When Things Go South

In many ways the construction of my boat is nearing the end--though there is plenty more to share here.  Still, even with the boat built, there's much more to be learned...sometimes in ways that I'd rather not.

One of the goals of the plan drift that I imposed on the Teal was to make it easier to recover from the inevitable capsize.  All boats can capsize, just that some are much easier than others.  The Teal is considered a fairly "tender" design, which means that it will let you know the wind is at it and, if you ignore that, let all the water from the outside in.  Blub, blub.

Well, while I was able to do some sailing this year, singlehanding was being strangely elusive (people seem to like riding in my boat).  Today (yes, a column written the day of the event!) the wind forecast looked good, with winds running about 10-15 mph and temps in the low 80's, pretty much gorgeous.  So, with the help of my son, I loaded up the boat and went out to Frenchtown Pond State Park.

There were a lot of people at the park, and I was using my old sail. which I has partially unrigged.  I launched after putting things together, navigated around all the kids crowding the dock and got far enough out to run up the sail.   About that time I realized I hadn't rigged things precisely correctly, so some fumbling about resolved that problem and I was off.

Frenchtown Pond is small, a measely 52 acre gravel pit that flooded.  In some ways that's a good thing, as it makes you have to think about your sailing, and also practice tacking, a lot.  The wind was blowing strong out of the northwest (it seemed and I could put on great bursts of speed.  I've modified my rudder steering from a tiller to a push tiller and I still need to get comfortable with the arrangement.  Still, was going good and got up to the far end of the pond when I was about to go on a reach across the pond and go around a fishing skiff that was at that end before a wonderful broad reach down the length of the pond (about a 1/2 mile).

Well, I must have gotten greedy and sheeted too much, because I caught a gust square on and before I know it, I am taking on water and pretty much sank!  Karma, I suppose.  Happily the water was warm.  Also good is that nobody was there to take pictures!  Even better was that the fisherman and his son were willing to render aid to help me get my Pica to shore.

In the course of this, I learned a lot of interesting details that will be applied in the future:

An ill fitted life-jacket is nearly useless to swim in.  It doesn't sound like much fun, but the darned things have to be near strait jacket tight to keep them from riding up or snagging lines.

Speaking of lines, since I went over on the lee side, I wound up getting tangled with my mainsheet, and it was somewhat disconcerting to get out of it, as some of the lines were getting up under my life jacket.  It made me understand why the old timers would carry a knife on them to cut themselves free.  Happily I didn't need to exercise such an option.

One thing I did right though--I did not panic.  Happily, neither did my son, who was watching from the shore and came over to where I was able to beach the boat.  Unhappily I must remind myself that I might have been better to abandon ship and not try to resolve it right there right then.

While I could right the boat with the mast and rig in place, each time I did so, the vessel was completely swamped.  I did release the halyard to bundle the sail, but this yielded no useful results.  It didn't help that the decks over the future airboxes were not watertight yet, so they flooded.  Next time (oh yes, there will be a next time) I'll have to see how the boat rescues if the mast is removed, as the boat did actually sit high on its side and without the mast may well have come out much drier.

Figuring out how to rescue the boat without it being awash would be nice in another way:  after I brought it to shore, it took a long time to bail the fooled thing out.  Perhaps I need a bigger (than l gallon) bailing bucket.  Needless to say, once I got it bailed out, I rowed back to the dock to pull out.  I didn't feel like trying my luck again--at least not til those air boxes are tight.

The Great Voyage--Part One

Let's go back in time, to marvel that it sure seems a lot longer than a year (and not even that) that I've had my boat.  So, to late September James and I went to Frenchtown Pond to fiddle about.  Wind was good but one of the rudder pins got loose and so we had to put back to port and call it good.  The intent, the next day, was to go to Finley Point State Park on the FIathead and see what would happen up there.  The rudder was repaired before setting out, of course.

So the next day, things are loaded up and off we go.  It's a beautiful indian summer day and in reasonable order we make it up to Finley Point.  While about to take the boat off the carp top, it came to notice that the leeboard was nowhere to be found.  What?  How can one mislay a leeboard--especially off a Teal (which is a 15" x 4 foot chunk of plywood)?


So, I indulge in the captains first prerogorative:  Blame the crew!  Suffice it to say, the crew denied any responsibility for the failure of items to be recovered (leeboard being left on the lawn where we loaded the boat at Frenchtown Pond.

This turned into a round and round debate and a question of what responsibilities does the crew have.  Of course the buck stops with the captain but if you intend to be on a vessel, I would say you should do whatever you can to ease the journey.   Rather like arguing angels on the head of a pin.

Some degree of hard feelings were running along, and since we were 60 miles from Missoula, there wasn't much to be done.   "Well, we could go out anyways", said James.   Ummmm, yea we could.  The lake was fairly calm and the wind was from the north at 5 mph at best.  At least we could see what happens, since we are here, and we have oars.  "Okay, we can try that," I said "What could go wrong?"

