 20 web page mentions “a top end of 30 mph with a 115-hp engine or an economical 15- to 18-mph cruise with a 60.” That turned out to be an understatement. The Banjo I was aboard and pictured here has a 90-hp four-stroke outboard and running straight at full throttle, the Banjo hit 32.8 mph. At an idle the engine pushed the boat along at 7 1⁄2mph. When it was powered-up, the bow rose, as expected, for about 3 or 4 seconds and then settled back down, clearing the view from the helm to the horizon. The water was merely rippled at the time of these trials and the only waves we had were the Banjo’s own wake and that of a passing fishing boat. The V sections forward cut through them without pounding. I made a few turns at speed and the Banjo stayed very nearly level while carving through them.

The Banjo was designed to be “a bridge between a serious, large cruising boat and something that is small enough to enjoy on a whim.”

Sam wrote that the Banjo 20 was “designed as a compact, trailerable outboard cruiser that could move quickly when needed. She also needed to be able to access shallow river waters as well as being able to deal with the sometimes rough waters of San Francisco Bay.” That’s the designer in him speaking. In the conversation we had before we got underway it was clear that his aspirations for the boat reflect a shift in perspective as he approaches 70: the Banjo is a cozy setting for enjoying the company of friends and family whether at the dock or out for an afternoon or a weekend.

Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats.

Banjo 20 particulars

Length: 20′ 1″
Beam: 7′ 10″
Draft: 18″
Displacement: 3,400 lbs
Power: 60- to 90-hp outboard

Plans for the Banjo 20 are available from Devlin Designing Boat Builders for $325 (downloadable) and $375 (printed). Devlin’s Boatbuilding Manual, Second Edition is available from Sam Devlin (signed copies upon request) and the WoodenBoat Store for $45.

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!

Lake Roosevelt

Ever since I first saw Lake Roosevelt, a Columbia River reservoir in northeast Washington, I’ve wanted to voyage down its 133-mile length. The place seems made for small-boat cruising. The shoreline is almost entirely undeveloped because the west side of the lake is mostly tribal lands and the east side mostly federal lands. The sandy beaches, coves, and campsites are seemingly endless. The summer of 2023, decades after my first encounter with the lake, the stars aligned, and I was able to shove aside the affairs of life on land for two weeks. While August is not the best month for a voyage on Lake Roosevelt, because of the heat and light winds on the lower lake, this was my time. I packed the boat and on August 7 my wife dropped me off at Northport, a town on the left bank of the Columbia River about 10 miles downstream from the Canadian border.

Here, the Columbia isn’t a part of Lake Roosevelt but a large, forceful river, not yet blocked by the Grand Coulee dam. This free-flowing stretch is the domain of motorboats and canoes, not sailboats. I launched at the Northport ramp, just upriver from a 1⁄4-mile-long cantilever truss bridge. A strong, blustery upriver wind and swirling downriver current full of eddies and whirlpools made motoring under the bridge interesting. My 22′ mainmast just cleared the bridge. Beyond it I killed the motor and hove-to, then went forward to set the mainsail. Ordinarily SIRIUS, my modified Michalak Jewelbox Junior with a cat-yawl rig, heaves-to perfectly, but with the solid Force 5 wind countering the roiling current, the little boat didn’t know what to do and wandered all over the river. I balanced on the foredeck, trying to loop the snotter around the mast and hang the sprit boom. Holding the end of the boom on my shoulder, I struggled while the mainsail, its clew clipped to the other end of the boom, did its best to knock me overboard.

The boat eventually grounded itself on a gravel bank near the river-right shore, and I was able to get a reef tucked in and set the mainsail properly. With a pivoting leeboard, kick-up rudder, and 1″-thick flat bottom, I never worry about running aground, which is one of the reasons I like SIRIUS. Indeed, I usually sail her right onto the beach.

After pushing off the bank with an oar, I hauled the leeboard down by its pendant, caught the wind, and sailed out into midstream. I tried tacking but got caught in irons, stalled, and rolled about at the mercy of the conflicting wind and current. What the heck? For a flat-bottomed plywood box, this boat usually points high and foots fast, a paragon of sailing virtue. But I was beginning to understand the advice given to me by a friend, “Don’t launch a sailboat north of China Bend.” I realized the strong current from astern made steerageway difficult to maintain. I eased the mizzen sheet to fall off the wind a point or two and hauled the mainsail in tight. The boat heeled over and zoomed across the river, making short, broad tacks. As long as I kept the speed up, I could control the boat.

A couple miles below the town, I spotted my wife sitting on the railroad tracks that follow the left bank. She wanted to be sure I had everything well in hand before driving away. I hove-to close to the bank and we shouted our goodbyes. We didn’t expect to be able to communicate for days, if at all, because we knew the area’s cellphone coverage was poor in these parts. As it turned out, I found enough signal to get a call out every day.

With the strong current going my way I covered plenty of ground, industriously short-tacking down the river. In an hour the river slowed, and the wind stilled. Nestled on the left bank was a quiet cove backed by the railroad line that crossed a stream on a rusted trestle bridge. I sailed in and landed to stretch my legs and have lunch. This is the mouth of Onion Creek, the official start of the 133-mile-long Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area according to my only navigational aid, the National Park Service map, which I’d picked up at the launch ramp.

When I left the cove, the wind on the river had died and I didn’t feel like just drifting, so I racked the sprit boom on the cabintop, rolled the mainsail up from the clew, loosely furled it to the mast with the snotter, and started the motor.

Soon the lazy river started to pick up speed. Ahead, it narrowed between tall cliffs and with the aid of my binoculars I confirmed that an eddy line stretched clear across the river! That usually means rapids ahead, although the map didn’t indicate any here. I hurriedly raised the leeboard, donned my life jacket, and made sure everything was squared away. I gunned the motor to maintain steerageway as the current continued to gather speed. I’m no stranger to rapids, but I’ve certainly never run them in a sailboat. “OK,” I figured, “keep the boat pointed downstream, try not to hit anything, and whatever you do, don’t get broadside on a rock.” I’ve lost a boat that way before.

There were no rocks, but the current was powerful and unpredictable, full of 10′ whirlpools and strong eddy lines. The volume of water moving through this narrow gorge, called the Little Dalles, is tremendous. The Columbia has flowed more than 500 miles from its source by the time it reaches here, gathering the flows of countless streams and tributaries along the way.

SIRIUS was grabbed by an unseen eddy and instantly heeled over so far that I let go the tiller and threw myself to the cabin floor to help keep her upright. This was no place for a boat with a deep, hard chine like SIRIUS. The gorge funneled an upriver wind so strong it unfurled the mainsail from the mast; having 96 sq ft of sail flapping furiously about didn’t help matters. Fortunately, the Little Dalles gorge is only 300 yards long, and I was soon out into calmer waters.

Beyond the gorge the wind died again, and the current slowed to about 2 mph, so I lowered the sail and kept motoring. Two or three miles downstream the water went glassy, and I cut the motor, letting the boat drift. The afternoon had turned hot, so I stripped down, jumped in, and swam around the drifting boat. SIRIUS has a boarding step on the stern at waterline, and with the help of the mizzen boomkin and mast, climbing from the water is easy enough.

Back aboard I broke out the stove and brewed afternoon tea. Two jet skis passed by, heading north. I cooked and ate dinner. The two jet skis passed by again, heading south. That was all the boat traffic for that day. Eventually I refilled the motor’s fuel tank and continued, passing China Bar, a 65-yard-long, narrow island where Chinese immigrants panned for gold back in the 1860s. The evergreen-crested bar looked like a great place to camp, but I had no idea how long this trip might take and figured I’d better press onward. I passed the China Bend boat ramp on the left bank, which is as far upriver on the lake as big boats dare to launch.

The Columbia curved to the west, and I found a cove in the north bank where Flat Creek tumbles down to the lake. I went up as far as I could, tossed the anchor over the bow among the rocks of the creek, and let the boat snuggle against the muddy bank. Despite a late start thanks to the current, I’d made some 14 miles, according to the river-mile marks on the map.

The Jewelbox Junior is a Birdwatcher design, sailed from inside an 8′-long slot-top cabin. For a 15′ boat accommodations are pretty good. Low seats line the cabin sides where the headroom is about 36″. At night, filler boards bridge the seats to make a double berth. A vinyl cover supported on wooden slats snaps over the slot at night or during inclement weather. As tall grasses along the creek brushed the port cabin windows and a hundred little bugs swarmed around my light, I listened to a pocket radio tuned to a Canadian station for company as I read myself to sleep.

The next morning, the silvery beads of a heavy dew covered the boat. I had a pleasant breakfast-in-bed of tea and oatmeal, listening to the chuckle of the little stream and reading The Venturesome Voyages of Captain Voss. Underway by 9 a.m., I motored downriver through the North Gorge where I feared a repeat of my experience in the Little Dalles. I needn’t have worried. Steep, wooded hills reared above the river, but the channel was wide and the water glassy. I stayed close to the right bank where I discovered several little rock-bound coves, one with a waterfall.

There was no longer a discernible current; the Columbia had turned into a lake and with no wind, the voyage was turning into a motor-cruise. My little two-stroke outboard was so loud I wore earplugs. I landed to explore North Gorge Camp and walked the train tracks along the shore. The line ran right beside the road at the camp entrance, but the two soon diverged: the road headed inland while the rails veered through the forest close to shore. The rails, spiked to wooden sleepers, were bright with use. Through the trees I caught glimpses of the quiet cove on the upriver side of the camp.

I motored on and by 11:30 a.m. a gentle upriver wind had sprung up. I killed the motor and raised sail to conserve fuel. I had brought only 1 gallon of gas and couldn’t get more until the marina at Keller, about 40 miles below Northport. I tacked downriver and upwind for several hours, making a gentle 3 mph. Gradually the wind grew and at 2 p.m. I landed at a boat launch at Snag Cove. Despite the name, here there is neither cove nor snags. I went ashore for lunch carrying my stove to brew tea but had a beer instead, courtesy of a passing fisherman. The wind grew strong but fluky, and I left Snag Cove reefed, but soon shook out the reef to make better time. I luffed through strong gusts, on and off sailing, becalmed, then wham!…another gust. It was tiring and took several hours to reach the first big bay of the trip, about 1 mile wide and 2 miles long. Here the wind blew strong and steady. Rather than reef, I flew along close to the wind and sailed full-tilt up to the dock at Evans Campground, cast off the sheets at the last possible moment, and leapt ashore with docklines in hand. It was a perfect landing, but no one was there to witness it.

It was 5 p.m. and I was bushed. I set up my kitchen under a pavilion and cooked a good dinner of a homemade polenta-couscous mix with diced tomato, cheese, and tea. I considered sleeping on shore, but it looked like rain and I hadn’t brought a tent. The wind was dying, and I was tired, but I didn’t want to stay on the dock in this exposed location, fearing I wouldn’t sleep well. SIRIUS has pronounced rocker fore-and-aft, which makes her rather tender, so it’s best to beach her for the night. Besides, visitors leaving a boat at the dock all night are supposed to pay for a campsite. I sailed from the dock bound for the opposite shore, only a mile away, but the winds had calmed, and it took me an hour of tacking upwind to cross the bay to Summer Island, one of the many boat-in campsites on Lake Roosevelt that are free of charge and are first-come, first-served. I landed on the sandy shore at 7 p.m. I’d managed 13 miles that day. The beach was sheltered and quiet, and I had the whole island to myself. I bathed in the lake and turned in for the night.

It rained a little that night, but not much. The next day was overcast and cool, and I left the vinyl cover in place over the cabin’s slot-top; it looked like that kind of day. I had a lazy morning, cast off at 10:30 a.m., and sailed away from Summer Island in light, variable winds, chasing ripples across the lake. I didn’t get far and was soon motoring slowly along with sails up. The bay narrowed back into a river between rocky banks and low wooded bluffs, and I could see weeds bending in a gentle current. The water was glassy, reflecting a gray sky.

Somewhere along the way I passed over the remains of the town of Marcus, one of the 10 communities drowned when the lake was formed. I motored past Marcus Island Campground and out into the biggest bay on the Roosevelt, more than 1 mile wide and 5 miles long. The water here was rippled and the wind light. I was on my last tank of gas, so I killed the motor and ghosted. A gentle breath of air from the north pushed me down the bay from behind, the first following breeze I’d experienced on the trip. I ghosted straight down the middle of the bay, headed for the narrow exit straddled by the Kettle Falls Bridge. Halfway down the bay, the wind picked up and shifted to the west, putting me on a reach, and as I neared the bridge the water grew choppy; the wind shifted to dead on my bow and increased to about as much as I care to handle without a reef. As I got closer to the bridge, I could see that it was not one, but two bridges close together. I’d have to pass under the lower railway bridge first. I short-tacked up close but at the last moment chickened out and sprang to the motor. It came alive at the first yank, I cranked it wide open and motored through, bouncing in the chop. The wind was just too strong and fickle in the narrow gap, and there was little room for error.

After clearing both bridges, I killed the motor and was once again tacking down a narrow river against a strong south wind, heeled well over. Soon the wind quieted, the boat settled back upright, and the flat bottom pounded in a leftover chop. I started shifting my weight to the leeward side of the boat with every tack to heel it over—a flat-bottomed boat has to sail heeled in a chop or it will pound to a stop. I was making little progress and eventually gave up, furled the sails to the masts, and started the motor. I had just enough fuel to get to Kettle Falls Marina, not quite 2 miles below the bridge.

I tied up at the gas dock, refilled my 1-gallon gas can, and bought oil and an ice cream.

I motored out of the little marina and raised sail. The wind was now blowing from the north, strong enough that I took in a reef. I ran off to the south, making good time as the wind continued to build and entered the mile-wide bay above Rickey Point, where about a dozen large sailboats are kept on moorings. A mass of low rain clouds rolled down the hills from the northwest behind me, and I considered ducking into a cove on the right bank for shelter. But I was making such good time, the storm wasn’t gaining on me, and I didn’t care to spend the rest of the day swinging at anchor in the rain; so I made sure the cover over the slot-top was snug, put a transparent drop board in the forward companionway, dropped the aft flap, and kept right on going downwind. It felt odd sailing with the cabin battened down for heavy rain. I could see out the windows, but not directly behind, and I couldn’t see the mainsail at all.

Suddenly SIRIUS was hit by a terrific gust of wind and heeled well over, and I cast off the mainsheet as fast as I could. The storm had overtaken me. Because I couldn’t see the mainsail it took me a moment to figure out what was happening. The wind was now blowing hard from the west and the boat was caught broadside on. Torrential rain hammered, thunder boomed, and the wind increased yet again, heeling the boat alarmingly. The only thing I could think to do was to heave-to. I had to plant both feet against the aft bulkhead to haul the mizzen flat, but the boat rounded up. I was amazed that nothing broke, but feared the flogging mainsail would knock the boat down any second. The rudder was hard over to port and SIRIUS was being driven backward across the lake at a surprising rate. I tried to force the rudder over to starboard but gave up as the force required was so great that I feared breaking something; then belatedly I realized that with the mainsail to port and the boat going backward, the rudder should also be to port. The boat knew what it was doing better than I did! I wanted to haul down the mainsail and considered reaching across the foredeck with a knife to cut the halyard, but the only way to get the sail down is to stand on the foredeck and free the boom’s snotter, which is looped tight around the mast trapping the sail lacing and halyard. The storm was frighteningly violent, but slowly I relaxed, realizing there was no immediate danger. SIRIUS is fully self-righting; the buoyancy of the high cabin sides and weight of the inch-thick bottom and 135 lbs of lead ballast will bring her right back up from a knockdown. A good deal of rain was driving in over the front drop board and under the slot cover. I put on my raincoat, life jacket, and hat, and spread a small tarp out to catch the rain coming into the cabin. I’d been blown clear across the lake and was headed right for the sailboats moored off Rickey Point!

I considered dropping the anchor, but with only 100′ of rode I had no hope of it finding the river’s deep bottom before I ran in among the moored boats. The storm moved eastward and the wind moderated, if not the rain. I loosened the mizzen to fall off the wind, gathered my courage and the mainsheet, and sailed downriver, away from the point, and left the storm behind.

The wind stayed In the north for the rest of the day, strong enough for a reef, but conditions moderated for a time and the sky shone brilliant blue between broken clouds. At 5 p.m. I landed at Bradbury Beach. The floating dock there was pitching in the waves and the approach was guarded by log booms. I hove-to and tried to furl the mainsail, but the wind was too strong; I had to lower it instead. I started the outboard and steered for the dock but had to abort the attempt. I gunned the motor to spin the boat about, got out past the booms, and ran the bow up on a sandy beach in their lee.

I stretched my legs on solid ground but couldn’t stay. The sky had darkened again; another storm was blowing down from the north. I pushed off the beach and motored south along the left bank looking for a cove. About 4 or 5 miles down, Barnaby Island came into view off the right bank and, just as heavy rain hit, I spied a small opening in the opposite bank and motored into Quillisascut Creek. With the strong tailwind and motoring I’d covered about 20 miles from Summer Island where the day had started.

I waited out the storm, then motored back out into the lake to find a cellphone signal and, drifting broadside to the waves and rolling all the while, made a brief call to my wife. The fetch was miles long and considerable chop had built up. Motoring back to the creek, I had to quarter the waves—SIRIUS could not take them on the beam. Well up the creek I put the stern on a bank, tied up to a tree, and tossed the anchor off the bow into the grass on the other side. Only tiny wavelets made it all the way up to where I was. I cooked dinner and ate as the sun set, glad to be in a snug, dry, cabin.

I spent the next morning in the cove. I tidied the boat, wandered the beach, explored the nearby woods, and had a shower under a cataract that tumbled 20′ over moss-covered rocks. At about 11:30 a.m., I took my leave and sailed across the lake on a broad reach before a brisk north wind under blue skies scattered with fluffy cotton-ball clouds. I bore away to run the gap between the west bank and Barnaby Island, a 1-acre wooded islet rimmed in sand and silver-gray driftwood. The passage was too shallow even for SIRIUS. Barnaby Island is no longer listed as one of the boat-in camps, but I could see picnic tables and latrines among the trees. About 1 p.m. the following wind picked up so much that I hove-to and took in two reefs. The boat quieted right down with the double reef. I think I was being overly cautious, worried about another surprise storm. A half hour later I made Daisy Station on the left bank where the gas station, store, and restaurant are now out of business. As the wind died, I shook out the reefs and drifted, bobbing about in the leftover waves.

In a little while a south wind sprang up and I tacked down the lake. The lake here is about a mile wide between low wooded bluffs with scattered sandy beaches. For the first time the wind blew nice and steady. I strapped the tiller amidships with a bungee cord, cleated the mainsheet, and adjusted the mizzen to hold a course about 45 degrees off the wind. SIRIUS would hold her course like this for hours. When we neared a bank, I’d push the tiller over to come about, then center the tiller again and go back to writing in my journal, talking to my wife on the phone, and making lunch. I even washed some clothes, using the aft deck as a washboard and towing them behind on a cord to rinse. I hung them to dry on the boom. While SIRIUS sailed herself, I stood on the aft deck with a hand on the mizzenmast, studying the scenery, or sat on the forward cabintop, mesmerized by the bow wash.

At about 6 p.m., the wind left for the evening. I furled the sails, started the motor, and putted past the Gifford-Inchelium ferry. A little beyond the landing on the right bank I passed a series of coves.

I killed the motor and broke out the oars for some exercise. I set SIRIUS up for stand-up rowing with 9′ homemade oars. She is no joy to row, but with the sails furled and the leeboard and rudder up I can maintain about 2 1⁄2 mph and have rowed a mile or two upon occasion. (Mostly I use the oars for maneuvering or poling in shallow water.)

