Letter
From the President
The
Boat Shed
Letters
Kayaking
Cold
Water Survival
Cold
Water & Boating
Phaedra
Kayaks - from 'the Passage'
Hansel
and Gretel 2001
Whynot
Gannet
Boat
Building for Sickos
Letter
from the Editor
Alberta
Chapter
Spring is creeping up on us now and soon we will be out on the water. Read “Cold Water Survival” in this issue and stay safe.
Also with spring planning in the air, a reminder that as a SWBANS member you have access to a vast supply of local knowledge concerning good boating spots. Other members may have sailed/paddled here before and they will have valuable “inside” information concerning launch sites, parking, camp sites, danger areas etc.. They may even have waypoints ready to enter into your GPS. Contact SWBANS for more info.
Our recent weekend at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic was a big success for us and the museum. Out of the four weekends in their event line up, we brought in the largest attendance, something like just under 400 people. Our displays of boats, camp sites and photo boards were first rate. We were covered by Breakfast Television as well as several local newspapers. A warm thank you to all the members who took the time to bring their boats or help with the set up/take down and interpreting of the event.
Don’t forget to take in the upcoming meetings/events listed in this issue, you won’t regret it. The next two meetings are really outings but let’s not loose sight of the design project we have on the go. We’ll have a business meeting if it means keelhauling the trouble makers first. Wait a second......That sounds like a lot of fun. See you there.
Be extra careful on the water. Please put safety first.
Annie
Andre and Olga Massicotte are building an 11.5 foot Asa Thompson skiff to be used as a dinghy for the large motor cruiser which they are having built. This is a very pretty little boat that you will see at our gathering later this month (see meetings).
Ulli Hoger is building a second Volkskayak. This new one is a Gannet, the newest design by Gerry and Jose. Ulli will build it as a take apart but won’t cut the hull until later, using it as a one piece boat. Also, he has built the hull to fit him, much the way kayaks were originally constructed so it is a little different then Gerry’s personal ( Gannet) boat. This boat should be finished in the next few weekends.
Anne and Ryerson are now working on Phase 2 (or is it 3?) of the baidarka project.
Two new members signed aboard at the museum show. Wayne Gagnon of Lower Sackville and Eric Brunner of Fort Saskatchewan Alberta. With the relocation of David and Sherry Rimes to Alberta in May we can start an official Alberta chapter!
Hi Ryerson,
Wishing you and Anne
a safe year kayaking and sailing. I want to compliment you on the newsletter,
great stories and pictures. It is good to hear some news from other members.
I will have to get out kayaking and make something happen. See you at the
next meeting
Anne Murray
Yep, you heard right.
We are off to see the Wizard again. You know it is hard to keep a good
sailor down.... Expecting to leave Wed arriving at Cape Eleuthera on Saturday
...Please keep in touch!!!! Please use: Sailoki@pocketmail.com until further
notice. Any normal length message works fine, but I will remind you to
please not send attachments or long forwards...pocketmail is a limited
capacity , but an amazing and wonderful instrument which allows me to get
email all over the world without hauling the computer into the dinghy,
splashing and bumping thru the surf to the nearest payphone on an out-island
somewhere in the Caribbean....(ah, that has a nice ring to it.) Reed has
crew to help him sail. I will just lounge around eating grapes. I don’t
like not sailing my own boat so don’t know how grumpy I might get....might
get thrown overboard. Wish us luck, dear friends, and thank you for all
your support which helped more than you know to get me to this point...and
we will contact you from *the other side* next week. I love you all,
Cin
Hello, hello...
What a wonderful cruise across the sea we had! Calm seas, the calm crossing Reed promised in cajoling me to join the ship instead of flying over..(didn’t think being thrown around the cabin was a good idea just yet) ..a delightful sail down the NE Providence channel, through Fleeming passage onto the Bahama Banks and “straight through to morning” and Eleuthera..Island in the Sun..70 hrs all told. Sigh..I didn’t think I would get here this year and was so glad to see her.
