MAY/JUNE 1981 AN INTERVIEW WITH JOHN GARDNER

NUMBER 40 SPRING OUTFITTING WITH A PRO

$3.00 SINGLEHANDING AN OLD GAFFER
$3.50 in Canada THE LAST WOODEN SHIPBUILDING BOOM
£1.20 in U.K.
40/WoodenBoat 1
 EDITOR'S PAGE
Editor
For those of us who drew our first breath as the second world war Jonathan Wilson
was ending, the first world war seems long, long ago. Very few of
Managing Editor
us, in our most romantic imaginings, ever associated that war with Jennifer Buckley
wooden ship building. But as Bill Durham will show you (page
Technical Editor
94) that period embraced the last and greatest surge in wooden Maynard Bray
ship building. Associate Editor
My generation is quite removed from the casualties of World Peter H. Spectre
War I, or so it seemed until a few months ago when I began to Editorial Assistant
comprehend the phenomenal quantities of virgin timber which Robin Lincoln
went into the construction of the "Emergency Fleet" of large Proofreader
steamships. For this was no ordinary timber; this was prime qual- Zilla Daniel
ity longleaf yellow pine and Douglas-fir. The ancient stuff on
which legends were built. Without forethought, and for reasons I Publisher
still can't seem to understand, that virgin timber was simply Terry Driscoll
removed from the face of the Earth. We shall never again see Lorna Bryant, Assistant
anything like it. As for the shipwrights who fashioned this Art
remarkable resource into an awesome fleet, I fear we shall never Sherry Streeter, Director
see their like again, either. So, there were other casualties of the Richard Gorski, Associate
War. And for what we can perhaps never see again, we may for- Marcie Smith, Assistant
ever be casualties.
Of course, there was a need. But when you read Bill's article, Research
you'll find whole new meaning in the word "waste." Karen Roy Waters, Manager
It was quite by coincidence that Jim Brown's article (page 78) Barbara Woycke, Assistant
became part of this same issue of WoodenBoat. Yet, you'll find Circulation
that the same lack of forethought which allowed an ancient Lynne Blair
resource to be depleted in this country was by no means limited to
this country. Indeed, as a result of his own observations while Dealer/Dist. Accounts
traveling, he has concluded that: ".. .quality boatbuilding wood, Susan Campbell
the genetic element from which most traditional vessels have Controller
evolved, is not a renewable resource." Royce Randlett, Jr.
With the emphasis on quality, that's a pretty striking conclu-
sion, and although I believe we could reverse that for future Advertising
generations, he is, for the present, absolutely correct. Ann Starr Wells, Manager
I seem to have an unwavering regard for both metaphor and Judith E. Robbins, Assistant
tradition, so I cannot help thinking that resourcefulness will Classified
diminish with the resource: the less good wood, the less good Sheri Steele
thinking. (I'm not a pessimist, mind you; wood is, after all, a
renewable resource.) But I am not an inventor, as Jim Brown is. Promotion
For him, the diminishing resource inspires resourcefulness, as the John K. Hanson, Jr.
next couple of issues will show. That spirit, I suppose, is the
essence of progress. Seen in the context of this man and his work,
Office/Merchandise
I have no trouble with the idea of progress. Yet I am not receptive Kimberly White, Manager
Roxanne Sherman, Assistant
to much in the boating world that calls itself progress these days. I
Lynnette Grey, Assistant
guess I have to understand the roots of a modern solution before I
can be comfortable with it. I am probably a reactionary. Correspondents
If that's the case, it's ironic that this issue also provides a John Burke, David Eastman, Shirley
glimpse (page 30) of a man who, at twice my age, ought to be Hewitt, Ray Higgs, Richard Jagels,
David Kasanof, David Keith, George
somewhat more firmly entrenched, yet who is one of the most pro- Kuchenbecker, Ryck Lydecker, L.E.
gressive thinkers I have ever met. John Gardner deserves the Nicholson, Peggy Nicholson
heartfelt gratitude of anyone who cares about traditional small
boats, (and for that matter, about humanity) . His work has been Subscription Offices
an inspiration to countless numbers of people for years. Indeed, WoodenBoat Magazine
were it not for that work, I would not have been much inspired to P.O. Box 4943
Manchester, NH 03108
start this magazine. As an educator in the best sense, he has set a
standard to which I mightily aspire. But he is a tough act to fol- WoodenBoat
low, as you'll readily see. It's an honor and pleasure to provide (ISSN 0095-067X)

our readers with a different side of John Gardner than is usually CONTRIBUTIONS: Address all editorial communi-
known. cations to: Editor, WoodenBoat P.O. Box 78,
Brooklin, Maine 04616 We are happy to consider
contributions in the form of manuscripts, drawings
and photographs. Manuscripts must be typewritten
double-spaced with margins and cover only one side
of each page. All material must be identified with
sender's name and address, and if provided with a suit
ably sized, sufficiently stamped, self addressed en-
velope, will be returned if unsuited to our require-
ments. Every reasonable care is taken with contribu-
tions, but we are not responsible for damage or loss.

2 WoodenBoat/40

Share a conversation with a remarkable man.
page 30
The topsail cutter PASTIME may be the oldest
boat still sailing under her original rig. page 68
No one relies more on good wood than the
"canoe people" of the third world, page 78
Cover: The schooner EAGLE almost ready to
launch at Paul Bryant's Newcastle, Maine, yard.
page 56. Photo by Benjamin Mendlowitz.
CONTENTS
WoodenBoat
Number 40 May/June, 1981
John Gardner, In His Own Words/Peter H. Spectre 31
Skill of mind and skill of hand
Keeping the Water Out/Roger C. Taylor 38
Some elements of seamanship and style
San Francisco's Two Oldest Rowing Clubs/ 46
Jon Bielinski
The boats and the members are quite special
Basque Racing Sculls/Scotty Sapiro 52
Fine craftsmanship and fierce competition
Voga Is Again in Vogue/Rob van Mesdag 54
Venice succeeds in getting people back on the water
Looking Good Again/Maynard Bray 56
The Riverside Boat Company brings a 12 1/2 back up to
its standards
PASTIME/Robert Stowell 68
Still sailing under her original rig at age 94
Singlehanding an Old Gaffer/Frank Mulville 72
Rigging ISKRA for ocean crossings
Knock on Wood/Jim Brown 78
The plight of the canoe people
Ray Speck and the Sid Skiff/ Larry Sturhahn 88
A young builder with a good thing going
Sons of Hitches/Brion Toss and Malcolm Wehncke 92
More improvements on a cylinder
The Last Boom/Bill Durham 94
Wooden ship building in World War I
Other Ways/Irving Sheldon 102
Fixing a leaky shaft log
Editor's Page 2, Letters 5, Fo'c's'le 13, Tidings 17, Built to Win 105,
Book Review 114, Classic Cruisers 117, Wood Technology 120,
Reader Search 125, Designs 126, Boatbuilders 131, Boatbrokers 146,
Classified 152, Index to Advertisers 160.
WoodenBoat (ISSN 0095-067X) is published bimonthly in January, March, May. July, September and
November at Brooklin, Maine by WoodenBoat Publications, Inc. Editorial/Advertising offices are at P.O. Box
78 Brooklin, Maine 04616. (207) 359-4651. Subscription offices are at P.O. Box 4943, Manchester, New
Hampshire 03102.
Subscription rate is $15 for one year (6 issues) in the U.S. and its possessions. Canadian subscription rate is
S16. U.S. funds. Surface rate overseas is $16 per year; airmail service is available at varied rates. Controlled
Circulation Postage Paid at Brooklin. ME 04616, Burlington. VT 05401 and Grants Pass, OR 97526
Copyright 1981 by WoodenBoat Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reprinted without written permission from the publisher. Printed in U.S.
Printed by The Lane Press Inc., Burlington, VT.
40/WoodenBoat 3
4 WoodenBoat/40
 LETTERS
Dear Jon, ally, for most of my adult life, and times to refit the rib. And as far as
Thank you for "The Royal Ship of have seen very few gimmicks that are cutting back the hood ends an inch to
Cheops" in WB No. 38. I immediately worth beans. That gadget actually clean 'em up, it would widen the stem
phoned my bookstore and ordered works! by 5/8" to 1 1/4" depending on the
Nancy Jenkins's The Boat Beneath the The article about stem replace- bevel of the hood ends where they
Pyramids. After reading it, I wrote ment was pretty good for little boats, enter the rabbet.
the enclosed letter to Dr. Grosvenor of but I've done around 10-15 stems in Gerry Mygaard
the National Geographic Society. 58' seiners where the timber is 12- Mountlake Terrace, WA
Assuming that many of your readers 13 1/2 long, sided 10", molded 14-16", Cutting back hood ends most always
may be members of the Society, I and weighs about 1200 lbs; I am here necessitates a wider stem and this is
suggest that they consider writing to to tell you that one doesn't take one of just what the drawing on p. 99, WB
Dr. Grosvenor in the hope of initiating those babies in and out very many No. 39, (bottom right) shows. —Ed
action. W.H. Morrison
West Allenhurst, NJ
Dear Dr. Grosvenor,
. . .1 am writing to you because I
am appalled by the conclusion of this
fine book. . .It is my opinion that the
entire world archaeological commu-
nity should organize a program to save
this treasure. We managed to accom-
plish a world effort to move the Abu
Simbel temple, at tremendous
expense, to save one of many Egyptian
temples. How much more important
to save the only vessel from 2600 BC,
which demonstrates, by the sophistica-
tion of its construction, that large
wooden ships had probably been
developing for a thousand years.
I can think of no organization
(National Geographic) that is better
suited to initiating the action to save
this ship. I sincerely hope that the
Board of Directors will take this under
immediate consideration. Your per-
sonal cooperation is solicited.
W.H. Morrison

Dear Mr. Wilson,

I have just skimmed through WB
No. 39 and I feel I must write. The
article about Dudley Davidson was a
gem. I have known Dudley for about
16 years, having met him when he
sanded a boat at the old Edison Tech-
nical School boat school in Seattle
about 1964-65.
I've been trout fishing with Dudley
several times and enjoyed his company
immensely. I was serving my appren-
ticeship at Vic Franck's when Dudley
sanded the KAKKI M, and was that ever
an experience. Vic's shop was just
about full to the rafters with the yacht,
and the air was choked with Alaska
cedar dust for three days.
Dudley is a real "Gentleman" and
a genuine character; you could have
actually done 15 pages on him and
had some left over.
I would like to compliment you
also on the "jogglestick" piece. I've
been building boats, repairing actu-

40/WoodenBoat 5
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Dear Jon,
When you published my story
about LADY JEANNE in WB No. 37, an
error crept into the copy which I'm
afraid has misled your readers about
the cost of building a dream boat.
The substitution of a comma for a dec-
imal changed completely the meaning
of a sentence on page 75, column one.
It should have read: "Our 42' custom-
built cruiser will cost almost $50,000
less than a fine-quality, completely
fiberglass boat comparably finished."
Sad to say, the days of $1,000 per
foot boat building are behind us;
$2,000-$3,000 per foot up to about a
46' boat are more likely and for the
larger boats, costs mount exponen-
tially.
My sincere appreciation to your
many readers who took the time to
write about the article—I'm still
answering them.
Jeanne Merkel
Bass Harbor, ME
Dear Jon,
I've looked forward to receiving
WoodenBoat with pleasant anticipa-
tion ever since I received the first issue
back when you started. I frequently
search through previous issues for
information, and your Index is a great
help.
The articles by Bud McIntosh have
been extremely helpful to me in
replacing the forward portion of the
keel and the stem in my 46-year-old
sloop. Boy, could I have used those
articles six years ago for the aft part of
the keel, the horn timber and the stern
post. I found his articles more helpful
to me than the books I've read on
boatbuilding.
Bob Darr's article on "Milling
Your Own" (WB No. 37) prompted
me to build a chainsaw mill and cut
my keel timber from an oak log that
the loggers left in the woods behind my
house. (It was too crooked, I believe,
for them.) I've also started to put
away some oak flitches for a new boat
in the future.
Keep up the excellent work.
Bob Carter
Norwich, CT

Dear WoodenBoat:
I enclose an article from the Janu-
ary 18, 1981 New York Times on
developing lighter boats.
("Designers Put Stress on Lighter
Boats," by Roger Marshall. "...Most
modern boats are built of fiberglass
layers bonded together with polyester
resin, and the resin is an oil derivative
whose cost has skyrocketed in recent
years. Because 50 to 70 percent of a
boat hull is resin, the cost of tradition-
ally constructed boats has soared dra-
matically.")
I find it particularly interesting
that a fiberglass boat is referred to as
the "traditionally constructed boat."
You haven't been fooling us, have you?
Tom Brewster
Sandy Hook, CT
Dear Mr. Wilson,
I am an RN and mother of two;
my interest in sailing lies mainly in the
fact that it is a means by which I can
acquire a nice suntan. Who would
ever think that I could find inspiration
from WoodenBoat? But after per-
using my husband's April, 1981, issue
and reading Mr. Broom's article about
Dudley Davidson, I am compelled to
commend you for this article. Written
with such eloquence, it embraces not
only sport or trade, but the universal
good spirit of man. In an age when
the acquisition of riches and power is
held in highest esteem, it is particu-
larly refreshing to find a national pub-
lication which applauds Dudley Dav-
idson's values; for indeed, it is values
such as these which keep the sanity in
our society. Nancy Poole
Red Bank, NJ
40/WoodenBoat 7
8 WoodenBoat/40
Dear Editor,
I've just read your article on hitch-
ings by Toss and Wehncke. (WB 39)
Is that reference to a "Sacramento
River sugar hauler" some sort of inside
joke? There's no sugar on the Sacra-
mento River, although a great deal of
other material finds its way in there,
from the city of the same name.
For your next centerfold, may I
suggest you provide some instruction
on doing this alleged hitching past the
Ts of a wheel? So far I've ruined three
wheels—cutting the spokes off as you
go allows the hitching to continue, but
eventually the rim falls off. Should I
be using a different type of wheel?
I don't think your magazine is slick
enough; how about some scratch 'n'
sniff pine tar? Albert
(we suspect from Anacortes)
Dear Albert,
"Sons of Hitches, "p. 103 is just for
you. —Ed.
being conducted in the traditional
construction methods of Adirondack
guideboats.
Two boats will actually be con-
structed from traditional patterns, one
of which is partially complete. Tech-
niques for taking lines from existing
boats and construction without pat-
terns are also being explored.
There are 24 apprentices under the
tutelage of master craftsmen Carl
Hathaway and Ralph Morrow. Each
apprentice is apparently making plans
to utilize their training and build other
guideboats which will help continue
the craft. Overwhelming response to
the program necessitated the opening
of a second section which would seem
to indicate a strong interest in main-
taining the skill of building guide-
boats, at least. The apprentices cho-
sen to participate have diverse back-
grounds and skills. Each, however,
has a strong common interest in pre-
serving the skills of building these tra-
ditional rowing craft.
This effort is admittedly concen-
trated in a localized, unique boat.
However, the concept behind this pro-
gram and expressed in WoodenBoat
will hopefully continue and preserve
the art of wooden boat construction.
John C. Breitenback, Jr.
Silver Bay, NY

Peter,
One nit, but perhaps you want to
annotate your WoodenBoat article on
schooners (WB No. 39). The ISAAC J.
EVANS was more likely built at Mau-
ricetown on the Maurice River in
southern New Jersey (opposite Dor-
chester) . Mauricetown was a sea-
oriented community, and many cap-
tains lived there in the 19th century.
Better-known Morristown is high and
dry in northern New Jersey.
Muriel H. Parry
Washington, DC

Dear Sir:
Am I imagining things or does the
yellow card that came in the March/
April issue really smell like spar var-
nish? Or maybe it's just "tongue" oil
from the people licking the stamps at
the circulation department. You
people go to extremes to turn out an
authentic magazine. Ned Gulbran
Seattle, WA

Dear Editors,
It was with great pleasure that I
read in WB No. 38 of the efforts and
interest in not only the restoration of
historical craft but also the efforts to
recapture and maintain the knowledge
and skills employed in the construction
of these boats.
As a participant in such an effort, I
feel that the mention of such a project
designed around these exact principles
would be of interest to you and many
readers.
Through the efforts of North
Country Community College in Sara-
nac Lake, New York, and a grant
from the National Endowment for the
Arts, two apprenticeship programs are
40/WoodenBoat 9
10 WoodenBoat/40
Dear Jon,
Thanks for the great article by Joel
White in WB No. 37 ("Liberated
Caulking: Burn That Mallet!").
There's nothing like a perfect black
mesquite mallet and a set of C. Drew
and Co. irons, previously owned by an
old master, now deceased, to give one
confidence in his caulking. So too bad
for me; I never knew any old masters,
at least any dead ones, and desperate,
I've been forced to use a club like Mr.
White's.
This whole reclaimed tool scene
has always depressed me and made me
feel impotent. You feel so unsure of
yourself with new tools; they don't
have any of that good old magic.
Owning a beautiful old caulking mal-
let is sort of like an orgasm —you either
have one or you don't. There's no
faking it. And the smug bastards who
have one (or more) are always smirk-
ing, "Oh, you've never had one? Well,
you don't know what you're missing."
Well thanks again — n o more
doubts whether the boat will float, and
no more embarrassed and furtive
caulking on Sunday mornings.
Oh, p.s.—in the same vein, it
seems all you ever publish are articles
on boatbuilders who are slow of speech
and deep of thought. Men who are
honest, build superior boats, and look
you in the eye when they talk to you.
How about an article on the more typi-
cal boatbuilder, viz: a boatbuilder
who doesn't know any other trade,
who's in it for the money, talks fast,
sells hard, has shifty eyes and lank
hair?
Andy Davis
Dominica, W.I.
Andy,
Look for it soon— "Natural Crooks
in the Marketplace: Five Interviews
with Boatbuilders Who Talk Fast and
Sell Hard." -Ed.

Correction:
In "The Uncompromised Craftsman-
ship of l'Esterel" (WB No. 39), two
typographical errors appear in the
"Why Wood Makes Sense" inset on
page 48. Paragraph (b) Compression
Strength should read "sl x S for steel,"
and the results of Euler's Formula in
paragraph (c) should read "19,953
kilos for mahogany."

This collection of letters might lead

you to believe that no one responded
to Peter Spectre's article, "The Issues
of Maritime Preservation, " in WB No.
39. In fact, the letters poured in like a
spring tide, and we'll be publishing
excerpts from them, as a forum of
opinions, in our next issue. —Eds

40/WoodenBoat 11
 The boat below was not designed in a roundframe resulting in greater water resistance.
conventional way. The builder didn't make the The yachtbuilder of't Waar concentrated on
model first and then choose the material, but this problem. His inspiration came in the form of
exactly the opposite. He chose a material that the lap streaks system for which Viking boats were
satisfied his critical demands and based his design renowned. He began with large sheets of Bruynzeel
on it. Using this method he was able to utilise the Marine Plywood, he glued and riveted the parts
qualities of his chosen material together and constructed a completely new round-
Bruynzeel Marine Plywood. frame hull. By doing so he married the advantages of
This unusual yachtbuilder Bruynzeel Marine Plywood with roundframe.
constructs his boats in 't Waar, a This construction method is known as the lap streaks
village in the far reaches of North system hull.
East Groningen (Holland). That's why The high quality of Bruynzeel
he calls his boats 'Waarschip'. Marine Plywood is due to the selected lay-
The fact that he builds his boats ers of hardwood which are glued tight
from Bruynzeel Marine Plywood is together to form a finely finished sheet.
not peculiar, for many years boats Then it is put through a test that
have been made with this material. simulates extreme climatic change.
This is due to its quality of Only after this does it warrant the
strength lightness and climatic dura- 10 year guarantee that accompanies
bility. It doesn't warp, so every sheet of Bruynzeel Marine
paint or lacquer won't crack, Plywood.
consequently water cannot We don't guarantee you
reach the wood surface. prizes like the builder of't Waar,
The easiness of glueing but like him you can be sure
ensures a waterproof exterior. that glueing faults, splits and
However, like all Marine uneveness will not be part of
Plywoods it cannot be bent in two your boat.
directions. That's why builders uti-
lise the hard chine, but this gives Bruynzeel
a bigger wet surface than the Marine Plywood.

Bruynzeel Multipanel bv, P.O. Box 59, Zaandam - Holland. Telex no 11413.

Dealers: Doghole Custom & Traditional Boats. P O. Box 273. Gualala. CA 95445. J . H . Monteath Co.. 2500 Park Avenue. New York. New York 10451, Maurice L. Condon C . Inc. 250 Ferris Avenue,
While Plains. New York 10603. The Harbor Sales Company. 1401 Russell Street. Baltimore MD 21230. Oriole Lumber Ltd. 7181 Woodbine Avenue. Markham. Ontario L3R 1AS Canada

12 WoodenBoat/40

L ots of books address the problems
of the liveaboarder, but not one
treats the most fundamental problem
of the chap who lives aboard and also
holds a traditional full-time job
ashore. I refer to the problems of
alienation, the crazy incongruity
between the two lives such a man must
lead. Even as I write, seated at my
desk in my office, surrounded by inter-
office memos, telephone message
forms—Ed Freemish can't make it on
Thursday —and file cabinets, I know
that in an hour I'll be worrying about
chafed springlines. Hell, I'm worrying
about them now, when I should be
attending to that Freemish problem.
The trouble is that I can't do two
things at once. It's that there's such an
incredibly different feeling, different
atmosphere, attached to springlines on
the one hand, and Ed Freemish on the
other. I have but to walk out on the
pier to feel free, a bit rakish. By the
time I swing aboard (I grab a shroud
and sort of half step, half swing
aboard, but I don't really have to),
I'm feeling positively salty. But at the
office, I feel. . .1 feel just the way 3101*
feel at the office. But it's tougher for
me, you see, because just a few hours
or even a few minutes ago, I felt free,
rakish, and salty. It's a shock to the
system just to come to work in the
morning.
The two worlds are completely dif-
ferent. I am constantly surprised at
how little the shore life has to do with
life afloat. I have had shore friends
aboard who did not know which end of
the boat was the bow, and CONTENT is
no double-ender. A man in a grocery
store who knew I lived aboard once
asked me how I was going to get my
grocery bags aboard. He was amazed
to learn that I could just walk aboard.
(I could swing aboard without the
bags.) When I got married I had to
explain to my new father-in-law that I
FO'C'S'LE
went to work every morning with a
briefcase. I felt it was very important
to emphasize that briefcase. . .my
badge of normalcy, you understand.
The incongruity between the two
worlds is never more intense than
when one is doing some shore-going
thing immediately after completing a
sail, especially a longish sail, a week-
end cruise, let's say, in which thick
weather has been encountered. I can
recall thrashing home one Sunday
evening against one of those sharp
autumn nor'westers in Long Island
Sound and then, almost within the
hour of making CONTENT fast to the
pier, sitting in my office getting some
notes ready for a Monday morning
conference. It's difficult to convey the
profound difference in the two atmos-
pheres, but suppose you were walking
in the Maine woods and you encoun-
tered a door, passed through it, and
found yourself in the waiting room of a
dentist in Sandusky, Ohio?
The atmospheric distance between
the two worlds is made even more
telling by their physical proximity.
CONTENT is docked only 100 yards or
so from a tennis club, but going from
one to the other is like that Sandusky-
Maine woods passage, and that's why I
hardly ever enter the tennis club.
Ashore, I am always aware of this
alienation. I can have problems at 8
a.m. that I can't even tell anyone
about at 9 a.m. because only a sailor
would understand. For instance, my
office friends occasionally come in late
because the car didn't start or the
basement flooded or they had to stay
home to let the meter reader in. They
can explain this to the boss in a few
words. But I was late last week because
a loose bight of my stays'l halyard,
which I had unreeved for the winter,
got foul of the piling at the end of the
pier. (Try that on the boss.) I was
awakened in the wee hours of the
morning by a powerful thump followed
by a shaking of the boat as if a giant
hand were gripping the mast. I tum-
bled up on deck in my winter long
Johns to discover that the halyard had
been flipped over the head of the
piling by the blustery wind. It had
probably happened during high tide,
but now, as the tide had fallen a few
feet, the bight of 1/2" dacron, its
standing part affixed to the masthead,
had drawn up taut as a crowbar and as
the line sporadically slipped over the
rough surface of the piling, it jerked
and shook the forestay, which in turn
shook the whole boat. I suppose I'm
lucky it awakened me when it did.
Otherwise, the falling tide and
increasing tension might eventually
have taken out the topmast. And that
would have been hard enough to
explain to sailors, let alone landsmen.
("Sorry, I'm late, boss, but I was dis-
masted this morning right at the
dock.")
I have tried to ease the incongruity
between my two worlds by superim-
posing aspects of one upon the other.
For instance, I am sitting here, as I
said, at my desk, and anyone would
take me for an OK fellow —normal.
But under my desk is a 30' roll of
sheathing copper, a five-gallon jug of
Stockholm tar, and my seaboots.
They're not helping. — David Kasanof
40/WoodenBoat 13
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40/WoodenBoat 15
16 WoodenBoat/40
 TIDINGS
Old Wooden Fish Boats Deserve the Best, Too
Tony Rios knows how to cherish an old wooden boat. His
antique isn't from the Herreshoff line — neither Capt. Nat
nor L. Francis —nor is it a Hanna or a Garden either. In
fact, it's a plain old wooden fishing boat, a working plat-
form. But it means a lot to Tony and he and his old friend,
master shipwright Sugar Lindwall of Santa Barbara, know
how to take care of this 57-year-old boat.
Both men, now nearing retirement age, served aboard
the same fishing boat back when they were lads. She was
the ALPINO, a heavily-built 42-footer from the well-known
Al Larson Boat Yard of San Pedro. Batista Castagnola,
patriarch of a Santa Barbara family active in commercial
fishing for several generations, had the boat built for his
growing fleet of fishing boats in 1924, and she remained in
the Castagnola family until 1950.
But Tony Rios never quite forgot his first experience
aboard the ALPINO, and many years later he was able to
buy her. By that time, 1970, she had been with six owners
under several names, had fished and even shoved tankers
around to their moorings, and she was badly in need of
some TLC.
It was the bow that needed attention first, and shortly
after he bought her, Tony had her hauled and then turned
the boat over to Sugar Lindwall for a new bow and fore-
deck. Lindwall laminated a strong stem out of oak and
raised her foredeck 32".
Then in 1980 Tony knew it was time to go over the
stem. Again Sugar got the call, and he pulled out what
was left of the old counter, ripped out a sizeable portion of
her planking on the after end, and exposed a network of
ribs in very sad shape.
In time, bulky 6x8" fir timbers, specially ordered,
were sawn into shape for the new counter, scarfed together
with knees, and then solidly bolted. Then the two sections
were lifted into place to form the new "knuckled" counter.
In addition, 20 new laminated oak ribs went in on each
side, a new horn timber was fashioned, and new fir plank-
ing fitted at last.
By January 1981, all was in place, she was painted, and
the last minute touches were checked out thoroughly.
Launching took place late in the morning of January 17 in
Santa Barbara Harbor, where the old boat took its place
once again along the local Fisherman's Wharf. "An old
lady with a new lease on life," Tony grinned.
Renamed SPANIARD, the boat will go back to sword-
fishing and a little gillnetting. And in a few years, Tony
will be retiring from his other job with an American firm
that constructs oil refineries all around the globe. Then he
and his wife Jean will be aboard the SPANIARD more often.
Working on the SPANIARD, Sugar declares, was quite
a challenge, "But I'm glad to see that the old boat I
remember so well is all ready for another 50 years' work.
Well, maybe after I take a look at a couple deck planks I
didn't like the looks of." — Mark Miller

Wooden Boats at the S.O.R.C.

The Southern Ocean Racing Confer-
ence (S.O.R.C.) is widely regarded as
providing the best ocean racing in the
world. There are six races in the
series: Boca Grande Race, 130 miles;
St. Petersburg-Ft. Lauderdale, 370
miles; Ocean Triangle, 135 miles;
Lipton Cup, 30 miles; Miami-Nassau
Race, 176 miles; and Nassau Cup, 24
miles.
The S.O.R.C. never fails to attract
the latest yacht designs and innova-
tions in equipment, electronics, and
sails, together with the top sailors in
the nation and from overseas.
It is not so well known that there
are "state of the art" racing yachts
competing in this series whose hull
construction is wood. There are five
wooden yachts competing in the 1981
series out of the 80-odd entries. They
are:
WINDWARD PASSAGE — probably
the world's most famous racing yacht.
Designed as a ketch in 1968 by Alan
Gurney, this 72' maxi-yacht is now a BELLY UP —owned and built by
masthead-rigged sloop and is cam- Michael Thompson, whose company,
paigned by owners Mark and Fritz Yacht Services Ltd. (formerly Sailboat
Johnson. With her age allowance, Services), is located in St. Clair Shores,
PASSAGE provides real competition to Michigan. BELLY UP, a fractional-
the latest maxi-yachts KIALOA and rigged Yve Marie Tanton design, rates
BUMBLEBEE 4. 27.6 and was built using the WEST
WILDFLOWER — a custom Britton System (tm). Thompson said that he
Chance design for owner Randy Scar- chose wood because it is light and
borough. This fractional-rigged two doesn't itch. BELLY UP is raced in
tonner was cold-molded over a core Class E.
material by Eric Goetz in Rhode NEW WAVE - a Bill Tripp design for
Island. WILDFLOWER is a development owner Stuart Green. This fractional-
from Chance's Class E winner last rigged 40' yacht rates 31.5 and was
year, ALETHEA, and raced in Class C. cold-molded by Eric Goetz. She races
WILL-O'-THE-WISP — owned by Don in Class D.
Wilson from Sidney, British Colum- Here's how these five did in the
bia. WILL-O'-THE-WISP is a Peterson final S.O.R.C. placings in class and
41, two-ton design cold-molded by fleet:
Bent Jespersen also of British Colum- WINDWARD PASSAGE 6th Cl. A 42nd OA
bia. She was launched December 17, WILL-O'-THE-WISP 14th Cl. C 46th OA
1980. WILL-O'-THE-WISP was one of WILDFLOWER 6th Cl. C 15th OA
the prettiest racing yachts to be found NEW WAVE 6th Q. D 23rd OA
at this year's circuit and is another BELLY UP 6th Cl. E 59th OA
Class C entrant. —Jim Nolan

40/WoodenBoat 17
 May Olympia Wooden Boat Fair Events 23, 24, 25 Friendship Sloop Races
9, 10 Percival Landing, Olympia, Washington Friendship, Maine
for 24, 25, 26 Yorktown Wooden Boats Festival
15, 16, 17 Port Jefferson Used Boat Show
Port Jefferson, Long Island, New York Spring Harbourfront, Toronto, Canada

16,17 Cape Cod T.S.C.A. Meet and 25, 26 Antique and Classic Boat Rendezvous
Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, Connecticut
Crosby Yard, Osterville, Massachusetts
Summer
25, 26 Pull and Be Damned Regatta
16,17 Squaxin Island Weekend Bowman Bay near Anacortes, Washington
Squaxin Island near Olympia, Washington
31,1,2 1981 Wooden Canoe Heritage Association Annual Assembly
17 Traditional Small Craft and Rowing Frost Natural Resources Center, near Minden, Ontario
Association of Maine Meet
Biscay Pond Beach, Damariscotta, Maine August
1, 2 Harbor Springs Regatta (Northern Michigan One Designs)
24 Master Mariner's Regatta Harbor Springs, Michigan
San Francisco Bay, California
8 Les Cheneaux Islands Antique Boat Show
29, 30, 31 Newport Used Boat Show Hessel, Michigan
Treadway Inn, Newport, Rhode Island
15-22 International Canoe Championships (races begin on the 18th)
30 Howard Blackburn Memorial Dory Races Marion, Massachusetts
Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, Connecticut
June 15, 16 Antique Boat Show
Shipyard Museum, Clayton, New York
6, 7 Mystic Small Craft Meet
Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, Connecticut 16 Opera House Restaurant Cup Race
Nantucket, Massachusetts
19 Philadelphia T.S.C.A. Meet
On the Delaware, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 29 Short Ships Race
Rockport, Maine
20 Piscataqua Small Craft Day September
Strawbery Banke, Portsmouth, New Hampshire
3-7 Wooden Boat Show
Newport Yachting Center, Newport, Rhode Island
20 Yesteryear Regatta of the Ancient Mariner's Sailing Society
San Diego Bay, California 4, 5, 6 Classic Boat Festival
Inner Harbor, Victoria, British Columbia
20, 21 Fourth Annual Great Hudson River Revival
Croton Point Park, Westchester County, New York 5, 6 Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival
Point Hudson Marina, Port Townsend, Washington
20,21 Vermillion Antique Boat Show
Vermillion. Ohio
10-13 Newport International Sailboat Show
27,28 Windjammer Weekend Newport, Rhode Island
Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, Connecticut
July 11,12, 13 Essex Connecticut Traditional Boat Weekend
Essex, Connecticut
3,4, 5 Wooden Boat Festival
Naval Reserve Base at south end of Lake Union, Seattle, 19 Log Canoe Boat Races
Washington Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, St. Michaels, Maryland

3,4, 5 Tall Ships' Rendezvous 26 Mystic Seaport Schooner Races

Newport Yachting Center, Newport, Rhode Island Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, Connecticut

10,11,12 Matthews Boat Owners' Association Meeting and Rendezvous 26, 27 Traditional Wooden Boat Show
Mitchell's Marina, Greenport, New York Hampton Mariner's Museum, Beaufort, North Carolina

Boatbuilding classes are hard to come
by around Narragansett Bay, but in
Tiverton, Rhode Island, Richard
Cottreau gives a course on basic
wooden boat carpentry at his home.
The one-semester night class (non-
credit) is sponsored by the University
of Rhode Island extension division.
The class meets once a week; Cottreau
supplies tools, materials, and work
place, and owns the boats built in the
course. Tuition is $120.
The age, sex, experience, and
ambitions of the students vary. One
hopes to build a boat to use for fishing
someday. Another is a house carpen-
ter wanting to get into boat work. A
third has a Town class sloop in need of
some planks. All will get a basic
grounding in the use and care of tools,
lofting, repair, refinishing, and
building.
Narragansett News
When I stopped by recently, half
the class of 12 was planking the
inverted hull of a 16' Novi boat.
Across the shop, another crew was fas-
tening the daggerboard trunk into a
nearly finished dory. Keeping an eye
on each project was Richard Cottreau,
a transplanted Nova Scotian with a
quiet voice and a dry smile — low key.
This is the fourth year he's taught the
course, and after a lifetime of building
boats, he says he finds teaching an
interesting change.
Cottreau has a good broad back-
ground to teach general boat carpen-
try. He's built 50' draggers, lobster-
boats, sampans for "those Navy people
down in Portsmouth," dories, prams,
and Novi boats. He supervised the
building of 60 Sakonnet 26s, a 26' bass
boat, for Moss Marine. The little Novi
boat in the shop is his own design. It's
planked with native pine fastened with
bronze ring nails. The frames are red
oak, steamed and bent.
The other project is a Dion Swamp-
scott dory. Its planking is also native
pine. The frames are natural crooks
of red oak, alternating with smaller
steamed frames; the fastenings are
copper rivets. The class also built the
red oak rudder, daggerboard, and
tiller, and the 14' spruce mast on
which the dory will carry a small jib
and main.
The work looks good, the students
are satisfied. If you'd like to be led
gently and amiably into the boat-
building experience, Richard Cot-
treau's class looks like a good place to
start. — Peggy Nicholson

18 WoodenBoat/40
 What's My Line? Traditional Shipwright
In an apparent case of Dr. Strangelove meets Nat Herreshoff, a group of Forty-one years after he built his first
naval architects, ship preservationists, and the just plain curious witnessed an wooden boat, Pelham Fredericks
unusual demonstration at Mystic Seaport this spring. The Pratt-MIT Hull (Pelly) is still in the business. He's
Measuring Device, developed by Kenyon Marine and the Massachusetts Insti- working now on restoring a tug, in
tute of Technology as part of a program sponsored by the U.S. Yacht Racing drydock at the Sea Haven Marina in
Union, was used to take hull lines off the Seaport's Herreshoff 12 1/2' NETTLE. San Leandro, California. She's the
The Pratt-MIT machine was specifically designed to measure accurately WALRUS, a 38' tugboat that his part-
the shape, displacement, and wetted surface of racing yachts. It was devel- ner, Bill Payne, located on Santa
oped as part of a project to handicap sailboats accurately for offshore racing. Catalina Island. The tug had run up
The possible application of the device to the measurement of historic craft on a reef and had her hull stove in.
was realized by members of the Seaport's naval architecture staff, who with She was in bad shape, but Bill saw pos-
the cooperation of the Yacht Racing Union arranged a demonstration of the sibilities, had her trucked to San
machine to evaluate its usefulness. Leandro, and contacted Pelly.
Preservationists are frequently faced with the tedious task of taking lines "Everyone said you couldn't make
off vessels that were built by eye, from models, or whose plans have simply dis- her right again," Pelly says, in his soft,
appeared with the passage of time. Taking lines off a small vessel by conven- Guiana accent. " 'No one can make
tional methods can easily take several days. The Pratt-MIT device can mea- her good,' they said. But she was still
sure a properly set up small boat in about four hours. alive. She needed work and patience.
The primary advantage of the Pratt-MIT device is its ability to record a She was built 50 years ago, built very
large number of points on a station very rapidly. Unlike manual methods, well, and when we're finished, she will
which require time-consuming hand recording of the offsets, the Pratt-MIT be good for another 50 years."
device automatically records points on magnetic data cassettes for later First they cleaned out grease and
retrieval and analysis by computer. Up to 50 points can be recorded on a muck and removed the engine to be
single station, allowing the operator to define rapidly changing sections of the overhauled. They replaced the origi-
hull, such as the garboard section of a wineglass-sectioned sailboat, with a nal 46 frames with 52 new ones,
degree of accuracy difficult to duplicate without extensive fairing of lines on making her stronger than ever. The
the drafting table. caulking's been completed, and still
Results of the measurement of NETTLE are presently being compared with to go are the three bulkheads, deck-
lines taken manually from the same boat. Pending the outcome of that anal- ing, cabin top, reinstallation of the
ysis, the lines of other historic vessels may be taken using the unique USYRU engine, and repainting. About three
measuring machinery. — L.E. Nicholson months more work and the boat will

20 WoodenBoat/40
Pelly Fredericks
be as good as new and ready to ply the
Bay.
"It will take that long, working
mostly by myself. And it's hard to
work with someone else, who may not
see things my way. 'Shortcuts,' they
say, 'take shortcuts!' But I will know
what's under the paint. I have to do
the best job I know how."
And his best is plenty good. The
list of boats on which he has worked
reads like a roll call of some of the best
wooden boats in the area: the SAN-
TANA, the ANNA MARIA, EVENING
STAR, DAUNTLESS, BROAD, all care-
fully repaired or improved by Pelly
during his years of boat repair work
around the Bay.
He is a soft-spoken, charming
man, slightly built, about 53 years old,
who came to the Bay area some 10
years ago. He was bom in British
Guiana, where his family had been
ship builders for three generations.
You would think that would make
learning the trade easy for Pelly. Not
so!
"My father, my uncles, all like to
keep trade secrets. Even my father,
when I'd come to watch him, would
stop what he was doing. Sometimes
my father would turn away so that I
could not see how joints were made."
But a brother-in-law had faith,
and when Pelly was 13, asked him to
build a boat. He had watched Pelly,
since about age five, build model toy
boats, constructing the frame, caulk-
ing the planking, and rigging them.
So they plunged into the bush,
Pelly, his brother-in-law, and three
others. The tools were primitive by
today's standards: a 9' whipsaw, and
an adze. A year later, they had a
beautiful 68' auxiliary schooner. The
frame and flooring were of more', the
planking to the waterline was of
Guiana ironwood, the topside to the
sheer was silver bali, and the deck was
crabwood. Forty years later, she's
still afloat, still beautiful.
"Steel, glass, they're a lot the
same —too hot, too cold, not flexible.
Wood breathes, it lives. It expands, it
contracts, it doesn't rust. Treat it
right, and it will treat you right." His
face glows, his arms gesture widely,
and you feel the depth of his commit-
ment to the wooden boat. "I can't do
just half a job. You have to take pride
in your work, or you've got nothing.
You can't serve both God and the
Devil." — Marilyn Cunningham
Lots of Irons in the Fire
Last year, Toby Strong of Southwest
Harbor, Maine, discovered that the
old C. Drew & Company still had a set
of caulking iron dies and would pro-
duce a limited number of new irons for
Strong's company, Island Marine
Grafting. They've sold well and are
now distributed as well through the
Wooden Boat Shop in Seattle, Davey
and Company in London, Nassau
Shipyard in the Bahamas, and D.
Adler Company in Lunenburg, Nova
Scotia. A Canadian recently sent
Toby Strong a complete set of beauti-
ful old caulking irons, and Island
Marine Grafting is experimenting with
investment casting to produce a line of
caulking irons from these originals.
And they're now offering Georgia live
oak caulking mallets for sale. —JB
40/WoodenBoat 21
Puget Sounding up on the patterns and screwed to the mold when cured.
In the past few years I've looked at, and written about, a The strips were then stapled to the mold and glued with
lot of boats. Big boats, small boats, and many in between. urea formaldehyde glue.
They all had one thing in common. They were built by Final fairing and sanding was nearly complete when I
professional or semiprofessional builders. Somehow I've first saw the boat. Mahogany gunwales and thwarts will be
overlooked the totally amateur first-time builders that are ready when it comes off the mold. The completed assem-
so supportive of WoodenBoat. My search for such a pro- bly will be sheathed in a light layer of glass cloth and resin.
ject and person ended virtually in my own backyard with a At 18' long, with a 36" beam and 12" depth, the canoe
business associate I've known for several years. should serve well for many extended trips on secluded
I first met Larry Crozier when I joined an association of waterways. Larry's final chore will be the ash yoke to carry
professional purchasing managers. He was then treasurer his 60-lb dream easily on portages.
of the group, and we became good friends over an incred-
ible series of misfortunes with my initial dues check. Larry
is an active outdoor person, an avid fisherman whose
catches are always at least 12' long, and he plays soccer in
a regular league.
As we became better acquainted, I discovered Larry
had a life-long love of canoes, wooden canoes in particular.
He wasn't satisfied with the scout canoe trips and his own
family excursions in various canoes over the years. He
wanted to build a wooden canoe for himself. He carried
the idea for years and searched for a project he felt he
could handle with the tools and skills he had available. In
the May 1978 issue of Home Handyman, he found an
article about an 18' cedar strip canoe, sent for the plans,
and his canoe project was underway. Many people who have taken up paddle and oar in the
Larry spent many months locating materials and laying physical fitness boom have progressed to the point where
out full-size patterns for the forms. In mid-1979 his wife's they would like to participate in these activities with people
car was banished from the garage and work began in from other parts of the country. Meets and regattas offer
earnest, fairing the mold, ripping the carefully selected 20' the recreational rower an enjoyable opportunity to expand
lengths of clear western red-cedar into strips, and planing his knowledge and make new friends beyond his home
them to 5/16" thickness. Laminated oak stems were laid waters.

22 WoodenBoat/40
 With this premise as a discussion base, we spent many
hours talking in the Seattle bean, bread, and brew empor-
iums after closing time at the Wooden Boat Show in Janu-
ary, and of the many participants, John Black was the most
vocal and dedicated to the idea that the time has come for
a nationwide organization to promote, coordinate, and
report on rowing events around the country.
And he has begun! John is accumulating data on row-
ing and small boat events around the country and plans
publication of a national calendar. He needs input from
anyone participating in these activities and would like to
develop a reliable reference to guide people looking for
other areas to visit where they'll find friends with a com-
mon interest. Anyone who wants to assist in this work, or
has news of interest to rowers, should contact John Black
directly at 2303 North 38th Street, Seattle, WA 98103,
(206) 632-4116. We've incorporated many of John's list-
ings in this issue's Events Calendar, but for a more com-
plete list that includes scull and rowing events, write to
John and send $2 to help cover duplicating and mailing
costs. He'll be updating the list on a quarterly basis.
— George Kuchenbecker
Toying With Boats
Robert G. Speltz, author of The sizes, steam-powered antique toy
Real Runabout books, is forming a boats and ships, and scale-model
loose-knit collectors' club for people kit boats, either hand built, ready
who collect toy and scale boats. to run, or original design models.
Bob would like to hear from people If you collect any of the above, or
who collect battery-powered import other types of toy boats and ships
or domestic toy outboard motors or not listed, contact Bob Speltz at
motorboats, wind-up metal toy 505 Albert Lea Street, Albert Lea,
boats and ships of all types and MN 56007 or (507) 37S-2145.
Ancient Mariners San Diego-Maui Race
June 21, 1981, will be the starting date for the 2,250-mile
Ancient Mariners Sailing Society San Diego-Maui Race,
which is open only to classic sailing yachts designed before
1950. Twenty to thirty yachts are expected to participate,
and at least four of the early entries appear capable of
breaking PACIFICA's 13-day 12-hour 10-minute recordset
in 1978: ROSE OF SHARON, Byron Chamberlain's 55' Star-
ling Burgess design schooner; DIANA, Harry Kilpatrick's
60' Cox and Stephens design schooner; and HADA, James
Farris's 62' Judson Kelly design yawl. PACIFICA, Jack Frost's
49' Sparkman and Stephens yawl, is entered again.
An interesting entry is Bob Sloan's 62' gaff schooner
SPIKE AFRICA, a coaster-type design built as a working ves-
sel. She will be sailing the Maui Race carrying 14 tons of
cruising equipment for the Los Angeles to Honolulu
Transpac racers who start two weeks later. Handicapping
an Ancient Mariner race is never easy!
The noon start inside San Diego Bay will be quite uni-
que for a long offshore race. The yachts will be at anchor
off the Shelter Island Beach. At the starting cannon, the
crews will raise sails and anchors and be on their way.
The entire weekend of June 20-21 should be a memor-
able one for those around San Diego Bay. Saturday is the
date for the 7th Annual Yesteryear Regatta, which typi-
cally involves 70-80 classic racing and cruising yachts from
all along the west coast. Saturday evening the yachts will
raft up in La Playa Cove, and those yachts not sailing to
Maui on Sunday will escort the racers out of the harbor
and can at least pretend for a few hours that they are on
their way to paradise.
40/WoodenBoat 23
 In the heart of the lake district of
northwest Wisconsin, Aspoya Boats
of Barronett is entering its third
year in the construction of Norwe-
gian lapstrake faerings and prams.
Designs are courtesy of Nils O.
Ulset, Aspoya, Norway. After an
apprenticeship in Norway, Jay
Smith returned to the midwest in
1978, and as a one-man operation,
has been building 8' and 12' prams
and an increasingly popular 16'
double-ended Nordmore faering,
using northern white pine on white
oak, with Sitka spruce for spars and
oars. The faering's rig is a tradi-
tional dipping lug. On line at pres-
ent is a 15' double-ended rowing
faering, pine on white oak, and
plans are being made for a 16'
Sunnmore faering with a spritsail
and four oars, to be launched in
early summer, 1981.
C & B Marine in Santa Cruz, Cali-
fornia, is building a Farr 44 (deck-
house) model, cold-molded.
TIMBERWOLF, the first Farr 38 they
built, took part in the S.F.-Kauai
Transpac race last summer and was
first in class, third overall, and
fourth boat to finish. Another C &
B boat, a Gary Mull design 32'
LOA and named ISIS, also took
part in the race and placed overall
second in class.
24 WoodenBoat/40
Melvin Willis is building 17' Mic-
mac strip canoes at his shop in Free-
port, Maine. They are the model
featured in The Stripper's Guide to
Canoe-Building by David Hazen,
use cedar strips in conjunction with
WEST System (tm) epoxy and
cloth, and have contrasting red-
wood trim and caned seats. The
canoes are available partially fin-
ished, or complete. Melvin also
produces a smaller boat — a much
smaller boat. It's the "Seaward
Lucket", a mounted half model of
the popular tabloid cruiser
PICAROON, designed by Sam Rabl.
And it's also available either as a
kit, or finished.
Fleur De Lys
Seth Persson of Old Say brook, FLEUR DE LYS, a Herreshoft Buz-
Connecticut, died in June of 1980, zards Bay 14, which was completed
Bob Baker's shop in West port. leaving his sons Jon and Rick in and launched in October of 1980
Massachusetts, has three restora- charge of operating his Connecticut under the supervision of Rick
tion projects in the works. He's River boatyard. Seth began the Persson. While Rick and Jon were
restoring a west coast arctic whale- yard in 1934, and in the years since growing up, they spent most of their
boat for the New Bedford Whaling imparted his wisdom and know- free hours in their father's shop,
Museum. The boat was found on ledge of wooden boat building to a and after graduating from school
St. Lawrence Island in Alaska, and crew of dedicated and skilled crafts- became apprentices, Jon in the
differs from the sperm whaleboats, men, several of whom continue on design shop and Rick in operations.
since it is longer, heavier, and has at the yard. FINISTERRE was built The yard is presently building a
2" arctic rails on the gunwales. there in the 1950s, as was ROGUE in 32' motorsailer, designed by Jon
Bob's also restoring a pretty little 1953, EASTERLY in 1961, and an Persson. And they have just com-
Crosby cat, about 15' long and built Alerion in 1971, among other fine pleted two new Sitka spruce masts
of cypress. He thinks it was origi- yachts. Commercial boats include for the conversion of a 38' Crocker
nally built about 1890. And the the 42' party fishing boat CAPT. from cutter to ketch. The yard
next boat to move into the shop is BOB II, designed by Seth Persson does both extensive and routine
an Alden O boat. We'll be covering and launched in 1974. The last maintenance, as well as repair
her extensive restoration in a future boat Seth Persson began was the work.
article.
 Around the Boatyards Ferdinand "Red" Nimphius had
some visitors the other day at his
is the dream-come-true of a com-
mercial pilot Bill Dotter, who works
Erik's Boat Works in Stamford, ing is sound; she's double-planked boat company in Neshkoro, Wis- alongside the Nimphius crew when-
Connecticut, has been working on above the waterline with longleaf consin. A chartered Trail ways bus, ever he can find the time. After
an interesting restoration project. yellow pine over cedar, and single- with several station wagons follow- launching, Dotter plans to sail the
She's a 59'11" double-ended gaso- planked below the waterline. Many ing close behind, arrived bearing ship on Lake Michigan for a year,
line "launch" designed by Nathan- of the longleaf yellow pine planks members of the Heritage Boat then across the Atlantic to Holland
ael G. Herreshoff, built at the Her-run full length! A number of Club, a new organization under the and on into the Baltic Sea, where
reshoff Manufacturing Company in frames, deck beams, the cabin sole, sponsorship of the Chicago Corin- the original RED LION served most
1910, and launched as CANVAS- and the cabin are being replaced, thian Yacht Club. (See "Tidings" of her life. How did Bill Dotter
BACK. She was built for Frederick and the accommodations are being WB No. 37.) One of the most decide upon the RED LION in the
G. Bourne, then commodore of the enlarged to provide living quarters interesting projects underway at the first place? Well, he bought a
New York Yacht Club, and it's his for four. Though that necessitates Nimphius Boat Company is the RED model ship kit for a friend in 1969,
grandson, Frederick Hard, who some changes, her mahogany and LION, a 45' scaled-down replica of and decided to try one himself. . .it
owns the boat now and is having the butternut paneling will be replaced, the original frigate RED LION built was the RED LION.
restoration work done. Her plank- and she should look better than ever. in Amsterdam in 1597. The replica

The Fremont Tugboat Company in The Bay Area Marine Institute of

Seattle, Washington, has recently San Francisco has been awarded a
rebuilt a traditional wooden boom contract to build a wooden 26'
boat — the STUBBY, built in 1950 by Monomoy surfboat for the Califor-
Chet North for log booming in the nia Maritime Academy at Vallejo.
Sanjuans. She has 1 1/3" fir plank- Last year, the BAMI built a new
ing covered by 3/4" ironbark. Monomoy for Sea-Land, Inc., using
STUBBY sat in the blackberry bushes an epoxy cold-molding technique
at Anacortes for several years before and laminating two layers of west-
she was rebuilt, and though she had em red-cedar diagonally over Alas-
weathered considerably, no plank- kan yellow cedar strip planking.
ing or frames had to be removed The boat was quite light and per-
from dry rot. She's been recaulked formed well during last year's
and refastened, and provided with racing season. BAMI is primarily
a new cabin and a rebuilt 60-hp a research and training facility for
Gray Lugger with a 3-1 reduction marine services technicians, and
gear, swinging a 22 x 21" propeller. such boatbuilding projects are part
STUBBY'S joined the fleet of "mini" of teaching hands-on skills. Under
tugs and barges used in log spill the supervision of qualified profes-
work, and her new name is sionals, students participate in all
SPANNER. phases of construction.

