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Building a Fiddlehead: Part 10

Posted in Boat Building, Boating, Uncategorized, tagged , , on October 22, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Until now, the hood ends of the planks at the stems have only been roughly trimmed, mainly to get them out of each other’s way when the planking was going on. They need to be dressed down to a smooth curve and square across the end of the boat. This latter part is tricky, as it’s very easy to trim them at an angle and take off too much on one side. The block plane, the spokeshave and even a belt sander all have their place in this step, though it’s very easy to overdo it with the latter tool. It’s best to work slowly and take only a stroke or two before checking with the template again.

One way to test the accuracy of the curve you’re shaping, and especially whether it’s square across the boat, is to use the inside of the outer stem, which has been cut from cherry stock using the inner stem pattern from the plans as a template. At this point, the outer stem is still rough stock, though the inside edge has been faired.

Once the curve was dressed down to a fair shape that also fits the inboard face of the outer stem, I made a template for next time which was checked against both the inboard face of the inner stem and the outboard face of the planks on the boat.

After the fastening holes are marked on the outer stem and carefully checked to see that they won’t conflict with any of the hood end fastenings already on the boat (something which becomes increasingly complicated as the building process goes on and you add more fasteners) they are drilled and countersunk on the drill press to make sure they’re square. While holding the stem on the boat, I also made marks to remind myself at the drill press what angle the holes should be drilled at.

Often, the planking will be a little thicker in way of the gains, so now is a good time to check the width and dress it down if necessary.

The width at the forefoot has been picked up with an adjustable caliper, and when that is brought down to the sheer, it’s apparent that some wood has to come off this pair of laps. When you dress this down, you’ll also find out if you’ve countersunk the hood end screws far enough(!).

The outer stems are fastened on, but only with the topmost and bottom screws, as they will be removed and put back a few more times as everything is fitted together.

With the boat right side up, the shaping of the stem can begin. Here I’m marking the intersection of the top of the deck cap and the back of the stem curve as a reminder for when the stem top is being shaped.

The final width of the outer face of the stem is marked to shape the tapered cutwater. As you can see from the edge of the line I’m drawing, it’s just slightly wider than the countersink holes, which will be filled with glued plugs a little later. This is why it’s important to get those screw holes in a straight line.

The stemhead was roughly cut on the bandsaw. Now we need a nice radius for the top, and the handle of a foamie looks to be just the right radius to continue the curve I’ve already cut.

The radius marked for final dressing, along with a line that continues the sheer.

The final shape of the stemhead has been made on a belt/disk sander. This is a powerful tool with which it’s easy to take off too much wood. In this case, you can see that I’ve not completely followed my own line, and so the bottom of the convex part droops down instead of following the sheer—oh well, that’s the kind of detail that gets better with practice.

The next step is to fair the covering boards to the sheer planks. I’ve made three flat sanding blocks by tacking cut-up sanding belts onto pieces of oak. This is one area where you must back up the sandpaper with a hard block, as you’re aiming to fair everything together with a smooth curve based on the plan view of the sheer plank.

Because the cherry is harder that the cedar, I’m pressing a little harder on the upper edge of the block and using long, sweeping, overlapping strokes as I move down the boat. You could use a plane, but caution is required as the ringnails that fasten the sheer plank to the sheer clamp are not far below the edge of the sheer, and they’ll take a big nick out of your nice sharp plane blade if you hit one.

As always, it’s important to periodically stop and sight along the work to make sure it’s fair. In this case, running your hand along it can often tell you as much by feel as by eye.

With the sheerline faired, we have a nice even surface on which to mount the outwales, as I would call them, or the “guards,” as the designer prefers. When I made the cutwater on the outside stem, I left a square portion just below the sheerline. This provided a place to drill a hole for the painter, and it will also let me land the ends of the outwales and make a nice clean finish that ties the outer stem and planking together. The first step is to get a small bevel gauge.

This is fitted right into the intersection of the outer stem and sheer plank to pick up the angle.

That bevel is then transferred to the end of the outwale stock.