On this fourth day, I’d made 15 river miles downstream, much of it beating to windward. I chose a sandy beach in a small cove that my map said was about 75 miles up-lake from Grand Coulee dam. It was wide open to the east, so I would be awakened by the morning sun.

The next morning, I was underway by 8:30 a.m., sailing gently downwind past wooded hills interspersed with sheer sand cliffs, sometimes as much as 100′ high. At the base of the cliffs spread beaches of fine, white sand. It was Friday, and there were plenty of smaller powerboats on the water and camps on shore. There was not a cloud in the sky and the day was already on its way to being a scorcher, but it was pleasant in the shade of the mainsail. By 11 a.m. the wind died, and I couldn’t drift on the lake, baking in the heat, so I started the motor. Within half an hour I had landed on an empty sandy beach on the right bank a few miles upriver from Hunters Campground. A swim in the lake cooled me right down and I shaved while standing waist deep in the water, my pocket mirror propped up on the stern deck. After lunch, enough of a breeze sprang up from the south to make beating to windward profitable and I was on my way again.

I made the floating dock at Hunters Campground under sail and stayed long enough to refill my water jugs before casting off.

I tacked to windward the rest of the day, usually with the helm untouched. Many of the beaches were occupied by campers, with boats lined up along the shore, tents pitched, music blaring, and ski boats and jet skis blasting in and out. The weekend had come to the popular part of the lake. About 7:30 p.m. I landed on an empty, sandy beach at the mouth of Oh-Ra-Pak-En Creek for a swim to cool off and remove the sweat of the day. I looked up and realized I was providing entertainment for a bunch of people camped on the opposite shore of the creek who had nothing better to do but sit in the shade and watch the antics of the old guy in the odd little boat across the way. It creeped me out, so I pushed off and motored as far up the narrow and deep creek as I could both for privacy and to get out of the setting but still blinding sun. I anchored among the submerged snags at the head of the creek. Evening sent a breeze down the canyon, cooling me off as I dined on canned chili, diced tomato, some baby Gouda cheese, the last of the bread, and a pot of tea. I had covered about 17 river miles—not counting the endless tacks—almost entirely under sail, which was a record for SIRIUS. The breeze blew all night, making the boat swing to her anchor, and I slept soundly.

Saturday, the sixth day of the voyage, dawned bright and cloudless but the sun couldn’t penetrate up the canyon and I didn’t get underway until almost 10 a.m. I motored down the creek and out past Camp Enterprise, which had at least a dozen boats pulled up along the beach. The shore looked like a tent city. Here the lake jogs westward in a big dogleg. The day was already getting hot as I motored across to the right bank to find a shady beach to wait for a wind. As I neared the far side, the outboard’s fuel tank started rattling sharply inside the housing. I landed in a shady cove and went for a swim as the engine cooled. I disassembled the motor and found the tank mounting bolts had worked loose, an easy fix.

I stayed in the cove for two hours, beachcombing and waiting for wind. The morning was hot and still, without a cloud in the blue sky. Motorboats occasionally chewed up the lake, throwing huge wakes. Finally gentle cat’s-paws appeared on the water. I motored out to meet them, shut down the engine, and ghosted along. I rowed now and then, but it was too hot, and my heart wasn’t in it. It took three hours to make the next 5 miles, to the end of the dogleg where the lake turns south again. Around the bend is a bay more than 2 miles wide. Here, a good south wind sprang up and I tacked a few miles south before it died. It was still early, but I’d had it for the day. There were several coves with sandy beaches on the left bank, but I needed to get out of the afternoon sun and find shade on the right bank. I sailed for another half mile, gave up, and motored on my last tank of fuel across to a small, rock-bound cove that was in the shade on the right bank. I’d managed only about 7 1⁄2 miles.

I dropped the anchor and bathed standing in the self-draining bow well, pouring water over my head with the anchor rode bag. I had my last tomato and the last of the cheese with dinner. Feeling much better, I hung a kerosene lantern from the end of the sprit boom racked on the cabintop—the first time I’d bothered with an anchor light—and settled back against my pillows to catch up on my journal.

On Sunday morning, I was vigorously bounced awake by sharp little waves entering the cove. I sat up and was blinded by the low-angle morning sunlight. Groggily I hunted up my watch, it was just after 6 a.m. A reefing wind blew southward past the mouth of the tiny cove. I got an early start and, before too long was heading south under one reef, making great time. About 5 miles along, I spotted a 70′ pontoon houseboat beached on the west shore, looking like a stranded whale. I knew that boat well, having done plenty of work on it this summer. I released the mainsheet, threw the tiller over, and ran the boat up at speed on the sandy beach about 100’ from the houseboat. As SIRIUS scrunched to a stop on the white sand beach I hopped over the bow and startled a black bear that had been foraging near the houseboat. It ran off and scrambled up a sandy hillside sparsely forested with ponderosa pines and sagebrush. That set the dogs on the houseboat barking, and soon my bleary-eyed friends were peeking out at me. It was only 8:30 a.m. We spent an hour chatting, and they generously refilled my gas can and gave me a gallon of two-cycle oil.

I continued south, enjoying the strong following wind and making great progress. I had planned to stop for two-cycle oil at the marina at Two Rivers, the confluence of the Spokane River and Lake Roosevelt, but since I no longer needed any, I continued past.

Three miles farther down on the left bank is Seven Bays Marina, home of the only restaurant on the lake. As I neared it, the Roosevelt grew crowded with all kinds of motorboats heading this way and that. SIRIUS carried the only sail in sight, and I was grateful for the strong wind that enabled me to plow through the confusion of wakes and chop. I hove-to outside the marina entrance to furl sails and motored into the courtesy dock where SIRIUS looked out of place among the fiberglass and aluminum powerboats. I enjoyed a cheeseburger at the restaurant and filled an extra gallon jug with gas. I might need it if the weather turned back to hot and still.

After leaving the marina, I sailed a few miles down the lake as the wind gradually faded away and the lake grew calm. Without the wind it became very hot. I started the motor and sat on the stern deck with the tiller between my legs, an umbrella balanced on my shoulder to shield me from the broiling sun. The cabin was a greenhouse, too hot to occupy. I entered the wide mouth of Hawk Creek where, on its north shore, a wedge of shade was cast by a sheer basalt cliff that plunged into the lake at the mouth of a small cove. SIRIUS had turned into a furnace, the wooden cleats and dark green trim too hot to touch. I beached in the shade. The water was murky with fine clay silt, but I was far too hot to care and spent an hour floating in the shade on a seat cushion, then sat in the shade reading and writing until 6 p.m.

In the cooler evening I motored up the creek. The entrance is 300 to 400 yards wide with many sandy beaches and campsites, gradually tapering down to a narrow, winding channel enclosed by tall, sheer cliffs called the Palisades. The sun couldn’t penetrate in there and it was cool in the shady passage. Little kayaks and paddleboards splashed about like water bugs, and several motorboats were anchored, one with smoke curling up from a barbecue on deck. I motored on through and the Palisades opened up to reveal shady Hawk Creek Campground nestled below sage-covered basalt hillsides. I motored, rowed, then poled as close as I could to the 40’ waterfall at the head of the canyon, but SIRIUS ran aground about 200’ shy of it. The day was fading, and eventually I headed back downstream and anchored in a shady, rock-bound cove on the south shore near where the mouth of the creek opens onto the lake.

During dinner, while spreading peanut butter on a cracker, I carelessly dropped my sheath knife onto my air mattress. Naturally, it landed point-first. I had no patch kit, and I spent the rest of the trip sleeping on a flat mattress.

On the morning of my eighth day out, the radio warned of a heatwave with temperatures in the shade exceeding 100 degrees. From here, Lake Roosevelt no longer heads south but turns northwest. Underway at 8:30 a.m., with no wind and not a cloud in the sky, I motored slowly close to the left bank where there was the most shade. I sat on the stern deck, with the umbrella on my shoulder, and occasionally plunged my shirt over the side and put it back on, dripping wet. The lake here is 1⁄2 mile wide and bordered by desiccated grass-covered slopes rising to rocky sage-covered hills. Gone were the forests of upriver; this was desert country. Gone also was the boat traffic. It occurred to me that a desert is not the ideal location to sit out a heatwave, and that I was now utterly dependent upon the cheapest and perhaps most unreliable outboard sold, which had never run so many miles without failing. If it quit, I might be in a bit of a pickle. I reasoned I’d row to the nearest available shade, cool off in the lake as necessary, and either fix it or wait for a wind to carry me to the nearest boat ramp where I would call my wife to come get me. I still had plenty of food, even if it was of the oatmeal, ramen, and canned tuna variety. With this contingency plan in place, I motored on.

I passed the ramp at Lincoln and the camp at Sterling Point, making perhaps 7 miles before I landed in a tiny cove with cool, crystalline water caressing a beach of coarse sand with tiny wavelets. Shade was provided by a sheer 40′ granite cliff and there were cool, rounded boulders to lean against. Seldom have I chanced upon such a nice spot. I stayed two hours, and maybe should have stayed two days, until the heat lessened.

I motored the next stretch at what passes for high speed with my outboard. From time to time, I dipped a cloth in the lake and wrung it out over the fins on the cylinder head to cool it down. The lake was glassy as I passed Whitestone Rock, a sheer-sided granite monolith that rises 700′ from the lake. The lake is over 1⁄2 mile wide here, the left bank rocky, the right bank rising in barren brown steps clothed in short prairie grass.

The engine ran out of gas after about 5 miles. I poured gas in and continued to the next shady beach to cool down. After a break in the shade yet again, it seemed better to cruise at 3 or 4 mph, so I motored slowly on past the ramp, the three-dozen lakeside houses at Hanson Harbor and the picnic tables at Goldsmith Campground and made the marina just past the Keller Ferry landing where I refilled my gas can yet again. I sailed for perhaps a mile beyond the marina in a light, fluky headwind to a big rocky island, but I soon gave it up as unproductive. I motored to the left bank and ran the bow up on a muddy beach in the shade below a steep bluff topped with houses. I drank two quarts of Gatorade while lying on my back in the boat with my feet propped up on the aft deck and passed the time reading.

At 7 p.m. I refilled the outboard and slowly motored into a blinding setting sun, past a confusion of jagged pillars, towering cliffs, and talus-draped ridges lining the bank, and turned into a deep, narrow opening that unexpectedly appeared among the cliffs and pillars. This led into a deep cove ringed with craggy granite, with a narrow dry wash choked with brush at the back. As I came in, a river otter slowly swam out. I’d pushed about 25 miles and was bushed. I set the anchor over the bow, tied the stern to the shore, bathed while standing in the bow well, and went to bed.

On the morning of my ninth day on Lake Roosevelt, I got underway at 8:30 and motored slowly along the left bank as before, stopping about every hour in any scrap of shade I could find to cool off. With only 10 miles to go, I was not in a hurry. I had arranged for my wife to pick me up at Spring Canyon, within sight of Grand Coulee Dam, at 2 p.m. The craggy granite cliffs gave way to low, sandy, sage-covered hills. An endless beach ran along the left bank. Without the cliffs, shady beaches were becoming rare, and I tied up to a big jumble of granite slabs and blocks along the shore for lunch. The pile was just steep enough to offer some shade as I settled in among the boulders. I watched fish swimming in the shady depths while I munched on crackers, peanut butter, a can of tuna, and a can of orange wedges, washed down with a quart of Gatorade. After the break, I motored the last few miles and at about 1 p.m. tied up to the dock at the Spring Canyon boat ramp. I spent the next hour swimming. My wife was right on time at 2 p.m.

Cruising the entire 133-mile length of Lake Roosevelt fulfilled a decades-long dream, but I still feel I’ve only scratched the surface, and nowhere near exhausted all the possibilities for exploration here. SIRIUS, a boat that can be beached at will and easily pushed off again, was a perfect match for the clean, clear, water, the broad blue sky, the coves and creeks, and the endless beaches.

Bob Van Putten and his wife live off-grid deep in the Washington mountains in a straw-bale cottage they built for themselves more than 20 years ago. He is a self-employed systems integration technician specializing in smaller municipal water and wastewater systems. Small boats and being close to the water provide him with dynamic engagement with the real, natural world and force him to live in the moment and continually renew his interest in life.

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.

Pot Cozies

A hot dinner at the end of a cold day on the water is a welcome reward. It’s all the more appreciated at camp or aboard a boat without a heated cabin, but there’s often no time to savor the meal before it gets cold. If dining attire calls for a cap and jacket, your cookpot could probably use something to keep it warm, too: a cozy.

It’s easy to make a cozy to fit almost any camp-cooking pot. The insulation is provided by Reflectix, a double-reflective, double-bubble insulation made for use in construction to provide thermal insulation for everything from water heaters to walls. Its silvery metalized polyester outer layers reflect heat and the two layers of polyethylene bubbles provide dead air space for insulation. The bubbles can’t be popped like those in bubble wrap can. I can stand on Reflectix with all my weight on one heel and not pop a single bubble.

The tape used to put a cozy together is aluminum film with an aggressive rubbery adhesive on one side, which is protected by a peel-off layer of treated paper.

Here’s how to make a camp-cookpot cozy:

Reflectix is designed to be used in environments as hot as 180 degrees F. A pot of water heated to a rolling boil and removed from the stove can be immediately set on Reflectix without damaging it but a cookpot heated to the point of making olive oil smoke will melt the material and leave some adhered to the pot. For the higher temperatures of frying, I’d recommend cooking in a fry pan and transferring the finished dish to the cookpot nestled in its cozy.

Meals can be eaten directly and immediately from the cookpot—the cozy makes it possible to hold it. The cozy will also keep food hot between servings. After I’d had a bowlful of seasoned instant rice, I put the lid on the pot and slipped it into the cozy. After 20 minutes in 55-degree temperatures, the rice was still pleasantly hot, about 122 degrees F.

Reflectix can also be used to insulate Nalgene bottles to keep ice water cold in the summer, serve as a windshield sun guard, and provide warm, cushioned seat pads.

Reflectix and aluminum tape can be purchased from hardware stores and online retailers. Small rolls of Reflectix and tape are available. AntiGravityGear offers kits for making single cozies. A similar-looking product carried by Home Depot under the Everbilt brand is only half as thick as Reflectix. It comes at about half the price but I recommend against using it.

Christopher Cunningham is the editor of Small Boats.

You can share your tips and tricks of the trade with other Small Boats Magazine readers by sending us an email.

Eversprout Telescoping Boathook

A boathook is handy to have on board any boat, but the smaller the boat is, the more awkward it can be to store. We like to have a boathook with a telescoping pole. Over the years we found that the twist-style mechanism on telescoping poles could become hard to operate due to corrosion, or the pole could collapse in on itself while pushing off a dock, especially if it was inadvertently twisted in a way that allowed it to retract. When we recently found that the Eversprout telescoping boathook has flip-tab locks, we gladly added one to our collection.

The 1 1⁄2-lb pole is 5′ long when retracted and 12′ long fully extended (Eversprout offers lengths of 1 1⁄2′ to 5′, 6′ to 18′, and 7′ to 24′). It has three sections made from anodized aluminum, which holds up well in the marine environment, and each section is friction-locked in place by a sturdy plastic flip-tab. We quickly came to prefer the flip-tab over the twist-lock of other telescoping poles, especially when our hands are cold, wet, and slippery. The flip-tab friction locks work well, even with gloved hands, and are a great option for folks with compromised dexterity or grip strength. Each section of the pole is keyed along its length to prevent rotation, which ensures proper control and orientation of the hook. We can pull as hard as we want with the pole, and while Skipper cannot push hard enough to get the pole to overcome the lock friction, I can slowly compress the pole using around 50 lbs of force, which is much more than I apply when pushing away from a dock. We have had no issues with the friction lock slipping in normal use.

The 12′ pole has two EVA foam grips, which provide a secure, balanced handhold even when the pole is fully extended. The grips are 5″ wide; one grip is at the base of the pole and the other is spaced 2′ up from the base. The closed-cell EVA is waterproof, and the manufacturer states that the pole will float for two minutes—presumably the time it would take before water getting inside the pole would make it sink. We dropped the pole in the water to test the claim, and it was floating just fine even after 10 minutes. Afterward there was very little water inside the pole, whether the pole was retracted or extended.

The pole has a galvanized tip with Acme threads that accept the boathook as well as a variety of attachments including a soft-bristle deck brush and household cleaning implements. The hook is 7 1⁄2″ long and made of nylon so it will not mar boat surfaces or corrode. It tightens down sufficiently on the pole threads to prevent rotation and adds 6″ to the length of the pole. The hook has three rounded tips and can be used to snag a line or push off a dock.

The Eversprout Telescoping Pole with boathook has been a welcome addition to our boating kit, and we have been very pleased with its overall design, quality, and utility.

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 5′ to 12′ Telescoping Pole with boathook is available directly from Eversprout and from the Eversprout Amazon store for $30.39.

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.

Compact Electric Air Pumps

The earliest sleeping pads I had for camping, back in the 1960s, were 3⁄8″ sheets of closed-cell foam. In the early ’70s I switched to the first self-inflating pad which was only three-quarter length but was easily a full 1″ thick and a great improvement in comfort. Since then, I’ve been drawn to longer, wider, and thicker pads and I am now more comfortable sleeping at anchor than I am at home.

These luxurious sleeping pads are also self-inflating, but it takes a long time for the foam inside to expand and draw air in through the intake valve. The earliest self-inflating pads had to be topped off by blowing into them, but the moisture that method introduced could damage the air-proof coating on the inside surface of the fabric. My two newest pads avoid that with pumps that are included. One of the pads has a small palm-sized fabric hand pump, good for topping off, and the other has an open-ended roll-top inflation bag to speed filling.

While the comfort of my largest sleeping pads has been well worth the time it takes to inflate them, I took a chance on buying two compact electric pumps with internal rechargeable batteries. Both are rated IPX4 (splashproof) and include five adapter nozzles and LED area lights.

Flextail’s Tiny Pump 2X is the smaller of the two products. It is powered by a USB rechargeable 1,300mAh battery and pushes air at 6.4 cu ft per minute with peak pressure of 0.58 lb per square inch. The light has three settings: 40, 160, and 400 lumens. A magnet can hold the Flextail to a steel surface, which can be handy. When the pump is turned on, it emits a shrill 90-decibel whine.

The 3-in-1 Solar Portable Air Pump from Exorux is powered by a 4,000mAh battery and delivers air at 10.6 cu ft per minute with a peak pressure 0.65 lb per square inch. Its light has settings for 50, 100, and 150 lumens, and also registers around 90 decibels while pumping. The Exorux pump, however, has a few extra features that the Flextail lacks.

While both pumps have USB ports for charging themselves, the Exorux has a 0.3W monocrystalline solar panel on one side for recharging itself in daylight as well as a USB 2A “emergency charger.” The fully charged Exorux recharged my Android smartphone from 16 percent to 79 percent in 2 1⁄4 hours, then stopped charging, good enough for an emergency.

I put the pumps to work inflating three of my sleeping pads: the old three-quarter-length Therm-a-Rest at 48″ × 20″ × 1 1⁄2″, a full-length Therm-a-Rest measuring 72″ × 20″ × 1 1⁄2″, and a luxurious Exped Megamat at 78″ × 31″ × 4″.

I inflated and deflated the mats with each pump and noted the time it took for the pump to rise in pitch, signaling that it was at its maximum pressure.

The Flextail pump inflated the smallest of the three mats in 20 seconds and deflated it in 20 seconds. The larger Therm-a-Rest took about 40 seconds to inflate and 30 seconds to deflate, and the Megamat inflated in 2 1⁄2 minutes, deflated in 3 minutes.

