Core Sound 20 Mark 3 Build - Chesapeake, VA

[Peter HK]

With respect to the docking difficulties, was the Centreboard all the way down?

While it doesn’t help at very low speeds it makes a big difference if you have any steerage way. Having said that a light boat with a lot of windage can be a challenge to dock in a breeze ( I sailed racing multis for a long time so I know about that)

HTH

Cheers

Peter HK

[AmosSwogger]

3 hours ago, Peter HK said:

With respect to the docking difficulties, was the Centreboard all the way down?

While it doesn’t help at very low speeds it makes a big difference if you have any steerage way. Having said that a light boat with a lot of windage can be a challenge to dock in a breeze ( I sailed racing multis for a long time so I know about that)

HTH

Cheers

Peter HK

 

Good question; the centerboard was probably up . . . I won't make that mistake again.

[Chick Ludwig]

Thanks for the report and videos. I enjoyed sailing with you. Beautiful boat!

[Joe Anderson]

Thanks for the trip report. Tangier is an interesting destination. Peter is pretty sharp to ask about your board position. I don't think the board needs to be all the way down, half way or even less will make a big difference.

[Steve W]

Great writeup.  That trip is on my bucket list. The center board down a bit keeps you from sliding sideways and allows the motor to pivot it's thrust around it. Unless there isn't any wind and current, or its really shallow, just a little board down makes a huge difference.

[Paul356]

Enjoyed the trip and the boat.  Cheers to you both.

[AmosSwogger]

1 minute ago, Paul356 said:

Enjoyed the trip and the boat.  Cheers to you both.

 

Thank you Paul, you and the others who have helped along the way made the trip possible.

 

[Capt Bones]

There is also a current that runs through that creek if memory serves correctly. 

 

There is something magical about the starkness of Tangiers.Here is a write-up from our visit several years ago.  It is an excerpt from the book about our cruising days.

 

He don’t walk his age, Milton don’t.  His gait is deceptively balanced as he moves, not fast nor slow, but with a silent hidden strength, steady down the wharf.   An unassuming presence, made so by the quiet grace of a life at sea, the confidence bred on the backbone of a bay boat, tempered with fifty years of respect for the moods of weather on the Chesapeake water. 

 

Milton hails the boat, giving precise directions, twice, to bring our trawler along the edge of the wharf, his marina and namesake.  He snatches a poorly tossed line out of the air with quick, flexible, but massive simian like hands—hard wired to forearms like Popeye.  He secures both ends of our fifty foot boat with an economy of movement little effort and no apparent speed as to suggest there is two of him. 

 

There is only one of Milton Parks.  He is mid seventies now and some of the other watermen ferrying bait back across the channel, the gut, to their boats bait Milton with teasing, now that he is off the water.  They call him leveled since he’s been retired from the bay for a year and developed a slight pot belly.  They call him leveled ‘cause the bubble of his body, his chest, has settled to the middle, like the bubble in a mason’s level settles in the middle.  He is not all that pot-bellied, so the words don’t hurt much.

 

Mr. Parks has always been a friend to all who wished it so in the marshland called Tangier Island, as his family has for almost 200 years.  Mr. Parks was arguably the best crabber and dragger around, to the point that the younger fellows begged him to quit fishing as he reached into his sixties, then sullenly suggested it was time for him to move over and let the younger men of the island have their chance.  You watch his eyes when he tells that story, he goes off somewhere.  Mr. Parks stopped when he was ready and still able to work his 500 pot license; he wanted to go out on top.  It wasn’t soon enough for some.  But even now they still greet him with respect.

 

He doesn’t get up at 2 or 3 in the morning now, to crank up the Detroit Diesel in his 45’ bay boat to work his pots until 3 in the afternoon, and then come home to repair or replace his gear and bait up for the next day.  He fished most every day, unless it was not safe to work in a wind troubled bay.  Now he lazes around until six am and works and talks in equal parts, maintaining his marina, helping watermen, orienting visitors to his transient dock, or answering the endless needs of his wooden crab boat until the other six o’clock comes round. 

