The
Boat Shed
Letters/Comments
Cold
Water Survival
Cold
Water & Boating
Did
I tell you our “bloodworm” story?
“Fundy
Quotes”
Matilda
…and
a short bunk for the dog, please.
Ice
Boats Don’t Float
Hollow
Spars
A
Dory Story
Greg Silver has finished a Volkskayak with a neat “whale tail” stern, now he can paddle with Denise who owns a “Cajun” VK. Also, our Guru Gerry Gladwin has modified his Volkskayak design to build a personal boat . He hasn’t changed the below waterline shape (why would you?) and the rest has only been streamlined to fit him better and make it visually a bit different. Still looking very Vkish, it has a lower sheer line, tail section and a clipper bow.
David and Sherry Rimes Windsprint is about half finished and they sure are keen to race this year as well as use the boat for rowing and picnics to quiet islands.
All you racers will be happy to know that SWBANS will once again be organizing the races this year at Mahone Bay. New bouys, awards by Peter Shortt once again (thanks Peter) and it seems a few more boats for the Windsprint Class and Light Schooner Class. There has also been some interest in a Bolger class to include all/any of his designs that sail with the 59 sg. Ft. leg o muttom sprit sail. These boats would be Junbugs, Teals, Surfs or Gypsys to name only a few. Inexpensive boats to build so get started and join the fun. Also racers, we would like you to send us in a good closeup photo of your boat for the race board. We may have some on file, but you would have something better I’m sure. About the 4x6 inch size would do nicely.
Letters/Comments
by the editor
Good Morning Anne, Again, a great issue (Jan 2000) with material of interest beyond your immediate membership.
Bob Hicks, Editor, Messing About In Boats
We once again made the “On The Waterfront” page of Wooden Boat. The current issue (#153), describes our activities at D’Escousse this past summer and may have given us a motto, or at least words to live by. It is at the end and reads, “SWBANS, a club even Groucho Marx would join”.
Peter Spectre, we await your membership.
Sticking to the literary front, Annie Kolls, a.k.a. ScuzMum, has done a bang up job promoting SWBANS and Nova Scotia with her article and great photos she published in her clubs newsletter, the ScuzBumNews. You may be pictured there and now famous throughout the land of Scuz.
Thanks for the kind words Annie.
Cold
Water Survival
by Ryerson Clark
The time is quickly
approching to get back on the water and those warm spring days make you
forget just how cold that lake or coastal bay still is. You are suddenly
in icy water and Cold Water Shock takes your breath away. Do you know how
to survive? At this point, if you are not wearing your PFD and appropriate
clothing or can get immediate assistance (within seconds if the temp is
very low) from another boat or walk ashore, you may well die from drowning
or shock, and quickly! Should you have been wearing your PFD then the rest
of this article will come in handy to keep you alive, read on and burn
it
into your memory.
In a test done in a calm, controlled pool with the water temp at a balmy 5 degrees Celsius (about 40F), Olympic class swimmers wearing street clothes for spring weather, couldn’t make their mind and muscles co-ordinate to swim the few metres to safety. Cold water in the ear canal could cause dizziness and disorientation.
DRESS FOR THE WATER TEMPERATURE! Remember, water, and especially cold water, is the most inhospitable environment on earth. Even if you get bounced off a camel in the Sahara desert you could survive a few days.
Cold Water Hypothermia
is a numbing coldness that drains the core heat from your body. The normal
functions of your vital organs slow down, you lose consciousness, and if
not rescued, you will die. There are five ways to be prepared, the most
important being that you are wearing a Personal Floatation Device (PFD)
when you go in. If you know you are going out on cold water it is best
to wear light layers of clothing with the outer layer made of material
to break the wind, or, better yet, a wetsuit or drysuit. A normal vest
type PFD also provides some protection from the cold. Always check what
the weather will
be doing before you
head out, and once out, don’t be afraid to turn back if there are changes
that could influence your safety. If possible, stay close to shore. Know
the water temp and respect it’s killing power. If you are in 10 degree
(50F) water lightly gressed and wearing a PFD, you normally will not survive
three hours. In the very early spring expect to last just minutes without
a PFD if the temp is below 5C (40F).
