Greatings from Doryman

The voyage ethereal continues apace...

 When this weblog was introduced, I didn’t really know where to take it. Then, I found the beautifully functional designs of Iain Oughtred! Web searches turned up little, so I decided to profile some of his work here. Those who have been around for a while may remember what blossomed into profiles of small boats of all kinds, with emphasis on home-builders and their creations. Today, the Internet is awash with gunkholing vessels of many types and documentation of their creation. The community I once envisioned has arrived and I am so happy to be part of it. After forty years as a wood boat builder and builder’s advocate in the workspace, I’ve passed on the baton.

 Make no mistake, I continue to sail and have a few projects languishing here and there, as health allows. For now, I have exciting news. From the days when I first learned to sail, my experience was with small wooden keel boats. Then came the Gougeon Brothers with their plywood and glue methods, revolutionizing home boatbuilding forever.

 While I’ve embraced new materials and methods, my heart still lies with hand-built vessels made of living trees. To be sure, although some are still being built, the planked wooden boats of yore are an anachronism today. I’ve lived and breathed this transition, so in some ways, I suppose that makes me anachronistic, too. So be it.

 Enter Etta May, a Friendship sloop built in 1960. Carvel planked cedar on oak frames, it doesn’t get much more traditional than that. She’s 27 feet LOD (on-deck) with a 6 foot extreme beam and 32 feet over-all She has a short spruce mast, supporting a gaff rigged mainsail, running backstays and all. I could be twenty years old again! Various sized jibs (hanked-on) and spinnakers complete the rig.

 

Auxilary power is a small diesel motor, but you know how Doryman feels about motors of all kinds.

Please note the mount for a sculling oar.

A realistic survey of this 63 year old shows her age. We may be on our last dance, who knows? All I can tell you is, I’m happy to be here.

 A new/old chapter in the Voyage Ethereal.

New Skipper.

The only gaff rig in the bunch.

Isn't she beautiful?

Ephemera

A Glimpse into the Voyage Ethereal...

Easter weekend was the date for the world famous Depot Bay Wooden Boat Show and Crab Feed. Apparently it wasn't the best time for boat worship. Though the event was sluggish, a good many stalwart attendees braved the hostile weather, none-the-less. Photos can be found on Duckworks (submitted by Richard Green), Andrew Linn's web journal, and the ever popular Mother of Maritime Links, John Kohnen.

I spent much of Saturday afternoon in conversation with the owner of Doineann, the second St.Ayles Skiff to be built on the west coast of the US. This is also the second of these skiffs to be built at the Wind and Oar Boat School in Portland, Oregon. Now that there are two, the races have begun. I have been reporting on and promoting the phenomenal St Ayles project for a few years now. It seems to me the challenge has not quite been met on our west coast. I've signed on as crew on Doineann, and would love to see more of these boats built around here. I pledge to further the cause.

Photo by John Kohnen

Back in the Doryman boatyard, work centers around the Stone Horse, Belle Starr. Last fall, Belle Starr took her shakedown cruise in the Salish Sea. Over the winter and spring months, upgrades indicated by that voyage have been addressed. New safety lines are the latest addition.
By the end of May, we will see her heading north in company with sailors from the Salish Sea Small Boat Society. The destination is Desolation Sound on the west coast of British Columbia. Be sure to stay tuned for that, it's sure to be exceptional.

Saturday last, I took a break from sanding and painting to attend the Twanoh State Park Oyster Feed, a one day messabout sponsored by the Puget Sound TSCA. Randy Jones was gracious enough to invite me aboard his Core Sound 17. I've admired this boat for years and was lucky to be sitting closest to the helm when Randy went forward to shake out a reef. Once Doryman gets his hands on the tiller, it's all over. Randy gave me a lesson in steering with the mizzen. We lashed the tiller amidships, trimmed the main in tight and tacked to windward using the mizzen sheet alone. Too much fun.

Not least, the weekend concluded with a new addition to the Doryman fleet, a flat iron skiff named Stewball. This simple fourteen-foot lapstrake is a museum piece. Built in the 1940's, it was used on Orcas Island, in Washington State's San Juan Islands as a livery vessel. A sailor or a fisherman could rent these boats to sail or row, by the day.
Stewball is rigged with a sprit mainsail.

The builder of Stewball took great care with old-growth cedar and Douglas fir to create an elegant work boat. The knees and hooks are made of carefully selected grown lumber so that the grain of the piece follows the angle of the structure. Pictured here is the breast hook, possibly crafted from a root.

Art in nature.
Restoration of the flat iron skiff will commence next Fall.


Yes, the name will remain the same.

Northern Reach

From Scotland to Iceland via Orkney, Shetland and Faeroe Islands.

I'd like to draw your attention to yet another traveler.



Chris Duff is one of those exceptional human beings who's will, spirit and ambition ride high on a cresting wave. He is famous for over 15,000 nautical miles of endurance kayaking, including a circumnavigation of Iceland, a solo circumnavigation of New Zealand and also Ireland. He also set the record for being the first person to circumnavigate Great Britain alone.

Last year this time he attempted the route of the Northern Reach but weather and high seas turned him back to Scotland. This year, with renewed spirit and training, Chris is once again part of the sea he loves:

"I am very capable but I am no match for the sea. Knowing this is essential. The sea is where I feel most at home, but it is a place that demands respect and a cautious approach. Every day from here on out will be very busy. It's all part of the adventure."