 

Mr. Parks, like most of the watermen of Tangier, was born and raised on the Island.  His gentle voice carries the patois, what some linguists call Elizabethan English, with Celtic overtones, peculiar to only this island. To me the voice speaks of Newfoundland and reminds me of the book, The Shipping News. 

 

 The Crocket family, along with the Parks, Dise, Pruitts, & Thomas families, and maybe a couple of other families, pretty much established the community of Tangier those many generations ago and continue to set the tone today with an almost protective gentile blue collar attitude.  They are protective of their ways, their lifestyle, their very existence, but courteous to the rest of the world, outsiders all to be sure.  But Mr. Parks and the others are willing to share their knowledge, their hard existence with whoever may have a question.  He in return asks what is it that tourists see in his island, his family of friends?  He thinks one day he may go to Crisfield and take the ferry back to the island and stand behind the tourists to determine why people come to the island for the day or weekend to stay at one of the few bed & breakfast Inns.  He doesn’t understand the interest.

 

Mr. Parks and his colleagues have a lot of knowledge about the “beautiful swimmers”, the Chesapeake Blue Crab.  The quiet Tangier watermen provide tons of crab to the mainland, and the soft shell blue crab is a world market for them, even while many of the fishermen are turning to driving tows at busy ports on the mainland for the better pay and benefits that crabbing does not give. 

 

Therefore it is no surprise that Hilda Crockett’s Chesapeake House makes the best crab cakes in the Chesapeake and the clam fritters are awfully good.  Served in a fifty’s style setting that is not motif, but left over from the age; you won’t care once the food starts arriving, in mixed-matched bowls, platters and baskets, very soon after you sit down.  Oh now, don’t get excited, it isn’t the wrong order from another table she is trying to serve you.  It’s yours.  There is no menu, you get what Mama cooks this day and I can promise you won’t be much disappointed and you will be belly busting full or  “run aground” as an islander said, with this wonderful home cooked meal served family style.

 

You will need a walk after this meal.  Why not enjoy exploring the colorful neighborhoods.  By the time you reached the restaurant you have figured out that the roads are Island size.  The smaller roads no more then trails while the main roads are wide enough for two small carts.  Golf carts these days and maybe a scooter or two, but mostly they are for walking and connecting the ridges.   The ridges are sand spits.  Called ridges with droll humor, I suspect, as the ridges are usually dry, although not always.  There was the “September Gust” a few decades ago.  A couple of recent hurricanes had caused some serious flooding and damage, but the islanders seem to take it in stride, maybe putting better foundations into the salt marsh of an island with stoic acceptance.  There are about 250 households along the three main ridges connected by a handful of small bridges leading to neighborhoods with names like Sheep’s Head, Black Dye, Main Ridge & Meat Soup.  Don’t be surprised to see boardwalks on a few of the homes at the end of a ridge where the tides claim the yard periodically.  It is, after all, salt marsh, this island, and only suffers the sharing of itself with a handful of families that have handed down the land through the centuries

 

Tangier Island will continue to shift and change even as its people hold a steady course through life.  Together the island and its people have formed a steady-state; it’s people holding on tenaciously to the ever shifting sands of this barrier island that while starkly beautiful and full of nature’s creatures remains nothing more than the afterbirth of the Susquehanna River in a previous rage.  The river silently sleeping at the head of Chesapeake Bay for centuries—quiet now after forming the barrier islands, but always restless.

 

Tangier offers a peek into our colonial roots, into hardship and perseverance and stands as a reminder of what American stock came from.  You won’t read it off of signs, but in the eyes of the people.  You won’t hear it in nature lectures, but by strolling the bridges over the marsh, you won’t glean it from reading documents, but from registering the confidence, the adept skill and quiet strength of the waterman working his boat. 

 

Discovering places for oneself, like Tangier, is the magical essence of cruising.

 

 

[AmosSwogger]

Thanks for the well-written excerpt; I see that you have also met the infamous Mr. Parks.  He told me he graduated high school in 1948.

 

I had no idea you were a writer; I'm going to have to look up your books.  Between you, Chick, and Action Tiger there sure is lot of creative writing talent on this forum!