Know your boat and how to handle it in all conditions you expect to encounter and do not over load it. If you are a new boater, better to wait until June. Lastly, avoid drinking alcohol. It can’t warm your inner core (the warm feeling in your stomach doesn’t count) and will interfer with your ability to make fast decisions.
Once immersed, here are the most important things to do to increase your survival time.
Get as much of your body out of, or above the water as possible. Climb onto the boat or re-entre it if you can. Cold water saps your body core heat 25 times faster then air If you can’t get out of the water protect yourself by using the Heat Escape Lessening Position - H.E.L.P.. To do this you must be wearing a PFD. In this position you will cross your arms tightly across your chest, draw your knees up to your chest region and remain still and calm. Unless shore, help or your drifting boat is right at hand, DO NOT SWIM. ( The decision to swim or not has a lot to do with how cold thre water is, how far help is away and does anyone know you are there. If I can see myself being pulled away from safety and no one knows I am there, I guess I am going to try for shore and take my chances that way.)
Unnecessary movement forces the warm blood needed to heat your inner core out to your extremities where it is lost at a far greater rate. This also then pushes the cold blood back into your core cooling you quicker, something like a car radiator.
The H.E.L.P. position can increase your survival time by 50%. If you are in the water with others you should “HUDDLE”. Everyone must be wearing a PFD for this survival technique to work. HUDDLE together so that the sides of every ones chests are close, with with arms around each others lower back and legs intertwined. This will increase your groups survival time by 50% and children or elderly people shoud be put in the centre as they loss heat at a faster rate.
Hypothermia is a more
serious problem then warming a person who has been chilled. The most obvious
symptom of hypothermia is vigorous shivering with the person still conscious
and able to talk. The following first aid should be started at once. Move
the person to a dry shelter and remove wet clothing only if you can provide
dry coverings or a warm environment (see Gerry Gladwin’s list at the end
of this article, it could save your life) otherwise leave the wet clothing
on, put a hat on the person and cover the neck. To further retain heat,
make a vapour barrier out of a large garbage bag placing them over the
person leaving a hole
cut out for the head, and put them in a sleeping bag or other dry wrapping
and out of the wind. It is very easy to put the person into shock so handle
them very carefully. If it is safe to start a fire do so as you will all
want a break and maybe dry clothes.
Re-warm slowly and gently by placing warm, dry objects (40-45C) such as water bottles or heat packs (heat packs are fast and wonderful, had to us mine last year) wrapped in towels near the neck and trunk. DO NOT RUB THE SURFACE OF THE PERSONS BODY! This will quickly increase blood flow REMOVING warm blood from the core and replacing it with cold blood from the extremities, thus placing the person at greater risk. Direct body to body contact is also an effective way to warm a person.
If the person requests a drink, offer warm water, milk or juice. NEVER GIVE ALCOHOL, OR HOT STIMULANTS SUCH AS COFFEE, TEA OR HOT CHOCOLATE. Once the danger is past a hot drink will be good all round. Severe Hypothermia symptoms include stiffening, slurred speech. Or unconsciousness with little or no apparent shivering. Prevent further decrease in body temperature by following the steps above. GET MEDICAL ATTENTION IMMEDIATELY! Now is the time to use the VHF radio (channel16) or cell phone(911).
Cold
Water & Boating
by Gerry Gladwin
What if you were alone? What if the car keys had been lost in the accident? What if it had occurred fifty km. from the nearest source of heat and dry clothes?
What if ....
So, every time you go boating have the following with you and, especially when the water is icy, as it is for most of the year in Nova Scotia. Don’t go alone! Wear your PFD and Be sensible. We are not immortal!
