The
Frisky Dog
Show
& Tell
Flying
Kayaks
Sailing
Upwind
Letters
Nova
Scotia Museum Research Grant Marine History
Perseverence
Boat
Shed
Expanding
Foam
Pathfinder
Small
Ships
The
Frisky Dog
by the Dog's
crew
Hello SWBANS, I’m very flattered that ‘The Dog’ shall be your poster girl: some stats ...
Double-ended sailing-rowing boat/escapist adventure machine built to my drawings, patterned after the Drascombe Peterboat design of John Watkinson
Started 06 Sep 93
Builders trials 23
Jul 95
Length 6.0 Metres
Beam 2.0 m
Clinker built, 4 strakes/side, epoxied and screwed laps; 9.5 mm marine grade mahogany ply
Rig: Standing lug, mainsail + foresail (traditional whaler rig minus mizzen) 140+40 ft.sq; mast 16 ft, yard 14.5 ft (yes, my use of units is schizophrenic!)
Building time 700 mhrs (add 10% to include "standing around with beer in hand admiring the fruits of ones’ labours (and the blessings of the land ...) time
Cost: not so bad when spent in dribs and drabs, but horrible to contemplate in aggregate (but what’s money for if not to be spent on boats or books - forget education, my sons will have to become either scholarly monks or boatbuilders!)
Hope this helps! Very best regards, Richard, Monika, and the Crew of ‘The Dog’
On The Water Eastern Passage June 2000
We all want to see what we all are doing. What have you made or adapted this year or in the past? The more innovative the better; construction methods, hull design, sail forms, propulsion methods. To show that you have built a kayak or sailboat in your basement or garage can be a great inducement for someone else to say ‘I can do it too.’
The morning will be slated for talk; the afternoon for demonstrations and trying out ; and the evening for being merry. You will be welcome at the last minute but from now until then we would like to know what is out there that will be able to make a showing.
We also expect people to come and enjoy their boats and to socialize. Organized under the auspices of the Small Wooden Boat Association of Nova Scotia. There will be no charge.
Please reply to Robert Fraser or e-mail phaedra@accesswave.ca
PO Box 234, 1465 Main Road Eastern Passage, HRM B3G 1M5
Flying
Kayaks
continued by:
Gerry Gladwin
The 1983 Lada station wagon has recently died. R.I.P. The effects of lugging Ken, Allegra, kayaks and gear from Nova Scotia to Western Ontario, west of that, and even down into the American hinterlands, paddling for days in Lake Superior among the Apostle Islands of Minnesota. Once Ken called for some reassurance about required running repairs to one kayak (I advised red Tuck tape & 5 minute epoxy); they were having a great time and made no mention of any difficulties transporting the boats on the roof all those thousands of miles. The much-loved car had everything going for it: A roof that was an honest two meters long, and factory-installed roof racks made from rails left over when The Trans Siberian Railway was built. K&A used good Dacron rope and had an understanding of the trucker’s knot which, for securing a load to a roof, simply works very good. (see illustration)
Unfortunately many cars today are shaped like Jelly beans and, because glass is cheaper than metal, most lack the one essential quality necessary to be suitable for transporting a couple of kayaks on the roof, namely , very much roof - just elliptoid surfaces with no rain gutters looking very much like one of those aluminum flying saucers we used to slide on when we were kids, only upside down. In order to have a roof rack attached as strongly as the Lada’s was, to something like that , requires drastic measures.
One method is to pay the big bucks for an expensive custom roof rack.
The other method is to study the roof closely, just when the dew is settling or when frost outlines a shadow showing its hidden structure. Even better, go to the auto wreckers and look at a roof from the inside with the upholstery stripped off. Not much there eh? Framing over the doors and across the windows and maybe an X in the middle. It is that upside down flying saucer shape that gives most roofs the strength to hold their form. Now think about all the trouble people go to trying to not damage the roof then realize that putting a rack on a car roof damages it, period. Giant suction cups and foam padded pedestels make dents. Hooks over the gutters (if the car has gutters) chips the paint. Hooks around the minimal door frames chip paint and often bend the doors themselves. Plus, those hooky things tightened with nylon webbing just don’t seem like the things you can rely upon seeing as you can usually slide the things back and forth. If you are going to tie your boat to that and feel good about driving across the Confederation Bridge on a windy day - good luck. Time for lateral thinking.