With that we set up the rig, loaded ourselves, lunch and a tool kit (duct tape and bailing wire, among other things), and finally rowed out of the marina and out into the lake.

Looking north from Polson Bay, past Finley Point (the Narrows) and into the main portion of Flathead Lake (look Ma! No Horizon!).  Finley Point is to the right, Little Bull Island at center, an unnamed isle next to it and Big Bull at the left.  Weather conditions this day are excellent.  The Flathead is a nifty inland sea.

The sail was run up and we seemed to make good progress from shore.  Winds were from the north at maybe 5 mph.  With two grown men in a Bolger Teal (load of probably 450 lbs) well, we weren't making great time, not at all.  "You know--if we jury rigged a leeboard, we might make better time..........."

Not sure whose idea this was, but it seemed like a good idea--at the time.  Well, there was a clamp, bungee straps and rope to be had... why not?  The work began in earnest.

Jury rig complete.   Yes, a real leeboard would be much more logical.

Somewhere toward the end of fiddling and getting this oar set up as a leeboard, I looked about and asked:
"Where's the other oar?"   Somewhere, in whatever we were doing, the other oar had jumped ship and drifted lazily off behind us--never to be found.  Hope somebody found it on the shore and got some use out of it.   The only saving grace was that it was the oar with a knot in it--but the prospect of having to make another oar was not helping my cheerfulness index--no, not really.  Good thing James knows lots of martial arts stuff and that it's really impractical to have physical combat in a 12 foot boat, well, I think it is anyway.  Suffice it to say, we got along well enough to continue--after all, where are ya going to go?

We were hoping we could tack and get towards Little Bull Island--the nearest one to Finley Point State Park.  Well a Teal with two guys in it is really a pig for what we wanted to do.  As we kept going, the wind finally dropped out with us roughly south-southeast of Big Bull.  We could make out the dock and boats belonging to the UM Biological station there.  We however, were a good quarter mile offshore, and not getting one foot closer to either island, as the wind seemed to desert us.

Still, it was a pretty day.

Looking southeast into Polson Bay.  The Mission Mountains march off in the haze.  Polson would be six miles distant on the right side of the photo.  By this point, we were making out way back.

We sat becalmed out in the middle, off of Big Bull for what seemed a while, but probably wasn't more than 20 minutes.  James, being one who reads lots and lots of nautical books and such, threw some bread crumbs on the water and lo! we were moving--albeit slowly.  He then made up a chip log to watch our pace, which wasn't blistering at all.  Part of the problem was that the jury rigged oar would turn enough to be a drag and keep us from moving much of anywhere.  Some adjustments later, we were on our way---slowly.

We finally did make our way back to shore and got back to Missoula.  I was able to retrieve my errant leeboard from the Fish Wildlife and Parks office, who informed me that some kids were using it as a skateboard ramp!  Well, all's well that ends well, and any voyage that brings you back to dry land is a good one!

A Little Paint......

   Well, Spring is finally sort of making an appearance.  The sun came out and temperatures finally creeped above the 40's.  Gee, it's almost May and the tulips haven't even bloomed yet!
  
   A couple days ago I finally pulled the tarp off the Pica and moved it over to the sawhorses/workbench.  There I realized I rather botched the "long winter's sleep department".

It wasn't really nice to look inside the boat and see this nice blush of mildew.  Curiously it didn't take on the floor or the bottom of the sides, on account of epoxy coatings there.

    Mildew, sure sign that I really didn't have the boat blocked off the ground well enough and moisture built up under the hull (upside down).  I will have to build higher bunks for next winter--as I suspect that this will happen whether the interior is painted or not.

    On the outside, more things pointing out that better storage is needed:

This is the view of the outside of the hull, and while the mildew is not as bad as the interior, there is still some checking and varnish failure.  Blue tarps just aren't that good.

  So... what to do?  Sadly, the mildew appeared the bloom under the varnish.  It also seemed to be the worst on the luan and somewhat on the plywood bulkheads.   Solid wood pieces were not affected, but that may be because there was either more varnish applied (varnish early and often--like voting).  It could also be that the plywood products did not present as tight a surface and so the varnish that was applied, just wasn't enough to fill the pores.   To note, the gunwales came through the winter in perfect condition.

  Not really sure what the mildew would do, or not do, but I wasn't too worried about the outside of the hull, as it was meant to be painted anyway.  To that end, I did some sanding the then painted it Rustoleum Topside Marine Paint.  Yeah, Rustoleum makes boat paint--with one caveat:  the paint is not meant to be submerged for long periods of time (over a week).  I don't think I'll have that problem, so I started by putting down a coat of primer.