The boating bag
If you don’t own enough really warm, old clothes to make up this list, go to a used clothing store and look for the shabbiest (because they are cheap) clothes that you can find that are warm - wool, cotton, fleece; and put it together in as small a package as possible. Seal it up in plastic, put it into a waterproof stuff bag, ( a real Seal Bag, plastic bags alone don’t always work) and always carry it with you in the cockpit so that in the event that you go for an unexpected swim you can grab it quickly. Resist the impulse to use the contents except in an emergency; that way it will always be complete and available.
towel
wool sweater
woolen toque
wool socks
wool pants (so what if they are ugly, they’re warm)
wool mitts
t-shirt
windbreaker with a hood
underwear
long underwear
canvas running shoes (in case you lose the boat & have to walk.)
waterproof matches and fire starter
a piece of rope (for a clothesline to dry out wet gear over a fire, your
heaving line can double for this)
Ed note. A garbage bag (large) with a hole in the top and worn like a poncho can be a great assist in keeping in the body heat.
Reusable heat packs (we got ours through a Red Cross trainer but they are available at MEC and are super. We needed them for a paddler who dumped and they were a great addition to the emergency bag.) Also, a VHF radio or cell phone in the waterproof bag is a good idea.
Get a pamphlet about hypothermia. Read it and internalize the information! If you dump, as you are unpacking the bag of dryness, read the pamphlet again to remind yourself of the importance of keeping the body core warm. Getting immersed into cold water is a very serious matter.
Take the bag with you whenever you go in any boat and feel confident that at least you have a chance at survival.
Did
I tell you our “bloodworm” story?
by Peter Robillard
I think it was our first day on the road after we left Gerry Gladwin’s place. Maybe it was the second.
We were driving along the road (better than the ditch really) admiring the scenery and we saw a sign for “LOBSTER BEACH PARTY” or some such thing.
RRRRRRRRCH! The brakes squeal and we turn around to the beach party. (Sound effects are artistic license since the Family Wagon doesn’t squeal or spin out)
We drove along this narrow twisty road right into someone’s deserted back yard. Nobody home. No lobster. Huge let down.
On the road again... Wow! Mud flats! Cool!
RRRRRRRRCH! and we pull into another narrow path.
There were people out there collecting something. We figured oysters or mussels or some such thing. Couple of greedy guts eh? They were really far out there. We could hardly see them.
“Let’s go see what they’re doing!”
“Duh... OK!” (In our defense, it WAS the Bay of Fundy).
Off we went into the mud in our Tevas. Mud very slippery. Mud quite deep in places. Lots to look at, including barefoot foot-prints. Still no inkling of trouble....
We were about halfway
out, and turned around.
We could hardly see
the car!
Still nothing.
Eventually we got
out far enough that I could see that everyone was wearing rubbers. Starting
to get something now...
One young guy stopped
what he was doing when we came within about 100 yards and started in towards
shore in-a-rush.
We hollered, “What are you picking?”
“BLOODWORMS!!!”
What are BLOODWORMS? How big are they? Can you see them easily? Do they bite? burrow? in flesh?
Yeah this was a really good idea.... In for a penny in for a pound. Lets keep going to the waterline.
Duh...ok.
So we kept going towards the water and were within 50 yards of the waves when everyone picked up their buckets and headed in. Ever see 20 guys wearing rubbers run 1/2 mile each carrying two buckets full of water?
We decided to head in, realizing the tide had changed.
That was pretty cool though. You could hear it, feel it.
On our way back in one guy stopped to wash his bloodworms off. We stopped to talk to him and he explained what they were. Like earthworms, segmented, but they bite and eat blood. Oh. Okay.
We could see hundreds of the bloody things in his buckets.
“Yeah you should be okay with those sandals ...”, they usually are at least about 1/2" below the surface....
(We didn’t mention that we had been up to our ankles a couple of times).
“Thanks for the talk!” and he was GONE.
None of those guys were looking back.
We looked back.
“OH SHIT!”
The tide was catching up to us. We had to do the slimy Teva shuffle for the rest of the mile back to the car and even then only just beat the tide up to the beach. (Actually once we got near the beach and on the stones the slope increased and we knew we were safe and sound, but the ‘just-in- time’ makes a better story.)
Stupid touristos.
The volume of water flowing through the Minas Channel at the full flow of the tide is equivalent to the combined flow of all the rivers and streams on earth.
The water in the Minas Basin rises and falls twice a day the equivalent of two telephone poles stacked one on the other moving up or down seven feet per hour, twenty-four hours a day.