1995 Nissan Sentra
Just above the doors where the roof starts to flatten out a little, right over the lengthwise roof framing members there is a piece of 1 1/8 X @3" ash on edge, the bottom scribed to the actual shape of the roof. This was a fun activity executed with a mini grinder and a 40 grit disc. The rails, longer than the roof itself, are flat on top and thicker at the ends where the roof dips down towards the hood and trunk, and they are rounded off at the ends, then sealed with several coats of epoxy and varnish and bonded permanently to the roof with Sikaflex. They don’t come off. Two cross pieces of 1 1/2 X 3/4" hardwood are bolted across the ends of the rails. This is about the longest, strongest rack that you can put on the roof of a jelly bean.
At this point the Nissan and the Lada are about as equal as they get, rack-wise. Tie the boat to the roof in the following manner:
At the front of the roof rack attach one end of a piece of rope with a bowline and throw the other end across the kayak in front of the cockpit. Attach a second piece at the rear of the rack and throw it across behind the cockpit. Go around to the other side and, starting with the front one, pull the rope snug. Reach up as high as you can and make a loop in the rope like this: (see illustration above)
Pass the end of the rope under the rack, then up though the loop, pulling the end down towards you. Notice that where the rope passes through the loop the effect is that of a pulley. Archimedes would be proud to see you using his technology. Pull hard and the kayak will likely begin to do a forward wheelie. Secure the knot with a half hitch/slipknot: (see illustration above)
Do the same with the rear rope but pull harder, then go back and forth between the two knots as required to get them as tight as possible. It is tight enough when you can rock the car back and forth just holding on to the kayak without it sliding around. Alex’s Suzuki can be picked up in this manner. For all intents and purposes the kayak is welded to the roof of the vehicle. Now you gotta think about transport trucks and crosswinds and what if it did fly off ....
Insurance:
Go to the front of
the car with another piece of rope and attach an end to one of the towing
eyes or to some part of the frame as far as possible to one side, with
a bowline. Put the other end through a ring or a hole at the bow and drop
the rest on the ground. Make a loop about halfway between the bow and the
bumper then carry the loose end down to the other towing eye or corresponding
place and back up to the loop, pull tight (snug - not too tight - you can
break your boat) and then tie another trucker’s knot. Don’t do a “Willy
Wensel”. He pulled the bow and stern lines so tight that, after a few miles
on a bumpy road,
he succeeded in breaking
his kayak almost in half. Be gentle but firm. The kayak is now secure in
the middle, tied to the outer sides of the front of the car, the rope forming
a triangle.
Repeat the procedure at the rear of the boat.
Now when a giant transport truck disturbs that gusty crosswind on Confederation Bridge the kayak will have little tendency to wag back and forth and, if it did somehow blow off the roof, at least it is tied to the car rather than becoming a forty pound pointy projectile sailng down the road towards some unsuspecting motorist out for a Sunday drive.
Sailing
Upwind
by Jim Creighton
I have always had a weakness for unusual rigs but when I was invited recently to “sail” on a propeller driven Hobie Cat, I hesitated. It just looked too gimmicky, too mechanical. Besides, it was cold and I had a hangover. “Just for 15 minutes”, the owner said. “Well, Ok then.” Now I want one, damn it. Infected with another passion. And at my age! I should be enjoying the fruits of my labours. Instead I have romantic fantasies of “sailing” upwind past the gold platers who have to tack, poor buggers. A 40' catamaran would do. The “rig” was designed by Brad Blackford, a retired Dalhousie physics professor.
He started the project back in the 80’s but only now has he the time to really concentrate on the details. The secret is in the science. He developed a compromise propeller blade that optimizes power from wind coming from all directions. They differ from blades designed for stationary wind generators.
It really works. It travels equally fast in all directions relative to the wind. The output from the blades is not equal in all directions but the combination of counteracting forces produce that result. The blades are fiberglass with polyester resin over a foam core. The two water blades are high aspect made from cast bronze, mounted in a pod incorporated into a large rudder. The wind blades are mounted on an aluminum mast directly over the rudder, at the rear of the boat. The mast can be rotated to face in any direction and the blades are variable pitch. A hull to hull foil in the water aft prevents the boat from squatting when going to windward. On our test run in 10-15 knots of wind on the Arm, we were travelling on average 5 knots.
At times we were going
7 knots, directly up wind! I am not partial to racing but I would love
to take this thing in a serious race out of the Squadron just to piss off
the big guys. Windmill driven boats are not new. An article in Cruising
World, April 1981, describes a 30' cruising monohull which was very successful.
