Rowing/"pulling" boat suggestions?

[Sam Murdoch]

John, I'm pretty excited about the Peregrine 18 myself. Perfect for fast and safe rows up and down the Damariscotta River and looking good the whole time - very pretty. Will look more into this too. Thanks for the link. Good luck with your project!

Sam

[Mac McQuinn]

Don't forget Joel White's Sherawater;http://www.woodenboatstore.com/16-Do...tinfo/400-058/

IMO Joel never designed a ugly boat. I've seen this one in person and it can be built in different types of construction, there's even a Skin on Frame one floating around the net.

Certainly worth a look,
Mac

[John Bailey]

John, your experience with the Whilly was entertaining and informative. The scarfing with a RAS was intriguing, though I don't have a radial arm saw and I think it would give me the whillys to use it that way if I did. I know what you mean about planing plywood, though - I'm not looking forward to that much. I'm OK at sharpening (WorkSharp and waterstones, mostly), but there's a difference between cleaning up a rabbet and scarfing a hundred or so feet of joints! Did you ever get back to building a boat again, and if so, what did you build?

Hi John,

I never did get the Whilly done. That was my second attempt at retirement and too many folks kept throwing money at me to do consulting work. I got busy and got involved in education reform at the state level. I had a former student that was short on cash and was trying to get through boat building school. I donated the half-done Whilly and the wood to finish the project to him. He set up a working display outside a museum in Charlevoix, MI during a festival and a guy paid him $3,600 for the boat and all the supplies to finish it. That went a good way to paying his tuition that semester and I got my workshop back.

I'm winding my consulting career down and should be done with everything on May 1. This will be my third try at retirement and I really hope I have enough sense to stick with it this time. (My friends keep telling me I flunk retirement.) I've been corresponding on and off with Paul Gartside to build his 26' Gaff Cutter (same as Joshua's 116A) I'm starting with a ten foot dinghy this summer, or sooner if I can get to it. It's a Gartside design. We'll see how that goes.

John

[Randy Hock]

There is a certain allure in building boats. Sometimes I get the feeling I am just another moth attracted to the street light on a summer's night. I might fly away for awhile but then I am pulled back. I read somewhere that for every 100 boat plans sold, one boat is actually finished. Even if it is off by a factor of ten, it is still sobering. I have one in storage that is maybe 60% finished. Fortunately, she's small and not costing me anything to store.
I read a book recently, The Year of the Boat by Lawrence Cheek, that speaks to the issue of why amateurs build boats and how the investment in time and money can be of value. The book can be purchased for a few dollars on the Amazon used books section. Not great literature but he writes well and clearly shows that special skills are not necessary to create a splendid little boat. It might be worth a read before making a decision on how you want to spend a year or more of your life.
Randy

[Steve Baumgartner]

Steve, I'm particularly grateful for the link to the Brooks Boats site. Of all the boats I've seen, I think I like the looks of their Peregrine 18 the best. She looks like she'd perform like a champion under oars, and I just like her lines, which is nothing to sneeze at in a boat. I also like the fact that she can be built to accommodate various rowing configurations, including both fixed and sliding seat stations.

What remains for me, I guess, is to figure out whether I have the skills and the nerve to build a boat from plans, or whether I ought to get my feet wet by building from a kit first. The former seems like it would provide a great sense of satisfaction if I can pull it off, but I've spent my life around boats and have a pretty critical eye, so I'm a little worried that satisfaction might be compromised by not executing the build well enough. I have a place in Maine quite close to the Brooks' in Brooklin, so I may take a day this summer to swing by and see them to consult about how difficult their build is likely to be for me. That said, I'd be curious about all of your thoughts as to the difficulty of building a glued lapstrake boat from plans as a first boat-building project. What say you all - can I manage this?