When it is full, the weight of the water in the Minas Basin is so great that it causes the Nova Scotian land mass to bend and rebound 730 times per year.
We were sitting around just wondering what the famous Australian song, “Waltzing Matilda” means. We could get the gist of the message, but not why Waltzing Matilda. I mean, why not Waltzing Fred?? Hey, it’s winter here and you have all experienced “cabin fever”, what else was there to do?
We sent off messages to some of our Aussie friends, and Light Schooner owner and generally very clever Tim Fatjchen sent in this explanation. Hope you enjoy it.
...depending on whether Deborah’s on board or not, we have two Matildas
Matilda, loosely translated, is a swag, or more strictly, the bedroll part of a swag (canvas groundsheet, blanket, odd items of clothing and anything else rolled up in it) hung over one shoulder with a piece of rope, counterbalanced by the tucker bag, a hessian bag with tea, pots, meat etc in it. The other shoulder was free, so the arm could carry something heavy like a leather or canvas water bag, or just the pots and pans. In the original of the song, part of the chorus is “Waltzing Matilda, and leading a water bag”
The waltzing bit was an ironic reference to the dangling, swinging bedroll as the man (always) trudged along in the middle of nowhere heading from nowhere to nowhere, compared to the bright lights epitomized by waltzing --- this is all very 19thC.
So waltzing Matilda was the equivalent of humping the bluey (!) (as in “I’ve humped me bluey through all the States/With me old black billy, the best of mates/On many a track in the great outback/where the roads were rough er hilly”) (probably get you arrested for perversion and racism now: the “bluey” referred to blue blankets and a billy is an open cylindrical pot with a wire loop-handle - no panhandle - for boiling water/stewing/cooking/making tea on an open fire) ie taking to the track “out bush” looking for work in a self-contained style.
I must say, the only true swagmen I’ve seen used (1) a wheelbarrow (2) a decrepit push bike. Saw the last one locally in 1970-something.
Swags now are pale imitations. our swags are heavy canvas construction things with foam mattresses, doonas, pillows, zip enclosures (hence their use on the boat - why invest in berth furnishings???) that roam the country in the back of cars....
…and
a short bunk for the dog, please.
by André
Massicotte
A few years back, Olga and I decided that we would happily spend our retirement years in Nova Scotia and explore these wonderful shores on the Atlantic.
We decided to take small steps at first. Building dories and kayaks and taking a good measure of Canadian Power Squadron courses has been a lot of fun. Our goal was to build experience and acquire knowledge so that one day we could “take off in the sunset” hopefully to be seen again safe and sound on dry land.
The past year has been spent defining our”ultimate life style on the water” and looking for that no-compromise boat. Of course, it would be as big as our house, steer itself, never breach and take us around the world. It would also need to accommodate the needs of our golden Xanadu with appropriately placed hydrants or a few trees and a touch of grass here and there.
Well… we’re not there yet. Like all novices, we spent the better part of our down payment on boat magazines and books. Quite an education! We defined our needs as the style of a U.K. Bramson45, the saloon of a Grand Banks 42, the aft cabin of an Albin 40, the galley of the Queen Mary and so on. Of course, we’d yet to visit a boat yard or even set foot on a boat longer than 17 feet.
To remedy that, this past summer and fall, we visited boat yards in PEI, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Maine. We saw everything from Joe Tarp-Over Yard and Chainsaw Harry to Monk, Duffy and Wesmac. For a good measure we even visited Doug Carnaghan’s boat shop while he was completing his mechanical fit-up.
We enjoyed every minute of this terrific educational process. Every yard owner or manager (and Doug) welcomed us and spent several hours with us going through their manufacturing process. We poured over detailed drawings, cabin layouts and equipment specifications till our brains burst. However, nowhere did we see our Bramson/Grand Bank/Albin/Queen Mary. If we’re to spend any time on the water soon, the no-compromise boat had to be compromised. So out with the hydrants and the trees, the dog will just have to learn to swim and p… at the same time.