40/WoodenBoat 25
 Wood at the Shows
There was only one wood boat in the
$11-million, 550-boat fleet when the
New York Boat Show opened to the
press January 15. And even that is
subject to question: Was it a boat?
Was it wood?
The "boat" was a foam sailboard
sheathed in the WEST System (tm)
with a thin hull of mahogany. The
12' 9 1/2" board is marketed by Wing
Systems of Oyster Bay, New York.
The next day, however, when the
show officially opened to the public,
a boat built of what by anyone's defi-
nition is unquestionably wood, was on
display at the Antique and Classic
Boat Society booth. The boat was an
11' cedar dinghy built in 1920 by, it is
believed, Nat Herreshoff. The dinghy,
loaned by Ernest King of Lake Hopat-
cong, New Jersey, was brought in at
the last minute when work crews at the
New York Coliseum decided they
couldn't maneuver a restored 1929 28'
three-cockpit Chris-Craft onto the
exhibit floor.
Wood boats did better at the Ches-
apeake Bay Boat Show later that
month, however. The Beall Boat
Shop of Severna Park, Maryland, not
only exhibited their plywood skiffs,
26 WoodenBoat/40
but also built several in the lobby of
the Baltimore Convention Center.
Brothers Tom and Joe Egeberg, who
bought the business two years ago from
founder John Beall, and Jeanne Broth-
ingham, demonstrated for the public
how the Beall Boat is built. Beall Boat
Shop offers the skiff in five sizes, from
12' to 20', and a 14' garvey, in fir ply-
wood with oak framing as well. All
seams are sealed with 3M 5200 com-
pound, and the boats are fastened
with galvanized nails. According to
Joe Egeberg, they have sold 130 boats
since reactivating the firm. He esti-
mates that some 11,000 Beall skiffs
have been built since John Beall
"started counting" in 1946.
A very pretty 25' diesel launch
from the board of Weston Farmer also
made the Baltimore show. DIANA,
designed in the style of a classic 19th-
century steam launch, was built of
cold-molded mahogany by St. Mich-
aels Harbour Marina of St. Michaels,
Maryland.
Meanwhile, at the Minneapolis
Boat Show, Superior Wooden Yachts,
Inc., of Invergrove Heights, Minne-
sota, exhibited a cold-molded sailboat
hull and a strip-built canoe. The hull,
a 26' New Zealand design, caught a
lot of attention, according to Doug
McEneany, who founded the company
last November. It was built of Florida
cypress and varnished. McEneany and
his crew built the racer/cruiser in their
spare time while installing the wood
interior of the new maxi-racer,
KIALOA, in Florida. He then trailered
the hull to Minnesota in time for the
January show. He reported that his
wasn't the only wood boat at the show.
Boatbuilder Jay Smith of Barronett,
Wisconsin, exhibited a 16' Norwegian-
style sailing/pulling boat. He said
Smith had sold the boat before the
show but was taking orders for new
boats there. — Rick Lydecker
Want to Get into WB?
Send us your news of wooden boat events,
launching?, projects and such —to "Tidings",
WoodenBoat, Box 78, Brooklin, ME 04616.
28 WoodenBoat/40
40/WoodenBoat 29
 JOHN
Ithenboat
f you are a boat lover—most especially a traditional-
lover—and you don't know John Gardner's work,
you must have spent the last 30 years or so alone on a
rock in the middle of the ocean. Even if you did, you
would have to have been blind, because during those years
at least one small boat inspired by his leadership must have
passed by your rock. With seeing eyes you would have
readily noticed, and appreciated, the boat's clean lines,
sensible and quality-conscious craftsmanship, fine finish,
and honest heritage.
John Gardner's work speaks for itself. He is a boat-
builder, boat designer, small-craft historian, Associate
Curator for Small Craft at Mystic Seaport, Technical Edi-
tor of the National Fisherman, teacher, author, public
speaker. Few in our field can claim such a breadth and
depth of experience and expertise, and few can claim to
have influenced so many people so thoroughly —though
John Gardner is entirely too modest to make such claims,
so I make them for him.
Every person holds surprises, however, and John Gard-
ner is no exception. Publicly, he comes across as a man
who gets up in the morning, thinks about boats, talks
about boats, builds boats, then goes back to bed at night
and dreams about boats. There may be some truth to that,
but there is also a private John Gardner who is at ease with
larger issues, who has spent a good part of his life trying to

In His gain a larger perspective and who, for the most part, has
been successful at it. The achievement of balance as an
individual—with equal application of manual and
intellectual skills—seems to have been his lifelong goal,
which means that he is as comfortable talking about social

Own theory as he is talking about the origins of the Swampscott

dory. His implied message is that it is perfectly all right to
become a specialist, but not to the extent that you ignore
the rest of the world around you.
This interview took place last fall at John Gardner's

Words home in Mystic, Connecticut, where he lives with his wife

Beatrice, to whom he has been married for 42 years. We
started in his garden, where he picked over the last of the
strawberries, and ended in his living room, which is as
spare and modest as his speech. I asked him questions and
he answered them, but the results of the session are pub-
lished here without the questions so they will not get in the
way of the story. What's important here is what he said,
not what I asked him. Unfortunately, the one thing this
interview failed to reveal is Gardner's humor. On one level
at least, he is one of the funniest men I have met, though
the nature of his humor can only be understood on a
person-to-person basis. He possesses the classical Yankee
dry wit, which relies on understatement coupled with
twinkling eyes or a wry grin, a style that cannot be con-
veyed by the written word. Take my word for it: he has
the gift as few others do. — PHS

Interview by Peter H. Spectre

30 WoodenBoat/40
GARDNER
M y recollections go back to very early in the century.
I was bom in 1905 in Calais, Maine, which is on
the St. Croix River at the head of Passamaquoddy Bay,
where it forms the border between Maine and New Bruns-
wick. I come from a long line of land surveyors. My great-
grandfather was one, as was my grandfather and my
father.
We lived on a farm on the river about three miles below
Calais. The farm ran down to the water and a mile back.
As a boy I had boats on the river. There were great tides,
26-28', and the river at that point was about a mile wide,
so when the tide was out there would be a half-mile of mud
flats. Keeping a boat with tides like that took ingenuity.
I had a pole about 30' long stuck in the mud flats and a
square float —four boards nailed together — around the
pole that would go up and down with the tide. I tied my
boat to that. I also had a boat similar to the one Howard
Chapelle called the Farmer's Daughter with a wooden
wheelbarrow wheel at the bow, which allowed it to be
pushed over the mud flats.
We built boats and used boats. My grandfather,
before my time, had a pinky, which he used a great deal,
and even while I was small he still went down river in the
fall to catch fish for the winter. In fact, there were many
boats on the river at that time. There were lumber
schooners, excursion boats, and steamboats. Calais was a
thriving, enterprising, prosperous place, a center for the
lumber industry.
We cut our own boat lumber from our woodlot, usually
at the same time we cut our firewood for the winter. We
saved the good sawlogs and hauled them to a mill and
brought the lumber home. My grandfather made every-
thing. He made boats, he made hay racks and cart wheels,
he built buildings and shingled roofs. He had been a car-
ver's apprentice in Charlestown, Massachusetts, and was
an accomplished woodcarver. I learned woodworking
from him and my father as part of growing up.
When I was young I used to spend quite a good deal of
time at a nearby boatshop owned by the Whelan boys, so
called, although they were still called the Whelan boys
when they were long past 70. Jim and George were their
names, though they were locally known as Pete and Repeat
because they always repeated each other when they talked.
They were Irish, Catholic, and Democrats, which put
them apart to some extent in that area. They built all
types of boats up to 50' or 60' for commercial or pleasure
use, and all by hand. The shop had no power at all. Pieces
were ripped out of rough-sawn lumber with handsaws and
then planed. They used adzes and broad axes. I was influ-
enced by these men. I was also influenced by a very skilled
carpenter by the name of Tommy Webster, who lived up
the road. He built my father's house with my father's assis-
tance, without plans. The shelves and pantries were fin-
ished just like the interior of a vessel.
I never apprenticed as a carpenter or boatbuilder, but
I picked up the skills as I went along. My first attempt to
rig my own boat came early on, when I took one of my
great-grandfather's seachests from the barn down to the
brook and tried to sail it like a boat. From there I became
a pretty good boatbuilder and built several craft before I
got out of high school —rowboats, sailboats, nothing too
difficult. Once I decided to build a dory and sent to the
Maine State Library for a book with the lines of a pretty
big dory. I scaled it down proportionally with the result
that it was too tender. So to remedy the defect I built two
air-tight sponsons shaped something like crescent moons
and attached them to the sides. The boat became very
stable and rowed nicely but looked odd. I took it down to
the Whelans, who scratched their heads but admitted the
arrangement worked pretty good.
I went to school in Calais, and after graduation I went
to normal school in Machias. I took the standard two-year
teacher-training course and then taught school for two
years. I decided to become a teacher because I was
encouraged to do so at home —both of my aunts were
teachers —and it was the most convenient thing to do, I
guess. Believe it or not, I was also motivated by football.
Perhaps one of the most exciting moments of my life was
when I made the varsity football team in my high school
sophomore year at Calais Academy. In those days you had
to supply your own uniform. I sawed and split and piled
four cords of hackmatack wood to buy a pair of football
pants. In my freshman year at Machias Normal School I
was one of the group that organized the school's first foot-
ball team. But football wasn't the only thing. I had a lot
of drive back then. I initiated and was the editor of the
Washingtonia, the school magazine, and was president of
the student body, and did just about everything else.
During one of my teaching years, I went to summer
school at Columbia University in New York, which at the
time was the leading teacher-training institution in the
country. Only graduate courses were offered, but working
teachers were permitted to take two years of graduate work
that qualified them for a BS in education. So I stayed on
at Columbia and took the two-year course, and then went
on to get my master's degree in 1932.
I got out of Columbia in the depths of the Depression.
I was there in New York when they were selling apples on
street corners and the financiers were jumping out of win-
dows on Wall Street. It was a tough time to go to college
and a tough time to get a job afterwards, even though I
achieved honor rank.
But in the meantime, in 1930, I had got a summer job
as a counselor at Pine Island Camp in Belgrade Lakes,
Maine. I worked there summers during the 1930s, while I
was at Columbia, and afterwards when I was kicking
around like most others during the Depression. I was in
charge of the workshop, which was one of the features of
the camp. We built model boats and yachts and sailed
them. I also built several full-sized boats there, such as a
C.D. Mower sailing dinghy whose lines had been published
in Rudder magazine. I was put in charge of the shop
40/WoodenBoat 31

Over the years, John Gardner has written on a number
of subjects besides boats, sometimes under his own
name and sometimes under the pseudonym John
Clarkson. To provide a better appreciation of the
"other" John Gardner, we reprint here a few excerpts
from articles he has written on such diverse topics as
atomic development, the guaranteed income, and
chemical hazards. We wish we could publish the arti-
cles in toto, but space limitations preclude that.
The following excerpts are from a long expose of early
atomic politics and economics published in the Octo-
ber-November 1994 edition of Contemporary Issues.
The article, entitled "On the Politics and Economics of
Atomic development in the U.S.A.," was written by
Gardner under the pseudonym John Clarkson and is
the product of considerable research. It was a spinoff
from Gardner's research into the Rosenburg case, and,
though the conclusions have been dated by subsequent
events, it is an indication of the author's thoroughness
even at a time when most information on atomic tech-
nology was difficult to locate.
"...Some claim that the interest evinced by the chem-
ical industry (including oil companies) in atomic
power is largely pretended and cloaks 'a desire to get
into the fissionable material production business—
with the Government as an exclusive customer which
could easily be pressured into an infinite procurement
program similar to Federal purchases of silver. One
chemical company executive, indeed, made it plain
that his company is more interested in producing plu-
tonium than power if there came a choice between the
two; and another company executive has expressed a
similar view! This may well be a substantial part of
the reason why billions have gone into plants run by
duPont and Union Carbide for the production of plu-
tonium and enriched uranium, while millions, and
only a few at that, have been made available for power.
Be that as it may, nuclear research has opened up a
new frontier for the chemical industry, and such
giants as duPont, Monsanto, Dow, and Union Carbide
and Carbon, like their opposite numbers in the electri-
cal equipment industry have gone into the "forefront
of that change" to control it. To what extend they are
sitting on the lid of that change, is more difficult to
gauge than the open sabotage of atomic power. It is
probable, even now, that discoveries of the first order,
in this field, are being cozily kept under wraps until
the provisions in the law governing atomic patents are
changed... "
In 1972, John Gardner had an opportunity to study and record the 27' pulling
boat AMERICAN STAR, (ca. 1820) which has been preserved at the estate of
General Lafayette near Paris, France. Recognizing its importance as the
oldest American small boat known to exist, he built a replica, the GENERAL
LAFAYETTE, shown here under construction at Mystic Seaport in 1974.
32 WoodenBoat/40
because of my background; I had the skills and the inter-
est. I was also qualified because I understood both inland
craft, like canoes, and saltwater craft. Calais, where I
grew up, was intermediate between upriver—the woods—
and downriver — the ocean. I understood both worlds. I
found the camp to be a delightful experience and gained
much inspiration from the work I did there.
But full-time work eluded me. When I graduated from
Columbia I had a first-class education. My expectations
were that I would get a rather fancy job, but there weren't
any. So I knocked about quite a bit and spent some time at
home. I worked in the woods as a lumberman. I con-
tracted and peeled pulpwood. I peeled a hundred cords of
pulpwood one summer. I didn't teach at all—just knocked
around at a lot of different things.
My life as a boatyard worker began when World War II
broke out. I happened to be in Lynn, Massachusetts, at
the time and signed on at the Graves yard in nearby Mar-
blehead, because they were building Coast Guard picket
boats as fast as they could and needed experienced work-
ers. They never questioned my ability; I guess it was
because I was from Maine and seemed to know what I was
talking about.
The picket boats were 38' long and had been designed
by Walter McInnis. We built 72 or 73 of them. I was on
the night shift as a planker, since this was an assembly-
line operation. We were building two boats at a time, and
I had two men who were hanging the planks and fastening
them as fast as I got them out. Another crew was getting
out the keel assemblies, lowering them on the forms and
timbering them. Still another crew would finish them
inside, after they were turned over. We planked the boats
upside down, and it was fast and furious work.
When the picket boats were finished and things slacked
off at Graves, I went over to Reed's Shipyard in Winthrop
and went to work on a big, curious Navy barge, heavily
built of Oregon fir. The yard was expanding like mad. I
hung plank for a while and then was assigned to build a
scale model of the craft for Washington. It was a typical
government mess, with constant revisions to the full-size
craft. I had to go out to the construction all the time and
measure the changes and then rework the model. It was
quite an elaborate job.
Soon I got a call to go back to Graves, however. I
returned to work on several different types of boats, and
then started in on yachts because they were still trying to
carry on with their yacht business even though there was a
war on. I did yacht repair and other jobs; in fact, I built
the tank-test model for the Hickman Sea Sled.
It was wild over there in Marblehead at the beginning
of the War. We had blackouts because the submarines
were right off the coast, and a civil defense force was
organized locally. We were all given guns; I had an old
elephant gun that belonged to Graves's father-in-law.
The foreman turned out billy clubs for blackout wardens
in the joiner shop. We stopped work on several afternoons
to go to the gravel pit and practice with our guns. We were
given posts behind various rocks on the beach in case the
submarines should land. It was completely wild.
By then I had given up on being a teacher. I was doing
what I wanted to do, and the job was over at four o'clock
on Friday. I had a great many intellectual interests that
occupied me when I wasn't working. That was more or less
the pattern until I went to work at Mystic Seaport in 1969.
For example, I began to measure boats and take off lines.
Some of those lines I put away until much later when I
began to write. I then drew upon those resources that I
gathered in Marblehead.
I started taking off lines because I was interested in
boats and their shapes, and I was interested in drawing
them. I was also influenced by the people I worked with. I
was working with a very fine boatbuilder, Charles Lawton,
who was then considered to be the dean of his craft north
of Boston. He was almost 90 at that time, still building
boats at Graves. He had come down from St. John as a
young man and had begun building boats in Boston as
early as 1880. He worked at the Navy Yard before coming
to Graves.
World War II was the last hurrah of the old-time boat-
builders, many of whom came out of retirement for the
duration. We had one boat joiner at Graves by the name
of Dan Grant. He was a Nova Scotia Scotsman, an extra-
ordinarily talented woodworker, sparmaker, carpenter.
He could do anything. He made violins to pay the hospital
expenses for one of his sons who had polio. He made very
fine violins. He claimed he ruined his eyes working nights
making them. He was a very ingenious man, and I count
myself lucky for being able to work with people like that.
I stayed at Graves until the end of the war, then I went
to work for Simms Brothers in Dorchester, where they were
building fine yachts for Sparkman & Stephens. Simms had
formerly worked for Lawley, and his yard was sort of a
home for old Lawley hands. We were double planking
yachts 50' to 60' long. The outside layer was 7/8" African
mahogany and the inside was 3/8" white cedar with white
lead between. The outside planking was so smooth and The course of John's research into small craft has taken him to many places.
Here, he and a crew from Mystic take off the lines and construction details of
tight you couldn't see where the seams were. I finally left a Hudson River Shad Boat in upper New York.
Simms in the late 1940s, because it was too far from my
home and the pay wasn't too good. I went to work at
Dion's Boatyard in Salem. Relations there were very good.
"...It is probably not the fear of Russian competition,
If you could do the work and you were reliable, Fred Dion primarily, that sparks the American turn toward
didn't bother you. In fact, he gave me his youngest son so I atomic power. More likely it is a belated realization in
could train him. I did all repair work; no new construc- business circles that atomic power is coming and
tion. coming fast in numerous countries outside both the
U.S. and the U.S.S.R., and that in spite of America's
From the late 1940s until 1969 I worked at Dion's, with head start and great industrial resources, including
the exception of two years during the Korean War when I her hoard of enriched uranium, she is in danger of
worked at General Electric in the template room. I was being left behind in the atomic power race. Much
essentially a patternmaker in the turbine division, though against its retrogressive conservatism the American
when business was slow I went out on the floor and tried business oligopoly is being pushed into the atomic age
by energy-hungry smaller nations, to date notably
my hand at welding and boilermaking. It was interesting those in Western Europe, who see in the atom the only
work, but not too hard. I was generally done with my task way out of the impasse of their power shortage... "
in three or four hours, and for the rest of my shift I used to —Contemporary Issues, October 1954
make things for myself or write.
You have to understand that I was leading two lives. I
was a manual worker to make a living but was engaged in
intellectual pursuits the rest of the time. In the 1930s I had
been doing a lot of reading in many fields, including boat
design and building. I read the very fine articles in Yacht-
ing written by Howard Chapelle in the 1930s; they were
quite definitely the foundation of all his work—those are
the articles he contributed on the Friendship sloop and a
series of other traditional American craft. I had Chapelle's
book on boatbuilding, for example, which came out in
1941. I brought a copy in to work and showed it to Dan
Grant. He said not to pay too much attention to it,
because he had given most of the information to Chapelle,
and it was old-fashioned.
During this period I used to go to the Associates meet-
ings at the Peabody Museum of Salem, which group was
very loosely constituted. We used to meet more or less
regularly, and different people would talk and present
papers — people like Samuel Eliot Morison and William
Avery Baker. It was also during this time that I started to
write about boats for publication. I wrote my first article
for the Maine Coast Fisherman (which later became the
National Fisherman) in 1951, and after my first piece on An educator in the true sense of the word, John has spent a great deal of time
the Hammond dory appeared, I became acquainted with sharing his insights and experience. Here, he assists a participant in one of
Howard Chapelle. We met and established a very close his recreational boatbuilding classes at Mystic.