Here’s where the outwale will be fitted, and you can see what a nice job it will do of marrying everything together (and covering over the gap where I inadvertently trimmed the upper edge of the sheer plank a little too much—that’s what trim does!)

I’ve made a little mockup piece of outwale to test the angle on the end. It’s a nice touch to put a little upward taper in the end of a piece like this to lighten it up visually. In this case, that’s also a good idea because when I was drilling the painter hole I wasn’t really thinking of the outwale, and so if I don’t taper the end upward, it will awkwardly clip the top of the hole.

Until next time. . .

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Building a Fiddlehead: Part 9

Posted in Boat Building, Boating, Boats, Canoes, Uncategorized, tagged , , on October 22, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The rough-cut covering board is clamped in place to check for fit, and the inside edge of the carlin is traced on the bottom.

Back on the bench, the inside edge is planed to the traced line. By skewing the block plane, it can cut the inside curve, even though the sole is longer than the radius of the curve.

On the boat, the centreline ends of the covering boards are carefully trimmed to make a tight joint.

The covering boards dry-fitted. The outer edges are still rough, and won’t be completely trimmed until they’re fastened for good.

With the forward ends fitted and clamped, the midships butt joint is carefully marked and trimmed square.

The first pair of covering boards fitted and fastened.

With the covering boards fastened, the coaming support knees can be fastened in place.

Just for fun, we brought the museum’s c. 1905 Rushton double-paddle out for comparison with the Fiddlehead. With the exception of a little bit of epoxy and the fact that the Rushton boat is round-bottomed and has steam-bent ribs, there’s not much difference at all between the two.

When the second pair of covering boards is fitted, the midships butt joint is finished before the final trimming takes place elsewhere to ensure a tight fit.

The final covering board clamped in place for trimming.

I usually centrepunch fastening holes with an awl to ensure that the bit doesn’t skate sideways when the hole is being started.

With the covering boards fastened, the tops of the coaming support knees can be dressed down flush—because of the angle at which they meet the carlins coming down from the bulkhead, there will be a little bit to take off.

The final step before the second layer of decking is to add three trim strips to bring the top of the bulkhead and carlin up flush with the surface of the covering boards. These have been taped in place for now and will be glued later.

All of the main decking and framing dry-fitted, ready for the next level.

You may have noticed in earlier post that when we were making patterns for the covering board and decking that the decking stopped short of the bow. After thinking about it some more, we decided to go with a more Peterborough-style deck. So, I made a new pattern for the deck so that it and the covering boards converged at the stem. The final step will be to cover the long centre deck seam that runs from the forward end of the coaming to the stem with a long narrow deck cap. There are several advantages to this style, not the least of which is that the long seam between the deck halves doesn’t have to be tight. If you put your hand under the deck of an old Peterborough canoe, chances are you will feel a gap between the two halves of the deck planking.

The two halves of the deck meet at a slight angle owing to the crown of the deck. In order for the deck cap to lie flush, this crown must be taken off the centerline with a plane and sandpaper.

The deck cap is just a long, straight-grained cap which tapers from just under 2” wide at its inboard end to just a bit wider than the inboard face of the outer stem at the outboard end—the final trimming will be done once the outer stem is in place.

One end of the deck dry-fitted, showing how the three levels work together.

An inboard view.

Ready for the coamings.

The pleasing shape of the deck and cockpit are beginning to emerge.

Until next time. . .

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Building a Fiddlehead: Part 8

Posted in Boat Building, Boats, Canoes, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on September 11, 2011| 1 Comment »

The canoe in the Canadian Canoe Museum’s Living Traditions Workshop, where I’ll finish it off in time for the raffle drawing on October 15th.

Beginning to install the deck framing. We didn’t have any nice spruce around, but did have some white oak, so we wentwith that. The centre carlin butts up against the aft face of the stem at each end.

I made a little stop for the carlin to sit on to simplify fastening it to the stem.

The centre carlin in place at the stem.

The side carlins, which support the and the side decks and the cockpit coaming, die into the centre carlin just aft of the bow. This means a beveled end, which I’ve scribed off the boat and cut on the bench.

