December 2021 Archives - Small Boats Magazine

With winter coming on, Kent Lewis walks us through the steps to safely put an outboard away for a few months. Tom Pamperin shares his story of rowing the web of sloughs in the Chippewa River delta. The Cape Falcon 66 Canoe and the Selway Fisher Ptarmigan 17 are the subjects of our Boat Profiles; Sealskinz and Magswitches get a close look in our gear reviews. Our Reader Built Boat comes from Ontario where the restoration of two midtown lakes inspired the creation of an ultralight sectional. And our editor, faced with the beginning of the rainy season, suits up and goes rowing.

From The Editor

Refuge in the Rain

Boating in the off season

For those who don’t mind the rain, boating season in Washington’s Puget Sound area never really ends. For some, the rain is not the bug but the feature and is the reason for launching.

Boat Profile

Ptarmigan 17

A Selway Fisher pocket cruiser

Created by Paul Fisher of England’s Selway Fisher Design, The Ptarmigan 17 is a pocket cruiser with a comfortable cabin with berths for two and the choice of a gaff sloop or gaff yawl rig.

Boat Profile

66 Canoe

A canoe-building system from Cape Falcon Kayak

The 66 Canoe from Cape Falcon Kayak was not designed as a set of plans for a single canoe, but as a system to create canoes of different sizes and for different purposes.

Adventures

Downed Trees and Muddy Feet

Rowing the Chippewa River Floodplain

For his rowing cruise of Wisconsin’s Chippewa River delta, Tom Pamperin intended to find a loop of the interconnected waterways but found only one dead end after another.

Technique

Outboard Winterizing

Maintenance for long-term storage

Small outboard motors like regular exercise but when they’re going to sit idle for the winter months they need some special care. A bit of maintenance assures good performance in the spring and a longer working life.

Product Reviews

Magswitches

Hold-downs for shop machinery

Table saws, drill presses, and bandsaws often require feather boards or fences to do work safely and accurately, but clamping these devices is awkward. Magswitches hold them to ferrous tables and can be turned on and off.

Product Reviews

Sealskinz

Waterproof warmth for the extremities

Clothing that blocks rain and spray but lets sweat vapor pass through can make boating much more enjoyable. Sealskinz adds an extra level of comfort with waterproof and breathable stretch fabrics.

Reader Built Boats

A Twin Cities Boat

A tale of two cities and a boat in three parts

When Matt Morris of Waterloo, Ontario, learned that the restoration of a silted-in lake in the middle of town would include a boat launch, he began to design a sectional boat he could tow to the lake behind his bicycle.

December 2021