Showing posts with label Of. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Of. Show all posts

Monday, July 3, 2017

A Time of Rapid Change


The prediction of great wind and rain didn't come through and today there are heavy gray clouds above as I portage to Lake Union. I walk in a sun break, then I walk in a sun shower, and then the rain changes to sleet and back to rain again. So it goes all of the way to the lake and then some. But, it is a fresh day and it reminds me of the beginning of spring in the midwest with bright sun, wind, and a bit of snow that everyone knows is just a farewell for winter. Hardly a bird to be seen in Lake Union, the shoreline entirely dead at the hand of marinas, houseboats and shipyards. The worst runoff in the lake isn't pollutants anymore, it is people that have built there houses on water, and the effect is no different than paving a wetland. Only the deep water birds and swallows find sustenance here. Portage Bay is no different, but ah, Union Bay, the garden. And I paddle into the garden with many herons today, with the west lodge goose nest in good order, with a snipe trying unsuccessfully to hide from me. I circle the bay just to breath it all in, dry cattails, ducks, geese, but no eagles. It has been two weeks since I've seen them hunting and with the coots scattered carelessly about, it is likely that the eagles are eating something other than coot for the time being. I stop and examine the four scent mounds (photo) in the burial island channel. The castoreum of the beaver is clear on two of them and while it is not an unpleasant smell, it does not drive me mad with passion.
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Sunday, May 7, 2017

child of nature


I return to my canoe via the Harrison Portage.  Too long, much too long has passed since my last trip.  it has been almost 4 years since I could not remember my last day in the canoe.  But, the short term unfamiliarity gives me thought - while I have always enjoyed the outdoors, I have never been so much a child of nature as I am now.


There are golden eyes and buffleheads in the big lake and just a quarter mile north of the put in, a harbor seal and I share a second's worth of surprise.  It is tennis ball calm today -  I can see them from a few hundred yards.  It is also cloudy but sun comes through at times and in places.  The water is cold, but the air warm enough that my fingers return to comfort, once they are in the air.

Crows are making a racket when I near the swimming beach.  I move in closer to find a small hawk with a pigeon.  A couple with a small child also nears and asks me what it is.  I reply, "lunch."  But, I get out and have a nice chat.  The man has just returned from fishing in Alaska.  Like most people one meets in Alaska, he knows that everyone everywhere is a bit crazy in some way...just get over it and have a talk.

At the big lodge, red wing blackbirds are trilling and an eagle sits in silhouette over the south nest some 400 yards off.  I stop in the small patch of marsh that I call the sedge meadow.  I stand in my canoe and admire the spot.


Geese seem to be pairing up already.  They are getting noisy, but haven't reached full rambunctiousness, yet.  So, I head out into midbay to look the new dirtbergs over.  It still amazes me how the lake bottom rises up in the winter from gases trapped in the peat.  While I'm doing that, I spot a motor skiff heading in my direction.  I have to admit that I am always a bit suspicious of motorboats, but  someone hollers my name and I know it is 3-Stars with a friend.  The four of us (3-Stars has a blue-healer dog) sit and drift in mid bay for a half hour discussing the birds and animals that we see. 

It was an important day.
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Sunday, April 9, 2017

Image of Design 1812



As a follow up to my posting about Whistler of Paget from Saturday, I did find some good images of the boat. Here's one. Image courtesy of Beken of Cowes, one of the very best marine photographers, from 1965. The image is incorrectly entitled Quest of Paget. Note there is not yet a name on the transom.

Postscript: I stand corrected. I researched this a bit more and in fact two boats were built: Whistler of Paget for De Forest Trimingham and Quest of Paget for his brother, Fenton. There was but 38 lbs difference between the boats. I believe Paget refers to one of the nine parishes of Bermuda, where De Forest Trimingham was a member of Colonial Parliament.
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Tuesday, March 28, 2017

How big of a sailboat do i need


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Thursday, February 16, 2017

Building a canoe out of a log


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Wednesday, January 25, 2017

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Make Your Travel Dream Come Correct With Wooden Boat Plans

