Technique
Part of common sense is good preparation
...followed by two short blasts of one second each, with the sequence repeated at two-minute intervals. Horns are still critical in fog, but these days most skippers rely on VHF radio for boat-to-boat communication, so even if you know your horn signals thoroughly, don’t rely on another boat to understand them. Rosemary Wyman For communications, a handheld VHF radio is...
Boat Profile
An almost-traditional Thames skiff
...for someone with my relatively modest muscle power. KINGFISHER uses square-sectioned oarlocks, rather than the more traditional tholepin arrangement. In the summer of 2011, we had some exhilarating recreational rowing, mainly on Loch Ness. Most commonly there has been just one passenger, but the boat is perfectly comfortable with four aboard. She has proved to be quite fast and to...
Boat Profile
A family of sharpies
...people do not think of sharpies as seagoing boats. When Robert Ayliffe built his own 23-footer 23 years ago, he had no doubts about their capabilities. He had read the works of Commodore Ralph Munroe, who designed the sharpie yacht EGRET in the 1880s. The Commodore was one of the pioneer settlers of Miami, and his EGRET earned an enduring...
Boat Profile
A camp-cruiser with good looks
...rudder, and an easily unshipped bowsprit make launching and recovery simple. Note the modest-sized tow vehicle and stock trailer customized with 2×6 walkways. As built, the boat carries a heavily ballasted centerboard (75 lbs), requiring a multi-part pendant, and movable lead “muffins” in vinyl bags under the floorboards, totaling about 120 lbs. Their combined effect is a stable, comfortable boat—still...
Boat Profile
A simple boat for calm waters
...and plain finish of linseed oil and paint all come together in a package that is as refreshing as a cool breeze on a hot day. Tad has been fascinated with punts since childhood. Growing up in Maine and playing on and exploring in small boats led him to create this comely punt, which represents an amalgam of his favorite...
Boat Profile
A tribute to a Bay Area designer
...we are speaking, Andrea Rey, the Associate Director of the Spaulding Center, starts the official launching ceremony for AVATAR, built by 25 teenaged apprentices over the course of 12 months. This was not the first boat built in the youth boatbuilding program, but it is by far the most complicated. The round-bilged, lapstrake-planked hull provided the challenges of shaping the...
Technique
Boatbuilding never ends with launching day
...respect the owner’s privacy. But one Finnish camper found that level ground was tough to find. His solution, recounted on page 10, was an adventure setup in which he wheels the boat ashore and uses it as its own tent platform for comfortable nights. In Alaska, as another tent-boater explains on page 15, tenting on board away from shore may...
Boat Profile
A classic in skin-on-frame
...Bay. He has been around boats his entire life. His father was a boatbuilder and Tom had lots of boats while he was growing up and lived on a boat for a couple of years. He has built a number of boats and writes a blog—TheOarCruising.Blogspot.com— primarily focused on oar-powered small boats that can be cruised in. Wee Lassie Particulars...
Boat Profile
A Wolstenholme gunter-rigged dayboat
...excellent performance under sail. I approached Andrew to persuade him to design a bigger dinghy for estuary use in Devon. The boat needed to be light enough for easy trailering but big enough to take care of itself on a mooring for the summer months. Andrew agreed and produced a set of plans for a new 15′ gunter-rigged dayboat, the...
Designs, Performance Rowing,
Lightweight, reasonably seaworthy recreational single with a sliding seat and outriggers.
It’s hard to find plans for a sliding-seat rowing craft that strikes a happy balance between an out-and-out high performance craft and a traditional Whitehall-type pulling boat that has been fitted with small outriggers and a seat that slides. To fill this void, WoodenBoat arranged with Joel White to sell the plans for such a “compromise” boat of his design...
Designs, Cruising,
Designed for easy and efficient building.
...you launch her, and she’s very easy to rig and get underway. She’d be a wonderful boat for taking overland to distant waters. Sheer and Body Plans Plans for the Wittholz Catboat come in 11 sheets, including outboard profile, sail plan (with spar and rigging details and bowsprit arrangement), lines and offsets (with or without mahogany sheerstrake), construction, keel construction...
Designs, Canoes & Kayaks,
Tursiops has one of the prettiest sheet-plywood hulls we've seen.
Drawn by a professional designer for his own use, Tursiops is a most personal and versatile craft. Properly handled, she can cross incredibly wild water, find a placid pond, and leave the tranquility untouched. Tursiops combines moderate speed with comforting behavior. She’s wide at her rail (28″) — most American touring kayaks carry about 24″ beam, and many British boats...
Designs, Sailing & Pulling,
The Catspaw Dinghy is an easy boat to trailer or haul on the back of a pickup truck.
...rudder, and station molds are included with the lines, offsets, construction plan, and sail plan. Lofting is not required. If one is determined to build a round-bottomed boat, this could make an ideal first one. Spencer Lincoln Profile, body plan, and half breadths and diagonals. WoodenBoat’s Catspaw Dinghy carries three people in comfort; more can be accommodated if conditions are...