One of the side carlins in place, notched through the watertight bulkhead.

The carlins are screwed down into the bulkheads.

They are also fastened into the deck supports of the midships frame. Because the screw is going in cross-grain, it’s a good idea to clamp the deck support before drilling, and make sure that the drill is going in dead straight.

The side and centre carlins fitted and fastened.

The covering boards, or side decks, butt together near the middle of the canoe, so we’ve made a little oak butt block to go underneath that joint and fastened it in place through the carlin.

The butt block is also fastened in through the sheer plank.

With all of the deck framing in place, we can clamp on some deck stock and begin to take off the shape. The museum has lots of cherry left over from paddle-carving classes, so we’ll give this Fiddlehead an upgrade to cherry decks, coamings and rub rails. Because we’ll be building this boat again, I’m using some leftover cedar planking to make patterns first before I cut the cherry.

The edges of the carlins are traced on to the bottom of the pattern stock and it is bandsawed to approximate shape, as always leaving the line.

Once it is cut out, the pattern is placed back on the boat and trimmed to final shape. I also took the precaution of trying it on the other three quarters of the canoe as well to make sure there wasn’t too much variation in the finished size.

The carlins make good guides for trimming the inside edge of the pattern to final shape.

The covering board pattern trimmed to final size and taped in place.

On this canoe, the deck laps over the covering board, so another piece of pattern stock is put in place to trace off the shape of the deck.

I wanted to get the fit between the deck pattern and the coaming just right, so I mocked up the bent coaming from a scrap piece of planking.

The patterns for the covering board and the centre deck in place.

Since this boat is the same at each end [and, depending how well it’s built, the same on each side!], one pattern for each piece of deck should suffice. It’s wise to leave a generous margin when first cutting them out, though.

With the patterns in hand, it’s much easier to make efficient use of your stock and make sure you avoid knots and other irregularities. Here I’m tracing the first pattern on the cherry stock, which has already been planed to its finished thickness of 3/16”.

Until next time. . .

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Building a Fiddlehead: Part 7

Posted in Boat Building, Boating, Boats, Uncategorized, tagged , , on September 3, 2011| 1 Comment »

The middle plank is beveled and ready for the sheer plank.

The sheer plank dry-fitted in place.

It’s important to keep sighting the lower edge of the plank to make sure the curve is sweet and fair, as these are highly visible on the finished boat.

The sheer strake fitted and clench-nailed.

The sheer plank is epoxied to the oak sheer strake, and it is also fastened with bronze ringnails. First, a 1/16” pilot hole is drilled for each nail.

Then they are nailed in, backed up with the clenching dolly.

All planked, taking a moment to admire the finished job. The little “porcupine” quills sticking out of the planking near the bottom are small dowels being glued in the holes where the drywall screws held the garboard on during the clench nailing.

The sheer plank is planed down to the level of the oak sheer clamps.

Out the window, onto the truck and down to the Canadian Canoe Museum for finishing.

Until next time. . .

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Building a Fiddlehead: Part 6

Posted in Boat Building, Boats, Canoes, Uncategorized, tagged , , on August 30, 2011| Leave a Comment »

One of the most useful tools for beveling the laps  is a bullnose rabbet plane, here a Stanley #90. Unlike a regular plane, the iron of the bullnose rabbet plane goes right out the edge of the sole, so you can keep it right on the pencil line. Its sole also just happens to be close to the same with as the lap bevel on this boat.

At each bulkhead/frame, wood is removed until the straightedge lies flat with its upper edge touching the penciled lap line. You need to be careful not to take off too much, which you can see I’m just on the verge of doing here. The thickness of the bottom edge will depend on the shape of the boat’s hull. Here, the bottom becomes a feather edge. If you do that at each known point, it’s then a relatively simple matter to connect these bevels with a smooth transition. Unless you’re making a boat with flush-lap or guideboat-lap planking, all of the beveling takes place on the lower plank.

We’re back to spiling now. The middle planks will go on in one piece, so the spiling batten goes full length.

