More Projects

I've not got much further with the proa plans, the basics are laid out in a CAD drawing but I need to refine my ideas before I can publish anything there.

Meanwhile, I read a book on DIY projects for the owners of cruising boats and saw a nice little 1-sheet dory style dinghy. I like the idea of trying something like this with my son, since he is light enough to float in it. I wasn't too keen on the shape of the boat in the book, but I liked the concept. I've worked on it some more and my second attempt came out nearly right. A little more refining and I'll have the plans available for the plywood part. It's not a true one-sheet boat because it will also require some wood for the seats and gunwales. And in fact to avoid exposing my lad to epoxy, I'll probably try making it with gluing batons planed to the right angles, polyeurathane glue and stainless screws.

Finally, I've also sent off to Selway-Fisher for plans to build the Rhum 11'6" dinghy in which I hope to learn to sail.

Proa Model

OK, so here's the model proa I made.  Its made in 1:10 scale, the real boat would be 4.8m long and 2.7m wide overall.

  

Not so amazing in itself, but there are a couple of things I was trying to prove.  Firstly, I wanted the hull form and rig to closely mimic the White Heron, a Kiribati sailing canoe that is on display a the New Zealand National Maritime Museum in Auckland.  Secondly, I wanted the design to be a modern translation, in plywood, with very simple shapes to minimize the need for complex lofting and also to use the fewest possible number of sheets.

I have a CAD drawing of the panels required to make the waka or main hull.  It is possible to fit them all on 3 standard 1200x2400mm sheets of plywood, and I think 6mm ply would be sufficient for the job.  The outrigger (ama) could be fashioned from a 100mm square fence post, 2400mm long by sawing crude point and then refining the shape with a coarse sanding wheel on an angle grinder.  The spars could be akas (beams holding the ama) could be bamboo and the same possibly for the mast, but the spars I'm not sure on at the moment.  To scale they are 4.5m long, sop probably scarfed and laminated softwood is looking the most likley.  Softwood stock would also be required for gunwales, gluing battens and the mast and spar steps.  The sail would be poly tarp.

Now the only problem is, I can't attach the PDF file I created from the CAD drawing, its a limitation of blogspot that I can't post attachments that aren't photo or video file types.  This means I'll have to add more dimensional information before publishing them as jpegs, to allow others to lay out the panels.  The great thing is, the shapes are so simple that I could almost manage a written description of each piece instead.

I'm not sure I'll ever build the real thing though.  I've gone through the shunting process in miniature and its easy to imagine a disaster trying it for real at sea.  I think the next step will be to develop a smaller version of the hull, 4 metres length at most, and equip it with a tipping Gibbon's rig.

Boats and Boat Names

The kayak doesn't really have a name. I have jokingly referred to it as 'Bullseye' and the double that is to come as 'Double Top' in reference to the design name of Dart and the cult but awful British darts quiz show. I don't think kayaks are boat enough to bare a name though, but that's not the case with subsequent builds.

Currently I have half-hatched plans for a 16' 3-ply sheet proa. I've got a model made that proves the shapes I have designed end up looking like a boat of sorts, I've just the rigging to add. Because I intend to make this boat for very little money, most of the materials will be sourced from large DIY outlets, and so I thought the name 'Big Shed' appropriate. I'd like to have this in Maori, or even better, what ever the native tongue of the Marshall Islands is, but I'll have to be careful to get a good translation and not rely on Internet tools of questionable validity.

Since starting the model, I've been thinking about the difficulties of shunting the real thing (changing the end of the main hull at which the sail is tacked and changing the direction of travel while keeping the outrigger to windward). One solution is to go for a sail with no lower spar and the upper spar hoisted from its mid-point. Such a rig is tipped from one end to the other and is called a Gibbon's Rig. I think it would suit a smaller, single-handed proa and would have to be called the 'Funky Gibbon'. I think it would have a large silhouette of a brachiating gibbon painted on the polytarp sail just for good measure.

These are side projects. I really want to get going on making a dinghy over the winter so I can learn to sail in my own boat. I've decided on another Selway-Fisher design, the Rhum. It will be light enough to trolley down to the beach, can take a small outboard for a spot of fishing and can be rigged with a Gunter rig, similar to the UK Mirror dinghies. It will need a name and I've been thinking along musical themes. I've been looking through song names by my favourite bands to some up with something less in jest than the proa names. Likely candidates are 'Hope', 'Spindrift', 'Red Barchetta' (but only if I paint it red, which is unlikely because its a notoriously difficult colour), 'Working at Perfekt', 'Born of Frustration', 'Anthem', 'Earthshine', 'Beautiful Machine' and 'Pacifier'.