The hour before leaving the dock in New Smyrna Beach, a friend stopped by to visit, having just returned the previous night from skippering a fleet of charter sailboats in the Caribbean. He seemed wistful at being through with the adventure and upon being asked if he would like to join us, hopped on (duffle still packed) and off we went. Great to have extra hands.
So the queen sat on
her royal *barge* surveying her domain , as it were, feasting on peeled
grapes and that good crew didn’t mutiny after all,,(probably never have
it that good again) And somehow, those(3) guys managed to sail my boat
without my advice..how can that be?? Hmm. So, we are safe here on the *other
side* and would love to hear from everybody , as always,
Cin
Hi Ryerson and Anne. Just wanted to let you know that Lois and I are still listed among the living. Safely made it home after a monster bowl of hot’n sour at Fran’s on the way. Lois noticed that the dagger board and rudder blade were missing from the back of the truck when we left the restaurant but chose to keep it from me. She knew I’d get hysterical and insist on going back for them. She drove home while I slipped into a coma. She discreetly called MMA this morning to assure herself that the items were safe. When I got home from work today she gave me the “good news” that I could pick them up when I come into the city for a meeting on Wed. Always nice to get good news when you walk in the door, but you feel a bit set up if you never got the bad news that made the good news good! Ah, the tangled web of marriage.
Sometimes, in our enthusiasm for our favourite sport, kayaking, we tend to downplay, or perhaps forget that this is not a sport for everyone, but for those of us who are dedicated aficionados, it is incumbent on each of us to apply some objectivity. We may want to take family members or friends, out for a paddle, on a nice sunny day. As owners and operators of kayaks, we must recognize the risks that we assume. A kayak is not a toy. It can be a lethal instrument in the wrong hands. If we want to introduce a spouse, a good friend, or a relative to this greatest of sports, then we must be sure to take all necessary steps to protect their safety and security. In other words, if a friend of yours, seeing how much you enjoy the sport, asks you to take him out for a paddle, be sure to brief him on all aspects of safety, i.e. how to get in and out of a kayak in different, and perhaps sometimes dangerous situations, or how to handle the possibility of capsizing or how to handle the effect and the force generated by the bow wave of a ship or boat.
If you should happen to capsize, have you prepared yourself for the need to act quickly? It is easy to get into a kayak when you are next to a wharf or pier, but how do you get back into a kayak, if you happen to be out on the water, by yourself. It is not everyone who is nimble enough to climb back into a kayak, unaided. As a safety measure, I recommend, as one alternative, especially if you are out on the water by yourself, that you carry a paddle float. The paddle float should be secured under a bungee cord, preferably in front of your cockpit, on the deck where it can be quickly retrieved. It should be partially inflated when it is on the deck. (Ed. Note: there are closed cell foam floats that do not require inflation but take up more deck space.) Then in the event of a capsize, you can use the float to reenter the kayak unassisted.
None of us are infallible, so let’s play it smart, and make sure that whenever we go out in our kayaks, whether we are alone, or with others, we take a good quality hand-pump, and a proper paddle float. It goes without saying that both the pump and the paddle float must be secured on your foredeck, with bungy cords, as close as possible to your cockpit. Also don’t forget to keep a set of flares close at hand, in a waterproof sack or bag, in the cockpit, where they can be quickly retrieved. Also we need to carry something that we can use to make a noise, in case we get in difficulty, and need to call for help. There are a number of choices, i.e. one of those hand operated horns, with the rubber bulb (obtainable in Sport Stores),an old copper bugle, or whatever. A whistle is good for short distances, but not for long distances. If you happen to be paddling in shallow areas, over submerged sharp rocks, keep a roll of duct tape handy.(How did we manage to survive so many millennia without duct tape?)
When paddling with a group, of different ages and capabilities, try to keep the group fairly close together so that if someone gets into difficulty, the others are close at hand to help. There should be an experienced paddler at the front, acting as a guide, and another experienced kayaker astern of the group in case someone gets into trouble. If you happen to meet up with some people who think that they might like to try kayaking for the first time, encourage them to get some good instruction before going out on the water, especially alone. Common sense dictates that we do some research before paddling in areas with which we are not familiar.
