Boat Plans Bolger | Strange things going on

Boat Plans Bolger

THE PLANETS are in line. Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue has a size-16 woman on the cover for the first time. Playboy magazine has stopped publishing nudes. Something’s going on. Should we duck or run for cover?

Of the three, Playboy seems the most ominous. It’s the Internet, of course. Men no longer have to buy Playboy to find out what women actually look like under all those clothes they wear.  The Internet is full of free photographs of naked women, the great majority of them taken and submitted by themselves.

In the old days when I worked in South Africa, you weren’t allowed to see women’s bodies until you got married. Any book, film, or magazine with a naked woman in it was banned. The apartheid censors were rather cavalier in this respect. They even banned books without first reading them. For example, they took one look at the title of Anna Sewell’s best-seller, Black Beauty, and banned it immediately. It was actually about a horse, not a woman, and the censorship board suffered withering scorn when the news came out, but that didn’t stop them in their attempts to curb free speech.

Playboy was also on the banned list, of course, probably at the top of it. So when I found myself in Rio de Janeiro at the end of a transatlantic yacht race, I bought a copy of Playboy at a corner newsstand. I knew a man at the newspaper where I worked in South Africa who swore to uphold the traditions of free speech by hoarding a secret stash of Playboy magazines, which he rented out to trusted colleagues. He would pay me at least 20 bucks for it if I could smuggle it home. But I had a better idea.

I took it back to the boat, which the skipper was due to sail back home to South Africa with a new crew. I told nobody about it. I unzipped the cover of the starboard berth in the saloon, slipped the magazine into the bottom, and zipped it up again.

Weeks later, when the yacht arrived in Durban, I met the owner/skipper on board. In front of him, I unzipped the berth cover and there was my Playboy, untouched by human hand, pristine after thousands of miles of ocean travel. The skipper nearly fainted. “If Customs had found that they would have confiscated my boat,” he yelled. “Get it out of here.”

He obviously didn’t care much for free speech, so I took my Playboy to work, (after checking out the articles, of course) where I collected my money, and it joined the secret stash. Just another small blow for press freedom.

Today’s Thought

Free speech is not to be regulated  like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience . . . that hissed yesterday may applaud today, even for the same performance.

— William O. Douglas, Associate Justice, US Supreme Court, 24 Jun 57

Tailpiece

“Is this the sound-effects department?”

“Yes.”

“Good, send me a galloping horse immediately.”

“What for?”

“Well, the script calls for the sound of two coconut shells being clapped together.”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

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Wooden Boat Plans And Kits | In praise of beautiful overhangs

Wooden Boat Plans And Kits

I FOUND A PROFILE of a Pearson Vanguard in a boating book the other day and I couldn’t help but be struck by how beautiful she was. That man Philip Rhodes could design a mean sheerline. Combined with low freeboard, Vanguards still look gorgeous 50 years or so after they were built.

The bow, in particular, has a cocky sheer and a rounded profile that seems just right for a seagoing boat, while the stern rises just enough to complement the wonderful curve that sweeps from fore to aft as befits a creature intended to live among waves.

By today’s standards, the overhangs are excessive. The bow and the stern overhangs measure more than 10 feet combined on a boat only 32 feet 7 inches overall. But today’s boats have traded beauty for utility and interior space, which is a compromise not necessarily for the better.

Designers tell us that overhangs enable a boat to go faster. They increase the boat’s waterline length as she heels, and waterline length, as we all know, is the major factor affecting the maximum sustained speed of displacement boats. I have never been convinced of this alleged benefit. Not for any good mathematical reason but just because I can’t believe it makes enough difference in waterline length to matter. I’m even suspicious about the very claim that heeling adds to waterline length. Some boats roll buoyantly upward, out of the water, as they heel. I bet they don’t add much, if anything, to the wetted waterline. And besides, when you’re running downwind, and not heeling, there is no gain in waterline length at all.

In any case, I personally don’t think the Vanguard’s overhangs are excessive. Another famous and very handsome design of that period, the Camper & Nicholson 32, had overhangs totaling 9 feet. Furthermore, L. Francis Herreshoff, the great master, designed what he called “sensible cruising boats” with overhangs very much like the Vanguard’s. His famous H-28 ketch, at 28 feet overall, had a waterline of just over 23 feet.

There’s no doubt, though, that very long overhangs are dangerous at sea. They’re very elegant, but on smaller boats they’re suited only to sheltered waters. They cause pounding at the bow and slamming at the stern.