'Pacifier' is likely to be reserved for a bigger boat, should I not like the name it comes with. I like the idea of its relation to Pacific, as in the ocean and the calming affect that messing about in boats tends to have. Rather than building a camp-cruising boat, I'm on the lookout for a good trailer-sailer with sleep-aboard accommodation for 4. This needs a bit of preparation work, firstly I need to learn more about sailing (hence the dinghy build) and secondly, I need to prepare a space on the driveway; more landscaping work.

VESPER

While out on the water the other day I couldn’t resist the temptation to paddle over to the flat bottomed schooner ‘VESPER’ that caught my eye on my first trip of any length in my kayak.

I’ve determined enough to categorically state that she is not the scow that I first suspected. On my last visit to her mooring I took photos but made no attempt to gauge her dimensions. On this latest trip I manoeuvred my Dart carefully in the strong outgoing tidal current and judged her to be only 2.5 Darts long and not quite a Dart wide. In more conventional units, that’s a waterline length of around 35 feet and a beam of around 12 feet. This is roughly half the recorded size of the scow ‘VESPER’, and even allowing for the somewhat rudimentary means of measurement, I don’t think I could get it that wrong.

I’ve learnt a little of the maritime history of the region over the last few months though, mostly by the power of the internet. The story begins back in the 1860s when the first scows appeared around the Auckland coast. These were flat bottomed boats with square ends and lee-boards fitted to allow them to be driven by a fore and aft topsail gaff schooner rig. Typical dimensions of the early boats were 60 feet in length with a beam of 20 feet. The design and construction is thought to be directly from scows of the USA and Canada, there use being initiated by immigrants from those countries.

The need for heavy cargo boats of shoal draft comes from Auckland’s location. Situated on an isthmus the city is squeezed between the Manukau Harbour to the south, which opens into the Tasman Sea on the West coast, and the Waitemata Harbour to the north, which opens into the Hauraki Gulf to the East. As the population of the region grew and more of the land was settled, so resources such as timber for building and livestock to feed the city folk needed to be sourced in larger quantities and from further afield. Scows weren’t used exclusively in the Auckland region by any means, but for a while, they were the lifeline for this burgeoning community.

Soon the trading scows were refined to include a pointed bow and a centre board or boards instead of the lee-boards. This improved the sea worthiness and speed of the vessels, as well as making it easier to load cargo. Typically the vessels were sailed into a harbour and almost beached at low tide to be loaded with all manner of livestock before floating of on the incoming tide. Pens on the decks held the beasts, and sand was spread to help them keep their feet during a rough passage. For the timber carrying vessels, huge kauri and totara logs would be rolled onto the deck and lashed to either side of the masts.

Whether it was racing that led to the refinements in hull form, or that because of the refinements racing seemed like a good idea has probably been lost in the mists of time, but race they did. The serious racing sailor’s of the day poured scourn on the idea that these barges should be given their own race on the programme for the Auckland Anniversary Regatta, but by 1884 the class was well established and in that year was won by ‘VIXEN’, a 69’3” long, 18’8” wide scow built by Charles Bailey Snr. of Auckland for Captain Biddick as a cattle scow in 1883.

The sailing scow 'VESPER', taken around the turn of the 19th to 20th Century

Captain Biddick commissioned another vessel of similar design, this time 76’8” by 21’8” and built by Bailey and Lowe in 1902. She was called ‘VESPER’. The picture from Anthony Flude’s site on Auckland history show a far more refined shape than the smaller ‘TED ASHBY’, a reproduction of an earlier design with the more modest dimensions of 57’ by 18’. It was the refined lines in this picture that gave me hope that the ‘VESPER’ I had seen was the same boat, but the dimensions rule that out. Incidentally, the scow VESPER’ was last recorded as being used as a mussel barge in the Marlborough Sounds in 1992 according to Mike Subritzky’s book ‘Subritzky Shipping’.

The 'TED ASHBY' at the National Maritime Museum, Auckland

So I still don’t know the origins of the flat bottomed, gaff rigged schooner ‘VESPER’ that is moored in the Upper Waitemata Harbour. I’ll send my photos off to the National Maritime Museum and see if model maker and scow enthusiast I was talking to has any clues...

References
Papers Past - The Auckland Star, 29th January 1884
The Days of the Sailing Scows by Anthony G. Flude
NZ Scows from Mike Subritzky's 'Subritzky Shipping' compiled by Koeke Junction

Lots of projects, but still got time for a paddle

I've so many little projects on at the moment, and none of them complete.