So have fun but, before you do, make sure you do your homework, especially if you are a novice paddler!
Cold
Water Survival
by Ryerson Clark
(Based on articles
published by the Canadian Red Cross and the Canadian Coast Guard)
The time is quickly approaching 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! If 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 is 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 temperature and respect it’s killing power. If you are in 10 degree (50F) water lightly dressed 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 temperature is below 5C (40F).
Know your boat and how to handle it in all conditions you could 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 interfere with your ability to make fast decisions. Also, it is illegal to operate a boat when impaired.
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-enter 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 the water is, how far help is away and whether anyone knows you are there. If I can see myself being pulled away from safety and no one knows I am there, I might 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 arms around each others lower back and legs intertwined. This will increase your group’s survival time by 50%. Children or elderly people should be put in the centre as they loose 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 it over the person leaving a hole cut out for the head, and put the casualty in a sleeping bag or other dry wrapping and out of the wind. It is very easy to cause the person to suffer shock so handle the casualty very carefully. If it is safe to start a fire do so as you will all want a break and maybe dry clothes.
Re-warn 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 use 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 casualty 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.
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.
Phaedra
Kayaks - from 'the Passage'
by Robert Fraser
This past summer while messing about down at the Mahone Bay Wooden Boat Festival I had the opportunity to try a ‘Magpie’ kayak which is the proud possession of Colleen MacDonald. This beautiful little kayak is one of the earlier models manufactured by Tieken Kayaks. It is very light, less than 30 pounds, has a wave piercing bow, no deck hatches and is quite narrow; probably 21" in beam; it was amazingly stable. The attribute of the kayak that led to this unwarranted stability must be that it has a little transom. By maintaining the breadth of the kayak towards the stern meant that the maximum width of the boat was able to be maintained longer than if the stern of the kayak came to a point. This concept applies equally to the fact that a longer kayak is usually more stable; having a longer mid-section where the breadth gives stability instead of quickly tapering off to a pointed bow and stern.
Also at ‘the festival’ was a skin-on-frame Baidarka on display. In analyzing the design of this Aleutian kayak I realized that it too had what could be classified as a transom. A typically quite narrow Baidarka is also quite stable and can carry a good load for it’s size. With these two examples to go by I determined that my next kayak would also have a transom. It was hard to bother finishing the kayak I was at that time working on while anticipating the next one.
About six years ago I built one of Gerry’s Volkskayaks down at the Waterfront and along with inheriting a second Volkskayak have been very impressed and pleased with the design. But while forever wanting to keep building I wondered how I could improve on Gerry’s proven design. The first thing was to try to cut down on the little bow wave that forms when paddling at speed. This led to other changes until basically the whole boat was transformed. What has emerged is a pine kayak; 16' by 5/16 thick pine boards used for the hull instead of the marine grade mahogany plywood; a wave piercing bow with steeply sloped front deck; an overhanging (to the edge of the side) front deck and a large storage area behind the cockpit (with access behind the seat) in order to eliminate the deck hatches. A big change in construction procedure has been the elimination of the “stitch and glue” process. The pine boards are tapered to their appropriate shapes, fitted and then held in place with bungee cords while the epoxy sets up.
The addition of a transom to this development has led to a good looking, light and stable kayak. Edition # 2 was donated to the Dartmouth High School Band for which they sold tickets at $2.00 each to help finance a trip to Cuba; they made $5400.00 from the kayak. Prototype #5 is the first one to have a transom and is the boat that was on display at the Museum for two weekends in February and which made it onto Breakfast Television. # 6 and #7 are presently under construction by Mike Cote and Don Cameron at the boatworks down in Eastern Passage. #7 is being constructed with the 5mil plywood but is being fitted together without using the stitch and glue process. The conclusion I have made is that it is nicer to work with the pine boards than the plywood. #7 is ending up being close to a foot longer than the others because both the stem and transom extend out from the plywood. It is also about 24" at the beam instead of the more normal 22".