Building a boat is a massive job for 1 who has no expertise in wood operating at all. Nonetheless, several vessel plans are now becoming sold on the net by skilled watercraft builders. Designs differ, from the simplest towards one of the most advanced blueprints. Wooden boat plans will be the most effective choices for newcomers to obtain started on a boat creating project. There are many forms of wood that can be utilized to construct your initial boat for example mahogany, merbau, Keruing, iroko and okoume. Even so, 1 of the ideal and most inexpensive supplies that you just simply can use is plywood. Plywood is extremely straightforward to manage and just is not tough to reduce into just about any needed pattern or size. It goes effectively with epoxy which will be used to fill the boat's seams. Most watercraft builders can execute on the material alone having a great deal of ease. They do not have a tough time with regards to assembly either.
Plywood for your wooden boat plans is just not challenging to find. Nearby hardware shops have these and are sold at much far more inexpensive expenses compared to fiberglass. At present, the boats which you see in most hobby centers or schools are truly made of plywood. Wooden boat plans that make use of this material are really simple to comprehend and comply with. When operating on your watercraft, make certain that the boat strategy is laid out in an place so you are going to be capable of refer to the guide every now right after which. As soon as you've all of the materials and tools, you are able to begin working around the wood pieces which will make up the boat. If you will find pieces that do not match collectively, by no means force them. It really is advisable to take your time in measuring the supplies just before you decide to cut them. Check the boat method cautiously for those who have developed any blunders or if you have overlooked any information on certain actions. This normally takes location once you rush your project, so don't do so. It requires time to finish this project especially if you're a beginner. In case you happen to be enduring time constraints, the longer it'll take for the watercraft to be finished also.
When utilizing plywood in wooden boat plans, take note that this material should be layered and covered to preserve the wood's strength. There is certainly also marine level plywood that is a bit considerably more costly than the typical builders' grade. It'll also carry out extremely nicely for the building. Seal all of the gaps of one's boat with epoxy, as this truly may be the extremely very best material to hold the pieces of plywood together. This truly is component in the common vessel building approach known as stitch and glue. Pay focus to particular surfaces just like the bow and make specific that your seals are all tight in all segments. The three point mating surfaces generally are one in the most challenging to seal, so make sure you check these locations cautiously. If you finish your wooden vessel, you have got one fantastic investment that will last for any actually extended time.

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Saturday, December 31, 2016

Cree Hunters of the Mistassini


I just finished re-watching the fantastic 1974 film, Cree Hunters of the Mistassini which is available on the National Film Board of Canada's new site. This outstanding bushcraft film shows 3 Cree families in their winter hunting camp living off the land for 6 months. Amongst the amazing footage of trapping beaver, building a lodge for 17 people, construction of Mistassini style snowshoes, are some fantastic scenes of the men paddling their canoes.

A few screen shots show the main focus of the film, Sam Blacksmith, paddling with a Cree style paddle. It's been painted a deep green colour (which contrasts very well in the winter snow). The shots of the men skillfully navigating white water in their canoes is especially exciting, as the narrator mentions that none of them know how to swim since the water temperature is so cold year round. Despite not having any lifejackets and such, these skillful paddlers handle the river rapids with utter confidence.


Sam Blacksmith paddling his winter hunting grounds


Sam paddling a creek in the midst of an early snow

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Tuesday, December 6, 2016

The Four Roots of Boatbuilding


Old though it is (1976), Basil Greenhill's Archaeology of the Boat is the most useful book I've read in a long time toward understanding boat types and boat evolution. Probably the most important element is a typology for characterizing plank-built boats not by their planking method (i.e., lapstrake versus carvel), but into the categories of skeleton-built vs. shell-built. I'll get into these later, probably in a future post, but here I'll provide some of the background necessary for understanding this duology.

Greenhill identifies four "roots" of boatbuilding, from which, he argues, all boat types derived:

1. Rafts and raft-boats: a craft which is not watertight -- i.e., it does not enclose air. Its buoyancy comes from the buoyancy of the boatbuilding material itself. A "raft-boat" is basically a raft with a more or less boat-like shape, i.e., pointy at the bow, like the Brazilian jangada. Raft building materials include logs lashed together, bundles of reeds, and air bladders like inflated animal skins. Greenhill states that Chinese sampans may have evolved from rafts. The paired illustrations shown below are an intriguing bit of evidence to this effect.

Above: a sophisticated Chinese sailing raft, with movable daggerboards and capable of upwind sailing.

Below: the bottom of this sampan shows similarities to the raft above and lends credence to the theory that the sampan is one of the few extant boat types that derived from rafts, rather than dugouts.

(All images in this post are from Greenhill's book. All may be clicked to magnify.)


2. Skin boats: in which a skeleton built of sticks is covered by a skin, either animal skins or a waterproofed fabric. Obvious indigenous examples include kayaks, umiaks, coracles, and curraghs. These evolved into a very limited number of modern types such as folding kayaks and canoes. (Greenhill states that the basket-boat is a variation of the skin boat. The book, a survey, doesn't give evidence for this conclusion, and I'm skeptical that they share a common ancestry. I suspect that the basket boat may be a fifth, very small, root, which wasn't further developed.)

