JeffM

Isn't the fall, with all its colors, a great season to sail? Beautiful! And one of the nice things about those panoramic photos is that we can't quite see the expression on your face...

Nice work, Norman! What is the significance of the brass "7" in the lead? Maybe a decorative accent for the benefit of fishes and whales?

My Joubert (French company) Okoume was 4'X8' exactly.

Gorgeous!

I don't know about a 17, but I find it tough to pull my cs20 up my sloping driveway even though it's on a good trailer with good tires and the driveway is paved! I think it probably weighs 600lb, the trailer maybe 400 more. Graham and Fred, remember, are mainly going downhill into the water at the Watertribe Challenge.

Welcome aboard, Denny! Nearest I ever got to woodworking before my boat was simple, square 2x4 and plywood stuff. Building a cs20 was a major leap, but with much help and hand-holding from these folks and occasional help from Graham, I got her in the water in 13 months. (Some very late nights and sloppy speed, so not so pretty, but a good solid boat.) I'm more a sailor than a boat builder, and not much of one at that! It's been a great ride, and this forum has turned out to be maybe the best part of the experience.

Well, it was just a thought, anyway. For sure once we hit hard up against the law of diminishing returns its time to pack in the science and just enjoy the ride. I'm the low-tech type (if not much stuck on tradition), and a push-button-controlled flexible wing sail is not really my idea of fun. Give me wind and sea, a good hull, a little cordage, some dacron, and enough mechanical advantage that I can handle things myself. By the way, are you telling me that there are sailboats -- monohulls --no bigger than mine than can do 35mph?! I never knew such things existed! I've got to have a look, just to satisfy my curiosity.

Paul, fascinating business! I'd never thought about the possibility that an end plate on a cb or rudder could simply pivot on its own in response to flow! That's a thought worth having! Of course, the Bolger designs that incorporate rudder end plates have reduced draft in consequence, with the idea that they therefore don't need to swing. I'd worry about a shallow rudder coming out of the water, though. In the case of a cb, I'm not sure how such a thing could be retracted into the trunk. On a sail, I was picturing a completely horizontal upper spar (are there any?) so that drag would be less of a factor. But I'd forgotten about the issue of weight high up. Paul, it sounds like you've had a lot of fun playing with stuff like this. Pity the gators have put a bit of a damper on! I wasn't at the point of even modelling, myself. Just daydreaming, and trying to breathe a little life into the Design forum, which deserves more posts now that we (most of us) are entering the armchair season.

Tom, what did you dislike about the Teal? (You weren't both trying to fit in it at once, I hope?) Actually, my next serious boats will be Birders. But I'm the explorer type, and "instant boats" look like a fairly low-cost way to explore options.

My imagination has been sparked by David Nichols' new Working Guide to Traditional Small Boat Sails (Duckworks). (That's also got me looking at the variety of hull shapes, etc. that Phil Bolger has designed.) I'm particularly intrigued by sprit sails (which Nichols thinks to be at least the equal of bermudas for pointing) and lug sails, both low-aspect rigs. My understanding of the chief reason low-aspect anything is inferior to high, is the increased vortex off the end of the air (or water) foil: The "leakage" of fluid over the end of the foil (top of sail/bottom of cb or rudder) from higher pressure "underside" to lower pressure upper side. (You might be able to tell that I get these ideas from airplane wings.) Since a broad, low sail has a lot of "end," it loses a lot more of its effectiveness to this "leakage" than a tall narrow sail does. Now in the case of airplane wings and fixed rudders and keels, the problem can be reduced by putting an end plate on it to block this leakage. (If you've flown at all recently, you may have noticed wingtip extensions.) [i've often wondered, by the way, how difficult it would be to arrange something similar on centerboards or kick-up rudders.] I'm wondering--in a purely thought-experiment kind of way-- whether a balanced lug sail with a level gaff (I suppose that's just a square-rig?) could have an end plate built right into the gaff. In other words, the gaff would be broad and flat, with the flat surfaces horizontal. I suppose it would be very cumbersome, but might it work well enough to be worth a try? The advantages of a short, powerful, unstayed rig might then significantly outweigh the disadvantage of inefficiency.

Thanks, all! This is very informative. I'm feeling the temptation to build a Bolger Teal--12ft double-ended single-leeboarder. Its pretty much a one-person boat, but an easy, fast build. I want to see how a boat very different from mine handles. When I'm finished messing with it, I'm betting I can pass it down to one of the boys...