Look for them on the water this summer.
So if you want to build your own ‘transomized’ kayak contact:
Robert Fraser @ 469-9088
email: phaedra@accesswave.ca
Workshop: 1465 Main
Road, Eastern Passage
(fourth building on
the right past Langille’s Boatyard when coming into the Passage.)
Workshop phone: 469-2826
$800.oo plus HST: facilities, instruction, assistance and all materials
included.
‘On the Water’ Includes your own ‘ergonomically correct’ paddle
Hansel
and Gretel 2001 -a modern resolution for an old problem
by Ulli Höger
Once upon a time Hansel and Gretel got lost in the dark forest and almost ended up as a witch’s supper. All that because HE used bread crumbs to mark the trail. Nice try, but birds took the bread and lost they were -not the birds, the kids. When I read Bonnie’s adventure in the last newsletter one thing came instantly into my mind “That trip could have gone seriously wrong”. Bonnie’s conclusion to carry emergency equipment on all future trips, even short ones, is a good one. What should be in a emergency kit? Depends, but a compass and if possible a map of the area in any case. Even if you know the place, in the archipelagos of Nova Scotia fog appears suddenly out of nowhere, and it is easy to loose orientation and the direction to the mainland, the campsite, or the takeout. Here a good old fashioned compass will tell you at least the rough direction back to the mainland, and prevent you to (a) do unintentionally what the British guy failed last year to do -to cross the Atlantic from West to East in a kayak, or (b) to become a temporary castaway on one of the many little islands, or (c) embarrass yourself by asking a powerboater how to get home. So get a compass, learn how to use it, and carry it in your pfd pocket at all times.
But would a compass have kept Hansel and Gretel out of trouble? Nobody knows, but in our modern times there is another tool which would have done this for sure. As we all know by the lesson Hansel and Gretel learned, leaving bread crumbs behind to mark a trail in the woods doesn’t work. Neither would it work on the water, there are simply to many gulls around. Today bread crumbs can be conveniently replaced by GPS (global positioning system). GPS uses satellites to precisely identify its/our location on earth. 14 GPS-satellites, owned by the US government and initially reserved for military purposes, offer civilian service since 1980 -believe it or not- free of charge. To use it you need a GPS receiver -affordable basic handheld models are selling for under $200-, a bit of navigation “Know How”, and the compass you already carry in your pfd (a deck mounted compass would be even better). Pocket size GPS-units, like Garmin’s eTrex or Magellan’s 310, have all the functionality to find your way. They store hundreds of waypoints, i.e. coordinates of your “put in“ or campsite, show and store your traveled trail on the display -just like Hansel had it in mind with the bread crumbs-, and provide navigation information like bearing, heading, and distance to a chosen point.
A GPS receiver needs to see 3 different satellites in the sky to calculate its current position with high accuracy (down to ± 10 meters). Position and time are frequently stored in the receivers memory, and displayed as a virtual “bread crumb”-trail on the GPS display. Unlike Hansel’s bread crumb bird feeder the trail in the GPS stays there as long as your batteries last and the electronic isn’t soaked in salt water. It’s easy to follow the trail back to your starting point by steering a zick-zack course overlapping the plotted trail in opposite directions. Hansel won’t have needed Gretel to bail him out, and the witch would be still alive.
How to get back to your starting point without tracing the whole trip back? If you stored your starting point as a waypoint this isn’t a problem. Knowing its current position and the coordinates of the stored waypoint, the GPS calculates distance and bearing to that point. The bearing is the direction you have to follow on your compass to get to this waypoint. See, there you need your compass again, since a GPS is not a compass! It knows were it is, were other points are, which direction to go to get there, but it can’t tell you which way to turn to get the right heading. To do that, its needs to be in motion. Than it can calculate the heading from its current and previous positions. However, a compass is here far superior and more convenient to determine the right heading and keep you on course.