40/WoodenBoat 33

The following excerpts are from a short piece John
Gardner wrote for the Summer 1965 edition of Con-
temporary Issues entitled "A New England View of the
Triple Revolution." The triple revolution of the title
is a reference to an article written by Ralph Borsodi
concerning (1) the human rights revolution, (2) the
weaponry revolution, and (3) the cybernation revolu-
tion.
" . . . H u m a n society and social production has now
reached a degree of complexity and interconnection, as
well as an extent and mass, that requires some sort of
broad planning to function. The question is not plan-
ning or rejection of planning, but rather what kind of
planning do we want? I, for my part, demand an order
of economic planning that frees the individual from
interference with personal affairs, rather than arbi-
trary, dictatorial planning.
We are fast approaching a time and condition when
the ancient distinction between work and play will
become meaningless. It is normal and wholesome for
humans to engage in purposeful activity, and once a
universal guaranteed income has freed humanity from
economic compulsions, humans will have the means
and will be free, as the masses have never before been
free, to engage in purposeful activity to their liking.
My faith in human nature is such that I truly believe
that under such a condition good works will be multi-
plied and will abound in diversity and extent as never
before in history, and solely on a voluntary, amateur
basis, as it were... "
" ...Let us not be sentimental about country living. In
the 'good old days' the farmer's life was a hard one, and
often a degrading one. Thoreau has some observations
about Concord farmers, how some of them plowed
themselves as compost into their fields, and how they
crept painfully down the road of life pushing their
great barns before them. It was a pity, they deserved
more than scorn. And Thoreau, what right had he to
point them out? To start with, someone paid his way
through Harvard College. He never married or had a
family to support. He died in his early forties, before
infirmities of old age had overtaken him. During his
sojourn at Walden he was a squatter on Emerson's
farm and when he wanted a good meal he could visit
friends in Concord. Besides his stay at Walden was
only for a short time—a brief episode in his life. As I
recall, James Russell Lowell did not think too highly
of Thoreau and said something to the effect that if a
man wanted to live like a woodchuck, that was his busi-
ness. Well, if one has no more responsibilities than a
woodchuck, he can play at that game for a short while,
as Thoreau did. But for a family man and for keeps,
it takes more resources.
But with the resources, country life can be beauti-
ful, and why shouldn't the Government provide such
resources in the way of a Guaranteed Income if the
productive capacity of the country is capable of it, as
seems quite well established. Argue, if you can, that
the national economy is not equal to this and if you can
make your point, we shall have to bow. But don't say
that a Guaranteed Income would lessen freedom, for it
would do just the opposite. Or that it would be bad for
character, for it would actually be the best thing for
character that ever happened. Nothing brings out
meanness worse than carking financial worries. A
man tied for life to a routine job is just as much a slave
as if he had a chain on his leg.
What I implied above, but did not say specifically,
was that without those Concord farmers composting
themselves into their fields and wearily dragging their
great barns down the road of life there would not have
been, and could not have been, any Thoreau or any
Walden, a fact that Thoreau, I believe, never recog-
nized. Without a vast industrial complex subject to
centralized planning there will not be, and cannot be,
any 'modern appliances' to take the 'drudgery' out of
homesteading. But how to get those 'modern appli-
ances' down on the farm? They cannot be 'bought' in
34 WoodenBoat/40
relationship, working together and exchanging informa-
tion. For example, in the late 1950s I spent a week at his
home in Maryland, where I learned much about Chesa-
peake Bay boat construction.
Howard Chapelle was an extremely interesting man
and had much influence on me and others. You hear
occasional revisionist talk about him now, but I must say
that he was an extraordinarily gifted man who made an
enormous contribution. When I say gifted, I mean he
could turn out prodigious amounts of work. He could
draw boat lines, intricate boat lines, and carry on an ani-
mated conversation on an entirely different subject at the
same time. He was the first man in our field, a completely
virgin field. There was an abundance of material scat-
tered around just to be had for the asking, and he
attempted to gather in so much that quite naturally he
sometimes missed things. Sometimes he arrived at con-
clusions intuitively rather than from laborious digging.
Sometimes his intuitions were not accurate, although they
could be enormously brilliant. He read extensively but
kept few notes. Occasionally his references are not to be
trusted completely. Yet you have to give the man credit;
he did a tremendous amount of work when no one else was
paying any attention to it. He got the thing started, but
some of what he did has to be refined.
Marion Brewington, another pioneer, was a meticulous
researcher, extremely fussy about the most minute details.
He and Chapelle in the beginning were quite close friends,
and I knew them both. Some of the slips that Chapelle
made, Brewington couldn't take. On the other hand,
Chapelle said he just couldn't understand Brewington. Yet
Chapelle was an extremely generous person, was always
sharing his information. He was also argumentative and
his politics were quite conservative. You have to give
Chapelle credit for what he did, and you need to be cau-
tious about what you accept without checking. Inciden-
tally, I believe that goes for all of us.
But boats weren't my only interest. I was very much
involved in Freudian psychology at that time and still have
a whole Freudian library, which I don't read anymore. I
almost wrote a book on the Oneida Community. I still
have the copious notes. I researched the obscure literature
in the Widener Library at Harvard after getting special
entree through a friend. I spent hours in the Boston Ath-
enaeum, the Hart Nautical Library, and the Boston Medi-
cal Library.
At the same time I was a contributing editor of
Contemporary Issues magazine, which was published in
England and has since gone out of existence. I wrote
under the pseudonym of Clarkson. I did a long study of
the Rosenburg case, one of the first analyses of what was
going on. I did a very long analysis of the early back-
ground of atomic energy, with the mistaken notion that it
was going to solve all our energy problems. Some of the
others connected with the magazine thought otherwise.
But I was wrong, and I know it now. I contributed to other
publications as well, including Balanced Living, published
by The School for Living. This was on ecology—back to
the land, organic gardening—long before the present
interest in that sort of thing. All this took quite a bit of
time and research. I received no money at all; I did it just
for the interest. I was making enough at the boatyard to
get by on, but you might say it wasn't a life of luxury.
Very early on in my writing for the Maine Coast Fisher-
man I did a series of articles on the Whitehall boat, which
marked the beginning of the Whitehall revival. Previous
to that the boat was pretty much forgotten except for a
short article Capt. Charleton Smith had done for Rudder
back in 1943. About 1958 or 1959 Kenneth Durant, after
retiring from journalism, became interested in Adirondack
guideboat history. He started out with the idea that the
guideboat might have developed from the Whitehall, and
got in touch with me. From then until his death in 1972 we
had a very productive working relationship. We shared
research and boatbuilding knowledge. He was researching
in Hanover, New Hampshire, Cambridge, New York, and
he had contacts abroad. We were together accumulating a
a great deal of boatbuilding background, both history and
development. Durant was working in conjunction with the
Adirondack Museum, and it was through him that I began
to work on and off with that museum as a consultant. And
it was because of Ed Lynch, whom I worked with at the
museum, that I came to Mystic Seaport in 1969.
When Ed Lynch went to Mystic as curator he decided
he wanted to start a small craft program. He arranged to
have me hired. At the time I was still living in Lynn and
working at Dion's in Salem, and it would be necessary for
me to move to Connecticut. But it was a very promising
job in many ways. I was getting older, and I could look
ahead and see that the type of work that I was doing in the
boatyard would be getting harder and harder for me.
Although I liked the work at Dion's, it was fairly difficult,
particularly in the wintertime, as we worked in unheated
sheds. I was almost at retirement age. I came to Mystic for
more money than I was getting in the boatyard, and it was
a very interesting type of work, more or less a continuation,
a culmination, of something that had been building up
and growing for a long time.
When I came to Mystic there was no small craft pro-
gram at all. I hunted around for a place and found an
unoccupied corner of a storage shed where they had
wagons and sleighs. I took that space and built a bench
from materials I picked up around the Seaport and started
building a boat. I also started traveling around New
England for the Museum buying up tools. There were
many holes in the Museum's collection. Tool collecting at
that time had not quite reached the dramatic proportions
that it has reached today, and I got a lot of good buys.
That first year, 1969, I was invited to go to the Thou-
sand Islands as a judge at the antique boat show, which
was then in its fourth or fifth year. But there were no small
craft. I saw St. Lawrence skiffs, which I had been inter-
ested in since I first went to work in Marblehead, and I
suggested that they enlarge the program from one to two
days and include small craft. The next year they did. I got
the idea from there that we should have some sort of small
craft meet at Mystic, with the result that in the summer of
1970, the following year, we had our first rowing work-
shop. That was the first meet of recreational small craft in
this country, and it was the beginning of a continuing
movement.
That winter I decided to institute instruction in boat-
building at Mystic Seaport, but not vocational boatbuild-
ing. Ed Lynch had been toying with the idea of vocational
instruction, but had discovered that there are all sorts of
state regulations we would have to meet, which didn't seem
feasible. It didn't seem to me that the regulations would
prevent us from having instruction in recreational boat-
building. We started our program in the winter of 1970-
71. It was the first of its kind, to be followed later by
Lance Lee's establishment of the Apprenticeshop in Bath,
Maine, where he felt that boatbuilding could be used to
mold character. He, too, succeeded, and many other
similar programs followed from those beginnings.
As you can see, I have concentrated on small craft all of
my life—unlike Howard Chapelle, for example, who
studied the larger boats and ships as well —perhaps
because that was what I was interested in as a boy, and in a
the old sense, for the farmer, by himself and by farm-
ing, can get nothing to buy them with. He can receive
them only through free distribution of some sort. But
he need not be ashamed to receive a gift, for it is no
gift. It is his own to begin with; his own share of the
social inheritance, the fruit of the labors of untold
generations of laboring and striving humans who were
his progenitors..."
"...For those who have qualms about receiving charity,
it would be well to realize that the Guaranteed Income
is not charity but one's own property, one's inheritance
that most humans of normal, decent impulses will not
lapse into aimless indolence upon receiving such means
for a good life, but will rather be inspired and quick-
ened in adding some contribution of their own to the
great onflowing stream of goods and benefits of which
they are beneficiaries during their lifetime. "
The following excerpts are from an article by John
Gardner entitled "Chemical Hazards in the Boat-
yard," published in the April 1955 edition of Yachting
magazine. It was based on an article originally appear-
ing a few months previously in Maine Coast Fisherman
and could very well be the first article in a boating
publication directing attention to chemical hazards in
the boating industry. Like much of Gardner's work, it
broke considerable ground.
"...Chemicals in bewildering profusion are moving
into the boatyard and the backyard, bringing hazards
undreamed of in the old days when tar, pitch, and tur-
pentine held sway and paints were standard com-
pounds of lead and copper. Of course lead and copper
are poisonous when taken into the body in sufficient
quantity. Lead poisoning or 'painters colic' is the
classic type of cumulative poisoning to be met with in
the boatyard. Lead poisoning rarely occurs today
because experience has made it second nature with
painters to guard against it. Lead is not eliminated
from the body, and when ingested over extended
periods, even in minute amounts, can build up to path-
ological and even fatal accumulations. But, unlike
some of the newer 'industrial poisons,' standard lead
compounds are not absorbed through the skin, so it was
mainly a matter of guarding against entry through the
mouth. Professional painters generally were safe if
they followed simple precautions like washing before
eating and keeping the fingernails clean.
Such limited precautions no longer suffice. There
are products today that affect the skin or are absorbed
through it to injure internal organs. Harmful vapors
may be breathed into the lungs. And with the uncon-
trolled use of power sanders, chemical dust has become
a real h a z a r d . . . "
"...With the coming into universal use of power Sand-
ers and fast cutting abrasive papers, one of the hazards
from paint is from its dust. Paint dust was always bad.
For years hardy souls at fitting out time have crawled
from beneath low-lying bottoms, spitting and blowing
red or green for days after. But old methods involving
scraper, remover, and the hand sanding block did not
raise the whirling clouds of fine dust thrown into the
air by fast-spinning disc sanders. It is so easy to grab
the handle, flick the switch—and how the dust does
fly! Perhaps the bottom was painted last spring 1500
miles away. Boats move around a lot. Who knows
what it was painted with? Meantime the dust clouds
are swirling red, green, or brown. Chances are the
enthusiastic operator is not wearing a respirator, nor
even a dampened handkerchief tied across his nose to
filter out the coarser particles.
There are also oscillating sanders and belt sanders.
The backyard boat outfitter depends a great deal upon
sanders. Unless precautions are taken, including the
use of efficient respirators, the cumulative trapping of
paint dust in the lungs is bound to be felt sooner or
later. Furthermore, paint dust does the eyes no good..."
40/WoodenBoat 35
certain way I am reliving my boyhood. I have always
stressed practical experience in addition to theoretical
study, perhaps because my father placed a high value on
manual skills with woodworking tools. When I did a good
job, I was praised for it. Maybe that's part of the reason I
get satisfaction from using hand tools now. There is prob-
ably a psychological connection.
Sure, I could have turned my efforts to recording the
lines and details of larger vessels and luxury yachts, but my
deeper interests lay with the smaller, simpler craft of my
boyhood on the St. Croix River. And there were good
examples of such craft still conveniently at hand in Salem
and Marblehead thirty and forty years ago. I was drawn to
them, as I was not to the larger craft, and it was easier,
too. As it turned out, there are many people now
interested in building boats, and they do well to turn to the
simpler, smaller craft of traditional design, in making a
start. My interests coincide with theirs.
Traditional small craft are the field of my study and
practical experience, but I have always been experiment-
ing in new techniques within that framework. There are
those who see this as something of a paradox —but innova-
tion is traditional. If you will go back in the development
of boatbuilding, you will find that builders were innovative
and always ready to adopt anything that came along that
was good. In fact, boatbuilders seem to be more innova-
tive than sailors, who tend to stick with what is tried and
proven. There's a good reason for that. Sailors don't want
to go out to sea in an experiment and drown.
Boatbuilders, on the other hand, want to do the job as
quickly as they can. One of the bywords of the trade is:
"Hurry up. The man wants his boat." You hear that a
dozen times a day around a professional boatshop. Some-
times it is said in earnest and sometimes it is said satiric-
36 WoodenBoat/40
ally, but either way the emphasis among boatbuilders is to
use techniques and materials that will get the job done
quickly, yet produce a satisfactory boat.
Innovation has always made the difference. Without
the type of wood screw with a point on it that we have
today, a great many traditional boats would not have been
built. We all consider the Adirondack guideboat to be tra-
ditional. Yet it could not have been built until self-tapping
wood screws and small copper tacks came along. Those
fastenings were just as much an innovation a hundred
years ago as epoxy resins are today.
There is misunderstanding of the meaning I give to tra-
ditional boats. I have explained the concept a number of
times, but it still doesn't seem to sink in for many people.
To me, traditional boatbuilding means the type of boat
construction that blossomed toward the end of the 19th
century. That period was one of immense technical pro-
gress in every area, and it was the culmination of refined
and perfected boatbuilding techniques extending back
over a period of centuries. There was a proliferation of
small-craft types for sail and oar perfected to the ultimate
for speed and convenience. The boats were quite different
in the Chesapeake than they were in the Gulf of Maine or
the swamps of Louisiana or San Francisco Bay or Boston
Harbor. Boatbuilding was to some extent an ethnic melt-
ing pot, and this all came to a head, blossomed, so to
speak, toward the end of the 19th century before the
advent of the gasoline engine.
Yet the end came very quickly. In ten years, between
1900 and 1910, all the Hampton boats in Casco Bay,
Maine, were converted to gasoline engines, because they
would no longer have to depend on the wind. Americans
are prone to adopt new things even when it's not advisable
to do so. They might be sorry afterwards, but it doesn't
stop them from doing it. Given this climate, then, all the
refinements, all these diverse boat types, were no longer in
demand because you could stick a gasoline engine in any
old tub. Such craft didn't have to be hydrodynamically
perfect any more.
Everything changed, the old boatbuilders were no
longer needed, they died off, and boatbuilding to the
standards of the late 19th century died with them. Such
boatbuilding had never been recorded, as it had been car-
ried on by rule-of-thumb methods. It was almost an illiter-
ate trade until fairly recently. So with the advent of the
gasoline engine, plus many other changes in American life
brought on by the automobile, the bicycle, and the canvas
canoe, we came to the end of an era.
When I talk about traditional boats, I mean that per-
fection of design and technique for boats of oar and sail
that came into predominance in the last decade of the 19th
century. Yet I also believe that if the boatbuilding of that
time had been allowed to progress naturally as it had
before then, it would have evolved gradually, picking up
new methods and techniques as it went. Therefore, I see
no contradiction when plywood and epoxy are applied to
the perfected designs of the late 19th century. Not at all.
It's a mistake to think that all progress came to an end at a
certain juncture, and that there was no chance for
improvement after that. We must not restrict ourselves
only to what was done in the past. Definitely not.
What do I think about the future of wooden boat
building? It seems to me at the present time in some areas
it is taking on the characteristics of a fad, and I don't like
it. A lot of people are jumping on a bandwagon. Some are
doing it because they think it is a way to attract tourists or
get some easy money from a foundation, and I wish it were
not developing as fast, or along some of the lines that it is.
I am also concerned about its vocational aspect. I have
been making a certain amount of restrained comment con-
cerning vocational programs, considering that there is
little prospect that all who graduate will get jobs building
wooden boats at wages they can live on. As you no doubt
recall, I wrote a short piece for the fourth Manner's Cat-
alog advising young people interested in learning to build
boats that perhaps the best way would be for them to teach
themselves, while they held down a stopgap job of some
sort to put bread on the table. Find a place to set up
a bench, hang around boatshops and watch, read the
books, start collecting hand tools, and begin with a simple
boat with the idea of selling it. After a couple of years they
will know if they want to build boats for a living, and
should have enough equipment to start out in business in a
small way, if they do. They will have supported themselves
in the meantime, won't be out any tuition, and will have
learned much of value on their own.
I don't want to sound negative about this. That is far-
thest from my intention. I think I see a better future for
wooden boat building than what we have today, even
though it will be primarily in the recreational field. I have
felt that way all along. There will always be people who
will want wooden boats for recreation, and many won't
want to build them themselves. Consequently, there will
always be a place for a few commercial shops building a
limited number of wooden boats. I hope that in the pro-
cess the best that was developed in the past will be
preserved and passed on, but I should expect this heritage
to be reworked and even improved to some extent to meet
the needs and preferences of future times. Our obligation
is to make sure that the richness of our small-craft heritage
is passed on intact to the generations that will come after
us.
40/WoodenBoat 37
THE ELEMENTS OF SEAMANSHIP
Readers familiar with that wonderful little book about writing, The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White, may
detect therein a certain inspiration for the title of this series and even for its approach to the subject. Though I may
never equal Messrs. Strunk and White in clarity and brevity, I may yet surpass them in dogmatism.
A vessel may be defined as an object
that keeps water either in or out;
it is the latter sort that concerns us.
Keeping the water out is not only
the first and most important element
of seamanship, but also it is the only
necessary element of seamanship. All
the other elements of seamanship are
mere niceties, but keeping the water
out is a necessity.
Going on the water without drown-
ing is the sure proof of successful sea-
manship, while drowning is equally
sure proof that seamanship failed.
Whatever else may befall your vessel,
if you can keep the water out of her
(and hang onto her), you won't
drown.
I make no attempt here to discuss
the vital element of luck, but I hereby
acknowledge its omnipresence and its
power to drown good seamen and save
lousy ones. (I would also like to
announce at this time that the ele-
ments of seamanship are equally use-
ful to both of the sexes.)
The very first thing to do without
fail every time you go on board any
vessel of any size, whether she belongs
to you or to a stranger, is to look in the
bilge to see if there is any water in
there. Don't ever assume a dry bilge.
Look in there and see for yourself.
(On a stranger's vessel, looking in the
bilge may require tact or even secrecy,
but do not be deterred.)
38 WoodenBoat/40
I learned a lot of seamanship in the
United States Navy. As duty officer in
a moored submarine, I had to get up
in the middle of the night and walk
through the boat to make sure every-
thing was all right. There were plenty
of technical things we were supposed
to check up on, but the most impor-
tant thing we did was shine a flashlight
down into the bilge in each compart-
ment to see if any water had come in.
When the captain came down to the
dock in the morning, he knew you had
had a successful night's duty if he
could see his submarine still on the
surface.
The Navy goes to great lengths to
try to keep as much water as possible
out of its vessels. Its designers divide
the ships up into many watertight
compartments on the theory that if
water should start coming into the
vessel for some untoward reason, the
more watertight bulkheads around the
better. Navy sailors, helped by com-
partmentation, have controlled the
flooding of many a badly damaged
ship, saving the vessels to fight again
another day.
Compartmentation works,
course, in any size vessel. One of the
most comforting things I have in my
25' schooner is a watertight bulkhead
right across the middle of her.
Good seamanship requires a vivid
imagination. The best of intentions
and care cannot always ensure a dry
bilge. Imagine your vessel half-full of
water, and imagine how you will get it
out. The quicker you can get the
water out of your vessel, the better.
More may be coming in even as you
start.
The best tool for removing water
from a vessel is a bucket. Don't skimp
on size, strength, or number. If access
to the water in the vessel and to her
rail over which it must be thrown is
available to more than one person,
then more than one bucket may be
used at once. Of course the accessibi-
lity of the water and the distance to the
rail may require a bucket brigade, but
I would hate to be a member of that
brigade who had to wait precious
seconds between bucket passes simply
because there weren't enough buckets
on board.
The horse people are way ahead of
us sailors when it comes to buckets.
Their black, somewhat flexible, heavy
rubber ones are relatively light and
easy to handle, yet seem indestruc-
tible. The lip of a flexible bucket can
take the shape — somewhat — of that
of part of the vessel it is bailing. Metal
buckets are all right. Plastic buckets
may break, especially when it's cold.
I'd hate to be scared, cold, and bailing
like anything, only to have the bucket
break.
Pumps can remove water from ves-
Drawings by Jan Adkins
 Keeping the WATER OUT
by Roger C. Taylor
sels. Big diaphragm pumps and big
lift pumps can move water fairly
quickly. Small pumps will only move
water slowly. Have big pumps, not
small ones.
With suitable lengths of intake and
discharge hoses on a pump, one person
can move water all the way from
rather inaccessible places to over-
board. But remember that if there is
enough water inside the vessel to
endanger her, most of it will probably
be accessible to the bucket.
There are pumps that run on gaso-
line and pumps that run on electricity,
as well as those that run on elbow
grease. If the former are big pumps,
they may be able to move water faster
than can a seaman-operated pump.
The seaman-operated pump will
nearly always start and, within reason,
run as long as needed. Portable
pumps are more versatile and repair-
able than fixed pumps.
Bailers smaller than buckets can be
bought, made, or improvised. The
first bailer I had was a little rectangu-
lar bicarbonate of soda can (without
the top) that exactly fit the rectangu-
lar chine of my punt.
For drying out the bilge after bail-
ing or pumping, nothing comes any-
where near an old towel.
I f the water gains on bailing and/or
pumping, the only way to keep from
sinking is to find a way to support the
vessel other than by her own buoyancy.
Think about borrowing buoyancy
from one or more other vessels that
may have a reserve of it to lend you.
Tricky business, this, and frought with
potential danger to rescuer and res-
cued. Many strong lines, well
attached, and many fenders would be
the chief ingredients for success. If
more than one of the adjacent vessels is
rigged, you must focus part of your
attention aloft. Collision will only
complicate matters.
Think of supporting your vessel
with a shoal bottom under her keel.
In other words, think of running her
ashore as a lesser evil than sinking.
Here is a nice dilemma: How much
crew energy do you devote to getting
the water out and how much to
propelling the vessel toward the
support of the shore? The idea, of
course, is to get there before you sink.
If it's obvious you will get there
before you sink, then you have some
little choice about exactly what part of
the shore you will use for your support.
Look primarily for shelter from waves
(both now and in the future) and
secondarily for evenness and softness
of bottom.
I once had to run a 10' skiff ashore
because she was gradually being over-
whelmed by wind and sea, and I had
no one to bail. Luckily (remember
that ever-present factor?) , there was to
leeward a large sand flat covered with
40/WoodenBoat 39
weeds. Their fronds welcomed and
encircled us, keeping the waves away
while I bailed the water out.
Even though your vessel has been
designed and built specifically to keep
water out, still there are many ways for
it to get in, some obvious, some
insidious.
If the material from which the hull
of a vessel is made is in more than one
piece, the joint or joints may leak.
Leaks in joints occur because the joint
opens up for some reason, such as its
fastenings carrying away or the stuff
that was crammed into it to make it
watertight coming adrift. These
calamities are generally caused, in
turn, by sudden stress on the hull,
either by the hull's hitting something,
such as a wave, the bottom, or another
hull, or by severe stress being imparted
to the hull by the rig.
Pay close attention to your hull
joints, and do everything in your
power to make them strong and water-
tight before you put your vessel in the
water. Having done that, take the
precaution of doing everything in your
power to keep your vessel from hitting
anything, and don't put undue stress
on your rig and thus on your hull.
Some designers and builders drill
holes right through the hulls of vessels.
The truth is that some sailors give a
higher priority to such mundane acti-
vities as cooling their engines, pump-
ing their water closets, and draining
their sinks than they do to keeping the
water out of their vessels. Perhaps
they think they can do both at once.
If you yourself are tempted to try these
tricks, remember that it is a dangerous
business to drill holes in something
that is supposed to keep water out.
Take precautions.
If you drill a hole through the hull
of your vessel and stick the pipe that
drains the sink into it, make the pipe
as strong as the hull, because you are
now depending on the pipe as much as
40 WoodenBoat/40
on the hull to keep the water out of that it would be a good idea to drill
your vessel. Put a valve in the pipe just still another hole in the hull through
as close to the hull as you can get it. which the pump could discharge
You can use the valve to shut the sea water. The check valve in the pump
out of the pipe if the pipe should fail was broken, and it was this last hole
for any reason. Of course the valve through which water was pouring into
must be as strong as the hull. It should the vessel.
also be the simplest type of valve so If a vessel has one or more engines,
that as little as possible can go wrong she will have to have one or more
with it. The simplest type of valve is propeller shafts going out through
the gate valve, the kind that slides a holes in the hull to connect the engines
heavy gate across the opening in the with the propellers. Here is another
pipe as you turn the handle clockwise. nice dilemma: If you leave the shaft
(Here's some more Navy seamanship: bearing loose enough so that the shaft
When you open a valve to leave it will turn with the greatest of ease,
open, don't leave it jammed open, for water will leak in around the shaft; if
you may not be able to shut it again you tighten the stuffing box around
just when you want to most. Open it the shaft bearing so tightly that no
all the way, and then give the handle water can leak in, the shaft won't turn.
one-eighth of a turn toward shut. So you compromise and get a drip.
That way the valve is always ready to That's all right, but a stuffing box
be shut quickly.) changes. A turning shaft wears away
If you drill a hole through your packing. When a vessel is out of
hull, don't make it inaccessible by cov- water, packing dries out. Be suspici-
ering it up with built-in furniture. Be ous of your stuffing boxes.
able to reach those holes. Cut a
wooden plug to fit every hole you drill
in your hull, and keep the plugs
handy.
T here once was a lad who had a
hole in his boat into which water
was pouring. He sought advice about
this and was told to bore another hole
in his boat so the water could run back
out. This he did, but the boat sank
and the boy drowned. When I first
heard this story, I thought it wasn't
true, but years later, in one of the
Naval Academy's Luders yawls, I
found that it was true. We went on
board and looked in the bilge. There
was a lot of water in there, and it was
gradually getting deeper. The vessel
had a permanently installed bilge
pump to remove any water that might
get into her from any of the several
holes that had been drilled in her hull,
or for any other reason. But someone
had advised the builder of the vessel
 When a friend and I went on
board a handsome sloop to fetch her
home from the yard, the first thing we
did was look in the bilge. There was a
lot of water in there. It was coming in
through the stuffing box, which
needed tightening.
Watertight cockpits are only as
watertight as their way of draining
their water back overboard. Cockpit
drains, their through-hull fittings, and
their hull valves must all be as strong
as the hull.
Be prepared to stop leaks. Be
ready to tighten stuffing boxes. Be
ready to plug holes you have drilled in
your hull. Be prepared to stop water
from coming in through joints that
have opened up. Be ready to cover
large holes created by catastrophe.
All these operations are best done
from the outside so that the pressure of
the water trying to get in tends to
tighten rather than loosen your repair
work. Small leaks can be stopped with
gazoozalem applied with a putty knife.
Massive leaks will require massive car-
pentry using a large sheet of water-
proof material fastened securely
against the hull and, ideally, seated on
a gasket of soft, waterproof material.
Sailors stopping massive leaks need
that vivid imagination. If a piece of
lead, canvas, or plywood, and the
nails, and the use-it-underwater putty
that you brought along for this emer-
gency will get the job done, fine. But
if your vessel is too small for this
kind of gear, or the leak is too big for
it, then you have to turn your mind
to whatever substitutes are within
reach. You may have to cannibalize,
which may bring on some more
nice dilemmas: Can I afford to use
the ketch's only mizzen for a collision
mat?
It may not be possible to reach the
leak from the outside if it is far under-
water or if the sea is rough (which it
generally seems to be when most leaks
occur). Then you have to work from
the inside, against sea pressure.
Merely fastening a patch against the
hull won't be enough. You have to
press it against the hull with shoring
wedged in, pushing from solid struc-
ture across the vessel from the leak.
This procedure suggests the necessity
or the use of more imagination, both
before the leak starts by providing on
board the kinds of materials you will
need, and after it starts in the building
of a well-engineered structure without
blueprints.
As if it were not enough that the
sea has so many methods of finding its
way into your vessel, the very heavens
themselves can occasionally open up
and rain down into your vessel from
overhead. There is nothing deceptive
about this way Mother Nature has of
trying to sink you, but only in extreme
cases of procrastination at the pump
will she succeed. Of course sailors
whose vessels have watertight decks,
hatches, and cockpits may laugh at the
rain. It is only those sailors whose
bilges are directly or indirectly open to
the sky who need worry.
Unwanted liquid in your bilge may
not always come from sea or sky.
Freshwater tanks have been known to
spring leaks, as have fuel tanks. But
here we are talking about the mere
untidiness of having a certain type of
liquid come unstowed; there is no
danger of foundering. In such an
event, the automatic electric bilge
pump can play a nasty trick on you.
As fast as your diesel fuel leaks into the
bilge, this helpful little fellow chucks it
right overboard without so much as a
by-your-leave. This happened to me
in the Bay of Fundy one night, and I
had 12 hours of a slatting calm in
which to lecture myself about being
unobservant.
T he chief reason I like to go on the
water is because I am endlessly
fascinated by its waves. Perpetual
motion. These beguiling waves, how-
ever, can make it very hard for a sailor
to keep water out of his vessel. They
may become large and steep and break
right over the top of the vessel, or they
may become even larger and steeper
and catch the vessel up in their crest as
they break, flinging her right down on
her beam ends, or, worse, turning her
upside down.
Waves are caused mostly by the
wind. And the wind, by itself, can
cause water to get into a vessel, at least
a sailing vessel, by heeling her over so
far that openings into the top of the
vessel are submerged. The sailor's
most common complaint of this nature
is when the gunwale of his small, open
boat goes under.
It is prudent for the seaman to
study these phenomena of wave and
wind while he can from the security of
dry land and use his vivid imagination
to envision how he would cope with
their various sizes and strengths.
Let's imagine the wind first. Study
the Beaufort Scale carefully, using a
complete copy that gives the time-
honored descriptions of the numbered
40/WoodenBoat 41
forces, words well used by seamen
since time long before Beaufort, words
such as fresh breeze and moderate
gale. Note the verbal descriptions of
the sea for each wind force; think
about the verbal description of how
traditional vessels react to each wind
force. Imagine how your vessel would
react under various sail combinations
to each force of wind described. A ves-
sel will generally "take" more wind
than you think she will, which is A
Very Good Thing.
The worst trick the wind can play
on you is to blow suddenly two or three
times as hard as it has been blowing,
and, if it really wants to be nasty, blow
from abeam all at once instead of from
on the bow. Your vessel will be
knocked down. Any opening that goes
under water will admit a torrent of
water. A man on Lake Megunticook
expressed best to me a few years ago
how to keep this from happening:
"You'd better watch for those black
cannonballs," he said.
When a hard gust strikes, the first
thing to do is luff. Ease the boat up
into the wind a ways, just a little if the
gust is not too hard, and quite a lot if
it is very hard. The idea is to ease her
just enough to keep the water out and
no more. If you ease her more than
enough to keep the water out, you'll
lose speed to no purpose. In any
event, you don't want to luff her so
much that she loses steerageway. A
boat that won't answer the helm
caught in a gust is vulnerable to a
severe knockdown, precisely because
she can't be luffed.
If luffing won't keep the water out,
ease your sheets, too. Unless the boat
has too much weather helm, it's
important to ease head sheets as well
as after sheets. If you ease after sheets
only, she may pay off just when you
want her to luff.
If the blast is of such ferocity that
luffing and easing sheets still won't
keep the water out, then you need to
let go halyards, get the sails down, and
take stock of the situation.
Sailing singlehanded in my 14'
Whitehall boat, it's not all that rarely
that I am overpowered, particularly
when I have refused to reef to a gusty
northwester. Most of my sailing in
that boat is done just to the southeast
of the Camden Hills, so a northwester
can seldom reach down with great
strength, and there is great temptation
to say the-hell-with-it-I'm-not-reefing-
for-this-fickle-breeze. But when the
northwester does reach down, he does
so with great gusto and then you're
sorry you didn't. When that happens,
I scramble up onto the weather rail,
luff her all I dare (I put a long hiking
stick on the tiller), and slack away the
42 WoodenBoat/40
sheet until only a tiny pocket down
near the tack of the sail is full of wind.
She puts her lee rail just under, water
comes cascading in, and I mutter a
few mutters about northwesters, their
ancestors, and where I hope they will
end up.
I should be muttering about my
own lack of patience. The way to deal
with a northwester is to shorten right
down, bask in the sunshine, enjoy the
spectacular visibility, and sail her right
through the gusts. The Whitehall
seems to reach a state of equilibrium
with her lee gunwale two or three
inches underwater (a very powerful
argument for narrow side decks on any
open boat that is to travel under sail).
She takes in relatively small or large
amounts of water depending on the
length of the gust. Fortunately these
gusts are seldom very long at all, and
when I get her stopped and upright by
letting go the sheet and gradually put-
ting the helm hard alee as she loses all
headway, I find that she has only three
or four inches of water in the bottom,
an amount the horse bucket makes
short work of.
One time a big gang of us were out
sailing my 37' skipjack on Chesapeake
Bay. A fresh northeaster backed to
northwest and suddenly breezed right
up. We were already scalding back for
Annapolis and didn't realize that the
northwester really meant business
until with the wind about abeam she
received a blast that sent the lee
bulwarks right under and allowed
water to come thundering up across a
wide flat deck tilted to an alarming
new angle we hadn't seen before.
Such violence seemed to call for a
drastic reaction. Skipping mere luffing
and easing of sheets, I ran from wheel
to mast, threw off the main halyard,
and hauled down hard on its other end
tied into the head of the sail with a
bowline. In a very short time we were
racing happily along under just the jib
with the hauled-down mainsail held
up on the broad-off boom by its many
lazyjacks. There was little in that rig
capable — b y failing—of preventing
one person from reducing the vessel's
sail area by 600 square feet in a few
seconds.
In a little vessel the unexpected
shifting of live ballast can cause water
to get in. Once a friend and I were
trying out an uncle's new little ply-
wood catboat. We were running up
the river dead before a fresh breeze.
It came time to jibe, and,
unbeknownst to me, as we prepared
for the maneuver, my friend was rea-
soning to himself that if the crew
changed sides when tacking, then he
must also change sides when jibing.
When we jibed, he came over to my
side of the boat along with the boom.
That's the only time in my life I ever
tipped a boat over. We were extraor-
dinarily lucky. We pulled this neat
maneuver right beside our moored
yawl and Pop wasn't on board!
D on't try to outguess thunder
squalls. Assume every one of
them is going to blow a living gale for
a short time. Even the rhyme "When
the rain's before the wind..." is some-
times wrong.
You can be overpowered by a
breeze that is consistently too much for
your vessel even under much-reduced
sail. That's what lead to my running
my little sailing skiff into protective
weeds on a lee shore. We were cross-
ing a fairly wide river, and she was
half-full of water with two-thirds of
the way to go. In that situation, I
thought tacking and broad reaching
back was less likely to result in a
capsize than stopping and bailing out
even with the sail down. I thought my
best chance to keep her from taking in
any more water was to get her moving
toward shelter under sail but not close-
hauled.
Some people say you should
practice capsizing "so you won't be
afraid of it." I say you should be
afraid of tipping over, especially if the
water is at all cold, and that you
should practice assiduously at not cap-
sizing.
While strong winds can lead
indirectly to water entering your
vessel, there is just nothing like a big
wave for undoing directly and sud-
denly all your efforts at keeping the
water out.
Observe waves on all scales from
mud puddle ripples to great ocean
breakers. Watch how small waves
combine and how a wave runs in —
suddenly—from a new direction.
When big seas do this, they are at their
most dangerous.
Imagine your vessel's response to
every wave you see. Realize that wind
strength is only one factor in wave
making; fetch, and the length of time
the wind has been blowing are equally
important. An oceanographer named
Charles Brettschneider did a great ser-
vice to sailors by writing equations
(later portrayed in a graph) showing
the interrelationship of the three fac-
tors and their effect on wave size.
The first indication you get that
waves want to deposit part of their
contents inside your vessel is spray.
When water, even in small quantities,
o'erleaps the rail, there is more to fol-
low unless something changes. The
hope in a sailor's heart often convinces
him that the waves will get smaller so
the spray will stop flying. Such opti-
mism may or may not prove to be well the waves go by, I trim in again as long as you keep a big breaking sea
founded, but when the spray begins to smartly and resume sailing as I was astern, there is always danger of get-
fly, you should start thinking about before being so rudely interrupted. ting pooped. Depending on circum-
either slowing down your vessel or To avoid shipping a sea over the stances, it may be more or less of a
changing her course to go more with stern of your vessel —getting pooped danger than shipping a sea when hove
the waves. Few sailors mind a little they call it —you can steer carefully or to with the waves on the bow, or ship-
spray flying. The tang of salt on the round up and heave to, taking the sea ping a sea with the vessel lying ahull
lips. Invigorating. Also a warning on the bow. Some sailors say slowing (simply left to her own devices with no
that the waves are trying to get into down helps when running in a big sea- sail set and the sea coming from some-
your vessel. way, while others say speeding up where near the weather beam).
helps. The former theory is based on Whichever way you head your ves-
T he thing to be avoided is to ship a
sea. A sea contains a very great
deal of water, and some or all of it
creating a less turbulent wake, which
might cause a following sea to break
on board. The latter theory is based
sel in big breaking seas, it may be pos-
sible to get some measure of protection
from a long loop of anchor line let out
coming on board may find its way on reducing the relative speed of the to windward and/or the casting of oil
inside, depending on whether your overtaking sea. The fact remains that upon the waters. A most promising
vessel is open or decked and whether
or not her deck openings are sealed. A
great deal of water traveling along at
some speed represents a great deal of
force, and this force may do damage
to your vessel. The same people who
groan under the weight of a 10-gallon
jerry can of water pretend to be sur-
prised when big, fast-moving seas
bend heavy steel stanchions.
You can avoid shipping a head sea
by steering carefully and by slowing
down your vessel. It's amazing how
much small differences in speed make
in a head sea.
One time we were going dead to
windward in the winter trades in our
surfaced submarine. We were experi-
encing the noonday lull, when the
breeze drops to maybe 25 knots and
the seas seem to moderate a little.
We were making maybe five knots
through the water, and even at that
reduced speed a big sea every now and
then would send plenty of spray over
our relatively low open bridge. But
that hadn't happened for quite a
while, so, from down in the conning
tower, I called Maneuvering and said,
"Add 10 turns." A little more power
was applied to the screws to bring their
revolutions up by 10. No big deal.
Might add a quarter knot at the most.
Ten minutes later there was a huge
crash as a big sea reached high enough
to shatter our heavy plexiglass wind-
shield, giving the officer of the deck a
cut on the cheek. I took back my 10
turns, and all was relatively serene for
the rest of the watch.
You can avoid shipping a sea over
the side of your vessel by steering care-
fully, by running off more with the
seas, or by heaving to with the sea on
the bow. Don't forget when sailing a
small open boat that a powerboat
going by to leeward will send a beam
sea right toward your perhaps nearly
submerged lee gunwale. When this
happens to me, I let the sheet run right
out just before the guy's waves hit me,
so that the nearly submerged gunwale
will come right up to its normal height
with the boat level. Then as soon as
40/WoodenBoat 43
tactic to me is lying ahull with a big
loop of line up to windward, adjusted
at the ends of the vessel to keep the sea
abaft the beam, and with oil spread
inside the bight.
Though shipping a sea is certainly
to be avoided, it need not be a disaster
if your vessel is decked, has a water-
tight cockpit, and has her deck open-
ings strongly sealed. It's a good idea to
have deck openings as near the center-
line as possible. The more deck open-
ings, the harder to keep the water out.
T he worst thing the sea can do is
turn your vessel upside down. A
wave may roll her right down on her
beam ends and on over. Or one may
lift her stern so high that her bow digs
in, she trips on it, and does a somer-
sault, with a half-twist thrown in or
44 WoodenBoat/40
not, as the case may be. Pitchpoling is
the all-too-descriptive term used.
Imagining these horrors, sailors
begin to think of very strong compan-
ionway hatchboards that are locked
down into position, coupled with very
strong companionway slides locked
aft; of hatches, skylights, and tops to
those abominable cockpit lockers that
ought to be outlawed because they are
not lockers at all but simply hatches
opening the whole after pan of the
vessel to the cockpit —hatches,
skylights, and tops that can be dogged
shut at each corner against a heavy
gasket; and of heavy shutters that can
be dogged down over cabin house
windows. (The danger is not always
the direct assault of the wave coming
down on you from the weather side.
The VERTUE xxxv had her lee deck-
house window smashed in by a sea
when a wave rolled her down against
that sea.)
If you want to read a hair-raising
story of people keeping enough water
out of a vessel rolled over by huge seas
to keep her afloat and get her going
again, read Miles Smeeton's account
of how he and his wife, Beryl, and
their companion, John Guzzwell, did
just that in their ketch HZU HANG in
the Roaring Forties. The book is
called Once Is Enough.
Shipping a sea in an open boat, a
half-decked boat, or a boat with an
open cockpit is something else again.
It is A Very Good Thing, of course, if
such vessels can remain afloat even
though full of water. An unballasted,
wooden boat can, but a boat made of
a dense hull material or a ballasted
boat will need flotation, in the form of
light plastic containing air cells, or air
tanks, or maybe even inflatable air
bags, if she is to stay afloat when full of
water.
A good sailor realizes that however
clever his tactics for keeping waves out
of his vessel, there can come along
some day a wave big and steep enough
to destroy all his defenses, get inside
his vessel, and fill her right up. A
good sailor can imagine that happen-
ing to him.
As long as your vessel stays afloat,
stay with her. Your greatest chance of
saving your life is to save your vessel.
When that proves impossible, and
your vessel sinks, then it is A Very
Good Thing to have a life raft or
dinghy to climb into. That gives you
another tiny vessel out of which to try
to keep the water. If you don't have
such a vessel, you ought at least to
have something that will float for a
long time.
In such an extreme situation, your
worst enemy will be despair. The best
antidote to despair is mental prepara-
tion, or imagining it happening.
Reading the stories of survivors can
help. The best one I know of is The
Bombard Story by Alain Bombard.
The most important element of
seamanship is keeping the water out of
your vessel. The other elements of sea-
manship pale into relative insignifi-
cance when compared to keeping the
water out. Still, there is more to sea-
manship than staying dry. The next
most important element of
seamanship is keeping from hitting
anything.
Roger Taylor has been practicing the
elements of seamanship for just about
as long as he can remember. Keeping
from Hitting Anything will follow in
the next issue.
40/WoodenBoat 45
 SAN FRANCISCO'S
OLDEST ROWING CLUBS
I n the archives of the Dolphin Row-
ing Club of San Francisco is a pho-
tograph of Henry C. Peterson, who is
sitting at the pulling station of a racing
shell, hands on the oars, a look of
determination on his face. The pho-
tograph was taken a moment before a
race on which he had bet $2,500, three
years' wages for a working man in
1888. That such a sum would be
wagered by a single person at that time
is an indication of the level of compe-
tition along the San Francisco water-
front and the height of the interest in
that area inspired by the sport of row-
ing.
Inspiration is a feeling well known
among people who have an affinity for
the combination of wooden boats and
salt water. As long ago as the early
1870s, such inspiration among boat-
men was united with a desire for the
wholesome, adventurous exercise of
rowing boats in San Francisco Bay and
with the desire for the society of people
of like mind. The result was the
46 WoodenBoat/40
by John Bielinski
founding of a pair of abundantly
sociable rowing clubs on the San Fran-
cisco waterfront — the South End Row-
ing Club, founded in 1873, and the
Dolphin Swimming and Boating Club,
founded in 1877. The two clubs,
which have been friendly rivals for
over a hundred years now, are among
the oldest continuously active rowing
clubs on the western coast of the
United States.
Competition is perhaps an inevi-
table outcome of two rowing clubs
situated side by side, yet before they
were founded, boat races were an
integral part of the San Francisco
waterfront scene. Rowing competi-
tions were for many, many years an
enthusiastically contested part of the
maritime industry. For example, in
the early 1800s, a spontaneous rowing
race decided which pilot company and
chandlery would get the business of
the long-distance sailing ships as they
came into the Bay after their long
journey up the South and Central
American coasts or across the Pacific.
Approaching the coast these ships
were sorely in need of stores, refitting
work, and supplies, a pilot to guide
them to anchorage, recreation for the
crews, and myriad other services. At
the first sight of one of these incoming
ships, when they were miles off the
coast, the Bay boatmen launched their
Whitehalls. Rowing as hard as they
could, perhaps as many as five or six
hearty boatmen pulled away from the
different company piers. Soon they
would be battling the Pacific swells
after struggling with a tidal current at
the Golden Gate that could reach 4.5
knots. In addition, they would often
have to face a prevailing westerly that
blows with determination and deal
with the inevitable fatigue in the sev-
eral-mile race out to the ship. The
first boatman to get there landed a
piloting job and a fat chandlery sales
commission for his company. The
other boatmen got nothing but sweat,
blisters, and a long pull back to the
pier in defeat. This was boat racing
with a vengeance.
The Whitehall boats of the San
Francisco pilots and chandlers were
similar to, but not exactly the same as,
the Whitehalls then common for the
same purpose on the East Coast.
According to a description by Duval
Williams, who in 1898 was an appren-
tice to a leading San Francisco boat-
builder named John Twigg, the
Whitehalls of the time were 16' to 18'
long, 4 1/2' in beam, and 2' in depth.
Howard Chapelle describes an East
Coast Whitehall as being 18' long,
4'9 3/4" in beam, and having a depth
of 19". Mystic Seaport has published
plans of a smaller Whitehall that is
13' 11 3/4" long, 3'8 3/4" in beam, and
having a depth of 15". From these
descriptions and from photographs of
both types, it seems to me that San
Francisco Whitehalls differ from East
Coast models in that they are a bit nar-
rower and deeper for their length.
The Mystic Whitehall lines show no
hollow forward, whereas photographs
at the San Francisco Maritime
Museum show noticeable concavity in
the forefoot of San Francisco boats.
Unfortunately, no lines plans or
drawings exist of San Francisco White-
halls built between 1850 and 1900, the
period of their development. Accord-
ing to Duval Williams, the builders
used sectional molds, which hung
from nails in the rafters of the boat
shop. The molds were set up on the
backbone, and the rest of the shaping
of the boats was done by the builder by
eye and past experience. No lofting or
drafted lines were used.
By the last decade of the 19th cen-
tury, the use of the oar-powered
Whitehall by the pilots and chandlers
of San Francisco was coming to an end
because of the acceptance of launches
and tugs powered by internal combus-
tion and small steam engines. As a
result—just at the time the Dolphin
and South End Rowing Clubs were
established— rowing was becoming
pure sport, pleasurable for its own
sake and quite different from its roots
in maritime commerce. Rowing races
were organized, captured the city's
interest, and were fiercely competitive.
"Rowing was like horse racing,"
explained Bill Walden, today an
officer of the Dolphin Club. Con-
versations in saloons, on street cor-
ners, and at lunch breaks were alive
with the prospect of an upcoming
race. Bets on the outcome would tally
in the hundreds of thousands of dollars
if the city-wide total were known.
The boats, the boatmen, and their
clubs' histories of success or failure
were subjects of vast concern and
hours of conversation. They were the
factors to be carefully considered by
anyone intending to put money on a
race.
With this kind of runaway enthu-
siasm for racing, much thought was
given to making the boats faster.
Whitehalls gave way to shells and one
design change led to another until the
boats were so long, narrow, and shoal
that it was unwise to use them on the
Bay at all. For example, one race
came to an unexpectedly early conclu-
sion by swamping. A photograph of
the end shows the heads of the six-man
racing shell crew all in a neat, straight
line with boat, bodies, and oars all
under water. That race more or less
marked the end of shell racing on the
Bay. Shell competition moved inland.
Both the Dolphin and South End clubs
still have racing shells, but they are
now kept in a small boathouse on San
Francisco's Lake Merced, where they
are used in relative protection. Since
the experience of the swamped shell,
both clubs returned to and have
remained with time-honored hulls,
traditionally constructed, for use on
the Bay.
One such boat is a rowing barge
similar in design to a Cornish gig, two
originals of which are still in use today.
The Dolphin Club's JOHN WIELAND,
named after a charter member of the
Club, was built in 1887 and was then
the fastest barge on the Bay. She is 40'
overall, with lapstrake planking, six
racing-style pulling stations, and
12'11" oars, one for each man. At 94
years old, she's still active at the
Dolphin Club, getting out whenever a
six-man crew takes an interest in
rowing and gets the go-ahead from the
Club's boat captain.
The rival South End Club commis-
sioned their own 40' six-man pulling
barge, the SOUTH END, in 1915. She
was built by Al Rogers at Alameda
across the Bay, and she immediately
became a legitimate contender for the
title of fastest barge on the Bay. Like
the JOHN WIELAND, the SOUTH END is
still in use and gets a workout on the
Bay by club members three or four
times a year.
The SOUTH END is a study in barge
construction for that period. Every fit-
ting, from the ringbolt through the
stem post to the gudgeons on the rud-
der, is made of bronze. She has eight
strakes to a side and is copper-rivet fas-
tened at the laps as well as to her
steam-bent white oak frames and
floors.
As a 40' boat, her scantlings for
structural members are heavy. The
sheer clamp is approximately 11/2"
wide by 1" thick and is the beefiest
timber in the whole boat. Even the
keelson is both thinner and narrower.
She has a grown breasthook that looks
like apple wood. Her structure
appears to be more like an airplane
than a boat. There are no thwarts, so
for sectional strength delicate little
wooden trusses are used to hold the
hull's shape. At several locations
along the boat's length strips of steam-
bent hardwood are supported by these
trusses as they overlap both the gun-
wales, the four bilge stringers, and the
keelson, making a strong, lightweight
mini-bulkhead.
Six-man barges like the JOHN
WIELAND and the SOUTH END are the
exception rather than the rule at the
Dolphin and South End rowing clubs.
Once the pure racing craft were
removed to the security of Lake Mer-
ced, the bulk of the clubs' boats used
on the San Francisco waterfront were
confined to one- and two-man pulling
boats for pleasure use and exercise
rowing. The influence of competitive
rowing remained, however, and
resulted in the development of a
hybrid boat that combined racing-
40/WoodenBoat 47
 In the late 1800s, Whitehall
boats were an integral part of
the San Francisco waterfront
scene. Here, two boatmen man
the falls at the bow of their
craft. Note the spar and sail
lying along the gunwale.
Racing in Whitehalls like this
marked the beginnings of
rowing competition in San
Francisco.
style pulling stations with a traditional
hull design based in part on the ori-
ginal Whitehalls.
This boat is still used by both
clubs. It is a craft that is ideally suited
to the rigors of rowing in the heavy
traffic, fast currents, and powerful
winds commonly encountered in the
Bay and Sacramento River Delta. It is
safe and able in a variety of potentially
troublesome wind and weather condi-
tions, while also providing a propul-
sion system that maximizes boat con-
trol, speed, and boatman comfort.
An additional benefit to this hybrid
boat is that it offers more well-
rounded exercise for the boatman,
since it gets the legs into the act as well
as the back and shoulders.
Most of the boats in the clubs'
fleets are lapstrake cedar or yellow
pine, copper fastened at the lap and
also at the steam-bent white oak
frames and floors. Heavy hardwoods
with substantial scantlings make up
the deadwood, keel, stem post, knees,
breasthooks, transoms, and thwarts.
Usually the frames are continuous
from gunwale to gunwale. Bronze
chafing gear runs the length of the
keel and up the forefoot to the stem-
head. These are handsome, stout,
heavy, traditional small boats, care-
fully constructed.
Typical of them are two boats built
for the Dolphin Club in the late 1930s.
Both boats —the JAMES J. CRONIN and
the JOHN FARRELL —are two-man
models of the Whitehall type, with an
extra planking strake to make them
drier for Bay rowing. The CRONIN is
18'11" overall, 55 1/2" beam, and lap-
strake, and her sister has similar lines.
48 WoodenBoat/40
The pulling stations in the club
boats have contoured hardwood seats
that slide fore and aft on wheels in
tracks. Each seat and track has a sta-
tionary pair of hardwood foot supports
with leather straps and lacings to
secure each of the boatman's feet
firmly. The oarlocks for each station
are massive bronze castings with 7/8"
pins that fit into the gunwale sockets.
Above the pin the casting takes the
shape of the oar's loom —flat on the
forward face for the pull and half-
rounded on the after side for the roll to
feather the blade on the return stroke.
The loom of the oars is D-shaped in
section; the oars are built of hollowed
Sitka spruce for lightness, and are long
and wide bladed, with the blades
subtly cupped in their width and hav-
ing a pronounced curve in the last
quarter of their length. The chafing
gear between the rowlock and the
loom is state-of-the-art: heat-shrunk
polyvinylchloride. The very tip of the
blade is protected with a copper or
brass sheathing. The oars have a high-
gloss finish of Deks Olje.
With a recent surge in interest in
pleasure rowing along the San Fran-
cisco waterfront, the Dolphin Club has
recently taken delivery of three new 14'
Whitehalls from a builder in Dog's
Hole, California. They were ordered
rough, without any finish or rowing
stations, to be fitted out in the club's
boatshop. They are planked in Port
Orford cedar over Oregon white oak
frames, and are copper riveted at the
laps and the frames. The stem post,
forward deadwood, rubrail, keel, and
clamp are white oak. The transom and
after deadwood is mahogany.
For decades after their founding,
both the Dolphin Club and the South
End Club were located in the area of
the present-day Aquatic Park, but
when the bond issue for the park was
passed in 1927, the clubs were forced
to vacate the site. Both clubhouses
were jacked up off their foundations
and loaded onto barges, which were
moored in the cove while the clubs
searched for new land. After a while,
however, the South End Club's barge
sprung a leak, so they decided to
beach both clubhouses side by side just
a few hundred yards from where they
were situated originally. This was to
be a temporary solution, but has
turned into a semi-permanent
arrangement — the clubs are still there,
in what has turned out to be an ideal
location for their purposes.
Though both clubs were founded
primarily for rowing, swimming is
another important sport for many
members. The clubs' location along-
side Aquatic Park, which is on one of
the few protected coves in San Fran-
cisco, makes them ideal for swimmers.
In addition, over the years the clubs
have expanded and diversified into
other areas. Their facilities now
include sun decks, saunas, galley and
meeting hall, lounge and trophy room,
handball courts, weight-lifting and
exercise equipment, lockers, and
showers. Even runners and cyclists
have joined the clubs. This diversifi-
cation has resulted in ever-increasing
membership — a membership of 175 in
the mid-1970s at the Dolphin Club has
reached over 600 in the 1980s.
Rowing is what these clubs are
about, however, and their facilities are
admirably set up for the purpose.
For example, the Dolphin Club has a Top —The 40'
well-equipped boat-repair shop on the 6-man barge
SOUTH END,
premises, converted from a handball built in 1915,
court. It is conveniently located launched and
adjacent to the boat storage hall, ready for the
which is spacious and well laid out for crew.
keeping the pulling boats out of the
weather when they are not in use. Bottom — The
SOUTH END gets
Almost from the beginning, both underway. The
clubs have hauled their boats after use launching ways
and stored them under cover. Each and the side-by-
club has a small boatway at the end of side South End
the dock for this purpose. Not only is and Dolphin
clubhouses are
the need for antifouling paint dis- in the back-
pensed with, but also great longevity is ground. The
assured for the boats themselves, big paddlewheel
which explains why so many of the behind the flag-
pole sits on the
clubs' boats are older than many of the Hyde Street
members and are still in splendid con- Pier, which is
dition. part of the
This isn't to say that the club mem- National Mari-
time Museum
bers aren't in splendid condition. To at San Fran-
the contrary, they are testimony to the cisco.
beneficial effects of the right amount
of the right type of exercise. While I
was at the Dolphin Club I watched a
swimmer on the beach getting ready
for a bracing swim in the chilly waters
of the Bay at high tide. He is 65 years
old and the champion swimmer in his
class in the nation. Another fellow
who is now 75 years old rows once a
year from San Francisco to
Sacramento (a 1 1/2-hour drive by
car), and he has been doing it for 20
years. The end-all, however, is a
fellow on the South End dock who was
launching a boat with a chain-fall
hoist while I was there. For all the
world the fellow looked to be, at the
most, 60 years old. A club member
told me he is 85 years old. With a little inspiration and a lot of kindred spirits, no doubt they too will
There are plenty of younger mem- desire to row fine wooden boats on San someday be launching boats off the
bers in the rowing clubs, however. Francisco Bay in the company of club ways at 85.

40/WoodenBoat 49

VIKING and VALHALLA, the Cable Car Gigs
A most everyone knows that cable cars are used for part
of San Francisco's mass transit system, and anyone
who has paid his quarter and jumped aboard knows also
that the benches and coach are made of hardwood fash-
ioned by craftsmen. In 1915, two of the carpenters who
worked in the car barn on Washington Street decided to
build a two-man rowing boat in their spare time. She was
named the VIKING and spent the first 20 years of her life in
northern coastal California on the Russian River. After
one of the builders—who were also her owners—died, the
survivor donated the boat to the Dolphin Club.
A few years ago, Bill Walden of the Dolphin Club knew
there was to be a six-mile rowing race from Sausalito to the
north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge and back. He also
knew VIKING to be the fastest boat in the Dolphin Club's
Bay fleet and put her on the entry roster. A day or so
before the race Larry Payne, a boatbuilder friend, came
by, and the two of them took VIKING out for a row around
Alcatraz Island just to train for the race in Bill's rowing
style. When the race got started 30 boats were at the line.
Since this was open bay racing, any boat could join for a
shot at first prize. A photograph in the local newspaper
shows fiberglass boats next to plywood boats, next to lap-
strake- and carvel-planked boats. There were dories,
skiffs, gigs, punts, prams, pods, and wherries—long, short,
funky, and immaculately finished boats all getting started
side by side with oars pulling away and water rushing
astern. There were some very competent rowers in this
starting fleet, among them the rowing coach of the Uni-
versity of California at Berkeley. Only one boat was a full
500 feet ahead of the closest contender in the rest of the
pack at the finish line. Only one boat crossed the finish
line before all the rest. VIKING was that boat.
At 76 years old, VIKING is a pleasure to look at. Her
keel, all the deadwood, stem post, and steam-bent frames
look to be white oak through all the varnish. There are
50 WoodenBoat/40
Herman Zahler (left)
and Bill Walden of the
Dolphin Club look over
the VIKING, the fastest
boat in the Dolphin
fleet of 20 pulling
boats.
fully 16 grown apple wood thwart knees, a grown breast-
hook, and a pair of grown transom quarter knees. She is
lapstrake planked, 22' long, 43" in beam, and draws a bit
less than 12" of water with two men at the 60-year-old
racing-style pulling stations. The rowlocks are on metal
outriggers, and the distance between them athwartships is
63". The craftsmanship that went into her construction is
evidenced by the grown knees, the fair graceful lines, and
the delicate lattice-work foredeck that allows a reasonably
dry place to sit or stow gear; any water shipped up there
passes into the bilge through the diamond-shaped
openings in the framework.
The VIKING is such an impressive boat that the South
End Club ordered a copy of her in 1980. Named the
VALHALLA, she was built by the Aeolus Boatworks in
Davenport, California. ("Bill Grunwald: 26 Different
Boats to Order," WB No. 37) She is lapstrake planked
with Port Orford cedar on steam-bent white oak and
copper-rivet fastened; like her sister, she has two racing-
style rowing stations. Each straight-grained hardwood
thwart knee is notched to fit neatly up against the plank-
ing. To avoid slashgrain weakness in the thwart knees, a
substantial strip of oak was steamed into the inboard curve
of each knee to provide the strength of a continuous grain
pattern through the curve and a secure fastening point to
the sheer clamp and thwart. The oak strip is through
riveted tightly against the cut portion of the knee. The
small foredeck and the transom seat are made up of alter-
nating planks of light mahogany and blond cedar. Her
grown breasthook is apple wood. VALHALLA is finished
bright with Deks Olje, which magnifies the craftsmanship
that went into her construction.
Jon Bielinski serves as Secretary for the Shipwrights' Co-Op
in Sausalito (see WB No. 34, p. 36) and is building a
Block Island boat there.
Lines of VIKING and VALHALLA
 D uring the 19th century, Basque
fishermen along the Bay of Biscay

Basque
collected their catches in long, slim
craft. Since the first boat to reach the
market in San Sebastian received the
highest price for its catch, the boats
raced eastward up the coast to see who
could reach San Sebastian first. From
these beginnings there developed

Racing
friendly, weekend racing competition
between the Basque villages, and
racing regattas gradually became an
important part of fiesta activities each
summer.
Today, almost every Basque fish-
ing village owns at least one racing

Sculls
scull. The crews consist of 14 men,
one of whom is the "patron," or helms-
man. The oarsmen are called "arran-
alaria" and are chosen from among
the strongest young men of the village.
Many are the sons, grandsons, and
great-grandsons of earlier racing
crews, and the walls of bars in every
village are covered with pictures of the
local racing sculls and their heroic
Text and Photographs crews, past and present.
During the summer, weekend races
are held in participating villages.
by Scotty Sapiro Home team spirit is high as chartered
buses transport village men to root for
the home team. These bus trips are
marked by much boisterous singing of
52 WoodenBoat/40
traditional Basque songs and passing
of the bota of tinto vino. The voyage
home is no less joyous, whether the
home team has reigned triumphant or
gone down in defeat.
The final race of the year is held
midway between the resort town of
Zarouz, and the fishing village of Gue-
taria. Thousands line the coastal high-
way. Fishing boats of every size, filled
with the families of fishermen, gather
offshore. While there is a certain
amount of friendly betting in local
bars, there is no big trophy—no payoff
to the winning crew. The reward is in
the perpetuation of a Basque tradi-
tion, an event to be savored endlessly
over glasses of tinto vino during the
long winter evenings ahead.
When the Spanish Civil War
ended, Juares Icecete, a young Basque
soldier, was released from active duty
and sent home with only a sack of
potatoes for severance pay. Returning
to his village of Orio, which nestles
peacefully on an inlet of the Bay of
Biscay, Juares planted his potatoes.
Prospects for young men were bleak in
postwar Spain. Hundreds of
thousands chose emigration. Not
wanting to leave his village, Juares
apprenticed himself to the local
builder of small fishing boats.
Today Senor Icecete owns the
boatyard. As the exclusive builder of
the traditional racing sculls, he has
brought a measure of fame to his vil-
lage, and Orio is acclaimed not only as
the home of the finest racing sculls,
but also for its championship teams.
The racing sculls are marvels of
fine craftsmanship, constructed of
oak, beech, and banana wood from
Spain, and zamba wood (used exclu-
sively for the hull) imported from
Spanish Guinea. The measurements
and weight of each boat must meet the
rigid specifications of the official
racing federation; each scull takes
about a month to build and, when
completed, measures 12 meters in
length and 1.72 meters in beam.
The interior of the scull is sprayed
with preservatives, then linseed oil is
applied. The exterior receives four
coats of paint. A finishing coat of wax
is applied before the boat enters the
water, and careful waxing precedes
each race as well.
Handwoven hemp oarlocks are not
only traditional, but still in use on the
sculls because the hemp reduces fric-
tion. Each crew member weaves his
own oarlock before each race.

Scotty Sapiro is a professional photog-

rapher in Seattle, Washington, who
lived in several Basque villages while
working on a photographic book.
40/WoodenBoat 53
 by RobVon Mesdag

Top — Rowing craft of all types and descriptions take part in Venice's Volgalonge.
Above — Clubs, banks, and offices still have gondolas in their possession for special occasions.
The disdotona here can carry as many as 18 people.

54 WoodenBoat/40

Voga
Is
Again
in
Vogue
A
ny visitor renewing his or her
acquaintance with Venice
will notice an increasing num-
ber of rowing boats moored every-
where, some appearing quite new.
And he may observe a larger than
usual number of oarsmen outside the
clubs, such as the Bucintoro on the
Guidecca behind the Santa Maria
della Salute, or the Querini on the
lagoon near the Arsenale. He may
notice that the water taxis— moto-
scafi— are traveling slower than
before, and here and there he could
see gondolas under construction or
being repaired. If he concludes that
rowing is on the increase, he will be
right. Today's quest for fitness, which
has induced city dwellers elsewhere to
jog or bike, has encouraged Venetians
to take up their oars once again. Row-
ing— voga in Italian —is again in
vogue.
Until five years ago, rowing in
Venice was at a low ebb. What
remained from the past were the city's
gondolas, but only about 450 of them,
compared with thousands during the
last century, and events such as the
Regatta Storico, the ceremony of the
Marriage of the City and the Sea, wed-
dings and funerals of important
people, and small regattas on the
lagoon. Apart from these reminders
of Venice's rowing history, the pattern
of the city's traffic had changed com-
pletely, with devastating results.
Where once all that could be heard on
the Canal Grande was the gondolier's
cry or the swish of his oar, the age of
pollution had taken over, orchestrated
by blaring claxons and roaring engines
from taxis and barges, whose wash has
slowly but irreversibly been attacking
Venice's stone steps, walls, and foun-
dations.
Maybe it was the sight of this
encroaching destruction that led a
group of girls at one of the regattas to
come up with an idea, the impact of
which they could never have foreseen.
They suggested to Antonio Rosa Salva,
a keen oarsman and the leading con-
fectioner in Venice, that a long row —
voga longa — be organized, circling the
lagoon, involving the maximum possi-
ble number and variety of craft from
the area "to get people back on the
water."
The response was unbelievable.
Around Ascension Day, 1975, the first
year, 500 boats from all over Venice
assembled in the San Marco basin
where the Canal Grande meets the
Canale di San Marco. There, the fleet
waited impatiently, then jumped the
start predictably to begin a tour of the
lagoon, passing the islands of San
Erasmo, Burano, Mazzorbo, and
Murano, re-entering Venice by the
Rio Cannaregio near the railway sta-
tion, to reach the Canal Grande.
This, the most historic waterway in the
world, formed the last mile or so of the
20-mile course. Heading the armada,
because they are faster, were a number
of eights, fours, pairs, and sculls,
which in Venetian are propelled
"all'inglese," as distinguished from the
bulk of the fleet —gondolas, proces-
sional and commercial barges, and
smaller craft such as sandoli, sc'iop-
poni, mascaretta, and pupparini —
rowed "alia Veneta," standing up.
While some racing developed between
the eights and fours, participants in
the slower boats preferred to concen-
trate on each other's company, the
scenery, friends along the course, or
the "punti di ristorio" dispensing good
food and drink.
The event was so successful that it
has been held ever since, attracting an
additional 400 boats each year, some-
times including an eight or four from
the London Rowing Club, bringing
the total entry in 1980 to 1,600 vessels,
manned by over 5,000 oarsmen and
women.
Far more important than giving
participants a healthy appetite, or
spectators an amusing sight, have been
the side effects of the Vogalonge. The
event has revived Venetians' interest in
rowing and in the construction of new
boats and the preservation of old ones,
and a strong current of opinion has
formed against all motorized craft, or
at least against their speed and wash.
Repeated warnings by conservation
groups, such as the Estuario Nostro, of
damage done to palazzi along the
Canal Grande have resulted in a new
speed limit, and pressure continues to
achieve a total ban on power-driven
craft on this waterway. Whether this
will ever come about depends in part
on the city's policy on tourism. Cur-
rent thinking seems to favor "packing
them in," and involves transferring the
thousands who arrive each day on
buses with wheels, to buses with keels,
the motoscafi.
In spite of this daily invasion —one
can hardly believe because of it —Ven-
ice's fleet of 450 gondolas has
remained intact, primarily with finan-
cial assistance from the city and moral
support from preservationists. To
maintain their number, approxi-
mately 10 new ones are built each year
at any of the four boatyards—squeri—
still in commission. At one time there
were 200 squeri! One of these four,
called San Trovaso, once privately
owned, now belongs to the city and is
run as a cooperative by the gondoliers
themselves.
The most noticeable effect
produced by the Vogalonge has been
felt by the rowing clubs around
Venice. In the past five years, some 20
new ones have been formed. At the
Bucintoro, founded in 1882, member-
ship has risen from 75 some 10 years
ago to 500 today, and the Querini
Club has also experienced a consid-
erable influx of new blood.
As a result, the demand for new
boats has been enormous—about 500
new boats have been built in recent
years. Last year the Bucintoro Club
took delivery of 14 new mascarette,
and clubs, banks, and offices, which
often have a gondola for special occa-
sions, are encouraged to take part in
the Vogalonge.
Even if the rowing fraternity in
Venice does not succeed in having
motorized traffic banned from their
city, at least from the Canal Grande,
the activity in the rowing clubs and
around the boatyards is enough to
warm the heart of any traditional boat
enthusiast.
Rob van Mesdag is a London jour-
nalist with a keen interest in boats.
40/WoodenBoat 55
LOOKING T he scene is Riverside Boat Company in Newcastle,
Maine; the time is January 12, 1981; the temperature is
12 degrees at 12 noon. Paul Bryant, who runs the yard, is
beginning to sand the Herreshoff 12 1/2-footer WHITE CAP,
which is scheduled for a thorough refurbishing. He's doing
this outdoors where at the end of the working day the tem-

GOOD
perature will have dropped to 7 degrees.
Working with the weather, and in spite of it when he has
to, is something Paul has grown up with. The yard was
started by his father, and Paul has worked there since he was
in the sixth grade. With only two other men besides Paul, the
yard maintains about 70 of the 90-odd boats it stores and does

AGAIN
as good a job of it as you're likely to see anywhere. With few
exceptions the boats are stored outside under canvas covers
during the winter, and the smaller ones are cycled through
one of the two heated shops a few at a time until the weather
breaks and the others can be worked on outside.
Riverside faces conditions similar to many do-it-yourself

A Refinishing owners: outside storage, limited time for each job, a schedule
to meet, and the return of the same boat season after season.
Understanding how the yard gets all its work done would, we
feel, be of great interest to our readers, and for nearly a year

Story now we've been learning from Paul and recording his work all
on film. Presented here is only part of that story—the
approach to a single refinishing job from beginning to end —
in time (we hope) to help you with your spring painting.
Later this year we'll cover a variety of other things about Paul
Bryant and his effective ways of caring for and repairing

by Maynard Bray wooden boats.

ABOUT THE BOAT: WHITE CAP is one of the so-called 12 1/2-foot
(waterline) class built by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company of Bristol,
Rhode Island. She is gaff-rigged and her overall length is about 16'. The

Photographs by class was designed by Nathanael G. Herreshoff, and the first boats, which
were for use on Buzzards Bay, were introduced in 1914. WHITE CAP dates
from 1929 and carries HMCo hull number 1107. It was with the cooperation

Benjamin Mendlowitz of her new owner, Mr. H.W. Detert of Norway, Maine, that these photo-
graphs were possible.

