SWBANS Painting Day -- April24, 2004.
Tall Ships seen from Small Ships
Letter
from the Editor
Welcome to a new experimental way to share information. New for us, but this
method of newsletter has been used for years by other organizations to save
trees, time, and money. The time saved in the layout of this format is about
10 hours an issue, add to that the half dozen hours of getting it printed, addressing
envolopes, folding, stuffing, mailing, and you have a very real savings in volunteer
hours.
As an editor, it is much more rewarding to produce a virtual edition. We can
now have full colour photographs with the article they belong to, with no limit
really as to the number of images. There is no cost. Because of the time savings
each issue, we can have more of them, as often as every month if the member
contributions allow it. This also will let us have a special issue of fun and
photos for the Mahone Bay Wooden Boat Festival or any large SWBANS event that
requires more coverage.
So without further ado, read on and enjoy.
To Top
SWBANS
Painting Day -- April24, 2004.
By Gerry Gladwin
Liquid and almost crystalline sunshine was the order of the day on Saturday at Andre and Olga's place for the long-awaited SWBANS paint-in. Good food, great company, fun dogs and a few cold beer coupled with a cozy shop allowed almost complete denial of the weather conditions outside the windows.
Liza is nearing completion on her new, lightweight VK. She applied some finishing epoxy and glass to the bottom but, unable to paint it yet, she assisted on some creative colouration of "Peachy Keen" a VK that my daughter-in-law built a while back. The base coat, which was done beforehand, is a combination of some leftovers of red, yellow, and orange -- hence, Peach. Andre pointed out that the colour may be an indication that my sexuality is in question but I reassured him that the shade is simply a matter of going with the holy flow. We spent an hour or so striping the deck with masking tape, opened up five or six other colours and then randomly painted between the lines -- green, red, orange, yellow, black and blue. The result is asymmetrical, semi-organized chaos. Seems appropriate.
Jose repainted the deck
of her VK "Blue Heron" but held off getting too carried away with
decorative craziness, preferring to let the pair of herons on the deck speak
for themselves. KRAAAARK!
Anne and Rye were there for a while but simply as voyeurs. Unfortunately for
them they had to leave before the grub. Their loss. Ulli, on the other hand,
while he was also there as a spectator, made sure that he stuck around long
enough to partake of the delicious repast. Ulli knows how to take care of number
one.
Howard and Donna and ‘the
family' did maintenance on their ‘four-stroke engine' (two pairs of oars)
(Ed note: wouldn't that be a "two stroke"?). Andre finished up a minor
refit on their dinghy for "Mystic Bond" and Olga repainted the bottom
of her kayak. All-in-all, by late afternoon the shop had a strong solvent smell
indicating that it was a productive afternoon of labour.
The major project in the Massicotte world was located a few minutes down the
road so we went to have a look. "Mystic Bond" dwarfs everything else
in the boatyard. Wow! What a project. Andre and Olga are doing a fabulous interior
finishing job. Warm wood and soft corners lit up by plenty of window light.
Ulli wistfully noted that the boat likely has as much floor space as his apartment
and it is way, way nicer. We spent a half hour or so poking around in all the
nooks and crannies before giving in to the cool temperature and heading back
to the house.
So, spring painting is
taken care of. All we need now is for the sunshine to stop being liquid and
(almost) crystalline so we can get out on the water. By the way, the wood frogs
are out in force now so warm weather is on the way.
To Top
Tall Ships seen from Small Ships
by Ulli Höger
In 2000 "Tall Ships" dominated the summer in Halifax. Everything and everyone was busy preparing somehow for the big show, and a big show it was. The waterfront was jammed with people, the next free hotel room was available in Pictou, and the harbour was busy with sight- seeing vessels of all size. The weather was co-operative as well. After fog lingered over Halifax for weeks, the tall ships were greeted by blue sky and sunshine.
This year, from July 29 to August 2 2004, Halifax harbour will again be beamed back into the 19th century when tall ships ruled the oceans. This year around 40 tall ships are expected to tie up on the waterfront. Again it will be busy, on and off the water. This year the tall ships are scheduled for the same weekend as the Mahone Bay Wooden Boat Festival, and the Acadian summit. Just keep that in mind if planing on heading our way around that time. Hotel rooms may be scarce with a triple header on the schedule.