[Chick Ludwig]

BONES!!!! WOW!!!! Wonderful writing! Please give us more. That's what the Boating and Cruising Stories section is for. Please, please, please. We're waiting.

[Blkskmr]

I wanted drop you quick note.  I was very good to meet you again.   The workmanship on your boat is excellent.  

Please keep us posted of future trips. 

 

Kindest Regards 

[Jknight611]

Amos’s pretty boat!  

[Steve W]

Great pics Jay. Indeed she is beautiful as was yours and Pete's. I'm pretty fired up and closing in on being done. Next year I want to do an extended trip down in NC.

 

Amos, you have to tell us how that sail was with your family. It sure was windy!

 

[Chick Ludwig]

Yep, Amos has done himself credit!

[AmosSwogger]

Thank you for the excellent pictures Jay.

 

Steve, the sail with the family was a lot of fun (after Lara helped me tie the reefing lines correctly!).  Definitely the strongest wind we had ever sailed in and fastest we had ever sailed.  Some the gusts that came through were really strong.  The kids really enjoyed the accelerations and weren't scared at all when the boat healed over.  I was initially heading up into the wind too much when the gusts came through and had to learn that the boat could handle them fine with the water ballast helping keep us upright.

 

The other guy that went out with us in his small homemade boat (Matt?) was an excellent sailor and it was lot of fun watching him sail as he was hiked way out and going real fast.  I wish I had gotten some pictures of his boat, but I had my hands full.  It was a good learning experience as this was our first time sailing reefed.

 

 

[Action Tiger]

On 10/16/2018 at 3:25 AM, AmosSwogger said:

Thanks for the well-written excerpt; I see that you have also met the infamous Mr. Parks.  He told me he graduated high school in 1948.

 

I had no idea you were a writer; I'm going to have to look up your books.  Between you, Chick, and Action Tiger there sure is lot of creative writing talent on this forum!

 

Talent? You are confused. My crazy gibberish only reads like creativity. I ain’t funning! Haha. Actually, thanks for the kind words.

 

I been busy building a Christmas present.

 

Peace,

Robert

[Chick Ludwig]

Cool little boat. A cat boat, I see.

[Action Tiger]

2 hours ago, Chick Ludwig said:

Cool little boat. A cat boat, I see.

Hehehe. Boy, don’t you be right?! And, I know we’re cut from the same cloth, because I made the SAME joke. For the same reason.

It’s just a wee little time waster for small waters, as we have a ton of ponds around here we have access to. I mean, if you’re on a 5 acre pond, how fast you need to go? Haha. Just yonder, “anchor”, sleep for the night and wake up on the water...

 

Shoot, maybe even sail, if my Number One Boat Tester Knows his stuff. Which he does.

 

Peace,

Robert

 

P.S. Sorry, Amos. :)

[Chick Ludwig]

Years ago, in a "previous life", back in the 70s, I lived a mobile home on a couple of acres in Trenton, Florida. There was a a low spot next to my trailer. When it rained it would hold water for a couple of days. I would take a dinghy or canoe to the puddle and happily paddle or row around. I'd try to sail, but there wasn't enough depth for the dagger board. (I built dinks, canoes, and little fishing boats outa fiberglass, that I'd sell to boat dealers back then.) Never slept aboard, though.

[AmosSwogger]

Decided to install shelves in the forward end of the cabin.  Almost made straight sides; but at the last minute decided to curve the sides, and I'm glad I did as it didn't end up being that much more work.

 

 

 

 

Instead of sanding, I removed most the paint here by scraping with an old chisel (side benefit of less dust generation).  A little bit of sanding to remove the last bit of paint was necessary however.

 

 

Temporary props holding the shelves in place while the epoxy dries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As good as Graham and Alan are at designing boats, I think both of them skipped the "How to Integrate Cup Holders into Boat Designs" class when they went to school  , as there is an appalling lack of cup holders in B&B plans (knowing them, they probably skipped class that day to go sailing).

 

In order to remedy this design deficiency , I have taken the following steps: