Sean Russell grew up on the shores of Lake Ontario in a small beachfront cottage outside of Toronto. His bedroom window looked out over the lake’s ocean-like expanse of water and he recalls “that view was more valuable than anything. It opened up great vistas. I imagined you could set sail and arrive at the Caribbean or anywhere, for that matter."The cottage was remote enough from television and movies that books were the family’s main form of entertainment. His parents were voracious readers and his mother read a lot of books to Sean, so many that when he was 10 years old he decided he’d be an author someday. The seats are glued-up 7/8″-square strips of fir and yellow cedar. The seats are slotted to make them lighter. Two adults could sit side-by-side on the center thwart so one of its strips is 2″ deep to provide extra stiffness.
Photographs courtesy of Sean Russell
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You set the hook when it was mentioned that the seats are slotted to make them lighter, then reeled us in with the eye-pleasing sheerstrake. It is easy to spot that a lot of seasoned reason had gone into this design. RIPPLE looks to be a fine craft to muck about in.
Cheers,
Skipper and Kent
Another fine vessel from Sean’s drawing board. We’ll done! I’m hoping to build one of his peapod designs from my pile of red cedar.
Nice work!
What a teaser! I see no link where we can get the plans….
Hi. Could a boat as this be purchased already built please? If so, how, price, etc?? Fantastic story— what our world needs today!!! Slow and easy!
Would love to purchase plans. Are they available?
Where do you get plans?
Your comment about outboards reminds me of a time in Fossil Bay, on Sucia Island in the San Juans. As the dock was clogged with bigger boats, the skipper of a cruiser moored out to a buoy, and readied his little dinghy to convey his guests ashore. He hung a little outboard on the dinghy’s transom, and pulled on the starter string about 100 times, to no avail. He could have rowed the distance, maybe 25 yards, several times (one passenger per trip) while he was humiliating himself over the cranky little eggbeater.
I thought, “Have you never heard of oars?”
Which reminds me: I see a lot of people are orthographically challenged when it comes to dinghies. Here’s a ditty to help:
How dingy is the dinghy.
How leprous is its paint;
Though it floats atop the water,
A haughty yacht it ain’t.