Quotations by Paul Bryant

56 WoodenBoat/40
Power
Sanding
Note: Brand names are used through-
out this article in order to describe
accurately the tools and materials Paul
Bryant uses. Woodenboat feels that,
in most instances, there are equivalent
products by other manufacturers.
Getting rid of old paint and varnish and fairing off WHITE CAP'S transom is
a snap with this grinder. The coarse # S6 disc makes a quick job of it,
and the firm pad enables one to build up more pressure for grinding off
troublesome spots, aids in fairing the surface, and leaves crisp comers at
the plank ends. Some further smoothing with #50, 60, and 80 grits is
then done before changing machines.
Heavy-duty disc-type machines, held flat and kept moving, are used whenever
possible, because they're the fastest way to fair and smooth a surface.
For fairing and shaping and for stripping off paint and varnish, the coarser
grits of a very abrasive heavy paper called "greenbak" (like that used in floor-
sanding edgers) on a firm pad in a medium-speed (5,000 rpm) grinder work best.
A slower machine can be used, but it takes longer.
The finer sanding for smoothing up painted surfaces and feathering off flaked
paint is best done with a low-speed (2,000 rpm) disc-type sander/polisher with a
soft foam pad. A higher speed machine heats up the paint, making it so gummy
that it clogs up the grit of the finer papers. Neither a vibrator nor a belt sander
are used much, since they don't do as good a job and are slower working.
The two machines favored by Paul are the Black & Decker model 4046 grinder
(4,800 rpm) with a very firm phenolic pad and 7" Norton "Bear" brand "green-
bak" metalite abrasive discs (#16-80), and the Rockwell model 661 (2,000 rpm)
with a Norton 8SR-K sanding-pad kit and 8" diameter aluminum-oxide produc-
tion-paper sanding discs (#36-220). Norton No. 10 disc adhesive, a type of con-
tact cement, holds the discs to the foam pad.
The initial hull sanding and fairing, which included the bottom, took about
five hours and consumed about 25 discs from #36 to 120 grit. Generally the top-
sides were sanded with # 100 and #120, the boot-top (which was taken more or
less down to the wood for rescribing) with #80 and #100, and the bottom with
#36.
"When stripping paint off a hull, I have
found a #16 disc on a grinder to be much
quicker than burning, and if the hull is cedar
planked, it is most difficult to burn the paint
off without getting slivers. And grinding
requires a lot less trowel cementing."
1 The rest of the transom smoothing is done with a foam pad on the
low-speed machine, starting with #80 grit and going to # 100 and
120. Care must be taken at the sharp corners to avoid rounding them
over. The entire process of stripping and sanding this transom took
only about half an hour, and when it was finished there were abso-
lutely no sanding marks, and the surface was ready for refinishing. A
dutchman, however, was later fitted in way of the upper rudder gud-
geon where the wood had gone bad.
2
A foam-backed disc is the most effective
way to smooth up a hull for painting.
Used with #60, 80, or 100 paper, it does
a beautiful job of knocking down the high
spots and feathering out the transition
between painted and unpainted surfaces.
Provided the paper is sharp, that is. It's
a waste of time to use dull discs; they only
polish the surface without fairing or feath-
ering it. When feathering by hand, a coarse
grit, say #60, will do the work faster and
better—just as with the machine. Final
sanding (power or hand) at this stage will_
be with #120 grit paper.
3
40/WoodenBoat 57
 Scribing the Waterline
A crisply
painted level
waterline goes
a long way
toward making a
paint job look
right. There
are a number
of ways to mark
it so it's level,
but one of the
simplest and
most direct was
employed on
WHITE CAP.
(Her existing
line, like the
waterlines on
so many older
boats, was nei-
ther straight nor
decisively marked.) First off, the boat is leveled athwart - The individual marks are then connected with a continu-
ships and two straightedges running in that direction are ous pencil line by means of a stiff batten held on edge,
set up—one forward and one aft as shown in the photo- that is, held square with the waterplane. This batten is
hand held as shown and need not be very long.
graph. These, of course, must also be made level. From
there on it's a case of one person "sighting in" on the imag- 2
inary plane between the two straightedges while another
person adjusts the pencil until it corresponds with that
plane. Gordon and Jason are doing that in the photo,
making marks on the hull about a foot apart.
1

Scribing tools can be adapted from worn-out hacksaw

A full-length batten, flexible enough to conform to the
marked line when temporarily nailed against the hull, is
placed so its top edge is on that line.
3 shown here was made from a piece of 1/16" brass, filed so
58 WoodenBoat/40
blades or files, or whatever else is handy and can be used
to cut a good scribe line—one which is sharp enough to
look good and deep enough to last for a few years. Scribe
lines are a great aid in painting the waterline or boot-top
but they all fill up with paint eventually and have to be
battened off and cleaned out occasionally. The tool
it will scrape out a shaving when pulled along the batten.
4
For each width of boot-top, a set of these sliding wooden
pointers has been made up, a 1 1/4" wide pair being used
here. The assembly is kept level (by means of the spirit level
built into the tri-square) , while the lower pointer is placed
in the scribe line representing the waterline, and the top
pointer is slid into contact with the hull and marked with
a pencil where it touches. From there on the process of get-
ting a scribed line at the top of the boot-top is exactly the
same as for the waterline. No seam compound has yet been
applied to the topsides, so the open hull seams are much in
evidence.
5
Stripping
the
Brightwork
"When stripping var-
nish, I have found
removers both messy and
time-consuming and feel
that a good scraper, kept
sharp, is the quickest
method. I use several
sizes and have made up
some small ones for tight
corners. Keep a file
handy and sharpen your
scraper frequently."
4
Using only scrapers, always kept sharp with a file, most of the varnish is stripped
off. (A single application of chemical paint remover on the coamings speeded up
the work a bit by softening the surface coats.) All the wood is oak and was weath-
ered and stained in places. Careful scraping gets rid of most of the discoloration—
bleach has been found ineffective and is not used at all. Almost all the scrapers
have at least a slight crown to their blades, so sufficient pressure can be brought to
bear on a flat surface and peel off a good shaving. Grinding and filing can shape
them to fit about any surface. A fair amount of strength is needed for good con-
trol, however; otherwise the tool is inclined to chatter, or the corners, even if filed
off a bit, tend to dig in.
It's often easier to remove all the metal fittings than it is to scrape, sand, and
varnish around them. WHITE CAP's were all taken off before any scraping began.
The entire stripping and scraping job on this boat took about four hours.
If you've never
wooded down a
round spar by dry
scraping, by all
means try it. It's
the quickest method
by far, and you
don't need a great
deal of strength.
Just keep the
scraper sharp by
frequent filing (use
a flat mill file).
The small and con-
venient wooden
handle is yard-
built—only the
hardened steel
blade came from
the store. It was
simply screwed to
the handle.
1
A fairly wide and slightly crowned blade is best for flat
surfaces. Here, with the varnish all removed, the weath-
ered wood is scraped away to expose the oak's real beauty.
The big-handled commercial scraper is OK here where_
two-handed force is needed.
2
A small scraper, guided by the left
hand and drawn along with the
right, does a fine job of getting into
the corner between the sheer strake
and the covering board and clean-
ing out all the old varnish and dis-
coloration. Some of the other
scrapers and the ever-present sharp-
ening file are lying on the deck,
along with a putty knife. A chisel
or sharpened putty knife is some-
times useful in getting into corners
where a scraper won't fit.
3
A convex scraper
mates well with
the concave shape
of the Herres-
hoff molded sheer
strake. A deft
touch is needed,
but it's not diffi-
cult to develop
such a "feel" after
a bit of practice.
40/WoodenBoat 59
Sanding Sanding is the most tiring of all jobs, and more than a man-day of hand sanding
alone was done on this boat — and that just on brightwork. Coarse #40 and # 60
paper makes the work go faster, but it's still a big task to recover from a period of

the
neglect (this is WHITE CAP'S first year at Riverside). Sanding is done with the
grain and a backing block is used on uneven surfaces to make them fair. Six sheets
of #40, a couple of #50, one of #60, and two of #80 were used before the
brightwork was ready for final sanding with #100 and refinishing. The feather-

Brightwork ing of peeling brightwork which has not been stripped is best done with coarse
(about #60 grit) paper after which the scratches can be sanded out by going
"through the numbers" to #120.

The basic sanding

technique is back
and forth with the
grain of the piece
being sanded. A
sanding block some-
times helps cut down
the high places or
even cut away the
scraper marks, but
much of the work is
done with the folded
piece of paper itself.
Gloves keep the skin
from being abraded.
1
Torn into small pieces, the sandpaper fits into tight places.
2

The sheer strake is sanded fair with the aid of this drum made from a short
length of plastic drain pipe around which a sheet of sandpaper has been
taped.
3
The rest of the sheer strake is done barehanded in order to feel any
unfairness.
4
A sanding block held
like this evens out the
edge of the newly
installed covering
board. Loose or
blackened bungs in
the sheer strake and
coaming were
popped out and
renewed, and the
new ones were glued
in with quick-setting
epoxy. Great care
must be taken during
all hand sanding to
keep from Founding
off any corners which
should stay crisp.
5 A strip of sandpaper wrapped around a putty knife gets into tight comers
6
60 WoodenBoat/40
 Moisture leaking in behind imbedded woodwork or
joints is the greatest cause of lifted and discolored
varnishwork. Rebedding is an effective solution, and
that's what is being done here with these trim pieces.
The opened joint between the top of the stern knee
and the transom will be filled with a fitted wedge,
since a warped transom plank prevents the joint from
7 being drawn up tightly by refastening.

Filling WHITE CAP'S hull has dried out and her seams, particularly topside, have opened
up. She'll swell again after a time overboard, so a soft, nondrying seam compound
that will squeeze out is called for. Paul chose Interlux No. 31 and is planning to

and resand and repaint the hull again in mid-season once the seams have come
together. In the future such excessive drying out will be prevented by a good
buildup of paint and by keeping the boat out of the hot sun or heated sheds while

Surfacing
ashore (except for a brief annual visit to the marginally heated paint shop) .
Trowel cement, Interlux No. 93, is used on nicks and scrapes; in subsequent years
it will be used in the topside seams also as long as they haven't opened up.

A wide flexible putty knife assures an even application of seam com-
pound and trowel cement (no sanding is planned afterwards), and
masking tape keeps the compound from getting into the grain of the
yet-to-be-varnished sheer strake. A good vacuuming and priming is
needed before the seams are filled with compound and before the hull
planking is faced up with trowel cement; neither substance sticks well
over dust or bare wood.
1 fresh coat of paint or varnish. The filler-stain's purpose is two-fold:
Paul uses a combination filler and stain as a base for all brightwork.
He used Interlux No. 1643, a natural color, on this oak and thins it
out to a brushing consistency with turpentine, brushing liquid
(Interlux No. 333), or special thinner (Interlux No. 216), depend-
ing on the drying conditions. The excess is rubbed off after a few
minutes and the remainder is allowed to dry overnight just as is a
it fills the open grain and enables a glass-like varnish job, and the
protection of the surface that goes with it, with fewer coats, and it
gives a more uniform appearance to the wood—some of which is
old, some new, and some a bit weather stained.
2

Build-Up From this point on it's a case of building up enough coats of varnish and topside
paint to give good protection and appearance. This amounts to three coats of
topside paint over the first thinned-down coat (for best adhesion Paul used Inter-
lux No. 220 semigloss right over the bare wood and for the subsequent coats as
well) and five coats of varnish (Interlux No. 90) —the first one cut about 25%
with turps. Sanding is needed between all coats; # 120 grit is used with a fairly
light touch on both the varnish and the paint. Each sanding is followed by vac-
uuming and wiping down with a tack rag to eliminate dust, and each new coat of
paint is preceded by facing up with either trowel cement or seam compound, as
appropriate, in order to have the hull virtually flawless when the buildup is com-
plete. Trowel cement, if used after the buildup (i.e., just before the final paint-
ing) will cause flatting out of the gloss by "flashing through" the finish coats.

40/WoodenBoat 61
Final Sanding This consists of hand sanding the
varnish with #150 grit paper and
machine sanding the paint with
#220. As always, the varnish
should be sanded insofar as pos-
sible with the grain of the wood,
and care must be taken to go very
lightly, if at all, on the sharp cor-
ners, as on the toerail, for
example. Once the buildup is
complete, Paul never sands the
sharp corners, feeling that they
are vulnerable to wear in service
and need all the varnish they can
get. Yet inside comers, such as
those at the base of the coaming,
often don't get enough sanding,
so for good adhesion, it's impor-
tant to be thorough there.

Final Cleaning Dust and dirt are the enemies of high-gloss finishes,
and are most commonly produced by a dirty surface to
begin with, dust in the air, which settles on the surface
while it is still wet, din in the paint or varnish, and dirt
in the brush. A thorough vacuuming—even on parts
of the boat that aren't being worked on— and subse-
quent dusting off with a painter's tack rag (paint
stores and auto body shops have them) will take care
of any dust on the surface itself. But a clean shop that
has been well swept down and vacuumed out before-
hand is a must also. (If you're working outside, then
get the boat far away from sources of dust, such as
busy dirt roads, and do your work on a day when there
is little or no wind.) Paul religiously strains all his
paint and varnish before use; he is very careful to keep
his brushes cleaned out so that paint won't dry on their
bristles, and stores them where they won't get dusty.
His consistently dust-free jobs make all this extra fuss-
ing worthwhile.

Final Since it's easier to cut paint into varnish than the other way around, the final
coats of varnish are done before the final painting. Paul has found it best to
apply the last two coats of varnish without any sanding between them.
The resulting thick film holds its shine through the season without the need

Varnishing to "freshen up" in mid-summer.

Interlux No. 90 varnish, always strained before use, is what Riverside
uses. Rarely are additives used, only a bit of Interlux No. 333 to keep the
varnish from setting up too fast in unusually good drying conditions, or
some turpentine to thin it in cold weather.
A very thorough vacuuming and wipe down (with a painter's tack rag)
precedes all the varnishing, but they're particularly important before the
final coats.
The 1 1/2" brush used by Jason Burns, one of Paul's crew, on this job is of
badger hair, and those fine bristles will spread about as uniform a coat as
it's possible to get. That's the whole secret to good varnishing: getting a
coat that nowhere is thick enough to sag or run yet is sufficiently heavy
everywhere to protect the surface and make it shine. Varnish has to be
"flowed on," as the books all say, but flowed on evenly. Considerable brush-
ing with the right technique is needed to achieve this end no matter what
kind of varnishing brush is used. Paul himself never bothers with fancy
badger hair brushes. The success of his varnishing depends more on the
application techniques, an important one being speed. Go fast so the stuff is
all brushed evenly before it starts to set up and there's no need of an
expensive brush, Paul advises.
Vertical or near vertical surfaces are where the runs develop, so the var-
nish must be brushed out a bit more on them than on horizontal surfaces.
Photos 1 -4 on the following page show the techniques of applying varnish to
the coaming, where inner and outer surfaces must be coated at the same time.
62 WoodenBoat/40
 "A good vacuum cleaner and tack rag are a
necessity for best results. Four coats of var-
nish are a minimum on new work, and there
should be more if the season is long."

Getting enough varnish on the top of the coaming is assured by applying

it in this manner.
1
Any runs off the
top edges must
be picked up and
blended into the
coating now being The varnish is then smoothed out with a light stroke along
applied to the sides
as on this outside
the top edge.
2
face, for example.
Every brushful of
newly laid-on var-
nish is brushed out
until it feels and
looks smooth and
even. Jason is
doing only the ver-
tical side of the
coaming, stopping
at the covering
board, which will
be done separately
afterwards.
3

For better
control of Now the same treatment is given to the inside face of the
the film coaming, always stroking back into the already-varnished
area with the final smoothing.
thickness
on top of
the toerail,
4
a small
brush was
used.
That
brush also
comes in
handy for
varnishing
in tight
places
where the
bigger
brush
won't fit.
5
Frequent sighting for runs,
sags, and bare spots while the
varnish is still wet enough to
make corrections is very nec-
essary. These imperfections
show up better, of course, in
good light. Note the graving
piece or dutchman set into the
transom in way of the rudder
gudgeon, and the newly
painted name — applied just

6 before the final coats.

40/WoodenBoat 63
Final Getting a good gloss job is more than simply having a good surface to start with.
Good paint, with the right additives to make it flow well, a good brush that will
lay on a paint film of uniform thickness in a reasonable amount of time, and the
correct technique for laying it on are the other things to consider. In regard to

Coats additives, Paul has this to say: "Painting is something that requires adjusting to
the prevailing conditions. When painting outside in the wind or on a hot day, or
in a shed where a hot air furnace is running, there is always a need for adding a
retarder (Interlux Brushing Liquid No. 333) to the paint. If the weather is cold,

of
some thinning (with Interlux Special Thinner No. 216) is a must to achieve the
right viscosity — and if the wind is blowing it will probably need some retarder
also." If drying conditions are really poor, certain solvents such as Japan dryer
can speed up drying. Good quality natural bristle brushes are what Paul generally
uses for painting, ones that are big enough to spread paint fast and fine enough to

Paint spread it evenly. WHITE CAP's topsides, however, were painted with a 2 1/2" syn-
thetic bristle brush, which Paul admits doesn't stay as firm — and therefore is not
as good for cutting in — once it has had some use. For painting technique, let's
take a look at the photographs.
One has to keep moving to avoid The fastest and easiest
lap marks and the runs that some- way of cutting in is with
times go with them (retarder a bigger brush than
helps here), and at the same time you'd imagine, turned
cut in accurately against other on edge. Small brushes
colors (such as the sheer strake on are of little use here —
WHITE CAP) . Paint put on too they just don't hold
thin (brushed out too much) enough paint. When
won't flow enough while drying to cutting in around the
develop a good shine, and paint transom, Paul not only
that is too thick (not brushed out uses the brush on edge,
enough) is almost certain to sag but also forces the bristles
to separate into two
and run. The objective is to get a
groups, only one of
job that is between these two
which is actually being
extremes while still cutting in
used for cutting in.
accurately and leaving no bare Thus, only the needed
spots. Brushing back into, rather amount of paint is being
than away from, the fresh paint, applied to the plank
as Paul is doing here, tends to give ends where any excess
a smoother coat.
1 would be difficult to get
rid of.
2
A small brush is
the only type for
applying paint with
good control in
tight places like
this one. Paul usu-
ally has two or
three sizes of brush
at hand, for
example, when
painting a deck,
and he uses the one
most appropriate
for the job.
This is the proper way to hold a brush when cutting in against
other paintwork or varnish. Cutting in or lining off, as it's some-
4
times called, is done before the adjacent body of paint is applied, Bottoms are hidden from
care being taken all the while to keep the brush moving in order to view once the boat is over-
maintain a "wet edge" where the next brushful will be worked out, board and needn't be fussed
3 with as much. A big brush
is called for here to get this
With a good scribe line, nasty job done quickly.
painting a boot-top or Cutting in can be done with
waterline is quite easy. a slightly smaller brush if
Again, the way to do it is you want, and it is done just
with a brush that's big as for the top of the boot-
enough and turned on top—that is, the paint is run
edge. Paint up into the up into the scribe line, not
scribe line; don't stop at stopped short of it. Unless
its lower edge or you'll the owner requests other-
never have a good- wise. Paul prepares boat
looking job. At the lower bottoms for painting with
edge, the masking tape only a serrated scraper—
keeps the red paint from sandpaper is not used at all.
getting spread over the He sticks with oil base paint,
green, but the final line which lends itself to scrap-
there, as at the top, will ing, unlike some of the vinyl
be done "with only a sure bottom paints now on the
eye and a steady hand.
5 market.
6
64 WoodenBoat/40
Completion
How much time did the refurbishing of WHITE CAP take while at Riverside? The
refinishing of the hull and spars, described in this article, consumed about 110
man-hours. Beyond that, about 40 additional man-hours were spent on repair
(new toerails, covering boards, seat supports, transom repair, etc.).
Many elements combine to make up Riverside's efficiency, but one of its keys is
good organization. As Benjie Mendlowitz, who took all the photographs and who
has seen a lot of this type of work go on in other yards, observes, "Each step here is
done in its proper order to completion and perfection before and in preparation
for the next step. This is probably obvious, but it is the cornerstone of the whole
operation. They don't work on 'areas' of the boat; they do all the scraping, then
all the sanding, then all the filling, prime everything, varnish everything coat by
coat, then paint in the same way." It's doubtful that one who wasn't doing this
type of thing every day and was without the experience of Paul Bryant and his
crew at Riverside could get the same results in the same amount of time, but by
utilizing these techniques we feel certain that your spring outfitting will go faster
and look better.

Paint on the hull interior and floorboards, and installation of the Bedding compound, along with the good buildup of varnish over the
newly varnished seats just about completes the job on WHITE CAP, wood, will keep moisture out from behind fittings—like the mast
except for reinstallation of the hardware.
1 partner bale — for a long time to come. While the metal fittings were
off, they were cleaned of old paint and varnish and buffed up a bit,
both jobs being made easier because the fittings weren't left on the
boat. The Herreshoff nameplate lies on the deck—the next item to be
put back in place.
2

Before coming to River-

side, WHITE CAP had
been reframed and
repaired in a mediocre
way, and there was con-
siderable time devoted
here to making her look
good in spite of this
history. She had some-
how developed a notice-
able hump in the sheer-
line on both sides
forward. New toerails,
made higher where they
join the stem, and lower
in the way of the hump,
helped make her sheer
look presentable, as did
a faired-out and some-
what higher paint line at
the bottom of the sheer
strake forward. The new
gar boards, however,
which were apparently
installed at the same
time, aren't completely
fair with the rest of the
bottom planking as can
be seen in the photo.
.3
40/WoodenBoat 65
January The Tally for WHITE CAP
23 Labor—sand knees for seats, gaff, tiller,
6 Labor—remove foam flotation; remove Taken directly from Riverside's bill to show cockpit floor, bulkhead; strip and sand
floorboards; scrape bilge area; remove the time and materials for each operation. bracket for cleats; install stem fitting;
DOT fasteners, plug all holes. 5 hours vacuum entire boat; varnish brightwork.
48 oak bungs 5 hours
Epoxy Ten-Set 5 - 1 V" bronze screws
19 Labor—inlet gudgeon in transom and fasten 3 - sandpaper
12 Labor—power sand topsides and bottom; on; strip seats, smooth and apply stain; 1 - sandpaper
strip off old boot-top; strip transom; clean and prime topsides. 5 hours 1 pint No. 90 varnish
remove hardware; clean old varnish from 2 - 7" sanding discs
hardware; remove rigging from spars for 6 - sheets sandpaper 23 Name lettered on transom in gold leaf
refinishing work. 6 1/2 hours 1/3 pint wood filler stain
4 - #36 sanding discs - 8" 1 - 1/4" x 2 bronze bolt, n/w 26 Labor—sand all brightwork; sand topsides;
4 - #60 ' - 8" 1 - 1 3/4" x 14 bronze screw clean all surfaces and paint topsides, seat
6-#80 ' -8" 2/3 pint No. 220 white brackets, ceiling and bilge area.
6-#100 ' -8" 6 1/2 hours
1 - #80 ' - 7" 19 Labor—finish all sanding of brightwork; 6 - sandpaper
1 - #36 ' - 7" vacuum and stain brightwork. 6 hours 8 - sanding discs - 8"
3 - sandpaper 1 1/2 pints No. 220 white
13 Labor—remove remaining hardware from Masking tape 1 pint red lead
boat; strip all brightwork; start sanding 1/2 pint wood filler stain
brightwork. 7 hours 1/4 pint No. 216 special thinner 27 Labor—paint bilge area second coat;
3 - #40 sandpaper paint floorboards first coat; paint boot-
1 pt. No. 199 Varnish Remover 20 Labor—plot and scribe boot-top; vacuum top first coat; strip rudder, smooth and
1 - 2" Throwaway brush entire boat; varnish all brightwork first stain. 5 1/2 hours
coat. 6 hours 1 pint red lead
14 Labor—sand coamings; refasten and fair 1 pint No. 90 varnish 1/3 pint No. 235 vermilion
out forward sections of sheer strake; glue Masking tape 1/2 pint buff (special mix)
down canvas under toe rails; remove aft Turpentine 1/3 pint wood filler stain
sections of covering boards; sand sheer 2 - sandpaper
strake. 6 1/2 hours Labor—sand all spars; strip gaff and sand
3 - #40 sandpaper smooth; strip boom crutch; prime gaff. 27 Labor—varnish brightwork third coat.
1 - #80 4 hours 2 1/2 hours
6 - 1 1/4 x 10 bronze screws 6 - sandpaper 1 pint No. 90 varnish
6-7/16 oak bungs 2 - sandpaper
2 oz. copper tacks 1/4 pint No. 90 varnish 28 Labor— paint inside of hull, ceiling, etc.;
fasten down cockpit floor and putty all
15 Labor—finish sanding sheer strake; replace Labor—sand transom and gaff; vacuum holes; paint topsides and boot-top.
bungs on sheer strake, port side; sand and varnish transom, gaff, molding for- 4 1/2 hours
transom; start stripping mast hoops; cut ward side of coaming, misc. parts. 1 1/2 pints No. 220 white
out and install pieces around center lift- 3 hours 1/3 pint No. 235 vermilion
out section of floorboards. 6 hours 2 - sandpaper 26 - 1" x 8 bronze screws
1 - #100 sandpaper 2/3 pint No. 90 varnish Wood dough
4-#80
1 piece oak 22 Labor—putty topsides: sand brightwork, 29 Labor—sand topsides final time; sand
6 - 7/16 bungs including seats and boom crutch; clean brightwork final time on boat, seats, gaff,
1/2 pint No. 214 bedding compound up stem fitting. 5 1/2 hours boom crutch, etc.; vacuum all surfaces
5 - sandpaper and varnish brightwork fourth coat.
16 Labor—plot and scribe waterline. 2 men, 1/2 pint No. 93 trowel cement 7 hours
total 3 hours 1/2 pint No. 31 seam compound 6 - sanding discs - 8"
8 - sandpaper
1 - tack rag
1 pint No. 90 varnish
TABLE OF ABRASIVE GRITS USED BY RIVERSIDE BOAT COMPANY 30 Labor— paint cockpit floor, varnish miscel-
laneous parts; paint topsides final coat.
3 1/2 hours
1/2 pint buff (special mix)
Aluminum Oxide Aluminum Oxide Greenbak Discs 1/4 pint No. 90 varnish
Paper Sheets Paper Discs (used (used with 5,000 1 1/4 pints No. 220 white
Intended Use (used for hand with 2,000 rpm rpm grinder with
sanding) sander and foam pad) firm pad)
February

Removing paint 2 Labor—varnish all brightwork final coat

#16 or #36 (including all spars, seats, crutch, etc.)
Sanding topsides #120 or #150 #120, #150, #180,
3 hours
(good condition) or #220
Sanding topsides 1 pint No. 90 varnish
#50, #60, #60, #80, #100*
1/4 pint No. 333 Brushing liquid
(flaking) #80, #100 1/4 pint turpentine
Sanding bottoms #50, #60 #40, #50, #60
(when done)
Sanding brightwork #120, #150, #120, #150, #180, 3. Labor—paint foredeck, bridge deck and
#220" floorboards. 2 1/4 hours
Fairing the hull #80, #100 #36 1 pint buff (special mix)
Canvas deck #80, #100 #60, #80 1/4 pint turpentine

Notes: 5 Labor—paint boot-top final coat; attach

* This is in preparation for the first of two or three coats of finish paint. Primers or hardware; prime bottom. 5 hours
undercoaters are not used since the adhesion to them isn't as good. 16 - 7/8" x 8 bronze screws
** #220 grit is used for one subsequent coat. Two coats, without sanding between 6 - 2" x 10/24 brass machine screws, n/w
them, is the normal way at Riverside with the surface prepared beforehand by 2 - 1 1/2" x 14 bronze screws
#150. 8 -1/4" x 3/4 brass machine screws, n/w
*** Power sanding of brightwork is usually limited to large, flat surfaces, a transom, for 2 - 1" x 9 bronze screws
example. 1/3 pint No. 235 vermilion
1 1/2 pints No. 59 Bottomkote green

66 WoodenBoat/40
40/WoodenBoat 67
68 WoodenBoat/40
PASTIME
H ave you ever wondered about the oldest yacht in the
world? The New Zealand owner of PASTIME, a 45'
topsail cutter, believes that she may be the oldest boat in
the world sailing under her original rig.
PASTIME was built by Malcolm Miller in his yard at
Corsair Bay, a small harbor near Lyttleton on the South
Island of New Zealand. She had her first trials in Feb-
ruary, 1887, on Lyttleton Harbor, and an eyewitness wrote
this account:
"We were just in time to meet PASTIME coming out of
Corsair Bay. She looked a dainty, smart little thing with
her slightly raking stem and a short overhang in her stern.
She was painted a light grey with a red bottom and looked
well. A year or so afterwards her owner built in a clipper
bow and lengthened her overhang aft. This improved her
speed...In the nineties of last century, she was further
improved by lengthening and opening out, and from then
on, she could beat the MASCOTTE and all other local
yachts."
PASTIME remained in the Miller family for 74 years,
and in 1960 she was purchased by Albion Wright, and she
now has a co-owner, Dennis Donovan.
The cutter has a long history of taking part in cruising
and racing events, and she still races regularly on the
harbor. She is able to show her stern to many of the
modern, high-aspect-ratio designs when conditions are
right.
Albion Wright says, "She sails ideally with the water
just kissing the rail. If there is water on the deck it's time to
reduce sail." Mr. Wright says that PASTIME has never lost
a man overboard, and there has never been any blood on
her deck. "She has a finger-tip tiller when she's in
balance."
Her carvel hull is, of course, of kauri, a wood that is so
scarce today that it is milled in limited quantities and used
only for shipbuilding. Kauri is very durable, fine grained,
light and yet strong, and easily worked. PASTIME'S deck is
double-planked kauri, longitudinal over diagonal. The
cabin topsides and cockpit coamings are solid 1 1/2" kauri,
and the cabin top is canvas over tongue and groove. The
skylight, companionway, and forehatch are teak. The
kauri hull is copper sheathed below the waterline and cop- Above — PASTIME resembles the narrow cutters of her day, although, if you
per fastened. The five-ton lead keel is fastened with 1" can believe it, she is somewhat more beamy. The true plank-on-edge cut-
bolts of Swedish steel. ters had five or six beams to their length, while PASTIME has four and three-
The 45' hull has a draft of 6'9" and a displacement of quarter beams.
13.5 tons. The 9'6" beam provides surprisingly commodi- Opposite — The 45' topsail cutter PASTIME is believed by her owners to be
ous accommodations below decks. The main cabin has the oldest boat in the world still sailing under her original rig.
three berths, and there are two pipe berths forward. The
galley used a two-burner kerosene stove set in gimballs and
fed from a four-gallon tank. Two water tanks supply 34
gallons. L. Francis Herreshoff would have been pleased
with the sanitary arrangements — a bucket.
PASTIME still has her original auxiliary power —two 20'
sweeps. The rowlocks fit into holes in the rail. "We've
used the sweeps, two men to each," says Mr. Wright, "and
once she's moving she's not hard to row. Personally, I'd
like to take out that engine." by Robert Stowell
40/WoodenBoat 69
 The 10 hp C.L.A.E. Australian engine was installed in
1945. It has a reverse gear and an unusual arrangement
for transmitting power. The engine is coupled to two iden-
tical shafts, one to a folding sailing propeller and the other
to a three-bladed propeller for use when cruising. It is pos-
sible to shift from one to the other without slipping
PASTIME.
PASTIME'S solid mainmast has a topmast that can be
lowered. The bowsprit extends outboard 12' and the main
boom is 33' long. The gaff is 26'. The mainsail, jib and
staysail are of 9-oz terylene. The topsail and jib topsail are
4-oz, and the balloon jib is 6-oz terylene. The working sail
area is about 1,350 square feet, and a spinnaker-leader
adds about 650 square feet. The standing rigging is of
heavy galvanized wire, except for a stainless steel bobstay.
Sheets and halyards are of 1 1/4" or 1 1/2" terylene.
A crew of seven is considered ideal today, although in
the old days she was raced with eight. One of the crew who
sailed on her 50 or 60 years ago recalled that "Sailors from
overseas who had seen THISTLE, an America's Cup chal-
lenger, under sail in the home country often used to say
that PASTIME was an exact model of her. Now that is a
remarkable thing, as PASTIME was launched before
THISTLE and could not have been copied from her."

Robert Stowell is a New Zealander who has been a farmer,

private press operator, lecturer and merchant seaman. His
interests are low-cost housing and boatbuilding.
PASTIME'S fine entrance shows clearly in this view of her hauled up on the
railway. Note the channels, which lead the shrouds farther outboard.

Sailing in the company of her more modern sisters, PASTIME is an inspiring sight.

70 WoodenBoat/40
40/WoodenBoat 71
 Singlehanding
an Old Gaffer
Crossing the Atlantic alone in a 30' old gaffer of sensible design is far more comfortable than most of us might imagine.
I t's easy to say it, and most people
who come on board ISKRA do.
"There's something about a wooden
boat —she's got something— there's a
feeling about her, an atmosphere, a
kind of sympathy."
Quite what it is that attracts such
general approval is harder to define.
Nostalgia comes into it, and perhaps a
touch of snobbery. Wood is a toler-
ant, sympathetic material, but it has
its failings as well. The art of building
boats has changed in character over
the past few decades, in keeping with
everything else. To some extent, a
boat, like a house or even an automo-
bile, is a reflection of the society we
live in. There are boats whose hulls
are constructed of ferro-cement, of
fiberglass, or of steel that are splendid
vessels —fine sailers, sturdy, fast, ele-
gant, comfortable. Others have the
unmistakable stamp of mass produc-
tion and are thereby less attractive,
although their performance may be as
good. All boats, including wooden
72 WoodenBoat/40
by Frank Mulville
boats, have their special advantages
and attractions, their own snags and
drawbacks, their individual quirks and
characteristics. All of them —large,
small, ugly, beautiful, wood, not
wood —possess the strange faculty to
insinuate themselves into a man's soul,
to make him a bigger, stronger, more
complete person as a result of their
association with him. When all is said
and done, the wooden boat is much
like any other—yet, well, maybe there
is something a little distinguished
about ISKRA. As the Spaniards used to
say of her, "Es como el hogar" — "She's
like a home."
She was in no way exceptional
when she was built in 1930. She was a
natural link in the chain of boat evolu-
tion from work toward pleasure.
There is much of the Falmouth quay
punt in her: high topsides, long
straight keel, canted transom follow-
ing the line down to the bottom of the
boat, rudder hung outside, and an
uncompromising, sturdy look about
her, only softened by an easy sheer.
She has something of the workboat as
well — cemented bilges with a ton of
iron mixed in that has been there for
all of her 50 years, a heavy weather
helm that is a hangover from the days
when sailing vessels pulled trawls, iron
reinforcement of her floors, and plenty
of beam. Yet she makes concessions to
the yacht. She has a cutaway forefoot,
giving her a slim entry, and she has a
fine run aft with a concave section in
the bilge that sweeps from keel to
waterline like the opening petals of a
flower. She may have been built
without an engine, since the existing
installation was put in, as far as is
known, just before the war in 1938.
This would account for her slim bilges
aft, a trait that was often lost when
designers made provision for engines.
But her fine run gives her a pretty turn
to windward which, 50 years on, can
come as a big surprise to owners of
Photographs by the Author
much younger boats. The engine is an
old Ailsa Craig two-cylinder diesel,
slow running with a heavy flywheel
and a soft and confident thump-
thum, which suggests a timeless relia-
bility.
ISKRA was built at Littlehampton,
a small port on the south coast of
England between the isle of Wight and
Brighton, by the yard of David Hill-
yard, who designed her. She is 30'
long overall, 28'6" on the waterline,
and has 9'6" beam with a draft of 5'.
She's planked with pitch pine on 4"
grown oak frames, interspersed with
steamed oak ribs. She has a 1 1/2-ton
iron keel in addition to the iron set in
her bilge, a common habit in those
days, even for yachts. She is copper
fastened, and the whole of her bottom,
from keel to 4" above the waterline, is
sheathed in copper.
This copper sheathing was put on
just after the last war, before she made
her first transatlantic voyage. It lasted
until 1973, by which time it had oxi-
dized away until it was paper thin and
considerably patched. After much
heart searching, I decided to replace it
with new copper in spite of the
expense. This was done by a yard on
the east coast of England where the
skill had been kept alive by a ship-
wright who had worked in the yard for
many years. It was a good investment;
copper affords protection against
marine borers, it saves expense in slip-
ping and painting the hull, and it
preserves the hull, keeping the caulk-
ing and filling in excellent condition.
But it was a laborious process.
The old copper was stripped, the old
nail holes were all filled with small
splines of pine, gently hammered in so
that she resembled a porcupine with a
crew cut. The hull was then smoothed
and painted with black varnish, a coal
tar derivative. She was then covered
completely with heavy, tar-impreg-
nated industrial paper that was stuck
fast to the hull by the black varnish
coating, and this, in its turn, was
coated with more black varnish as the
copper was put on. The copper strips
were about 2'6" long and 8" wide,
overlapping from the keel upward.
The stem and stern posts were neatly
lapped over, completing the parcel.
At home, ISKRA spends her winters
fitted with a canvas cover and lying in
a mud berth, where she floats only at
spring tides. This is an ideal method
of laying up; the hull is always natu-
rally supported and the wood does not
dry and shrink in the wind. It may
have some responsibility for ISKRA's
longevity, and it's cheap as well.
David Hillyard's yard in Little-
hampton is still building wooden hulls,
but they are no longer like ISKRA.
Hillyard's nicely caught the trend of
demand between the wars, some time
after ISKRA was built, when they devel-
oped their center cockpit yachts —
owner's cabin aft, children in the
fo'c's'le, and guests amidships. They
were and still are the embodiment of
family cruising with their big reliable
engines, simple Bermudan rig, high
freeboard, and canoe sterns. What
they lost in speed, they gained in solid
reliability, sturdiness, and safety. In
their way, they were pioneers of all
that is worst and all that is best in
British yacht design —why we don't
win the America's Cup, and why more
Englishmen than any other race are
found wandering around the world in
small boats.
The trade wind route from Europe
to the West Indies and back makes an
attractive jaunt for an English or con-
tinental yachtsman, and now these
voyages are numbered in the dozens
every year. The voyage starts in Sep-
tember, before bad weather sets in
around the Bay of Biscay. The Portu-
guese trades, a strong northerly wind,
can usually be found somewhere close
"l had never sailed
singlehanded until I set
out from Essex on the
east coast of England,
bound for Cuba .
I learned more on that
first voyage than in all
my previous sailing
experience."
to northern Spain, and they will take a
yacht to Madeira or to the Canary
Islands. The crossing is made in Octo-
ber or November, to arrive in the
islands for Christmas, after the hur-
ricane season. To finish off a winter's
cruise to the Caribbean, a departure
can be made from the Virgin Islands
across the trade wind to Bermuda, and
then, in April or May, a westerly can
as often as not be found to complete
the circle back to Spain or straight to
England, sometimes via the Azores.
It is the traditional sailing ship
route —all sunshine, all downwind. I
first used it when I went to Cuba with
my family in the 40' ketch GIRL
STELLA in 1968-1969. She was an old
Looe lugger from the West Country of
England, built in 1896. The voyage
was successful until, homeward bound
at the island of Flores in the Azores,
GIRL STELLA was wrecked. Riddled
with guilt at losing so superb a vessel
and my confidence shattered, I bought
ISKRA in 1970, intending to repeat the
voyage alone. She had already been
across the Atlantic, under a previous
name, CALVA, and a previous owner,
and she had made the winter round
trip five years before I bought her. I
changed her name because CALVA, in
Spanish, means bald lady. ISKRA is a
Russian word meaning "a spark."
I had never sailed singlehanded
until I set out from Essex on the east
coast of England, bound for Cuba in
September, 1970. I learned more on
that first voyage than in all my previ-
ous sailing experience. After I had
mastered the business of handling a
heavy gaff cutter by myself, ISKRA
proved to be an excellent vessel for
making long passages alone. She is
immensely seaworthy, she has good
freeboard, which keeps her dry, her
long straight keel gives her steadiness,
and her great weight makes her
motion easy and regular. She never
jerks or bangs into a head sea unless
she is being pressed too hard, she is
close winded, and she has a remark-
able turn of speed.
The gaff rig is ideally suited to
ocean sailing singlehanded. ISKRA's
working sails are small and therefore
easily handled. She can be snugged
down in a hard blow, but in light
weather with her tops'l and her big
heads'l, which sets from the top of the
mast to the end of the bowsprit to
abaft the shrouds, she will slip along
like a racer. Most important, on a
long passage alone, she is comfortable
to live in —plenty of headroom, cozy,
and at the same time spacious. Being
built of wood she does not drip con-
densation, and she is quiet at sea. She
has the distinctive smell of a wooden
boat — something between an old-fash-
ioned drawing room and a sail loft.
ISKRA was never intended as a
single-handed yacht. She was built
long before the days of automatic
steering devices, when lone sailors
were a rarity. She was heavily rigged
as a gaff cutter with a 12' bowsprit and
a boom that one man can hardly lift.
Originally her boom projected well out
over the stern, but in 1970 it was
lopped off, bringing it inboard and
dramatically reducing weather helm.
At the same time a little extra lead
ballast was added forward, and she
was provided with a larger stays'l and a
larger jib, so now she balances well,
although in a strong wind she likes a
reef in the mains'l.
She has an AYRS self-steering gear
now, one of the first produced and
more robust than those currently
made. She was given extra halyards
40/WoodenBoat 73

Top—ISKRA really flies in a whole
sail breeze. But if the wind pipes up
more, it's a simple matter to tuck in
a reef so she steadies down.
Right — After a bad experience in
an Atlantic gale, the author rigged a
wide, shallow self-draining cockpit
using removable planks and a canvas
insert.
Bottom —In 1974 ISKRA'S copper
sheathing was replaced by one of the
few artisans who still do such work.
74 WoodenBoat/40
and wire stays for twin heads'ls, a rig
she has used to good effect for many
thousands of miles. The twins are as
big as can be accommodated, and they
set with their foot a short distance out
along the bowsprit to give as much lift
as possible. They are provided with
reef points, essential in a strong trade
wind, and when running under twins
in a strong wind, the peak halyard is
unbent from the mains'l and used as
an additional running backstay to sup-
port the top of the mast. The booms
are rigged independently of the sails
themselves, so a man alone can set
twin stays'ls easily, hauling the clew of
the sails out to the ends of the booms
after the sails are hoisted.
Setting the mains'l and, perhaps
more important, getting the mains'l
down in a strong following wind, can
be hard work for a singlehander in an
old gaff cutter. The job can be made
more simple by rigging the gear cor-
rectly.
There should be nothing under the
lee of the sail, like runners or lazy jacks
or a topping lift, so that even when full
of wind it is free to come down. ISKRA's
runners can be let go with quick-
release shackles, and she has twin top-
ping lifts so the lee one can be cleared
away. Lacing is better than mast
hoops, provided it is rove correctly—
from side to side and not round the
mast.
Particularly for the singlehander,
vangs should be fitted to the gaff end,
and these should be led straight down
to the boom, one on either side of the
sail and then through deadeyes and
along to the mast. For convenience,
the two vangs can be spliced together
and made fast or hooked on some-
where along the heel of the boom. As
sail is dropped, the vangs are hauled.
They have a triple purpose: at once
controlling the end of the gaff,
keeping the gaff clear of the shrouds,
and helping to gather up the sail as it
drops. They may not look as smart,
but they are better than lazy jacks,
offering no friction against the lee side
of the sail. A gaff sail, when full of
wind, should be easier to take in than
a Bermudan sail, having no slides and
less tendency to gripe against the rig-
ging. A boom gallows is worth its
weight in gold.
ISKRA was built as a family cruiser
and was never intended for the ocean.
She has a deep, roomy cockpit drain-
ing straight into the bilge, a dire
hazard in a real seaway. After a bitter
experience at the pumps in an Atlantic
gale I devised a self-draining cockpit
for her. Two-inch-diameter drains
were fitted to the after ends of the
cockpit seats, the top fitting having
wide plastic flanges that can be
unscrewed. The central, open part of
the cockpit between the seats was then
covered with two removable boards
making the cockpit a wide, shallow
place well above the waterline. A
canvas insert drops in, the top flanges
of the drains are taken off, the canvas
put under, and then the flanges
screwed down on top of it. The insert
is then fastened to the cockpit sides
with four wood battens. Now, when
the glass begins to fall, I rig the self-
draining cockpit and can laugh when
a sea slops over.
During that same pumping session,
I determined to fit an inside pump so
it would no longer be necessary to
dress up and go out into the cold and
wet in order to clear the bilge. This is
a small diaphragm pump positioned in
a locker amidships, with a lead that
can be switched from one side of the
bilge to the other. ISKRA has three
pumps: one inside, one out in the
cockpit, and an electric pump. The
electric one is a concession to the auto-
matic age, and it has served me well.
It's very useful, and sometimes neces-
sary, to be able to pump the bilge
while doing other things. ISKRA leaks
very little, but you can never be too
sure.
What is noticeable at once about
ISKRA is that she has no stanchions and
wire guardrails around the deck.
Instead, she has a single stainless wire
at waist height from the boom gallows,
outside the shrouds and down to the
bitts forward. She had deck
stanchions and rails when I bought
her, but I took them off. I believe they
restrict movement on the deck, they
are in the way when ropes are being
handled over the side, and they can
act as a trip and thus be an actual
danger. A man thrown backward
against deck stanchions can flip over-
board in seconds. Particularly for a
singlehander, who should be using a
safety harness continually when at sea,
the guard wire is safer and more con-
venient. I clip my harness on as soon
as I come out into the cockpit and can
move forward freely without altering
the clip. Most important, if I'm
unlucky enough or careless enough to
fall overboard when the yacht is sailing
fast, I'd be swept to the stern and
towed along clear of the hull. I should
then be able to haul myself in as far as
the self-steering gear and by moving
the skeg or trim tab, bring ISKRA into
the wind and climb on board. A har-
ness clipped to a guard rail could
cause a sailor overboard to be held up
and dragged along hard against the
yacht's side, quite unable to haul him-
self aboard.
Most yachtsmen pay no more than
lip service to the safety harness—it
usually spends the voyage neatly
stowed in a locker. But whether sin-
glehanding or with a crew, it's worth-
while to experiment with a safety har-
ness and find a routine for using it, at
least in bad weather. Properly used, it
is a real help when working on deck,
and it gives a welcome feeling of con-
fidence when it is most needed.
On our first trip together, ISKRA
sailed from England to the Canary
Islands and then across to Antigua in
30 days. She then sailed to the Virgin
Islands and along the coast of Puerto
Rico and Hispaniola to the small port
of Baracoa in the extreme east of
Cuba. In GIRL STELLA we had entered
Cuba at Santiago in the south, sailing
westward round Cape San Antonio to
Havana. On this voyage in ISKRA, I
sailed from port to port along the
north coast to Havana, thus complet-
ing a circumnavigation of Cuba,
except for a few miles in the southeast
corner of the island.
The north coast of Cuba in winter
was not a happy place for a yacht. It is
a lee shore in a hard blow, strewn with
unlit reefs. The Cubans, though hos-
pitable, helpful, and kind to me, were
touchy and preoccupied with the fear
of armed incursions at that time, and
they had a habit of blacking out
coastal lights and even changing the
characteristics of lighthouses without
warning. This nearly brought ISKRA
to grief one black night in a hard
norther off the port of Isabella de
Sagua.
On the way back to England from
Cuba, between the Bahamas and
Bermuda, in the much publicized "tri-
angle," ISKRA passed through what I
believed at the time to be, and still
believe was, a survival storm. She ran
through enormous seas with warps
streamed for two days and was twice
overwhelmed by breaking waves. She
survived it with no more damage than
a torn stays'l, a flooded engine, and a
few inconsiderable bits of electrical
gear spoilt. It was after this experi-
ence that the self-draining cockpit was
put in! She went through several other
less severe westerly gales from
Bermuda back across the Atlantic. I
tried to sail directly to Essex from Ber-
muda but was forced out of the west-
em approaches to the English Channel
by another gale, this time a north-
easter. I put in to Camarinas, a small
port on the northwest coast of Spain,
after 29 days of more or less
continuous bad weather. The extra
inside pump was installed after this
passage.
ISKRA then made voyages from
Essex to Norway as far north as the
Sognefjord, and to Denmark,
Holland, and France. In 1973 she was
given an extensive refit, during which
her copper was renewed. At the same
time she had her keel bolts replaced
and her fastenings doubled in places,
decks recanvased, and all seacocks
renewed. She was 43 years old at this
time, and there was no sign of rot or
any serious deterioration in the hull.
Two of her frames and a few of her
steamed ribs had been doubled a
couple of years before I bought her in
1970. The Lloyds surveyor was
impressed with her.
I thought that ISKRA might do just
one more voyage before her retire-
ment, and so I set out for the Bahamas
in 1974, following the usual trade
wind route. My daughter lived in
Nassau at that time, and had been
pressing me to visit her. This time
ISKRA was only 25 days on the long
crossing from the Canaries to Antigua.
In the first seven days she covered
1,000 miles under twin stays'ls, and I
have never experienced a more excit-
ing sail. Except for another strong
and prolonged gale near Bermuda,
which seems to enjoy more than its
share of such weather, this was an
uneventful voyage from a sailing point
of view. To some extent, at least, I
had at last mastered the art of single-
handed sailing. I found that I made
fewer mistakes and was able to with-
stand solitude better. I discovered,
though, that the Bahamas is no place
for a man to be sailing by himself.
The reefs, shallows and hair-raising
cuts, not to mention the sometimes-
vague charts, demand at least three
pairs of eyes and more than one set of
strong nerves.
It was on this voyage that I experi-
enced an encounter with the schooner
INTEGRITY from South Dartmouth,
Massachusetts, which led to a series of
adventures and resulted in my latest
book, which you'll find reviewed in
this issue. ISKRA arrived back in
England in 1975, in time to win the
Old Gaffers' Race on the east coast of
England. There were 90 starters that
year.
After making another voyage to
Norway the following year, I quite
decided that I would make no more
long singlehanded voyages in ISKRA.
The business of lone sailing is fascin-
ating, but it can become addictive.
Luckily, my resolution was easily over-
turned when it became necessary for
me to visit the United States for busi-
ness reasons in connection with my
Schooner INTEGRITY book. I therefore
had no choice but to fit ISKRA out for
her seventh crossing of the Atlantic.
40/WoodenBoat 75
In many ways it was the most interest-
ing and rewarding voyage I have
made.
ISKRA carried a "cargo" of 400
books to America, stowed in the
fo'c's'le and under the bunks in the
cabin. I came across in the summer,
leaving England at the end of May and
sailing in a leisurely fashion to Ponta
Delgada in the Azores, where I spent
two delightful, idle weeks. I then
sailed straight to Newport along the
rhumb line. In fact, I had no choice
of course because once I was clear of
the Azores and a week of difficult,
frustrating calms and fickle breezes,
76 WoodenBoat/40
the wind settled itself into the south-
west where it remained, with varia-
tions, until I reached the borders of
the Gulf Stream.
My preoccupation was to prevent
ISKRA from being driven north, which
happened every time the wind veered
to the west. She was close hauled,
hard on the wind, for three weeks. It
was a slow, hard slog such as I had
never experienced in the softer trade
wind latitudes. The seas were always
rough, always with crests breaking
aboard. The wind varied between
moderate and force 7, with three real
gales for good measure. Hardly a day
passed when ISKRA was not reefed at
least twice. I would put a double reef
in the mains'l first, then three reefs,
then change to the storm trys'l and roll
up the jib. It was a routine that
became a part of everyday life.
After a few days of this treatment,
the drips began to find their way in
through the coach roof so that the lee
bunk was uninhabitable. The motion
was violent and unpredictable; my
every movement inside and on deck
had to be calculated from one hand-
hold to another. Often it was too
rough to take sights for fear of spoiling
the sextant with spray, or being
thrown over and damaging it. But
ISKRA went through it all steadfastly,
doggedly fighting for every yard
gained to the west. Her weight and
her steadiness and stiffness brought
her through.
The Gulf Stream brought even
worse conditions. The seas became
steeper and rougher, sometimes like a
tide race. The depressions followed
one on top of the next in almost con-
tinuous cycle. It was usually overcast
with occasional hazy sun showing over
an indistinct horizon, making navi-
gation difficult. The current was so
strong, sometimes swinging around
and flowing east and south in vicious
back eddies, that twice ISKRA was
taken back on her tracks in a day's sail-
ing. Even the faithful engine was of
little use in such a chop.
It took nearly a week to cover the
last 300 miles to Newport. I had been
35 days at sea to cover just under 2,000
miles, the slowest ocean passage I have
ever made, hardly more than 50 miles
per day. But it showed that the old
gaff cutter can make passages to wind-
ward in difficult conditions. ISKRA's
time from the Azores to Newport was
the same to within a couple of days as
that of two other yachts who left
roughly at the same time.
My stay in America has been a
wonderful experience which, for-
tunately is not yet over. I have cruised
as far as Mystic, Buzzards Bay, and
Vineyard Sound, and met with
nothing but kindness, interest and
warm hospitality. ISKRA is comforta-
bly laid up for the winter in a Provi-
dence, Rhode Island, yard, and next
year I hope to sail to Maine, Nova
Scotia, Newfoundland, and then
home by way of the south of Ireland.
It is proving to be a very happy round
trip for an old wooden boat. And per-
haps there will be more.
Frank Mulville lives on the Essex coast
of England and writes about sailing
and the sea. He's currently writing a
book on singlehanded sailing.
40/WoodenBoat 77
 Knock onWood
Part I: Plight of the Canoe People
D ugout canoes are surely the most
"traditional" of all wooden boats.
When counted together with various
long-planked "native" craft, these
canoes are still operating by the mil-
lions worldwide. They perform a cri-
tical function in fishing and transpor-
tation for a large segment of the
world's population.
This fleet faces predictable
decline, which may come as no
surprise, but the effects of this decline
are not remote or confined to develop-
ing nations. In a sense we are all like
the "canoe people," because our lives
depend, to one extent or another, on
trees. But no one relies more on good
wood than the canoe people, the sort
of wood from which one builds a
dugout or a yacht.
It now appears that quality boat-
building wood, the genetic element
from which most traditional vessels
have evolved, is not a renewable
resource. This opinion is founded on
my direct observations. In the early
1970s my family and I cruised our con-
tinental coasts (in a wooden boat),
and those sailings gave us the chance
to visit many remote harbors, especi-
ally in Central America. More
recently I've worked as a boatbuilding
consultant on "artisanal" fishing
projects overseas. I'm always snooping
around boats, and almost everywhere
the story is the same. Whether it's in
eastern Guatemala, western Kenya,
the northern Bahamas, or the south-
ern Philippines, two factors recur:
Everything that floats is in constant
service, and the boatbuilders are
having a hard time getting wood,
especially good wood.
The problem is compounded by
traditional boatbuilding methods.
The properties of local woods, such as
workability, longevity, strength, and
of course availability, have determined
the evolution of boat design almost as
much as the local sea conditions.
For example, consider the Sesse canoes
of Lake Victoria in Africa. These
lightweight flyers are essentially
frameless, with wide, pit-sawn planks
edge-joined by strips of metal flashing
cut with tin snips and tacked over the
seams with a profusion of escutcheon
78 WoodenBoat/40
Text and
Photographs
by
Jim Brown
pins. A band of inner tube rubber is
placed over the seam before the tin,
and under the rubber may be a bead
of tar. But that's it!
Such fabrication depends on the
integrity of the wood to hold
thousands of tiny fasteners. Because
these craft operate in fresh water, the
flashing and the pins are not rapidly
corroded, but the wood is subjected to
heavy onslaught from equatorial heat,
sunlight, fresh water, and insects.
In Kenya's territorial waters on
Lake Victoria, which constitute only
about one-sixth of the lake's total area,
there are about 4,000 such canoes,
and these craft provide incomes for
some 18,000 Kenya fishermen, plus a
large number of individual fish-mar-
keting entrepreneurs, usually women,
who function mainly without ice or
vehicles. This is a complex system in
which the boat plays only a small part,
but the end result is that the system
feeds and employs a substantial por-
tion of the local, burgeoning popula-
tion.
The fish in Lake Victoria are hold-
ing up, but the boats are in trouble.
The traditionally favored timber for
building these craft has been the ele-
gant iroko, that noblest of African
"mahoganies." But in Nairobi I was
told by a large lumber dealer, "There
is no more iroko here." There are sub-
stitutions, of course, like the local
Elgon teak and other cedar-like
species, but boats built of these woods
don't last — there are too many knots
and splits and too many nail holes,
and they have limited resistance to the
myriad forms of tropical decomposi-
tion.
Incidentally, the Sesse canoes are
difficult to replace for other reasons.
Any alien design or imported material
cannot approach the cost effectiveness
of such highly evolved vehicles. They
are very narrow and have a broad V
section amidships for stability without
excessive beam, and their topsides
have tumblehome to an abrupt chine
to facilitate reaching overside to pad-
dle. Their fine shape and light weight
make them easy to propel, and
because they are moved easily by the
arms, their rig and sailplan can be
extremely simple and cheap. The rig
is just a feathery version of the lateen,
used only for sailing when the wind is
fair. The yard is brought down to
reduce windage when the crew is
required to paddle upwind.
This portion of Lake Victoria is
blessed with alternating winds, after-
noon breezes often blowing opposite to
nighttime zephyrs, allowing even the
large freighter-like canoes, with their
cargoes of livestock, produce, and
people, to travel anywhere without
engines simply by waiting half a day
for a favorable wind.
The Sesse canoes, all 4,000 of
them, occupy a very specific niche in
the environment, yet all of them must
be replaced with "something" sooner
or later. Faced with this reality,
authorities are often tempted to insert
a "brute force" solution —to promote
industrial fishboats to harvest fish
more efficiently, and mechanized
water transport to facilitate com-
merce. But the evidence is now
becoming clear; such solutions often
fail to bootstrap the economy because
they subvert the culture and force a lot
of people out of work, people who then
no longer can buy the fish and patron-
ize the transporters.
This description greatly simplifies
what is actually a very delicate,
double-bind predicament faced by
governments and those who distribute
international development funding.
Assuming that credit becomes avail-
able, the question is how to invest.
The obvious answer might well be
simply to finance "more of the
same" —more ice, more marketing
facilities, more fishermen for more
fish, and more boats.
What kind of boats? Wooden
boats? What kind of wood? In an
economy so strapped that everyone,
The sailing dugout of the San Bias Cuna Indians is simple, sensible, and very graceful.
40/WoodenBoat 79
Below—The author's friend
Bruce MacDougal looks over two
of the last Honduras mahogany
dugouts to be carved at Livingston,
Guatemala. The year was 1974.
Right — Lake Victoria's Sesse canoes
are rigged with lateen sails of character,
if nothing else. This form of "plastic bag
propulsion" obviates the need for outboard
motors.