John,

I'm a pretty experienced woodworker, but the Ellen was my first boatbuilding adventure. I gravitated to John Brooks "Ellen" for three reasons: first, I prefer the lines of a planked boat rather than the (to my eye) slab-sided look that results from most kits; second, John wrote an extensive three-part article for Wooden Boat magazine describing the process for "Ellen" with lots of photos; and third, this design seemed very well suited to my needs. I had considered a Whitehall but hadn't found a suitable set of plans when I stumbled onto John's WB article. The glued-lapstrake technique seemed much more manageable than a full, traditional plank-on-frame construction. The boat came out beautiful. I can attest that she is a joy to row and has held up perfectly. She does not leak at all, and handles the wake from local lobster boats very well.

merlot.jpg

I would not recommend a glued-lapstrake boat for a novice woodworker, but for anyone with reasonable woodworking skills it is a fun, challenging but not overwhelming project. John's plans are detailed, and included full-size paper patterns for the station molds and some other parts. Some of the hardest parts of traditional construction are avoided (e.g. the stem and keel are two-part, not rabbeted). Before starting, I took a one-week course at Carpenter's Boat Shop in Pemaquid Maine (www.carpentersboatshop.org) to build confidence (though the class project was not glued-lapstrake). I emailed John during the build, and he was very helpful.

This August I'm enrolled at WoodenBoat school for John's two-week course on building the Soames Sound 12 1/2 (his reinterpretation of the classic Herreshof boat). That should be quite a blast!

Steve

PS - I was initially terrified at the concept of spiling, but found it to be a lot easier than I had feared (YMMV).

[John B Mooney]

Randy, I ordered Lawrence Cheek's book, and I'm looking forward to reading it. I don't want to be the owner of one of those 99 unfinished boats, and the book looks like a good description of what I'm getting myself into, both from a practical and emotional point of view, as well as an entertaining read.

Steve, thanks for the reply. Your "Ellen" is lovely, and I'm curious about where she's resting in that photo - it's clearly Maine (or maybe Nova Scotia), and she looks right at home. I'm also curious about your warning that the glued lapstrake boat isn't a project for the novice woodworker. I'm not entirely a novice, but neither am I by any means a master of the craft, so I'm wondering if you could give a brief description of what you think the pitfalls are, and how you would suggest overcoming them.

I'm envious of your Soames Sound 12 1/2 course, and was toying with the idea of building one myself if the Peregrine build goes well (there is a fleet of 12 1/2s on the island I go to each summer near the school). I may have to come and look over your shoulder while I'm up this summer.

- John

[Jim Matthews]

Does "wpt" stand for Westport? My daughter goes to school in Marion, and I've spent a lot of time in your area - it's gorgeous there!

Yep, I live up in the "Cheap seats" of Northern Westport - easy to get to water, without the waterfront problems.

I was thinking about making a similar conversion using the Glen-L design. You can make the wings pretty high to clear the gunnels.
The downside is fixing it in place - it's not a drop in seat. I have seen some very good designs using fixed seats that are set lower than the canoe seats.

Some of those boats are FAST.

jim
just down the road from Marion, Ma

[Steve Baumgartner]

Steve, thanks for the reply. Your "Ellen" is lovely, and I'm curious about where she's resting in that photo - it's clearly Maine (or maybe Nova Scotia), and she looks right at home. I'm also curious about your warning that the glued lapstrake boat isn't a project for the novice woodworker. I'm not entirely a novice, but neither am I by any means a master of the craft, so I'm wondering if you could give a brief description of what you think the pitfalls are, and how you would suggest overcoming them.

I'm envious of your Soames Sound 12 1/2 course, and was toying with the idea of building one myself if the Peregrine build goes well (there is a fleet of 12 1/2s on the island I go to each summer near the school). I may have to come and look over your shoulder while I'm up this summer.

- John

Hi John,

Good eye! She's on a float in the Little Sheepscot River off Georgetown Island, Maine. She is our primary transportation to the island where we have a summer house (no access by road).