A friend of mine once took his 30-Square Meter to sea. This was a narrow-gutted formula racing class with very long overhangs, because the goal for naval architects was to design the fastest sailboat you could build with a maximum of 30 square meters of sail area. My friend got caught in quartering seas and found that the leverage afforded by the long stern overhang caused each overtaking swell to spin the boat almost broadside on, into a dangerous broach. Those 30 Squares were gorgeous to look at, and extremely satisfying to sail to weather, but they were lousy seaboats in bad weather.

The Vanguard was designed in the days when the Cruising Club of America (CCA) rule applied, of course. When that rule was superseded by the International Offshore Rule (IOR), the rear ends of racing boats suddenly changed from generous, flowing, callipygian sterns to mean and tight pinched-in haunches, often with unsightly reverse-sheer transoms. This did nothing for seaworthiness or looks. It just helped a boat get a better handicap under the IOR formula.

Manufacturers of cruising boats, like lemmings plunging over the cliff, followed the style of the racers, of course, in the hope that prospective clients would be impressed. So we had a very ugly production run of racer/cruisers in the 1970s and early ’80s. Happily, though, there were the occasional standouts, like Pearson and Philip Rhodes.

I feel thankful to them every time I see a Vanguard.

Today’s Thought

Perhaps the greatest difference between the beautiful yacht and the plain one is the way their crews treat them, for the crew of the beautiful yacht usually gives her tender loving care.

—L. Francis Herreshoff

Tailpiece

Overheard at the yacht club bar:

“My dirty bottom is really wreaking havoc with my performance.”

“Yeah, just imagine what that would do to your boat.”

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Boat Plans Building | Think hard about gasoline

Boat Plans Building

WHEN THE DREADED day comes, and your old auxiliary engine finally decides to head for the great scrapyard in the sky, what are you going to replace it with? There’s almost complete agreement these days. You’ve got to get a new diesel, right?

But why a diesel? It’s not necessarily the right choice for everyone who owns a good old boat. In fact, it’s more of a fashion than a logical choice. There’s much to be said for modern gas engines with fuel injection and solid-state ignition.

The most popular reason given for choosing a replacement diesel is that it’s safer. But sailors who own diesels mostly cook with propane gas, which can blow a boat to pieces just as easily as gasoline can.

A gas engine is cheaper, smoother, and more powerful than a diesel of the same weight. It’s easier to crank, easier to repair, even for an amateur, easier to remove from the boat, and much quieter in action.

Gasoline engines in cars are designed to run about 3,000 hours, or 100,000 miles before they need an overhaul. Now, the average boat owner logs 200 engine hours a year, so, if you maintain it faithfully, it would take nearly 15 years before a gas engine needed an overhaul.

As for safety — your nose is very good at sniffing out very small concentrations of gasoline. Together with a bilge blower, run for five minutes before every start, it will virtually eliminate the chances of a surprise explosion.

So, when the time comes to replace your auxiliary motor, don’t be stampeded into diesel. Gasoline engines have been used in small boats for many decades. Consider their advantages very carefully before you make your choice.

Today’s Thought

To some will come a time when change

Itself is beauty, if not heaven.

—E. A. Robinson, Llewellyn and the Tree

Tailpiece

Notice outside a muffler shop:

“No appointment necessary. We heard you coming.”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

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Pontoon Boat Plans Aluminum | Another strange boat dream

Pontoon Boat Plans Aluminum

QUITE A LOT OF MY DREAMS involve boats, almost as many as involve beer and/or dancing girls. And so it was the other night when I dreamed I was an interested spectator at a small boatyard.

They had a marine railway for hauling boats out of the water for bottom-painting and repairs, and they were just re-launching a full-keel sailboat of about 25 feet.

She slid slowly down the rails, held upright by a wooden cradle, until she reached the water.  Two workmen were aboard to release her from the cradle when she floated free, one in the cockpit and one on the foredeck. But she didn’t float free.  Still tied to the cradle, she started to disappear as the railway extended into deeper water.

The workmen on board started shouting to the man at the head of the slipway, who sat in a small shed with his hands on levers.  But it seemed he couldn’t hear them, or didn’t want to obey their requests to haul the boat back up the inclined railway.

The men on board jumped into the water and swam ashore as the boat finally disappeared under water, blowing huge bubbles of air from the closed companionway hatch and the Dorade box up forward.

Next thing, two scuba divers appeared and swam out to the mast, which was the only thing still sticking out of the water. They dived and obviously cut the boat free from the launching cradle to which she had been tied.

She suddenly popped up to the surface at high speed and flew into the air some 20 or 30 feet, or so it seemed in my dream, and came down stern first. The cockpit filled with water, which rushed below and filled the cabin. This time, she sank like a brick.

The man in the shed said: “Sorry about that. I was texting. Let’s start over and try again.” But he got down and started to run when the scuba divers came out of the water with their knives drawn.