The owner had done 1500 miles at sea up to that time. He later went on
to install it on a catamaran. I doubt that this rig would ever catch on
in any big way. It looks so, well, mechanical. The
main problem is danger
to crew and other boats. You have to be very careful to keep the blades
from hitting passengers, other boats’ rigging and wharves. It might best
be suited to a cruising cat or tri where the rig is within the footprint
of the boat and one is away from other boats most of the time. However,
with a power take-off there would be ample supply of electricity for powering
in and out of port with the rig fixed fore and aft out of harm’s way. I
hope we can invite Brad to come over to the Show and Tell at Eastern Passage
next year for a demonstration.
Letters
collected by
the editor
Newsletter is tremendous..
very slick and sophisticated. (hmmm, how can that be?) The stories are
grand, guys, really enjoyed them. Do you have a real photographer taking
the pictures now? heehee no kidding, tho, great job.
Cindy Kohring Sailing
somewhere in the Bahamas
Got the newsletter
a few days ago, congratulations on pulling it all together again, the range
of contributed stories is fantastic, the publication keeps getting better
and better.
Cheers Greg D’Escousse
Wow! Great issue. You’ve
become a regular publishing magnate.
Scuzmum California
No new Beanesque stories
for you, I’m afraid. I managed NOT to come top of the class in the recent
Day Skipper quiz, on account of not studying the International Collision
Regulations enough (damn tedious, if you ask me) and not knowing the light
signals for a Pilot Vessel (possibly greater than 50m in length) trawling,
whilst towing one or more vessels, foul on the port side, restricted in
manouevrability, starboard aspect. If you don’t hear from me again, you
know I hit one of them. Weather foul; snow, ice and gales. Christmas coming
(baaah Humbug!!). Hope you both have a pleasant Holiday period!
Regards, Peter &
Leonie Scotland
Nova
Scotia Museum Research Grant Marine History
by Frazer Howell
This Nova Scotia Museum Research Grant is intended to promote research on Marine History in the Province of Nova Scotia. The annual grant will be awarded to the proposal that promises the greatest contribution to our knowledge of Marine History in Nova Scotia. The grant will be have a maximum value of $4000. The successful proposal will be:
Original research relating to the marine history of Nova Scotia including shipbuilding, ship-owning, vessel design, construction and use, naval and merchant shipping, fishing, seafarers and seafaring, and community activities relating to the sea.
The deadline for applications is January 31, 2000.
Could it be that a 23' Tancook Whaler might have a role there? Such as build an old design in modern wood construction and compare handling characteristics etc with comparably sized frp boats. $4k would buy ALL the materials, and build it downtown. I hear something stretching. Or perhaps a SWBANS member could come up with something that has merit. More info available from museum.ednet.ns.ca
Cheers
Fraser
Perseverence
by Deanna Flinn
(Caribbean Correspondent)
We are still here in Saint Maarten, waiting for the weather to get better, or just waiting....
Lenny was hell, sat here for 72 hours, we were anchored safely and got through it, the eye alone was 18 hours long. We went up on the rocks twice and suffered some rudder damage. Mistral is leaking now but we are ok, she will need to be hauled within the next 4 -5 months.
Long story short we stopped here to pick up supplies for another boat in Virgin Gorda but got hung up with the weather.
We found a wooden boat, Perseverence, that the capt wanted to sell just before the hurricane, well I have acquired her since the hurricane. She was drug down by a flailing cement boat that took out most of the lagoon, thank god we weren’t here... The place is still full of carnage.... Quite horrifying for me to see, haven’t seen anything like this before...
So, she lost 1/2 of her mast, bow sprit, her bow is pretty ripped up but there is no damage to the hull. We drug up the remainer of the mast from the bottom of the sea, patched her bow, toe nailed in the sampson’s post and cleaned about 20 bags full of debris from her.
She’s a semi Hershoff design, not really sure of her history. Built in 1946 in France for a duke that sailed her around the world for a year but got thrown in jail in St. Barth’s. She’s 32 feet long, cutter rigged gaff, and wooden, quite sweet for this maritimer to acquire.
We are currently trying to figure out how to get her back to St. John.
To my sailing pals, I think I’m going to need some.... well..... got any books on board, “Sailing for Dummies” comes to mind.
New members Sherry and David Rimes are starting a Windsprint for pleasure sailing and racing at Mahone Bay. You may get to view the start of this project in person as our January meeting will take place at their home.