Daysailer, Designs,
Suitable for rowing, daysailing, or coastal cruising.
...of Zimmer’s Mackinaw is straightforward plank-on-frame. Other building methods seem appropriate: lapstrake (traditional or glued), strip-plank composite, or cold-molded. Designed by Nelson Zimmer, the Mackinaw Boat has a LOA of 18′ 8″, a 6′ beam, and draws 1′ 6″ with her centerboard raised. Her shoal draft will enable her to poke about in shallow waters and ground out at her...
Designs, Powerboats,
A gentle, shoal-draft, low-powered, sheet-plywood outboard cruiser.
...for leaking a single drop, ever-a desirable characteristic, as bilgewater in flat-bottomed boats soon invades the accommodations. And Redwing’s plywood hull can live happily on a trailer. Profile and body plan Stambaugh’s drawings are filled with worthwhile details. For example, he shows a drip groove routed into the bottom of the rubrails. Gravity and surface tension will cause water flowing...
Designs, Cruising,
Centerboard sloop with inside ballast and two settee berths for coastal cruising.
...Sail Speed (knots): 3-5 BUILDING DATA Skill needed: Intermediate to advanced Lofting required: Yes * Alternative construction: Strip PLANS DATA No. of sheets: 5 Level of detail: Above average Cost per set: $75.00 WB Plan No. 44 Completed Zimmer Gaff Sloop Images D. Turner Matthews Nelson Zimmer designed his 21’ gaff-headed sloop to be comparatively simple and inexpensive to build....
Designs, Sailing & Pulling,
A timeless design, perfectly suited for both sailing and rowing.
...you’ll know you’ve got a real boat under you-stable and solid. Profile view The standard lug rig, while not traditional for peapods, provides plenty of low-cost power. It is easy to make and sail; and the spars stow completely within the boat when not in use. The mast is unstayed-no standing rigging to kink, tangle, or snap. As a bonus,...
Designs, Canoes & Kayaks,
The shortest of the four canoes in Iain Oughtred’s catalogue.
Nessmuk (pen name of George Washington Sears) wrote “the light, single canoe with double-bladed paddle is bound to soon become a leading, if not the leading, feature in summer recreation” in his 1888 classic camping tome Woodcraft. While diminutive canoes paddled in the manner of kayaks may not be the latest summer craze, their charm hasn’t waned. Iain Oughtred’s Stickleback...
Adventures
A portfolio of small boats
...show of hands of those interested in racing. Not a single hand went up. One reason for sailing in company is to encourage builders and sailors to compare notes on such things as the fine points of sheet leads, clever solutions to problems, interesting setups for gear storage, types of line, advantages of various sail types, inspiration for what type...
Boat Profile
A pulling boat with auxiliary sail power
...light and moderate air. As the breeze comes on, the helm gets heavy and the bow begins to punch through waves. It’s time to strike the rig. Joel knew well the foolishness of pressing a low, narrow, undecked skiff in strong winds. He viewed this skiff as a pulling boat, with auxiliary sailpower. WoodenBoat’s Shearwater spent two years as a...
Boat Profile
A boat that almost builds itself
...Gardner’s book, Wooden Boats to Build and Use (Mystic Seaport Museum, 1996). Walter Wales The lines of the REPUBLICAN indicate why John Gardner called the Marblehead gunning dory “the Queen of all Dories.” The sweeping sheer, balanced ends, narrow bottom, and almost round sides combine to produce a boat that is fast under oars, seakindly, and lovely to look at....
Boat Profile
A Norse-inspired kit boat
My penchant for Scandinavian boatbuilding techniques once prompted Matt Murphy at WoodenBoat to tell me that it seemed as though I was trying to “get in touch with my inner Viking.” But when I look around, I see that I am hardly alone. Some aesthetics—think of Japanese architecture, Italian stonework, New England barns—have universal appeal and compel respect, and the...
Boat Profile
The most boat from the least materials
...popped into my head that it would be really nice to have a boat that could harness the wind instead of fighting it. About that time, I found Gavin Atkin’s book Ultrasimple Boatbuilding and it convinced me to build my own boat, one that could comfortably sail two people for short camping trips. The book includes only one tiny photo...
Product Reviews
A steering compass that also serves for hand-held bearings
...is conveniently placed for use as a steering compass and easily to hand if needed to take a bearing. The underside of the bowl has a flat area that allows the compass to lie flush with the surface beneath it. While most of the boats had small bulkhead-mounted steering compasses, one or two had handheld compasses that had to be...
Boat Profile
Paul Gartside's Design #166
...the two halves together to complete the blank. From start to finish, building TAMALITA took just under three years. Of course, the challenges would fade quickly from memory if I ended up with a boat that lived up to my expectations. My goal was to replicate the shoal-water attributes of my Sooty Tern: easy singlehandling, good speed under sail, maneuverability...