The second plank is clamped in place to check for fit. If you’ve done a good job ofspiling, it will just touch the lap line and the marks on each frame/bulkhead showing the lower edge. The next round of fastenings will go in the upper edge of this plank, through the 5/8” lap of the plank below it, and be clenched on the inside of the boat.

In order to do the clench-nailing, we need to clamp the plank in place, but the edge we need to clamp is about 5 ½” away from the lower edge, and most clamps don’t have a deep enough throat to reach. We need lap clamps. These may be for sale somewhere, but everyone I know makes their own. I took a couple of hours one afternoon and made up half a dozen from some scrap cherry left over from the paddle project. They’re hinged at the butt end, sometimes with leather but here with little metal hinges, and the middle is just a carriage bolt with a wing nut. These are a medium size with a 6” throat, but you can alter the pattern to make whatever size you need.

Here are some lap clamps in place on the upper edge of the plank. As well as holding the planks together for clench-nailing, they also let you make a final check of how well your laps are beveled.

A lap clamp in action from underneath the boat.

Before fastening the middle plank, we need to mark out the fastening line.

It’s easiest to do this on the bench, using the same gauge we made to mark the plank laps. The laps are 5/8” wide, and we want the fastenings more or less in the middle, so here we’re marking a line 5/16” in along the upper edge of the plank.

The middle plank is fastened. This time, there are screws in the hood ends at the stem, but all of the other fastenings are clench nails, once again driven from the outside and clenched inside.

2 planks on, one more to go.

Until next time. . .

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Building a Fiddlehead: Part 5

Posted in Boat Building, Boats, Uncategorized, tagged , , on August 29, 2011| Leave a Comment »

At the end of the last post, you’ll remember that had just fitted and fastened one garboard? Well, when we went to trim the rough end of the planking the next day, a split developed near the stem where the plank twists the most. There was already a little split at the scarph, and we started to think that perhaps that plank should come off. As we were looking at it to make the decision, the plank decided for itself, splitting even further. So, off it came, which meant pulling the fastenings, pulling the plank, cleaning off the sealant and plugging the fastening holes with dowels. The twist in the garboard planks from midships to the end meant that there was too much tension in the plank (rule number one: there should always be more tension on the boatbuilder than on the plank!). So, for the next round, we soaked the stem end in boiling water.

The plank was then clamped to the form and allowed to dry. When it was removed, it sprang back a little ways ( probably more than it would have if we had steamed it properly) but retained enough shape that there wasn’t a lot of tension exerted in the final fitting and and the fastenings were holding it in place instead of pulling it into place.

So, once more we fastened the garboard on. This time, we followed the suggestion of the designer and added a couple of drywall screws with washers under their heads from the garboard into the bottom just to hold the plank in close while it was fastened, because it’s not possible to get a clamp in that joint.

With the plank held in place, the fastening holes are marked and drilled with a 1/16” pilot hole.

One at a time, the copper tacks are driven from the outside and clenched inside on the bottom.

The tools of clench-nailing, left to right. A backing dolly. This can be any heavy piece of metal, but I like these panel-beater’s dollies used by auto body shops. They’re nicely curved to fit inside the hull, have a good handle and cost a lot less than the fancy canoe-builder’s clenching irons. Then, a box of 5/8” sharp-pointed cut copper tacks and finally a hammer. A nice small hammer, not a big beastly 16 oz. framing hammer. Clenching requires a series of light, fast strokes to gradually turn and set the nail on the inside of the boat. Oh, and coffee. Can’t build boats without coffee.

While tapping from the outside, the inside hand holds the dolly tight to the point of the nail, gradually turning it into the wood down (towards the bottom of the boat) and across the grain for best holding power.

The 10:1 scarph has been cut in the plank on the bench before it gets fastened in the boat.

The other half of the garboard is overlapped, and the start and finish of the scarph joint are transferred to it. You can also see where the fastenings have been marked out.

The finished scarph. The fastenings are driven from the outside in at the thin end, and the inside out at the thick end. We really should have turned the points of the clench nails more down and across the grain for best holding power. The bottom of the scarph will be faired up before the next plank is fitted.