Also, another new member, Ulli Hoger, has almost finished his Volkskayak built on site at Jose and Gerry’s. Ulli plans to be on the Northwest Arm a lot as well as trips further afield.
Alex Chisholm is building yet another Volkskayak. New girlfriend, new boat. Gerry will get rich off him I’m sure. Ryerson and Anne may re-plank Tully Mars to improve his looks. New planking would let them finish the hull bright as opposed to the old fir ply that is now on him.
Lots happening at the Museum. Feb 1/2000 at 7:30 features John Steele of Covey Island Boat Works. John will discuss the restoration of the Bristol Channel Cutter, Margarette T, and the five new Cutters built from her lines since.
April 11/2000 has SWBANS member Jim Creighton explaining the finer points of the Chinese Junk Rig. Jim has built his own boat incorporating this age old rig and will explain the reasons he prefers it.
April 1,8,22,&29/2000 at 2PM get to know all about the Port Medway boat that is being built by the museum. Learn the history of this 20 foot workboat and see the almost finished new one.
On a sadder note, the LaHave Bakery ship Selchie 1 was lost at sea on October 27 midway between Cortes and the Honduran Island of Guanaja. She was carrying lumber as a cargo at the time. All crew were rescued.
This came in on a canoeing list I subscribe to. I thought the group would enjoy it:
Peter Parry wrote (on the Subject of the Expanding Foam):
A friend of mine once built a canoe. He spent a long time on it and it was a work of art. Almost the final phase was to fill both ends with polyurethane expanding foam.
He duly ordered the bits from Mr Glasplies (an excellent purveyor of all things fibreglass) and it arrived in two packs covered with appropriately dire warnings about expansion ratios and some very good notes on how to use it.
Unfortunately he had a degree, worse still two of them. One was in Chemistry, so the instructions got thrown away and the other in something mathematical because in a few minutes he was merrily calculating the volume of his craft to many decimal places and the guidelines got binned as well.
He propped the canoe up on one end, got a huge tin, carefully measured the calculated amounts of glop, mixed them and quickly poured the mixture in the end of the canoe (The two pack expands very rapidly).
I arrived as he was completing this and I looked in to see the end chamber over half full of something Cawdors Witches would have been proud of. Two things occurred to me, one was the label which said in big letters: “Caution - expansion ration 50:1” (or something similar) and the other that the now empty tins said “approximately enough for 20 small craft.”
Any comment was drowned
out by a sea of yellow brown foam suddenly pouring out of the middle of
the canoe and the end of the canoe bursting open. My friend screamed and
leapt at his pride and joy which was knocked to the ground as he started
trying to bale handfuls of this stuff out with his hands. Knocking the
craft over allowed the still liquid and not yet fully expanded foam to
flow to the other end of the canoe where it expanded and shattered that
end as well. A few seconds later and we had a canoe with two exploded ends,
a mountain of solid foam about 4ft high growing out of the middle, and
a chemist firmly
embedded up to his
armpits in it.
At this stage he discovered
the reaction was exothermic and his hands and arms were getting very hot
indeed. Running about in small circles in a confined space while glued
to the remains of a fairly large canoe proved ineffective so he resorted
to screaming a bit instead. Fortunately a Kukri* was to hand so I attacked
the foam around his hands with some enthusiasm. The process was hindered
by the noise he was making and the fact he was trying to escape while still
attached to the canoe. (a heavy curved
knife broadening towards
the point, used by Gurkas-Oxford dictionary)
Eventually, I managed to hack out a lump of foam still including most of his arms and hands. Unfortunately my tears of laughter were not helping as they accelerated the foam setting. Seeking medical help was obviously out of the question, the embarrassment of having to explain his occupation (Chief Research Chemist at a major petrochemical organization) would simply never have been lived down.
Several hours and much acrimony later we had removed sufficient foam (and much hair) to allow him to move again. However he still looked something like a failed audition for Quasimodo with red burns on his arms and expanded blobs of foam sticking everywhere. My comment that the scalding simple made the hairs the foam was sticking to come out easier was not met with the enthusiasm I felt it deserved.
I forgot to add that in retrospect rather unwisely he had set out to do this deed in the hallway of his house (the only place he later explained with sufficient headroom for the canoe - achieved by poking it up the stairwell.)
Having extricated him we now were faced with the problem of a canoe construction kit embedded in a still gurgling block of foam which was now irrevocably bonded to the hall and stairs carpet as well as several banister rails and quite a lot of wallpaper. At this point his wife and her mother came back from shopping......