Over time, current and wind may shift you off course and you would end up somewhat left or right from your target point. By observing currents and wind one could predict the course shift and compensate for it by adding or subtracting a couple of degrees from the bearing. This dead reckoning isn’t necessary with a GPS. Since GPS always knows its current position it corrects constantly the bearing to the destination. Depending on current or wind strength and direction, adjustments to your heading to match the actual bearing may occasionally be necessary to hit the target waypoint dead on.
You want to go to a place you have never been before? Here you need a map to get the coordinates for the place. Set your GPS to the map date noted on the map, otherwise you will be off a couple dozen meters -still good enough for most purposes-, then enter and store the coordinates as a waypoint in your GPS and off you go. If you can’t reach a destination in a straight line, you may have to enter a number of waypoints to create a route to follow. From point A, to point B, to point C ...... and you will finally reach your destination.
Apart from being a navigational tool a GPS offers other interesting options. From the data stored in its memory the GPS can give real speed (SOG, speed over ground) and really covered distance (from COG, the course over ground) information during the trip. Later at home I usually upload the trip data to my computer to file it in my log book, to analyze my performance and endurance profile during the trip, add interesting points to my waypoint list, and plot the trip over a scanned map so that I can put a name tag on that island I passed a couple of hours earlier.
A GPS, as sophisticated as it is, can fail and should be backed up by old fashioned navigation skills and common sense. Compass and map, the ability to work with them, and space age technology in the form of GPS make a winning and easy to use combination for better seamanship. An easy to understand guide line to learn modern and traditional navigation techniques is “Fundamentals of Kayak Navigation“ by David Burch, Globe Pequot Press 1999, not only for paddlers.
Whynot
Gannet
by Gerry Gladwin
Something about the process of kayak design is insidious, it creeps up on your consciousness and kind of eats away at the whys and the wherefores of what went before and the what ifs and maybes of what could be. That’s where Gannet has come from.
Tired of not having my own kayak, I took a set of panels for the VK Standard and performed the following surgery:
I built this boat a couple of months ago but have not yet had it in the water owing to the fact that I live in what feels like Siberia, the snow is more than a meter deep and I can’t get close to the shoreline without risking going for a swim. Brrrrrrrr.
However, I am thinking positively. Spring will come and I will get to see how the modifications have turned out. If it doesn’t work I will take Joel’s advice and stand it up in a hole about three feet deep, fill it full of suet, and use it as a bird feeder.
Boat
Building for Sickos
by Ryerson Clark
This past winter Anne and I decided to replace our stolen baidarkas with new ones. The old ones worked just fine but we have always had it in our minds to build shorter, lighter, less volume sea kayaks. This would be our chance.
A big problem we faced was health. Over the years I have become asthmatic and Anne has become allergic to curing epoxy. No problem with the product once set. So we had to divide the labours somewhat. Anne would draw and cut pieces, help stitch, but would leave so I could apply glue. My problem, even with a mask, is dust, but Anne can tolerate this. To cut down on dust in the air is to cut down on all unnecessary sanding. We decided not to epoxy or tape the outside of the hulls at all. This is where almost all the dust comes from; fairing the hull by sanding and filling tape seams to a Cadillac finish. We opted for the “family pickup truck” finish. No epoxy sealer you gasp!!?? Are they out of their minds?? Yes, but that is beside the point and has nothing to do with boat building.... or does it?
With these design features in mind we drew up a plan. The new boats would be just under 16 feet by 22 inches in the beam. Same beam as the first boats but almost 2.5 feet shorter. They would also be one inch lower from the keel to the deck. Other improvements or changes would be made to suit our tastes.
Prototypes, the very term means experimentation.
We fit pieces togther, looked it over, took it apart, re-cut and re-assembled the first hull several times. When it all fit correctly we built the second hull in no time at all from these patterns. We stitched and glued in the normal fashion on the inside, except we used two layers of tape per seam and a good fillet of thickened epoxy under them. On the outside we just took the edges off the joints and gave them a light sanding. The hulls (both) were faired beautifully in less then an hour.
