MUSTELID
Outer Passages
We row and sail deeper into the maze to thread the passages between larger islands and Chichagof itself. Some passages squeeze into ocean level “lakes”—more saltwater than fresh—which “race” in and out between tides. Some “passages” burrow deep into blind coves and “inlets.” Some cross undulating “flats.” Some open into vast “ports” that aroused the naval envy of early European...
MUSTELID
Outside Waters
It’s now September and we’ve left the outer coast; we’re in outside waters, but once again in familiar surrounds. This is a short stretch, but it includes two of four communities on Chichagof Island. Together, they top 100 residents. The south end is hemmed by steep granite walls that rise abruptly above timberline. Many find this inlet oppressive, even ominous....
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Boat Profile
Nostalgia with 10 coats of varnish
...Marine Services offers reproductions of the highly regarded Chris-Craft kit boats from the 1950s. The single-cockpit Comet GR is a “Gentleman’s Racer.” Shotwell tracked down two 1950s Chris-Craft kits in the garage of a New Jersey yacht broker, still in the original packing crates. Research at museums and reverse engineering of completed Chris-Craft kits ultimately gave him a catalog of...
Boat Profile
A beautiful and practical daysailer
...comfortable to be in and can easily sail with four adults aboard. With her standing lug rig with a single halyard, she is simple to get underway. Just jump aboard and drop the centerboard, and off you go. That’s what Al Fletcher, WoodenBoat’s waterfront manager, did at the end of last summer. His shakedown sail resulted in the usual tweaks...
Boat Profile
A classic design for plywood construction
...keepers came first. Then I added 6′ lines eye-spliced into holes bored in each of the ’midship frames to serve as trailer tie-downs. I’ve found these useful a dozen different ways—for example, for lashing things down or making off the painter of a boat under tow. When I turn the boat over ashore, I use one of these lines as...
Boat Profile
A small lapstrake gem
...stillness—all the better if it’s the perfect kind of stillness found on a lake just after dawn. Time was, wooden pulling boats dedicated to such pleasures were common throughout the land. Lakeshore liveries—at least any with true boats in them—are largely and regrettably a thing of the past. One rare exception is The Center for Wooden Boats in Seattle, Washington,...
Boat Profile
Quick to build, fast to row
...lower edge of each plank. Aren’t computers grand? To assemble the hull, we’ll place the square edge of a plank into its neighbor’s rabbet and join everything with twisted wire ties (as in common stitch-and-glue construction). Then, using a plastic syringe containing epoxy filled with silica, we’ll fill the voids at each lap…no tricky compound bevels needed. Because the hull...
Boat Profile
A Cat-Rigged Sharpie
...the family in their MerryMacs, and explore the wooded coves and islands of Great Bay. Nate Piper Mahogany stringers set under the plywood frames stiffen the bottom panels. With the MerryMac McIntosh gave the New Hampshire sailing community a basic sailboat at a price of $449. For safety he designed his boat with a broad beam, high topsides and...
A lifetime of inspiration
...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...
Rough-water skiff
...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....
An 11' 6" beach cruiser
...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...
18'7" Hardangersjekte
A striking double-ender, form perfected by evolution 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...
Fitting Out Guide
Parameters for success
...philosophy is to use it only where you need it. Keep the nonskid out from under cleat horns, for example, because it can chafe lines. A nice way of laying out the different zones of nonskid on your boat is to use masking tape and create waterways (smooth areas of paint without nonskid) around deck fittings, cabin sides, coamings, and...
A likable 15' catboat
...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,...
Dasailer and Beach Cruiser
Based on traditional Shetland workboats, this rugged double-ender makes good use of plywood and epoxy. 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...
Boat Profile
A Y-sterned canoe
...for bending; and finally you must canvas your boat—not a job easily done well by beginners. But, if you are comfortable around a boatshop and all its tools, you’ll find this craft well worth the effort. The return (of pleasure) on the investment (of time) is an excellent ratio. What a handsome craft this is to look at! The long,...
Boat Profile
A beach-explorer tender with a design pedigree
Paul LaBrie is new to professional boatbuilding, but the design he chose for his first commercial project is one of the oldest in this publication. CARPENTER was drawn up by L. Francis Herreshoff in the summer of 1929—his Design No. 41—and featured in his book Sensible Cruising Designs. In an era when small boats were less commonly created for their...
Boat Profile
Wooden boats for whitewater
...Freestone Guide models, but not for the more complex Kingfisher and popular Recur ve design. The Recurve’s sheerline rises dramatically amidships. Forward and aft, the sheerline takes pronounced dips to reduce freeboard, making it easier to get in and out of the boat; drift boats aren’t accessed from docks, but from some pretty awkward places. Around here, the shorelines often...
Technique
A guide to common construction methods
...the hull form seem more like an organic creation. We are naturally attracted to repetition in lines and forms; it’s an aesthetic principle that seems rooted as deeply in boatbuilding as it is in art, architecture, music, and even the written word. Perhaps it makes complex things more understandable by breaking them into their component forms. How complex are lapstrake...
Boat Profile
Dave Gentry's skin-on-frame version of a Massachusetts classic
...sit higher in the water while carrying a similar load. I have not verified our rowing speed with a GPS but estimate that at an easy, sustainable pace in flat water the boat cruises at around 3 knots. It is quite dry with little spray coming aboard, takes breaking waves and wakes predictably, and seems to bound over larger waves....
Designs, Powerboats,
Stephens plywood utility launch
Simple, able, and efficient, this competent outboard boat will carry a substantial payload through choppy waters. 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...
Adventures
Rowing and sailing the Sea of Cortez
...one point FIG found herself feeling underdressed in the parking lot of a swanky Palm Springs hotel, but then finally, finally, made it over the Mexican border, and to the sea. We were calling it my son Ely’s gap year. He’s a September birthday so he didn’t make the cutoff for kindergarten, but he had done a few years of...