Belle Starr

As was reported earlier, the Stone Horse, Belle Starr has proven to be an exceptional boat. And as documentation, I was recently gifted some photos taken by my good friend, John Kohnen of the Oregon Coots.

Here comes John with a boat-full of Coots now...

On Sunday, the last day of the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival, tradition finds the participants on the water for a "sail-by". This year was the first time I've joined the parade in my own boat.

Here she is, all dressed up in tanbark, overtaking the MerrieEllen.

For her first weekend out in several years, Belle Starr looked pretty good. At the helm is Kirk Gresham (AKA Captain Kirk) and his crew is Doryman, shooting photos left and right.

With John's permission, I offer you a sailor's view of the worthy cutter.

People often ask me why I find a strenuous, dangerous and difficult activity like sailing so rewarding. These photos tell it all.

Not looking too bad for an old horse.

After the morning fog lifted, it was another beautiful day on Admiralty Inlet.

Thank you John!







This week will be the last of the season for Belle Starr. The storms that have pummeled the west coast are abating, so hopefully the cutter will get a few more miles under her keel, before she is hauled out for the winter. Please stay tuned!

Celebrating Belle Starr, On the Water

At the end of a very productive week, we find the sloop-rigged cutter Belle Starr in the water for the first time in many years.

Belle Starr, as you know, is a Stone Horse, built in wood, as originally designed by Sam Crocker. This classic was designed in 1931. Less than forty were built before production was interrupted by WWII. Some of the original wood models are still sailing.
An additional 150 fiberglass Stone Horse models were built by Edey and Duff between 1969 and the early 1990s.

The defining feature of the Stone Horse 23 is her raised, flush foredeck and integral coamings. Twenty three feet on deck, the overall length of the Stone Horse is 28’-3” with a bowsprit and boomkin. The hull has a full keel with hard-chined sections and a transom-hung rudder.

After a year and a half in the shop, Belle Starr touched water this week at family-owned Zittle's Marina, outside Olympia, Washington. The launch was flawless, stepping the mast went smoothly and the boat sat pretty on her lines. It's fair to say, this deserves a celebration.

With an enormous amount of help from friends and the professionals at Zittle's, this project has reached a milestone. My very good friends, Doug Follet of Olympia, his brother Steve, from Vermont, and Doug's son, Ian, of Seattle, all chipped in to make two days of rigging and outfitting go smoothly. My heart-felt thanks to these generous men!



Launch Day for Belle Starr from doryman on Vimeo.

The four of us took the cutter out for a trial sail and wouldn't you know, a calm day of 3-4 knot breezes suddenly built to 15 knots. We turned around and headed back but there was enough time to see what could be done to finish the rigging.




test sail from doryman on Vimeo.

Belle Starr behaved like a thoroughbred. Look for updates, right here, in the days and weeks to come. She is bound for adventure...

Stone Horse, Belle Starr

The Stone Horse, Belle Starr has been moved from the empty shop where she spent the last three years in lonely seclusion.

A boat should not spent its life inside a shop.









It was a cold day, typical of midwinter in the Pacific Northwest. The air appears thick enough to cut with a knife!





This was a herculean task, but with a talented crew all went smoothly. Her new digs aren't very deluxe, as storage goes, but she will not be there long. The plan is to have her ready for the upcoming summer season. All of the wood protuberances have weathered and checked so badly they need to be replaced. The list includes the bowsprit and boomkin, plus tiller and rudder cheeks.





The cockpit is surfaced in teak, which needs to be recaulked and refinished and there is a small area of rot in the main bulkhead. Of two hatches, one is in very good shape and the other, not so much. The sails need to be restitched and some of the sail hardware replaced. All in all, there is not a lot to do. Maybe a month of full time work.






The challenge will be the distance traveled to get the work done. I find myself in a compromised situation. Being an advocate of reduced carbon emissions, each year the internal combustion engine looses more cachet in my book. I would like to see humans abandon this poisonous contraption all together. So, the three hundred fifty miles between me and Belle Starr will require some creative transportation involving buses, trains and possibly a bicycle.