Our reasoning for no epoxy on the outside was founded on research, and we hope, common sense. Since boats like this don’t live in the water, why wouldn’t a good paint seal them well enough? If any water that got through to the wood...no problem.. it is wood with waterproof glue.. any water would just dry out between uses. Remember, rot sets in when wood gets wet and is not allowed to dry. On the historical side, we know several boats that were constructed in this way in the 1960’s before epoxy was commonly used. The fact we know these boats (built with marine ply) says a lot for the way they have lasted, and are still used today.
When painting the boats we wanted to have a good paint layer because of the need to seal rather then just cover and colour. We used good exterior enamel, in this case it was marine paint. We rolled on all the coats, the first coat was thinned 20% to really soak in. The next three coats we thinned about 5% and this covered the wood just about right. We were told the “proper”way to do this was to put thinned paint on in as many layers as necessary until you cannot see the texture of the wood grain showing through.
On March 5th we test paddled them at Cole Harbour. They were more tender then past boats and didn’t sit on their lines well (note from Anne: We now understand perfectly Fraser Howell’s description of fearing the wake from a duck). We quickly moved to a heated pool (no ducks) to see what it would take to bring the bow down and the squatting stern up. The first thing to check is cockpit location. Was it too far back? As it turned out, it wasn’t, or at least, it wasn’t the first problem to correct. The bows were too full and buoyant for the fine stern.
We brought them home, marked them off at our best guess to what “looked” right and cut a large section out of the bottom and sides forward of the aft bulkhead right to the bow. (note from Anne: Ryerson makes this sound so matter-of -fact. The reality was that we agonized over this decision. We tried to think of every possible way to avoid the saw. The final decision was made when it was suggested that we put 50 or 60 pounds of ballast in the boats. Geez these were supposed to be lighter than the first. Get the saw!!!!) In this gaping hole we fitted plywood which is yet to be glued in place. This creates a flat bottom section replacing the deep “V” and we hope will solve the problem by letting the bow sit deeper in the water. It will also tame the tendency to pitch us out. What else will be needed, if anything, will be worked out as we go.
One step at a time.
Prototypes...the very term means experimentation.
Things are going well here in SWBANSLAND. First, I want to thank all of you who keep making this newsletter so great with your submissions and photos. Couldn’t happen without you.
Another thank you to the members who give up their time to put all this together. From typing, to editing, to printing, stamp licking and posting, thanks a lot.
You may notice a new cover design. If you didn’t, you are not paying attention! I changed it for no other reason then to keep it looking fresh, and this in turn, keeps it fun for me rather than “the same old thing”.
Let me know if you like it.
Ryerson
Alberta
Chapter
by Sherry Rimes
As you can see by the Boat Shed, yes Dave and I will be moving to Alberta, Calgary to be exact. When? Well we are not quite sure, we have to sell our house first, then we will have a timetable.
Many people have been asking us if we are happy to be moving back home. We are happy that we will be closer to our family especially now that we have Emmett, on the other hand we have made many new friends here and we were beginning to feel like we weren’t from away. We were a little disappointed that we only were able to use our windsprint during the Mahone Wooden Boat Festival this past year, and we were looking forward to doing more sailing and improving our sailing skills so that we could kick some butt this coming summer. (I can say that now because we don’t have to live up to it.) I guess we will have to improvise and use the windsprint on the Glenmore Reservoir, maybe we could start some racing there.
I talked of the many new friends we have made, most of them have been through SWBANS. We intend to continue being members, I will continue to do the newsletter and look after the website. We will also continue to build wooden boats. Our next project will be kayaks, there may not be many places in Alberta to sail, but there are many lakes and rivers to kayak in. Who knows maybe we can organize a paddling trip in Kananaskis, the mountains or the Red Deer River.
As far as an Alberta
Chapter that may be a possibility. Believe it or not there are a couple
of Yacht Clubs out there on the prairies. I see a possible column for the
newsletter, “News from Away” perhaps. At any rate, Dave and I will keep
in touch, and if anyone is coming out west be sure to look us up.