80 WoodenBoat/40
Left — On Lake Victoria, large cargo canoes
transport livestock, people, and produce
entirely by sail.
Below — The finely carved dugouts of the Cuna
Indians require large logs of high-quality, very
stable wood. The life span of a dugout built
from good wood is up to 12 years but currently
available logs provide only four years of service.
Bottom — The efficient, narrow hull form of a
large Philippine banca is revealed as the craft
lies aground at low tide. Bancas still pay their
way under sail alone in interisland transport.
Opposite Page Bottom— Ocean-going Arab
dhows, employing both engine and sail power,
are still being built for international trade.
The smaller mashua dhow pictured here is
engineless and is used for coastwise trading.
Suitable timber for building these boats is still
in fair supply on the coast of Kenya.

40/WoodenBoat 81
 Right — Planking seams on the Sesse canoes are first filled
with tar, then covered with inner tube rubber before the
metal flashing is tacked in place.
Below — Around the village of Misori, Kenya, the fore-
foot "horns" of the Sesse canoes have evolved from a pro-
tective beaching device into a most elaborate ornament.
Bottom — The ancient Ungalawa trimaran is still valued
for its safety and performance. The center hull is a nar-
row dugout, and the outriggers are "inclined foils."

82 WoodenBoat/40
from the boatbuilder to the fisherman
to the fishmonger to the customer, may
barely be making it from day to day, it
is clearly impossible to propose a boat
design or construction material with
anything close to the same low invest-
ment cost, zero operating expense,
and long service life as, for instance, a
Sesse canoe crafted from iroko.
For a different example let's go
down to the Kenya coast on the Indian
Ocean. Here there are actually two
examples, one in the south and
another to the north. On the south
coast below the ancient port of Mom-
basa, the locals fish with dugouts —
hollowed logs wherein the pile of chips
is bigger than the finished boat.
Historically, this wastefulness was
unimportant because there was always
another tree. Now, the quality of logs
accessible from the water, and there-
fore to the boatbuilders, has so
declined that canoe carvers are hard
pressed to produce a hull that doesn't
leak too much or deteriorate too fast to
make it worth the work.
The design of these Kenya coastal
dugouts is straightforward enough, the
boats are operated with outboards and
paddles, and only in fair weather or
within the protection of a 'longshore
reef. They're not dealing with a lake.
But I was fascinated with the sailing
dugout canoes, now almost unknown
since the advent of outboards. Being a
multihull proponent myself, and
believing that outrigger history
belonged to the Pacific, imagine my
surprise upon encountering a Stone
Age trimaran not far from Mombasa,
the incredible ungalawa. This craft
features a dugout central hull sculpted
with a fine, cutting bow and extreme
flare at the stemhead —not unlike the
fastest contemporary multihull sea-
boats—and its outrigger platform is
something else. A peculiar, jointed
crossbeam is restrained by lashings to
control articulation, and the outboard
hulls are really inclined hydrofoils, in
a way suggestive of the supermodern
PAUL RICARD V in which Eric Taberly
recently cracked the transatlantic
speed record.
There is some evidence that the
western Indian Ocean was once colo-
nized by Indonesians, which may
explain the existence of such craft in
Africa. There is also some evidence
that the ungalawa may be the subject
of revival; I found two new ones under
construction and asked the builders
why: "Because this boat is the easiest,
cheapest and safest we can build for
fishing outside the reef without
motors." When asked where they can
get the logs for building more, they
answered with a shrug.
On the north Kenya coast the situ-
ation is quite different. A healthy
boatbuilding tradition has survived,
apparently since the period of
Portuguese colonialism in East Africa,
and a variety of fine wooden
workboats are produced from noble
timber in fair supply. The fishermen
really know their stuff, and their
lateen-rigged mashua-dhows are bril-
liant performers to windward despite
the lack of keels or centerboards, a
unique achievement. The large,
genoa-like lateen sail is extended well
forward by the luff spar, which is
guyed to the outboard end of a long,
adjustable (even retractable) bow-
sprit. When the vessel is closehauled,
the drive in the powerful sail is cen-
tered over the forebody of the hull.
This forebody is elegantly shaped with
a deep, plumb stem and substantial
hollow in the entry waterlines. With
Strong and simple rigging
this entry, great lateral resistance is
generated, to match the hull with the
rig. Tacking such a sail is a lot of
exercise, but believe me, the boats can
really move. They can also skim
through shallow water, embark from
the beach, and be built without the
cost and complication of deep append-
ages. However, their offshore naviga-
tion is predictably limited by squirrely
steering properties when squared-off
in a seaway. Running hard, the sharp
hull entry takes charge and threatens
broaching, a bad thing for a boat with
open decks and all inside ballast.
These design features have appar-
ently influenced the timing of fishing
expeditions and therefore the culture
of the fishermen. During the long,
windy season of the northeast
monsoon, the boats go out at first
light, and return by early afternoon
before the wind and seas become
threatening. Commerce, religion, and
family life all pivot on this schedule.
To introduce a fishboat capable of
changing such cultural rhythm could
very well be misdirected. Who wants
to go fishing at night, especially in a
boat that's so expensive to buy and to
operate that it must be worked round-
the-clock?
Yet Kenya needs more fish. The
north coast has more fish to offer, and
the fishermen are happy to catch them
if transportation exists to guarantee a
market for their catch, and if they can
spend their afternoons and evenings in
the centuries-old manner to which
they've become accustomed. Again,
the answer appears to be "more of the
same." More sailing mashua-dhows,
made available to more fishermen
through international credit, and even
motorized fishboats for going farther
out with gillnets and getting back for a
late lunch, as long as the increased
catch will really pay for the fuel and
the machine.
How many more mashuas? And
how many dieselized gillnet seaskiffs?
One hundred fifty? Made of what?
By whom? Can we get the wood?
Well, some. But that's a lot of boats.
Will the forest disappear into the sea?
Kenya's proximation to the
Arabian Seas is made obvious by the
heavy Islam influence, especially
among the very pleasant coastal
people. Arab dhows in the 90' range
still ply their ancient monsoon routes,
carrying international cargoes to the
seasonally shifting downbeat of the
monsoons. They used to traffic in
ivory and slaves, all by sail, of course.
They all have engines now, but a
vestigial rig and sailplan has remained
for use in the event of breakdown. It is
said that the sight of this sail is becom-
ing more common today, when the
wind is free and the engine is throttled
back. New dhows are being built; a
big one was planking up just off the
main street in Lamu Town when I was
there.
I found another pocket of wooden
working canoes in Panama. Actually,
the people of San Bias don't consider
themselves Panamanians. They have
remained aloof in their island wonder-
land, stretched along the Caribbean
coast of Darien, since before Colum-
bus. Here they have preserved a strict
genetic purity and close cultural con-
tact with their forebears, the original
Arawaks, later to be known as the
Caribs, and now — what few remain —
as Cuna Indians.
These people with their territory
and their boats, are the Caribbean's
answer to the South Pacific islanders.
The women are makers of the famous
mola textiles, colorful blouse panels
with marvelous art in reverse applique.
The men carve great dugout canoes,
though the accessible logs are about
40/WoodenBoat 83

The author's son Russell adapted a Guatemalan dugout by adding outrigger and sail —
a configuration previously unknown on Rio Dulce, and which caused much comment.
gone, so rough-hewn "blanks" of infer-
ior timber are now towed in from
Colombia, while they last. This may
not seem like such a calamity, except
when held against the importance of
the indigenous craft in these islands.
The people regard their boats in the
same light as we regard our cars,
trucks, airplanes, and yachts. The
islands are very small, densely popu-
lated "bedroom communities" lying
just a few miles from the mainland.
Before dawn, great flocks of canoes
Common bancas for fishing and commuting use one-cylinder, air-cooled engines for power.
These engines provide high efficiency in return for low investment and operating costs.
84 WoodenBoat/40
sail away from suburbia —the men go
off to work their fields on the main-
land, catch fish in the sea, tend coco-
nuts on the outer islands, and secure
fresh water from the jungle rivers.
The canoes return to the islands in
early afternoon, carrying the lifeblood
of this unique society, perhaps the last
essentially pure vestige of what
America was like before the Spanish
came. Without canoes this society
cannot be maintained.
In Belize, a Caribbean country,
there are many cultures mingled
here —ancient Maya, colonial British,
slave-descended African. One group,
which represents a classic case of what
anthropologists call quasi-assimila-
tion, is known as Black Carib.
Through a fateful twist of integration
that occurred far to the east in the
plantation islands of the Antilles,
children fathered by African runaways
were born to Carib Indian mothers.
These children favored their fathers in
appearance, but were raised by their
mothers with a strong cultural heri-
tage from ancient America. Colonial
planters found these offspring to be
uncooperative as field hands and so
shipped them off in boatloads to the
Honduras Bay Islands. The Black
Caribs didn't really like those islands,
so they eventually migrated to the
mainland and became the coastal
root-stock of today's Honduras, Gua-
temala, and Belize. They are among
the most soulful seapeople I have ever
encountered.
Their territory is rich. Belize has a
barrier reef second in extent only to
the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.
There are many islands, including real
atolls, and right offshore is where the
Gulf Stream really gathers steam. If
Belizians can avoid the temptation to
bulldoze the sea bottom with draggers
and otherwise "industrialize" their
fishery, they'll have a nice resource to
last them well into forever.
The Belizians used to do a lot of
running around the coast in dugout
canoes, but I'm told the logs have
given out since I was there in 1975.
They also had some nice smack-like
vessels descended from the time when
this place was known as British Hon-
duras. This was the seat of "Honduras
mahogany," that wonderful meso-
American counterpart to iroko. Now,
when we order "Honduras mahog-
any" its look-alike often comes from
another country, such as Brazil. These
smacks were lively craft just a few years
ago, and the smack sailors would take
them everywhere — all around the reefs
and out to the atolls, often taking their
catch by diving, dodging sharks, and
then camping on the islands over-
night. The transoms of the smacks
sometimes carried outboards for when
the wind fell, but mostly it blew, and
mostly they sailed. The price of these
used sailing craft had never been
higher back in 1975, because they
weren't being built anymore. There
was no more wood.
In the Bahamas they also have
smacks, built mostly for nostalgia now.
There are a few real sailing workboats
down island, but mostly motorboats
prevail. In the Bahamas they also
have "mahogany" for building boats,
but it comes — I was amazed to dis-
cover—all the way from the Philip-
pines, which has lots of "mahogany."
The Philippines call it miranti, or the
Asian word, luan. There are many
different kinds, weights, and qualities.
Some of it is very good boatbuilding
wood, rivaling iroko and Honduras.
Mahogany is important in the Phil-
ippines, so important that it can be
fairly said that these islands have a
wood-based economy. Like most
small countries with such a dominant
resource, the Philippines have been
shipping out wood in enormous
quantities for a long time, both in
lumber form and as forest products,
especially plywood and furniture.
This exploitation becomes increasingly
necessary as energy costs escalate. A
developing nation normally has a
growing appetite for oil, and unless it
has its own, somehow it must earn
"foreign exchange" money with which
A banca yacht, with a narrow hull for high speed and fuel efficiency. The outrigger float is made from plastic pipe.
to import. As a result, all the main
islands of the Philippine archipelago,
except one, have been logged over.
Where great stands of timber once
smothered the hills with lush tropical
forest, there is now mostly brush,
erosion, and a few palms along the
beaches. Much of this timber cutting
has occurred since World War II.
The notable exception to this in
the Philippines is the big island far to
the south, Mindanao. Here virgin
timber is being exploited, but some of
the local folks do not willfully align
themselves with the policies of the
national government. They are resist-
ing. They don't like the idea of having
their island deforested to support the
government in Manila.
What all this has to do with boats is
explained by the numbers. With
about 45 million people in this archi-
pelago, mostly poor, estimates of the
number of boats run upward toward
one million, which means one banca-
type outrigger canoe for every 45
people. That's a lot of boats to be
replaced in the future, especially with-
out good wood.
When flying into the Philippines in
January, 1980, I looked down on a
two-mile-long beach and saw easily a
thousand trimarans. Having made my
living as a trimaran designer for 20
years, this was heaven! In a week of
prowling the islands, I saw thousands
more and came away with a feeling of
desperation for the canoe people of the
world and for anybody else who needs,
or simply loves, real wooden boats.
Slow-growing red miranti wood
has been the backbone of the banca
trimarans for ages. The hulls are built
on a single bottom plank, something
like a shoe, with a convex-carved
"sole" outside and a concave bilge
inside, with rabbets all around to
receive framework and planking for
the "uppers." Very spidery outrigger
beams are fashioned from bamboo,
and the outer floats themselves are
often large bamboo canes —not much
buoyancy is required and there is no
real heeling effort, because only a few
of these craft are still sailed. Instead,
many thousands of Briggs and Strat-
um engines (air cooled, 16 hp, direct
drive) have been installed in bancas.
When gasoline cost is combined
with the cost of burning kerosene
lights for night fishing, the result is
that fishermen spend an even half of
their income on fuel, even though the
boats are fantastically efficient.
Extremely narrow hull form, with out-
rigger stability and light weight, allow
these craft to be very easily propelled.
Sea conditions are generally mild, and
the boats—like all other indigenous
canoes I've seen —satisfy specific
design requirements, including rock
bottom investment cost and sterling
performance.
The going price in early 1980 for a
completed 23' banca, including paint
but without engine, was about $250,
but the low cost is immaterial when
you consider that the new boats don't
last. One engine might go through
two or three bancas in its approxi-
mately seven-year service life. A fish-
erman's loan scheme to help individu-
als acquire boats was abandoned when
the hulls expired long before the pay-
ments.
Because these vessels operate from
the beach, their bottom shoes receive a
lot of wear, and because they often
stand idle by day in tropic sun and
rain, the "shoe" is subject to attack
from both sides. Pierced by a propel-
ler shaft and rudder post at one end,
and encountering the beach at the
other, the backbone of these boats
40/WoodenBoat 85
requires a very durable wood, no
longer in abundance.
In the old days, the "uppers" of the
hull were planked with sawali (woven,
split bamboo) smeared with pitch.
Now they're using luan plywood,
which lasts about as long as the bot-
toms, which are now made from flat
planks of light luan (no longer
carved), so at least the whole boat goes
punky all at once.
A simple application of modern
wood preservative, or even some mir-
acle coating like epoxy, would extend
the lifespan of the bancas consid-
erably, but the cost constraints are so
terribly harsh that not one extra cent is
expended between the stump and the
derelict.
Please forgive this dour disserta-
tion, but the experience of getting out
and just looking at these boats will
make a powerful impression on any
boat person. And these are just a few
examples; the same thing is happen-
ing all through the tropical belt
around the world. The tropical for-
ests, especially, are declining more
rapidly than statistics and our imagi-
nations will allow.
Many culprits can be identified,
the most obvious being exponential
growth in tropical human popula-
tions. It's not all that simple, but one
correlation does seem certain —once
the land is cleared, it comes under
pressure for agricultural use instead of
timberland, and if it is reforested, the
species chosen is usually fast growing,
which most noble woods are not.
This explains my contention that good
boatbuilding lumber, at least the
tropical kind, is not a renewable
resource. The noble trees simply are
not being renewed.
Oh, we'll find enough for quite a
while for our yachts, our owner -
builders' projects, our fine furniture,
and our restorations, because those
require only dribs and drabs
compared to what the canoe people
need. What we buy is sold to us
through export to earn foreign
exchange. The locals often cannot
buy it because it's all shipped out.
Our native boatbuilding species
here in North America are still fairly
available. For one thing, we have a
relatively enlightened environmental
consciousness — we can afford such a
consciousness. Ask a Philippine why
he dynamites the reef for a few bony
little fish, and he'll ask you to offer
some alternative —his kids are hungry.
For many of these coastal people,
worldwide, their best crack at a bal-
anced bowl of fish and rice comes out
of all those weird little canoes.
Much of this is "low value" fish, the
86 WoodenBoat/40
cheap stuff, cheap because it's not like
shrimp or lobster or fillet of sole, so it
is not sold for export to earn foreign
exchange. Most of the canoes come in
with pathetic catches of little grunt-
like critters that are sold directly to the
local population for human susten-
ance, and it is critical food. It is har-
vested with critical boats, and the
world's critical boatbuilders are
having a really bad time because the
good wood is gone.
We're not just talking about a
hobby or a craft, or a crusade to train
youth in the preservation of anachron-
ism, we're talking about literally mil-
lions of boats. If the Philippines can
be used as an example, then there are
maybe 45 people who depend on each
one of those boats. If the boats are
threatened, then so are the people.
Surely someone among us can pro-
pose a realistic means for the canoe
people to perpetuate their fleets. It
would seem like a great opportunity
for the production yachtmakers, for
they have achieved two of the three
main requirements—low maintenance
and long service life. But what about
cheapness? Foreign exchange con-
straints imply the use of mostly local
materials and labor. The design
requirements are variable; it's diffi-
cult to fill all those specific niches with
boats from one mold. And there are
many "don'ts" — like don't put any-
body out of work, don't promote rapid
cultural changes, and —most of all —
don't use a lot of fuel. These are all
things the canoe people already had
before the good wood ran out.
There are reforestation projects
going on in the tropics, and not all
governments are deaf to sustainable
harvesting. Maybe aquaculture will
take some pressure off the canoe fish-
eries. Development funds are going
heavily into fishponds, but fish in
ponds must be fed, and fish farmers
must be trained in this, the most
sophisticated of all domestic hus-
bandry.
Wild fishes feed themselves, and
the canoe people are already highly
trained to hunt them. They've been a
little too successful. Inshore waters are
oftentimes depleted, so any new boats
we propose should be capable of going
farther out, staying longer, but run-
ning cheaper by the mile. Agreed,
local lifestyles will have to change, but
that takes time. At the same speed,
traditional vessels will evolve to fill a
new environmental niche. It has to
happen, and it's happening right here. Jim Brown has been sailing, designing
All the symptoms of an energy- and writing about trimarans for the
shocked Third World are in evidence past 17 years, and his Searunner cruis-
here at home: the worldwide increas- ing trimarans have attracted more
ing separation between rich and poor than a thousand owner-builder clients.
is evidenced by the decline of our own
middle class; the increasing need for
fuel-efficient watercraft is evidenced
by the re-emergence of sailpower even
in workboats (witness the new Japa-
nese sailing tanker); and the increas-
ing activity in wood boat construction
is evidenced in this magazine.
Make no mistake, the future of
efficient propulsion by the wind, and
the viability of wooden boats by the
millions, has never been more promis-
ing—but I'm not talking about
tankers. After witnessing the plight of
the canoe people, I have problems
mustering sympathy for industrial
bulk carriers. Something like a sailing
Dynaship is a fascinating idea, especi-
ally if it can make money for its
operators — which remains to be seen.
I suspect the more approachable
achievement is in smaller craft that
will perform much the same service in
our own society as anywhere
else —transportation, fishing, liveli-
hood, and enjoyment. The only simi-
larity between the "old days" and the
days to come is that everything,
including boats that pay their way,
were and will be somewhat more
energy-efficient. But there the
similarity ends. Boatbuilders and
designers may wisely take every possi-
ble example from traditional wisdom,
but that includes using the very best
materials at hand, which just happens
to imply dramatic changes. While we
may wish to cling to those eclecticisms
that we know have worked before,
there is still no way that the new age of
commercial sail, and the new wooden
boats that pay their way, are going to
resolve the future by reconstituting the
days of yore. A boat will always have
"boatness," but the species must evolve
to survive the changing environment.
The environment is changed.
Every stalk of our precious, noble
timber that remains should be left
standing on its roots — and with several
healthy saplings within sight —until it
becomes truly mature. At that point it
should be utilized, with reverence.
What will the new boats look like?
In future articles I'll propose some pos-
sibilities, with examples taken —inci-
dentally — from the present. The
intent is to open up the subject for us
all. The solutions will require wide-
spread willingness to share informa-
tion. Are we up to it? Knock on
wood.
40/WoodenBoat 87
 Ray Speck and
T hough I have lived on the marge
of San Francisco Bay for more
than 10 years, I've done little sailing
there. Periodically I would walk the
endless docks of Sausalito, look at the
fantastic variety of craft —mostly
sail — think about my youth sailing on
Little Narragansett Bay and Great
South Bay on the East Coast, and fan-
tasize about owning another boat. But
also, since I have been living in the
West, I have become fascinated with
traveling into that other great western
ocean-like space, the desert. I've
camped now for several years on the
shores of a wild lake in Nevada, 300
miles from the ocean, and there I've
watched the gulls circle, the stately
pelicans fly. Fourteen miles long that
lake is, and I have sat on the shore and
dreamed about sailing on it.
Maybe, I thought, my next boat
should be small enough to put on a
trailer and carry to whatever water I
fancy —river, lake, or the bays along
the coast, north and south. Something
funky, I thought, traditional, made of
wood. Then, tied up behind a house-
boat off one of the piers in Sausalito, I
saw exactly the right boat. Asking
around, I found she was a Sid Skiff,
her builder a man named Ray Speck.
Speck's shop is off Sausalito's
Marinship Way (along where the
Liberty Ships were built during World
War II) ; walk down toward the water,
turn right at the first building, and
you'll find it just past the carefully cov-
ered piles of his wood stock. There's
no sign, but Double Thwart-knees
Boatbuilding is what he calls it. The
double thwart-knees are his trade-
mark, epitomizing the trouble taken to
build a strong boat.
Ray Speck grew up in San
Leandro, six blocks from the waters of
the East Bay. When he was 11 or 12
years old, he built a pram with his
father for duck hunting. He wanted to
set it up for rowing, but the boat had
been designed for a motor, which is
what his father got; and Ray hasn't
had an outboard motor since. As a kid
he spent most of his time at the bay
front, coming home covered with
mud. His mother would forbid him to
go back. "I spent half the summers at

88 WoodenBoat/40
the Sid Skiffs
the bay," he said grinning, "half in the
backyard."
After a semester of junior college,
he enlisted in the Army, served three
years, was separated in Ethiopia, and
started traveling. In a year's time he
had been through North Africa, the
Middle East, Spain (where he met
Janice, an English woman who became
his wife), Portugal, the Canary
Islands, and Gibraltar. At the end of
this odyssey, Ray and Janice went back
to England, and from there, home to
The Bay.
In 1967, Ray was living in Califor-
nia's northern Marin County, going to
college on the G.I. Bill. He came to
Sausalito by accident, getting hung up
there hitchhiking to San Francisco for
a dental appointment. Wandering
down to the Gates, he saw the house-
boats and was intrigued, seeing them
as a way to beat heavy rent. So, back
home in Petaluma, he built a house-
boat and eventually brought it down
to Sausalito, where he lived, anchored
out, for almost two years. That's
where Ray got into rowing—back and
forth to shore—maybe 10 times a day.
"I really got turned on to it," he
said. "Had a skiff, a sort of modified
dory—flat bottom, but narrower than
a rowboat. Made of redwood, with
some rocker aft so her stern didn't
drag water; there was a nice run to it.
Rowing from the forward thwart, the
transom out of the water, with a fine
entry, it skimmed right along."
There were lots of plywood flat-
iron skiffs in Sausalito then, and few
"shapely" lapstrake hulls. Ray was
working in a yard doing bottom jobs,
"slapping cement in worm holes...,"
and he would look up enviously at the
carpenters working above him on the
boat's topsides, doing "nice clean
work." And he used to watch Sid
Foster, former Sausalito Harbor
Master, row a skiff called JAYNE up
and down Richardson Bay—the har-
bor—a couple of times a week. His
thoughts then — fine entries, clean
runs, rowing, and Sid Foster's
lapstrake skiff—are all important in
what Ray Speck's boats are now, as I
came to know.
Ray and Janice sold the houseboat
and went to England to visit Janice's
family and show off the first grand-
child, Camille. They bought a van
and toured the country, reading vora-
ciously C.S. Forester's Hornblower
books, visiting coastal towns, and
browsing in maritime museums. Ar-
riving late one afternoon in Whitby,
on the North Sea, they liked the look
of the ancient town and parked to
sleep in their camper by a bridge over
the river. In the morning, Ray got up
and walked around the other side of
the bridge and stood admiring some
Yorkshire cobles (lapstrake shallow-
draft fishing boats) laid up on the
hard. He struck up a conversation
with David Winspear, who was Above — Ray Speck is mak-
walking by on his way to work in the ing it. His reputation is as
boatshop owned by Jackie Lowthers. solid as his boats, and he's
Ray walked along to see the shop. On very comfortable with the
prospects for the future.
the stocks there was a coble with the
transom left out — built that way so the
Opposite — The author sails
builders could just step in and out, his own Sid Skiff A-YA'-SHE
more efficient than having to climb in on Richardson Bay. The
over the side. original, from which she was
Shortly after they moved on, Ray modeled, is said to be some
80 years old.
wrote to Jackie, offering to work free,
to learn something of the trade. He
heard nothing for a long time, then
just before Ray and Janice were to
return to the States, he got an answer,
saying come ahead. He went and
stayed a month, during which a 36'
trawler was planked up and half
framed.
And that month was Ray's formal
training in building boats. In his
words, he was "driving nails and
sweeping the floor and drawing pic-
tures of what they were doing. Those
guys could do anything they wanted
with wood." The day he left, Jackie
dug out four gunnysacks of fastenings,
copper nails and roves, and said, "It's
enough for you to do your first boat."
Back in Sausalito again, Ray set up
his first shop with Army Engineer
Corps timbers, scrap tin, and "$2 in
Text and
materials." Later he moved to his
present location. Photographs
But after he got back from Eng-
land and was setting up his first shop,
a couple of Whitehalls showed up in
by
Sausalito. Ray's first order, a shore
boat for a steel fishboat being built
Larry Sturhahn
nearby, was for a Whitehall. And the
40/WoodenBoat 89
 gear, and can be rowed or sailed.
Cedar crooks, sawn cedar frames 12"
SID SKIFF
apart, and cedar floor timbers — there
are no broken frames in JAYNE, nor"
Length Between Perps-13' any rot.
Beam molded-52" Building the first Sid, Ray was
Rig Design-Lauren Williams forced to adapt because he couldn't
get the right materials. The hull was
planked before he realized that he
couldn't make the frames the same as
JAYNE's, so he steam bent heavier oak
frames, in single lengths keel to rail,
and put in sawn oak floor timbers.
After the original Sid, he lightened
buyer's son got one the frames to 1/2 x 1" and closed up the
too, so Ray had an spacing to 7 1/2" centers, and carried
order for two, then them rail to rail. The first few Sids
another. And there had six planks to a side, but Ray soon
were a couple of lap- went to seven. One day, Bob Pro-
strake round-bottom thero, another boatbuilder, suggested
prams, 10 planks to a eight to a side. He said eight would
side, 10' long, a good be more efficient, since you could get
rowboat! And along in two planks out of a normal width
there was a 22' Grand board.
Banks dory. After that, Ray went to eight and
And then there was somebody who SHE (an Ojibway Indian girl's name in spite of more fastening and fitting,
also used to watch Sid Foster row back meaning "Little One") is number 16. it went together smoother and took less
and forth in the round-bottom JAYNE. JAYNE, it is thought, has to be 80- time. "The whole thing lent itself
Coming in with three rough templates 100 years old, and was brought down better to curves. It's the efficient and
from her, Lauren Williams ordered a originally from Puget Sound in Wash- quick way to build the boat."
copy. Borrowing the boat to use as a ington. She is a traditional small shal- All the Sids are rigged for sailing.
model, Ray built SID, the first of a line low-draft lapstrake skiff, a workboat There's a hole in the JAYNE's forward
of small boats of which my own AY-YA'- big enough to carry a man and his thwart, and Lauren Williams, who
ordered the first Sid, wanted a sail and
drew up the sail plan, figuring that it
should be a spritsail, a traditional
small boat rig. Not all Sid skiffs have a
centerboard, however. It depends on
what the owners want. There's one
with an 18' mast and a kind of modi-
fied leg-of-mutton surfboard sail. The
clew is up high, the tack is low, and
there's a wishbone rig for the boom.
With 16' on the luff, owner Josh Mills
wears a wetsuit when he goes out — it's
pretty lively. "He's had the boat plan-
ing—she's got a nice flat run to her — "
says Ray. "She just gets up and skips
across the water. He wins all the races
he enters."
Ray talks of the possibility of
setting up production on Sids, since,
built "one off the way they are, and
selling for a low price, there's not a lot
of money left over. He talks about it,
but he has yet to pattern them up so
they could be just cut out in parts and
put together. He's not geared up for
production, and it's by choice. Most
people want their boat just a little dif-
ferent—and what Ray likes to do is
please people, give them what they
want, make it special.
When I said I wanted a Sid, Ray's
first question was "What size?" I
remember telling him 12'6", and A-
YA'-SHE is 13'9", but that kind of thing
happens with boats that are "one off."
Also, it makes her slim in the bow,

90 WoodenBoat/40
with a fine entry. Ray knew she'd be
slick in the water long before she was
launched.
Ray likes Port Orford cedar for
planking; it's an oily wood, resistant to
rot and marine borers, and stable.
But Port Orford cedar is getting
harder to find; needing a wet climate,
it grows in only two places in the
world, southwestern Oregon and
Japan, at the same latitude. The Japa-
nese are buying most of the Port
Orford cedar, not cutting their own
trees. Sometime Ray would like to try
the western larch they used in Whitby
for planking, especially on a larger
boat. Even though it's less stable than
cedar, it resists splitting and is a tena-
cious wood that looks like Douglas-fir,
though it's a little more yellow and is
stronger than fir. People complain
that it doesn't finish nicely, but Ray
wants to find out for himself. And the
larch will be around longer — after the
Japanese have bought up all the cedar.
Although Ray would like to try
locust for frames, he uses oak now,
cutting the frames 5-6" longer on each
end so he has "handles" for leverage.
He used to rivet each one as he put it
in, but he's found it more efficient to
put in a few nails at crucial points,
wait until a section is framed, then
turn off the steam box and rivet that
section. His fastenings are copper
rivets with roves from England, with
silicon bronze screws for the hood
ends. The nails from England are his
favorite. They have a bevel on the
underside of their heads, while Norwe-
gian nails are flat on the underside and
dome-shaped on the top. The smaller
head of either one, however, can be set
flush with the plank surface.
Ray likes Phenoseal for caulking
compound because it stands up to
Deks Olje (which attacks the polysul-
fides in some modern caulking com-
pounds) . If a boat is going to have a
paint or varnish finish, he oils the boat
when the basic hull is finished,
saturating the wood with a 50:50 lin-
seed oil and turpentine mixture to give
it a good start, since it will be a month
or more before finishing and by then
the oil will be deep in the wood. If he
knows that the boat will be finished
with Deks Olje, he doesn't oil it at this
point since it will get saturated later
with the Deks. Sanded and finished by
Kacey Clayton, A-YA'-SHE has 11 coats
of Deks Olje No. 1 on the exterior, five
coats on the interior, and six coats of
No. 2 inside and out. Ray made her
oars and spars from first-growth Doug-
las-fir, and Sutler Sails in Sausalito
made the Sid Skiff spritsail. Ray bent
the sail to the mast, we fit A-YA'-SHE on
her trailer, and took her to the water.
It was a cool, clear late October
afternoon with a light northwest
wind —the prevailing wind. With
some champagne on her bow, and the
rest in us, Ray and I and assorted
others —six, in fact —took her on her
maiden sail. After that, Ray took her
on a private row.
Ray Speck will not take credit for
designing any boats, yet he has never
seen any plans for a skiff similar to the
Sids—which he took off the JAYNE.
Building them, he has added things
that he liked in other boats, things
each owner wanted, and each Sid has
a great deal of both Ray Speck and the
owner in her. For different lengths he
has just pushed the molds apart, or
brought them together, using the same
molds for boats from 12-18'. There
are 16 Sids now, spread from Sausalito
to Black Point to Sacramento to Lake
Tahoe to Puget Sound, each "one off
the original, and each one an arche-
type where art and craft meld.
"Move the molds here or
there.. .spring a batten around it to see
how it looks, that's the traditional
way." To Ray, it's a matter of the boat
designing herself. But, of course, he is Above — A-YA'-SHE'S rudder
is fitted with strips let in to
the builder so his boats are representa- provide plenty of stiffness.
tions of himself—metaphors. He's sad
when the boats leave his shop, but he is Opposite — Ray Speck tim-
also a worker who takes pride and joy bers out a skiff. With eight
in his labor. He talks of the "high planks to a side, the con-
struction goes smoothly and
honor" it is to be at a boat show, to efficiently.
stand aside and watch people pass a
boat he's built. They reach out and
touch the wood, stop to admire the
joinery. "It's like they're really enjoy-
ing what they're beholding."
Ray recently finished a 26' lap-
strake Monomoy surfboat, and David
Winspear came from Whitby,
England, to help with it. Now Ray has
orders for two more Sid Skiffs, though
he's thinking of moving north..."up
around Fort Bragg or Eureka." Or he
might build a boat on speculation, like
a 20-26' Sid Skiff daysailer/weekender
with a small cuddy up forward, put it
on a trailer and take it up to Puget
Sound for a few months' cruising
before trying to sell the boat at a show.
A-YA'-SHE sure draws admirers
when she's getting washed off at the
launching ramp after a sail. And
"To Ray,
when she's in the water, people in
other boats of all sizes either want to
it's a
know who built her, or shout across
the water, "Hey, man, that's got to be matter of
a Ray Speck Special!"
Larry Sturhahn is a professional writer
the boat
and a contributing editor for North
American Review, where he does a
designing
column on film. He lives in Mill
Valley and takes A-YA'-SHE where he
herself."
will.
40/WoodenBoat 91
SONS OF HITCHES
by Brion Toss and Malcolm Wehncke
" W h a t do you do when you are
hitching and reach an inter-
section of rim and spoke, or of rail and
stanchion? Do you have to stop and
continue on the other side, or is there
some way to hitch right by?" Maynard
had a problem.
"You can't just improve on a
cylinder by grabbing a ball of twine
and hitching along," he complained.
'Hitches' (WB No. 39) made me feel
like a green hand who's been sent
below to polish the golden rivet."
Now this man has more traditional
saltiness in his whiskers than the rest of
us put together. If he was baffled,
what might mere mortals expect? It's
true that some of the more enticing
objects you'd want to cover with hitch-
ing are not simple cylinders, so to
answer his questions and anticipate
others, here are some suggestions:
A Three-Legged Turk's Head
There are a number of ways to deal
with a "T." You can just "hitch right
by," but the result, as Mr. Ashley
might put it, is "lubberly and not to be
countenanced." It looks sloppy, leaves
a bare spot, and is an opportunity for
slack and snag, which would threaten
the security of adjoining hitches.
An oft-seen alternative is to work
as closely as possible to the intersec-
tion, then seize the ends and cover
them with a small Turk's Head on
either side. This is neat and satisfac-
tory, but it still leaves a naked space.
There's no crime in that — it's just not
92 WoodenBoat/40
exactly what we want. The difference
between the right knot and almost the
right knot is, in the words of another
sage, "the difference between lightning
and a lightning bug."
The right knot in this case is not
particularly easy to learn, however it
seals better, is more comfortable to
grip, and makes a faster job. May we
introduce the Three-Legged Turk's awl or a small marlinspike for this
work, and blunt the tip slightly with a
file, so when you slip while trying to
get 'the little son of a hitch tight, you
don't make the twine bloody.
Draw up the twine slowly, care-
fully, a section at a time. To avoid an
uneven surface, go through the whole
thing at least three times, drawing it a
little tighter with each pass. If the line
starts to kink, twist it counterclockwise
a bit as you pull it through each sec-
tion. If, after all this bother, the width
of the knot shrinks too much and slips
off the hitching ends, call it a practice
piece, cut it away, and try again with
Head. It's a bizarre image, we'll grant larger size twine. The narrower the
(and not to be confused with a Three- leg of the T is in proportion to the
Legged Crowfoot). It simply consists crossbar, the less of a problem this will
of making a knot in place, so the inter- be.
section and the hitching ends are cov- If the object of your choice has
ered all at once. odd-size parts, or is a wheel with spokes
Ordinary three-lead Turk's Heads that extend past the rim, or if you have
(WB No. 32, "A Ditty Bag Appren- a penchant to learn more elaborate
ticeship") are too narrow for this job, variations on this theme, see Ashley's
so we'll use a wider knot, in this case Turk's Head chapter, especially knots
four leads by five bights. no. 1392, 1393, 1394, and 1397.
— Terminology pause: "Leads"
refers to the number of parts making
up the width of the knot. "Bights" are
the scalloped edges making up the cir-
cumference. A four lead by five bight
knot is relatively simple and is a good
introduction to the more elaborate
Turk's Heads.
To start, "mouse" the T with strips'
of tape to bring all surfaces flush.
Then get your twine (7' for a 1" dia-
meter rim) and start in, following
steps 1 through 4.
Stop to congratulate yourself once
it's done. You've just passed into the
realm of Rare Knots. But remember
that any knot worth tying is worth
drawing up well. Get out a scratch A Three-Legged Turk's Head
Drawings by Malcolm Wehncke
Differential Hitching
Any form of hitching will work on most
cylindrical arcs, but where the turn is
severe, or where inside and outside
diameters differ greatly, Ringbolt
Hitching is needed to keep the outer
turns even with the inner ones. There
are many forms of Ringbolt Hitching,
all made by building up patterns with
various sequences of half hitches.
This type of fancy work was developed
as chafing gear on the deck ringbolts
to which hemp anchor cables were
stopped in the days before chain
cables. Nowadays, one sees it on chest
beckets, lanyards, rail corners, tire
fenders, ship's wheels, etc. It is not
limited to arcs, though; by hauling
back on the hitches and slightly
spreading the lower turns, you can also
use it to grace tillers, tool handles,
shrouds, or other straight cylinders.
The illustrations show three
examples of Ringbolt Hitching. The
first is the basic left-right-left pattern,
the second a zig-zag pattern particu-
larly well suited to sharp curves. The
third is a maddening five-strand varia-
tion. When working knots of this com-
plexity, it is worth keeping in mind the
words of Professor Albert Muss:
"Tying these things is a lot like
drawing them. At first they're baf-
fling, then a challenge, then there's
some little pleasure in mastering them,
and then it's hardly enough to keep the
mind alive." Nevertheless, these knots
form an interesting and useful class.
We've only touched the surface here,
so if your interest is piqued, you'll
want to explore the books listed below.
No doubt about it this time, May-
nard —you're prepared for the basic
tubular nuances and can get to work.
But before you do, how about nipping
below and fetching a bucket of prop
wash?
Ringbolt Hitching
(also known as Coxcombing)
Basic three-strand
Ringbolt Hitching.
Hitch alternately left
and right.
A five-strand variation,
spaces between strands exag-
gerated to show principle of
Ringbolt Hitching. Pass
lowest strand up through
bight of third hitch from
top, then go over all else and
hitch in direction opposite
to topmost strand. Not for
beginners.
Source Books
The Ashley Book of Knots by Clifford
W. Ashley, Doubleday, New York.
An awesome Turk's Head chapter
and several Ringbolt Hitching varia-
tions in the Decorative Marlinspike
Work chapter.
The Encyclopedia of Knots and Fancy
Ropework by John G. Hensel and
Raoul Graumont, Cornell Maritime
Press, Centerville, Maryland.
Dazzling variety considerably
undermined by awful text and photo-
A zig-zag pattern
made by hitching all graphs; in Coxcombing chapter.
strands to the left,
then all to the right. Brian Toss of TossCopper Rigging,
Example shows three and Malcolm Wehncke of Winged-
strands, but any Palm Sailmakers, are associates in a
number may be used.
Sails and Rigging Loft in Anacortes,
Washington.
40/WoodenBoat 93
THE LAST BOOM:
WOODEN SHIPBUILDING IN WORLD WAR I

Down the ways! The launching of the s.s. AHMIK.