The reason I wouldn't recommend this kind of project to a novice woodworker isn't so much that super-refined skills are needed as that it is a fairly complex undertaking compared to what a beginner is likely to have attempted before. If one doesn't know how to plane a bevel onto the edge of a board, I wouldn't recommend learning by trying it on the 3-d curved edge of a strake! If you are intimidated by something with more than 6 parts or more than 10 steps to make it, you are out of your league! Someone who feels comfortable building ordinary furniture with a combination of machine and hand tools will need to learn some adaptations, but it should be within reach. Nothing comparable to cutting perfect dovetails by hand is required! Also, glued lapstrake construction is very forgiving. If you paint the hull, you can fix a lot of goofs with thickened epoxy.

I would agree with others' recommendations to read some books specifically about glued lapstrake construction, such as John Brooks', Iain Oughtred's and Greg Rossel's. It will help enormously to have a roadmap of what to do in what order; some of it won't be obvious if you haven't built a boat before. If you go with the Peregrine, John's book and WoodenBoat articles are particularly helpful for understanding his methods and how they fit his designs.

[John B Mooney]

Mac, I like the Shearwater, and I agree that Joel White never drew an ugly boat (or photographed one, as near as I can tell), but she's not really what I'm after. Again, too many concessions to sailing for my taste - I'm after a more dedicated rowboat.

John, I'm glad to hear the Whilly went to a good home, and it sounds like you did that kid a great service - I salute you for that. And now a 26 foot gaff rigged cutter? You don't fool around, do you? I looked at Paul Gartside's site, and if I picked the boats you're talking about, I have two observations: 1 - the dinghy looks gorgeous, and 2 - you're gonna need a bigger garage! As to retirement, I guess if you have to fail at something, that's not a bad thing to pick. Best of luck with the dinghy.

Jim, what would worry me about a canoe conversion is not just the height of the seat (though lowering it would certainly help), but the overall stability of the hull form under oars instead of a paddle. If things get weird while paddling, it's a fairly simple matter to recover one's balance by taking the paddle out of the water and shifting one's weight as needed, or using the paddle itself for stability. If you "catch a crab" with oars (particularly long sweeps like you'd use in a boat with outriggers), the oars themselves can become part of a problem that develops very quickly, and you have to not only recover your balance, but get them under control as well. If you don't, you're swimming (don't ask me how I know this! ) That would be a risk I'd run on flat river or lake water, but it would be outside my comfort zone on open water (particularly salt water, which increases the boat's buoyancy some and makes it float incrementally higher, I would think). I agree, though, if she were upright, she'd be very quick!

Steve, are you on Mac Mahan Island? I have good friends who live at the south end of Robinhood Cove.

I appreciate the warning about the complexity of building a lapstrake boat. I'm pretty good at putting one foot in front of another on a long walk, but I'll have to think about whether I have the chops for this yet (particularly since it seems a shame to put the effort into a wooden boat build and not be able to leave her bright). I've ordered John's book, and will certainly give it a careful read before proceeding further. I may try to take his glued-lapstrake plywood building course in Brooklin in September as well, if I can get the week to do it in.

Also, I may have the opportunity to practice on a much simpler build first, which may be a better way to get started (I've decided to retire the phrase "get my feet wet" for this type of experience! ) Thanks again for the heads up.

Thanks again all,
- John

[Steve Baumgartner]

Steve, are you on Mac Mahan Island? I have good friends who live at the south end of Robinhood Cove.

Thanks again all,
- John

Good guess number 2!

Steve

[Mac McQuinn]

John,
What about a couple nice Stitch and Glue designs? Sam Devlin's Oarling II and Duckling are pretty nice, should be well within a amateur boatbulder with wood experience capabilities. Here's a link;
http://www.devlinboat.com/gallery/ma...g2_itemId=1113
*I believe the Duckling is available in both 14' & 17' lengths.

Mac