3. Bark boats: the American birch bark canoe being the obvious example, and the only well-developed one.

4. Dugouts. A hollowed log in its earliest iterations, the dugout was elaborated and expanded upon in many directions, and evolved into most of the boat types we know today. The evolutionary process took place in many phases, at many times and in many places, and it was far from a smooth, linear movement -- which is why we have such a diversity of plank-built boats today.

A log that has simply been hollowed out has limited seaworthiness and, as they get larger, they become quite unhandy. Simply but, they're too narrow and too shallow. The first stage of evolution, then, was the "expanded" dugout, in which the hollowed log is heated from the inside (top image in the graphic below) , usually with boiling water, and its sides are then forced apart with shores (left bottom). Not only does this increase the beam, but it forces the ends upward, creating a true "boat" shape that is both more aesthetically pleasing and more seaworthy.

The process does, however, make the boat even shallower (i.e., reduces freeboard), so the next step is to "extend" the hull by the addition of a single plank on each side (right bottom). Different cultures invented different methods of fastening the plank: pegs, stitches, mortise/tenon joints, dovetail inserts, and so on.


Top: dugout heated to soften. Left bottom: expanded. Right bottom: extended by the addition of a strake.

This was probably how plank-built boatbuilding got its start in Western culture. But since evolution doesn't progress linearly, it didn't work that way in all cultures and at all times. The Polynesian outrigger canoe, for example, is a dugout that is often extended but not expanded. The large cedar dugouts of the Pacific Northwest were expanded but often not extended. Of course, the Indians of the Pacific Northwest had enormous trees with which to work.

The balam (below), from the Bay of Bengal, is a sewn boat that Greenhill calls the "ulimate development" of the expanded-and-extended dugout. Based on a dugout hull that essentially acts like a backbone keel, it has been extended by the addition of five strakes.

A balam from the Bay of Bengal


Readmore → The Four Roots of Boatbuilding

Friday, November 4, 2016

After a lot of hype we finally made it into Edenton NC



Sunset with Odin in front of Plymouth (replica Roanoke River) lighthouse
Replica of iron-clad CSS Albemarle

Day 3 (Plymouth):  It's supposed to be 90F today, so we bolt early on the bicycles for a provisioning run, do a few chores (spinnaker out on deck for an airing out) and then head to the town museums as the heat hits.  Plymouth is a very historic town.  It was founded in 1787 as a port of entry (you could head up the Roanoke River to Virginia).  As a result, there was a large Civil War naval battle fought here, chronicled at the Port O'Plymouth museum including a scale model of the Albemarle.  At the end of the war, most of the town was burnt to the ground, but there are still some beautiful old homes here.  They do reenactments every year ("We invite the Yanks down, charge them money, whoop their butts and send them home!").  Our next stop was the God's Creation Wildlife Museum.  This is the personal collection of mounted animals of a local sportsman.  No matter how you feel about hunting, this is an impressive collection of local and African animals.  It was very educational and included a "touch" table.  Very tasteful done and worth our time.  Our last stop was the Maritime Museum across from the marina.  (Leave yourself lots of time to have Brenda walk you through.  She can tell you the history of the area better than anyone.)  Back to the boat to crank up the air conditioning, do a few loads of laundry and watch another movie.

View of the new city docks from the lighthouse

Day 3:  It's a lazy day and forecast to be cooler.  The Captain has found some trim to paint.  Brenda shows up at the dock at 10:00 am and invites us up into the lighthouse (on her day off) for more history lessons.  This is a replica of the original lighthouse that was at the mouth of the river (it burnt down shortly after being built). The second, original lighthouse (and last surviving of this style) is in Edenton.

When all else fails, the Captain can start taking bicycles apart

Leaving the Roanoke River for Albemarle Sound

Day 3:  I wake up to find the water level on the river has dropped significantly (the step off the boat to the dock is no longer a jump).  Great news since we have to go back under (preferably) the 50 ft bridge again.  We're up early and off by 7:00 am.  The winds were forecast to be out of the north (and we can't sail directly into the wind) so the plan was to motor the 14 miles across the Albemarle Sound to Edenton.  However, after an hour motor off of the Roanoke River, we discover the winds are more of a quartering wind so we unfurl the genoa for about an hour (and watch the winds slowly shift back to the north--and our track slowly wanders off our intended course).  We finally give up and furl the genoa and motor into Edenton.