A busy harbour is always a dangerous place for small vessels, and the Halifax way of waste water management puts it still further down on the list of places to go paddling. But human nature is curious, and Tall Ships are just to good to miss. This lowers the threshhold of sanity and many people paddled in the harbour during the tall ship visit in 2000, and there is no doubt that many will do it in 2004. Several people and groups already expressed their interest to paddle in the harbour to see the Tall Ships from their Small Ships. However, while being out in a group is a good idea, the group shouldn't get to big. I think a squad of 5 is the maximum number to work efficiently with the buddy system. Larger groups should split up to keep things organized and manageable. But the big trick is, as you will read below, to be out early as the early birds is left alone.
Like already mentioned the weather and sea conditions during the tall ship visit in 2000 were as good as they can be. Little wind, hardly any swell, and good visibility. After being oil sardined on the waterfront Thursday afternoon I called my paddling buddy Alex. We both wanted to see the tall ships from the water-line perspective and decided to paddle out into the harbour to get a good close look. Since it was already crazy on Thursday afternoon and more and more people would arrive for the weekend, we concluded that if we want to go we would need to go early. So early that we would be the only living beings moving in the harbour.
Thus we met Friday morning 5:30 on Point Pleasant Park's "Black Rock Beach" to launch our kayaks. By six we were happily paddling along the piers towards downtown, and our plan worked out. For the next two hours the harbour was ours. While people went to work and sailors on the tall ships woke up to start another busy day we were enjoying close-up looks and poking around the huge sailing ships. Each of us shot several rolls of film that morning, since the calm conditions allowed handling of photographic equipment. Around nine the traffic picked up, and by ten it was time to head back and get off the water. We didn't pull out that time, we just crossed the harbour and explored George's and McNabs Island for the rest of the day. Crossing back to Black Rock Beach late in the afternoon was devilish, but that's another story (chopped jelly fish burns like hell in the arm pit and the pilot boat pushes a wake that's nothing short of a baby tsunami).
Our 2nd "Tall Ship" paddling expedition took place Monday, the "Parade of Sail" day. Again we were early on the road to beat the crowd. Not as early as Friday, but we launched at nine from Eastern Passage to take position off Mac Nabs Island, were we joined fellow SWBANS paddlers who camped on the island. There were quite a few paddlers sitting on shore or drifting and bobbing in the shallows waiting for the show to start.
When all traffic was put into parking positions for the parade, and the only moving objects in the harbour were the tall ships under sail, we moved forward. Passing all the sitting ducks (a.k.a. sail, power, and pleasure boats) we took front row seats to enjoy the parade. When the last tall ships left the harbour we pulled back into the shallows of Mac Nabs Island and waited till the traffic jam had cleared up.
Looking back it was a
great experience, and with favourable conditions I will do the same thing again
in 2004. Our strategy of being out early to beat the crowd, the perfect weather
and sea conditions, and enforcement of a strict speed limit in the harbour during
those days made it reasonably safe for us to be out there. Again I will be paddling
with a friend or two, and we will go early to avoid other sight-seeing traffic
as much as possible (and to stay out of wind and waves which usually both pick
up around noon). I will carry a VHF radio, since the last couple of times paddling
in traffic it was reassuring to monitor the radio to know what was on the way
in and what was going to leave berth. However, if the visibility is poor or
conditions are rough I will stay on shore. Jammed into the crowd will be better
than being run over by a bigger boat or dumped by a wake into the Halifax sewage
pond.
To Top
Paul Johnson, who was here with Margaret on the VK ski day, was here from last Wednesday until last night building one. It's all done but for final fairing and paint. He stayed in the cabin, brought his skis and appears to have had a very memorable winter vacation. I expect that he will be joining SWBANS also. I pester everyone to do so.
Harry Beach brought his two kayaks up yesterday for a three year refit. And, of course, Ulli has been up most weekends. His new project is a one meter. remote control sailboat ... I think that qualifies as a boat so he is still averaging one boat per year since he first came to NS. Ulli suffers from a serious viral disease.
Howard and Donna are coming
along nicely with their Eun Mara sailboat. We had a large turn-out at their
winter "turning the hull" party and everyone enjoyed themselves.
The photograph on the right shows what they hope to be do-ing later this year
or early next, and the cold looking one be-low shows how it looked sev-eral
months ago at the "turning Party".