The larger and more powerful Exorux pump inflated the small Therm-a-Rest pad in 18 seconds and deflated it in 30; it inflated the large Therm-a-Rest in 40 seconds and deflated it in 30. While the times for the two pumps on the Therm-a-Rest pads don’t set the Flextail and Exorux apart, the Exorux achieved higher pressure inflating and greater compression of the pad when deflating.

The Exorux inflated the Megamat in 1 minute and deflated it in 2 minutes. The Megamat, a base-camp sleeping pad, is normally left unrolled for 15 to 20 minutes to self-inflate before getting topped off with the small hand pump. The Flextail and the Exorux hasten the process without creating excessive pressure that could damage any sleeping pad.

One of the other tasks I had for these compact pumps was inflating my Aeré Beach Rollers. The rollers are exceptionally handy for moving a boat across a beach and, when strapped under side benches, can provide flotation in the event of a swamping. The hand pumps ordinarily used to inflate the rollers are bulky and take up almost as much space as a pair of rollers deflated and rolled-up to be stowed.

The Aeré valves are spring-loaded and neither of the battery-powered pumps produces enough pressure to open them. I inflated a roller with its valve in the open position, but I couldn’t remove the pump and close the valve fast enough to prevent the roller from losing about half its air. The solution was to use the hand pump’s valve fitting with a 1 1⁄4″ length of its ribbed hose attached, and the slender toy nozzle fixed to either of the compact electric pumps. To reach the valve, the nozzle will have to be pushed tight against the end of the hose, compressing it to create a tight seal. Inside the hose, the end of the nozzle depresses the valve stem, opening the valve. After the roller is filled with air, the nozzle can be removed and the valve will close, blocking air from escaping. (The hand-pump that provided the length of hose can easily be restored to its normal use by inserting the valve fitting into the end of its remaining hose.)

Both of these compact pumps can also be used to help start campfires. The steady, forceful flow of air they provide can get a good conflagration of twigs going without the faceful of smoke that is common when using your lungs as a blower.

The Tiny Pump 2X from Flextail and the 3-in-1 Solar Portable Air Pump from Exorux can both make themselves useful for camp-cruising and do much more than a hand pump can while taking up much less space.

Christopher Cunningham is editor of Small Boats.

The Tiny Pump 2X is available from Flextail for $39.99. The 3-in-1 Solar Portable Air Pump from Exorux is sold through Amazon for $29.

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.

Sea Urchin

David Stimson of Boothbay, Maine, submitted the drawings for his Sea Urchin to WoodenBoat magazine’s “In search of the Perfect Skiff” design competition in 1991. The judges (including myself) were taken with the shape of this skiff’s hull and awarded Stimson an honorable mention. Had the boat been larger, and thus a better match to the contest’s criteria, I suspect it would have earned one of the top prizes. (In fairness, it should be said that Stimson designed the boat prior to learning of the competition.)

In any case, the young builder presented a strong argument for a small skiff: “Two people can easily carry the boat, and it will fit in the back of a pickup truck-eliminating the need for a trailer. Lower materials costs should not be ignored. Also, Urchin’s small size makes it ideal for children to mess about in.”

To meet the contest’s camping criterion, Stimson drew a nifty tent that pitches under the sprit ( with the ‘midships thwart removed to permit sleeping on the floorboards). Some of the judges worried that the tent and its associated gear would be difficult to pack in the tiny hull – along with crew, food, and other necessities. As may be, they all agreed that, once erected, the tent would provide palatial accommodations by beach-cruising standards.

Plans for flat-bottomed skiffs can be tricky to draw and difficult to interpret. That is to say, a handsome profile on paper provides no guarantee of pulling a goodlooking, three-dimensional skiff out of the shop. After a few near disasters, I learned early on to always model straight-sided boats before drawing them. Indeed, Stimson and his apprentice developed Urchin from a model, and a fine one at that.

They built the prototype of cedar over oak. If a wood more pleasant than white cedar exists, I don’t know what it might be. It takes fastenings well, glues well, works well, and has a satisfying aroma. It is soft. Cedar planks can work into each other as they swell, and they’ve been known to cure imperfect plank bevels with no help from a builder’s hand. On the Jersey beaches of my youth, cedar-planked skiffs seldom required seam compound. Boats planked with mahogany consumed gallons of the goop.

Stimson includes alternate specifications for sheathing this skiff completely with plywood. Although we might favor a plywood bottom if our skiff must live on a trailer, let’s stay with cedar for the lapped sides. A decade from now, we’ll appreciate the decision. Cedar skiffs age with dignity and grace. Plywood skiffs just grow old.

-M.O’B.

Plans from Stimson Marine, Inc., RR 1 Box 524, Boothbay, ME 04537.

SOME PIG!

As a child, Jim Conlin spent several weeks every summer on the Massachusetts family farm where his father had grown up. It was a world of “build and fix”; early on he knew the difference between a wood screw and a carriage bolt, and among his earliest memories is a large jar of fastenings. On the farm and at home, just outside Boston, he fixed bikes and built soapbox cars and model airplanes. There were no boats until, in the early 1950s when he was 12, his parents signed him up at the Community Boating facility on the banks of the Charles River in Boston. He could ride his bike to the center and sailed Mercuries, Fireflies, 110s, and Thistles. When he went off to college, he captained the sailing team.

Through the ensuing years of adulthood, Jim was never far from the water. In his early 30s he and his wife bought a first-generation fiberglass Alberg 35, which they cruised on the Maine coast for 25 years before selling it in 2000. His daughter grew up sailing the sloop and was so attached to it that in recent years she and her partner found it and bought it back. It also inspired Jim’s first boatbuilding project: a stitch-and-glue pram to replace the old ’glass tender that had come with the Alberg.

Next came a canoe. Living near a river, Jim thought a canoe would be fun and bought CanoeCraft by Ted Moores, a manual on building canoes with wood strips and epoxy. The resulting boat, he says, “came out well. It gave me my first experience of the satisfaction that comes from building something pretty.” He still has that first canoe and, just as sailing had in his childhood, boatbuilding now hooked him.

He came across a WoodenBoat article about the Piccolo lapstrake sailing canoe designed by Robert Baker, and suddenly it seemed there were small wooden canoes everywhere he looked. Jim was enchanted: “I had to build a fancy little canoe,” he says, “whether I needed one or not.” He chose a Wee Lassie designed by Mac McCarthy and described in his book Featherweight Boatbuilding. As with the canoe before it, Jim was pleased with how it turned out, but he found he lacked the agility to use it and it was destined to become largely decorative. Today it hangs in a stairwell at his home in Padanaram, Massachusetts.

Around the same time, Jim was traveling with his first canoe on top of his car and was approached by a woman who said she was looking for someone to build a dinghy for her husband’s birthday. She wanted, she said, a tender to a Dark Harbor 17, a 26′ gaff-rigged sloop. Jim had been thinking about building small boats as a sideline to his real job in computer technology and leapt at the chance. “I hung out a shingle and Conlin Boatworks was born,” he says. “We had a motto: We don’t do good work, but we’re slow!”

For the Dark Harbor couple, he built a cedar-strip version of the L. Francis Herreshoff pram described in John Gardner’s Building Classic Small Craft. Soon after delivering it, Jim received his second commission: building a replica of the Concordia Baeteka pram for LUNA, a 40′ Concordia yawl launched in 1962. Researching the Baeteka, which had been supplied with early Concordia yawls, took Jim across southern New England to look at plans and survey surviving originals. He decided to keep the look of the original lapstrake prams but to update the construction with glued-lapstrake ply. “I couldn’t find the right plywood,” he says, “So I vacuum-bagged Honduras mahogany veneer onto 1⁄8″ okoume plywood. It looked right and was good to work with.” The project took far too long to be financially viable but, Jim says, “It was a good boat and started a resurgence of interest in Baeteka prams among other Concordia-yawl owners.”

In 2015, Jim built a new house with the workshop he’d always wanted: “Big doors, easy entrance, good heat and light.” Over the years since, he’s built a number of small boats from a 16′ cedar-strip Cape Split peapod to a replica 17′, 1908 Palmer Fantail Launch, which he built with a friend who had a 1908 one-lung engine that needed an appropriate boat. And along the way he built a rowboat for his nephew’s six-year-old son. “It’s the simplest possible 7′ flat-bottomed skiff: plywood, ’glass tape, Styrofoam blocks for seats and flotation. But after I built the first one, I started getting requests for more. I’ve built seven of them.”

Jim’s most recent project is a 22′ double-ended sloop. Long an admirer of L.F. Herreshoff’s Rozinante, and Sydney Herreshoff’s Arion, he was on the hunt for a boat that combined the grace of those classic canoe-sterned designs with very light displacement, modern construction, and reasonable cost. He found Joel White’s Fox Island Class.

The Fox Island is designed for glued-lapstrake plywood construction over laminated frames. Jim decided he would build his hull of ’glassed cedar-strip planking. He had completed two-thirds of a yacht design course and was happy to meet the challenge of the redesign. But he was “more daunted by the 955-lb lead fin keel. I didn’t want anything to do with molding it or paying to have one manufactured.” Fortunately, the Joel White–designed keel was a close match to the J24 keel and “at that time, early J24s with mushy balsa cores were being given away.” Jim found a suitable candidate at a boatyard in Westport Point, Massachusetts, parted with $100 to take ownership, and had the crew there separate the keel and spars from the rest of the boat. “I love the idea of recycling old boat parts into new boats,” he says. “It saves time and money and makes otherwise impossible boatbuilding projects financially viable.”

Jim turned his attention to the hull design. With the help of a friend, he re-lofted the Fox Island lines with round sections and, assuming that a cedar-strip version would be lighter than the original lapstrake hull, brought the draft up about an inch. Other than that, Jim left the lines of the hull unchanged.

The sail plan was reworked from scratch to suit the J24 mast and boom and to incorporate a roller-furling self-tacking jib. Jim shortened the mast by about 2′ 6″ and raised the gooseneck about 8″. The mainsail, he says, is very like that of the J24 but nearly a foot shorter in the luff, while the jib is much shorter in the foot, has a jib boom (made from a piece of windsurfer mast), an on-deck traveler, and a furler tucked beneath the deck in a well. The jib’s furling line, outhaul, and double-ended sheet are also led under the foredeck. “Concealing the many jib control lines under the foredeck and inside the jib club took the most head-scratching,” Jim says, “but it came out tidy and works well.”

As the days of COVID-19 took over through 2020 and into 2021, Jim worked alone on the build. When friends did come by to check on progress or offer advice, they came wearing masks and rarely more than one at a time. The project, says Jim, “kept me cheerful during those 15 months of isolation.”

The boat was to be named SOME PIG. “My wife and I were rereading E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web in which the spider announces that the small farm pig, Wilbur, is not just any pig. It struck me that that was true of the new boat: it may look like a classic keelboat, but it’s light as can be with a decidedly modern underbody. Plus, E.B. White was Joel White’s father, so there was a sweet connection.”

Jim built SOME PIG of 5⁄16″ x 1″ Alaska yellow-cedar strips. He describes the construction as “straightforward strip composite with beefy floor timbers to receive the five bolts that stuck out of the keel.” Knowing that he would be sailing on Buzzards Bay, where winds can build quickly, and that the boat’s sail plan would be generous, Jim built in bulkheads forward and aft of the cockpit, creating large buoyancy tanks in the boat’s ends. “I built them because I felt that getting knocked down and swamped was a real possibility,” he says. “But after three seasons of sailing, I’ve had no such excitement.”

He kept the trim simple and classic: the rails, toerails, and coamings are varnished African mahogany, the floorboards unfinished white cedar, and everything else is painted. But when it came time to install the hardware, Jim felt that “the boat deserved proper fittings and found some on eBay and at consignment shops.” When he couldn’t find any suitable off-the-shelf bow chocks, he made patterns for Herreshoff-style chocks, had them cast, and finished them himself.

In May 2021 SOME PIG left the workshop for the Westport Point boatyard where the hull was lifted onto the keel. It was a memorable occasion. “To my moderate astonishment,” Jim says, “it fit! The five bolts went into the five holes. It was quite the moment!” A few days later SOME PIG was quietly launched and rigged. Jim was joined by some “adventurous friends who came on test flights. The first dozen outings were adventures, and we had surprises but no breakages or other mishaps.”

Since those early days of testing and tweaking, Jim has gradually become comfortable with the boat. His dream of having a classic double-ender that performs like a modern-day racer has been fulfilled: “She’s the liveliest, most enjoyable daysailer I’ve sailed in my 80 years; she goes like mad in lighter airs, and “she balances very nicely. I guess that’s beginner’s luck!”

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.

Little Moby

If we build monuments to ourselves, the late Charlie Wittholz constructed a memorial with highly crafted plans that describe wholesome boats. Little Moby came near the end of the designer’s 50-year career, and he held the husky plywood skiff in high regard.

Wittholz referred to Moby as a “rough, water skiff.” The appellation seems appropriate when we look at her ample freeboard, moderate deadrise, and robust construction. The freeboard will help keep her dry and provide some reserve stability. Despite her high sides, windage shouldn’t be a problem here as the worst offenders – windshields, houses, masts, and standing rigging – are absent. (The sketched-in Bimini top would be stowed in a hard chance.) As may be, the hull’s good grip on the water, and 40 horses strapped to the transom, ought to provide peace of mind in tight situations.

Deadrise ( cross-sectional V-shape to the bottom) will ease Moby’s motion in wave action – at the cost of some initial static stability. That is to say, a simple flat-bottomed skiff of similar proportions would tend to be steadier on its feet when at rest in a slick calm. Also, if both boats were to have equally straight runs, the flat, bottomed design might require less power to achieve and maintain planing. Speed in rough water is another matter.

Had Wittholz chosen to enter additional deadrise in the design equation, Moby might blast to windward more smoothly; but she’d not make a solid plat, form for fishing or other low-velocity activities. With 13° deadrise at the transom (measured upward from horizontal to the boat’s bottom) and 15 ½° at Station 3, this skiff displays considerably less than the approximately 24° deadrise usually associated with high-speed, “deep-V” boats of the Moppie type.

While we’re talking about the hull lines, notice the convex sections in the forward bottom. These curves develop automatically as the plywood sheets are bent into a conical shape. (In this case, the projected apex of the cone probably would fall on the baseline almost directly below the stemhead.) If a builder tries to force the plywood sheets hard against dead-straight frames in this area, the builder will lose. Copiously shimmed frames, sometimes seen in bluff-bowed boats of this construction, provide mute testimony to past battles.

Moby’s fully framed, ¾” plywood hull has rigidity to spare. Much of the internal structure could be eliminated if we were to attempt a conversion to stitch-and-tape construction (see WoodenBoat No. 106, page 80). The relative merits of these building methods can make for spirited debate. It would seem that the latter technique sometimes trades a cleaner boat for a dirtier shop. It would seem, too, that a composite (“taped”) chine can produce a stronger joint than can any solid chine log of reasonable proportions. There seems little question that a stitch-and-tape boat goes together very fast – at least until we have to grind and sand…. And so the arguments go. The bottom line: When properly accomplished, both methods can provide more than sufficient strength.

Less than a year ago, Wittholz wrote to us saying that “the world seems to be turning to stitch-and-glue construction.” His letter indicated neither approval nor disapproval. Whether he, too, would have dispensed with chine logs in favor of epoxy fillets was left unsaid. We should have asked.

Moby’s layout speaks of tradition -three thwarts and a side-mounted steering wheel. This wheel orientation, though fine for slow launches, might supply cause for concern here. The arrangement doesn’t lend itself to hand-over-hand wheel spinning, sometimes desirable for tight maneuvering and in emergency situations. Perhaps a small console hung from Frame 4 would permit the more familiar athwartships mounting without stealing too much space. In any case, if you should see this writer tooling around the cove at 25 knots while clutching the king spoke of a side-mounted Wilcox Crittenden wheel, be afraid.

From Moby’s crisply sculpted stemhead and mooring bitt, past the coaming, to the afterdeck and splash well, Wittholz made a fine job of combining traditional appearance with contemporary performance. This honest skiff deserves a good measure of popularity.

-M.O’B

Plans from The WoodenBoat Store, Naskeag Rd., Brooklin, ME 04616.

Whilly Boat

When asked by WoodenBoat to talk about my Chesapeake Bay open-boat cruising adventures of long ago, I described a typical ( or perhaps a composite) summer’s day: Up at first light after having slept on the beach; take a short, slow walk along the waterfront; drag the stranded 15′ peapod down to the water, stow the meager camping gear, and row off into the morning calm. Breakfast about a mile offshore, safe from at least some of the biting insects; row on until the climbing sun makes the effort uncomfortable (usually about 10:00 a.m.); go ashore and find a proper shade tree under which to doze until lunch ( the insects have disappeared in the heat of a dry day). At the first sign of the afternoon sea breeze (sometime between noon and 1 :30), set up the unstayed lug rig and sail to wherever. In the evening, when the thermal fades, strike the rig, and pull the last mile or so to a secluded cove. Such are the simple delights of beach cruising.

The Whilly Boat, near in overall size and intent to my old pod, seems ideal for singlehanded beach cruising. lain Oughtred based this appealing little double-ender on the Shetland ness yoles and sixerns. These workboats, in turn, can trace their heritage back to Norwegian roots – a fine origin for any small boat.

Oughtred tells me that he borrowed the name “Whilly Boat” from a term used to describe relatively small and light traditional Shetland fishing craft. But, at 20′ or so, the generic whilly boats dwarf this 14 ‘6″ plywood beach cruiser; and they differ more than quick inspection might suggest. To suit the new Whilly’s intended purpose, her hull is much shallower and lacks the substantial external keel of the old boats. The designer applied tradition where appropriate, but he seems never
to have forced the issue. His catalog describes the results as “quite Shetlandish, without being presumptuous.”

These hull lines possess a timeless universality. Sailors who have grown up in the surf will recognize the balanced ends, strong sheer, ample reserve buoyancy, and light-but-strong construction as desirable traits in any boat that must handle breakers and beaches. The Whilly Boat lacks a flat run and bearing aft that might help keep her abreast of a planing dinghy on a screaming reach, but she’ll atone with civilized behavior in waves.

When you’re blasting out through the surf, keep the rig and rudder stowed, keep the centerboard raised ( or the daggerboard secured in the bilge), keep your weight low and amidships, and pull hard. This boat will take care of you.

The Whilly Boat’s construction makes good use of plywood and epoxy. Four wide strakes for each side are spiled, hung over temporary molds, and beveled. Drywall screws can act as clamps until the epoxy sets. Solid lumber shouldn’t be used for planking this hull – lack of cross-grain strength makes it prone to splitting, especially along the laps.

The plans call for ¼” or 5/16″ plywood for planking. This design deserves the best marine mahogany sheets you can find, and, to me, that means Bruynzeel. I sawed through a few hundred sheets in my shop and never found a single flaw. Yes, it’s expensive and perhaps difficult to obtain. There are other good mahogany sheets out there, but you’ll have to rely upon the integrity of your supplier to find them.

As is his practice, Oughtred offers the Whilly Boat’s builders several options. Two rigs are shown at large scale: an 80-sq-ft sliding gunter sloop and a 74-sq-ft boomless standing lug. Certainly the gunter would be faster (and more expensive), but the simpler free-standing lug will require less time to raise and strike – and it will stow more easily. Off the wind, you’ll be unhappy with the lugsail’s habit of folding up on itself ( though this tendency will be mitigated by the nearly vertical leech and short foot). In any case, my selection would be the 80-sq-ft balanced lug sketched, apparently as an after-thought, in the margins of plans sheet number 3. This rig’s modest self-vanging properties, boom, and unstayed mast give it a good measure of the other rigs’ best characteristics.

You have a choice of building a pivoting centerboard and kick-up rudder (desirable if you’re going to sail in thin water) or a daggerboard and fixed rudder blade (acceptable if the only shoal water you’ll encounter is near the beach).

Oughtred shows optional forward and after decks; both are drawn below the rails. This arrangement looks fine as it allows our eyes to follow the sheer uninterrupted from stem to stempost, and it gives better access to the ends of the boat.

I’d suggest omitting the optional side benches that run between the ‘midship thwart and the stem sheets. When you’re sailing, you’ll be happier on some cushions in the bilge. Your back will enjoy the added support, visibility will be much improved, and so will stability when it really counts. As for the thwarts, they’re useful for rowing and for maintaining the hull’s shape.

This striking little boat offers the independence desired by all solo sailors. She’s as able as an open boat of her size can be. She’ll sail you just about anywhere within reason, and you can row her home if the wind dies. You’ll not need mechanical assistance ( though Oughtred shows an optional motorwell), or a boatyard, or a chandlery. And, when you think of her shape, you’ll smile.

-M.O’B.

Plans from The WoodenBoat Store, Naskeag Rd., Brooklin, ME 04616. Phone: (800) 225,5305.
Iain Oughtred can be reached at Gorton House, Lasswade, Edinburgh EH 181 EH, Scotland.

Corvus

A small boat with a big heart,” that’s how an anonymous editor at WoodenBoat described this little catboat from Charlie Wittholz’s drawing table.

In fact, Corvus (named for a stellar constellation that resembles a gaff-headed sail) might be just about the right size for a cat-boat. Measuring 14’11” by 7’5″ on deck, she’s big enough to provide the traditional catboat benefits, yet small enough to mitigate traditional catboat deficiencies.

As soon as we hoist sail, Corvus will want to take off – whether we’re ready or not. Unlike more sophisticated (and complex) rigs that can leave their foresails or headsails in the bag and lie to their after, most sails, catboats don’t make good weathervanes. But, unlike her larger single-sail cousins, this boat will be amenable to casual control. Grabbing hold of a luffing 170-sq-ft sail bears little resemblance to trying to tame the 500 sq ft of flailing Dacron we might find on a 25′ cat.

Once underway, Corvus will tug at the skipper’s arm with the usual catboat weather helm. We can’t easily avoid strong weather helm when designing a catboat. The long boom causes the sail’s real center of effort to move well outboard when reaching and running, which creates a healthy turning moment. (The calculated center of effort represents the geometrical center for the sail as drawn on a flat, two-dimensional piece of paper. It’s helpful for purposes of design and comparison, but it doesn’t represent the effective center of force.)

The short, fat hull only makes matters worse. As the boat heels down, its water-lines become wildly asymmetrical – strongly convex on the lee side and straighter on the weather bottom. This configuration will want to turn the cat-boat, any boat, towards its high side. Hard chines and full bows associated with sheet-plywood construction reinforce this phenomenon. Again, Corvus is saved by her small size (and by the relatively far aft location of her centerboard). Her weather helm seems little more than a polite reminder of trim.

An advertisement for the fiberglass Marshall 18′ catboat made the rounds of the yachting press a decade ago. Referring to the simplicity of the boat’s propulsion system, a copywriter stressed the joy of having “only one string [sheet] to pull.” Indeed, relatively small catboats are easy to sail. They are not necessarily easy to sail well. Without headsails to direct airflow, the set and trim of the catboat’s single sail become critically important and, often, more difficult to accomplish perfectly. Novice sailors seem inclined to sail around for hours on end with everything strapped down hard – no matter what the apparent wind direction.

As may be, Corvus is a gentle boat, and she will reward proper handling. If you’ve not worked with a gaff-headed sail before, you might find the experience to be a revelation. When hoisting sail, set up the throat (lower) halyard hard, and haul sufficient tension into the peak halyard to form vertical wrinkles running parallel to a line from the sail’s head to tack when it is luffing. How many wrinkles, and how deep should they be? That will depend upon the cut of the sail, the angle of the gaff, the strength of the wind, the point of sail, and your mood. In due course, experience will let you know what’s right. I’ll note in passing that most beginners seem to carry too little tension in the peak halyard.

In order to grab the attention of Madison Avenue’s “average family,” a production builder might be tempted to erect a split-level house on Corvus’s deck. For the way most of us will sail her, the cuddy and large cockpit shown here make more sense. The 3’6″ headroom described on the plans seems to be about the comfortable minimum for using an enclosed head. Of course, we’ll replace the traditional marine unit depicted in the drawings with one of the portable variety. We’ll sleep in the cockpit – dozing off on the benches while under sail, and secure beneath a boom tent for the night.

We’ll cook our meals and warm the coffee on a small gimbaled stove mounted on the after face of the main bulkhead. Most of the time, the stove will hang from an extra mounting plate fixed to the bulkhead below decks. We’ll do well to avoid carrying foods that require refrigeration. If the crew considers this spartan and perverse on our part, a common plastic cooler will resolve the issue.

Worried that we might be concerned about limited headroom, Wittholz drew a hinged cabintop option. And the plans bristle with other alternatives for Corvus: a completely open daysailing version with, as you might surmise, a huge cockpit; a fixed ballast keel, which adds stability (and draft) and eliminates the centerboard trunk; a choice of outboard or inboard auxiliary power; and a standing lug rig to replace the gaff rig.

Lug rigs offer great simplicity, and they are dandy for small boats. Unfortunately, this rendition has been compromised with too much roach and requires battens to support the sail’s after edge. Perhaps we should ask the sailmaker to cut some hollow into the leech and forget the expensive batten pockets.

Close inspection of the lug rig’s drawing reveals a roller-reefing boom. We’re supposed to tuck in a reef by winding the sail around the boom as if it were an inverted window shade. This noble idea enjoyed some popularity decades ago – before we realized that it doesn’t work too well. The hardware is expensive, and sheetleads can be complex and inefficient. Limitations are placed on sail design ( one of the most noticeable being the 90° angle needed at the tack). Because the sail should be hoisted before rolling it around the boom, crew and sail sometimes are exposed to the elements more than with conventional reefing. And, all theory aside, roller-reefed sails often don’t set well. Oh, my. I’d be inclined to replace the roller-reefing goose, neck with a simple rope parrel and spread the sheet attachments forward and aft ( to ease the strain on the boom and to provide a more comfortable lead angle to the skipper’s hand). The money we saved by dispensing with the battens will buy us a row, or two, of conventional reefpoints.

Corvus’s ample transverse framing pro, vides a solid skeleton for her hull, and it will look impressive when set up in our shop – it forms a three-dimensional body plan, really. Those among us who are bothered by complexity, might want to follow Sam Devlin’s instructions for translating designs into “stitch-and-glue” (see WoodenBoat No. 106, page 80).

Wittholz specified ¾” plywood for Corvus’s planking; and, with the tight turns in the forward bottom, he’s asking for all we can expect from the 4 x 8′ sheets. If we’re tempted to apply a thicker bottom, we should laminate it in place. I knew a builder who tried to coerce ½” marine fir plywood into taking these bends. He failed despite copious application of boiling water (poured over bath towels), the efforts of five strong men, and the biggest bronze ring nails in the county. The partially sheathed boat still sits behind his shop, and the builder now makes his living by selling insurance.

Sailing Corvus brings us as close to pure, lazy delight as we’re likely to get in this life. She heels little and requires a minimum of attention from her skipper. Her buoyant hull is handsome from almost any perspective. No matter that the same building time and money could have bought us a bigger (longer, that is), faster boat. No matter that she sails about at her mooring in a maddening fashion. No matter that she won’t lie quietly to the wind while we have lunch. Catboats are, after all, difficult to justify- but they’re mighty easy to like.

-M.O’B.

Plans from The WoodenBoat Store, Naskeag Rd. , Brooklin, ME 04616.

John Hartmann’s Ilur

WAXWING, John Hartmann’s newly launched Ilur design from the drawing board of Fran-çois Vivier, caught my attention in Maine last summer when I spotted her at anchor off a Muscongus Bay island one August evening. We were both camp-cruising, on our way to the Small Reach Regatta, and the next day found us happily sailing in company as we headed to the Audubon Camp at Hog Island. As is often the case with great boats on a gorgeous day, we took the long way every chance we got. Upon arrival at the camp, I quickly found my way to the float and introduced myself to John and his wife, Gabrielle. An invitation to go for a sail in WAXWING ensued, and the wonders of a really fine design were revealed.

Ilur is one of Vivier’s most successful sail-and-oar designs (see WB No. 212). She is a small boat, just 14′ 6″, but will fool even experienced builders into thinking she is much larger. Perhaps channeling Arthur Ran-some, Vivier drew her beamy, full-bodied, and deep, with a nearly plumb stem, a flat, near-vertical transom, high freeboard, and a flattish sheer. These traits are typically a recipe for a dumpy, inelegant tub, so the fact that Vivier has blended them in a lovely combination is a triumph of his mantra that a sailing boat must be a coherent whole. This was one of his first designs for amateur builders, and she was originally designed for strip construction—the then-current technology. The present day ubiquity of quality plywood and epoxy con-struction techniques have allowed her to be redesigned for glued lapstrake construction. That’s how WAXWING was built.

The beam and freeboard combine to create a capacious hull with ample room for adults. This is achieved by tak-ing advantage of the hull shape, and using deep floors and supports for the relatively high floorboards. When the height of the floorboards is raised in a design it usu-ally contributes to a wider, longer, and more useful liv-ing area. Many designs I’ve considered are constrained by narrow beam, or low freeboard, or have simply dis-counted the possibility that sailors might like more sitting, standing, or sleeping space. The nearly plumb stem and transom maximize Ilur’s waterline length, making her punch well above her class in hull speed.

The interior layout is remarkable for having con-siderable built-in structure and flotation while retain-ing an open feeling and function. Seating is provided by slip thwarts (stowable when desired, if one wishes to lounge about on the floorboards or sleep), and an aft-deck and side-bench arrangement that combine a storage locker with flotation chambers to create a traditional stern sheets configuration. The forward end of the interior is open, with the main mast part-ner built into the short foredeck. The impression of open space is compounded by the relatively low appear-ance of the centerboard trunk, another advantage of the great depth of the floors, so a large portion of the trunk’s height is below the floorboards. This depth is also manifested in the absolutely brilliant storage lock-ers to be found below the floorboards. I know I turned a bit green as John casually lifted a floorboard and the 8′ oars disappeared. A little sleuthing revealed that the bilge pump, boathook, and anchor and rode were also standing by, out of sight and out from underfoot.

WAXWING has a striking rig. While Ilur routinely fea-tures a standing lug or a lug sloop rig, Hartmann asked Vivier for a balance lug yawl version. The designer has provided a really large main, which in combination with convenient and prudent reefing offers versatility not found in many small-boat designs. The small mizzen delights the eye, helps balance the steering, and offers cruisers big-boat capabilities such as easily heaving-to, and a riding sail for quiet anchoring. A further big-boat advantage is the large duck-free zone this rig creates, allowing adult skippers to tack and jibe with dignity.

François Vivier
The yawl rig on the previous page is only the most recent of several that Viver has drawn for Ilur. The others include the original standing lug, a balance (boomed; shown here) lug, and two balance lug sloops (one with a bowsprit and jib, and one without).

WAXWING was built using a kit provided by Hewes & Company of Blue Hill, Maine, Vivi-er’s U.S. licensee. The accurately CNC-cut okoume plywood parts included planks, bulkheads, frames, stem, transom, centerboard, and rudder com-ponents, as well as the molds and building frame cut from non-marine ply. Potential builders should note the need to choose and supply natural lumber for the seats, floorboards, spars, and trim. Those builders will also need to obtain their own epoxy, hardware, paints, and sails, and a set of plans from the designer. Note that plans are also available for the scratch builder, and include full-sized Mylar patterns.

While this is a pretty standard glued lapstrake hull, the construction sequence differs a bit in the kit ver-sion. The box-girder strongback and construction molds combine with the permanent bulkheads to allow for much of the interior structure (longitudinal bulk-heads, centerboard trunk, and so forth) to be built-in before planking. This allows a much stiffer and more nearly completed boat once it’s turned off the molds. While the kit builder has a great advantage in precut planks, one should note that you will still have to bevel the laps and cut gains in the ends, and that due to the shape of the hull and the traditional aesthetic there are a lot of planks here. It may take a while!

The remainder of the construction and fitting out is straightforward and of a very reasonable scale. The builder has many opportunities for personal expression through the choice of woods, paint scheme, hardware styles, and so forth. Hartmann enriched his experience immensely by designing and patterning his own mast gate for casting by a local foundry. Also of particular note is the builder’s hollow boomkin design, a delightful bit of functional whimsy. His rigging choices (manila-colored Dyneema line) not only enable her intended usage as a versatile daysailer and camp-cruiser, but also reflect the overall finish and aesthetic. He’s designated WAXWING a “varnish-free zone,” choosing an oil finish to highlight the locust and larch details. He has also detailed her with a subtle but striking paint scheme, including a flash of yellow at the transom that mimics the eponymous bird. Study the accompanying photo-graphs, and note how the contrasting sheer plank and the thin edge of the caprail successfully minimize the appearance of the high freeboard.

My overall impression of WAXWING underway is of gracious comfort and competence. The big rig and long waterline give her surprising speed for a 14′ boat, letting her keep company with Sea Pearls and Caledonias. The mainsail is simple to hoist, and once it’s up, its easily adjusted tack downhaul keeps the sail under control while the sprit boom is set. Such maneuvers are ever so much more dignified aboard a yawl with the mizzen set first and sheeted in flat.

She is well balanced and well behaved, certainly sen-sitive to crew trim, but not demanding of much jump-ing about. The floorboard height previously mentioned sits very well, finding me happy to lean against the rail with my PFD cushioning me in a sweet spot for a long tack. When we did tack, the low centerboard trunk pre-sented no obstacle at all. I actually wasn’t tempted to sit up on a thwart or even to take the helm because the experience was just so comfortable and gracious. I did finally concede my comfort to the need to row into a windless cove to pick up our mooring. Nice long oars for the generous beam coupled with a modest wetted surface mean she is a lovely pulling boat, on the rare occasions that there is insufficient breeze for her large sail area. Vivier notes that he began to drift toward better performance under sail than under oar in this design, but I’d say he has nothing to be ashamed of.

After my outing aboard WAXWING, I had several occasions over the next few weeks to observe her underway in a variety of conditions, including both big water and sheltered, calms and reefed. She is an able, comfortable, and attractive beauty. More impor-tant, though, let us consider when and where I got to enjoy her, for she was spending a late summer month in Maine waters. Her owners sampled the joys of group outings at the Small Reach Regatta (40 boats full of like-minded friends!), camp-cruised a bit going to and from the event, then trailered her farther downeast to Brooklin, where Gabrielle was taking a sailing class at WoodenBoat School. WAXWING’s curb appeal was so great that fellow students and, truth be told, their instructors, insisted on launching her for inclusion in one of the class outings. Then John and Gabrielle spent the following week in a rented cottage, daysail-ing on Penobscot Bay. I’d say this is the best evidence of a good design: using it to the fullest in its intended purpose, and loving it.

To order plans or request more information, contact François Vivier, www.vivierboats.com.

MALU

Back in 1926, before hurricanes had names, a big one struck Miami. The storm surge drowned 200 people and deposited fine yachts, commercial vessels, and a five-masted schooner in city streets. What came to be called The Great Miami Hurricane then swirled across Florida. On the Gulf Coast, the winds uprooted many tin signs advertising real estate. That storm put an end to Florida’s latest land boom and scattered those “For Sale” signs far and wide. An 11-year-old boy discovered some of them, rolled and battered, in the woods near his Clearwater house. That’s how Clark Mills got his start building boats.

“Clark found,” wrote Florida boatbuilder Tom Mayers, “that if he carefully straightened the sheets of metal out and used wood supports at the seams, a child with the tin, wood strips, nails, and a little roofing tar could make a small rectangular boat that floated.”

Years later, when he was 32 years old in 1947, Clark Mills designed another rectangular boat. This one was plywood, and it was intended for a new youth sailing program begun by the Clearwater Optimist Club. “I really didn’t progress much in my design, did I?” the ever self-effacing Mills said to Mayers. The Optimist Pram eventually became an international class, and a half million are estimated to have been built thus far. But, created for kids 8 to 15 years old, the Optimist raised an obvious question. What would young sailors graduate to when they outgrew the Opti?

The answer emerged in 1953 in the form of a speedy, V-bottomed one-design, intended, Mills said, “to be the leanest, meanest, go-to-hell sailboat [the kids] could get.” At 15′ 6″, the plywood boat was less expensive to build than a like-sized, plank-on-frame Snipe. What’s more, Mills developed it with economical, amateur construction in mind. He called his design the Windmill. “It was just the dad-gumdest boat that ever I was in,” a local skipper and boatbuilder known as Captain Cherokee told Mills after trouncing a variety of established classes at a race.

Tarpon Springs, about 17 miles up the road from Clearwater, is where Michael Jones grew up during the 1960s. There was a vibrant wooden-boat world in that part of Florida then. The city’s Greek sponge fishermen were still using adzes and hand tools to build their vessels. Ten miles south of Tarpon Springs lived the Sage of Dunedin, John Hanna, designer of the famed Tahiti ketch. Drawn to boats, Jones became a Sea Scout. He learned to caulk, repaired an old 10′ dinghy, and sailed into the Gulf of Mexico until Florida was out of sight. He crewed on a speedy Windmill and worked on a fishing boat. One day a friend showed him a copy of Howard Chapelle’s American Small Sailing Craft. “That did it,” Jones said. “I was on the road to ruin.”

During his college years, Jones worked part-time in construction and later built homes together with a partner. He made good money but missed the road to ruin. “I told my partner I wanted out,” he remembered. “In 1979, I traded a piece of property for a 37′ Geiger-designed yawl and moved aboard. One day, I met a guy I’d built a house for. He asked me to go to Antigua and oversee the Starling Burgess–designed 10-Meter yacht he owned.” Jones’s success with the 10-Meter led to another project, and then more.

In 1981, Jones followed his road to a job at Clear water Bay Marine Ways, home to Clark Mills Boatbuilding. That’s how Jones got to know “Clarkie.” “He became,” said Jones of Clark Mills, “a great friend and mentor. We would sit in his drafting room and look at his half models, and he would tell stories.” These days, Jones works independently on a variety of high-end projects. His desire for a new small boat resulted in the craft featured here. He considered a variety of traditional flat-bottomed sailing skiffs and sharpies before turning to plans he had for the Windmill.

“The V-bottom,” concluded Jones, “makes better structural sense and a better, or at least faster sailing boat when heeled. I knew from experience that it would be a fast bottom. The other consideration was time. The plywood V-bottomed hull will go together quickly, compared to the planked hulls I’d been considering.” Still, Jones understood that the lean, mean Windmill would need modification to suit his needs. “The boat was too quick for my purpose. It wasn’t something non-sailing friends would enjoy, but it did have a connection to the local waters and my past.”

Jones began sketching an evolution of the Windmill, a boat that would be less demanding and more practical for daysailing. After studying Chapelle’s drawings of working sharpies, Jones decided his boat would have a straight stem rather than the Windmill’s curved bow. He added more sheer, too, and the topsides took on something of a 19th-century workboat look. Jones’s boat is almost 2′ longer and a half-foot wider than a Windmill. He replaced the Windmill’s tall mast and standing rigging with a lower, free-standing sprit rig, and crafted a pair of elegant, leather-lined supports to cradle the hollow varnished spars when trailering.