My dream ended there, so I don’t know what happened to the men or the boat, but I can’t help wondering if there is a message here, or possibly a warning.  My wife says I’d better have my tea leaves read, just in case. But I’m not keen on that. I’ll see if I can find someone who reads beer suds. That might make more sense.

Today’s Thought

Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.

— Dr. William C. Dement, Newsweek, 30 Nov 59

Tailpiece

After years of toil and research, Eli Whitney emerged from his workshop one night with great news.

“I’ve just invented a cotton gin,” he declared proudly.

“Big deal,” snorted his wife. “So who needs a fluffy martini?”  

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Boat Plans Bateau | A Mad Idea Fueled by Gin

Boat Plans Bateau

It started with Camp Tipsy. Alex and I started talking about what we could build, what kind of floating contraption would excite us.  We were unequivocally unanimous in wanting something like a tiny cabin that floats.  Something that we could escape to.


Or maybe it started earlier.  Maybe it started with the river floats.  For years, Id built homemade rafts and floated down major American rivers with friends.

On that first trip, when I was trying to rustle up friends to join the adventure, heres what I wrote "This is not white water rafting. Were talking rivers with class zero rapids. A floating river. A lazy hot summer day eating found apples sort of river. These adventures remain low on specifics, high on general concept, mood, and emotion. Part of an experiment and a belief in the power of boredom to inspire."

In 2005, a few of us set out on a punk rafting adventure, building a raft out of found and scavenged materials and floating for a week, Huck Finn-style, on one of the largest fastest rivers on the continent, the Missouri.

We lived to tell the tale (barely), and so year after year, we took longer and longer adventures, floating a handful of rivers on completely ridiculous homemade rafts. After that first raft trip, we invited others, launching with whole punk raft flotillas. The experience has been life changing.

Alex and Jen and I were at Camp Tipsy and it was Happy Hour at our camp and we were drinking gin and tonics and maybe the alcohol contributed to our grandiose and ambitious scheming, or maybe, honestly, Ive always been that way.

Camp Tipsy Hot Tub by ropersf

We were looking at all the bizzaro floating contraptions and nautical imagining.  We didnt want to go fast or swing or be propelled by some Rube Goldberg propulsion system or even soak in a wood-fired hot tub, so much, at that moment, as we wanted to sit peacefully on our own floating front porch and watch the madness of the rest of the world.

We decided to make a floating cabin, a shanty boat. 



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Boat Building Plans And Kits | How can they be seaworthy

Boat Building Plans And Kits

SOME YEARS AGO I helped construct a seaworthiness quiz for Small Craft Advisor magazine. The quiz was designed to give the owners of small sailboats a reasonable idea of how seaworthy various designs might be. And, perhaps more importantly, it demonstrated for them the desirable qualities that add up to seaworthiness in very small craft.

But now and then someone comes along and says: "What were you thinking? How can such small boats be seaworthy?" Well, they say that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and that’s what most of these someones are equipped with.

It’s quite obvious that dinghies and their ilk can’t meet all the qualities necessary to claim seaworthiness for larger vessels, ones that can accommodate people in the shelter of a cabin. But sailing dinghies can indeed provide two of the most important qualities: to stay afloat and to keep their crews alive.

If those someones had done their homework, they’d know that tiny open boats have made remarkable ocean voyages that demonstrate their seaworthiness. I could mention Captain Bligh, for a start, and Webb Chiles, who singlehandedly sailed his open, 17-foot, Drascombe Lugger, Chidiock Tichborne, almost all of the way around the world. And then there was Frank Dye, who sailed his 16-foot Wayfarer dinghy hundreds of miles across the North Sea from Scotland to Iceland, and to Norway.

These sailors provided an element of seaworthiness that their small craft lacked, of course. They were all expert seamen. In fact, when faced with storms at sea, Dye, in his unballasted, centerboard dinghy, would lower the mast, set a sea anchor so that the boat faced into the oncoming seas, and then lie down on the floorboards and go to sleep. “There’s nothing much else to do,” he said. Except pray, perhaps.

In coastal cruising, much of the seaworthiness of a dinghy like the Wayfarer lies in its ability to run for shelter close inshore, to maneuver closely among rocks, and to land on a beach and be pulled up out of harm on inflatable rollers. Larger, less nimble yachts with deep keels would not dare close a shore like that in heavy weather; their only recourse then is to seek deep water offshore, where their seaworthiness will be well tested.

In at least one way, the smaller the sailing dinghy, the more seaworthy it is. That is when the worst happens and the boat capsizes. The smaller the boat, the easier it is for the crew to right her.