I'm doing a little landscaping along the back fence, but that's bogged down with digging up a stump that's in the way.  I've been playing around with a few proa models, trying to figure out a way of making a replica of the 'WHITE HERON' using no more than 3 sheets of 6mm exterior ply, some softwood and a poly tarp.  While I was studying my photos of the original at the National Maritime Museum, I noticed that the length given on the information plaque of 24'4" seemed way to long.  I paced it at around 14', and 8 foot overall beam, which is as the plaque stated.  I e-mailed the museum, and sure enough, it was a typographical error, the real length is 14'4".  Anyway, the model is coming along but I think I may need to change a couple of features.  I've also been reading up about scows to determine the origin of a vessel I saw moored up in the harbour while I was out or a paddle.

The Mark IV trolley was never tested.  One project I did complete was adding a wider axle and rubber tyred wheels, while reducing the overall height in a quest for stability.  I'm pleased to report that the trip to and from the ramp with the Mark V trolley was event free, everything working as it should.  I went for a 6.5km paddle, nosing around the various boats and ships moored between Island Bay and the entrance to Hellyers Creek.  The water was flat and win d was negligible, so it was nice to paddle in relatively straight lines, although a very strong outgoing tidal flow gave m some challenges.

From this last trip out, I think I'll make a rudder the very lowest priority of things to fix.  The two main things I want to fix is the paddle (its too short and the blades a little too flexible) and the making of a spray skirt.  The first attempt at the latter failed due to my hopeless skills with a sewing machine, so I have a new plan that will be less stitch and more glue.

Off my Trolley

The kayak trolley has been providing me with lots of headaches, and the kayak with lots of scratches.

The Mk I version was hopeless, so I angled the bunks a bit to provide the Mk II, which also shed its load on the way to the beach.  The photo shows the more elaborate Mk III with wide, raised bunks set further forward on the boat to help with balance, and the bungee cords replaced by nylon cam-lock straps.  This also failed while taking the kayak down for a quick paddle out to 'VESPER', a schooner moored about 1 km away and which I originally suspected to be a remnant of New Zealand's fleet of trading scows.  I know now that it's not a true scow, but need to research a little more to see if there is any link at all to the scows of old.  Either way, I ended up carrying the kayak back, along with the trolley and was nearly late for a night out as a result.

The Mk IV trolley is sitting in the garage waiting to be tested, but as I write the rain is torrential and a gale warning is in force, so it will have to wait in the garage a little longer.

My building and boating activities have been somewhat curtailed of late.  For the last 4 weeks I've been acting as full time tour guide to my parents, over on a visit from the UK.  I did manage to get away yesterday evening however, to take part in a race on board my friend and neighbour's Beale 33' cruiser/racer.  Winds were up 15 - 20 knots and with only two of us on board, it was quite exciting.  We didn't do well, but that was mainly down to confusion at the start when the skipper accidentally reset his stop watch and so we had only the 1 minute gun to go by, crossing the start over 30 seconds late.  I learned a lot during the race though, and also managed to use some of what I've read over the past few months, all good practice for when I build my own boat.

Saltier by the Day

I think I'm turning into an antipodean Gavin Atkin. For those few of you who read these pages and don't know who Gavin is, then I suggest you get over to intheboatshed.net immediately.

I must admit that I like the idea of not only building my own boat, but also designing its lines. And through reading Gavin's blog, I've developed a respect and increasing interest in older boats and ships.

While I was paddling round the upper Waitemata Harbour at the weekend, I was fascinated by the many boats I saw moored up along the way. One of these I suspected to be a converted sailing scow, a commercial vessel from 100 years ago, essential in the development of Auckland as a city.

Today I went with my parents to the National Maritime Museum. We took a look at the racing boats and sponsor's yachts and launches, here in town for the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series and then headed for the museum. They wanted to potter around and enjoy the waterfront, but I was on a mission.

I took lots of notes and photographs of the exhibits in the Hawaiki hall, especially of this Kiribati canoe. It is a proa, that is it does not tack but shunts, the outrigger stays to windward and the lower point of the sail is moved to the other end of the boat and it 'reverses'. This is in fact a western prejudiced way to think of it, for in this type of boat the axis of symmetry is shifted 90 degrees and there is no front or back, but a windward and leeward. Anyway, I want to build one so I thought I'd examine an original rather than use plans of a western interpretation.

I also wanted to check out the Ted Ashby, one of the few remaining sailing scows still working for a living, albeit as a harbour cruise distraction for the paying visitors to the museum.

Between the Pacific craft in the Hawaiki hall and the quay where the Ted Ashby and other vessels are moored, I came across this beautiful rowing boat. It spent its working life in the Auckland Islands, 300 km south of the main New Zealand land masses. It appears to never have been used though. It was stationed on the islands along with cashes of food and clothes in case of ship wrecks.

I intend to deliver more on each of these vessels. I'll digest my notes and try and define the critical forms, structures and mechanisms of the sailing canoe, determine whether the boat I sighted was indeed an original scow (with the help of a volunteer and model maker at the museum) and publish more photographs and details of the boat and the castaway station on the Auckland Islands.