Compromise, compromise, compromise, that’s kind of hard for two Type A’s and a golden with an attitude, but we are getting there.
First, that glorious, no-rot, never to be varnished mahogany/teak/cedar hull is out of the question. Wood is “mucho dineros” if you have it built and, unlike Doug, I do not have the patience to strip an old hull and caress it until it shines in the dark. So, the first compromise is fiberglass for a hull with a low maintenance topside which could include some wood. (Yes, madame la présidente, I shall kneel in front of you and do penance for having used the f… word)
The second compromise is size. You would think that manufacturing costs would be a straightforward linear equation directly tied to the size of the boat. Not so! While the equation will work for boats from 30 to 38 feet, there is a significant jump in price when you exceed 38 feet. The same is true for boats below 33 feet. Another revelation was that not all same-size boats are equal…in size. Each yard calculates its LOA with or without a swim platform and bowsprit. Beams vary anywhere from 10 feet to 16 feet for the same size boat. Some even include the 2" guardrail to make it wider. The water line can be anything from 24 inches to 60 inches on the sterns. Confusing, you bet ! The same goes for interior arrangements. Bunks can be as short as 5 1/2 feet, height as low as 6 feet and you can find the most uncomfortable settee (even for a Frenchman with short legs)outside of a Baptist Church.
The third compromise is…to buy or not to buy, new that is. Every yard we visited (wood or fiberglass) are so busy that, for one, prices have increased significantly over the past few years and secondly, delivery dates are well in the future. Back to spending money on more magazines looking up used boats.
Seems like every about-to-retire yuppie wants to spend his/her time and money on the water. The market is heating up to the point that used trawler/cruisers do not depreciate appreciably. On the other hand, if you are interested in sail, there are bargains galore. Apparently many old timers are switching from sail to power to get more creature comfort. (Come to think of it, I could make the mast look like a tree trunk and the helm on those big sail boats sure look like a hydrant)
The other trend we found is that many yards are shying away from full displacement hulls. Looks like everybody is trying to make luxury cruisers out of lobster boats. Even the big passage maker manufacturers are advertising, albeit in small print, semi displacement hulls. Oh well, so I won’t invest my retirement fund in flopper-stoppers manufacturers.
Where you could get away with a small diesel, say120 HP, to achieve hull speed, there are no limits anymore except gravity. In one yard we saw an 800HP Caterpillar in a forty-five footer. The American yards have gone nuts over power and speed. Their Canadian cousins will be happy to down-power you as long as you can take the sneer. Improvement in diesel engine performance and reliability have been staggering over the past few years. Market forces again. The net result, if you are so inclined, you can sink your stern in the water till you stare straight up at the stars.
Leaving the humor aside for a moment, we found the yards we visited very well organized, clean and technically advanced. While they all have their own peculiar way of building a boat, the end result looks very professional, is sturdy and safe. Prices appear to be fairly competitive given the market conditions. Customization of any part of the boat is extremely pricey. You are talking $50 per hour. That’s a $2,000 bare bone Volkskayak if you want to count, plus material of course.
Interestingly, if you want to do some serious work on a used boat or just a hull, you will not find too many books of recent vintage or even written in North America. It seems that the Brits have a monopoly on reprints of vintage 70’s do-it-yourself boat building.
So, it’s February, spring’s around the corner. What are we going to do ?
Keep looking ! and train the dog to swim and p…
To be continued…
Ice
Boats Don’t Float
by Jamie VanBuskirk
Some of you will remember Bob Crinion and his ice boat from a presentation he made last year in the main gallery of the Museum. I think one or two of us even asked the question “Does it float?” His answer was “Sort of. But I wouldn’t recommend it.” And here’s why.
On a particularly cold January 15th Bob joined a few other boaters on Shortt’s Lake near Stewiacke to take advantage of what they thought was the only frozen piece of water on the mainland. As it turns out it wasn’t all that frozen.
Bob’s boat was tuned its usual high caliber and he took a run up the lake to set the far mark for their afternoon of racing. Along the way he noticed a patch of open water and made a mental note. “Go around the water.” Or something to that effect.