The well-found camp-cruising dinghy cannot sink — she has built-in buoyancy. With a sealed mast and boom for flotation, she cannot turn completely turtle, and so the crew can stand on the centerboard to right her. She will also have self-bailers that will draw all the water from the cockpit once she comes upright again and gains way.

So there’s no doubt in my mind that small boats can be seaworthy. They can’t provide the shelter and comfort of a larger vessel, admittedly, but their closeness to the water provides delicate insights and thrills unknown to those lofty someones who batter their way through the seas in their seaborne chariots, carefully insulated from both the sea’s danger and its intimate delights.

Today’s Thought

There are many advantages in sea-voyaging, but security is not one of them.— Sadi (Emerson, English Traits: The Voyage)

Tailpiece

“That’s a funny-looking dog you’ve got there.”

“What? I’ll have you know I paid $1,000 for this dog. He’s part terrier and part bull.”

“Which part is bull?”

“The part about the $1,000.”

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Boat Designs And Plans | Many thanks to many boats

Boat Designs And Plans

 

BOATS I HAVE OWNED have taught me a lot in my lifetime. I guess I ought to be giving thanks to them right now. So, OK, thanks to:

My International sliding seat canoewhose name I have happily forgotten. She taught me how ancient Roman army catapults worked. Every time a gust came along I was catapulted off the sliding seat and over the boom into the drink.

Shane, a 14-foot Sprog one-design. My thanks to her for teaching me that having a fast boat doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll win races. It needs cunning and deviousness as well.

M’aidez, an 11-foot International Mirror Class dinghy, for alerting me to the fact that you should never name your boat M’aidez if you ever want to call anybody on VHF radio.

Mother’s Ruin, another Mirror, taught me how to wage  psychological warfare against racing competitors. Old Band-Aids stuck on a brand new mainsail seemed to distract them greatly as I sailed past.

Messy, another Mirror, taught me the valuable lesson that there are various forms of polyester resin, at least one of which will not cure if you don’t exclude air from its surface.  Her taped seams never got hard, never accepted paint, so I deliberately gave her a splodgy paint job and painted her name on her sides with a whitewash brush.

Trapper, a C&C 27, deserves my thanks for raising my social status at the yacht club.  Everybody admired her looks, if not my racing results.  A sweet boat.

Freelance, a Performance 31, by Lavranos, carried me and my family to a new life in America and taught me how to lie ahull in 50-knot winds off the Cape of Storms.

Square One, yet another Mirror, was a wreck I found in Los Angeles. She taught me how to restore a wooden boat in a garage in an apartment block without alerting the tenants directly above.  I learned their habits, and did my banging and sawing while they were showering or listening to loud TV. Nobody reported me to the fierce landlady.

Square One II. Yep, a Mirror again. Another wreck, this time in Seattle. I learned that I could

use an epoxy paste to replace a whole ply of marine plywood that fell off the starboard topsides. I was very proud of that repair job.

Tagati was a Santana 22 that showed us the glories of Puget Sound, the San Juan Islands and the Canadian Gulf Islands. Fast, simple and easily handled. I spent 13 months restoring her and should never have sold her.

Jabula, a Cape Dory 25D, took us around Vancouver Island on a six-week trip and allowed us to to meet an Oregonian cruising couple who gave us their recipe for gravlox salmon, which became our most-requested dish ever.

Sangoma, a Cape Dory 27,  took us around Vancouver Island again and taught me that you can  tow a heavy-displacement full-keel sailboat for two miles behind a small dinghy in a calm if you know how to scull with one oar over the transom. Yes, our engine broke down, but I got her into a small port from which a friendly Canadian boat towed us 10 miles to the area’s only mechanic.

Eclipse, a Cal 20, one of Gary Mull’s finest, taught me that I don’t like outboard engines that work in small wells let into the cockpit. She was a champion sailor, but I couldn’t stand the idea of her propeller protruding beneath the hull and causing drag all the time.

And finally, I have to mention Tokoloshe, a 10-foot, narrow-gutted, fiberglass fishing skiff that served as tender for the last four boats I owned. She was an unfinished mongrel of a boat, but without peer for seaworthiness. We towed her for thousands of miles, including hundreds in the open Pacific, and she never gave us a moment’s worry. Perhaps it was because I warned her that if she ever gave us trouble in a heavy following sea, I wouldn’t hesitate to cast her loose. I give thanks that It was a threat I never had to carry out.

Today’s Thought

So once in every year we throng

Upon a day apart,

To praise the Lord with feast and song

In thankfulness of heart.

— Arthur Guiterman, The First Thanksgiving

 Tailpiece

"Why did that sailor buy drinks for all those girls?"

"He likes to have a port in every sweetheart."

 

 

                                            

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