Jones built MALU—named for a favorite family Airedale—using okoume plywood, 3⁄8″ for the bottom, and scarfed-together ¼” panels for the sides and the longitudinal air tanks. The latter are an important safety-related feature carried over from the Windmill. Epoxy and stainless-steel staples were used to join the plywood to the Spanish cedar keel, stringers, chines, and gun-wale. “It’s a faster process than using screws,” Jones said, “which are really unneeded, permanent clamps in an epoxy boat.”

Clark Mills once joked that when he was in water over 3′ deep, he was “off-soundings.” Jones’s boat has a centerboard, more complex to build than a Windmill’s daggerboard, but much more practical for a daysailer. The completed hull was coated with epoxy, and the inside of the centerboard trunk received a layer of fiberglass cloth for added protection. “I didn’t use ’glass cloth on the hull,” Jones said, “but it might be worth the extra time and weight if the sailing area and conditions warranted. With sandy shores, I kept it simple.”

MALU’s flawless AwlGrip paint job took longer to apply than building the boat. Three primer coats were used and all imperfections were carefully filled and sanded. A friend, skilled with a spray gun, helped Jones with the paint job. It’s easy to mistake MALU for a glossy, fiberglass boat. Jones estimates that building MALU would consume 250 to 300 hours of labor depending on the level of finish desired.

We went sailing aboard MALU on a beautiful March day in Florida’s Pine Island Sound. Dotted inshore with mangrove-fringed islands, the Sound is fascinating for both its wildlife and its wide expanses of grassy flats, about a foot deep at low tide. MALU meets one of the most important rules regarding boat selection: Choose a design appropriate for local waters.

This V-bottomed boat is reasonably stable when stepping aboard, and Jones was comfortable in putting one foot on the side deck as he rigged the sprit. As we tacked our way over the clearly visible bottom, the absence of a conventional boom made for pleasant maneuvering, with no worries about a whack up beside the head. Jones retained the hiking straps of the Wind-mill, a useful feature given that the spritsail doesn’t lend itself to reefing underway. “I hike out when sailing closehauled and single handed in wind above 10 mph,” he said. “That keeps the boat flat for optimal speed.” Like the Windmill’s side decks, MALU’s are smooth and there’s no thigh-pinching coaming to make hiking uncomfortable. This is primarily a two-person boat, but Jones has had three adults aboard and says that MALU didn’t feel overburdened. Good judgment would be the best policy here.

In light air, MALU moved out smartly enough under her mainsail. Only a light touch was needed on the tiller. Setting the jib gave an immediate boost in speed at the expense of visibility. Windmill sails have windows in them, an advantage on most small boats. MALU has a wide thwart abaft the centerboard trunk. Like the helm seat, this one has useful storage underneath it, and very nice, snap-on cushions. There’s room behind the helm thwart for a cooler.

Jones has kept his boat simple, and the more one sails, the more one appreciates simplicity. Aside from the AwlGrip paint, there’s little here that couldn’t be fixed or maintained at home with some epoxy, a couple of tools, a knife, and the contents of a ditty bag. This boat would be an interesting proposition for those seeking a fast daysailer with a traditional look and rig. It’s adapted from a speedy one-design, but has about it a flavor of the past, and a taste for always fascinating skinny waters.

Plans for MALU are available from Jones Boatworks, www.jonesboatworks.com.

Puddle Duck Racer

Lance Pamperin

A sandbox with a sail? The Puddle Duck racer may be humble in appearance, but it gets people on the water quickly for satisfying sailing.

It’s easy to be dismissive of the Puddle Duck Racer when you first see it. I usually describe the slab-sided 8′ × 4′ boat as a sandbox with rocker, a description that’s not entirely tongue-in-cheek. And yet, among its builders, who proudly refer to themselves as Puddle Duckers, this boxiest of all box boats has achieved a degree of popularity that is difficult to understand—until you try sailing one. The truth is, despite their boxy, unsophisticated looks, Puddle Ducks are pretty darn fun.

Of course, not everyone is able to suspend judgment long enough to make this discovery, something that Puddle Duck designer David “Shorty” Routh is well aware of. “They kind of look at it and say, ‘That’s not a real boat,’” he admits. But the Puddle Duck’s ultra-simple appearance is quite purposeful. “Really, I’m trying to pull in new people to get them to go in the direction of building wooden boats,” Routh explains. “The Duck is kind of like the free candy you give out to get people addicted. It had to be very unassuming looking, so anyone would look at it and think, ‘Yeah, I could probably build something like that.’”

The Puddle Duck succeeds brilliantly on that score. It’s probably not absolutely the easiest boat in the world to build—hulls with at least some flare can actually come together in the shop a little more easily—but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that to someone who has never built a boat before, someone intimidated by curves and bevels, the Puddle Duck looks simpler than other boats. And its flat-bottomed glue-and-screw construction does make it a very simple, fast build. When I talked my brother into building hull No. 892 for his kids, he was able to finish it in just five evenings, spending well under $200 (we reused the rudder, daggerboard, mast, and standing lug rig from another boat).

Tom Pamperin

With a buoyancy chamber built into each side of the boat, a Puddle Duck is easy to right after a capsize.

David Routh has no formal training in boat design, but he has spent a lot of time sailing and racing, and he knew what he was after when he created the Puddle Duck Racer in 2003: a way to get more people having fun sailing without needing to spend much money. But he wanted something more formal than the typical messabouts he started attending in the 1990s, which he says were “like a bunch of cats wandering around.” What he needed was a cheap, easy-to-build racing class that would provide an excuse for people to actually sail together, instead of just walking along the beach admiring each other’s boats. The Puddle Duck was his answer.

Routh describes the Puddle Duck as a developmental one-design class. The lower 10″ of each hull must be identical, with the same beam, length, rocker, and vertical sides. At official Puddle Duck events, each hull is measured to make sure it is class legal (a ¼” builder’s tolerance is allowed, and hulls that fail are allowed to compete with a penalty). Everything apart from the hull, though—rig, rudder, foils, sheer, superstructure (yes, there have been Ducks with usable cabins), and interior layout—is fair game for experimentation.

And while the Duck’s basic shape looks crude, there’s more going on with that boxy hull than might be immediately apparent. The rocker is more extreme at the ends, but flattens out in the middle—an attempt to blend the characteristics of a displacement hull and a planing hull. As a result, the boat sails better than it seems to deserve, reaching speeds up to 6 mph off the wind without too much fuss. The fastest recorded Ducker so far is Kenny Giles, who has hit 9.2 mph by GPS, using a 59-sq-ft leg-o’-mutton rig on a windy day.

“I really like the idea of having your building skills be part of the competition,” Routh says of his rules, which attempt to strike a middle ground between the arms race of open-class racing and the tight strictures of one-design classes. “It’s not about the limitations of the rules, it’s about the creativity of everything else.”

As a result of the class’s intentional openness, each Duck is laid out a bit differently within the basic shared hull shape. But it’s the rig where the developmental aspect of the class is most obvious. I’ve seen gaff-sloop Ducks, leg-o’-mutton Ducks, balance-lug Ducks, Chinese lug Ducks, lateen Ducks, standing-lug Ducks, sprit-sail Ducks, Ducks with repurposed windsurfing rigs, and one Duck rigged as a staysail cat. Routh has heard of even stranger rigs: wingsails, biplane rigs, and even a variant of the Micronesian-style proa rig described by writer and wild food forager Euell Gibbons in his book The Beachcomber Afloat.

Tom Pamperin

When sailing off the wind, a Puddle Duck feels luxurious to its solo skippers.

Like most unballasted dinghies, the Puddle Duck should generally be sailed as flat as possible, some-thing its wide flat bottom makes a little more automatic than it would be with a more sophisticated hull shape. But the Duck’s rocker makes it extremely sensitive to fore-and-aft trim, which makes it an excellent boat to learn on—Duck skippers are punished for their mistakes in very obvious, yet relatively benign ways. Keep your weight too far forward and the bow transom will dig in deeply, the Puddle Duck’s characteristic “pig rooting” behavior. With your weight too far back, you’ll bury the transom and feel the speed drop off dramatically. Someone new to sailing, or new to dinghies, will quickly learn that small boats demand constant weight shifts and awareness of trim for optimum performance, a mindset that’s not easily learned by crewing on heavily ballasted keelboats.

With its flat bottom, and a length-to-beam ratio under 2, the Puddle Duck’s initial stability is quite high—another feature that beginning sailors will appreciate. And most Ducks are designed and built with two large buoyancy chambers (fore and aft, or one on each side), making the boat easy to right after capsizing. The use of a single externally mounted leeboard, probably the most common choice, allows builders to avoid the complications of daggerboard cases and pivoting centerboards if they prefer. Plenty of Ducks use daggerboards and centerboards, though, often set into a side buoyancy tank to save legroom.

Tom Pamperin

The Puddle Duck’s popularity has drawn serious racers to a growing number of competitive events.

Despite its awkward appearance, the Puddle Duck is a surprisingly comfortable boat to sail when it’s not bashing its way through the waves—its lack of streamlining and short waterline can make fighting a steep chop seem like riding in an unbalanced washing machine. Off the wind, though, or in flat water, a Puddle Duck feels luxurious. After his first sail in Duck No. 892, my brother described it as “an old man’s boat”—the side buoyancy tanks offer extremely comfortable seating, and the off-center daggerboard leaves plenty of room to stretch out. With a designed displacement of 630 lbs, it could easily take two adults without dragging the bow or stern. A better option, though, would be to build a second Duck. It’s such a simple design that there’s little excuse not to.

But, simplicity aside, the real genius of the Puddle Duck is the childlike innocence it brings to sailing. Tearing along at 3 knots as if possessed by a wide-eyed eagerness to seek out the unlikeliest, most ridiculous way to do things, the Puddle Duck is a boat designed for play. I’m struck by the design’s utter lack of pretension. It’s a bit silly—and at the same time endearingly naïve—that a boat with a theoretical hull speed just over 4 mph would bother to register for a Portsmouth Yardstick rating (with a handicap of 140, it’s the slowest boat on the list), but there are serious racers among the Puddle Duck crowd. On the other hand, I was able to borrow a Puddle Duck at the 2012 World Championships (the first races of any kind that I ever competed in) and place seventh overall—far behind the leaders, but having a good time all the way.

Tom Pamperin

Puddle Ducks have made some serious voyages-incompany for an 8’ boat. In 2014, 12 of them finished the grueling five-day Texas 200.

Other Puddle Ducks have been used for voyages more ambitious than simple round-the-buoys racing. Completing the five-day Texas 200 in a Puddle Duck, for example, has become something of a rite of passage—12 Duckers finished the event in 2014, a record number. Upping the ante considerably, Scott Widmier attempted the 300-mile WaterTribe Everglades Challenge in his EC DUCK in 2012, reaching as high as fifth place in his class (sailing monohulls) before high winds and bad weather forced him to abandon the race (conditions were so challenging that only two mono-hulls managed to finish). Like a Chihuahua challenging a Rottweiler, the Puddle Duck just jumps in and goes at it, without seeming to realize it might look a little silly to observers. Or maybe it just doesn’t care.

Free Puddle Duck plans are available from the website www.pdracer.com/free-plans/, or from Jim Michalak at www.duckworksbbs.com/plans/jim/catbox/index.htm. Learn more at the PD Racer website.

Tom Pamperin

The Puddle Duck is not a strict one-design; rather, it’s an open class, meaning that boats must be designed within broad measurements rather than be identical. Here we see the Catbox design, which you can download, along with others, at www.pdracer.com/free-plans.

Tom Pamperin

Puddle Duck Particulars
LOA 8′
Beam 4′
Sail area 69 sq ft

Goat Island Skiff

Twenty years ago, Australian designer Michael Storer drew up the Goat Island Skiff, which he named for an island in Sydney Harbour. Steeped in the Australian design and DIY traditions, he intended it to be light, fast, and easy to build. It was a successful idea, as to date around a thousand skiffs have been built in 27 countries. Over the course of two decades, the plans have evolved into a detailed how-to-build book, and it is now possible to get the Goat Island Skiff (GIS) in kits.

In Australia, dinghy weight standards are 8–10 lbs per foot of length—much lighter than the European and American standards set in the 1960s by relatively heavy fiberglass boats. A GIS, at 130 lbs, is about half the weight of a Finn dinghy (designed in 1949), but it has the same sail area. It is about the same weight as a Laser (designed in 1970), but with 25 sq ft more sail. Its 5′ beam gives a singlehander more power to carry that sail, but unlike a Finn or a Laser, the GIS can t ake a family sailing. The flat-bottomed skiff shape is relatively skinny on the water line, and with its significant sail area and light weight it can ghost nicely—much better than one would expect of a relatively high-wetted-surface hull.

A balance lugger, the GIS has some tweaks to make the sail set efficiently. The specifications call for the mast to be as unbending as possible, which is critical to a well-setting luff. A powerful downhaul controls draft. In some boats, this control has been moved aft to work as a vang as well, with a line around the boom and mast; this so-called “bleater” keeps the boom from going forward.

Storer recognizes that the skiff shape may not be the best for rowing, and he states that 9′ oars are needed to make a 5′ beam boat work under oars. The oars will fit in the boat’s bottom, or can be stored on the top of the bow tank, blades at the stem, handles held by the ’mid-ship seat knee.

Despite having heard of the Goat Island Skiff for years, I’d never sailed one until last summer, when I encountered two at the Small Reach Regatta in August; one of those boats was owned by amateur builder Paul Hayslett of Branford, Connecticut, and the other by Clint Chase, a professional from Biddeford, Maine. There was also a former GIS owner, Christophe Matson, from Bow, New Hampshire, on hand; he’d had his boat for four seasons before moving to a camp-cruiser he could sleep aboard.

Paul and Cristophe are experienced sailors who were looking for an inexpensive, yet sophisticated, boat to satisfy their skill levels. Both were first-time builders, but it doesn’t take much to build a Goat Island Skiff. The plans come with detailed instructions, and the materials amount to, essentially, six sheets of 6mm plywood.

Storer’s website goes way beyond the usual designer’s offering, providing information about boat tuning and links to other online resources including Facebook pages, blogs, and sites maintained by builders and sailors. Storer also monitors his own Goat Island Skiff Facebook page as well as the WoodenBoat Forum (forum.woodenboat.com), and responds fully to email questions.

The builder assembles the sides, bottom, and transom to complete the basic hull. Three seats and their supporting bulkheads form the internal skeleton for the hull structure and built-in flotation tanks. Everything is coated with epoxy; no cloth is needed. Skids provide bottom protection for beaching. The daggerboard, breasthook, quarter knees, and rails finish the boat. This minimal list of parts keeps the hull light. And that’s the impression I got when I stepped aboard Clint’s boat, BLEAT, for the first time: Everything seemed light.

To get the boat underway from the beach, a long, well-shaped daggerboard and rudder need to be shoved down once the water is deep enough. The rudder is unusual; it’s an extremely efficient vertical blade with an ingenious kick-up system. The balance lugsail goes up easily, and the powerful downhaul working against a stiff, light, hollow mast lets you control the draft. Clint and many other GIS owners are rebuilding their booms to take the loads of a loose-footed sail, a sail that will set better than one laced on. The wind was light on the day of my trial: 5–8 knots with a small chop.

Going to windward, the boat accelerated quickly in the puffs—puffs that were strong enough for me to sit on the rail with a foot hooked into a convenient spot that Clint built into his center thwart. Skiff owners usually have a Y-shaped toe strap, or a pair of hiking straps, which Clint will be fitting into his boat. A tiller extension is essential; Clint made one with a bit of string coming out of a hole in the end for a truly universal joint. If sitting on the bottom or a side seat and not moving around much is your sailing style, you would be better served by a heavier boat. Fore-and-aft positioning wanted me to be on the rail or sitting on the seat amidships. The feel of the helm was very light, with just a hint of a tug to weather.

Clint added a small mizzen to make it easier to lie quietly to the wind while reefing or moving about the boat. I played with fore-and-aft trim and the amount of heel needed to work into the light breeze. Flat-bottomed boats tend to slap as the waves hit the windward chine. Most of that effect is removed when the boat is trimmed with the bow down.

The boat tacked easily. A bit of a roll, something common in dinghy sailing, helped speed her through it in the light stuff. I could just drop the tiller to leeward, hesitate a beat or two as she swung up and through the wind, and then switch tiller and sheet hands and move to windward.

In light conditions, sailing off the wind was simple. The wind was so light that I didn’t bother retrimming the mizzen. Jibing was a non-event: Simply steer to leeward and give the sheet a yank. As the boom came over, a small S-turn to the new leeward side countered any tendency to round up. The big efficient rudder helps. When sailing downwind I found, like on a Laser or most other modern dinghies, a bit of heel to windward made steering with the rudder superfluous. Upwind in light air, steering by heeling a bit to point up and flattening out to head off also worked well.

In discussing capsizing, Paul noted that building a boat yourself gives one the confidence to fi x things. He’d gone over on a gusty day and righted the boat, but was too close to a lee shore to climb in with the sea that was running. In hitting the beach he put a couple of cracks in the bottom. Once the boat was bailed out, he sailed home, looked at the cracks, looked at the season to come, put some duct tape on them, and went sailing. Permanent repair waited until the off-season.

The fact is that any light boat can be capsized. The Goat Island Skiff has pretty high sides, which make it harder, but it can be done. She is easily righted with the daggerboard floating pretty close to the water and the hollow mast keeping her from turtling. Righted, she floats with the daggerboard trunk out of the water. Getting back in can require some agility. If I had problems I might rig a step that could drop into the water off the transom the way it’s done in sea kayaks. With the boat drifting sideways, a yank on the mainsheet could balance pushing down on the weather side, a common practice in other singlehanded dinghies.

Paul was rowing while we discussed his experience, while I was paddling my kayak alongside. His crew was sitting on the bottom of his skiff just ahead of the stern seat. The trim for rowing was perfect; I could just see the edge-grain in his plywood bottom with virtually no transom drag. I also watched Clint and his crew rowing. He was more heavily loaded with his full camping kit, and might have been dragging ½” of transom.

What is really unusual for such a relatively high-performance boat is that you can take a family for a sail. With a crew of two or more, the skiff settles right down. On the long broad reach home on day two of the Small Reach Regatta, the wind had come up to white-caps and a number of boats reefed. Clint didn’t reef, although he has a well-organized jiffy reef for his first reef. His passenger simply rode the center seat, facing forward, and Clint sat on the rail. With puffs, he was well positioned to hike out a little and his passenger could slide up or down to keep the boat level. Later, when BLEAT sailed to the ramp for haulout, Clint’s passenger was comfortably sitting on the bottom ahead of the center thwart reading and handing out cookies.

It’s hard to imagine a more versatile small sailing boat. Her performance in racing against modern dinghies is impressive, with handicap numbers like a Laser radial or OK dinghy. But you can also sail sedately, taking along friends. While rowing is not the boat’s strong suit, it is acceptable and the GIS can even take a small outboard. If I were not over-boated already (by some standards), I’d think about adding one to the fleet.

Plans for the Goat Island Skiff are available at https://www.storerboatplans.com/boatplans/goat-island-skiff-simple-sailing-boat-excellent-performance-lightweight. You can see pictures and contact other builders at www.facebook.com/groups/GoatIslandSkiff. Kits are available from Clint Chase at https://www.chase-small-craft.com/.

Jewell

Striking a balance between seaworthiness and ease of use in a small craft can be challenging. A too-small cabin can be claustrophobic, but a hull designed around a comfortable interior can be ungainly. Too large a boat can overpower a vehicle’s towing capability; too small, its usefulness may be limited. Too tall, a rig is hard to set up; too short, the boat’s performance may be a continual frustration. With Jewell, however, French naval architect François Vivier seems to have struck an impeccable balance.

Vivier worked up the design in consultation with Clint Chase, a boatbuilder of Portland, Maine, who relayed what people were telling him they were looking for in a boat. The U.S. kits are CNC-cut by Hewes & Company of Blue Hill, Maine. As of this writing, a single hull had been completed to the new design, and another was close to launching in Switzerland.

Frank Kieliszek of Norway Lake, Maine, owns the first completed Jewell, which he named LEILU. Rather than building it himself, he sought economy by buying a boat kit and a quick completion by having it constructed by French & Webb of Belfast, Maine. It was an unusual project for a company known for its fine custom yacht construction.

Vivier’s thorough designs are conceived with amateur builders in mind, and the computer-cut kits are meant to simplify and hasten the all-plywood construction. The hull is glued-lapstrake, using 9mm okoume plywood over an egg-crate-style structure of interlocked bulkheads and stringers, all epoxy-filleted. She has a box keel that contains the ballast and also makes her readily trailerable.

Kieleszek wanted a boat finished to high standards, but he’s more interested in sailing than construction. The French & Webb builders report that the kit went together easily, even though Vivier hadn’t finalized the instructions at the time. “I think they were pleased,” Kieleszek said. “The pieces that come precut, the CNC pieces, fit amazingly well. They had some little things they would do differently,” but overall the problems were few. LEILU launched in August 2013.

Kieleszek lives year-round at the head of a five-mile-long lake, and LEILU stands ready at the end of a small dock. “When I come home from work, the boat is already rigged, so we just hoist sail and push off,” he said. He had small sailboats before, most notably a Flying Scot—but he wanted something safe, stable, and not requiring as much athleticism to sail. Kieleszek also wanted a boat that he could transport to salt water for exploring and weekend cruises among Maine’s alluring islands. He saw a presentation that Chase made at the Small Reach Regatta one year about sailing with Vivier in France. He started visiting websites regularly. When he saw the Jewell design, all the pieces fi t together.

For Kieleszek, LEILU has lived up to her promise. Joining him in Belfast Harbor for a daysail, I came to appreciate the boat’s qualities as well. Small-boat cruisers have a long list of things they look for in a boat, and I can’t think of any criterion that this design fails to meet. And it meets them all with style.

The boat is a centerboarder rigged as a gaff-headed yawl, in Vivier’s words, “firstly because it is beautiful, and also because Americans are fond of yawls.” She has a roller-furling jib whose tack attaches to a stemhead fitting, without the need of a bowsprit. The high-peaked gaff mainsail sets easily, reefs easily, and provides ample power. The triangular, sprit-boomed mizzen sheets to a pole boomkin that is easily removed for trailering.

Yawls with outboard rudders present one difficulty: steering often calls for either an offset mizzenmast or elaborate mechanisms to get around the mast to the rudderhead. Vivier’s response was to step the mast through the short afterdeck into a fitting and a step mounted on the inboard face of the transom. The S-shaped tiller passes under the afterdeck and through a transom aperture below the step. The aperture is far enough down to give the mizzenmast sufficient “bury,” and a built-in well, much like an outboard motor recess, drains overboard aft to prevent water from coming into the cockpit. By using this simple solution, the mizzen is stepped amidships, where it should be.

Although there is nothing technically difficult about setting up the rig, it takes time, up to two hours. The boat could easily live on its trailer, but this kind of setup and take-down time greatly favors the kind of user who has in mind weekend adventuring over regular daysailing off a trailer. The mast is housed in a stainless-steel, deck-mounted tabernacle, and Kieleszek is able to raise it by himself. The shrouds set easily, using high-tech line through simple deadeyes. The jib attaches simply to the stemhead fitting. Its halyard, which passes through a block at the peak for mechanical advantage when hoisting, leads to a cleat on the cabintop to port of the companionway slider. For the mainsail, the peak and throat halyards, which also reeve through blocks for advantage in hauling, lead to cabintop cleats to starboard. Modern rigging fittings provide appropriate strength, minimal profile, and ease of handling.

With the jib and mizzen rolled up and the main furled, and the permanently placed rudder kicked up to vertical, LEILU launched easily. On retrieval later, I was surprised at how very easily she winched up onto the trailer rollers, and Kieleszek’s six-cylinder pickup hauled her out without a hint of complaint.

Like many of Vivier’s designs, Jewell has an ample cockpit, much larger than you often see in boats of this length (19’8″). The boat’s width—7′ 3″—accentuates the cockpit’s volume. She feels and handles like a much larger boat. She has side seats aft, with lockers under-neath, and a bridge deck, making a T-shaped cockpit sole that greatly simplifies jib handling while tacking. Seating is comfortable for four or more. The coaming is a comfortable back support but is low enough for side-deck seating when the crew goes to the weather rail. The electric outboard is stowed in the starboard locker. Kieleszek has a model with a removable battery pack at its head, eliminating any need for heavy batteries aboard. The outboard provides a couple of hours of motoring time.

The cabin is also commodious for a boat this size. Chase, who is 6′ 6″ tall, encouraged Vivier to include long bunks. The V-berth layout is practical not only for tall people but for stowage. Compact lockers to port and starboard aft provide accessible stowage and minimalist counter space. The centerboard trunk’s intrusion into the interior is slight, forming a useful step that doubles as a place to sit while slicing salami. Stowage under the bridge deck alongside the center-board trunk easily accommodates a small portable toilet on one side and a cooler to the other, both nicely out of the way when not in use. With the addition of a boom tent to keep the cockpit bug- and rain-free, a couple could easily cruise comfortably for days, yet the boat would be easy to handle solo.

In one spring afternoon sail, Kieleszek and I experienced just about everything. We sailed downwind out of the harbor on a pleasant breeze. However, we could see lines of dark clouds forming, portending gusts. The boat balanced handily and maneuvered through tacks and jibes with ease. At length, we turned windward for the homeward leg, and soon we found it necessary to reef. We hauled the mizzen tight and rolled up the jib so the boat would ride head-to-wind while we cinched up the topping lift to control the boom, eased the main peak and throat halyards together, made off the leech reefing line, got the luff cringle on its hook, and made off the reefing nettles around the loose-footed sail. In no time, we hoisted the main again and rolled out the jib.

After a while, the wind subsided, so we shook out the reef. Before long, a particularly dark line appeared, obviously carrying rain and strong wind. Kieleszek made the wise call to douse the main entirely, and when that strong breeze hit, we sailed very comfortably on the jib and mizzen, a classic yawl strategy for heavy weather. After the squall line passed, we were able to hoist full sail again and sailed back to port on a pleasant breeze under a warming sun.

She handled all of that with grace. I found myself toying with the old ideas: Why not this one? I envisioned her loaded with dry bags and baskets of edibles, outward bound. Her simplicity has a strong appeal. I’ve been an admirer of Vivier’s designs since coming to know them at Raid Sweden in 2005, and periodically I visit his website to daydream about one design or another. There is something about this Jewell design—economical, towable, manageable, “doable”—that has that just-right feel to it.

For information about Jewell and other designs by François Vivier, see his website at www.vivierboats.com. Plans are available from the designer. Kits and completed boats are available in France from Icarai, www.icarai.fr/index-en.html.

PRIMROSE

COURTESY of TOM KILEY

At only 15’ long, PRIMROSE is a commodious and seaworthy small yacht. Designer K. Aage Nielsen was instrumental in introducing the double-enders of his native land to the United States.

Aage Nielsen mastered many different styles during his career in yacht design, but he never forgot the lovely shape of the double-ended hulls he grew up with in Faaborg, Denmark. He was largely responsible for bringing the style to North America, not only by adapting historic workboat shapes for pleasure boats but also by refining them in new ways. PRIMROSE, at just 15′ LOA and launched in 1936, is the smallest of his designs of this type.

Full-bodied, double-ended hulls would have surrounded Nielsen during his youth. He was 21 years old in 1925, when he emigrated to the United States to take a job with John G. Alden Company in Boston, Massachusetts. It was a golden age, when many talented young designers brought Alden’s ideas to fruition. Nielsen went on to work with his friend Murray Peterson during the Great Depression and later in the Boston office of Sparkman & Stephens, where he earned Olin Stephens’s highest respect. After World War II, Nielsen went out on his own. Throughout, he continued periodically to find inspiration in the double-enders of his native land.

He designed a wide range of them, their sterns very nearly works of sculptural art. It’s a difficult shape to draw in two dimensions, and it has to be done right if the drawn shape is to have the right look when constructed in three dimensions. But Nielsen had learned boatbuilding before going into design, having completed a rigorous apprenticeship with roots in the European guild system. His knowledge of construction served him well as a designer throughout his career, and he held his builders to exacting standards.

Boats built to Nielsen designs tend to be highly prized by their owners. PRIMROSE is no exception. The owner of the unique little yacht—and yacht she is—is Tom Kiley of Camden, Maine, whose family has owned her since his father bought her in 1980. “This boat is a keeper,” he said. His children have grown up with the boat, and no doubt when the time comes his grandchildren will do the same. “It takes a half a pint of varnish, half a pint of white paint, and leftover bottom paint,” Kiley said, and he can take care of the usual seasonal maintenance himself. The boat has no engine or systems, nothing to get in the way of sailing. How often does he sail her? His answer is simple: “Never enough.”

Kiley is a true aficionado of Nielsen yachts, having owned four of them over the years. In addition to PRIMROSE, he still owns SNOW STAR, a 36′ 9″ sloop of 1967. In the past, he has also owned two keel-centerboarders: WINSOME, a 1959, 35′ 9″ sloop; and STAR SONG, a 1965, 43′ yawl. He pays attention to his boats: PRIMROSE was extensively refit in the 1990s at Ballentine Boat Shop in Massachusetts, which among other things replanked her using white cedar to replace the original Philippine mahogany, with plank scarfs glued with epoxy to avoid using butt blocks.

COURTESY of TOM KILEY

As a traditional plank-on-frame hull, PRIMROSE is happiest spending the season on her mooring in Camden Harbor, Maine.

PRIMROSE rides at a mooring in Camden Harbor, ready for any fine afternoon of daysailing. There, I caught up with Kiley and the boat in late July 2014. Kiley rowed us out to the mooring, and the familiar, unmistakable stern that Nielsen mastered so perfectly hove into view amid the crowded summer fleet. In a minute, we had cleared away the boom tent—a necessity, since the cockpit is not self-draining. In another minute, we had the jib hanked on, the marconi mainsail set, and we were ready to cast off.

In relatively light air, the boat moved very well, reminiscent of the best of the full-keeled small daysailers, boats like the widely admired Herreshoff 12 1⁄2. PRIMROSE has a waterline length of 13′ 5″, a foot longer than the Herreshoff, but like the 12 1⁄2, it has the feel of sailing a larger boat. Its 5′ 6″ beam makes the cockpit commodious and gives the boat very good reserve stability. Like the 12 1⁄2 and its Joel White–designed cousin the Haven 12 1⁄2, PRIMROSE has a cuddy forward for stowage.

Kiley has two tillers to choose from, and most often he chooses the longer one so he can keep his weight forward, especially when sailing solo. The cockpit seats, now of teak instead of the original painted pine, are set higher aft than forward. This practical layout puts the helmsman a little higher than the crew, ensuring good visibility forward. A centerline rail on the floorboards provides comfortable footing when heeled over.

Kiley’s eye for a boat and attention to detail comes from a lifetime in yachts. He has a deep respect for Nielsen’s designs. On PRIMROSE, he points out some-what apologetically a stainless-steel shackle riding on the bronze horse traveler, saying he hasn’t yet found a suitable bronze one. But, the traveler itself is bronze, having replaced the original galvanized version. A mast break many years ago—before his family’s ownership—was repaired by scarf-joining the sound Sitka spruce upper portion to a Douglas-fir lower portion, something he says Nielsen—a famous curmudgeon in his own times—would likely have frowned upon.

We tacked pleasantly out of Camden, the boat han-dling easily. The mainsheet leads to the helmsman’s hand, with no cleats to tempt anyone to make it off. Kiley has found it necessary to cast off the sheet immediately to get the pressure off the mainsail in strong gusts, which is important in a ballasted, open boat. “If we take water in here, we sink,” he said. “I have a canoe airbag I actually inflate, because if the boat fills up with water, it’s gone.” The fairly small jib tacks easily, the sheets reeving through fairleads and coming aboard over the coaming, whose top edge is armored with lengths of half-round brass to resist chafing the varnish.

The tiller slips between cheek pieces at the head of the rudder, which is mounted on a very steeply raked sternpost, with the rudderhead sweeping forward to follow the profile of the stern. Such outboard rudders are typical of Danish double-enders. For a small boat, tiller steering is clearly the way to go, but for large double-enders Nielsen retained tiller steering only for NORTHERN CROWN, a 1956, 35′ 5″ sloop. For other larger yachts, he adapted the stern for use with wheel steering, with lines leading to a quadrant belowdecks. In these yachts, the rudder is set on a sternpost that is farther forward and not as steeply raked as in the traditional boats, making in effect a counter stern.

Tom Jackson

Seated on the raised sternsheets, owner Tom Kiley has clear forward visibility from the helm. The mainsheet is never cleated off, allowing immediate depowering when needed.

PRIMROSE is a one-of-a-kind, built at the Simms Brothers yard in Dorchester, Massachusetts. (Nielsen found better success with a similar, but larger, 18′ 3″ double-ender with a small auxiliary engine, four of which were built, including FERN for author E.B. White.) Nielsen during his life was very particular about boats built to his plans. A boat such as PRIMROSE would be a challenge to get right, and Nielsen knew it. The difficult planking lines and hull shape aft require quite a lot of steam-bending and careful fitting. Hav-ing the shape look right depends entirely on building it right. Nielsen originally designed PRIMROSE to be lapstrake-planked, and she would be handsome that way; however, her client preferred carvel planking.

Nielsen always favored wood construction, shunning the industry’s move to fiberglass. He insisted on person-ally supervising each construction. By the time he died in 1984, he felt that the kind of work he demanded was becoming a thing of the past, and he stipulated that no further boats should be built to his designs. In many ways, it was an unfortunate choice, at an unfortunate time. In his final years, a resurgence in wooden yacht construction ushered in a new golden age, both in traditional construction and in “composite” construction using wood veneers and epoxy to make cold-molded hulls. His plans are not generally available for use in building new boats of any kind.

Tom Jackson

PRIMROSE was largely reconstructed at Ballentine Boat Shop in the 1990s, but much of her gear is original, including the Merriman Brothers bronze roller-reefing fitting for the main boom.

However, in the course of the production of the biography Worthy of the Sea: K. Aage Nielsen and His Legacy of Yacht Design (Tilbury House, Publishers, and Peabody Essex Museum, 2006), his family decided to pay homage to his legacy by authorizing limited permission for new construction. Nielsen for much of his career favored two yards: Walsteds Baadevaerft in Thurø, Denmark, and Paul Luke in East Boothbay, Maine. Walsteds still builds in wood, but Luke turned to aluminum in the 1970s. Following Nielsen’s own pattern, new construction can now be done at Walsteds, or Rockport Marine in Maine. The latter came into play because Rockport’s owner, Taylor Allen, cares not only for his own double-enders NORTHERN CROWN and FERN but also about a dozen Nielsen yachts for customers, the largest single concentration of Nielsen yachts anywhere. Someone looking for a new boat to the PRIM-ROSE design, therefore, could have a boat built professionally in the United States or Europe.

A classic yacht seems to transcend its own times. Sailing on their own or in regattas, Nielsen yachts still hold their own, in appearance and handling. “I have a great regard for that, as a sailor,” Kiley said. “I look at the design of HOLGER DANSKE [a 1964 double-ended ketch, 42’6″ LOA] or STAR SONG, and I think, wow, that was such a long time ago, and to get it so right so early, on the first try, was unbelievable. The tweaking, the little things, have changed it. They haven’t made it better. Things like self-tailing winches, and epoxy—those aren’t my ideas, that’s just staying current. But boy, to change that boat? How to make it better? I don’t see how.”

PRIMROSE stands as proof that Nielsen put as much of himself into his small boats as his large ones, and she is as timeless as any of them.

For more information about the construction of the Double-Ender 15 and other designs by K. Aage Nielsen, contact Rockport Marine, www.rockportmarine.com; or Walsteds Baadevaerft, www.walsteds.dk.

PEABODY ESSEX MUSEUM/K. AAGE NIELSEN COLLECTION

PRIMROSE
Particulars
LOA 15′ 1″
LWL 13′ 5″
Beam 5′ 6″
Draft 2′ 3″
Sail Area 133 sq ft
Displacement 1,720 lbs
Ballast 500 lbs outside
200 lbs inside

PEABODY ESSEX MUSEUM/K. AAGE NIELSEN COLLECTION

K. Aage Nielsen drew the plans for the Double-Ender 15 in 1935. She was originally intended for lapstrake construction, but the only hull known to have been built under Nielsen’s supervision—PRIMROSE, built by Simms Brother in Massachusetts in 1936—was built carvel, or smooth-skinned. Her full-keel hull form is directly inspired by the workboats Nielsen knew in Denmark during his youth. In adapting the
type for pleasure use, he paired a refined version of the traditional hull form with a modern fractional marconi rig, giving the small yacht comfortable seating and excellent performance for daysailing.
Nielsen, a masterful draftsman who was trained in construction, was known to be a stickler for personally overseeing the boats custom-built to his designs. Although new boats can be built by permission at Walsteds Baadevaerft in Denmark and Rockport Marine in Maine, his plans are not available to others for construction.

Marsh Duck

Christopher Cunningham

Marsh Duck, designed by Scot Domergue, combines the performance of a sailing canoe with the range of an expedition camp-cruiser.

Scot Domergue wanted a boat that didn’t exist. It had to have accommodations for sleeping aboard under a solid roof and the performance of a sailing canoe. It had to be burdensome enough to carry supplies for extended solo cruising yet easily driven with sculls and a sliding seat; tough enough to drag across a rocky beach yet light enough to tow on its traler behind a bicycle. He went to the drawing board and worked up about two dozen designs. The last one, the narrowest he dared draw, became the Marsh Duck.

The boat is 18′ long and has a beam of 43″. The integral wings amidships increase the span to 54″. Short, easily removable outriggers add another foot to the beam. Fiberglass and epoxy over stitch-and-glue construction with 1⁄8″ and ¼” plywood brings the boat in, without sailing and rowing gear, at about 130 lbs.

Sailing performance was Scot’s primary focus when he was designing the Marsh Duck. His initial concept was inspired by the YAKABOO, a sailing canoe Frederic Fenger used to cruise the Caribbean in 1911. The Marsh Duck’s hull form was adapted from that of a more modern sailing canoe, the IC–10—an international class of sailing canoe. Scott converted the IC–10’s hull to a double-chined form appropriate for construction in plywood.

Christopher Cunningham

Under sail, the boat is steered via two push-pull tillers.

Under sail, the Marsh Duck’s canoe ancestry is evident. Sailing requires you, the live ballast, to look lively. The side decks provided me a good windward perch when the sail powered up and the Marsh Duck took off. Under the 107-sq-ft mainsail, the Marsh Duck was quite sensitive to the rather fluky offshore breeze, so I shifted my weight often and kept the sheet out of the jaws of its fairlead/jam cleat. The rudder, fully deployed for sailing, provided instant and dramatic response to my touch on the twin push-pull tillers. One of my own boats is equipped with a single push-pull tiller, so I thought I’d adapt instantly to the Marsh Duck’s system. I did, but only on the starboard tiller. On the port side I steered with starboard side reflexes, and the Marsh Duck responded by darting about like a housefly. More time at the helm would solve that problem. When I had steady wind and steered a smooth course, the Marsh Duck flew along and provided an exhilarating ride.