Thanks for the info, Brent. I hoped to get one last day on the water this weekend. Looked like a good windy day. But it's going to pour with rain tomorrow. Of course, the gale warning gave me pause, also!

Leafing through a couple of Dynamite Payson books the other night I noticed how many of his and Bolger's older "instant boat" designs -- small boats, these -- are double enders. I am trying to figure out why. I seem to recall learning long ago that a boat with a pointy back end handles better in following seas. On the other hand, Graham comments someplace that because such a stern lacks much buoyancy it's easier for a following sea to flood your cockpit. Considering then that a pointy stern 1. reduces buoyancy, 2. reduces useful space, 3. forces the crew forward (owing to both 1 and 2), and 4. reduces lift that might otherwise promote planing, why would anyone design a double ender in the first place?

Steve, what are the dimensions of your hull? Your sketch made me curious, but we were all preoccupied with the rig. Now I'm wondering about her length, beam and draft, and about the size of the cockpit and that funny-looking cabin! I'm guessing this boat is on the small side, since my open-cockpit 20 footer comes in at about 600lb.

Wonderful, Brent! I keep wondering what I could handle myself--so far, only been out in 15kt without reefing, but with crew. Were you alone? What is your sail area reefed? What body of water is that?

Stepping the masts with luff sleeve sails on is probably tricky -- it was on my cs20. But even on the 20 a mast-stepper (a fairly simple mod) makes it a snap. Now I can step and unstep at anchor to put up a tent, or even underway under power to go under a bridge.

Thanks, Brad! I've added that book to my (voluminous) wish list.

Fun stuff to think about! I gather the reason the main is so much more effective off the wind is that the boom holds it out, whereas a staysl would have to be poled, or something. Regarding LR, if you have to move this forward to balance out the rig then leeboards are out: they need to be about parallel to the hull sides, which limits both hull shape and leeboard placement.

Howard, I'm still not getting it. I'm trying to understand this as a feedback system in equilibrium. For example, my boat will self-steer pretty fairly (though not be especially fast) at a close reach by the simple act of bungeeing the tiller just to windward of the centerline: weather helm tends to pull the tiller a trifle to lee, the boat gradually rounds up until pressure on the rudder is reduced and the bungee pulls the tiller back over to head the boat back down again, pulling the tiller back to lee, and so on. The net result is a slightly scallop-edge boat track as the boat gradually rounds up, heads down, rounds up, etc. I can't see how running either sheet to pull the tiller to windward (opposed by elastic to lee) would work. Seems to me that full sail pressure would continually turn the boat further away from the wind. All this is pretty academic, since I don't expect ever to need to self-steer for any long period in the Bay, but I've been curious about how it was managed ever since reading Joshua Slocum.

Denis, I hope your brother's noble sacrifice may be a small comfort to his family. I wish his wife and children well.

Welcome aboard, Michael! As you may have noticed, the folks here are generally appreciative of professional knowledge. Do you really think the difference between, say, a varnished rudder and the same rudder with a smooth rubber coating would make a practical difference in the thickness of the boundary layer? If so, I might be refinishing my own rudder and centerboard this winter!

Howard, someday I'm going to have to try that just for fun. My guess, though, it that with the following waves common here the response would be too weak and too slow to hold anything resembling a course. On other points of sail, I'm guessing the line from the mizzen sheet would go to the lee side of the tiller, and the mizzen would be sheeted a little loosely? John, I'm still impressed. You're welcome for the info. I'm still messing around with ways to keep kids, etc. dry, but don't think any dodger that doesn't have some kind of walk-through will work for me.

I've had the best luck at a close reach. It's amazing if you can get self-steering at a run. I sometimes have to wrestle just to keep on course in a following sea.

John, another cool resource for tracing trips is Google Earth. My 11-year-old first showed it to me, and now I'm learning how to use it. It's basically a photomosaic of the whole world in high-resolution satellite images. Wonderful!

Been thinking about small boats. For a long time I've figured to build me a Spindrift to complement my cs20, but the more I think about it (especially after my kayak trip up the Taunton), the more I think it'll be something really different: a kayak or canoe (maybe a couple). I am late 40s and not in great shape, so I'm looking for a fairly forgiving, light-weight, easy-to-use, very portable boat for lakes and rivers and thin water. I naturally think of Graham's birders, but I have nothing to compare them to. Anybody know what's out there, and how they compare? Mind you, I'm into boating more than building, so I'd want a fairly easy build.