The other end of the garboard fastened in place, showing the #6 x ¾” screws in the garboard and the #8 x ¾” in the stem.

After fastening, the ends are roughly trimmed to make room for the plank on the other side.

After sawing close to the line, the rough trimming is finished with a spokeshave.

Fitting the second garboard. Where it’s difficult to put a clamp, you can use a “hutchet,” a piece of scrap stock that holds the plank in place.

The second garboard fitted and waiting to be trimmed.

Using the lower edge of the plank as a guide, the laps are marked out. Here, they are 5/8″ wide.

Before beveling the laps, I took a few minutes to trim the edges of the fitted and fastened garboards flush with the bottom.

In order to make the plank edges lie against each other on the lap, the upper edge of the lower plank (once the boat is right side up, that is) needs to be  beveled. There are five places on each side of the boat where you can find out what the bevel should be: at each end, where it tapers to a feather edge; at the two watertight bulkheads and at the midships frame.

Placing a straight edge on the mark showing the edge of the next plank will tell you how much needs to be taken off. What you’re aiming for is to have the straight edge touch the pencil line showing the upper limit of the lap, so as you can see, there’s quite a corner there now to be removed.

Until next time. . .

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Building a Fiddlehead: Part 4

Posted in Boat Building, Boats, Canoes, Uncategorized, tagged , , on August 18, 2011| 1 Comment »

At the end of the last post, we were ready to start planking. This is the part where lapstrake canoe construction gets really interesting.

“Spiling” is the process of deriving the shape of a plank from the boat itself. It’s one of those things that you can read about over and over again and not be sure how it works, but as soon as you see it in practice it all becomes clear (sort of like lofting). Fiddlehead‘s designer Harry Bryan has helpfully provided dimensions for plank patterns on the plans, but using those presupposes that we’ve built a framework that’s exactly the same as his. Spiling is a good thing to learn and practice, so we’ve decided to spile for the planks instead. To do this, we need some key pieces of information. When we made the stems, we picked up the heights of the top edges of the three planks on each side of the hull from the plans and marked them on the stems. We also know where the plank edges cross the frame and bulkheads because this boat has those flat faces pre-dressed so there’s a definite point where one plank begins and another ends, and they’re also shown on the plans (on a round-bottomed hull with steam-bent frames,  you would need to “line out” the hull for the planking, but that’s another project).

To pick up the shape of a plank, a 2 1/2″ wide masonite spiling batten is stapled to the bulkheads and frame between the bottom edge of the plank and the marks showing the top edge of the “garboard,” or first plank. The shape of the spiling batten is NOT the shape of the finished plank, but rather a tool to help you derive the shape of the plank.

Using a compass set to a consistent width (here 3”), the point is placed on the edge of the bottom and the pencil end traces an arc on the spiling batten. There will be quite a number of points on the upper edge of the batten (which will define the lower edge of the plank—are you still with me?) but only three points on the bottom edge of the batten at the frame, bulkhead and stem.

The batten is temporarily stapled on to a piece of plank stock large enough to accommodate the full shape of the plank once the measurements have been expanded back from the spiling batten.

Now the marking process is reversed to re-locate the edges of the space the plank will have to fill on the boat. Each arc traced from the boat on to the batten left a partial circle. The compass point is placed where one side of that circle crosses the edge of the batten and an arc is swung on the stock. When the compass point is placed on the other side of the circle where it crosses the batten edge and another arc is swung, their intersection marks the edge of the plank—ain’t geometry wonderful?

If you look closely you should just be able to see the penciled arcs on the batten, along with a notation as to the width of the compass.

A finishing nail is driven in at each intersection, and a batten is sprung.

Here you can see the spiling batten and the shape of the right-hand edge of the plank, which is (hopefully!) the shape of the space on the boat that the finished plank will occupy.

Here the other edge of the plank has been de-spiled (yes, that’s a word, a least in the boat shop) and a second batten sprung to show the other edge of the plank.

Once everything looks fair, the battens are held down and traced to show the final shape of the plank.

The rough-cut plank is clamped in place to test for fit.