94 WoodenBoat/40
BY BILL DURHAM
F or the first 20 years after 1944, I
told people that I once worked on
a steam schooner. In my heart I knew
this was a lie — steam schooners worked
watch-and-watch, while we worked
the normal four and eight on the ELI D.
HOYLE and spoke English. But steam
schooners are archaic-romantic,
"salty," ships to yarn about, and they
are so pleasantly remembered on the
West Coast that a good specimen, the
WAPAMA, is undergoing restoration
and preservation at the National Mari-
time Museum at San Francisco.
My 1944 ship, the HOYLE, was a
fine wooden freighter from the 1917-
1920 World War I Emergency Fleet —
a fleet of ships much larger and more
numerous than the steam schooners,
and not related to them. But there I
go again, stretching the truth, but just
slightly this time. The ELI D. HOYLE,
in fact, slightly preceded the Emer-
gency Fleet, being launched in
January, 1917 before the wartime pro-
gram began and being smaller than
the hundreds of government ships
ordered later in the same year. I men-
tion her in the context of the
Emergency Fleet for personal and
educational reasons, and to avoid the
impression that the wartime program
was a resurrection of an industry dead
50 years, when it was not. America
built a few wooden ships each year
immediately preceding 1917, and the
HOYLE was a bridge between the old
and the new.
The Emergency Fleet wooden
steamships were commonplace and lit-
tle regarded in their lifetime, and
dropped out of sight abruptly when
their economic, insurable lifespan
ended, about 1945. They were fruit of
the last and greatest surge in wooden
shipbuilding. Wooden ship tonnage
launched in 1918 surpassed the pre-
vious peak year in America, 1855, by
100% or more.
The wooden ships of 1918 were
sturdy, well designed, and for the most
part, well built. Although small
freighters for their time, at 4,000 tons
carrying capacity, they were big
wooden ships —of a size with the
GREAT REPUBLIC or the giant down-
easter ROANOKE; much larger than
the CUTTY SARK. If there had been
any reason to give the wooden steam-
ers decent care through two decades of
uselessness, they would have contri-
buted one or two million tons to the
urgent shipping needs of 1942.
Instead, they were wasted, and have
received such bad or negligent his-
torical notice that the few old-ship
enthusiasts who have read about them
are apt to mention them apologetically
as a kind of skeleton in the closet.
From this distance it may be best to
regard the great wooden Emergency
Fleet —which was larger and more
effective than our whole fleet of 19th-
century clippers—as an example to
reflect upon. Ships are used or not
used, make a profit or fail, according
to their appropriateness to a complex
set of historical circumstances. Their
inherent virtues, beauty, materials,
good design, and good intentions have
very little to do with their fate. Ships
(or men) that wear out in long service
or are lost to the hazards of use are
well remembered. Ships that never
sail and rot on their moorings become
an embarrassment to be forgotten.
The 13 1/2 million tons of 1917-20
Emergency Fleet "U.S. Shipping Board
Ships," wood, steel, and concrete,
haven't been adequately memorialized
anywhere that I know of. To appreci-
ate their importance to America's
maritime heritage and to our coming-
of-age as a world power, one needs to
know a little about our maritime his-
tory, 1860-1915.
When we were a narrow littoral
nation along the Atlantic coast, the
United States was a major maritime
and shipbuilding nation, but soon
after 1860, America became a "con-
tinental" nation like Russia or China,
with little interest in ocean voyaging.
This did not mean that America
lacked ships and shipbuilders, but in
1860 we built more inland than
oceanic tonnage for the first time, and
by 1914 our protected coastal and
inland fleets were six times larger than
our ocean fleet. While our ocean fleet
was normally one-twentieth the size of
England's, our entire fleet was often
more than one-fourth as large as the
British. Great Lakes tonnage and
Atlantic and Gulf coastal tonnage
each totaled nearly 3 million tons —
American lakes shipping was greater
than the entire merchant fleet of
France, Italy, or Japan, and only one-
third less than Germany's.
We were richer than any other
people, and rolled more steel, but our
commercial interests were landward-
looking and we built modern ships
only for the Navy. There was no hope
of competing with Britain at
shipbuilding and seagoing—in 1907
American journeymen ship carpenters
earned $22.14 a week (60 hours),
while their British counterparts
received $9.88. American officers and
seamen averaged 80% higher pay than
the British; more than 100% if the
Empire crew were lascars. As a result,
in 1911 only 8.7% of America's for-
eign commerce was carried in
American ships.
World ocean shipping was in a
depressed phase in the summer of
1914. and the Germans at first held
the submarine weapon in abeyance, so
the great wartime boom in merchant
shipping did not get under way until
1915. When the boom did begin,
shipping rates and the price of ships
began doubling and redoubling, and
these, together with marine insurance,
had advanced 500 or 600% by late
1916. By 1917 the profit from a single
voyage might equal the whole value of
the ship in 1914. Dutch and Danish
shipowners, neutrals, routinely earned
annual profits exceeding their whole
investment.
Before the war Great Britain had
built two-thirds of the whole world's
ships and owned half of world mer-
chant tonnage. When British industry
was committed to the war, dozens of
small countries immediately wanted
suppliers of the tonnage England
could no longer promise them. Many
turned to America, which was the
largest shipbuilding country outside
the war, so American builders reveled
in high-profit opportunities. The high
cost of American ships was no longer a
deterrent, as the value of existing ships
was doubling every few months.
By the end of 1917 German U-
boats had destroyed about one-fifth of
the prewar world merchant fleet of 46
million tons. There was an enormous
Empire merchant fleet to draw on, but
40/WoodenBoat 95
British shipyards lost ground through-
out the war. The time was ripe for a
revival of wooden ship building in far-
away and backward places—an
industry that the progressive maritime
nations had abandoned a half-century
earlier.
A million-ton boom in private
shipbuilding, mainly for foreign
owners, was rejuvenating American
shipbuilding by mid-1916. Much of
this construction was in wood, as
France needed ships as quickly as pos-
sible for survival, neutrals wanted
them for quick profits while the boom
lasted, and there was a notion then
current that wooden ships could be
built faster than steel ships. When
America entered the war in April,
1917, 150 large wooden ships were
already under construction on the
three saltwater coasts, shipyard expan-
sion and increased flow of timber out
of the woods was well advanced.
With a burgeoning and profitable
export business in 1915 and 1916, and
British tonnage increasingly difficult
to hire, neutral America especially
needed ships. President Wilson estab-
lished a War Shipping Board in 1916
to allocate the limited tonnage under
American control. The Board
immediately requisitioned all ships
under construction in American yards
for foreign owners (to the dismay of
our British cousins, who had expected
special treatment).
After America declared war on
Germany, the Urgent Deficiencies Act
of June 15, 1917, gave the President
broad powers to control shipping and
order new ships. The Emergency Fleet
Corporation (shipbuilding arm of the
96 WoodenBoat/40
WSB) was created April 16, 1917, and
during the next few months placed
contracts for 642,000 tons of steel ves-
sels and 1,218,000 tons of wooden
ships. The preponderance of wooden
ship tonnage resulted solely from the
belief that wooden ships could be
delivered sooner than steel ones. Later
the proportions were reversed, with
1,450 steel ships averaging 8,000 tons
and 700 wooden freighters of 4,000
tons on order by the war's end.
No one in the shipping industry or
in the Emergency Fleet Corporation
really wanted to build wooden ships,
but there was a wave of popular
demand for wooden ships, which
everyone uncritically expected to be
quick and cheap to build. All the
while, businessmen knew that wooden
bottoms had one-fourth less earning
capacity than steel and no hope of
competing with British ships after the
war, and informed bureaucrats knew
that America had ample steel-rolling
capacity to build a steel fleet of any
size wanted.
In a popular democracy, populist
sentiment and political considerations
must always outweigh practical know-
ledge. Dozens of congressmen with
timber-cutting constituencies
demanded wooden ships. Ill-informed
journalists and patriotic citizens, who
fancied themselves more as ship-car-
penters than as riveters, demanded
wooden ships. The EFC scarcely
resisted these demands, as French and
Norwegian orders had already revivi-
fied American wooden ship building,
and it was clear that we could sustain a
very large wooden program without
interfering with manpower and
resource needs in other sectors. (Even
so, concrete ships enjoyed a much
greater vogue in 1916-18 than during
the 1939-45 war, and diverted some
energy from wooden ships.)
America's cut of industrial timber
in 1915 was 37 billion board feet, two-
thirds from stands of southern yellow
pine, one-third from the Douglas-fir
region. At 1 1/4 million board feet per
4,000-ton freighter, there was no prac-
tical limit to the number of wooden
ships that might be built. It was pro-
jected that if the war lasted into 1920,
the Pacific Coast could build 400
wooden ships per year, the Gulf and
Atlantic coasts 500 or 600, while only
one-thirtieth of the normal commer-
cial cut would be consumed.
Shipyards already engaged in
building large wooden ships were per-
mitted to continue building to their
own designs, but "Standard" designs
were needed for the hundreds or thou-
sands of ships to come. Naval archi-
tects had a field day debating the best
design and structure for the 20th-
century wooden ships, and some
designers claimed significant improve-
ments on traditional wooden ship
building practice.
Since Tudor times, 200 feet OAL,
2,000 tons displacement had been con-
sidered the practical size limit of
wooden ships. Some Roman and
Chinese ships had also approached this
limit much earlier. Benefiting from
19th-century experience with a few
outsize wooden ships, and with confi-
dence gained from the scientific
analysis of stresses, 4,000 tons
deadweight carrying capacity was
quickly settled on as a suitable size for
The Ferris-type standard design
was criticized for being a close
copy of steel ship design, and
not planned to make the best
use of wood. The ships did,
however, become the most
numerous and successful of the
wooden steamers.
the Standard ships. Stresses were
closely calculated and steel reinforce-
ments used more knowledgeably than
in the past, but it turned out that large
masses of wood were essential to the
structure of very large wooden ships.
Recent wooden ship building
experience was mainly in specialized
Pacific Coast lumber carriers, both
steam and sail. These were beamy and
shallow, and considered too weak to
carry other cargoes. A very large lum-
ber schooner, 275', would have lower
frames molded 18" (vs. 9m 1/2" in a 200' "chord" near the sheer, or an "arch"
English oak, elm, and teak ship of of 3/4 x 14" steel the length of the ship
1850) and nine 20x20" keelsons, in
contrast to the single keelson in old-
world hardwood ships. Structural
analysis revealed that the 18" frames
were a source of weakness, so the
Emergency Fleet steamers were given
double floor frames molded 26 1/2"
and sided 12 1/2", on 36" centers.
Strength was also gained from deep
hull form, more scientific use of hold
stanchions, beams, and shelf timbers,
and extensive edge fastening of mem-
bers, including the ceiling. In a large
wooden ship the ceiling is greater in
section than the planking and is a
major source of longitudinal strength.
Some later observers credited the
wooden steamers' immunity to hog-
ging to the edge-fastened ceiling.
Most ships of the 1915-19 construe-
The Hough-type
standard design was developed
in San Francisco, with the
objective of eliminating nearly
all compound curves and reduc-
ing the need for skilled ship-
wrights. The savings were not
worthwhile, and the general
layout proved less serviceable.
tion had some steel strapping, either
numerous 1/2x4" diagonal straps
descending from a 3/4x8" steel
on each side, under the planking. In
the 1920 fleet inventory, 200,000 tons
of ships were reported as "composite"
(metal frames, wood planking), but
some of these may have been well-
strapped wooden ships.
The most-used Standard ship
design, the Ferris, which originated in
New York, was the most conventional
in both structure and arrangements.
LOA 281'10"
Beam 45'2"
Draft 23'10"
The Ballin design, from Portland,
Oregon, sought to equal the strength
of steel ships by using frames molded
30" and adding two layers of 1 1/2"
diagonal planking under the 4 3/4"
ordinary planking. But the Shipping
Board at first encouraged use of the
Hough design, from San Francisco,
which was planned to permit "rough
carpenters" to begin building ships
immediately without any specialized
training. They were good ships, but
the recruitment and training of big-
ship carpenters was unexpectedly easy,
and the familiar arrangements of the
Ferris boats were in their favor.
The Ferris design was criticized as
being merely a steel ship redrawn for
wood, and requiring enormous
timbers available only from the
Douglas-fir region to meet the
stressing of the steel design. In fact,
though wood-ship proponents (and
Douglas-fir salesmen) enjoyed brag-
ging about the easy availability of
20x20" timbers 140' long, or 36" x
36" x 90' pieces, these dimensions were
not needed. In the Standard designs
only a few backbone members were
molded 36", and most of the main
longitudinals were 20 x 20" or under,
scarfed to length and used in multi-
ples as needed.
Of 30 wartime wood shipyards on
the Pacific Coast, seven were old-time,
LOA 289'0"
Beam 46'0"
Draft 23'6"
40/WoodenBoat 97

Midship section for a standard wooden
steamer utilizing yellow pine construction.
10 were built by 1916 for the boom, There are hundreds of old men still
and 13 were organized for Emergency around who watched those vast frames
Fleet Corporation construction. Dur- rise, dubbed "close fits" with double-
ing the war 334 of the 700 wooden bitted axes, bent 6x10" plank, drove
freighters were ordered on the Coast, 1 1/2" drifts 6' long. Those I have met
and a large proportion of these— all remember the names of the ships
202 —were completed. Of the West and the parts they worked on (and I
Coast total, 50 were completed but not can't remember the names of some of
engined, 23 were made into barges, 12 the ships I served on less than 40 years
into sailers, three were completed as ago).
steamers by private purchasers, and Nearly all of the 4,000-ton Emer-
the remainder became firewood or gency Fleet freighters, both wood and
landfill. steel, had conventional reciprocating
Building the great ocean fleet in steam power plants of 1,400 horse-
the exciting years of 1917 and 1918 power on a single shaft or twin screw.
was a peak experience in the lifetime The design of their triple-expansion
of many men who had been farm- engines had been perfected 30 years
hands, clerks, or laborers in 1916. before, and their little "Shipping
98 WoodenBoat/40
Board" boilers were of a watertube
type that had been proven in service
for many years. Geared turbines were
reserved for fighting craft, such as
Henry Ford's "Eagle Boats."
Many ship operators would have
preferred diesel engines, whose fuel-
saving traits were well known by then,
but this was not a practical alternative
in 1918. The largest marine diesels in
common commercial use were of 300
or 400 hp, and no American manu-
facturer had enough capacity or
experience to contract for the deliv-
ery of hundreds of reliable engines, of
increasing size, within six months or a
year. The 900 hp New London diesels
were reserved for submarines. Fast
patrol craft requiring high horse-
power were given Standard gasoline
engines, and swarms of these gas-
boats crossed the Atlantic.
A good many sailing ships, often
with twin-screw auxiliary diesel power
of 600 or 800 hp, were built during the
war. These were especially useful to
European nations such as France,
which had commercial interests in sev-
eral parts of the world. The 7-knot
auxiliaries with their highly visible rig
could be put to work in the more
peaceful seas, freeing faster 10- or 12-
knot steamers to ply the "submarine
zone" around Europe (subs were short
range then). America's need was for
full-powered freighters.
My ship, the HOYLE, was com-
pleted in advance of the government
program, and had only 1,000 hp in
two 500-horse triples and two small
Scotch boilers —an engineroom that
was neat, cozy, and charming enough
to fuel a lifetime of nostalgia. At
about one-fourth horsepower per
deep-draft displacement ton, the
wooden steamers were full-powered,
but not as fast as the larger Liberties of
1942, with one-sixth hp per ton. In
the HOYLE we spent one whole day in
Lynn Canal pointed toward Skagway,
merely jogging in place under full
throttle against a February gale.
I remember two details of life on
the HOYLE that identify her with an
era of appropriate levels of powering,
separating her from today's manic
over-consumption. During a dense
snowstorm in Icy Strait, a cone of snow
arose on the engineroom floorplates
under each ventilator, as the outside
air was wafted below by natural cur-
rents. The thought of a snowflake sur-
viving passage through roaring hun-
dred-horsepower blowers on my
present ship is laughable. To serve a
2,000-ton ship and 50 men (200 with
troops aboard), the HOYLE had a 10-
kw Westinghouse-type generating set,
supplanting the ship's original 5-kw
open-frame generator, which was still
in place. A 5-kw generator is what a yards had seen it all before, in 1918.
house carpenter carries in his pickup We built 40 million tons the second
today, for his power tools. Stem profile for a time around, a quantity comparable
Power tools —steam, electric, and steamer utilizing a to all the ships in the world in 1910 (or
massive knee. Note to one-half of the Liberian merchant
pneumatic —performed nearly all the that the height of the
shaping and boring of the ship parts. knee from the top of marine in 1980).
Pneumatic hand tools were standard the keelson is nearly The American merchant marine of
in 1918 —portable electric tools were eight feet. the 1920s and 1930s consisted mainly
just coming into use. Close fitting in of Emergency Fleet ships from 1917-
the hull structure was done with axe, 20. When I went to sea in 1941,
adze, and crosscut saw, but the joiner- "Shipping Board Ship," "Hog
work in the accommodations was com- Islander," "Laker," "502," and "West-
plete and nicely finished. As a result, ship" were familiar descriptive
Shipping Board ships did not have the epithets. The Roosevelt-era nomen-
air of quick-built plainness that char- clature of C-l, C-2, etc., was just
acterized the Liberties and Victories of catching on, and "Liberty" and "Vic-
a quarter-century later. tory" were yet to come. Wooden ships
Locust treenails were used to some weren't much in evidence in the ports,
extent, but with 20th-century refine- but every seaman knew that hundreds
ment they were tapered and driven of wooden steamers had been built a
into tapered bores. Most fastenings few years earlier.
were iron spikes and drifts, and they Shipping Board ships and all ves-
served their purpose: air-hammered tiges of the wooden fleet seemed to
through a 1/16" undersized hole in fir drop out of sight during the second
or pine, a 1" drift would break in ten- war, while thousands of new ships
sion (20 tons) before shifting. Timber went into service and 1917-20 vessels
ends and faying surfaces were reached an age of obsolescence. Old
creosoted. ships die off in cohorts, by age groups,
The World War I Emergency Fleet
program proved America's shipbuild-
ing potential. In 1941 scarcely anyone
doubted that we could build as many
ships as were wanted as fast as they
were needed. Senior men in the ship-

A large steam schooner in frame at Hoquiam before the war. Many of the Swedes in this Matthews Ship-
building Co. crew wear loggers' corked boots, suggesting that some of the same men felled the 200' fir
trees in the summer, built the ships in the winter. With limitless supplies of clear timber, Scandinavian
work habits, and much powered machinery to help, the productivity of the West Coast yards far exceeded
that of the New England builders of big clippers and down-casters in the previous century.

40/WoodenBoat 99
 Pan of the wooden steamer fleet in non-commissioned status at Lake Union, Seattle.
as they must pass special 20-year sur-
veys in middle age and then confront
the increasingly skeptical scrutiny of
classification societies and insurers as
they approach old age and oblivion.
Social change is also rapid in lively
times. I'll mention two changes in
engineroom behavior that I noticed,
1941-45. Before the war everyone
relieved himself in the engineroom
bilge, and it seemed as natural as sea-
water. By 1945 enough middle-class
newcomers (like myself) had infil-
trated the fleet to cause most below-
decks micturition to be rather furtive,
and some men even went up to the toi-
lets. Before the war nobody sat down
on watch or read on watch. On a long
1943 passage in EXIRIA around Cape
Horn to Mozambique, I learned to
hang my butt over a rail (long legs)
and get some rest, but I worried about
the First catching me at it. By 1945
100 WoodenBoat/40
everybody was sitting down on watch if
he felt like it, and reading the plenti-
ful American Merchant Marine
Library books or armed services
paperbacks.
Seen historically, the Shipping
Board experience was a prodigious
success. American ship production
increased 2,500%, 1914-19. In 1918
we out-built war-weakened England,
and in 1919 we delivered more ships
than the British Empire had ever built
in a year — 6 1/3 million tons. This
achievement established America as
the industrial leader of the world, and
proved that a collection of undisci-
plined free men could marshall
enormous resources and achieve an
objective just as efficiently as any of
the old, autocratic powers.
The 13 million tons of shipping
destroyed in World War I was more
than replaced by the efforts of the U.S.
Shipping Board alone, but by the time
most of these ships were delivered they
were no longer needed. On Armistice
Day, 1918, new ships in service under
the American flag included 270 requi-
sitioned from foreigners, 110 EFC con-
tract steel, and 92 contract wood. The
backbone of our wartime fleet
consisted of the two million tons we
had commandeered from British,
French, Italian, and Scandinavian
owners in 1916 (and a few interned
German and Austrian ships seized in
1917), plus 1,200,000 tons of British
ships borrowed in 1918 to transport
the Allied Expeditionary Force to
France.
The Shipping Board received a
great deal of criticism for the uncer-
tain start of its vast building program
and remained a popular whipping boy
into the Coolidge administration.
The wooden fleet was especially
reviled, mostly for the wrong reasons.
At first the shipping industry attacked
the 4,000-tonners as noncompetitive in
peacetime (but there was a war on).
Next the newspapers discovered that
the wooden ships weren't being
completed as quickly as the starry-eyed
enthusiasts of wood had promised in
1917 (experienced people in the
industry never claimed that they could
build a big ship in under five or six
months). Delivered at prices as high
as $200 per ton, the wooden fleet was
then described as over priced, perhaps
fraudulently (the 4,000-tonners were
contracted for at $600,000 per ship,
with shipyard wages at 50 cents an
hour, yet 25 years later 10,000-ton
Liberties were considered a very good
buy at $1,800,000 each when shipyard
wages were near $1 an hour) .
The War Shipping Board had
been ordered to provide ships to sup-
port 60 American Army divisions in
France in 1918, 80 in 1919, and 100 in
1920. Hundreds of additional wooden
freighters were contracted for under
the threat of the German offensive of
March, 1918. The Board met all of
these goals by 1920 —but Germany
had collapsed in 1918. The great ship-
ping shortage of 1918 became a great
shipping surplus by late 1919 —British
and American yards had out-built the
U-boats.
 ships. More than a hundred 4,000- Further Reading
THE FRAMING SCHEDULE for the
Ferris wooden Steamer, Pacific Coast tonners rotted in Mallows Cove,
(Douglas Fir) type, called for 440,000 Maryland, across the river from Quan- Although the shipbuilding program
board feet of timber, in 1132 pieces. tico, Virginia. They were abandoned resulted in a massive waste of prime
as useless in 1924, stripped of their fit- quality timber, there were a few long-
Net Gross No. Bd.
size size Lgt. pcs. ft. tings and burned in 1926, and their term benefits, a major one being the
12 x 32 12 1/4 x 32 10 100 32,667 metal salvaged in 1933 for the Japa- several good books on wooden ship
12 x 30 12 1/4 x 30 10 16 4,900 building techniques which were pub-
12 x30 12 1/4 x 30 10 100 30,625 nese war against China. The tidal
12 x 30
12x30
12 1/4 x 30
12 1/4 x 30
16
20
12
16
5,880
9,800
Potomac was littered with the debris of lished back then for use by the 50,000
12x30 12 1/4 x 30 24 12 8,820 117 big wooden freighters for many or so men who received training. The
12x28 12 1/4 x 28 12 16 5,488
12x28 12 1/4 x 28 16 50 22,867 years. books found use after the war in voca-
12x28 12 1/4 x 28 16 56 25,611 Wooden ships are one-fourth less tional schools and even today they are
12x26 12 1/4 x 26 10 100 26,541
12x26
12 x 26
12 1/4 x 26
12 1/4 x 26
16
16
56
50
23,781
21,233
efficient carriers than steel, and valuable references for anyone want-
12x26 12 1/4 x 26 28 20 14,863 unquestionably are an added risk from ing to know about big wooden ship
12x26 12 1/4 x 26 28 16 11,891
12 x 26 12 1/4 x 26 30 80 63,700 fire (I watched the wooden freighter building. Long out of print, they can
12x24 12 1/4 x 24 16 56 21,952 MOUNT BAKER burn at Prince Rupert be found in libraries and museums
12 x 24 12 1/4 x 24 16 50 19,600
12x24
12x20
12 1/4 x 24
12 1/4 x 20
16* 5 2,940
12,250
in 1944). I doubt that wooden ships nowadays. Here are some of them:
12 50
12x20 12 1/4 x 20 16 56 18,293 will ever return in large numbers or in
12 x 16 12 1/4 x 16 12 56 10,976
12 x 16 12 1/4 x 16 12 50 9,800 sizes above the 200-400 tons typical of Curtis, W.H., The Elements of
12 x 16
12 x 12
12 1/4 x 16
12 1/4 x 12
14
16
80
80
18,293
15,680
today's Eastern Hemisphere wooden Wood Ship Construction, New York:
10x24 10 1/4 x 24 16* 5 2,400 freight fleets—but they could, simply McGraw Hill Book Company, 1919.
* And up, average 24 feet.
because wooden ship deficiencies are Desmond, Charles, Wooden Ship-
only fractional, like the difference Building, New York: The Rudder
between 5% profit and 2% loss. Publishing Company, 1918.
All wooden freighters were redun- Estep, H. Cole, How Wooden
dant after 1918, and they became the Bill Durham is a maritime writer and Ships Are Built, Cleveland: The Pen-
butt of innumerable smart -aleck news historian from Seattle, Washington, ton Publishing Company, 1918.
stories. Politicians and journalists who was the editor of the short-lived VanGaasbeek, Richard M.,
looking for an easy mark—then as but fondly remembered journal Wooden Boat and Ship Building,
now —twisted the WSB triumph into a Steamboats and Modern Steam Chicago: Frederick J. Drake and
mistake, or failure. The same lurid Launches. He is an oiler on the large, Company, 1918.
and scandalous innuendo that attends fast ferryboat, WALLA WALLA, which Thompson, W.J., Wooden Ship-
newspaper stories on powerplant con- operates on the run between Seattle building, Chicago: A.C. McClurg
struction today was focused on wooden and Bainbridge Island. and Company, 1918.
steamships 62 years ago — scandal sells
newspapers. When the wartime ships
were abandoned in locations where
newspaper writers on their way to work
could watch them decay, new myths
arose: "Unseaworthy, green timber,
fraud, bad workmanship, overbuild-
ing," etc. Perhaps the truth —good
ships become worthless for wholly
extrinsic reasons — is sadder still.
After the Armistice, steel ships
continued to be completed on
schedule, but wooden freighter con-
tracts were cut back. As each new
steel freighter came out of the yards,
one or two perfectly good wooden
ships were laid up. Wooden hulls in
early stages of construction were
simply abandoned. Some half-
completed hulls were converted into
sailing schooners or barges, and cut-
down 4,000-tonners were common
coal and sand barges on the Atlantic
coast for 25 years. Steamer hulls near
completion on November 11, 1918,
were launched without engines and
went directly to the mothball fleet (the
"Wilson's Wood-row fleet" in 1920s
journalistic cliche).
Most of the ships of the great
wooden fleet moldered away wherever
they happened to be when they lost all
economic value. No one suggested
giving them minimal care — certainly
not the owners or builders of steel

40/WoodenBoat 101

Fixing a Leaky Shaft Log
I t's a rare boat that doesn't leak, and it's a rare owner
who won't keep trying by one stratagem or another to
find the causes and fix the leaks in his vessel. NORTH STAR
and I are no exceptions. Over the years I have refastened
and strapped her to keep her tight, but one annoyance,
though, seemed to defy solution: after every use of the
engine she leaked very badly for a time, then she'd tighten
up as before. With the engine box in place and the ladder
over it and all the cruising gear stowed in place, it's a pain
to keep checking around the engine, so it was quite a while
before I noticed that the face of the shaft log around the
stuffing box was always wet. The following winter we reset
the stuffing box, making sure it was well bedded and its lag
R eading about Mr. Sheldon's experience reminds me
of the split shaftlog I once owned. It was part of a
pretty little launch I had visions of bringing back to life,
though as things turned out, the restoration was more a
figment of my over-romantic imagination and less an
ongoing reality. But that's a story for another time—I
need only relate here that the boat is now another's respon-
sibility, and I suspect the new owner is more serious about
his duty than I ever was.
The split in the oak shaftlog was the result of a series of
checks, caused no doubt by excessive drying out during
winter storage. Weather checks in oak deadwood are
nothing new, but in this case the shaft hole was bored too
big for the siding of the log, so the wall of the shaftlog was
entirely too thin and subsequent checks extended right
through, making the shaftlog leak like a sieve. The pre-
vious owner solved the problem with a lead-sheet tingle,
but the solution was temporary only, and I had the best of
intentions to make it right.
The nautical world is replete with wise men, experts,
and down-at-the-heels kibitzers, roving packs of people
who have nothing better to do with their time than to hang
around and give advice, especially to apparently willing
listeners like myself. They have an uncanny ability to sense
indecision and inexperience, and when they do, they step
out of the shadows with obsequious grins on their faces —
much like the Grinch who stole Christmas —and, while
speaking quietly and knowledgeably, slide a wafer-thin
102 WoodenBoat/40
OTHER WAYS
screws were firm, yet during the next season the leak was as
bad as or worse than ever.
After more study I fastened on the theory that water in
the shaft hole was coming into the boat via checks in the
shaft log. I had noticed that George Stadel's design for
NORTH STAR showed a shaft tube and that Joel Johnson
had apparently eliminated it in the construction. The
theory seemed sound, but the leak didn't look easy to fix.
Mr. Stadel had specified a 1 1/4" lead pipe for the shaft
tube, but I drew a blank on every effort I made to locate
such pipe. I gave up on lead and tried copper, but found
that copper pipe in the required size is no longer stocked by
distributors. A kind friend in a copper-tube mill even-
tually came to my rescue by looking through the mill for
any odd bits that might be lying around. He found three
sizes, one of which was just what I needed.
knife between your ribs and probe gently for that chord in
your psyche that makes you want to believe that what you
hear is the truth: "Say, boy, I had a friend who had a
shaftlog like that once. Had a lead patch on her too, but
the patch was torn off when the prop got tangled in a pot
warp and she sank like a stone. Too bad, really, but I told
him it was going to happen and he wouldn't listen to me
and I've been around these things for a long time and I've
fixed problems bigger than that and you really ought to do
something about that, why I was telling Edgar just the
other day. . ."
"Tell me, Mr. Jones," I ask, "What should I do?"
"Rip the deadwood right out of her and start all over."
"Oh."
One fellow thought that wasn't going far enough. He
detected a slight hog in the keel and suggested I might as
well take out the entire backbone while I was at it and
replace it with a spanking new one. My counter offer was
to burn the hull for her fastenings and really start all over,
so, recognizing that I was a tough nut to crack, he gave up
his place in line to the next advisor, who was into fiberglass.
"Pull off the garboards," he said, "and wrap the deadwood
with glass, hit her with the polyester resin, and close her
back up again." He was followed by a perfectionist who
would settle only for epoxy with the fiberglass, but was
promptly one-upped by his companion who, while cleaning
his eyeglasses with the tail of his flannel shirt, allowed as
how fiberglassing is a big operation, so if you're going to do
Drawing by Kathy Bray
 To make the tube truly watertight after it was installed,
we decided to braze the inside stuffing box and the outside
shaft bearing to the ends of the tube. The brazing had to
be done before the tube was inserted — which would then,
of course, preclude installing the tube —so we got around
the problem by cutting the tube in half and inserting each
half separately. We machined the two halves, so that the
after piece could slide into the forward one. The overlap
was 2" and there was a .001" clearance, so the joint was
essentially watertight, especially after the liberal use of
bedding compound.
The shaft hole in the oak shaft log had to be drilled out
to a larger size for the tube, but we had no idea where fas-
tenings might lie. There was nothing to do but take a
chance. The drilling went all right and the hole looked
straight, but when the tube was inserted it was easy to see
by sighting through it that it had a slight curve. I don't
know how this happened — whether it was a fastening or a
drilling problem —but it hasn't affected anything, even
after a season's use.
Before inserting the tube in the shaft log, we buttered
up the interior of the hole as thickly and as smoothly as
possible with Lifecaulk, both to bed the tube and seal off
any checks in the log that might have been present. The
operation seems to have been successful; the shaft log face
has been dry all through the season, and whether used
under power or sail, NORTH STAR has remained tight and
dry. — Irving C. Sheldon

it, you might as well leave the garboards where they are
and sheath the whole hull. I'm much too smart for that,
however, and told him so: Everybody knows the reason
why God didn't make fiberglass trees was because glass
fibers gave Him an allergic rash.
I heard three recommendations that appeared to have
value or seemed to be within an amateur's level of compe-
tence. The first was to fill the checks from the outside with
flexible polysulphide compound, temporarily plug the out-
board end of the shaft hole, pour hot paraffin wax into the
hole from the inboard end, then bore the wax for the shaft
after it had set up. (I've since heard that it was once
common to use paraffin wax as a sealer in shaftlogs.) The
second recommendation, the one I was ultimately to
choose, was to take off the garboards so the entire length of
the shaftlog was exposed, mortise in oak cheek pieces, bed
and fasten them with bronze screws, then recut the rabbet
along the now-thicker shaftlog and replace the garboards.
The third recommendation was the course followed by Mr.
Sheldon —that is, to line the shaft hole with a metal tube.
I'm delighted to know that the metal-tube method
works, but still haven't seen a demonstration of the effec-
tiveness of the other two. While we wait to hear from
them, maybe we can work out a magical device (patent-
able, I should hope) that will help amateurs rate and
evaluate the advice they receive, a device that would pro-
duce, at the most, one of the three answers: "Yes," "no,"
or "maybe." —Peter H. Spectre

40/WoodenBoat 103
104 WoodenBoat/40
 BUILT TO WIN

The International 210

LOA 29'9"
LWL 22'
Beam 5'10"
T he established order was very much in flux in 1945.
Even old establishments, such as yacht clubs, were
undergoing change, and many Massachusetts Bay sailors
Draft 3'10"
felt that yacht clubs, each sailing different classes of boats,
were hindering an improvement in the caliber of competi-
tion. They felt that a new class of boat was necessary for
the Bay, a boat that all clubs could sail, one that would be
fast, fun, and affordable. A committee representing all
the North Shore clubs called on Ray Hunt to design a new
class.
Raymond Hunt was one of America's most versatile
designers. One of his first designs, the 110, was a slim
double-ender that seemed to fill most of the sailors'
requirements. It was fast, sporty, inexpensive, but a little
cramped for comfortable daysailing. So Hunt was asked to
design a larger boat, but one that kept the good qualities
of the 110 along with more size and seakindliness.
The 110 had been quite radical for 1938, since Hunt
designed the flat-bottomed, fin-keel boat with the then-
newest boatbuilding material in mind—plywood. The 110
had been greeted with scepticism and scorn; it was even
called a "cigar-box." But the detractors soon became con-
verts when the cheap little 110 beat everything up to the
Stars in informal races. 110 fleets were well organized
before World War II.
For the larger 210 design, Hunt kept many of the same
principles: flat bottom, fin keel, easily handled rig, and
plywood construction. Because one of the requirements
was comfort for daysailing, the 210 had a larger cockpit,
proportionally higher sides, more graceful sheer and ends,
and more displacement.
The first new 210 was built by Graves Yacht Yard in
Marblehead. The boat was 29'9" overall, with a waterline
length of 24'. The beam was 5'10", the boat drew 3'10",
and it weighed under 2400 lbs. The boat was launched in
May of 1946 and produced immediate acclaim. As one of

40/WoodenBoat 105
 the selection committee members said at the time, "It was
more boat for the money than any other we could find."
The class was accepted by the clubs of Massachusetts Bay,
and a new era of yacht racing had begun.
The class founders quickly formed a strong owners'
association. Their intent was to keep the class rigorously
one design, yet let the boat improve with age and change
with the times. These two goals, seemingly at odds, have
meant a fancy tightrope dance for the class, but it seems to
work since the age range of 210s in regattas is wide.
The class never lost its interest in providing an excellent
sailing boat at a low cost. The original boats cost $1,500,
and every effort was made to keep to this price. The com-
bination of good speed, good sport, and good price made
the 210 take off, and it spread from its home waters of
Massachusetts Bay north to Maine, then to the Midwest
and points beyond.
The 210 was an inexpensive alternative to heavy keel-
boats. Older boats, such as the Internationals, the Quincy
Adamses, the Rs, and the Ss, all maintained their follow-
ings, yet their days were numbered —not through the
introduction of the 210 alone, but because they were of a
different age, more graceful and genteel, but less egali-
tarian.
The 210 was far more democratic. The fleets were
larger, the competition fiercer, and the boats available to
all. By the mid-1950s, the 210 was a mature and promi-
nent racing class. People like Ted Hood, Don McNamara,
and Norman Cressy were 210 sailors. The 210 class
became the largest three-to-four-man racing keelboat class
in the country. Things were looking pretty good.
But this secure situation was severely tested by the
advent of fiberglass boats. By 1964 the bottom seemed to
have dropped out of the 30' wooden daysailer market. It
seems the new American boating public had been con-
vinced that 30' sailboats had to sleep at least six, have an
enclosed head, and sail with the grace of a waddling pig.
It looked like the 210 would join the fleet of old, obsolete
classes. Though it suffered, it didn't disappear; it merely
held steady.
210 sailors, meanwhile, spent their time updating their
boats. During the late '60s, aluminum spars were allowed,
spinnaker launchers became legal, and circular boom
vangs and Mylar sails were seen on the winning boats. The
210 was quietly going through a revolution; the already
fast boat was becoming more manageable. The people
who sailed the boat were good — some were the best in the
business. These sailors, and the newcomers they attracted,
kept the 210 from disappearing. Many of the new sailors
in the class were former hot-shot dinghy sailors who had
reached the age and the inclination for a little comfort
along with performance. Although some of the new keel-
boats, such as the Soling and the Etchells 22, could offer
these new recruits good sailing, the costs were five to ten
times the figure for getting started in the 210s.
The 210 class is becoming quite active again. Over 35
boats changed hands in 1979; some were new boats, but
most were older boats, carefully restored and rerigged.
While the boat continues to attract the racing sailor, a
good number of the new 210 sailors see it as more than just
a racing machine. The double-ender with its large cockpit
is being used as a spartan camp-cruising boat. With a
safety feature, like jiffy reefing on the main, and the addi-
tion of a good dodger/tent, it makes an admirable summer
cruising boat for those who are long on heart but short on
money.
The 210 should continue to enjoy favor. It's handsome,
fast, able, fun — and a lot of boat for the money.
—John K. Hanson, Jr.

106 WoodenBoat/40
40/WoodenBoat 107
108 WoodenBoat/40
40/WoodenBoat 109
Books on Seamanship
The Art of Knots
by Marc P. B. Berthier
sailor's manual on knots,
A splices, hitches, bends, and
fancy work. This book, though
limited in scope compared to
Ashley's Book of Knots, covers all
the common knots and many of
the uncommon ones for making
your craft shipshape. In addition,
there are a number of offbeat
subjects, such as folding, furling,
and hoisting flags, repairing sails,
tying decorative knots, making
nets and hammocks, belts, deck
mats and suspenders, and how
to tie neck and head wear. The
writing is spare and simple, and
this illustrations and diagrams
show just enough to gain an
understanding of the principle
described. A delightful book.
187pp. $6.95
The Arts of the Sailor
by Hervey Garren Smith
he consummate traditional
T sailor describes the practical
arts of deck and marlinspike sea-
manship. Some of the chapters:
the anatomy of rope and cordage,
useful hitches, the art of splicing,
belaying, coiling, and stowing,
hand sewing and canvaswork,
chafing gear, the technique of
reefing, towing procedures, the
boatswain's chair, rope-stropped
blocks, how to make a proper
bucket, how to rig deadeyes and
lanyards. If you can't make a long
splice after Smith shows you how,
you never will. This is the best lit-
tle book on deck seamanship we
have seen. It's a classic. 241 pp.
$3.95
The Ashley Book of
Knots
by Clifford W. Ashley
ar and away the most compre-
F hensive of the knot books,
though it is more of a dictionary
than a how-to-do-it treatise.
Contains descriptions and draw-
ings of approximately 3,900 knots,
from the simplest to the most
complex, with considerable history
and lore included for the marlin-
spike seamanship buff. This is the
ultimate reference book for those
who take their ropework and rig-
ging seriously. We've tried our
damnedest to find a knot in a com-
peting book that isn't in Ashley's
and have yet to find one. 610pp.
$18.95
To order books and products from these pages use
attached bind-in card or refer to page 113.
110 WoodenBoat/40
Boatowner's Sheet
Anchor
by Carl D. Lane
practical guide to fitting out,
A upkeep, and alteration of the
small wooden yacht. This is a
good handbook for the boatowner
who wishes to do his own upkeep
and repair, as well as customiza-
tion. Written by a man who has
the practical experience to lend
weight to his words, it covers such
topics as inspection of used boats,
conversions, painting, interior
accommodations, shipboard
upholstery, sails, masts and spars,
dinghies, storage. Obviously, not
everything is, or can be, covered,
but the author provides down-to-
earth advice on both common and
uncommon problems. A ship-
shape book. 304pp. $7.95
The Calculator Afloat
by Capt. Henry H. Shufeldtand
Kenneth E. Newcomer
A guide to the use of the modern
electronic calculator for navi-
gation. If properly understood, the
calculator can be used to rapidly
solve the simplest to the most
complex navigational problems
without the use of tables or a slide
rule. This book puts the calculator,
both the simple and the most
advanced programmable types,
into perspective, and gives step-
by-step explanations on using it
for inshore and offshore naviga-
tion. This is easily me best book
on the subject. 225 pp. $16.95
The Ditty Bag Book
by Frank Rose now
he perfect little manual for
T those who wish to do their own
sail repair, make their own ditty
bags and chafing gear and ensure
good splices, grommets, and
whippings. The author divides his
book into two parts —the tools,
and the processes —and provides
a solid foundation for those seek-
ing to perpetuate the fine art of
marlinspike seamanship. This is
utilitarian, "Bristol-fashion" sea-
manship, not decorative fancy
work. The drawings, like the text,
are clear and concise. 128pp.
$7.95
The Marlinspike Sailor Self-Steering
by Hervey Garrett Smith for Sailboats
by Gerard Dijkstra
M ore from H.G. Smith on all
matters for the seamanlike
boatman. A few of the scores of
subjects: making rope behave, U nderstanding the principles of
and mechanisms for making
splices, laying up a grommet, your boat keep a straight course
with the helm unattended. A good
whippings, the heaving line,
worming, parceling and serving, part of the discussion covers wind-
vane gears, including home con-
the lanyard knot, a rope ladder,
sennits, coachwhipping, the sea struction of equipment as well as
buying commercial rigs, but there
chest, wooden bilge pumps,
are sections on autopilots and
wooden cleats, rope fenders, a
sheet-to-tiller arrangements. An
canvas deck bucket, making a
mast boot, the water jug. Smith excellent feature of the book is the
many color diagrams, which make
shows you how to make many
things you've seen nowhere else the technical explanations very
clear. 128pp. $12.50
that have practical use aboard
your boat. His illustrations are
meticulously rendered and a joy to
see. 143pp. $7.95
Self-Steering for
Sailing Craft
by John S. Letcher, Jr.
The New Glenans
Sailing Manual ow to get your craft to steer
transl. by J. MacGibbon
H herself, for short-handed and
single-handed sailors. Having self-
steering and not having self-
A virtual encyclopedia of sail-
ing from the famous Glenans
steering can be the difference
between a pleasant passage and
Sea Center in France. The goal is
an unpleasant ordeal. This book
to allow the beginner to learn sail- looks at all sailing craft, from small
ing on his own, and to progress
to large, and examines the options
from one stage of expertise to available to them for self-steering —
another at his own pace. As a
sheet-to-tiller arrangements, vane
result, to say the book is of value and electronic autopilots. It is a
for all sailors regardless of the level
guide to the technique and tech-
of experience, is not an exaggera- nology of self-steering with
tion. Besides definitive text, there
emphasis on practical applications.
are hundreds of illustrations; in
If you sail alone or short-handed,
fact, the book can almost be read this book can be your guide.
by just following the photographs
276pp. $15.00
and diagrams with their captions.
Divided into five parts —the boat,
boat handling, the crew, meteor-
ology, and navigation - the scope The Yachtsman's
is from daysailing to offshore
cruising, from inshore mucking Guide to First Aid
around to high-performance rac- Afloat
ing. 782pp. $24.95
by Earl B. Rubell, M.D.
Sails
Antheindispensable guidebook for
boat's medicine chest.
This book is intended as an emer-
by Jeremy Howard- Williams gency reference tool for the diag-
nosis and treatment of illness and
A close look at sails by a sail- injury likely to be experienced by a
yachtsman anywhere in the world.
maker of experience with Rat-
sey & Lapthom. This is a thorough
look at sails, both theory and prac-
The author discusses preventive
care, simple surgical procedures,
and first aid. There are special
tice, with much of value for those
who are interested in designing, sections on tropical medicine, poi-
soning, and the Heimlich man-
making, and repairing their own
sails. Though the emphasis is on euver (for choking). Includes com-
plete drug and medical supply lists
modern sails, there is material on
traditional types, including cloth for the coastal and world cruiser,
with prescription and dosage
made from natural fibers. Some of
the chapters: sailcloth, sail flow recommendations. 119pp. $8.95
design, cutting and sewing a sail,
rigging, trim, light and heavy
weather sails, reaching and run-
ning sails, care and maintenance,
repairs, faults and creases, altera-
tions to size. The book is helpful
to both racers and cruisers. 415 pp
$12.50
 New Titles
Knowing Your Trees
by G.H. Collingwood and
Warren D. Brush
ree identification for those who
T wish to cut their boatstock
from the stump. This book, pub-
lished by the American Forestry
Association and in its 30th print-
ing, is a very thorough guide to the
trees of the United States. There
are photographs of each tree —
both in its summer and winter con-
ditions—and leaf, bark, flower,
and fruit. In addition, there is a
map showing the geographical dis-
tribution of each tree discussed.
The text, which is briefly and
simply written, describes the
botanical features of each tree, its
range and havits, its uses and
economic importance, and the
meaning of its scientific name.
Both common and scientific
names are used. There are more
than 900 illustrations. 389pp.
$9.50
T-Shirt & Bucket
he popularity of our Wooden-
T boat T-shirts grows apace,
because they both represent the
taste of the wearer and because
they are handsome, durable, and
well made. These are 100% cot-
ton T-shirts, silkscreened with the
Wooden Boat logo. They are avail-
able in two styles: T-Shirt A is tan
with brown lettering, and T-Shirt B
is dark blue with white lettering.
Adult sizes: $7.00. S(34-36)
M(38-40) L(42-44) XL(46-48)
Children's sizes: $6.00. Light
Weight S(6-8) M( 10-14)
L(14-16)
When ordering, please specify
quantity of each, color, and size,
adult or child.
Tage Frid Teaches
Woodworking Joinery:
Tools and Techniques
by Tage Frid
he first of a three-volume work
T by the contributing editor of
Fine Woodworking magazine.
This book is for the woodworker
who wants to learn how to choose
the best joint for the job at hand,
how to lay out each joint, and how
to cut it accurately and efficiently.
The techniques described feature
both hand and power tools, and
each joint discussed is shown
step-by-step photographs and
diagrams. The chapters are: wood
saws, preparing stock, dovetails,
other multiple joints, tongue and
groove, mortise and tenon, making
tenons, mitered frame joints.
This is one of the finest wood-
working texts we have ever seen.
206 pp. $15.95
Lapstrake Boatbuilding boat — considering that they
include plans, they are a bargain at
Seminar Workbooks the price.
by W.J. Simmons Lapstrake Boatbuilding Seminar
Workbook I, Building the Maine
ForSimmons,
a couple of years now Walt
author of Lapstrake
Skiff (97", flat-bottomed).
45 pp. Foldout plans. $25.00
Lapstrake Boatbuilding Seminar
Boatbuilding, has been offering
one-week seminars in lapstrake Workbook II, Building the Yacht
technique at his Lincolnville, Tender Sunshine (10'6", round-
Maine, boatshop. These courses bottomed). 60pp. Foldout
are best attended in person, of plans. $35.00
course, but there are limitations on
attendance and many people who
live too far away find it impossible
to take advantage of the seminars.
For those who can't make it, the
next best thing is Simmons's very
detailed workbooks. These work-
books are essentially shop man-
uals, with instructions for building
a particular boat, including plans,
and all the necessary information
on making a half model, reading
the plans, finishing out, making
oars, etc. Each workbook contains
all you need to build your small
A properly outfitted boat should
have a properly made bucket.
Ours is a traditional canvas bucket
that folds flat and stows easily.
It's perfect for washing down the
deck, carrying tools and gear,
holding your lunch for expeditions
to the beach.
The Bucket is handmade with
heavy, mildew-resistant canvas.
It features heavy stitching, a flat
3/4" cedar bottom, with a protec-
tive hand-laid rope grommet, and
marline seizing. It should provide
years of continuous use.
Natural No. 8 Canvas, Diameter:
9/12", Height: 12". Available
only through WoodenBoat. $32.95
40/WoodenBoat 111
Books, Books, Books
Boatbuilding & Repair
Restoring Vintage Boats/ John
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The Dory Book/ John Gardner,
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The Gougeon Brothers on Boat
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Taking Care of Wooden Ships/
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Boatbuilding in Your Own Back-
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Boatbuilding with Plywood/Glen
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Building the Herreshoff Dinghy/
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Boatbuilding Methods/Peter
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The Stripper's Guide to Canoe
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8.95
Instant Boats/Harold H. Payson,
136pp. 15.00
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Walter J. Simmons, 172pp.
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Walter J. Simmons, 256 pp.
17.50
Modern Marine Materials/Ernest
A. Zadig, 325 pp. 6.95
The Repair and Restoration of
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DaveJohnston, 168 pp. 17.95
Boatbuilding Manual/Robert
M. Steward, 240 pp. 18.50
The Repair of Wooden Boats/
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Building Classic Small Craft/John
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Your Boat's Electrical System/
Conrad Miller, 350 pp. 9.95
Half-Hull Modeling/by the Appren-
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Complete Amateur Boatbuilding/
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Plank on Frame/Paul Lipke,
416 pp. 24.95
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112 WoodenBoat/40
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Books on Boats 147pp. 12.50 Adventures in Boat Design/
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$24.95 Cruising Around Different Boat/Philip C. Bolger,
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The Canoeist's Catalog/ Bill and L Francis Herreshoff, 316 pp.
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History
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Building the Catspaw Dinghy :A Boat for oar and Sail Herreshoff, 349 pp. $13.50
Gaff Rig/John Leather, 272 pp.
by the Editors of WoodenBoat 22.50
New England's Masts and the
ack in issues 26,27, and 28 we ran a series on building a modified
B version of the Herreshoff Columbia-model dinghy. This boat,
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King's Broad Arrow/Samuel
F. Manning, 62 pp. 4.95
The National Watercraft Collec-
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Dictionary of Tools/R. A Salaman,
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What Wood Is That/Herbert L.
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T
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Back Issues, Reprints,
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1 - Traditional Boatbuilder's Tools
...Building a Sharpie...A Com-
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2—The Lincolnville Wherry...A
Smoky Mountains Dory...Elec-
trical Installations...The Decay of
Wood in Boats...The Maine Sloop.
3—Racing Skipjacks on the
Chesapeake...Inspecting the Bilge
...The Cape Cod Catboat...ALMA,
a San Francisco Scow Schooner.
4—The Bath Marine Museum Ap-
prenticeshop...Scottish Fishing
Boat Conversions...Cold-molded
Construction...Pete Culler on
Boatbuilding.
5—The Mystic Seaport Small
Craft...Building a Whitehall from
Lofting through Finishing...Au
Sable River Boats...Building a
Tancook Whaler.
6— Building a Chesapeake Bay
Log Canoe.. John Gardner on the
Role and Responsibility of Marine
Museums...The Great Pacific
Boatworks.
16 —Transom Repair...Cold Mold-
ing...Planking...Caulking...The
Perfect Varnish Job.
17- Northwest Boatbuilding...
Sheathing Wooden Boats...British
Working Sail...Riva's Luxury
Runabouts.
18-A Radical Shoal Draft Cruiser
...Adirondack Guideboats...Logical
Maintenance...Building a Cradle.
20— Barnegat Bay Sneakbox...
Cold-Molding UNICORN...Build-
ing a Colin Archer Cutter...British
Columbia Boatbuilder.
21 - Racing Shells...Greek Boat-
building...SPRAY Replica...The
Wooden Submarine.
24—Laurent Giles & the Vertue...
The Feel of Caulking...Interview
with Mr. Jim Richardson...A Sail-
ing Whitehall.
25— Living Aboard...Cornish Gigs
...WHITEHAWK Under Sail...
Leaking Decks.
28-William Hand's Motorsailers
...Norwegian Boatbuilding...
Lumber Forecast...Bedding Com-
pounds,
(slightly damaged copies only)
29- Design Competition Results...
Classic Runabouts Today...Re-
building the Wood & Canvas Canoe
...Friendship Sloops Under Sail,
(slightly damaged copies only)
30 —Winter Layup...Bow Chocks...
The San Francisco Pelican...The
Reliable One-Lunger.
31 -Working Sail Returns...
Heating Your Boat With Wood...
Wooden Boat's Christmas Catalog
...Finishing Off A Flat-bottomed
Skiff.
32- Simple Tools For Simple
Boats...Restoring a St. Lawrence
Skiff...John Alden's Yachts...
Understanding Marine Electrical
Systems.
33 — The Abandonment of the
JOHN F. LEAVITT...Making Your
Own Half Models...The Genius of
Nathanael Herreshoff...A Boat
Worth Keeping —An Alden Classic.
34- Cold-Molded 8-Meter Meta-
morphosis...Two Views of a Co-
operative Shipyard... Understand-
ing Marine Batteries...An Exquisite
Crosby Yacht Tender.
35— Nathanael Herreshoff's New
York Thirties...The Dream of a St.
Pierre Dory...Growing and Using
Local Lumber...Restoring a Work-
ing Skipjack.
36— Understanding Marine Insur-
ance...The Birchbark Canoe Lives
On...How to Build a Seaworthy
Sailing Canoe...The Versatile
Swampscott Dory.
37-The Alaska Limit Seiner...
The History of Yacht Design-
Part I...Finishing off the Sea-
worthy Sailing Canoe...Milling
Your Own Lumber.
38- The Oldest Known Boat in the
World...The Preservation of Ships
and Skills...The Remarkable Her-
reshoff Meadow Lark...Boats that
You Build from a Kit.
39—The Maine Schooners...
Making Patterns for Castings...
More Boats from Kits...Stem
Repairs and Replacement
Issues 7 — 15 were out of
print tor quite some time.
We have reprinted them in
their entirety, and they are
available for $4.00 each.
7- Estimating Construction Costs...
Cold-molded Construction, Part II
...The Building of a Tancook
Whaler...Instant Boats...ACTIVE
to England.
8—The Original Knockabouts...
Documentation Primer...Ashcroft
Construction...Small Craft Re-
storation.. S.t Lawrence Yawls.
9— Rediscovering Hackmatack...
Manson Boat Works...Barbados
Boatbuilding...Making a Choice
Part I: The Domestic Woods.
10-Making a Choice Part II: The
Imported Woods...A Pro Speaks
on Painting...Folkboats Revisited
Runabouts...Seasoning Science.
11 - Understanding, Appreciating,
Preventing Rot...Some Thoughts
on Lofting...The Nearly Forgotten
Art of Making Planes...On Laying
Down and Taking Off...The Care
and Feeding of Teak Decks.
12-An Introduction to Refas-
tening...The Essence of Lofting...
A Winter Storage Primer...Clamps
& Cleverness...The Bass Boat
13-Winter Lay Up...The Making
of Molds...Leaks are Lousy...
Keeping the Structure Together...
West Coast Traditions.
14-The Rabbet...Saw Cuts...No
Wrinkles: Canvasing the Deck...
The Incredible Herreshoff Dugout
...Setting Up.
15-Watertight: A Simple Teak
Deck...The Fine Art of Stripping
Paint...Ribbands...Timbering Out
...The Venetian Gondola...Pouring
the Lead Keel.

Please indicate issue number when ordering. • We're sorry but issues 19, 22, 23, 26 & 27 are temporarily out of print.

WoodenBoat Index
If you were in our shoes and
I received countless queries and
were constantly searching through
back issues for the answers and
had been here so long that you
were beginning to forget specifics
about contents of back issues and
they were starting to seem like a
big blur, what would you do?
Compile an index, of course.
Not an ordinary index, because it
would have to be useful at a
moment's notice to answer the
most obtuse of questions— like
"Where can I read about the
placement of butt blocks?", asked
by a Londoner who has called
transatlantic and has three min-
TO ORDER: If the bind-in card is missing from these pages mail your
order to: Wooden Boat Etc., Box 78, Brooklin, Maine 04616. Add shipping
utes to ask his question and get an
answer - and it would have to sur-
round the subject rather than pass
through it like the proverbial fowl
who ran through the chicken
noodle soup. It would have to be
the best we could produce, with
no holds barred.
So we compiled the Wooden-
Boat Index because we believe
that its collected back issues are
a valuable reference tool. A very
large part of each issue is filled
with practical, timeless informa-
tion, and we wanted to make the
fullest use of it.
Full use means an index that
can be entered in more than one
way and covers the territory with-
out relying solely on article title
and author's name, so we set up
27 categories, scores of sub-
categories, and 3,500 individual
entries. We spent hundreds of
hours on its preparation and tested
it thoroughly, not only for accu-
racy, but also for ease of entry and
comprehensiveness of coverage.
The WoodenBoat Index covers
issues 1 through 36 and is a prac-
tical, easy-to-use guide to every
aspect of wooden boats. It is 56
pages long, has a sensible design,
and is set in type of a readable size.
It is unlike (and better than) most
other indexes of its type. $5.95
& handling: up to $25.00 -$1.95, $25.01 to $50.00 - $3.90,
$50.01 to $75.00 - $5.85, over $75.01 - $7.80

40/WoodenBoat 113
 BOOK
Schooner INTEGRITY, by Frank Mulville. Seafarer Books,
3 Manchester Road, London, England, 1979. 169 pages,
£4.50.

Launched in 1962, the INTEGRITY for almost 10 years was

one of the best-known and best-looking schooners in New
England waters. She was designed by Pete Culler and built
at the Concordia yard in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts,
under Culler's direction, for the owner of the yard, Waldo
Howland. She was 52" overall, 44' on the waterline, 15'
beam, and 6'9" draft. Given the designer and builder, it
goes without saying that she was constructed and outfitted
with the finest and strongest materials.
Waldo Howland sailed the INTEGRITY wisely and care-
fully, ranging up and down the East Coast and chartering
her for a transatlantic cruise under capable hands, and he
gave her nothing less than first-rate maintenance. She
proved to be an excellent passagemaker in every way. But
in 1970 he decided to retire and sold the vessel. She was
purchased by a syndicate who intended to charter her in
the Caribbean, and a six-man delivery crew was signed
aboard to take her to Grenada. She never made it. In
November, 1970, the INTEGRITY was abandoned at sea
after a severe battering by a storm and after losing her rig
in a collision with a ship that attempted to come to her res-
cue. She remained afloat, however, and after being
boarded a number of times by looters, was taken in tow by
a yacht and brought to a small island port in the Bahamas.
She was in sorry shape, but several attempts were made to
restore her, all to no avail —she was eventually lost for good
when author Frank Mulville of the gaff cutter ISKRA had
her under tow to a repair yard in another Bahama island.
Mulville, like most others who have known the
INTEGRITY, was fascinated by her. Schooner INTEGRITY is
his eulogy of her, at once a history, a tale of tragedy and
duplicity, and a diary of personal involvement. It is a grip-
ping story of the best intentions gone awry.
We asked Waldo Howland for his assessment of Mul-
ville's book. His review follows. —Peter H. Spectre

Schooner INTEGRITY is an excellent seaman's yarn

about the most unusual and somewhat mysterious loss of a
well-loved little packet schooner. That the action
described actually took place, and during the last decade,
brings its philosophy and excitement even closer to home.
English author Frank Mulville is one of those rare sail-
ors who has the ability, mental and physical, and the
experience in boats large and small, to successfully make
long single-handed passages. I have met and talked with
others of his unique club. For example, I conversed with
Harry Pidgeon at the Bermuda Yacht Club and later read

Books Recently Received

Plank on Frame: The Who, What and Where of HO Boatbuilders,
by Paul Lipke. International Marine Publishing Company, Camden,
ME. 402 pp., $24.95. A survey of contemporary wooden boat builders
on all coasts of the United States by a man who visited them all. A val-
uable reference work.
Modern Radar: Theory, Operation 9 Maintenance, by Edward L.
Safford, Jr. Tab Books, Blue Ridge Summit, PA. 564 pp., $15.95. The
second edition of a text on all types of radar, from the largest to the small-
est, land-, sea-, and air-based.
The Boatman's Bible, by Daman C. Fenwick. Tab Books, Blue Ridge
Summit, PA. 516 pp., $16.95. Religious it's not; the end- and be-all it
isn't; too little about too much it is.
How to Fix Up an Old Boat on a Small Budget, by Jack Wiley. Tab

114 WoodenBoat/40
REVIEW
his book of around-the-world voyaging on ISLANDER. Ted
Alcard spent a summer in our South Dartmouth shipyard
cottage during the time of the rebuilding of the SEA
WANDERER. I first saw David Robertson on a Fastnet
Race, next met him in City Island and bought his
Norwegian pilot boat ESCAPE on which he had just sailed
across the ocean. I met Frank Mulville quite by accident
while cruising in Scotland. There is little secondhand
thinking on the part of these lonely voyagers. It is both
interesting and vitally informative to read and assimilate
what they have to tell. Few of us have been, or ever will be,
in the situation and frame of mind from which they write.
It is difficult for me to be completely objective in a
review of Schooner INTEGRITY. As builder, and for 10
years owner, of this schooner, I have a special biased
attachment to her memory. However, there is little I
would wish to change in Mulville's book. Sorry I am that
his characterization of the nice folks who bought the ship
from me was painted in such dark colors; possibly this just
fitted the thread of his story. I am amused that he saw my
blue eyes as being gray. I am puzzled by his conclusions
concerning the ship's stern, but I do know what he means
just the same. There was from certain angles a different
look about the INTEGRITY'S aft quarters. I personally felt
that this "weak" appearance was caused by my insistance
on having a big foresail, thus reducing the normal size of
the mainsail and shifting the mainmast aft. Be that as it
may, I take no exception to Mulville's observations about
the INTEGRITY. He draws a first-rate seaman's picture of
her, and we understand and admire her for what she was.
By agreement Mulville was to write the INTEGRITY
story as it occurred after her sale in 1970. The thought was
that in due course I might write about her first 10 years
when she was a Howland affair. There is of necessity some
overlap, and I have independently collected considerable
data on the INTEGRITY'S life after 1970: the great storm at
sea, the crew's rescue, the ship's lonely wanderings, and the
final needlessly unfortunate years at Grand Turk Island.
About these same matters Mulville did very extensive
research and then himself witnessed the final episode. As
far as my information goes, his facts are not only accurate
but are vitally interesting from many points of view —sea-
faring, psychological, admiralty law, insurance, and just
plain mystery.
The author writes well and vividly about his subject;
the boat scenes ring true. He knows what he is talking
about. Schooner INTEGRITY is a book that I will keep on
my shelf and will recommend to those sailors who have
experienced or plan to make offshore voyages. I personally
value the seaman's messages woven into this latest of
Mulville's books. — Waldo Howland

Books, Blue Ridge Summit, PA. 256 pp., $8.95. A basic book on a com-
plicated subject.
Dreams of Natural Places, by Herbert Smith. Down East Books,
Camden, ME. 102 pp., $18.95. Running away to sea on a new 65'
wooden schooner; little text, lots of beautiful color photographs of a
round-the-world dream cruise.
On the Hawser: A Tugboat Album, by Steven Lang and Peter H.
Spectre. Down East Books, Camden, ME. 533 pp., $30. Over 300
photos and extended captions on tugboats of the past and present.
The Decline of Portuguese Regional Boats, by Octavio Lixa
Filgueiras. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, England.
39 pp., £ 4.20. Number 47 in the NMM's monograph series (for a com-
plete listing, write the Museum).
Sun Sight Sailing, by S.L. Seaton. David McKay Company, New
York, NY. 100 pp.. $9.95. Celestial navigation in its simplest form-
position fixing by observation of the sun.

40/WoodenBoat 115
116 WoodenBoat/40
 CLASSIC CRUISERS
Go-Sum
A 1908
Knock-Down
Cruiser
I n a six-part magazine series and a subsequent book
chapter about how he built the GO-SUM, sporting
journalist Warren H. Miller left the most complete docu-
mentation I know of for a cruiser of this era (although,
strangely enough, neither the boat's lines and offsets nor
the name of the frame kit manufacturer is included).
Since at least the 1870s, the minority of boat shops with
a need for high volume or rapid production (such as Banks
dory and whaleboat builders) had used the piece work sys-
tem, with employees making interchangeable "made to
jig" parts that could be assembled into uniform boats or
stored for future assembly.
In the building of recreational power boats, however,
the volume of production that would call for mass produc-
tion did not exist until the ready availability of small,
mass-produced gasoline engines permitted it. That avail-
Drawings and photos by Warren H. Miller, reprinted courtesy of Field 9 Stream)
ability came on the scene, in a sharp upward curve, in the
15 years from 1890 —when a good mechanic could adapt
and maintain a gasoline engine for use in his own boat — to
1905, when more than 60 different companies were adver-
tising marine engines in the boating magazines and selling
them by the thousands.
One response to the explosion in power boating interest
and feasibility was the knockdown (or kit) boat, which
could be bought in many stages of completeness from
drawings on paper, through all-inclusive with planks sawn
to shape. The notions of interchangeable parts and doing-
it-yourself to eliminate labor cost were widely popular, and
one could buy a mail-order knockdown bungalow as easily
as a k-d motorboat.
In the first decade of this century many leading k-d
boat companies were located in the Midwest, and partial-
40/WoodenBoat 117
 larly Michigan, where the lumber was. The Brooks Boat
Company reportedly sold 6,000 k-d launches in 1904 and
more than 10,000 in 1905. The Bay City Boat Company,
perhaps the best-known k-d operation, offered an exten-
sive line from small boats through sailing yachts right
through the postwar 1940s.
It was from an unnamed k-d company in Michigan
that Warren Miller bought the frame for the GO-SUM. His
goal was a cruiser but, he points out, "This boat was
financed entirely on hot air." So for lower initial cost and
economy of operation (due to narrower beam) Miller pur-
chased the frame for an open, torpedo-stern launch, whose
original sheer line shows as the rub rail in the profile
sketch.
Thus the GO-SUM, as a cruiser, was one of a kind. How-
ever, it was very much like many commercially built cruis-
ers of the period in its raised deck with a "launch-cabin"
extending back from it, in its interior layout, in its pipe-
stanchion awning system, and in the 4"xl7' spruce spar
on which a storm trysail and forestaysail could be bent for
both steadying and added speed.
The k-d launch on which GO-SUM was built originally
measured 32'8"x7'4", with a hull depth of 48" at the bow,
38" amidships, and 42" astern. Miller ordered the ribs,
stem, and sternpost left 6" long. This cost an extra $3, and
brought the cost of the k-d frame to $85.50.
The price included an instruction book and a roll of
full-size plank patterns which arrived "rolled up like wall-
paper." Miller had obtained $40 worth of clear cypress
boards (at 7 cents a foot). He traced the patterns onto
them and took them to a shop to be cut out on a handsaw.
The frame kit was shipped from Michigan to New York
in three cartons. With the help of two friends Miller was
able to assemble it in a single day; and he was very pleased
with the results: "The frame company made a beautiful
job of the work. Every rib was beveled so that a ribband
would lie flat and fair anywhere along the body; the heavy
framing around the skeg, shaftlog, stem and stern dead-
woods, etc., had all been attended to, so that all you had to
do was to bolt the big ship-splice together amidships in
both keel and keelson, and bolt the stem timber to the keel
below and the keelson above. We did all this work with
plain 3/8" galvanized iron rodding, peined over washers at
either end of the bolt and burred down until the washers
sank deep into the oak."
Though he felt planking was within the capability of a
careful and patient amateur, Miller chose to hire two "ship
carpenters" at $4.50 a day to plank and caulk the GO-SUM,
and worked with them. He mentions two fastening alter-
natives, copper rivets and galvanized cut nails to be
clinched inside, but doesn't indicate which he used.
Oak was used for the sheer strake, and an oak sheer
clamp bolted in, followed by the 7"-wide side deck, also
oak. Next Miller put in the cockpit coaming, running it
up to the raised-deck break, to serve as the sill for the
launch-cabin windows. He then built up the cabin sides
and carlins, of red oak, and decked the cabin and foredeck
with 1/2" tongue-and-groove yellow pine covered with 10-
oz canvas.
The 2 1/2"-wide taffrail, compound curved, was
installed with difficulty. Miller made the cockpit deck of
7/8" strips of cypress left over from planking.
He then moved inside, with his own drawings for eight
decorative panels for the saloon, stateroom, and galley
partitions. Rejecting a mill's $32 bid for the work, he
bought $19 worth of lumber to fabricate the partitions
himself.
Lacking the tools to make mortise-and-tenon joints he
used dowel-pin fastenings, resulting in "fits not as neat as I
118 WoodenBoat/40
should have liked." He finished the panels with 1/2"
quarter-round cove beading, which had to be mitred at the
corners and fastened with "tiny inch brads which bent over
if you even looked at them severely." The partitions took
two weeks of long evenings to make, and Miller vowed to
let the mill do it next time.
He did have a carpenter make the eight drawers to go
under the stateroom berths. The berths themselves mea-
sured 30" wide at the after end and 22" forward, into
which fit (with the help of "sundry vigorous punches in the
side") a standard 30" mattress.
Of the finished interior, Miller wrote: "A 7' runner
rug in the stateroom, extending out into the launch-cabin
as far as the engine, made a cozy room of it, with the help
of four green silk porthole curtains on brass rods and a set
of brass-handled drawers under each berth."
Interior woodwork, like the launch-cabin exterior
sides, was stained with "cherry japalac" to imitate mahog-
any, and varnished. Button-upholstered green denim
cushions were used in the saloon, and a green buckram
carpet was taped in place for easy removal and washing.
Miller was also proud of the final effect of his home-
drawn galley, and the 4'3"-long bathroom, "finished, in
white enamel. . .with a gorgeous display of nickel-plated
bathroom fittings," which was, thanks to two portlights
and a skylight, "always breezy and glorious in the early
mornings."
To power the GO-SUM, Miller located a raw-water
cooled two-cylinder, two-cycle engine from the Ferro
Engine Company of Cleveland. Its 4 1/4"x4 1/4" cylinders
produced 11 horsepower at 800 rpm and in trials cruised
the boat at 9 knots. The motor was 18" long at the base,
spun a 16" flywheel, and weighed 375 lbs.
Though brand-new, it was a show engine of the pre-
vious year's model and Miller got it for $207 —with a quar-
ter down and monthly payments. This included the 9'
bronze shaft, stern bearing, and propeller.
Over the engine — in the middle of the saloon — Miller
built not a box but a moveable table, under which he
mounted six 20-amp dry cells and the two spark coils for
the two cylinders.
For simplicity and economy he chose jump-spark igni-
tion. Using a weatherproof Dow hard rubber switch
mounted by the steering wheel, Miller wrote, "I could
always reverse the boat by simply snapping off the switch,
waiting a turn or so to slow up, and snapping it on again,
telling by ear when the forward piston was rising. A little
practice is all that is needed. . ."
Some sense may be made of the difference between
1908 dollars and today's if we recall that Miller paid his
two ship carpenters $4.50 a day. If this were an average
day's pay for skilled craftsmen in 1908 —which doesn't
seem too far off base—then the $700 total cost of the GO-
SUM was roughly half a craftsman's annual salary in 1908,
or perhaps $7,000-$8,000 today. —David Eastman

Further Information:
"Where Have All the Old Marine Engines Gone?", in
From My Old Boat Shop by Weston Farmer, Camden,
Maine: International Marine (1979) .
"New England Boatbuilding in the 18th and 19th Cen-
turies" by John Gardner, in Wooden Shipbuilding & Small
Craft Preservation, Washington: National Trust for His-
toric Preservation (1976).
"The Yarn of the Go-Sum" by Warren H. Miller, Field
9 Stream, Nov. 1909-Apr. 1910.
"Building a Power Cruiser from Knockdown Frames",
in Canoeing, Sailing and Motor Boating by Warren H.
Miller, New York: D. Appleton-Century (1928).

40/WoodenBoat 119
 WOOD TECHNOLOGY

Crook
A nhropologists tell us that man's
most important invention, the
wheel, was contrived while pondering
Timber
the shape of logs. Centuries later,
when round had become declasse,
when the mere mention of the won- (illustrated in diagram) —or from the
drous wheel glazed the eyes of the root-trunk juncture. Branches will be
young maidens, orthogonal suddenly the largest and best developed in open-
took hold. About this time, someone grown trees. This is one reason why
prudently conceived of cutting notches apple and other fruitwood has long
in the wheel —which had now been been favored, since orchard trees are
fabricated in sheet steel — a n d well spaced, and pruning favors the
promptly sawed round logs into square production of a few, well-shaped,
timber—a rage that has run unabated large branches. Unfortunately, the
ever since. wood of apple and other fruit trees has
Historians are unsure of the exact notoriously poor decay resistance.
date, but some time after the stone Hedgerows are also good sources of
axe, but before the handsaw, someone trees with large branches.
noticed that trees were not only round Unless a tree is pruned or the
but had appendages—branches and
roots —and that these might be
employed in construction. We do
know that the height of the branch
and root craze coincided with the pen-
ultimate days of the British Royal
Navy—a period of elaborate oak blue-
prints detailing size, shape, and num-
ber of knees and crooks to be taken
from any combination of tree form
and age—diagrams circulated to every
corner of the British Isles, leaving no
hedgerow unscrutinized.
On a smaller scale, and a century
later, the demand for spruce knees in
upstate New York reached its peak just
as timber shortages suddenly forced
conservationists to mandate the
cutting of trees as close to the ground
as possible — wiping out high stumps
and the profession of stump grubbing,
and precipitating the demise of Adi-
rondack guideboat construction.
Fortunately, the demand for crook
timber is so slim today that simply
describing one's needs is nearly as
taxing as reinventing the wheel. My
purpose in this column, then, is to pro-
vide a simple guide for the selection of
crook timber, one that could be sta-
pled to the forehead of your local
timber procurer.
The diagram of the all-purpose
crook timber tree illustrates many of
the points I will cover. Note that this
tree is half conifer, or softwood
(spruce, larch, fir, cedar, etc.) and
half broadleaved hardwood (oak, elm,
ash, apple, etc.). Criteria for crook
timber selection is different for soft-
woods and hardwoods, as we shall see.
Let's consider tree form first.
Crook timber can be gotten from
either the branch-trunk juncture All-purpose crook-timber tree

120 WoodenBoat/40
branches trained under restraint, the
form, particularly the angle between
branch and trunk, is species dependent
or genetically controlled. Thus, pin
oak develops branches that join the
stem at a nearly perfect right angle,
while branch angles in elm are
extremely acute. Most conifers pro-
duce right-angle branches, and even
open-grown trees fail to produce
branches of large diameter. For these
reasons, crook timber in conifers is
restricted primarily to roots. As we
shall see shortly, other anatomical fea-
tures favor the use of root wood.
Root-to-trunk angle is less geneti-
cally controlled than branch angle. It
is true that some species produce a
dominant tap root and only small
"feeder" side roots. But if the tree pro-
duces large side roots (which often can
be seen above the soil) then the angle
that these roots make with the main
stem can vary depending upon soil
conditions (soil type, depth to hard-
pan, etc.). Guideboat builders made
use of this information by selecting
spruce trees growing on stony ground
(not a difficult choice in the Adiron-
dack Mountains). Rocky ground can
cripple cutting tools, so greater care is
needed in grubbing out these stumps,
but the reward is a variety of crook
angles (see diagram).
So much for general shapes. What
about the internal wood structure?
Are there advantages in terms of
strength or other properties to root-
wood vs. branchwood? In order to
answer this question, we must consider
what happens when a tree is placed in
a gravitational stress. Leaning trees
produce an abnormal wood called
reaction wood. In conifers (soft-
woods) this abnormal wood forms on
the underside of the lean and is termed
compression wood. In broadleaved
hardwoods, the abnormal wood devel-
ops on the upper side of the lean and is
called tension wood. Since all
branches "lean" with respect to verti-
cal, they all contain reaction wood.
The relative position and approximate
proportion of a branch containing
either compression wood or tension
wood is shown in the diagram. The
percentages of reaction wood will vary
depending upon stress, but a conven-
ient comparative measure can be
achieved by observing the eccentricity
of the branch (how far from center the
pith lies). Reaction wood is more
prevalent in some species than others.

40/WoodenBoat 121
 Higher than normal density—
30-40% greater in compression wood
and 5-10% greater in tension wood —
characterizes reaction wood. Other
properties include excessive longi-
tudinal shrinkage and lower strength
properties (with strength loss being
more severe in compression wood than
in tension wood). Actually, impact
bending properties of tension wood are
sometimes higher than those for nor-
mal wood. Tension wood machines
poorly, leaving a woolly surface.
Because compression wood has a
greater effect on shrinkage, but parti-
cularly because it is significantly less
tough than normal wood, I would
avoid branch wood from conifers
unless the crook can be cut as shown
on the left side of the figure, avoiding
compression wood. Since branches
rarely get large enough in conifers,
such selection is unlikely.
For hardwoods, branch crooks
should be cut as shown on the right
side figure. This will avoid most ten-
sion wood, and further will place the
tension wood surface against the
planking where surface finishing is less
critical. Because some tension wood
may actually improve impact resis-
tance, or toughness, crooks so selected
should fit well their role as ribs or
stems.
Selection of root wood is less criti-
cal, since compression wood is not
found in roots and tension wood is
infrequent. Rootwood of conifers may
actually be stronger than stemwood,
since fiber length is greater. However,
as a result of a differential anatomical
structure, both branch-stem crooks
and root-stem crooks are prone to
twisting as they dry below the fiber
saturation point. Therefore, it is best
to install crook timber while it is green,
and if it is likely that a stem or rib will
dry below the fiber saturation point
before it is well fastened into the hull,
it should be coated with a water vapor
retardant (red lead is often used, but
even linseed oil would help) .
One final point. It should be
obvious that dead branches are to be
avoided, but what if you receive some
crook timber and don't know if the
branch was dead when the tree was
cut? Split or saw the crook longitudi-
nally and examine the branch knot to
stem interface (see circled area on
figure). The knot should be com-
pletely intergrown with the stem (a
tight knot) . If the outer portion of the
knot is not intergrown (loose knot)
then the branch died prior to the cut-
ting of the tree. You might try this
procedure first with known live and
dead branches until you are certain
you can make the differentiation.
— Richard Jagels

122 WoodenBoat/40
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 READER SEARCH
Does anyone have information on
the Chapelle gundalow yacht, or know
if one was built for Thomas J. Smith of
Miami around 1958 for use in the
Florida Keys? Or if others have been
built? Dean Bogart, Box 1564, Clem-
son, SC 29631 is searching for more
information on this type.
Ray Fair, 14102 NE 62nd Street,
Redmond, WA 98052 recently pur-
chased an 18' Hampton No. 416, and
after putting over 700 hours of work
into the boat, he's anxious to find out
when it was built, and by whom. He'd
appreciate information on the type,
and would especially like to hear from
owners of Hampton boats who have
rerigged them or had new sails made.
There is a new British syndicate,
led by Peter de Savary and Kit Hob-
day, who are to challenge for the
America's Cup in 1983. David Go wing
of Sailorman Films, Ltd., says that the
approach and financial back-up of
this challenge are without doubt the
most professional since Thomas Lip-
ton's last pre-WWI attempt. He will
be filming the 1983 series and the
buildup for television transmission,
and though he's well acquainted with
the history of the Cup from the British
side, his knowledge of the American
scene is less well grounded and he
hopes to remedy that. He would like
to contact people who have had per-
sonal experience in the Cup's defense
and will be coming to America in late
spring or early summer to begin work
on the project. David Gowing can be
contacted at Sailorman Films, Ltd.,
Metropolis House 8-10, Neals Yard,
London WC2, England.

Gordon J. Waligorski, 1110 Edge-

wood Drive, Kewaskum, WI 53040, is
nearing the end of restoring a 28'
cutter built by E.W. Trout (and/or
E.W. Trout Boat Works) of Roslyn,
Pennsylvania, during the period 1938-
39. Evidently six or seven boats were
built by Mr. Trout for a naval archi-
tect, Mr. van Dyke of Philadelphia,
during the late 1930s. My own was
originally called LADY OF THE LAKE
and was sent to Marquette, Michigan,
in 1939. Others completed were
DRAGON, (or maybe DRAGON LADY),
and KITTIE G. DRAGON was sent to
Philadelphia, and KITTIE G to Grand
Island, Michigan. We are trying to
piece together a history of our boat
(sailed on Lake Michigan under the
names LADY OF THE LAKE. CANDY,
DIXIE and SAGE) and would like to
hear from anyone with knowledge of
her former owners.

John P. Brooks, P.O. Box 912,

Willows, CA 95988, is restoring the
cutter TARPOT, a small yacht built in
Seattle in 1941 by J. Barrett. Although
several boats in and around Seattle
appear to have been built to the same
lines and by the same builder, no one
has any particulars on J. Barrett Ship
Yard. John would welcome any infor-
mation you can provide.

Gerry Herbert, 8505 Lake Shore

Drive, Gary, IN 46403, is searching for
local "know-how" — a resource person.
He desperately wants to build a
20' 1 1/2" OAL Pacific surf dory with
an outboard well and a live box as his
first wooden boat building project. If
you live in Lake or Porter County,
Indiana, and have wood boat building
knowledge and experience, he'd like to
hear from you.

40/WoodenBoat 125
DESIGNS
In our desire to reacquaint the boating world with the
most timeless examples of fine wooden yacht design, we
have been working with museums and private design
offices to bring these examples to our readers.
In issue 37 we announced our arrangement with the
Peabody Museum of Salem to make available a selection of
designs by B.B. Crowninshield. We're now pleased to
announce a similar arrangement with the office of John G.
Alden, Inc., and the following pages contain three of the
designs we have selected to make available.
The plans have been chosen for their appropriateness
21' Double-ended Sloop by John G. Alden
D ouble-enders have long been held
in high esteem as seakeepers,
from Viking longships to Pinky schoo-
ners and North Sea pilot cutters. It
shouldn't be surprising, then, to see
this remarkably small variation on a
theme. If you're familiar with Fenwick
Williams's 24' gaff yawl (WB No. 28),
available from WoodenBoat Plans,
you'll recognize the similarities to this
fascinating little boat. And if the sim-
ilarities carry through, there is consid-
erably more boat here than meets the
126 WoodenBoat/40
to today's needs as well as for their ability to provide insight
into the traditions of wooden yacht design and construc-
tion. Our arrangement with the Alden office is based on
our ability not only to sell the plans, but also to field the
questions that invariably result. We feel honored to be
involved with the work of these designers.
In another issue, we will be offering plans for the 41'
schooner Malabar II, the 30' Malabar Jr. (WE No. 32),
the O Boat (WB No. 32) and the once-well-known Indian
class, a dory-type daysailer. All of these deserve to be rem-
embered.
Plans and specifications by Fenwick Williams
eye, for that 24-footer is not only fast
and weatherly, but also remarkably
spacious below.
Five of these 21-footers were built
in 1929, after which the Depression
must have caused many to forget
about such things. But we can't bear
to see the design forgotten, for here
could be a wonderfully versatile cruis-
ing boat.
Two rigs are offered—a high-
peaked gaff and a marconi —and both
provide practically equal amounts of
 DESIGNS

sail area. The taller mast of the mar-

coni rig, of course, requires more stays
(eight as opposed to three), but it also
requires one less spar (the gaff) and
one less halyard. Like the gunter rig,
the nearly vertical gaff presents a com-
plication in reefing, since the peak
halyard must be seized or clipped all
the way out on the gaff in order for the
sail to set properly with reefs tucked
in. On the other hand, the running
backstay arrangement in the marconi
rig presents its own complications
(which will surely occur with more fre-
quency) and we tend to favor the gaff.
Whatever the rig, this is a wonder-
fully simple boat. Her construction is
rugged and straightforward, yet she is
a finely modeled hull (see those hollow
waterlines and that finely chiseled
forefoot). Tiller steering, outboard
rudder, a very simple cockpit arrange-
ment, and spliced eyes for the standing
rigging instead of tangs contribute to
the simplicity.
Her layout below is simple but
comfortable, with two berths, a stove,
ice chest, dish locker, hanging locker,
and stowage beneath platforms.
Indeed, she is very charming and cozy.
Having been designed in 1928, the
engine access hatch and bridge deck
configuration were designed for a con-
temporary auxiliary. A modern auxil-
iary might require some alteration to
the plan. The engine compartment is
separated from the cabin by means of
a watertight bulkhead.
The plans are only moderately
detailed, and some boatbuilding expe-
rience is required to produce a result
that is worthy of the design. But it's
worth the effort, for this is a fine little
boat. Plans consist of lines, offsets,
sail plans (marconi and gaff), cabin
plan, construction plan, two ballast
keel plans (lead and iron), specifica-
tions list, and a marconi rig block list.
Price for the set is $135 from Wooden-
Boat Plans, Box 78, Brooklin, ME
04616.

40/WoodenBoat 127
 25' Keel/
Centerboard
Sloop
by John G. Alden

128 WoodenBoat/40
A though the records indicate that
no boats were built to this 1929
design, we are quite fascinated by its
which provides considerably more
freedom of movement in that area.
The bridge deck at the aft end of the
through a hatch in the cockpit sole
(designed to accommodate the engine
selected).
potential as a fast and able cruiser. cabin provides the additional room We noted provisions for running
We're also impressed with the rather needed below as well as increased backstays with a marconi rig configur-
elaborate construction details, which transverse strength (always desirable ation, but it is assumed that the rig
are well worth a careful study. in a sailing hull). Beneath the bridge was never developed. (We'd probably
It's very easy to speculate on the deck are a stowage box and an ice box, recommend the gaff, anyway.)
influences that have governed the both of which are removable for clean- This is quite a fine little boat, we
design of different boats, but the roots ing or painting. A 25-gallon fresh- think, and we hope to see some built.
of this one are most assuredly the Cape water tank supplies the boat through a Plans include sail plan, lines, offsets,
Cod catboat. The differences are less simple gravity-feed line. construction, iron keel plan, cabin
beam, a stretched-out forebody, and A watertight bulkhead separates plan, and a specifications list. Price
of course the gaff sloop rig. The rig is the cabin from the engine compart- for the set is $135 from WoodenBoat
quite simple, in spite of its power, with ment, and access to the engine is Plans, Box 78, Brooklin, ME 04616.
only three stays supporting the mast
and with the forestay tension coming
from the bobstay and shroud turn-
buckles. The self-tending jib is rigged
with lazyjacks, and the main would be
somewhat easier to handle while
lowering if it were similarly rigged.
This sloop has a number of distinc-
tive details about her, beginning with
the beautiful steam-bent house sides
and coamings (the latter being bent
around vertical staving). She has
wheel-steering, but an alternate tiller-
steering arrangement is provided for.
The after end of the bowsprit is fash-
ioned and pinned to form a mooring
cleat so that neither a conventional
cleat nor a mooring butt are required.
There are several interesting details
in her construction, including the slot-
ted cast-iron keel (1,500 lbs), the
numerous lodging knees, the mast
step/partners tie rod, the simple but
strong centerboard case, and the built-
up rudder. As we mentioned, here is a
construction plan worth studying.
Accommodations are very simple,
with two berths in the main cabin, and
a single berth and head in the forward
cabin. The galley stove is located just
aft of the forward bulkhead, and the
drop-leaf table on the centerboard
case is the working surface. Interest-
ingly, the forward third of the case is
cut down to the level of the cabin sole,

40/WoodenBoat 129
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 BOATBUILDERS

Willie Walker of W. Walker

Boat Building,
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
beside LOON, a 17 ft.
Bailey Whitehall.

Photograph by Paul Godin

Have you seen or taken an especially good boat shop photograph lately? Or is your own shop a prospect? If so, you
might consider sending the picture along to us for possible use on this page. All that's required is the photographer's
name, identity of the shop or the boat under construction, and the approximate date that the photo was taken. If we
like it, we'll publish and credit it here, and return it afterward. Write Sherry Streeter, Art Director.

40/WoodenBoat 131
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 BOATBROKERS

146 WoodenBoat/40
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Boats for Sale
16' Flat Bottomed CENTER-
BOARD SLOOP. No world beater,
but a good stable daysailer. $500
now; $850 in the water. Terry
Driscoll, Box 78, Brooklin, ME
04616, 207-359-4651.
DARK HARBOR "12 1/2"- A beau-
tiful classic gaff-rigged daysailer;
Crowninshield design, built in
1916; 21' LOA, 12' LWL, 3' draft.
Lively and safe for kids and adults.
New frames and deck in 1976,
excellent condition. $3,000 or best
offer. 207-326-4345.
22' OPEN LAUNCH built in 1922.
4 cyl Gray with spare block. Canvas
spray hood, cradle, and tarp. In
storage since 1972. Needs some
work. $450 or best offer. 207-326-
4345.
40' 1935 Edson Schock KETCH by
Dittman. Extensively rebuilt and
refurbished. $38,000. 714-223-
8867.
25' MOTORSAILER-North Sea
Trawler design. Must sell due to ill-
ness. Honduras mahogany, oak
frames, silicon bronze fastenings.
Beautifully finished varnished hull.
Powered by Volvo diesel. Some fin-
ishing required. Located Mahone
Bay, Nova Scotia. Selling at cost,
$17,000. 902-624-8838.
English "South Coast" SLOOP,
built Essex 1954, restored 1976.
Mahogany on oak, 24' LOA, 4'
draft. Full sail and cruising inven-
tory. Dinghy with Seagull. $7,900.
Write Curt Bowman, 11 Hildreth,
St. Augustine, FL 32084, for full
info sheet.
18' 1952 CENTURY RESORTER,
with soft top, in storage 25 years.
All original, excellent running con-
dition. $7,500.217-529-7898.
1915 Crowninshield DARK
HARBOR 17 1/2 (26' LOA), excel-
lent gaff rigged knockabout, all
original, fine condition. $5,000
includes cradle and seagull. Stahl,
57 Hancock, Boston, MA 02114.
15' Matinicus SAILING PEAPOD.
Built 1977 at the ApprenticeShop,
Bath, ME. Two pair oars, sail, rig-
ging, fitted cover, trailer. All
authentic, all first class. Located
Surry, Maine. Best Offer near
$4,000. Call 207-567-3214.
152 WoodenBoat/40
CLASSIFIED
Ordering
Information
Classified Rates: A classi-
fied order form is available
on the bind-in card. All or-
ders must be prepaid. Com-
pute the cost of your ad at
$.50 per word (including
name, address, zip code and
phone number). Photos
and illustrations are $15 per
insertion. All art submitted
will be reduced and cropped
to suit column width. Copy
may be rearranged to fit edi-
torial style. Please print
clearly, we are not responsi-
ble for illegible handwriting.
If you would like the photo
or illustration returned,
Classic Duke inboard mahogany
RUNABOUT. Original, never been
restored, A-l, $11,900 or open for
offers. Baycrest Marina & Restora-
tion, Demorestville, Ont. Canada
KOK 1W0.
36' Alden SLOOP. Mahogany on
oak, rebuilt 1979, extensive inven-
tory. Call 416-274-6874 after 6 p.m.
HERRESHOFF H-23 ONE-
DESIGN. 34'x23'x7'x4 1/2.' Hon-
duras on oak, 2500 lbs lead, hull
refastened 1971. Fast, comfortable.
Built 1938 by Herreshoff in Bristol,
RI. Outboard aux., a classic. Ask-
ing $13,500. R. Cherubuni, 216
Garfield Ave., Palmyra, NJ 08065.
26' KETCH, 1955, Correct Craft,
cedar on oak, marconi rigged 1970.
Sitka masts and spars. Two cabins,
four bunks, head. 7.5hp Volvo
diesel, easily single-handed. Good
sailaway condition. Located Sebago
Lake, ME. Asking $6,500. Call
Taylor, 617-473-85S7 evenings.
29'x11'x3' Alden classic wooden
C.B. SLOOP. 31hp inboard,
enclosed head, wheel steering,
mainsail and jib with covers, sleeps
five, extensively rebuilt and refas-
tened, compass, anchors, much
more. Excellent condition, recent
survey 1980. Asking $20,000. 603-
431-1921.
please include a self-ad
ressed, stamped envelope.
Display Classified: Space is
available at $30 per column
inch. Camera ready copy
must adhere to a width of 10
picas (1 5/8" wide). We
will design your ad in-house
for a minimum charge of
$10.
Deadline to place classified ads
in the July/August issue (No. 41) is
May 15th. Anything received
after this date will be placed in the
following issue unless we are
otherwise notified. Please send all
classified material to WoodenBoat
Magazine, P.O Box 78, Brooklin,
Maine 04616.
CONCORDIA MOTORSAILER.
McIntosh built, mahogany on oak,
Perkins FWC diesel, Hood sails,
fireplace, shower. Fast and able —
a good ocean boat. For more
details. Box 216, York, ME or 207-
363-5552.
2 5 ' x 8 ' x 3 ' Swedish POCKET
CRUISER. Cotton sails, two years,
jib, four cyl Graymarine. Asking
$4,800. 207-633-5473 evenings.
31' CONCORDIA SLOOP, built by
McIntosh 1948, 30hp Gray. Grace-
ful daysailer and comfortable
cruiser for two. Excellent condition.
$12,000.617-771-6020.
42' old SLOOP boat MANU
REV A, perfect condition. Red
cedar, built 1938. Five berths, first
category equipment (3 transatlan-
tics) . 90hp diesel, radio telephone
S.S.B. Upper works inox-tergal
sails, compass, knotmeter, depth
sounder, liferaft, dinghy. Amor-
ously maintained, good condition.
$40,000. Located St. Barthlemy
(French West Indies). Write:
Mister Ferembach, 465 Banting St.
Bruno de Montarville, Quebec,
Canada J3V 1Y4. 514-844-4265.
21' Fenwick Williams CATBOAT
under construction in Maine. Cedar
on oak, bronze fastenings, teak
cockpit, Sabb diesel, finest con-
struction and equipment. J. Neely,
108 Beach Road, Westhampton
Beach, NY 11978. 516-288-5865.
25' CLASSIC CAPE ISLANDER.
Six cyl Chev. engine. Built in 1959.
Now in Gravenhurst, Ontario.
Nearest offer to $3,700. W.
Trimble, Box 211, Kleinburg, Ont.
Canada L0J 1C0. 416-893-1911.
21' John Hanna design "Poco
Dinero", gaff rigged SLOOP, MD1,
safe, dry vessel. Built by cabinet-
maker 1959. $4,800. Write: G.
Gelston, 2701 Cave's Road, Owings
Mills, MD 21117. 301-363-1357.
20' CELEBRITY, 1959. Excellent
condition, strip plank mahogany,
three sails, fitted cover, trailer.
$2,500. Darien, CT 203-655-6511.
Pete Culler's ROWING SAMPAN.
One year old, three strakes per side,
copper riveted, white cedar on
white oak. Honestly constructed;
500 hrs. and no nails, spruce oars.
$1,175.301-822-5916.
Chapelle New Haven SHARPIE,
1976. 24', pine over oak with fir
decking, spruce masts, excellent
condition. $1,000. 617-329-419S.
13' Rushton SKIFF, Iowa pleasure
boat, $875. 10'6" rare Rushton
Bucktail CANOE, $975. Both need
work. Wildwood, Old Forge, NY
13420. 315-369-3397.
16' 1950 CHRIS CRAFT RIVIERA
RUNABOUT. In storage for 25
years, approx. 100 hours, all origi-
nal, one of a kind, excellent invest-
ment at $6,800. For details call
609-625-1151. TF
29' HINCKLEY, 1946 classic.
Alden designed, mahogany/oak,
Volvo MD2 diesel, extras, excellent
condition. 212-885-0366.
25' Phil Rhodes Cruising SLOOP,
IDLER. Built 1950, mahogany on
oak, five good sails, must sell. Best
offer. 914-353-1088.
32' NORTH SEA SLOOP. Built in
England 1964. Varnished mahog-
any topsides, copper fastened,
VHF, depth sounder, gas oven, four
cyl inboard. $25,000. Cape Cod,
617-888-6364.
16' CHRIS CRAFT 1947, twin
cockpit mahogany RUNABOUT.
Chrysler Ace engine, boat with
hardware and extra parts. Ready
for restoration. First $550.00. Bring
trailer. Call S1S-6S9-6S6S evenings
6-10 p.m. EST Michigan.
54' Double-ended SLOOP. Custom
built France. Volvo diesel, etc.
$12,000. 301-226-5571.
23' Classic Herreshoff DAY-
SAILER, circa 1935. Cuddy cabin,
full keel, cedar on oak, extensive
rework done, ready for years of
enjoyment, $4,850. 603-569-3920.
MATTHEWS 38' 1947 Classic.
Twin diesels. Marine survey, 1980.
Very good condition. $150,000
replacement value. Asking $28,500.
P.O. Box 7071, Atlantic City, NJ
08404.609-266-2451.
17' SWAMPSCOTT DORY. Cedar
on oak, $2,000. 13 1/2' Pete Culler
design "Good Little Skiff," spruce
on oak, $1,600. Both with cotton
sails and handmade oars. Henry
Schlenk, Box 952, Mathews, VA
23109. 804-725-7883. ,
27' 1930 ELCO CLASSIC
CRUISER, Graymarine gas engine,
all original, marine survey avail-
able. $10,000. Halladay, 14224
Playa del Rey, Corpus Christi, TX
78418.
22 Square meter SLOOP, designed
by Becker, built by Kungsons,
Sweden 1938, matched original
planking, Scandinavian fir decks,
Sitka spruce curved mast, original
cotton sails, large inventory.
Replacement cost appraisal on Dec.
1980 was $60,000; company must
receive $22,200. Phone National
Inc. which is handling this sale for
the financial institution involved,
715-421-1250 or write National
Inc., c/o WoodenBoat Magazine,
P.O. Box 78NI, Brooklin, ME
04616.
56' 1930 Eldredge-McInnis, wheel-
house CRUISER. Remarkably
roomy and beautiful vessel in excel-
lent condition. Professionally main-
tained. Mahogany/cedar/oak.
Twin Chryslers (7 GPH total), 3
KW Onan, sleeps 12, surveyed
1980. Presently being completely
repainted. Must see. $38,000.
Bruce Gay, 1900 M St., S.E.,
Washington, D.C. 202-546-4118.
16' 1960 wood RUNABOUT, with
40hp Evinrude and trailer. All
never used, like new, $2,500. 212-
749-6991.
33' PINKY, pine on hackmatack,
built 1979 from Richardson half
model. Traditional construction,
authentic details, excellent perfor-
mance. For sale by builder,
$20,000 more or less. All offers
including trades considered. Call
for details. 902-648-2379.
21' CENTURY CORONADO,
1959. Completely refinished, mint
condition. Won first place trophy in
annual antique boat regatta in
1980. Original equipment and trim
including sliding top. 815-344-
0590.
34' Plywood/fiberglass CRUISER,
planking, frames, laminated stem,
transom and deck beams ready to
assemble. Make offer, 516-921-
7245.
40' Immaculate Tor/Hood CB
SLOOP. Built 1963. Has undergone
complete refit 1980. Powered with
Westerbeke 4-107. New paint
November 1980, equipped for cir-
cumnavigation. In first class condi-
tion throughout. Ready for safe and
comfortable cruising. Contact:
Peter Grimm, United Yacht Bro-
kers, 2260 S.E. 17th St., Ft. Laud-
erdale, FL 33316. 305-524-4616.
31' Schnzider SLOOP, 1962. Cedar
on oak, spruce mast, new diesel,
well maintained liveaboard cruiser.
Many extras. $19,500. Tim
Hilliard, c/o General Delivery, St.
John, Virgin Islands. 809-776-6101.
26' Quincy Adams SLOOP, LWL
17', second one built. Honduras
mahogany on oak, newly restored,
seven sails including spinnaker and
original Egyptian cotton sails.
Rerigged in '79. Lots of extra gear.
Please call 401-737-3311 evenings
and weekends.
53' Crocker schooner PRIVATEER,
ex MAHDEE as featured in Roger
Taylor's Good Boats. Built 1930,
excellent condition, $100,000. Cur-
rently in So. California. Renee
Alien, 2733 Shelter Island Dr. No.
294, San Diego, CA 92106.
32' MATTHEWS 1950. Very good
condition, new deck canvas, twin
Chryslers 1973, asking $11,000.
Curt Johnston, 104 Park Drive, Bal-
timore, MD 21228. 301-788-3163.
Own a modem classic 1967 Chris
Craft super sport RUNABOUT.
Varnished mahogany exterior, new
vinyl interior. Boat and 210hp
Chrysler marine engine are in excel-
lent condition. Call 516-883-2574
or 516-883-6174 days for more
information. 402xp
18' PUGET SOUND SCHOONER.
Classic design. Oak and marine ply-
wood, dacron sails, aluminum
spars, double ended, 3V$hp inboard
power, custom built trailer, in good
condition. $2,750. Stuart Simon,
848 North 68 St., Omaha, NB
68132.402-553-3392.
25' HOLIDAY SLOOP. Holland
1958. Mahogany on oak, bronze
fastened, 1 cyl Palmer inboard.
Five sails, sleeps four, complete
rebuild, bright finish, $8,250. Brad
Kowalski, Red Rock Road, Milton,
VT 05468. 802-893-7742.
14' Strawbery Banke DORY. Pine
over oak, cotton spritsail on spruce
spars. Galvanized trailer. Excellent
condition, $1,275. 617-227-7411.
22' STEAM LAUNCH. Propane
boiler, 5hp Semple, good condition,
8mph, capacity 8. $4,500. T.J.
Bertoncella, Box 363, Clinton, IA
52732.
38' CROCKER KETCH, 1930.
Built by Willis Reed. 50hp auxi-
liary, A-l condition. Completely
equipped, many extras. Located
Florida Keys. Phone 305-664-4381.
22' FRIENDSHIP SLOOP, 1936.
Needs restoration, $1,200. Survey
available. 203-438-9049.
23' Classic CHRIS CRAFT, 1951.
Double planked mahogany hull,
1972 engine, $1,500. Nahant, MA
617-581-0109.
33' 1960 Cape Island NOVI BOAT.
Reconditioned 1979, cedar on oak,
sleeps four, galley, head, new Pal-
mer engine, marine battery, and
prop. Many extras. $6,500, will
consider trade on wooden sailboat.
Can be seen at Pendleton's Yacht
Yards, Islesboro. Maine 04868 or
call 306-686-3691.
10' 1938 mahogany DYER DINK,
restored. Seaworthy, varnished ten-
der for a proper yacht. $2,000. 617-
384-3666.
35' KAPPA SAN YAWL, Eldredge-
McInnis design, 1960. Very good
condition, seven sails, Westerbeke
diesel. Classic lines, double planked,
sleeps six, Lectra/San, Tiny-tot
heater. $32,500. Jim Guerra, 287
Front Street, Perth Amboy, NJ
08861. 201-826-1306 evenings, 201-
965-1900 days.
21' CENTURY CORONADO
1959, sliding hardtop, Crusader
engine. Total restoration 1978,
fresh water use only, very low hours,
100% original Tandem trailer
available. $5,500 or interesting
trade. 203-792-9092.
47' Classic MOTOR YACHT,
1930. By J.M. Densmore. Mahog-
any on oak, comfortable liveaboard
while restoring. $17,000. Serious
inquiries only. 207-363-3603 after 5
p.m.
32' Sparkman & Stephens
CUTTER. Built in 1956. New
Atomic-4, FWC. Teak decks. Well
maintained. 212-686-4807.
36' MOTORSAILER. Mahogany
on oak, built Nova Scotia, 1953.
Teak decks. $13,000, negotiable.
804-230-0079.
30' FRIENDSHIP CUTTER. Gaff
rig, Atomic-4, $12,000 (Canadian).
Malcolm Ainslie, Mahone Bay,
N.S., Canada B05 2E0.
28.5' Classic Alden Triangle Class
SLOOP. Built by Graves, 1926.
Hull no. 3, recent survey. Excellent
condition. Tom Marden, 207-748-
1151.
40/WoodenBoat 153

25' 1965 CHEOY LEE FRISCO
FLYER. Excellent condition, main,
jib, jenny, lifelines, 9hp Volvo,
$7,750. Call 201-727-531S or write:
Fland, Apt. 583, Old Bridge, NJ
08857.
24' SLOOP. Mahogany on oak,
refastened, refitted, 8' beam, four
sails, comfortable cabin, large
cockpit, needs cosmetics. Asking
$3,500. Call evenings, 617-454-
0212.
13 12/' cedar strip plank on oak, all
screw fastened ROWING
DINGHY. Natural bright finish,
circa 1950. Manufacturer, Wood-
chaft, Sherbrooke, Quebec. Excel-
lent condition. Best offer. Call 203-
693-8592 after 6 p.m.
32' 1962 Hubert Johnson SEA
SKIFF. Hull solid mahogany, decks
solid teak, twin Chrysler 195s,
stand up head, two bunks, ice box,
twin batteries, automatic bilge
pump, depth finder, sink, 450 hrs.
tt. Completely refinished 1976 by
master boat builder. Speed 25mph.
Combination trailer/cradle. A
classic beauty. $24,500, asking
price, much less than present
(second) owners' investment. Loca-
tion Put-In - Bay, Ohio. Write:
W.R.M., Box 511, Bucyrus, OH
44820.
32' CROCKER YAWL, 1926, built
by Goudy & Stevens. Atomic-4,
Conn, location. Good condition,
excellent cruising. Asking $9,500.
Phone: 914-478-1127, days; 914
693-6415, evenings and weekends.
24' Classic wooden 1972 Culler
COMMUTER LAUNCH, Skiffs
and Schooners, p. 35. 70 hp new
Evinrude, two shelters, full canvas,
asking $11,500. 617-548-5783.
154 WoodenBoat/40
Replica of PROVIDENCE RIVER
CAT (Newport Cat). Gaff-rigged,
brown dacron sail, LOA 12'4",
beam 5'2 3/4". Original builder
Button Swan Saunderstown RI
about 1875. Refer to Chapelle's
American Small Sailing Craft,
p.243. Asking $3,500. Chatham
Yacht Basin, Inc. 617-945-0728.
36'x10'x5' Traditional English
CUTTER. 1930 Hilyard, over-
hauled 1977, England. Heavily con-
structed, pitch pine planking cop-
per fastened on oak. Six dacron
sails, Sabb diesel. Voyage inventory
including liferaft, EPIRB, complete
spares. $39,000. Yacht JANETTA,
Dryden Lane, Feura Bush, NY
12067. 518-768-2126.
33' 1950 WHEELER FB/SF. Beau-
tifully restored, documented, owner
retiring. Call 207-729-9652 for
particulars. $8,500 or best terms on
trade.
28'x8'x4'8" FRIENDSHIP
SLOOP, Class "C" Winner. Colle-
mer 1949. Able, sound, rebuilt into
cruising yacht. Volvo diesel, head-
room, sleeps four, gimballed Luke
stove, enclosed head, Lectro-San.
Rerigged 1975 Peterson, four Wil-
son sails. Ready to launch. $24,000.
Thomas, 83 Carroll, Portland, ME
207-773-0145.
HANNA TAHITI, built 1960.
Cutter rigged, diesel, documented,
very heavy construction. $17,500.
Pictures and details for serious
inquiries. Box 66, Edgecomb,
Maine 04556. 207-882-7637.
11'6" Chaisson sailing DINGHY.
Newly finished. Cedar/oak, copper
fastened, mahogany trim, cotton
sails. $1,450. Scott Brown, Box
1525. Portsmouth, NH 03801.
28' E-SLOOP Johnson double
planked. Equipped, good condi-
tion. Trade/sell. See "Built To
Win", Scow Stoky, March/April.
WoodenBoat. Bossett Sailmakers,
Route 35, Point Pleasant Beach,
New Jersey. 201-892-8922 week-
days, 528-5173 nights, weekends.
36' Chapelle-type KETCH, 1968.
Estate settlement. Developed from
Chapelle 24' designs. Cedar on oak
with mahogany deck. Massively
constructed. Draws 33" centerboard
up—6' down. Outside/inside steer-
ing station. Four cyl Palmer engine.
Asking $17,500. Call Kate Wilford,
Sparkman & Stephens, 212-689-
9292.
65' ANTIQUE, built 1898 Corn-
wall, England, of English oak.
Maintained in Norway, above Artic
Circle, 1900-1974. 70hp, 2 cyl
Bolinder engine (1934). Gaff-
rigged. Lying La Coruna, Spain.
Asking $30,000, negotiable. 608-
249-7452.
30' Classic 1934 RICHARDSON
CRUISER. Extensively reworked,
sleeps four, 130hp FWC Chris
Craft, Legal head, extras. Clifford
Adams, 14 St. Andrews Dr., Hun-
tington, NY 11743. 516-421-0774.
15 1/2' DELUXE RUNABOUT,
1940 Chris Craft. Pictured as top
illustration, p. 16, of The Real
Runabouts, Vol. 1. Hull completely
restored, new seats, brightwork
replaced. Engine recently rebuilt.
Original manual, flag, and swim-
ming ladder. $4,500. Contact Don
M. Dunifon, 266 Circle Drive,
Springfield, OH 45503.
34' Herreshoff-design SLOOP,
1939. Atomic-4, new spruce mast
1977, excellent condition. Asking
$9,500. 212-238-3415 evenings.
30' ALDEN YAWL on trailer. Fully
found, traditional. $7,500. 419-
698-8524.
25' FOLKBOAT. Pitch pine lap-
strake planking over oak frames.
Built 1956 in Stockholm. Com-
pletely refastened and refinished
1979. New Renault diesel, self-
bailing cockpit 1979. Main and
three jibs, good condition. Excep-
tionally well cared for and certified
ocean ready. $27,500. Paul La
Berge, Seattle, WA. 206-324-5671.
40' CLASSIC BEAUTY, Rhodes
design SLOOP. Mahogany on oak,
piano finish mahogany interior.
Complete sail inventory. Thorough-
bred sailer. Toronto, 416-498-9288.
42' Sparkman & Stephens YAWL,
1958. Immaculate condition,
double planked, mahogany, cedar/
oak, teak decks/interior, ten bags
sails, loaded with electronics, fully
described in The Proper Yacht by
Arthur Beiser. $79,500. Jack Per-
kins, Shipyard Yachts, 1900 S.E.
15th St., Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33316.
305-525-3122, 463-9566.
43' 1929 Classic Stephens POWER
YACHT, excellent condition. Twin
GMC 353 diesels. Full cruising gear
and extras. $55,000. Box 792, La
Conner, WA 98257.
18'6" completely restored ST.
LAWRENCE RIVER SKIFF. Built
early 1900s. Sail rig, rudder, two
pair oars and cover. Excellent con-
dition. Includes trailer. Best offer.
Wayne Ettel, 714-642-6699.
15' Boatcraft Dolphin ROWING
DORY, double-ended model, oar-
locks, spoon blade oars, all new
1980, never used, stored in boat-
house, North Haven, Maine, $575.
Will arrange cartop delivery. 609-
924-0969.
43' A & R YAWL, 1952, built as
Rassmussen's personal yacht. Excel-
lent condition, finest materials and
construction. C.R. Skord, 1209
Princess Anne, Va. Beach, VA
23457. 804-480-1349, 426-6425.
12' DINGHY. Graceful, fast, and
able. Cypress over oak, brightwork,
bronze/copper fastened. Recently
built from lines by John Gardner.
Robert Kent, Schley, VA 23154.
804-693-4146.
28' HODGDON/SEINER (open
cockpit) 1955. Classic hull of cedar
on oak, fine condition, engine
needs work, $3,500. Towle, Bruns-
wick, ME. 207-725-6990.
Weston Farmer-designed "Poor
Richard" 22' WORKBOAT. See
WoodenBoat No. 20 and 39. Strip
planked white pine on yellow pine,
bronze fastened. Trailer, Universal
Blue Jacket twin, spars and sails to
yawl rig, not installed. $2,800 or
offer. 617-548-1383.
31' RICHARDSON, 1941. Needs
some work. Good price, must sell.
Helen Gibbons, 27 Armon Drive,
Bethpage, NY 11714. 516-935-
6393.
38' Copper fastened BOUY BOAT,
converted '76, wood and propane
cook stoves, two cabins. Good live-
aboard in Sausalito, $14,000. Ray
Speck, 722 Waldo Pt., Sausalito,
CA 94965.
22' Drake Wooden SLOOP 19S4, a
classic little boat, needs work—
$2,000. Write Roger Kugler, USS
Brooke (FFG-1) FPO, San Fran-
cisco, CA 96661.
24'6" Pennant SLOOP 1947.
Mahogany on oak, 15hp electric
start, new sails 1980, bronze fit-
tings, sleeps two or three, head,
galley. $5,000. 20S-866-5068.
24' EASTWARD HO, Eldredge-
McInnis, blue water double head
rig CUTTER. Completely rebuilt,
new teak cockpit, coaming, seats,
galley, stove, ice box, sails, bunks,
etc. 3' bow sprit. Beautiful.
$13,250. Hingham 617-749-3640
evenings.
38' 1929 MATTHEWS. Near mint.
Single-screw, 3 GPH economy.
Winter cover, bubbler. Dink.
Tastefully decorated. $7500. 516-
798-4320.
27' Benford TRAWLER. Sandwich
construction, documented, pro-
fessionally built 1976. Fully found
in Florida, asking $29,000. Bun
Olin, 233 East Erie, Chicago, IL
60611.312-943-6066.
12' Lapstrake PEAPOD "Kinoo".
Refastened and reframed. Two pair
oak thole pins, no oars. Inspect any
time. $975. Stonington, CT. 203-
535-1492 after 6:30 p.m.
28' TUMLAREN SLOOP 1937.
Double-ended beauty featured in
WoodenBoat No. 19. Mahogany/
composite, well equipped, excellent
condition, trailer. $7,000. 1960 28'
CHRIS CRAFT CONSTELLA-
TION, $7,000. 1922 Old Town
sponson transom CANOE, $400.
612-474-3513.
18' CORSAIR, French built
SLOOP, 1964, plywood hull, spruce
spars, 1980 4 1/2hp Evinrude, two
bunks, stove, head, fully equipped,
well maintained, roomy cabin,
reverse sheer, delightful cruiser.
Attention getter. $2,000. Call 215-
849-9583 after 6 or 301-778-1342.
One of a kind 1962 Bristol design
DOUBLE-ENDER. Built for
Seward Johnson. Designer Spauld-
ing Dunbar. Builder Kingman
Marine. LOA 24'4", beam 8'2",
draft 2'6". Displacement 4000 lbs,
power Palmer 225 hp V-drive. Good
rough water boat. Asking $12,500.
Excellent condition. Chatham
Yacht Basin, Inc. 617-945-0728.
14' MCINTOSH CAT BOAT 1980.
Gaff rig, carvel cedar on oak.
Superb finish, cover. $5,800.
603-569-3920. 401xp
15' HERRESHOFF with spars,
sails. Needs work. $2,000, nego-
tiable. H. Peterle, 203-535-0688.
Boats for Free
(Free Boat = Free Ad)
Circa 1935 A.C.F. (American Car
& Foundry) trunk cabin/enclosed
deckhouse cruiser. Stripped, no
engine, needs total professional
rebuild from keel up. Must be
removed from lower Connecticut
River Boatyard. Write Lance
Parker, 61 Railroad Ave., Chester,
CT 06412.
Boatbuilding Shops
17' MICMAC cedar strip/epoxy
CANOES. Redwood trim, cane
seats. $1 for color brochure. Melvin
Willis, Curtis Road, Freeport, ME
04032.
RESTORATION, custom repair
and maintenance of fine wooden
boats. Offering quality Maine
craftsmanship and thoughtful care
of your boat. Midcoast Marine Ser-
vices, Inc., Box 103, Bristol, ME
04539. 207-563-3030. 35plb
BEDELL BOAT WORKS. Custom
wooden boats to 26'. Oar, sail, or
power. Custom Culler oars. Box
S74, Newport, OR 97365. 39p5xb
8' NORWEGIAN SAILING
PRAM. Very light, meticulously
hand-crafted, exceptionally beau-
tiful red cedar and mahogany cold-
molded craft. Unusually strong,
abrasion resistant and almost
impervious to the elements. Mini-
mal maintenance. Admired by all
who see, tow, row or sail it. Charles
Carter, Builder of Distinctive Sail-
boats, Box 226, Miller Place, NY
11764. 516-473-0309 evenings and
weekends.
Construction, restoration
repair of traditional small craft
rowing shells. Write or call:
Smith, Ambler Boat Works,
Brookside, Ambler, PA 19002. 215-
643-1884. 401xb
Wood Drascombes!! The distinctive
John Watkinson-designed Dras-
combe Flotilla is being produced to
original specifications in Bruynzeel
mahogany plywood in the United
States. Custom details easily
handled. Contact East/West
Custom Boats, Box 193, Kittery
Point, ME 03905. 207-439-4769.
The Norfolk School of Boat-
building is accepting applications
for admission to its one-year, full-
time, technical-vocational maritime
trades program for the summer
semester beginning June 1, 1981.
A comprehensive academic
and practical education is offered
in basic naval architecture and
ship design, terminology, wood-
working techniques, lofting, spar
and sail making, rigging, outfitting
and small boat handling. For in-
formation call or write P.O. Box
371, Norfolk, Virginia 23501. Tele-
phone (804) 627-7266.
Flat-bottomed SKIFF-TENDER,
lapstrake cedar on oak, bronze and
copper fastened. This elegant little
skiff measures 12'x4'5" and weighs
about 150 lbs. Finished to your
specifications. Wm. Clements, 18
Mt. Pleasant St., No. Billerica, MA
01862. 617-663-3103.
and
and
J.J.
416
40/WoodenBoat 155
Don't buy any canoe until you dis-
cover MORLEY CEDAR CANOES.
Outstanding design and quality
since 1972. Brochure. Swan Lake,
MT 59911.406-886-2242.
402xp
H & H Boatworks, wooden boat
BUILDING AND REPAIR, Box
275, Freeport, ME 040S2. 207-
725-5644. 37tf
STEAMBOATING: engines,
boilers, launches, tugboats, paddle
wheelers, cruisers, classic yachts.
Box WB 209, Wakefield, RI 02880.
402xp
Charters
36' Wooden Auxiliary SLOOP
"Whistler." Weekly bare-boat char-
ters, July-September. References
required. Thomas Barrington,
RFD No. 1, Box 126, Bath, ME
04530 402xp
D.M. STREET, Jr.'s Famous
engineless 44', 81-year-old yawl
IOLAIRE visits the secluded Virgin
Island Anchorages that other yachts
seldom use — May through to
August $2,000 a week all inclusive,
write: Street, Glandore, Co. Cork,
Ireland.
Education
THE LANDING BOATSHOP
School of Wooden Boatbuilding,
Box 461, Kennebunkport, Maine
04045 has for sale several sailing
dories, daysailers and a 23' Stone-
horse auxiliary cutter, all of super-
ior quality at reasonable price.
156 WoodenBoat/40
Marine Engines
$298.00 Buys new 1981 Evinrude
2hp outboard. New York residents
add tax; no COD. Shipped UPS,
freight collect. Burck, 526 City
Island Ave., Bronx, NY 10464.
212-885-1559.
Plans & Kits
BOATKITS - PLANS PAT-
TERNS FRAMEPACS
WORLD'S LARGEST CATA
LOGUES - 300 modern "ONE-
OFF" amateur designs in fiberglass
- plywood - steel - aluminum -
"stepbystep" instructions
POWERBOATS inboard - out-
board - jets - cruisers - sports -
fishers - houseboats - hydroplanes -
runabouts - SAILBOATS - day-
sailers - Trailersailers - motorsailers
- multihulls - KAYAKS - canoes -
supply catalogue - RESIN - fiber-
glass - C-flex - foams - Balsa • hard-
ware-etc. CATALOGUES include
"BUILDERS MANUAL" $2.00
(Catalogues with book "ONE-OFF
BOATBUILDING" in fiberglass -
plywood etc. $6.00) CLARK
CRAFT - 16-42 Aqualane - Tona-
wanda - New York 14150. 32plb
OLD TOWN WOOD CANOES
AND BOATS. A century-old tra-
dition still flourishes at the historic
Old Town factory on the Penobscot
River in Maine. Using western red
cedar, mahogany, Sitka spruce and
brass, Old Town craftsmen build a
full line of wood canoes, double
enders and dinghies. Send $1 for a
catalog. Old Town Canoe Co., Old
Town, ME 04468. WB5
PAHI 26-A NEW CATAMARAN
CONCEPT. Rapid stitch and glue
construction techniques, distant
trailering, off the beach launching,
camping/cruising accommodation
for six, day racing catamaran
speeds. For illustrated brochure of
all designs send $5.00 to JAMES
WHARRAM DESIGNS, The
Docks, Milford Haven, SA73 3AU,
U.K. North American stockist:
David and Neila, 2242B Lakeshore
Boulevard, W. Toronto, Canada
M8V 1A5.
DORY PLANS and completed
boats. Row, power, sail. Send $3
for study packet. DOWN EAST
DORIES. Pleasant Beach, So.
Thomaston, ME 04858. 271b
BOAT PLANS FRAME KITS
PATTERNS - Sailboats - Power-
boats - Rowboats - Dinghies -
Canoes - Kayaks -Dories - Fishing
Boats - Lobster Boats (like NEW
22' EAGLE trailerable above) -
Economy Workboats - 8' to 49'.
Easy Proven methods especially for
amateurs include instructions for
professional results. Build in -
Plywood - Cold Molded - Strip
Planked - "WEST"/Epoxy - No
Lofting! Highest quality - Lowest
prices for 28 years - Save 50%!
"BOATBUILDING SUPPLIES"
Bronze/Galvanized Fastenings
Fiberglass - Resins - Plastic Resin/
Resorcinol/"AEROLITE" Glues -
Spars - Books - Boat Trailer Plans.
HUGE 114-page catalog - $2.00 -
Includes FREE "BOATBUILDING
SUPPLIES" brochure. "IN-
BOARD MARINE HARDWARE"
catalog also $2.00. GLEN-L
Marine, 9152 Rosecrans, Dept.
BW, Bellflower, CA 90706.
386xb
BOAT PLANS PATTERNS - 19'
to 49' - Sailboats - Powerboats -
cold Mold - "WEST/Epoxy -
Plywood - Strip Planked - Veneer -
Especially for amateurs - Catalog $2
KEN H A N K I N S O N , Naval
Architect, Box 2551-W, LaHabra,
CA 90631.
BUILD CHULA, 9' LOA, over 100
under construction. Plans and
instructions $25.00. Specify ply-
wood or Airex/fiberglass construc-
tion. SPONBERG YACHTS
(WB), P.O. Box 661, Newport,
R.I. 02840. 403xp
PLANS for SMALL CLASSIC
BOATS designed specifically for
our Wood/Epoxy Saturation Tech-
nique. From 8' molded sailing/
rowing pram to 19' Grand Banks
type sailing dory. Send for study
plans. WEST system (tm) prod-
ucts manual available for $2.
Write: Gougeon Brothers, Inc.,
706C Martin St., Bay City, MI
48706. 291b
OVER 100 DESIGNS, 8'-131', sail,
power, from Jay Benford's versatile
idea factory. Two posters of 135
study prints: $5.00 ppd. Free bro-
chure. Box 399A, Friday Harbor,
WA 98250. 40TF
BUILD YOUR OWN BARTEN-
DER. Salty seaworthy planing
double ender. 19', 22', 26', 29'.
Plans sold by originator-designer.
Send $2 for brochure. George Cal-
kins, Box 222, Dept. WB, Nord-
land, WA 98358.
JUNK RIG YOUR BOAT. The
Chinese Sailing Rig—Designing and
Building Your Own. $10.00 pp.
USA (CA Res. add 6%). Epoch
Press, Box 3047W, San Rafael, CA
94912.
One sheet of plywood builds
BAGUETTE, the DOUBLE PAD-
DLE DORY. Plans, instructions
$10 or self-addressed stamped enve-
lope for information. Daniel
Marcus, 15 Water St., New Roch-
elle, NY 10805.
Box 10279 Bainbridge Isl, WA98110
Catalog of cruising designs for
home builders and small shops.
$5.50.
New INSTANT BOATS by Bolger.
Character, elegance, simplicity, no
lofting or building jig needed. 6' to
31' Row. power, sail. "$3" brings
study packet. H.H. Payson & Co.,
Pleasant Beach, So. Thomaston,
ME 04858. 321 b
The scale "Lapstrake Dinghy" kit,
8" long. Full size patterns for all
pieces including PLANKS! Finest
quality mahogany, spruce and
maple. Complete kit $21.50 —
instructions/patterns, $5.50. Rain-
bow, Box 796-W, Westbury, NY
11590. 407x6
Positions
NAVAL ARCHITECTS. . .
PLEASE NOTE! Yacht Design
Institute is a home study school
teaching small craft design to stu-
dents worldwide. Because of growth
and future expansion, YDI is seek-
ing a N.A., with experience with
both commercial and pleasure craft
designs to 150', who has an interest
and ability in teaching others small
craft design. A BS (NA) is desired,
but a fellow with lots of experience
who has come up through the hawse
pipe would not be discounted.
There's an investment possibility
and an opportunity to pursue an
independent design practice as
well. This position would provide
one with the chance to live in
Maine's rural eastern Penobscot
Bay area —cruising is unmatched
and salt water sports abound, small
game and bird hunting is good and
the ski areas are only two to three
hours away, and the quality of life is
superb. It's a chance to be on your
own, free to do a good job without
the fetter and clutter of a larger
establishment to restrict or inhibit
you. Please reply in confidence with
your resume and letter of interest to
NAVAL ARCHITECT, Yacht
Design Institute, Brooklin, ME
04616.
EXPERIENCED LEADERSHIP
SOUGHT for eight week summer
sailing experience using traditional
wooden open sailing/rowing boats
built at Chewonki Foundation Boat
Shop. Must have genuine interest in
teaching students ages 14-16, know-
ledge of coastal Maine, full mariner
skills, woodsmanship skills, interest
in marine natural history, sensi-
tivity to individual needs and to the
group process. Write with resume:
Tim Ellis, Chewonki Foundation,
Wiscasset, ME 04578.
DIANA, INC., needs ship car-
penters and apprentices for refur-
bishing power and sail. Partnership
available. S.C. 803-225-7150.
The Thousand Islands Shipyard
Museum, Clayton, New York, will
have an opening this Spring for a
position as Director. Responsibilities
will include program/financial
development and curatorial super-
vision. Salary is negotiable-
commensurate with ability/expe-
rience. Interested parties send
resumes to: Thousand Islands Ship-
yard Museum, 750 Nary Street,
Clayton, NY 13624. 401xb
MARINE SERVICES TECHNI-
CIAN—The Bay Area Marine
Institute offers a full time, ten-
month program blending tech-
nical/theoretical instruction with
hands-on experience for careers in
the small craft industry. Begins
October 5, 1981. Contact:
B.A.M.I., Pier 66, San Francisco,
CA 94107. 415-552-4500.
Publications
Yachts, whaling, navy, smallboat
voyages, liners, piracy, square-
riggers and much more. Out-of-
print book catalog $1.00. Jack D.
Clinton. Hope Valley, RI 02832.
GOOD USED BOAT STUFF buy,
sell, trade, consignment. Mini-
catalog. PORTHOLE PETE, Essex
Plaza, Box 441 OB, Essex, CT
06426. 203-767-0951.
Sails
Substantial savings on DACRON
SAILS for boats to 28' in length. 38
years sailmaking experience. For
quotation send dimensions or sail
plan to BARNEY ABRAMS, SAIL-
MAKER, 3242 NE 45th, Seattle
WA 98105.
If cruising is your game and you
can't afford that other name, try us!
Contact Al and Mary Schwager at
SAILS ALOFT, P.O. Box 637, 315
Brevard Ave., Cocoa, FL 32922.
305-636-6900. 351xp
Mail order sails at lowest possible
prices, quotes including sample
photos on request. OLYMPIC
SAIL & CANVAS, 630 S. 3rd Ave.,
Sequim, WA 98382. 206-683-7200.
Services
BECOME A MARINE SUR
VEYOR. Book of basic procedures
and formats, outlines, fees, forms,
actual cases, lists of reference
books, insurance companies. How
to set up your office. $29.00.
SURVEYOR, Box 718, Boynton
Beach, FL 33425.
BOSTON BOATBUILDING
SKILLS SHOP accepting applica-
tions (1981-82 year) for trainees
seriously interested in maritime
field. Also offered: two week sum-
mer boatbuilding courses, 18 even-
ing lectures, surveys, restoration/
repair services available. SKILLS
SHOP, 300 Congress St., Boston,
MA. 617-426-6633.
MAINE TO CONN.
MARINE SURVEYOR
28 Years Experience
Wm. Daniel Knott
Box 272, Barnstable, MA 02630
617-362-3159
Model Making —Custom Design
EAST COAST RIGGING CO. Esti-
mates on custom or production re-
quirements. Same day shipping
and graduated retail discounts.
Call 617 758-6082 or write PO Box
122, Mattapoisett, MA 02739.
37tf
N.P. CORPORATION - Marine
engine suveyors. Insurances - Over-
haul - Damage estimates. All
models - unlimited horsepower -
licensed U.S.C.G. 4311 llth Ave.
NW, Seattle, WA 98107. 206-
782-1071.
BUYING A SAILBOAT?
Do you know what is AVAILABLE and
BEST FOR YOU?
Tell us EXACTLY what YOU desire (size,
hull type, construction, power, amenities)
and our computer will compile an exten-
sive list of sailboats that FIT YOUR
NEEDS Send $5.00 to:
COMPUTER SAILBOAT
SERVICE
21 Parkview Court
White Plains, NY 10603
Spars
WOODEN SPARS FOR SALE:
length 45', Sitka spruce, with
spreaders. Some new, some old.
Prices start at $400 —for further
info contact: Ted Cook, 617-338-
2436 days, 617-631-0577 evenings.
402xp
WOODEN SPARS, custom and
production built, solid or hollow
offered by RANDOLPH BOAT-
WORKS, 27 Pine Island Road,
Mattapoisett, MA 02739. 617-758-
4270. 386xp
Supplies
TRADITIONAL SMALL CRAFT
plans 7' to 16', fittings, fastenings,
Skookum copper rivets, clench
nails. $1 brings illustrated catalog.
THE COPPER NAIL, 8755 Mon
dego Way, Fair Oaks, CA 95628.
40/WoodenBoat 157

FIBERGLASS-RESINS-FOAMS.
Largest line at factory to you prices
in epoxies - polyesters - fiberglass -
cloth - mat - roving - foams - also
builders materials - fastenings -
plywood - etc. SPECIAL EPOXY
SATURATION construction meth-
od. Also hull sheathing that Ar-
mor plates old and new hull leak
proof. MATERIALS CATALOG-
plus Use Guide $2.00. MATER-
IALS catalog - plus fiberglass book
"How to Fiberglass" - building or
repairing - use of foams - BALSA -
tools - epoxies - etc. Boat covering-
molds-etc. $6.00 CLARKCRAFT,
16-42F, Aqualane-Tonawanda.
N.Y.14150. 32plb
FASTENERS, BRONZE AND
STAINLESS STEEL. Nuts, bolts,
screws (Phillips, slotted and cross
recessed), nails, all threaded rod
and aluminum blind rivets. Almost
any type of fastenings available.
Catalog available $1.00 each.
Dealer inquiries invited. Contact
CHESAPEAKE MARINE FAS-
TENERS, 721 Black Forest Road,
Annapolis, MD 21401. 301-269-
5377. 40TF
158 WoodenBoat/40
HANDMADE SHIP'S INSTRU-
MENTS. Clinometer, parallel rule
and cabin thermometer hand-
wrought in oiled teak, Honduras
mahogany and engraved brass.
Honduras rule with free 13 letter
engraving - $28 ppd. Kit with wood
- $20 ppd. Without-$14 ppd. Teak
clinometer with 13 letters engraved
- $45 ppd. Thermometer (sale) -
$30 ppd. Free brochure. HMS,
2101-W1 Princeton, St. Paul, MN
55105.
Hand woven MANILA BOAT
FENDERS. Side and bow fenders
available in five standard sizes.
Soft and long lasting, protect top-
side from damage. Side fenders:
3x10 • $5.60; 4x12 - $9; 5x14 -
$13.20; 6x20 - $22.50; 8x24 -
$38.40. Include check or money
order please add 10% for shipping
and handling continental USA,
California residents please add 6%
sales tax. RAY W VANDER-
MEER, 3305 S. "G" St., Oxnard,
CA 9SOS3. 28ib
TEAK BLOCKS-Chosen for
WHITEHAWK. Best quality,
prices, delivery available. 3" to 10"
sizes. TROY BROS MARINE.
2S9W Seal Blvd., Seal Beach, CA
90740. 213-596-7434. 2776
DOLPHIN — A new spline weight,
unsurpassed for quality and ease of
use, yet only $9.90 plus shipping.
Detailed circular by return. We
supply worldwide. WATERLINES
INCORPORATED, Box 1534W,
Southold, NY 11971. 401xp
CLEATS AND CHOCKS-high
quality imported stainless steel
(316L) below wholesale. Satisfac-
tion guaranteed. Thomas Horn-
blower Yacht Equipment, P.O. Box
798. Mukilteo, WA 98020. 206-
743-1285. 404xp
HAND CARVED NAMEBOARDS.
Finest woods and designs for eagles,
figureheads, etc. also available.
Brochure $1.00, deductible.
Edward Carey, RD 1, Swan Road,
South Windham, ME 04082. 207-
892-4819.
STAINLESS, BRONZE, HOT DIP
GALVANIZED, BOAT NAILS
and other fasteners. 24 hour ship-
ment. NO MINIMUMS. $1.50 for
catalog. Wm. Alvarez & Co., P.O.
Box 245W, Placentia, CA 92670.
Wanted
EXPERIENCED WOOD-
WORKERS to work on high quality
yachts. Cherubini Boat Co. Inc.,
222 Wood St., Burlington, NJ
08016. 609-499-2200.
Classic passenger FERRY BOAT to
restore, 80' to 100' with nice interior
paneling. Do you know where one
is? W. Spiers, P.O. Box 131, Mt.
Clemens, MI 48043.
One cylinder Toppan engine for
1904 Toppan dory. Michael Mathe-
son, 8S01 S.W. 53 Avenue, Miami,
FL 33143. 402xp
38'-50' Wood SAILBOAT for
extensive cruising. Have 1100 sq ft
home, 600 sq ft workshop, 1 1/2
acres, horse facilities, sauna, in
mountains east of Albuquerque,
New Mexico. For trade. Fritz
Damler, P.O. Box 8, Saudia Park,
NM 87047. 805-281-5112.
I would like to purchase an antique
SAILING CANOE, 1880-1920.
Also an antique canoe not rigged
for sailing such as a Rushton or
other decked or open canoe; and
old canoe accessories and fittings.
R. Fry, Box 2001, Cincinnati, OH
45201.513-561-7668. 39p5xb
20' Vintage CAT KETCH,
SCHOONER or CUTTER. Flem-
ing, Box 033, No. Dartmouth, MA
02747.
SALES LITERATURE on cabin
cruisers before 1960. David East-
man, Box 1080, Durham, NH
03824 383xp
Old boating magazines before
1950. Send list and price to
Michael Matheson, 8301 S.W. 53
Ave., Miami, FL 33143. 383xp
Woods
RARE ALASKAN YELLOW
CEDAR —clear planking grade,
good widths and lengths. Up to
1000 bd ft available in 5/4".
EASTERN WHITE OAK-air
dried ten years. 4/4, 5/4, 6/4, 8/4
random lengths and widths. FIR—
6"x12"x28'-VG FOHC, dry.
Prices upon request. Oyster Bay
Boatworks, P.O. Box 1572, Olym-
pia, WA 98507.
ROUGH SAWN FLITCHES
PORT ORFORD WHITE
CEDAR-3/4" and 3", 16' to 22'.
Here is a rare opportunity to build
your next boat with quality domes-
tic wood. Send needs to ATLAN-
TIC MARINE, Box 9, Newcastle,
ME 04553. 207-563-5570.
WHITE CEDAR-rough sawn
planking grade lumber, $.65/sq ft
under 1" thickness, $.80/bd ft 1" or
greater. Seconds available at $.40/
bd ft. Logs sold at $.60/bd ft
(milled prices). White oak $.60/bd
ft, clear $.80/bd ft. Witherell
Marine Lumber & Supply Co.,
Inc., 141 E. Water St., Taunton,
MA 02780. 617-824-7444.
MARINE PLYWOOD. Fir marine
plywood (fine Douglas fir) 1/4",
3/8", 1/2", 5/8", 3/4", & 1". Sheet
sizes 4x8, 4x10, 4x12, 4x14, 4x16,
4x18, 4x20. Handsome Philippine
ribbon stripe, or rotary cut mahog-
any marine plywood. 1/4", 3/8",
1/2", 5/8", 3/4", 4x8. Elegant teak
marine plywood, 1/4", 1/2", 3/4",
4x8, width full 16 inch. Teak
veneers front and back. Teak ply-
deck (teak with holly lines for deck-
ing, etc. 4x8x1/4".) Most of our
products are sold in full sheets, 1/2
sheets, or precision cut to size,
avoiding waste to you. Solid teak
and mahogany also. Shipping by
UPS, common carrier, USA. Boul-
ter Plywood Corp., 24 Broadway,
Somerville, MA 02145. 617-666-
1340. 321b
HEADQUARTERS FOR BOAT
LUMBER - Teak, mahoganies,
oak, yellow pine, cedar and Sitka
spruce. Fir, teak and mahogany
marine plywood (long lengths in
stock). Also fiberglass, glues and
fastenings. GENERAL WOOD-
CRAFT, 100D Binman St., New
London, CT 06320. Call 203-442
5301.
(WA res. add $1.25 tax) Ppd. Visa
& Master Charge accepted. Include
card number & expiration date.
These tool bags are made to give
you years of service. Also available
but not pictured are 8-pocket chisel
rolls with leather reinforcing,
$14.00 (WA res. add $.70 tax)
Money back if not satisfied. PORT
MADISON CANVAS CO., 8804
NE Spargur Loop Rd., Bainbridge
Island, WA 98110.
AUTHENTIC BRASS PORT-
HOLE PHOTO-FRAME TO
DISPLAY YOUR PICTURES IN!
Has 5" glass opening, 8" total dia-
meter. Opens easily to change
photos. Mounted on Genuine
Leather. Ready for hanging. Only
$49.95 ppd. CT residents add sales
tax. Bob S. Enterprises, 15 Reiner
Dr., Trumbull, CT 06611.
HOUSEBOAT (splitlevel) 36'by
16' on deck, selfsufficient for moor-
ing living, built 1977, year round
living in New England, glass
sheathed hull, type 1 Coast Guard
approved head, 12 and 110 volt
wiring, 1600 amp-hour batteries,
Kolher generator, easily towed.
Joseph Mello, P.O. Box P-27, So.
Dartmouth, MA 02748.
IDEAL BOAT TOOL-siphons,
pumps, bails. New liquid hand
pump! Change oil in marine and
auto engines —standing up —
through dipstick opening. Bail boat
water, siphon fuel from tank or
from vehicle to vehicle. Draws and
pumps liquids—gas, water, chem-
icals, oil up to 90 wt. Many uses—
compact! Strong PVC construction,
aluminum rod, stainless steel
valves, rustproof! (8 12/' tubing)
Money back guarantee and one
year warranty. Just $9.95 and $1.25
postage. Dayspring Dawn, Box
465W, Felton, CA 95018.
USED: Patterns and molds for H-
12 1/2, Stone Horse. Patterns and
building jigs for H-28, 25' Friend-
ship sloop. Extensive patterns and
building jig for 22' Friendship
sloop. Make offer. McKie W. Roth,
Jr., Boatbuilders, Box 199A, West-
port Island, ME 04578.
207-882-7732.
Compact styling, energy efficiency
and sealed design feature the new
Transmar all polished stainless steel
charcoal CABIN HEATER in the
superior 316 alloy, all fittings for a
complete installation are included:
polished stainless steel tube stove
pipe, removable almag alloy smoke
head, closable polished almag allow
deck fitting, heavy stainless steel
mounting brackets, one charge of 2
lbs of charcoal will burn for eight
hours. The stove is quickly stowed
in hot weather, yet easily fitted for
warm comfort even in cold damp
weather. Measuring only 12" wide,
15" high and 9" from front to back
including the generous air space,
the solid all welded construction
weighs only 14 lbs and includes a
stainless grate and easily removable
draft control ash drawer. The top
loading chamber dogs down abso-
lutely tight, to prevent escape of
fumes. The stainless radiator gives
four times the heating efficiency of
a flat surface, for maximum fuel
economy. Custom made for
TRANSMAR and available from
dealers or direct from Transmar,
P.O. Box 462, Highland Park. IL
60035, and is priced at $399.95 plus
UPS. Delivery time is four to six
weeks 401xb

"BILL OF RIGHTS" Ship engraved

on square Scrimshaw (not ivory)
Miscellaneous belt buckle. Solid brass back.
$21.95 ppd. Key chain, $6.95; tie
bar $8.95. GIFT-TIME, P.O. Box
2262, Dept. W, Pawtucket, RI
02861.

SCRIMSHAW your boat or yacht;

CANVAS TOOL BAGS. Ideal for
boat work. Will not mar bright-
work or scratch paint. Stows easily.
Made of heavy no. 4 canvas, double
bottom, webbing reinforced, poc-
kets both sides. Large size, 10 x 7 x
18, $29.50 (WA res. add $1.48 tax)
Medium size, 8 1/2 x 6 x 16, $25.00
MESS ABOUT IN BOATS in one
of our shirts. Highest quality cotton
teeshirts with silkscreened original
drawings and quotation from
"Wind in the Willows." For each
shirt specify "Painting" (as shown)
or "Rowing" (Mole and Rat out for
a row). Light blue or tan. Pre-
shrunk XS to XL. $8.00 postpaid.
The Design Works, Box 514V,
Waitsfield, VT 05673. Satisfaction
guaranteed.
hand-etched on authentic whales'
tooth replica. From your photos.
Details free. Gerald Loefflad, 51
Franklin Street, Brandon, VT
057S3.
BOATBUILDING WOOD Ron and Barb Lemoine of
WORKING MACHINES. 18"x6" DUSTY RHODES—will you
thickness planer, 28" band saw, 12" send WoodenBoat an up-
table saw, 1 1/4" spindle shaper, 8"x to-date address?
12"x16' galvanized steam box.
Charles Klotz, 1606 Church Rd.,
Broad Channel, NY 11693.

40/WoodenBoat 159
 Index to Advertisers
ADHESIVES AND COATINGS Wm. B. Cannell 142 Seagull Motors 77
Boat Armor Marine Products 13 Cape Foulweather Boat Co. 133 Shaw & Tenney 77
BoatLife 104 Victor Carpenter- Simpson-Lawrence. Ltd. 106
Chem-Tech 77 Superior Sailboats 133 Spartan Marine 22
Davis Instrument Corp. 106 Cherubini Boat Co. 136 Standard Fastenings. Inc. 27
Detco Marine 24,67 Classic Boat Works 140 Teak Design 119
Flood Co. 16,cover4 Constant Camber The Tool Works 5
Gloucester Marine Paints 67 Boat Works N.W. 135 Tremont Nail Co. 119
Gougeon Brothers 14 Chester Crosby & Sons 134 Weems & Plath 23
International Paint Co. 51 Dan's Boat Shop 138 Whistler Marine 8
Marine Development and Erik's Boat Works 133 Wooden Boat Shop 125
Research Corp. 123 Faering Design 135 Zephyr Products Co. 119
Penta-Var, Walrick Co. 23 Freedom Boat Works 143
SeaSyn Distributing Co. 25 Cannon & Benjamin 145
Sharkskin 19 R.J. Genthnerdt Co. 142
Sunshield, InterTrade 121 Graves Yacht Yard 140 PUBLICATIONS
Sutherland Welles. Ltd. 118 Lee's Boat Shop 143 Boatbuilders International
Travaco Labs 122 Lowell's Boat Shop 143 Directory 106
Trispar Marine 8,103 Bruce L. Malone 131 Dolphin Book Club cover 3
Tug.On Chemical 45,130 Mart in Marine 101 Gougeon Brothers, Inc. 14
U.S. Marine Coatings 26 North River Boat Works 139 Small Boat Journal 114
Old Town Canoe 137 Woodcraft 6
Padebco Custom Boats 134 WoodenBoat Publications 15
Seth Persson 142
AUXILIARIES Phoenix Boatshop Co-op 140
Easthope Sales 16 Michael Pouliotte 145
Eskelund Marine 4 Rivendel] Marine 137 SAIL LOFTS
Svein Madsen 21 Rosborough Boats 134 David A.Bierig 130
Sabb-America 8 McKie W. Roth.Jr. 139 Thomas Clark & Co. 107
Stoll's Marine Center 116 Sanford Boat Co. 136 Hogin Sails 115
J H Westerbeke Corp. 1 Schooner Creek 141 Glenn Housley 14
Shew & Burnham 144 Norseman Sails 123
Sitka Mast & Spar 143 The Rigging Gang 123
Ralph Stanley 135 Sails USA 36
BOAT LUMBER W. Walker 139 Sailrite Enterprises 124
Birchwood of L.A., Inc. cover 2 Wayland Marine 138 Nathaniels. Wilson 144
Bruynzeel Multipanel bv 12 Willis Wood Canoes 132
Caribbean-America Lumber Sales 10 R.K. Wilmes 137
M.L. Condon Co. 6 Wisner Brothers 145
The Dean Co. 26 WoodenCraft 138 SCHOOLS
Eastern Carolina Lumber Co. 116 Zahniser 's 138 Celestial Navigation 4
Harbor Sales 130 Westlawn School of Yacht Design 67
Milk and Silver Hardwoods 124 Yacht Design Institute 10
Yukon Lumber Co. 67
KITS. MODELS * PLANS
Glen-L Marine 107
Half Hull Classics 137 TOOLS & INSTRUMENTS
BOATBROKERS The Laughing Whale 100 Black & Decker 71
Wm.B.Cannell 151 Roger Marshall Yacht Designs 36 Conover Woodcraft Specialties 104
Fath Yacht Sales 146 Mirror Sailcraft 116 Duo-Fast Corp. 9
Fitzsimmons-Huckins 148 Wylie Design 4 W.L. Fuller. Inc. 20
Hanan Marine 147 Garrett Wade Co. 120
Merrill Stevens Yachts 149 John Harra Wood & Supply 104
Newman Marine Brokerage 146 HARDWARE 4 ACCESSORIES Highland Hardware 45
Northrop & Johnson 148 Barlow Marine. USA. Inc. 87 Parks Woodworking Machine Co. 130
Wm. Oliver 147 Bomar Shopsmith 11,160
Page Marine Services 147 Cinkel Yacht Steering Systems 106 Sperber Tool Works 45
Palmer Johnson 148 Clark Custom Boat 123 Stanley Tools 16
Hermit Parker 147 Clendenin Brothers 124 Wetzler Clamp Co. 103
St. Lawrence Restoration 116 Dan Union 22 Williams & Hussey Mfg. Co. 77
Sciuto Yacht Broker 146 Dwyer Aluminum Mast Co. 8 Woodline,
Ventura Yachts 150 Faire Harbour 103 The Japan Woodworker 23
Lawrence L. Warner 146 Fawcett Boat Supplies 103 Woodshop Specialties 122
Yankee Boat Peddlers 150 Freeport Marine Supply 107
Gas Systems 37
Hamilton's Marine 119
Henderson Pumps 6 MISCELLANEOUS
BOATBUILDERS Jamestown Distributors 24 Abaco Inn 122
Ace Speedboat Co 132 Kalamazoo Marine Gear 26 Artek 20
Baker Boat Works 139 Svein Madsen 21 An Recollections 76
R Bigelow & Co. 134 Manhattan Marine 122 Barry's Locker 130
Black Bottom Runabouts 144 Marine Exchange 13 Heanhstone 129
Blue Heron Yachts 135 Marinetics 22 Patagonia Software 24, 115
Braithwaite Products 135 Reimann & Georger 114 C.B. Tripp Co. 10
Branton Yachts 136 Ritchie Compass 7 Windrush Studios 43
Brooklin Boat Yard 144 Rostand Mfg. Co. 44 The Wooden 28,29,108,109
California Custom Yachts 132 Rule Industries 20 Boat Show

160 WoodenBoat/40