The notorious Belle Starr was a professional outlaw who's life was defined by the civil war in the US. She fraternized and married within the indigenous population of the rural South, which earned her a tarnished reputation. I suspect she was an exceptional person in her day and possibly any other day as well, but history is hard on self-determinate women.



Then, as now, marginalized individuals are forced to do what they can to survive and might end up in prison, while the real criminals run the country and become rich.



This Sam Crocker classic was designed in 1931. Less than forty were built before production was interrupted by WWII. Some of the original wood models are still sailing.
An additional 150 fiberglass Stone Horse models were built by Edey and Duff between 1969 and the early 1990s.

The defining feature of the Stone Horse 23 is her raised, flush foredeck and integral coamings. Twenty three feet on deck, the overall length of the Stone Horse is 28’-3” with a bowsprit and boomkin. The hull has a full keel with traditional wine glass sections (or in this case, hard-chined sections) and a transom-hung rudder.

Often referred to as a cutter, the Stone Horse is more accurately a cutter-rigged sloop, as the mast is stepped well forward of maximum beam and the mainsail makes up more than 50% of total sail area. The masthead rig employs twin headsails and sail area is 339 square feet.
The displacement/length ratio is 325 and sail area/displacement ratio a respectable 19.2. Ballast is 44% of the overall displacement. The design displacement for Belle Starr is 4500#.

Reportedly, since the beam waterline is broad, she stands up well in a blow. While it takes a good breeze to get her started, she tacks easily and balances well without the tendency toward excessive weather helm occasionally found on boats with proportionately large mainsails.

SPECIFICATIONS:
LOA: 23 feet, 4 inches
LWL: 18 feet, 4 inches
BEAM: 7 feet, 1 inch
DRAFT: 3 feet, 4 inches
WEIGHT: 4,490 pounds
SAIL AREA: 339 square feet
HULL: full keel, keel-hung rudder
AUXILIARY POWER: outboard in a well

DESIGNER: Samuel Crocker
BUILDER: Scott Hauser; Hauser Boatworks, Olympia, WA.
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Stone Horse

This is turning out to be a pivotal year for Doryman. Of course something is always going on around here and no one really knows what might happen.

You hear all the time about activities on the central Oregon coast and even the occasional foray to the Salish Sea. But what might happen if a link between the two were to open, like a portal to a new world?






A connection with some old friends dating back to the dark ages when Doryman was young, has turned up a jewel. What can the more savvy among us tell me about this vessel?.............





12/17/2011 Update: (Thank you for waiting patient reader, here is the story)...

It is a Stone Horse, designed by Sam Crocker and built in plywood.

My friend Scott Hauser is a boat builder who moved to Olympia, WA in 1982 from Eugene, OR as an employee of Sam Devlin, who moved his business to Olympia permanently at that time and is still there.
Scott is the builder of this boat and brought it to Olympia with him (under construction) almost thirty years ago.
He and I became acquainted through a loose knit group of sailor/builders who organized the first of the (still) longstanding Olympia Wooden Boat Festival.

Back then, several wood boat owners would gather from time to time in some private cove or on a beach to swap stories and Scott's boat was this same Stone Horse. I had an old Alaskan Bristol Bay gillnetter I'd restored and there were lots of great old boats that don't exist anymore.

Scott started his own eclectic boat building business (Hauser Boat Works) and ended up building quite few liveaboard boats and boathouses over the years. He had a strong influence on the design of my Mistral dory in 1990.

Scott redrew Sam Crocker's plans for the Stone Horse to be built in plywood and this is the result. When I found out Scott was selling his boat, I had to call. The timing was right - my interest in the Stone Horse has been recently highlighted, as you all know.

So, the connection to the Salish Sea will be this boat. The SV Belle Starr will be refurbished and moored somewhere on the southern Puget Sound, ready and waiting for the next Doryman adventure. She is a worthy and sound vessel.

A trip to Alaska is a possibility.
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