Heading back to join the other contenders he picked up considerable speed, close to 50 knots in his estimation, and held it for quite some time. Long enough to steer straight into that patch of open water before he know what happened.
Now, Bob’s a hardy guy. He grew up on an island and ran across some pretty rotten ice on his way to school as a boy. He also dives to outrageous depths all year round so a little ice water is not a big problem. However, the line used to control the sail was another matter.
When he hit the water
the starboard skate dove under that tore the runner plank from under the
fuselage at the same time slackening the mast stays which resulted in the
sail collapsing on top of him. The shock of the cold water and the beating
from the crash caused a bit of confusion as you might imagine. Combine
all that with ski goggles, a balaclava, a heavy sail on top and the line
wrapped around his shoulders and you’ve got a serious problem. After the
goggles came off he could see the rope and with that removed he swam out
from under the sail for a much needed breath of air. He took a quick glance
around and headed
for the near edge
of the hole while his fellow racers speeded to his aid. The trip back to
the car was a tad cold but after his friends beat the ice off his frozen
zippers and he changed his wet clothes things quickly improved and a potentially
tragic day ended on a high note.
He never did say how he got the boat home.
The magazine WoodenBoat, issue 149 contains an article that describes laminated hollow spars. It explains an elegant technique that I found irresistible. Having come into some free time, I decided to build a new mast and gaff for Itchy & Scratchy. Although described principally for spars, this technique could be used to efficiently make cylinders of any size, such as for table legs, lamps, columns etc. The cylinders can be parallel-sided or tapered, straight or curved. It uses straight stock to build up light, stiff spars from 8 carefully dimensioned staves. The weight is about 60% of a solid spar, because of the hollow center; the additional stiffness comes, I think, from the use of clear, quarter sawn staves that have most of their grain 90 degrees off natural alignment. “Natural” wooden spars (which in N.S., is spruce trees) are tapered full-length, and it is a lot of work to take off material at the thick end to make the spar parallel-sided for the scope of the gaff. Natural spars often split and take a long time to dry out. This hollow spar can all be done with a table saw, hand plane, and sandpaper, but I found my thickness planer useful as well.
I’m not going to reproduce the article, anyone planning to use this technique should get the original. I’ll describe the building of my mast, and the lessons learned. The technique is almost as easy as it looks. I was able to fabricate the spars without help.
I got my wood, spruce, as fairly clear, rough 2 X 8s, 16 feet long, that I found picking though some material at Barrets’ Lumber. Since the mast is 19 feet I would have to scarf for longer lengths. All gluing was done with thickened “Cold Cure” epoxy. The scarfing would allow me to work around knots. It would have to be arranged so that no two scarfs were adjacent, but were distributed along the length. I made the strakes an inch or so long so I could cut the final spar to proper length without worrying about getting the strakes perfectly aligned during assembly.
The biggest diameter of the mast is 4 in, and it is tapered at both ends, to 2 ½ in at the top, 3 3/4 in at the step. The 4 in diameter gave the initial stave dimensions, diameter times 40% (1 9/16 in) wide by 20% (13/16 in) thick. I ripped out 12 staves from one and a half 2 X 8 s, and scarfed around the few knots to make 8 clear 19 ft lengths.
Next I calculated the taper. Taper comes from reducing the width of the staves. The article describes cutting the taper as a straight cut, with a jig, on a table saw. A friend said that would make the result look like a spar made by a farmer. Only slightly intimidated, I planed an approximation of a parabolic taper on each stave. I used one strake as a batten to mark the taper on the side of another strake and clamped them all together. I used a power planer to get close to the line, then finished with hand plane. I think that it was easier than cutting them. For the gaff I planed the taper on my thickness planer by adjusting the depth of cut as the strakes fed - my thickness planer feeds very slowly. The long flexible lengths would have been hard to set up for a tapering cut.
The birds mouth is the 90-deg cutout. I found that I had to set the depth of cut slightly deeper than ½ the thickness to ensure that there was a clear glueing surface at the bottom of the birds mouth. It is easy to undercut and leave a small shoulder that will prevent a tight joint. Once I noticed that I was leaving a small shoulder, I deepened the cut by 1/16 in for the rest of the strakes and took the shoulder off with a rabbet plane. I didn’t try this, but a cutout of slightly less than 90 deg might make for tighter joints.
Now came the fun part, glueing 8 whippy, 19-foot lengths to each other. I practiced with the dry pieces, but even then there was a fair amount of fumbling, and it is more difficult when they are covered in glue. I used a staple gun at mid length, to temporarily tack adjacent strakes and rubber bands at the ends to help hold every thing together during assembly. I clamped about every foot with twisted line. I used a taught piece of monofilament to ensure straightness.
Once the glue is set up, it is easy to hand plane to 16-sided, then 32-sided. I may run the mainsail halyards inside the mast to clear things up a bit, and put some crumpled tinfoil in the gaff as a radar reflector.
About 20 hours work for the mast, 4 hours for the gaff. Materials was less than 50$. The longer time for the mast was due to my unfamiliarity with the technique, and the scarfing around knots.
The cover photo was taken by me in mid November, next to the boat ramp, at La Salle Park (43-18-05N 79-50-44W), Hamilton Harbour, Burlington, On. It was the last chance for a sail and I didn’t have a picture for the 1999 Christmas card. Any excuse to get on the water.
Here is the dory story.
I have been involved with wooden boats and historical re-enactments since 1992. The notion of building a boat that I could sail singly or with a couple of friends kept cropping up. I started researching and came across John Gardner’s books on small craft. Being a novice boat builder, I decided that the dory was a good starting point. I was going to turn my garage into a boat shop for the next couple of years.
After taking several measurements, a Gardner design was chosen. A Swampscott fisherman’s dory modified to improve the sailing ability and continue to be an excellent rowing craft. This dory has a rounded bottom with just enough flat to keep it upright while beached.
The boat chosen, the lofting started, the strongback designed, reality struck. My garage was large enough to store the boat, but not to build it. Fortunately, I had become acquainted with Gill Bibby Boat Builder via my involvement with the Admiralty Launch Surveyor (c.1792). I approached Gill with the idea of building a dory with my assistance. We discussed several plans and settled on the 16' Swampscott dory. In mid April 1997 the construction began. I figured it would be no problem finishing by mid July for a re-enactment in Hamilton. I quickly learned that the race was on. Everyday I could manage, I was at Gill’s boat shop. Whether I helped or hindered the process, I don’t know. I certainly learned a lot and we did finish on time.
There are always a thousand details to think of, besides construction. I had to have a trailer and what about a sail? The trailer required running around looking for something suitable at the right price. Dory trailers don’t exist around the inland sea. The best I could do was get a tin boat trailer and modify it. The sail was more difficult to obtain and with only weeks to go, I decided to make it myself. Being a traditional boat, it needed a traditional sail. I got the material and began to hand sew the canvas with the excellent guidance of the Sailmakers Apprentice by Emiliano Marino.
Launching day was early Monday morning June 30, 1997, the day the Bounty paid a visit to the Royal Hamilton Yacht Club. The perfect place to baptize an aristocrat. Gill and I took the dory for a row and surveyed the Bounty from the water. This initial seatrial/launch went well, with only a few minor adjustments to make it ready for the premier showing at the re-enactment.
Alas, the sail didn’t fair as well. Even taking a week off work, there wasn’t enough time to complete it. By the end of the next week, the sail was ready and sail trials began. After several modifications to the rigging, the initial sail (Aug 4/97) across Burlington Bay took place without a hitch. Thanks to all who lent a hand in building a classic.
P.S.This Christmas the dory finally got a name Faire Winds
Places used:
Hamilton Harbour - close to home and a good spot for an afternoon sail
Thames River, Chatham, On - part of a re-enactment
Mahone Bay Wooden Boat Show - Best Pulling Boat 1998, Cut Loose in D’Escouse
1998
Yarmouth area 1999
Swampscott Dory Faire
Winds
Rig sprit sail
LOA 16-1-0 (feet/inches/eigths)
Beam 4-11-0
Draft 0-8-0
lapstrake 3/8" marine
mahogany plywood oak, ash and pine