Quick-clamps with large, rubber heads are perfect for working with the soft cedar planking. They can also be opened and closed with one hand, which is a great help to the solo boatbuilder.

A bow view shows the significant twist in a garboard plank, which must make a transition from nearly horizontal in the middle of the boat to nearly vertical at the stem. The white cedar planking is limber enough to make this twist without steaming, but only just, and needs to be handled carefully at the stem.

With the plank clamped temporarily in place you can check to see how good a job you did with the rolling bevel and tune it up where necessary.

The excess planking is trimmed off about 1” beyond the stem.

These garboard planks will be scarphed together near the middle of the boat. Measuring back 2 ½” from the end of the plank will give a 10:1 scarph joint, which can be cut with a good sharp chisel.

The scarph can also be cut with a low-angle block plane. This is the kind of work which will quickly let you know whether your tools are sharp enough or not.

This boat is truly double ended, so the first plank can be traced and cut out to make the second, and then if you do it twice more you’ll have the planks cut for the other side, too.

As always, bandsaw a little outside the line (“leave the line!” the old craftsmen say) and then dress right down to it with a sharp block plane.

There are many nice features of a low-angle block plane, one of them being that it’s light enough to hold in one hand, so you can either push it away from you or pull it towards you, depending on which way the grain wants you to go.

Here’s the scarph joint being fitted on the boat. Traditionally the scarph faces aft on the boat, but since you don’t decide which end of the Fiddlehead is the bow until you put the backrest in, we’ll just make them all face the same way.

The first pair of planks dry-fitted and ready for fastening.

Garboards are the trickiest planks to fit, so a couple of friends dropped by to help. Beth Stanley and Jeremy Ward both work at the Canoe Museum.

Between the stem and the bulkhead, the garboards are fastened to the bottom with #6 x ¾” screws. The holes are drilled and countersunk first, and the screw heads will finish just below the surface so the holes can be puttied later. Beyond the bulkhead, the garboard is clench-nailed to the bottom. At the scarph joint, half of the tacks go from the outside in, and the other half go from the inside out, which means you get to hammer blind, but it’s not as hard as it sounds. 5 more planks to go!

Until next time. . .

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Carving a New (Old) Paddle

Posted in Canoe Paddles, Canoes, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I’ve always been intrigued by old things–I guess that’s what led me to the museum business where I make my living. What is it about old things that interests me? It’s partly the challenge of understanding them, of coming to learn why that object looks the way it does, and how it w0rks, and what we can learn from the object about the knowledge embodied in it.

When you consider an object from a time when more things were built (made one at a time, or in small batches, often by their users) than manufactured (made in great quantities by someone other than the user), there’s often a great deal of character embodied in them. You can understand some of that character by using one of these objects, but you can learn even more by making it and then using it. This is what has led me to build some old/new boats, to rehabilitate some old boats, and lately to carve what I’ll call a new (old) canoe paddle.

I’m not 100% sure what to call this paddle–“replica” sounds too exacting, claiming a precision that I don’t have. “Reproduction” sounds banal, as in “only a reproduction.” It is just a canoe paddle, but it’s also more than a canoe paddle in that it’s the product of a deliberate reaching back to an earlier era in a search for a design and a style. I rather like the phrase “spirit of tradition” which some of the classic yacht people coined to describe, say, a new build of a Herreshoff schooner that wasn’t a complete copy in terms of materials and techniques but was nonetheless built to the original design and embodied some of its character.

Sometimes these spirit of tradition projects of mine are prompted by the experience of using something old. In the case of the St. Lawrence Skiff I built a number of years ago, I had a chance to row an original one and decided right then and there that I had to build one for myself. I’m rowing the original on the left, and the owner of the original is rowing my new skiff on the right.