   What a difference a coat of paint makes!   I didn't quite get it perfect (runs on one side) but those will sand out and I'm pretty confident I can make the finish coat look good.  Still not sure what to do with the interior as yet.   Much as I really want to get out onto the water, I really ought to get this done first.

 

 

It's a SAIL boat--

Well, some folks have the power of denying themselves gratification, but I'm just not that disciplined.  With the bull together, oars in hand and a mast raised, it wasn't much more to cut the sail and booms, figure something of the rigging and have that in order.  The leeboard and rudder--well they deserve their own stories (oh boy....).  Suffice it to say, time to take the boat out.

Frenchtown Pond State Park is a 52 acre flooded gravel pit, but is long enough and broad enough to make some decent sailing.  It's also the closest water to get to.  So, putting the boat on the car and trundling out with James (who brought his current 1 sheet skiff project, the Trudy C.) the challenge lay ahead, will it float? So, August 26 was the fateful day, and worked out to be a pretty good one.

Fiddling with the lines and not ready to sail anywhere, but it does float!

There was a decent breeze (anything around here rates as wind), and when I finally got the lines in order and the leeboard set--off I went!   As much as people complain that the Teal design is tender, I didn't find it that bad--certainly a whole lot more boat than a Harley 8!

And now we're sailing.  Oh so short lived--shallows ahead will not play well with the leeboard.

At the Pond, it's always into the wind to go west, and a true test of what a boat will do if you can get past the dock.  The Pica did that with ease and, as a bonus, tacked without stalling.  To say the least, it performs great.  There are no doubt boats that run rings around a Teal, but for starters this was pretty darned good.  Sadly, in not being mindful of lake conditions, and having made a really big leeboard, I eventually found that getting near the shore created problems.   After running the leeboard aground once, I was able to sail a bit more before it decided to fail when on a reach.  Even so, I was able to sail back to the dock.   Actually this was the first of many excursions, but one of only two with decent wind.  Well, lets me work on my rowing skills.

Ready Oar Not

Well, if you don't have enough clamps...  improvise!  This is gluing the first blade to the oar handles.

So....it's going to be rather hard to take this boat anywhere if the wind dies-right?  Of course every proper boat needs oars and since I'm not rolling in cash to buy really pretty oars from the likes of Shaw and Tenney (warning pretty stuff at this link! http://www.shawandtenney.com/index.php ) so I guess I'll make my own.

There are a lot of ways to build an oar.  A lot of them require cutting the oar blank from solid lumber, which is great if you have a decent bandsaw and clear lumber to work with.  Well, this is a backyard boat and the sum total of heavy power tools used was the table saw for sawing out the gunwales and chines.  Another approach is needed.  Another route presented itself through Andrew Linn (note the Annas Discorse previously).  He has a page for building oars http://www.waderweb.com/plans/oars2/betteroars_0.htm  and you may like his route, or go some other, or just buy the fooled things.

Well, off to the lumberyard to get the parts.  The main oar is just closet rod--tough, pretty much clear of knots, and relatively lightweight.  The blade is supposed to be 1 x 2, but I (inadvertently) used 1 x 3.  The directions are pretty straight forward so it was a matter of cutting, planing flats on the rods (getting those in line with each other takes some care, but isn't hard). cutting the paddle blanks and gluing them on (Titebond II here-and don't skimp!).  Once the whole blank is glued up, the fun part starts.

Actually, you could take the blank and use it as an oar, but it'd look funny and be rather bulky in use, with a lot of extra weight on the end.  The suggestion is for the length of an oar to be twice the beam (at the gunwales) of your boat.  The beam of the Teal is about 42", so I went with 7 foot oars.  If that turns out too long, well I can always cut them down.

The fun is getting the paddle end to look like a paddle.  A lot of people have power planes.  How quaint.  Lacking yet another awesome power tool, I'll go dig out my big plane (Bailey #5) and have at it. 

If things go well for you, you'll wind up with something like this, and some sore arms from working the plane.  Thank gosh for power sanders at least.  This blade is made with 1x3's so might be a bit wider than others may suggest.

 

There are certain tricks to using a hand plane on this sort of work.  The hardest part is planing at the upper portion of the blade, where it meets the handle.   Since the blade is not an even taper from the handle to the tip, you'll find you need to block up the upper portion of the blade to plane that area.  Rather hard to describe (ought I have made a video?) but it can be figured out.  One thing, when I started, I though commercial oars were a bit overpriced.  When I got done, James suggested I make him a set, but when he suggested a price, I thought that the commercial price really isn't that far out of line--and they have all that fancy power tools for the job!

This is more or less what you come up with.  Go nuts with the varnish and give it plenty of time to cure.   It will hold up better for you, but if you don't just sand and recoat.  Sharp eyed folks will see that knot on the one blade.  I was surprised that it didn't blow out while planing, but it hung in there.  Will talk later about the wooden cleats.