His boat is a modified Wayland Marine 19-foot Merry Wherry.
Hard to imagine, but Chris feels very confident of this boat in the open ocean.

I am in awe of this man and anxiously follow his journey on the website, Northern Reach.

Chris recently quoted  Erden Eruc:  "A man does what he can and destiny reveals itself."

How true.

I would include women in that equation. But a quote is a quote.

Kees Prins and Fetch

Kees Prins stopped by for a visit and took Doryman out for a sail on Fetch. You remember Kees. He built Sparrow, the Ed Davis surf dory on the header of this blog and also designed and built the Townsend Tern. He built the Small Craft Advisor Scamp. He's an old friend of Iain Oughtred. He's a world traveler from the Netherlands and a boatbuilder of some renown.






Kees is headed from his home in Port Townsend, Washington State across the United States and ultimately to Maine. He stopped by on his way to park his van and the exceptional 17 foot, gunter-rigged Fetch out back, in Doryman's boatyard. He seemed to feel right at home there.





While he was here, we launched Fetch in the Yaquina River one afternoon when the weather ranged from full sun to driving rain and eventually hail. Nice way to entertain a guest, don't you agree? Kees didn't seem to mind - in fact enjoyed himself.

You can follow Kees' cross-country adventure from the blog section of the on-line magazine, Small Craft Advisor.













Where will Kees Prins wet his keel next?







Right away, Kees wanted to go out the jaws to the raging Pacific Ocean, though there was a restriction on the bar for boats under twenty eight feet. And here is the video to prove it. The man's insane (and that's a good thing).



A great day on the water my friend. Thank you so very much!


Fetch is an Iain Oughtred Fulmar Dinghy built as an open boat by my good friend, Ralph Merriman. Kees added the cabin, decks and self draining cockpit.
This boat was featured in the September/October issue of the Small Craft Advisor
There is also a discussion of this boat on the WoodenBoat Forum.
The plans for the Fulmar Dinghy can be found here.

Length	Beam		Weight (kg)	Sail Area
16' 8" - 5.08m	5' 10" - 1.80m		175	160 sq ft

Twanoh State Park Oyster Messabout

Two days ago I joined the Puget Sound Chapter of the Traditional Small Craft Association at Twanoh State Park on the Hood Canal; a long, skinny finger of the southwestern Salish Sea.

The park derives its name from the word tewa´duxq.
Twana, Twanoh or tewa´duxq refers to the territory that encompasses the entire Hood Canal watershed. It is comprised of nine First People villages of which the Skokomish is the largest and where most descendants reside today. The Skokomish observe their hereditary and treaty rights throughout this territory.

Before becoming a state park, the land was logged in the 1890’s and a meandering trail through the forest reveals springboard notches carved in cedar trees from early logging practices. Further exploration of the campground and day use area highlights historic park buildings which were constructed in the 1930’s by the Civilian Conservation Corps.

The beach is seeded with oysters, which can be harvested by permit. There is an excellent launch ramp and the winds on Saturday were a perfect 15 knots.

Great park facilities, excellent food, incredible sailing conditions and wonderful company.



A perfect day.

I had the pleasure of crewing with Joel Bergen in his Navigator, Ellie. You may find it difficult to believe - I've never sailed in a John Welsford designed boat before. Needless to say, Ellie lived up to expectations and then some. Joel is a very congenial companion and allowed me the tiller and freedom to sail where I wished.



What more could a Doryman want?

Joel put together a quick video, which I've borrowed to share with you.
(Thank you, my friend!)







For his version of this story, please visit Joel's Navigator Site.


And finally, the slideshow:

A Day in the Life

Of DoryMan

Here in the Pacific Northwest one must make the best of every sunny moment.


Two years or more have passed since the dory cruiser Mistral was hauled out and painted. So, it's off to the boatyard for Doryman.










Just look at the barnacles on that rudder! Get a good mental picture of the rudder design because it is about to be scrapped.







With the radical angle of the transom on this boat a wide rudder such as this will lift nearly out of the water when the boat is heeled-over. As a result, the boat stalls when turning to windward and can go into irons during a tack.







To maintain the shoal draft of this hull, Doryman took his trusty power saw to the fin and redesigned it as a swing-up rudder, thus moving the power of the spade deeper. There is a ten pound plug of lead in there to hold it down and a wire lanyard attached to a block on the stern pulpit.










You remember the Teak Lady, Che Hon? This petite yacht is a diamond in the rough.






She was very dry from being stored in a shed for seven years so it's been a cork and caulk challenge.
Several weeks of soaking brought the teak planks back to shape and closed the seams enough for new cotton. Some Slick Seal compound and new bottom paint sealed her up pretty well. There's four coats of fresh spar varnish on her topsides.



We dropped her in the water lashed to the Travel Lift straps, just in case she tried to sink to the bottom. Two hours later she had less than a liter of water in her bilge.
As the tide rises and falls this weekend, she will soak four more times before we let her loose early Monday morning. Then she will float on her own to the dock for some finish-sanding on those decks and treatment with Deks Olje. We have about two hundred hours into this restoration so far and it is worth every minute to see a seventy-two year old boat looking so good.





There is no time to lose!

The seventh annual Toldeo Wooden Boat Show is next weekend.










All in all, a very good day.
Now - back to work DoryMan!...