Stats:  Total time 2:42, total distance 14.1 NM, average speed 5.2 kts.

Docked in front of the "other" Roanoke River Lighthouse in Edenton free Town Marina

We knew there was a break water at the marina, however, we are caught by surprise by the narrow entrance.  We were able to dock easily on the only T-head and were quickly met by Carmella with a package (Amelia the cat's medication) and given another run-down of the history of the lighthouse ("Are we lost?  We were docked in front of the same lighthouse in Plymouth?")  We checked in, walked down Main Street, and did some damage at the True Value before heading back for naps.  (Brenda called to make sure we made it across the Sound OK.  God bless her, I wish I had a given her a hug goodbye!)  Our first guests arrive (the Captain's brother & his wife) around 4:30 pm and we went for another walk through town before dinner at Waterman's (every single person who asked where we were headed next said we had to eat at Waterman's.)

We've been hearing about Edenton since the Dismal Swamp Visitor's Center.  Every time we told someone we were going to spend some time in NC and the Albemarle, they told us you HAVE to go to EDENTON.  Did it live up to the hype?  Yes.  A beautiful, quaint, small town on the water.  Several excellent restaurants, a coffee house and anything else you need is here.  Highly recommend. If you make one stop in the Albemarle, it should be here!


Readmore → After a lot of hype we finally made it into Edenton NC

Friday, September 23, 2016

Voyages of Rediscovery in Ontario


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Voyages of Rediscovery is an educational organization operating mostly in Washington state, using canoes and canoe-related skills as means to teach history and environmental and cultural studies. They use and build birchbark canoes and fiberglass canoes dressed up to look like birchbarks.


This spring and summer they will teach birchbark canoe building to young people of the Bear Island Band of the Temagami First Nation, in Ontario. The organization is raising funds to produce a feature-length video of the project, to use for further fundraising and publicity. Their fund-raising site has a series of shorter videos, including one documenting the construction of a 25-foot bark voyageur canoe.

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Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Death of a stereo


Ring Ring. Hi Willy, what I can I help you with? Your stereo is broken? What would you like me to do? Your selling the boat, and you want me to fix it? Okay I guess. What is it doing? Nothing but making a little whirring noise when it has power? You tested the red wire and it has 12 volts? Does the yellow wire have 12 volts also? What do you mean it doesn't have a yellow wire, go and look again.


That's better Willy, and it also has 12 volts? Good job. Does the display light up at all? It's blank? I have some bad news for you Willy. I think your stereo has passed on. 

Yes Willy I know it's only six years old. Remember I helped you install it. No, that's about how long most of them last...if you're very lucky.

Willy, it's kinda like that dog years thing. Every 365 days a marine stereo lives in a boat, 17 years of its life passes by. So your stereo was really 102 years old. Didn't I see it featured on the Smucker's jar last year? I think Willard Scott said "It still loves to play elevator music every day."

Yes Willy I know it's still making some mechanical sounds. That's just the final death rattle you're hearing. Calm down now Willy. It's not that I don't want to come out. It's just not likely I can do anything about it. 

I'll stare at it, push some buttons so it looks like I'm trying to do something. Verify it has power, and maybe give it a solid whack on the side. Speaking of that, give it a good thump right now.

Did that fix it? Nope? Then you have now done everything I could do with it, and you saved yourself the cost of a service call. No Willy the factory can't fix it. They never actually repaired them, just replaced them. This unit has been out of production for many years. Remember that you got such a great deal on it because it had just been discontinued.

Willy, you've got to let it go. No Willy the big power amp isn't the radio's problem either. The display doesn't even light up for gosh sake. It's done Willy. Hope all you want but it's finished. It's not sleeping, it's dead, and it isn't going to come back to life. Start your grieving now and get it over with. That stereo has gone to the farm that's so far away you can never go visit it ever.

What should you do? Go to the store and buy an inexpensive stereo, and install it. If you need some help, give me a buzz. Thank you Willy for the offer, but no I don't want the old broken stereo for parts. Willy, I've already told you several times the LORAN system is long gone. You should get the old antique box off the boat before you list it. Sigh, yes Willy I know it still works, it just doesn't have anything to listen to anymore. You're selling a boat, not a museum Willy.

The photo of the corroded IC was taken by Wikipedia user Binarysequence.
The photo of the melted transistor was taken by Wikipedia user Yoyomin.

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Monday, September 5, 2016

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Why You are going to need to Use Plywood Boat Plans

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