In other cases, just seeing an original item makes me want to build one. Earlier this year, staff of the Canadian Canoe Museum were looking through the workshop of Walter Walker. Walker, who passed away in 2009, was a near-legendary canoe builder in the Peterborough/Lakefield area who, over the course of a long career, had worked for just about every canoe company in town, and also for quite a while on his own. As well as building canoes, Walker carved paddles, and he had a favourite shape that featured small shoulders at the top of the blade and the bottom of the grip. In Walker’s workshop there was a late 19th century pattern from the Lakefield Canoe Company that his stepson says was the basis for his own favourite paddles:

Here’s a closeup of the grip on the pattern:

And the top of the blade:

Walker’s workshop also yielded another interesting piece in the form of an old, weathered paddle with a big split in its blade. Though well past its prime, this was a quality piece of work. Carved from birdseye maple, it too had shoulders at the top of the blade and the grip, but was altogether more delicate in its scantlings. The shaft was distinctly oval, especially at the top of the blade where your lower hand would grip it. The story goes that this paddle, dating from the end of the 19th century, had been given to Walker by someone in Burleigh Falls, north of Peterborough. He appears to have made some of this shape for himself, for there were masonite patterns in his workshop. This one really caught my attention, so I traced off a pattern, took it home and found a suitable piece of cherry.

Several months and a car accident later, I’ve carved one for myself. The only changes I made were to add a few inches to the shaft, but leaving the blade length unchanged, to make it the right length for me to to draw out and square up some details on the original that seemed to have been worn down over the years. Although I took a 2-D pattern tracing, I didn’t make any other measurements or templates to use when I carved it. I wanted to see how close I could come to the shape of the original working just from the pattern and  my initial impression of it.

It was an interesting piece to carve. Several times I felt like I’d gone too far, and taken off too much, especially where the shaft meets the bottom of the grip, but when I compared the old and the new I felt like I’d gotten it just about right (except that looking at this photo now, I can see that the “horns” at the bottom of the grip are a little asymmetrical–funny that I never noticed that until now).

And what is it like to use? A real treat. It’s light, subtle and just a little whippy in the water, perfect for an evening solo paddle. As pleasant as it is in and of itself, though, for me the enjoyment is greatly increased by its being a new (old) thing. I just might have to make another one.

PS: Until April 2012, you can get a first-hand look at Walter Walker’s canoes, tools and workshop, and learn more about his long career as a canoe builder, in the CCM’s exhibit “Walter Walker: A Life in Canoes.”

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A Brief History of the Sailing Canoe: Part 2

Posted in Boating, Sailing Canoes, Uncategorized, tagged , , on April 18, 2011| 2 Comments »

We were talking in the last post about canoe clubs. Here are some more of the members of the Toronto Canoe Club out on a cruise in the late 1880s. Canoeing offered sportsmen a whole separate world of rituals, activities and annual meets and cruises. Of course, one had to be properly equipped and attired for such activities. It wasn’t long before specialized canoeing gear began to be offered for sale:

One of the centres of sailing canoe activity was in the 1000 Islands region of the St. Lawrence River. This beautiful area, with Ontario on the north bank of the river and New York state on the south, was home to a thriving recreational economy. Frequent trains brought vacationers north to any number of palatial hotels on the mainland and some of the islands. Fishing guides waited to take city “sports” out in the region’s eponymous St. Lawrence skiff and cook them a shore dinner afterwards. Most summers, members of the American Canoe Association gathered at Sugar Island, on the Canadian side of the river, for two weeks of racing, cruising, sailing, paddling and fellowship.

That’s a St. Lawrence Skiff in the right foreground, lurking as a light-air canoe race drifts by in the twilight. What were canoeists sailing at these meets? The first generation of boats were multi-purpose cruising canoes, able to be paddled (generally with a double paddle) or sailed. Derived from MacGregor’s original Rob Roy, they were generally round-bilged and often lapstrake planked. If smooth skinned, their hulls were generally of batten-seam carvel construction. Mostly decked over, they had cockpits and deck hatches to allow access to storage compartments.

The rig was usually divided into two sails, a main and a “jigger” or “dandy” at the stern, to keep the centre of effort low and allow for trimming and balance. The masts were usually unstayed, and seldom sported jibs. As above, the sail plan was usually either a lateen or some variant of the lug. Sometimes the plans were mixed, and one boat would carry both a lug main and a lateen mizzen. Lugs, either standing (as above) or balanced, offered a powerful, low aspect ratio sail that didn’t require a long mast and was divided into easily-reefable sections with full-length battens. This latter was important as canoe sailors couldn’t exactly get up out of the cockpit and walk forward to take in a reef.