Oh yes - and he had been wearing the pullover Mum in law had knitted him for his birthday the week before.
Pathfinder
by Michael Concannon
About 15 years ago I acquired an old Snipe. Number 10547, in pretty poor shape; however, there were two chevrons on thesail indicating a successful racing history.
Upon contacting SCRIA (Snipe class international racing association) I was informed that indeed this boat had an outstanding racing history, being built and sailed by a legendary perfectionist, Howie Richards, several times Canadian National Champion in the ‘50s. She is called Pathfinder.
Howie built her in 1955 and fabricated all the hardware from stainless steel, complete with his own logo on it. When I got the boat we were operating a small hotel on the Eastern Shore at Port Dufferin, an occupation precluding any boat restoration activity; however, when we decided to sell the business in 1994, a big move loomed ahead and the fate of the Snipe was in the balance. I gassed up the chainsaw and walked over to the boatshed. I noticed small pieces of fibreglass coming adrift at the bow, pulled on it and revealed lovely clear cedar planking. In 15 minutes I had stripped the whole bottom, right then I decided to restore the boat. On moving to Petpeswick I discovered that the yacht club there had had a very active Snipe fleet in the past and was a movement afoot to reactivate it; as my time was taken up with building a house, I let the club borrow the boat when I couldn’t sail.
One Sunday I went to sail and found a crew who turned out to be Robert Jardine.
Some time after getting ourselves and the boat sorted out, Robert told me the astonishing fact that the boat had been bought by his Father, Dr. Phil Jardine, from Howie; and his daughter, Elisabeth, (a top notch instructor in the PYC sail programme) were unbeatable sailing Pathfinder.
After three years of good Sniping, the PYC fleet is again in the doldrums, however Pathfinder had a major share of the trophies.
My own racing activity
has been curtailed due to decrepitude creeping up so I decided to quit
but was reluctant to sell. However, by chance, Ina Sullivan a Snipe sailor
and championship competetor of Howies many years ago, recognized his old
rivals boat at PYC early this spring. I was determined the boat should
go to a good home so I was delighted when Ina told me his son, Willie,
would be interested in taking Pathfinder. Ina seems delighted too, he now
has his own vintage Snipe, number 9435; another son, Jamie, has a newer
Snipe, so now the family can have their own races! They became PYC members
for the
provincials in 1999
so we are hoping for the revival of the snipe fleet in 2000!
At our December SWBANS meeting the idea of organizing ourselves for some fun and games during the Tall Ships visit was tossed around. Now, those big hulking, floating training schools and surplus military and movie units will make a great visitor attraction for the hundreds of thousands of spectators expected, many of whom will see them from shore, from corporate charter boats and private yachts, and plenty will make visits via gangplanks from wharfside. But we, with the Small Ships, have a special opportunity.
How about assembling ourselves into a flotilla, so we can go en masse to satisfy our curiosity? Without intentions other than having a fun picnic day afloat with some very special sightseeing, a SWBANS fleet would make a pretty addition to the scenery, and afford our members with security in numbers if we want to poke around and inspect the waterlines of the Tall Ships - in our Small Ships. Our collective bubbling good nature,effervescent senses of humour and the charm and wit of our honourary Fleet Captain/Presidenté may help get us a bit closer to the Tall Ships action. (Plus we can provide alibis for each other if anyone gets caught up in a diplomatic tussle.)
It was suggested that we could launch individually anywhere it’s convenient (NW Arm, Shearwater, the Basin, etc.) then all convoy on Hfx harbour near downtown (is there a Tim Hortons we can tie up to?) then make our approach to the tall ship anchorages and wharfs, in our own flotilla. Maybe an overnight at McNab’s when the day is done.
We might be able to parlay this into a good PR exercise to promote the efficacy of small boats. Certainly the contrast of our small fleet chasing around the tall fleet will present a striking contrast. This could help us send our usual message to the public to encourage others to enjoy the simple, attainable pleasures of small boats, as that is part of the SWBANS mandate, and we don’t have to do anything but show up en masse and be identifiable. This might be just the event that stirs us to action on acquiring burgees for the Association.
How about putting this one on the agenda for a winter meeting to share ideas for how to make this a good event for SWBANS? I’m willing to coordinate the idea exchange and invite your calls, faxes or emails, for discussion at an upcoming SWBANS meeting. (gsilver@cdg.ns.ca, t 902 226 2005, f 226 0050)