I had no trouble keeping the boat upright during my sailing trials, but I did a capsize drill to see how easily I could recover from a dunking. The mast and sail kept the Marsh Duck from completely turning turtle, and she floated high on her side. After making sure that the main sheet was free, I swam around the stern and grabbed the daggerboard. It didn’t take much of a pull to get the boat upright. Getting back aboard was very much like reboarding a kayak after a capsize and wet exit. To keep from pulling the Marsh Duck over on me, I had to kick and lunge to get my weight quickly amidships. A bit of tidying up in the cockpit, and I was ready to get underway again.

Christopher Cunningham

For rowing, the boom is lifted clear of the oarsman. Foot straps are unnecessary, as the seat is inclined aft to ease recovery.

Scot keeps the carbon-fiber mast up and the sail furled on the boom while rowing, which he normally does in calm conditions, preferring to sail whenever there’s a useful breeze. I had plenty of clearance under the boom for rowing. A recess in the cockpit floor serves as a foot brace. It’s fitted with a mating plug to provide a flat floor while sailing. The recess is simple, effective, and comfortably angled. There was no need to have my feet strapped in, as in a racing shell, because the tracks for the sliding seat are set on long wedges that had enough downward slope to bring me aft through the recovery of my stroke.

The rowlocks are standard for racing shells. The gates that close over the looms keep the oars from popping out of the locks, but if the boat rolls excessively they’ll push the oar handles into your thighs. Scot’s not as big as I am, so the locks weren’t set at a height that fit me well. While I had no trouble rowing at right angles to waves, I did get hung up when the waves were at an angle and induced some roll. A simple fix would be to mount the outriggers above the wings instead of below them. Builders should check the rowlock height and adjust as necessary—it’s essential for open-water rowing. I should mention that I’ve never been a fan of using a sliding seat and outriggers on open-water rowing boats. They were designed for fast, light boats racing on flat water. On rough water the overlapping handles of long sculls aren’t well suited for a rolling boat. Rowing a heavy and relatively slow boat with a sliding seat is hard on the knees. A fixed thwart and a shorter stroke, in my experience, are a better match for waves.

Christopher Cunningham

Designer-builder Domergue transports Marsh Duck on a bicycle trailer.

When I rowed across the wind the tall, bare mast and the furled sail on the boom caught enough wind to make the boat heel, enough to push the downwind oar handle to my thigh. The sliding seat rig, normally centered on the cockpit floor, can easily be set to the windward side to level the boat. On flat protected water I rowed at a relaxed 4 knots, sustained 5½ knots, and topped out just shy of 6 knots. The light, narrow hull of the Marsh Duck is easily driven, but when there’s enough wind to scuff up the water, it’s time to let the sail take over the work.

The Marsh Duck’s bottom is a wide, well-rockered panel without a skeg, so the boat can spin around without much provocation. It relies on the rudder for tracking. The rudder is rigged with two push-pull tillers, each captured alongside the cabin with a thin, cleated line that offers a little friction so I could set the rudder straight or at angle and the line would lightly hold it. Over a long haul, that works, but in close quarters that require a lot of maneuvering, every adjustment of the rudder is an interruption to rowing. Another lesser issue is that the rudder, while nicely foil-shaped to reduce drag, is extra wetted surface to pull through the water. I’d prefer to have it retracted. With the rudder up I could steer with the oars, but the stern tended to swing wildly as it lifted between strokes because my weight would slide forward at the end of the stroke. When I rowed with the rudder partially retracted, leaving the leading edge angled slightly down and immersed a few inches, it provided tracking while still allowing me to steer with asymmetrical pulls on the oars. While the absence of a fixed skeg offers more nimble steering while under sail, I’d suggest adding one to keep the stern in line while you’re rowing.

Christopher Cunningham

Marsh Duck’s rowlocks are standard racing shell equipment. The shop-made outriggers are mounted on wings built into the hull. The rudder is retractable for rowing, and provides sensitive steering under sail.

The Marsh Duck has two large compartments with watertight hatches. The forward compartment can hold quite a bit of equipment. More gear can be tucked into the space under the cockpit; heavy items such as water, food, and cooking equipment stowed there can provide additional stability and keep the bow light to lift over oncoming seas.

The aft cabin felt quite roomy to me, vastly more spacious than my sneakbox, where there’s scarcely enough vertical clearance for sleeping on my side. The Marsh Duck’s cabin doesn’t have sitting headroom, but I didn’t find it at all claustrophobic. From transom to bulkhead there’s 6′ 4″ of length, plenty of room for me, at 6′, to stretch out in. There was enough width along that length to lie with my knees tucked up. Holes in the bulkhead forward provide access to the storage space under the cockpit so the cabin doesn’t need to get cluttered with gear. The companionway door is plexiglass and lets in plenty of light. The sliding hatch overhead can be moved aft for extra ventilation or stargazing. There’s a solar panel on the cabin roof to charge an electrical system for cabin lighting.

Having comfortable sleeping arrangements aboard the Marsh Duck will save a lot of time you’d otherwise spend setting up camp ashore. You can sleep at anchor or pulled up on the beach and in the morning be ready to get underway in just a few minutes.

The Marsh Duck, one of a new breed of solo cruisers, combines the compartments and the profile of an ocean rowing boat with a fast slender hull. It would be best for someone who’d enjoy, and develop the skills for, high-performance rowing and sailing. In the Marsh Duck you could ably answer the call of lifelong coastal cruiser Audrey Sutherland: “Go simple, go solo, go now.”

Plans are available from Duckworks Boatbuilder’s Supply, www.duckworksbbs.com/plans/domergue/marshduck/index.htm.

Christopher Cunningham

Particulars
LOA 18′
Beam 3′ 6″
Draft 4″ – 8″
Sail area 107 sq ft

Christopher Cunningham

Marsh Duck combines the best elements of a sailing canoe, an ocean rowing boat, and a racing dinghy. She carries three reefs, and her 107 sq ft of sail may be quickly reduced to 25 sq ft.

The Morley Guide Canoe

One doesn’t usually think of Montana as a hotbed of boatbuilding…in any medium. And it’s not. But there are a few dedicated individuals designing and building small craft worthy of note. One of them, Jason Cajune’s Freestone drift boat, was featured in the 2008 edition of Small Boats. While most Montana waters aren’t deep, especially rivers such as the Yellowstone, Madison, and the Big Hole, they are reputed to stock trout at 5,000 a mile, which attracts fly fishermen from all over the world. A strong catch-and-release ethic keeps them coming back. In many ways, the drift boat is the ideal design for such pursuits, but hardly the only choice. For many, the canoe is a more versatile investment, not only capable of running rivers but also an extremely competent means of traversing lakes.

Designed and built by Morley Canoes in the north-west corner of the state, the cedar-strip-planked Guide is such a boat. Company literature touts it as a “tough working canoe” that is “well known for its wonderful reliability over so many water conditions,” capable of carrying “heavy loads with ease through churning rapids or across a windy lake.”

Morley Canoes was founded in 1972 by Greg and Anne Morley, who that year made a very conscious decision about their lives: to spend more time doing the things they loved, and high on the list was paddling lakes and rivers in canoes and kayaks of their own making. Unlike too many folks, they made good on their vow.

It’s not as if Greg had been mired in a corporate sweatshop. Armed with a degree in forestry from the University of Montana, he’d been a parks and recreation superintendent in Montana and Oregon, lastly acquiring land for a greenway along the Willamette River. A longtime woodworker, he began making canoes as a hobby. Then, after Anne asked him to build her a 16′ touring kayak so she could “get away,” he wondered if he could make a living at it. The answer, 42 years later, is: yes.

The Morleys moved to Corvallis, in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley, and a few years later headed north to the Swan River Valley, seeking more water on which to paddle. In the hamlet of Swan Lake they bought the old Silver Spur Bar and an acre of land, and set to work.

“The Department of Commerce wanted us to grow the business and hire employees,” Greg says, “but we weren’t interested in that. We wanted a comfortable living, but time to pursue the outdoor activities we enjoy. All of our children know how to run rapids and now, even our grandkids. Twelve-year-old Bryn does whitewater in her 12′ solo canoe.”

Bryn is the daughter of Steve Morley, Greg’s son who is taking over the business. On the day of my visit he was covering a canoe exterior with one of its two layers of 6-oz fiberglass cloth. “I grew up in this shop,” he says. “I got into sailing and windsurfing. And, of course, I built my own boats—with Dad’s help.” He also took to surfing and moved to Hawaii for 10 years, where he and his wife started their family. When it came to choosing the best place to raise their kids, they chose the “last best place”—Montana.

The Guide was designed by Greg, who taught himself by assiduously studying the shapes of others and modifying them to suit his own taste. One learns a craft or art by first mimicking the masters, like Old Town and Chestnut. With canoes, the key elements are beam, rocker, stem profiles, and tumblehome—adjusted by on-the-water experience—wrestling with the age-old compromise: maneuverability versus tracking. Greg says WoodenBoat magazine has been an important educational aid, as well as the early Canoe magazine, in which particular designs and their performance were well covered.

The Guide is available in lengths from 15′ to 18′. It’s a general-purpose design, capable of carrying supplies for a week of camping on a river, and it can handle waters from riffles to rapids. Standard rocker is 1″, although depending on how the customer plans to use the boat, Steve can easily add another inch of rocker. A symmetrical hull, it has a bit of flare forward to deflect spray, transitioning aft to modest tumblehome for easy paddling.

In the early days of the business, Greg made all the boats the same; today, he says that won’t satisfy many customers. By necessity, each one is custom, and that’s okay by him. Adjustments include weight, keel, depth, bow height, bow shape, square stern, optional sail thwart, and thwart placements. One can even specify an inlaid design, and he has received orders for some odd ones—from the likenesses of dogs to a buzzard smoking a cigar. Trout, loons, and swans are popular images. Customers, who have come from as far afield as Germany and New Zealand, send old photos and say, “Make it like this.” Inlays are drafted and routed on the cedar before construction, since routing on compound surfaces is too tricky. The inlay wood is about 1⁄10″ thick and glued in place.

Construction of the Guide is a proven system that has evolved with Greg. In any of the four lengths, these canoes are built on a strongback that’s stored in the back of the shop. It’s on wheels, so when a new boat is begun, it’s rolled into position in the center of the shop where there’s room to swing a brush and a drill driver, if not a cat. Forms are attached into 1⁄2″ slots cut into the strongback. It’s set up so any of the models can be built on the same strongback, using the right frames in the right slots.

Strips of western red cedar purchased from a supplier in Washington State are cut from 2×4s and 2×6s on a bandsaw with a powerfeed. Measuring 1⁄4″ thick and 7⁄8″ wide, the strips have a bead routed into one edge and a cove in the other for a snug edge-to-edge fit. They’re edge-glued to each other and temporarily glued to the molds with thermoplastic glue, supplemented by big rubber bands until the glue cures. When the two layers of exterior cloth are bonded to the strips, the cloth is invisible and the shape is locked in and becomes extremely rigid. After the hull is turned over, the molds are removed and the interior is faired, after which the interior is sheathed with one layer of 6-oz fiberglass cloth set in epoxy.

The rails are trimmed with hardwood, which could be oak, ash, cherry, or whatever the customer prefers. Thwarts, foot braces, and woven rawhide seats are added with bronze fastenings.

Steve Morley had no difficulty shouldering the 70-lb 17-footer across the road and down to the Swan Lake shore. We took turns paddling. (The Morleys make their own light and beautiful cedar paddles.) I paddled along the lakeshore, sitting on the aft seat for a time, and then at Greg’s and Steve’s suggestion, kneeling just forward of it for better trim. In either position the boat felt light and easily driven; the far side of the lake didn’t seem too much of a distance to go. Tracking and turning so nicely, one doesn’t want to quit…just keep the rhythm, just keep on paddling.

Morley Canoes, 22030 Highway 83, Swan Lake, MT 59911; www.morleycanoes.com.

DIANNE’S ROSE

If you’re like most people, you probably enjoy relaxing in your living room, and why wouldn’t you? The furniture is comfortable, you can put your feet up at the end of a long day, and there are always snacks and beverages close by. If you can imagine having all this, enjoying nice scenery moving gently by outside the windows and having a pleasant breeze blowing through, you’ll know what it feels like to go for a cruise on DIANNE’S ROSE, Roy Schreyer’s charming 17′ houseboat. A day with Roy and Dianne on their boat resembles nothing so much as taking your living room out on the water with you.

After years of beach cruising in a modified Star-class sailboat that he rescued from a farm field, Roy responded to a comment from his wife, Dianne, that a more stable boat would get her out on the water more often, and so he designed and built DIANNE’S ROSE. Roy calls his new cruiser a house/camp boat, and he and Dianne find that DIANNE’S ROSE is equally comfortable on the water or on the trailer in a campground on the way to the water. He professes a fondness for near-shore, shallow-water adventures, sliding under bridges and going as far up the creek as he can before running out of water (and, according to Dianne, even a little farther on occasion), and in this small boat he has created an ideal platform for these kinds of adventures.

This is a big little boat, and every inch of the interior volume is available for use. Because there are no side decks, the cabin is almost 7′ 6″ wide. Even with the decks at the bow and stern, it is still 10′ long inside. The designer has made good use of the basic construction of the hull to support the interior functions. The hull is a barge with a flat-bottomed center section and a garboard plank on each side that rises through 6″ of deadrise to form a chine at the waterline. In profile the bottom sweeps up to make a pram bow, and the full-width transom is slightly raked.

Construction is common lumber and marine ply-wood covered with epoxy and fiberglass cloth. The main hull components can all be built on a flat bench before being assembled, and with the hull being rectangular in plan there are very few curves to deal with in layout and assembly. Joints are mechanically fastened and filleted with epoxy, and the housetop is sheathed with fiberglass cloth and painted white to reflect heat.

Two full-length longitudinal bulkheads built from plywood with lumber doublers on the edges make up the basic egg-crate structure of the hull and also define the cabin layout. The space between the two bulkheads creates the central sole and makes up the edges of the settees. Because these two bulkheads continue fore and aft under the end decks, they provide out-of-the-way stowage for the table in its lowered position. Other filler pieces slide fore and aft on these bulkheads, and when locked into place with deadbolts they offer a step up and out onto the deck at bow and stern. At the stern, the bulkheads define the galley cupboard and the head area, and their interior faces are nicely finished with raised-panel wainscoting to add some decorative appeal.

It is at the forward end of the accommodation that Roy has done his best design work. The settees stop short of the forward end of the house, leaving a foot-well for the captain (to starboard) and first mate (to port). The view forward and to either side is panoramic, and even on a short cruise I could see how these are best seats in the house. With the window removed and a screen inserted in the doors to the deck at bow and stern, there is a delightful through-breeze on even the hottest of days. When we were out on the river, the boat was covered in deerflies, and yet we were perfectly cool and comfortable inside the bright, airy cabin. A small afterdeck houses the motorwell and two tidy wooden deck boxes, one for gas and one for propane for the galley stove.

When the settees are used for sleeping, one of the back cushions on each side covers the well to make up the length required for two fore-and-aft berths. In a nice bit of design work, these same two filler pieces can also be placed between the settees to form a transverse queen-size berth.

With its longitudinal tongue-and-groove planking and raised center section, the overhead was inspired by old railway cars. Two skylights keep the interior bright, and if one were so inclined chocks could be fitted port and starboard for a dinghy or a little canoe, and maybe a couple of steel-shod setting poles for really-shallow-water work. Roy has recently added a pair of oars, which mount to oarlocks on the forward sides of the house, for low-speed (or out-of-gas) maneuvering, and these too stow neatly inside the cabin along with the fishing rods on either side of the raised center section of the overhead.

The galley has a small sink with a water pump and a two-burner propane stove that can also be dismounted and used outside. Stowage shelves above and below the counter, and an opening window in the aft bulk-head, complete a very functional little space. The head is equipped with a composting toilet, its own portlight, and, of course, a magazine rack stocked with boating publications. A transverse line of hooks in the overhead allows the entire aft section to be converted into a private bathing and changing room. In keeping with Roy’s thrifty free-cycling approach to boatbuilding, the galley shelving and stove were salvaged from an uncompleted Phil Bolger Martha Jane sharpie, the galley tile was left over from their kitchen renovations, and the aluminum-framed screens for the doors at the bow and stern were cut down from old screen doors.

How does she handle? Well, like a barge, really, and about how you would expect a boat to handle that’s virtually flat-bottomed and almost half as wide as long. There are four metal-shod runners on the bottom of the hull to protect against abrasion during beaching. Extending about 1½” below the bottom, they probably improve the tracking somewhat, but I still felt the want of a skeg to keep her on course. Turns are best accomplished by applying a small degree of helm and then meeting the turn with opposite helm almost as soon as it’s started, lest you overcorrect. On your first trip, you’ll want to leave some space on either side of you until your wake straightens out. Roy’s boat is powered with a 9.9-hp longshaft two-stroke outboard, which will give about 6 knots at three-quarters to four-fifths throttle, according to the GPS.

Although it’s unquestionably good on gas, this little outboard works awfully hard to push nearly a ton of boat through the water, and as a result it is distractingly noisy underway. If I were to build one of these boats, I would be inclined to up the horsepower to 25 or 30 and run the motor throttled way back to keep the noise down. I’d also want to find a high-thrust, low-speed prop and, if the budget would stand it, upgrade to a four-stroke for quieter and more efficient running. A wooden hood over the outboard might cut the noise down even further. Even with a larger motor, however, this will still be a very economical boat to run, particularly if she lives on a trailer in your driveway when she’s not on the water. Her decks are clear fore and aft, and a boarding ladder at the bow helps to get back on from the beach. I might add a low bulwark at the bow to give the hull a little bit of sheer in profile and some protection from chop. This would also give you a secure place to stow the anchor and let you keep the docklines out of the cabin. The boarding ladder works well, but it might be even more fun to have a cross-cleated plank to deploy for a real riverboat feel during bow-on landings.

DIANNE’S ROSE measures 17′ LOA × 8′ beam, and draws but 6″. There’s 6′ 91⁄2″ of headroom in the center alleyway of the cabin, and her air draft is only 7′, allowing her to pass safely under all but the lowest of bridges (if, of course, the captain remembers to lower the flagstaff). Empty weight is 1,500 lbs, and she can be towed behind an average six-cylinder vehicle. With her shallow draft, launching and retrieval can be handled by one person if necessary. The angled outer edges of the bottom help get her centered on the trailer. Both times I saw Roy launch and retrieve, she came out of the water perfectly arranged on the trailer, though he was honest enough to say that it doesn’t always happen that way. If she does need to be shifted while on the trailer after retrieving, a small jack and a couple of boards will get her aligned properly.

The original boat was completed in about 700 hours, spread over two years of weekends working outdoors from spring to fall. Roy estimates that with the comprehensive plans he has now prepared, the boat could be completed in about 600 hours. Costs are always difficult to estimate because they depend so much on the degree of fit, finish, and quality that suits an individual builder, but according to Roy he spent about $5,000 on DIANNE’S ROSE, including the trailer but not the motor.

If you are looking for a charming, easy-to-build, and relatively economical way to get on the water, and a sure-fire way to start a conversation at every gas station, rest stop, campground, or launch ramp you visit, then DIANNE’S ROSE might be the boat for you.