Canoeists debated endlessly about the merits of particular hulls and rigs. Significant early canoes lent their names to design types, and the sporting press of the day was filled with disquisitions about the relative merits of the Shadow, the Pearl, the Nautilus and the Ringleader. North American canoeists discussed types within their own clubs and within their own national organizations but also with British enthusiasts across the Atlantic. Out of these discussions arose an international sporting rivalry that is still contested to this day for a trophy first awarded in the 19th century: The International Challenge Cup.

At the centre of this international rivalry was a famous canoeist and his even better-known canoe: Warington Baden Powell and his Nautilus.

To be continued. . .

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A Brief History of the Sailing Canoe: Part 1

Posted in Sailing Canoes, Uncategorized, tagged , on February 27, 2011| 1 Comment »

What my IC experience led to, other than a realization that I’d finally found a boat that you could learn something from everytime you took it out, was an interest in the whole topic of canoe sailing. Watching over my interest, I think, has been Leo Friede, as close to a patron saint as the sailing canoe has, at least from its early days. That’s Leo above, aboard one of his Mermaid 16-30 canoes, doing what he did best. Most of his competitors only saw the stern of his canoe.

So off we go on a capsule history of the sailing canoe, focusing mostly on sliding seat boats.

It’s all John MacGregor’s fault, really. He was a hinge, a pivot point around which the history of recreational boating turned. His late 1850s travels in North America, during which he ventured far enough north to see skin boats being propelled with double paddles, stayed with him when he returned to Europe. He commissioned a lapstrake oak version of the native craft he had seen. A hybrid of skin boat and lapstrake construction, the first of many Rob Roys was not a kayak, for she was not intended to be rolled, but was, rather, a new form: the double-paddle canoe.

MacGregor was an ardent canoeist who travelled far and wide in his Rob Roy canoes at a time when the notion of travelling for pleasure in small boats was, to say the least, not widely shared. This in and of itself makes him a pioneer, but what was of greater significance for recreational canoeing was that he was also a tireless self-promoter and astute publicist. He wrote a series of immensely-popular books about his travels, and lectured widely throughout Europe about his picaresque adventures.

In 1866 he founded the Royal Canoe Club, and his travelling and writing were the inspiration for literally hundreds of other canoe clubs in North America and Europe. The Rob Roy became an icon, and the Rob Roy type one of the dominant strains in recreational canoeing well into the 1890s. Canoeing took hold among sportsmen on both sides of the Atlantic and became the first of the great recreational crazes, leading to the founding of the American Canoe Association in 1880.

From the earliest days of recreational canoeing, canoeists congregated in clubs. It has often been observed, somewhat misleadingly, that these late 19th century sailing canoes were “the poor man’s yacht.” They weren’t, really, for in relative terms they were expensive small boats, and the leading canoeists of the day tended to be well-established professional men and their wives. What they were really was “the poor [yachts]man’s yacht.” Canoe clubs had all the trappings of yacht clubs, from the elegant waterfront clubhouses which hosted dinners and dances, to the dues and social obligations attendant on belonging, to officers such as Commodore and Vice-Commodore, to a racing schedule organized by classes with handicaps.

Here’s the Gananoque Canoe Club’s headquarters on the Canadian side of the St. Lawrence River in the 1000 Islands. The building still stands today, though it’s now a theatre.

Here are some members of the Toronto Canoe Club in the mid-1880s (the club is still in existance, now called the Toronto Sailing and Canoe Club) on a cruise to Etobicoke Creek west of Toronto. They’ve pulled their cruising canoes up on shore and rigged the tents for sleeping aboard at night. If you’re down in the Adirondacks, the Adirondack Museum, in Blue Mountain Lake, NY, has a wonderful exhibit called “Boats and Boating in the Adirondacks” which features a J.H. Rushton “Princess”-model decked sailing canoe set up with one of these tents.

Until next time. . .

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