Howard writes: ( Boatshed
con't)
"The floors and bilgeboard boxes are in. The forward and aft bulkheads
are in, and I've just glued in the small bulkhead that supports the berths.
One of the mast beams is in, and I'm working on installing the second one, then
it's on to cutting and installing the main bulkhead between the cabin and the
cockpit. After that, fitting out the interior, then deckbeams and decking. Now
that sounds like I'll be done by the weekend, but we're talking many weeks work!"
(Ed note: They also have the 400 plus pound lead keel ready, Howard carries
it around from place to place to stay in "racing trim".)
To Top
Ancient
Mysteries of Egypt
By Liza Hageraats
December, for most, is a time for rushing around in preparation for the holiday season, but for me, it was the perfect time for another travel adventure. My work load slows down to a trickle and I can breathe a well deserved sigh of relief. After considering several possibilities I decided that this might be a perfect time to visit Egypt. The weather was considerably cooler than most of the year, ranging from a high of 17 to 30 during the day with cooler temperatures in the desert overnight. I packed my knapsack and headed for the land of majestic tombs and ancient mysteries.
As on all my adventures,
I kept my eyes open for something that would interest my fellow SWBANS members
and expected to report on my three day cruise down the Nile on a Felucca, a
traditional sailing vessel used for centuries to carry both people and cargo
up and down the life giving river. Although that was probably one of the highlights
of the trip, I was disappointed to find that ours was not a wooden boat but
rather a metal hull. Still I was transported to another time as we glided past
ancient tombs and villages seemingly untouched by time.
The felucca is a single masted sailing boat with an open deck covered with a
thin foam mattress . This deck was where we spend our day lounging lazily as
we were brought to various sites. As well it served as our din-ing room and
sleeping quarters. At night they enclosed the open deck with tent walls and
ceiling as we moored along the river bank.
However imagine my surprise to find a wooden boat at Giza, sight of the Great Pyramids. I expected to be blown away by the massive structures and indeed they were awesome in the true sense of the word. However, they were entirely lacking in decoration and all the contents had been removed and or stolen centuries ago. What peaked my interest at this site was the Solar Boat museum.
In 1950, an archeologist working at the Giza site noticed a thin line of mortar on the south side of the Great Pyramid. Inside the pit he found the remains of a great wooden ship that had lain undisturbed for 45 centuries. The airtight pit contained thousands of pieces of cedar wood, arranged in thirteen neatly piled layers, which proved to be a large oar driven dismantled boat complete with ropes for rigging.
The boat was laboriously removed from its pit and in 1958 reconstruction was able to begin. This consisted on re-assembling 1224 individual pieces of cedar, acacia and other elements, rather like putting together a jigsaw puzzle without a picture reference. The ancient builders had helpfully indicated on some of the pieces which part of the craft they had come from, but the reconstruction still took 10 years to complete. No nails were used in the construction and the planking was assembled with stitched through holes with ropes of vegetable fiber. When the wood was swollen by water the ropes would tighten and the boat would become watertight...
The solar boat measures 43.3 meters long, 5.9 meters wide, has a draft of 1.48 meters and a displacement of around 45 tons. Thought by many to be one of the oldest wooden boats in existence, it is at least 4000 years old. There is a large central paneled cabin, 9 meters long, an open canopy set on poles, and a smaller one at the fore which was possibly for the captain's use. It was powered by five sets of oars plus one pair at the stern to act as a rudder.
The significance of the buried boat is still hotly debated. All in all there are four boat pits at Giza. The others had been raided long ago. I, myself, saw many images of similar boats carved into walls of various temples along the Nile, but the boats in these usually carried the God Ra as he moved the sun or moon around the sky. This is from where the term Solar Boat is derived.
The Pyramid Texts state
that at the end of his life the Pharaoh's soul ascends to the heavens with the
God Ra. Is the boat, therefore only ceremonial? Other experts claim that there
is evidence that the boat had been in water and think they were used for the
final journey of the departed Pharaoh from Luxor to his funerary tomb at Giza.
Whatever its use, it is a magnifi-cent structure.
In 1991, 12 more boat pits were discovered at other funerary en-closures in
Egypt, two more boats were discovered in the year 2000 and all of these predate
the barge at Giza. All, including the one I saw, were built of Cedar which is
not native to Egypt. Some think the building material came from Lebanon. In
a country in which you are constantly surrounded by the mysteries of the ancient
world, they now have one more mystery to solve