You can read more about the design and construction of DIANNE’S ROSE, see designer and builder Roy Schreyer’s cabinetmaking and kitchen design work, and order plans on his website at www.roydesignedthat.com or by emailing him at [email protected]. If you enjoy small, cozy spaces that you can build yourself, be sure to check out both the Tiny House blog at http://tinyhouseblog.com/ and Lloyd Kahn’s new book Tiny Homes on the Move: Wheels and Water, which features DIANNE’S ROSE.

Complete building plans, including 21 sheets of drawings, detailed construction notes, photos, and full-sized patterns for some parts are available as hard copy ($285 USD plus postage) or PDF ($230 USD) from the designer, as are study plans ($30 USD, $35 USD overseas). Send a check or money order to Roy A. Schreyer, 177 Antigua Dr., Wasaga Beach, ON, L9Z 2S2, Canada.

OBSESSION

Marten’s Rapid on the McKenzie River in Oregon is a great example of a Pacific Northwest “technical” rapid. Running Marten’s requires quick moves, good judgment, and steady hands by the oarsman. Such rapids also demand the right kind of boat to navigate them safely. The drift boats that emerged on the McKenzie River are built to handle challenging whitewater and have become the boat of choice for Northwest river runners—particularly among fly fishermen pursuing trout in the upper stretches of these rivers where the drops are steep, boulders are common, and the water runs fast and cold.

These boats trace their heritage back to the early 1900s, when guides started taking fishermen down the McKenzie. The type evolved as legendary boatbuilders such as Tom Kaarhus, Woodie Hindman, Keith Steele, and others each put their own mark on the style. By the late 1950s, the McKenzie drift boat had pretty much reached its modern form, and its descendants continue to take fishermen places other boats can’t reach.

I’ve rowed a lot of guests through Marten’s Rapid in my handmade wooden boat. It is a perfect rapid to demonstrate how a McKenzie runs rapids safely while staying “relatively” dry. Its flat bottom has no vulnerable rudder or keel to resist lateral movement, allowing quick moves to avoid obstacles. Its extreme sheer permits the boat to dive down into holes and ride up the other side. Its flared sides keep water out when moving laterally or when splashing through steep drops. The exaggerated rocker, or fore-and-aft curvature of the bottom, lets the boat float like a leaf on the water and gives it high maneuverability. Take away any one of these characteristics, and a boat would probably capsize in a rapid such as Marten’s.

Within the “family” of McKenzie boats, some are double-ended, others transom-sterned. Freeboard can be high or low. The right configuration depends on how the owner plans to use the boat and on which rivers.

Most professional guides prefer a relatively wide, transom-sterned McKenzie to carry ample gear and to give guests elbow-room for fi shing. Many boats are built with high sides and splash guards forward. The variations are heavily influenced by the favored river and the style of fi shing.

Thirty years ago, a variety of boatbuilders on the McKenzie River sold plans, kits, or finished boats. That is not so today, as wood has given way to fiberglass and especially aluminum. A few wooden boat shops still build drift boats and sell kits and plans, for example Mike Baker of Bend, Oregon (see www.bakerwood driftboats.com).

At the same time, interest in preserving the heritage of wooden drift boats has been renewed. Eagle Rock Lodge in Vida, Oregon, hosts a McKenzie River Wooden Boat Festival each April (see www.eaglerocklodge.com) drawing as many as 50 handcrafted drift boats. Owners and enthusiasts from all over the country share stories and admire the boats. A website (www.woodenboatpeople.com) keeps them connected, and a McKenzie River Drift Boat Museum is envisioned at Vida.

Many of the most traditional designs can be found in Roger Fletcher’s book, Drift Boats & River Dories (Stackpole Books, 2007; see a review in WoodenBoat No. 197 and his article about early drift boats in WoodenBoat No. 151). The book traces the history of the boats and the families that perfected them over the years.

My boat, OBSESSION, is a traditional McKenzie-style drift boat that I built in my garage shop in 2004. One of my favorite rivers is the McKenzie itself, the birthplace of the type. The McKenzie has many Class II and III rapids and is home to one of the most beautiful strains of native redside rainbow trout in the West.

I chose five-ply marine-grade African sapele plywood about 1⁄4″ thick for the sides and seven-ply sapele about 1⁄2″ thick for the bottom. My frames are of Alaska yellow cedar, which contrasts with the dark plywood for a striking appearance. Sapele and yellow cedar are hard to come by in my area, and finding the right wood was my first lesson in boatbuilding patience. I used white oak for the chine logs, the gunwales, and the “dash,” the forward coaming that gives the fishermen something to lean against and blocks spray.

The dimensions are pretty standard for a McKenzie: a little over 15′ LOA, with a beam of 6′ at the sheer and 4′ at the chine. Despite its small transom, the boat is considered a double-ender. I put a 1⁄4″-thick “shoe” of 1⁄4″ UHMW (ultra-high-molecular-weight) plastic on the bottom to protect the wood and to help the boat slide over rocks.

It took me more than 600 hours to build a boat that most guys could’ve built in half that time. I’m slow, my tools are old, I didn’t take a shop class in high school. I “redid” a few things I wasn’t happy with. For example, the stainless-steel screws I first used to fasten the mahogany sides didn’t look quite right, so I replaced every single one of them with brass. This boat challenged my patience, my creativity, and my woodworking ability. In the end, it was more about persistence and passion than skill.

My boat was finally finished one morning when I ran out of things to put on a “to-do” list. Honestly, it kind of snuck up on me. When it was over, I missed the smell of fresh-cut wood, the first coat of varnish, the problem-solving, the orbital sander accompanied by Steely Dan. I missed going to the garage with my first cup of coffee in the morning to critique what I’d done the night before.

I missed all of it—until I put it in the water in the summer of 2004. Right away I had a new obsession, running rivers in a boat I built with my own hands. Moving with the water, flexing the oars on a deep pull, and hitting a perfect line through a rapid is a thrill. So is using the boat as an extension of the rod to move a fly on a graceful arc, enticing a steelhead to strike.

Right after launching, I learned that OBSESSION wasn’t really finished at all—which is one of the best things about wooden boats. The more I rowed and fished, the more improvements I thought of. My boatbuilding project entered a whole new phase.

When the rain settled in for the winter, I gathered my notes, doodles, and sketches of “boat applications” for OBSESSION. I picked through scraps of mahogany and yellow cedar, then happily went to work again. Using leather, I made a simple sling to hold the spare oar out of the way but ready for use. I made covers and drains for the gear compartments to keep fishing supplies dry, as well as drawers and better ways to keep things organized. After an incident in which an oarlock popped out along with its bushing and cotter pin, I made blocks of mahogany attached to the oarlock with an S-hook to prevent them from pulling through under stress. I also added tethers I like, made by Phantom Fire Pan and Oar Tethers in Estacada, Oregon.

I have a “bar” on my boat. At a junkyard, I bought a 2′ piece of brass footrail of the type used in old barrooms, which I mounted to the floorboards as a footbrace. The wilder the rapid, the more I use the brace—it’s one of my favorite “boat apps” because it helps me to row out of danger. I have cup holders to keep cans and bottles in place, along with the occasional cigar that gets lit up when a fisherman celebrates his first steelhead catch. I bought rubber mats of the type used in restaurant kitchens and cut them to fit the floor to protect the wood and provide springy comfort for fishermen who stand up almost all day.

Oars can take a beating on dirt-road rides to the river, so I built holders to keep them from banging around. I can also padlock them in place while leaving the boat unattended to shuttle gear. With a bracket made of sapele and yellow cedar, the oars also make a handy tripod where we can hang a 1962 Coleman lantern at camp.

Fly-rod holders are essential because your hands are on the oars all day. I’ve caught hundreds of steelhead with a setup I created using bamboo, sapele, yellow cedar, and a leather strap. When we run particularly challenging rapids, my guests need both hands free to hold on, bail, snap a picture, or tighten their life jackets, so I built a couple of simple rod holders behind their thwart. As soon as we clear the rapid, they can return to fishing immediately.

One removable floorboard doubles as a cutting board to take ashore when it’s time to clean fish, and another doubles as an onboard table.

The most sickening sound in the middle of a rapid is a dull thud like a sledgehammer hitting the bottom, followed by wood splitting. I’ve heard it. It hurts. A lot. My first thought is never about the repair, it’s always sorrow that I hurt my boat again and disappointment that I didn’t avoid it. But in reality, when you row on Class II and III rivers, you’re eventually going to hit a rock. I remind myself again that I built this boat to run rivers, not the garage.

I use epoxy with fillers for repairs, sometimes augmented by fiberglass cloth or even a plywood backing plate if the break is bad. Normally my repairs are as smooth as glass. To fix one bad 1′-long slice, I used brass machine screws with wing nuts through blocks of wood to bring the plywood fair. After the epoxy set, I cut the screws off flush, which showed through the varnish later, like stitches in a wound. The result was a subtle scar—the mark of a boat with character and experience, one that has been somewhere and has stories to tell.

This boat will continue to collect stories and scars as I row the rocky Northwest rivers. I’m told my OBSESSION is perfectly named—and I couldn’t agree more.

For more on McKenzie River drift boats, see Roger Fletcher’s book Drift Boats & River Dories (Stackpole Books, 2007) and his website.

Feather 14

The history of cities on the Adriatic Sea such as Trieste, Italy—or any city on this ancient waterway—is hard for an American to comprehend. Even the rich recent history of yachting in the region has been shaped by hundreds of years of practical on-the-water experience.

During a recent trip to the northern Adriatic, I had the opportunity to meet Federico Lenardon, a designer from Trieste who not only embodies this history but helps to shape it. He shared with me the story of one of his designs, the Feather 14, an ultralight, cold-molded skiff with roots going back into the heart of the Adriatic Islands and the legacy of the captains from the Croatian archipelago.

I met Federico in the Yacht Club Adriaco, where he keeps the Feather. The walls were adorned with maps and images dating back to the Hapsburg Monarchy. They showed names of islands in a dialect no longer used and etchings of harbors along the Adriatic archipelago filled with sailing vessels of every variety.

The south side of the ancient stone pier was reserved for wooden boats, where they are best protected from the “Bora,” a strong and gusty wind that blows from the north. Along this side of the pier, there were many perfectly maintained wooden yachts up to 50′ long, several of them from the board of the famous Italian designer Carlo Sciarelli, who was born in Trieste.

Sciarelli, with whom Federico had apprenticed, was a master designer whose yachts were not only renowned for winning regattas but also for a unique aesthetic informed by form and fluid lines rather than following the wave-form theory that was emerging in his day.

Sciarelli saw the same utility for speed in some local boats in the Adriatic, basing some of his first designs on the Passera from Mali Losinj, which was home to many captains who sailed the world on merchant vessels during the age of sail. As the story goes, when these captains returned home, they asked the local builders to build a small boat similar to the styles they had seen in their travels. The result was a magnificent sailing boat with a heart-shaped transom, a shape likely borrowed from similar transoms found in many American boats. Federico recognized this, and by exploring the roots of the Passera he became enamored with many aspects of American traditional small-craft design, especially the works of historian Howard I. Chapelle.

In the Feather, not only the technical aspects but the traditional details were rich in variation and utility. Each part and portion of the Feather came with a story. As Federico described it, each was a “quote” from a boat, a builder, a design, or an era that became a particular inspiration for him.

“When designing the prototype for the Feather, I wanted to ‘quote’ these sources,” Federico said. “Similar to how an author incorporates references into a work. I was inspired by these elements, and I wanted to include them in my design.”

There are several such elements throughout the boat. However, the initial inspiration did not come from a design, but from artist Winslow Homer’s famous 1875 painting Breezing Up, showing a catboat under sail. Federico said this painting started the creative direction for the project and allowed him to incorporate elements from his favorite types—the Passera of local renown and 19th-century American sandbaggers from Chapelle’s drawings. He said his intention was to design a broad and shallow boat with a fine underbody. These characteristics are similar to many of the boats from the islands, but for Federico this type also marks a departure from the influences of Sciarelli, who has been noted for designing boats that cut through the water rather than planing.

One of the first elements he incorporated was the transom. “This is a quote from Passera, extending just a bit deeper than the sandbagger or catboat,” Federico said. The heart-shaped transom of the sailing Passera disappeared as the type evolved to accommodate marine engines, which required great bearing surface aft to keep the boat from squatting. The earlier sailing boats of the type had a transom that seemed to define its ability as a fast and able sailing vessel.

The boat’s sectional shape amidships is a quote from sandbaggers, broad, shallow centerboard racing craft so named for their use of sandbags as shifting ballast. “I used this shape but flattened it just a bit,” compared to the 15°-deadrise in sandbaggers. During tank tests of a prototype model, he was impressed how the combination of these elements in the hull design affected wave shape. “It does not have a deep wave at hull speed like other boats.” He also pointed this out in pictures, and the wave seemed almost flat.

Federico also used quotes in the details. One boat that has been very influential in his life is BAT, an English cutter built in 1885. This was Sciarelli’s boat, and Federico was working on the restoration when he caught Sciarelli’s eye and subsequently became the designer’s apprentice. He used several elements from the English style, including the cutaway forefoot and some rigging elements, including a topping lift that wraps under the boom.

The rig is also a quote from Passera, a sliding-gunter mainsail that originated in the Portuguese tradition. This enabled a comparatively large sail plan using spars that will still fit inside the boat for trailering. Having a high-aspect rig also allows for this ultralight boat to sail on the commonly light winds of the Gulf of Trieste.

During my visit the Bora was screaming down the mountainside and rattling the rigging of all the boats moored at the club. It was difficult for me to envision a calm Gulf of Trieste. One of the most famous maritime events in the region is the Barcolana, in which hundreds of boats sail together in a race that has said to have over 2,000 participants. The locals say that in the Barcolana, it is common to have either too much wind or none at all. The Feather 14 is ideally suited to these conditions and can sail circles around other boats in the light air common to the Gulf of Trieste in the summer.

The boat, 14′ LOA, weighs just 320 lbs, including spars and sails. The hull is built using cold-molded construction, using three 1.5mm (3⁄32″) layers of mahogany veneers, making the planking thickness 4.5 mm, or just over 1⁄4″. The construction is of the highest quality, as one may expect of Italian craftsmanship. The bright spruce spars make a nice contrast to the traditional white hull. They are light and hollow, with the mast weighing in just over 10 lbs. With a total sparred length of 18′ 6″, the rig provides enough power to glide across the water in the least of breezes.

As the wind increases, there are many ways to shorten sail. “In 15 to 18 knots, the first reef in the main is a good idea, also it would be good to have three people in the boat,” Federico said, with a combined crew weight of about 500 lbs. “With a crew of three, you can sail in just about anything and it balances well with reefed main and no jib.”

The boat handles superbly. One particularly interesting characteristic is how well it tracks. You can completely let go of the tiller at almost every point of sail and the boat tracks like a full-keel cruiser, aided by a rudder and daggerboard shaped to modern foil cross-sectional shapes. This can be a great attribute when sailing shorthanded or when leaving the helm briefly.

Federico describes the Feather as a modern boat with a traditional heart. He used the design tools that had been given to him by Sciarelli, which enabled him to “feel” the lines as they were laid down on paper. Then, he transferred them to computer to develop templates for pieces to be shaped by computer numerically controlled cutting for use in laminations.

With Federico, the discussion gave light to many expressions that we normally wouldn’t use in English, but somehow fit superbly. In addition to quoting inspiring vessels and the “tailoring of the craft,” he spoke of a design element that has become his signature in boats design, the “bird’s back hand.” “It is a curve that aligns with the trailing edge of a bird’s wing,” he said. Characteristic of the shape and style of the Feather, the composite curve of is the perfect metaphor for the boat: two curves combining to form one shape. In the Feather, this is a combination of American and Adriatic elements, an ultralight boat that can be sailed in adverse conditions and a modern construction incorporating traditional design. It is possible that other designers will be quoting Federico for generations to come.

Orphaned

"Did you build it?” is, by far, the question I am most asked when someone sees me with one of my boats whether I’m in the back yard, at the ramp, or on the water. I can’t help but feel a bit of pride when I can reply that I did. So, it has surprised me that I’ve taken great interest in refinishing the Piccolo lapstrake canoe I was given, unexpectedly by strangers, this past summer. I’ve only taken it out paddling three times, each in an out-of-the-way place. No one has asked me “the question,” but that time will come, and I’ll have to say “No.” I’ve been uncomfortable imagining how less satisfying those exchanges might be.

I have not found out who built the Piccolo. Kelley and Samantha, the couple who gave it to me, got it from Rob, who had bought a 1970 Newport sailboat and the canoe came with it. He wanted a kayak instead and gave the canoe to Kelley.

When I decided to refinish the canoe, I began to learn a bit about the builder, and even to like him, whoever he was.

John, as I’ll call him here, built the canoe from scratch. The Piccolo was designed by Bob Baker for traditional construction: 1⁄4″ cedar planks on steam-bent frames with breasthooks cut from grown crooks. John went the glued-lap-plywood route and may have been guided, as I was when I built my 18′ lapstrake canoe in the late ’80s, by Tom Hill’s Ultralight Boatbuilding. He would have lofted the boat from Baker’s offsets and, after he set the molds up, lined off the seven strakes with battens. It’s not an easy task getting the plank widths right and the curve of the laps fair. When I did it for my canoe, I had to use large mirrors hung on the basement walls to get a line of sight along the battens to adjust them. At first glance the Piccolo’s planking looked fine, but on both ends the third broadstrake flares a bit and pinches the fourth. It’s a minor complaint, and if the Piccolo was John’s first boat, he did well.

Without the leg up provided by a kit’s computer-generated, precut parts, he would have had to spile the planks to get their shapes from the battens, another traditional boatbuilding skill that takes patience to do well. When I sanded the hull, I saw the telltale feathered glue lines of scarf joints John had made to get the full-length plywood blanks for the planks. He had done the joints properly and they were smooth on both sides of the planks.

In theory, it should be simple to make a symmetrical hull by duplicating planks, one on top of the other, before separating them to put them on the building form. When I added seven floor timbers to the Piccolo to support a set of floorboards, I noticed that there were differences port and starboard. The starboard garboard, for instance was 1⁄8″ wider than its port-side mate. I had a similar problem planking my Whitehall: the steam-bent plank keel had a slight twist in it and I had to spile the port and starboard garboards separately to accommodate the asymmetry.

And the bevels on the Piccolo’s stems weren’t quite right. The angle between them wasn’t as acute as it should have been to get the plank ends to lie flat. John had had to force the hood ends home, and the planks hook into the stems with a slight bulge. I’d built a few boats before I realized that curving a fairing batten past the stems can create that problem. The planks have nothing to hold them curved to the bitter end, so the lofting batten should be allowed to run straight after it passes the stem, rather than being made to curve.

I spent several hours sanding the Piccolo and as I studied and ran my hands over the work John had done, the signs of the struggles he’d had were all very familiar. I don’t know why he stopped working on the canoe when he had the hull finished. He had done all the most challenging work—lofting, lining off, spiling, scarfing, cutting bevels and gains on the planks—and he had done it well enough to pass muster with anyone who has built a boat. With my first boats, I thought finishing the hull must be the halfway point or even a bit more, but I eventually learned it was close to the one-third mark, if that. Baker designed the Piccolo with a cat-ketch lugsail rig, backrest, footrest, and a rudder with tiller, yoke, and foot-pedal steering options. John may have realized that completing the boat to the plans was more than he wanted or needed to do.

John’s Piccolo doesn’t have a builder’s plate. He let the canoe go without his name and without a name of its own. I don’t know how many years and how many hands it had passed through, and I wonder if those who owned it thought of it as just a wooden canoe. It has become more than that to me. John left his mark on the Piccolo, enough for me to regard him as someone I would recognize, even admire. When people ask me if I built the canoe, I’ll have to say “No,” but I might add, “A friend did.”