Boat Profile
A family boat
...common in New England beginning in the early 19th century. By the end of that century, transom sterns were more popular on this type, and motors eventually came to dominate them; the iconic Maine lobsterboat is likely an evolution of the type, as its bow profile and forward sections will attest. Hampton boats were carried on schooners and sold to...
Boat Profile
A simple, efficient hull from William and John Atkin
...inflow of water. When reading the designers’ comments, it seemed appropriate to quote them as to the intended purposes of the design before making my own observations. Quoting from the “How to Build” Motor Boating article: As time unfolds, motor boats of much less breadth in proportion to length than those now in the mode will become common. Among the...
Boat Profile
A Phil Bolger sharpie
...around the bulkheads and transom, which act as molds. True lofting and building jigs are not needed. This is fast work for experienced hands and easy work for beginners. With the help of two friends, I assembled the hull in one 11-hour workday (after four days spent cutting and finishing various components). Get- ting the prototype completely built and ready...
Boat Profile
A small cruiser full of ideas and innovations
...a comfortable berth, a good book, and a hot meal—well, what else in the world does a person need? Comfortable accommodations, ample storage, a practical rig adapted wholesale from the Norwalk Islands Sharpie, and numerous clever solutions make the Townsend Tern an excellent cruising boat for a couple. The stepped centerboard allows the trunk to double as companionway steps, the...
Boat Profile
A boat to take personally
...Speck’s interpretation of the design, but that small boats are wonderfully responsive to personalization. It’s a sparkling argument for building one yourself or commissioning one from a professional shop—or a school. (The Northwest School builds boats on commission and speculation that range from the 7′ 7″ Nutshell Pram to a 62′ Bob Perry racer. This Sid Skiff was priced at...
Boat Profile
A simple and admirable tender
...when it tends otherwise.” On my bookshelf, Leopold shares space with worn volumes of those other writers more familiar to the boating community, among them L. Francis Herreshoff, Pete Culler, and John Gardner. Small boats do, in fact, represent a “biotic community” of sorts, and Sam Devlin’s Lit’l Petrel design is, to use Leopold’s evaluation, “right.” Three years ago, my...
MUSTELID
Intro, Who We Are, How We Live, What we Propose
...easily handled vessel to complement our more demanding sailing home, to keep us on the water longer.“ So, starting from scratch, they invite you to join them, in this video series, to observe the whole process of conceiving and building a new boat, from identifying needs and purposes, through brainstorming and design, construction and launch, outfit, rig and sea trials—and,...
Boat Profile
A seaworthy outboard fishing boat
...North Carolina commercial fisherman’s need for a seaworthy skiff that would allow him to launch from the beach into the Atlantic surf, row through the waves, and fish with a seine before returning safely through the breakers. That first boat, built in 1946 by Tom Simmons, was a success, and eventually Simmons was asked to build larger, outboard-powered versions. Today,...
Boat Profile
For adventuresome rowing
...Sulkava—in which many thousands of rowers compete in wooden boats. Anthony Shaw With a fitted tent and even a table in the cockpit, the boat has comforts of home. Jouko Koskinen has lived most of his working life in Finland’s metropolitan capital, Helsinki, but he has spent time every summer back in his wife’s childhood lakeside haunts just 25 miles...
Boat Profile
A cottage runabout reborn
...The Old Town (Maine) Canoe Company and the Chestnut Canoe Company of Fredericton, New Brunswick, developed wood-and-canvas construction. In Peterborough, Ontario, and nearby towns, builders such as The Ontario Canoe Company, later to become the Peterborough Canoe Company, pioneered cedar-strip construction. This technique was based on John S. Stephenson’s 1883 patent for “Longitudinal Cedar Strip” construction (hereafter referred to simply...
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The Concept
...gone into the mental stew-pot and…well… stewed. Other ideas have mellowed and blended and complemented one another. But years have thundered by, and it’s time to serve up the stew or abstain from it.” In this episode, Dave and Anke serve up the stew. They present their influences on the design of their new hull. From these influences, they draw...
MUSTELID
Construction
...with a small box of mostly hand-tools. We’re handy, but not masters of craft. We’re shoe-string operators and scavengers but debt-free and able to budget. We benefit from modern, gap-filling adhesives but favor lower-tech and common materials. We build simple and robust structures, but let handsome be as handsome does. Who builds their own vessel must be able to persist....
Boat Profile
A modern deadrise skiff
...protection and a dry place to store essentials. A platform inside the cuddy at chine level covers a flotation compartment; with additional compartments specified aft, Hylan calculates she’ll comply with USCG flotation and stability requirements. Amidships is a thwart with bulkheads creating more covered storage (a spare fuel tank and extra life jackets resided there during our test) as well...
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Outfitting MUSTELID
...must be clever, but not too clever. Flexibility: The more roles it can fill, the merrier. Modularity: Interchangeable, reconfigurable, and redundant. Synergy: Parts that work together. And the further challenge of sea-trials lie yet ahead. Phil Bolger once commented that he had abandoned a design due to the sheer number of untried features it involved. We’re not that wise. https://youtu.be/5bDINpw4Oac...
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Rigging MUSTELID
...But, should things get contrary, we can always hunker down until conditions favor us. For remote cruising, we built the rig of found materials–conifer saplings. The six identical sails are interchangeable and redundant. We led our lines aft then forward again to the cockpit. The masts should come down and stow easily and out of the way for rowing. https://youtu.be/WF8kaDeYIDM...
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Life Aboard
C’mon aboard… let’s tip a cup o’ kindness! Here’s a look at our living arrangements when we’re aboard for extended periods. The cabin accommodations include heating, sleeping, food preparation, lounging, work, and play—and for foraging for the food, fuel, and materials that extend our provisions. One thing that turned out hard to show, even in video, is the amazing feel...
Adventures, MUSTELID,
Introduction to the Venture
...their abundance of brown bear (aka grizzlies), and our Chichagof has the highest known density of them on earth; there are 1,600, outnumbering the roughly 1,350 humans huddled in four communities. Our trip will take us via “Outer Chich,” a raw and remote maze of rock and islands off the open Gulf of Alaska. We’ve dreamed of this place! https://youtu.be/CJ23SP5V8AQ...
Boat Profile
A modern classic pocket cruiser
...could then be better distributed, but would the extra wetted surface slow down the boat? Here Vivier comes into his own, for careful research and analysis that might be shared with the boatbuilding community is something that comes naturally to him. Drag calculations showed that it is the number of appendages that is the critical factor rather than the wetted...
Boat Profile
A gaff-headed sloop from New Zealand
...the rudder. A pipe in the outboard’s idling outlet takes exhaust fumes away from the outboard well. Two fairing pieces around the outboard leg also help to keep the fumes out of the cockpit. HERBERT KRUMM-GARTNER JADE’s commodious cockpit, with macrocarpa coamings at a comfortable height for seating, has room for four and an outboard set in a well. JADE...
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Heading Out
We’re finally underway! We won’t see the wilderness wedding we set out for that never materialized. We won’t see Dave forget the durn camera at home and row back a mile for it. We won’t see the whale that almost T-boned us. Those are tales for another time. We will see our first big wind. Our first narrows to negotiate....
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The Outer Islands
...on its very bones. Stunted trees lean into winds long blown yet soon enough come storms again. We are mere transients. Brief sojourners in summer’s easy embrace. We move among survivors of winter’s mauling wind and wave—and are humbled. For all this surge and surf, these waters teem with life a’roar and a’roil, adapting to each moment. We drift and...