Michael Storer will be attending the 2011 Woodenboat Show in Mystic Seaport. He will be running a workshop for families building the Quick Canoe – choice of either the electric or the paddling versions along with Duckworks and J.O. Woodworking.
Photos and slideshow from the Goolwa Wooden Boatshow 2011.
Over 250 boats – mostly in the water. Wooden hydroplanes, “restricted 21s”, riverboats, putt putt launches, classic sailing boats, kayaks, canoes and more.
I had the quick canoe, the eureka canoe and the OzRacer on the stand that was shared with Duck Flat Wooden Boats and Boatcraft Pacific. Good time was had by all.
Dete Hasse and his family built a Goat Island Skiff in Geelong, Victoria a while ago. He has just written to me about his experiences trying to sail on Port Phillip Bay and more happily on the recently refilled (the drought is over!) Lake Eppalock.
Also he makes some good comments about reefing and how it changes an overpowered boat into a much more rriendly beast in stronger winds.
The Goolwa Wooden Boat show is on the coming weekend.
Storer Boat Plans and Duckflat are having a joint stand as per normal.
The show itself is free this year with 250 boats entered in events or on display.
One of the most important things as a designer or sailor is to keep an open mind, but also to be able to analyze things in light of real experience and prior knowledge. These are online and paper resources that force thinking in different ways.
This article, after a bit of a spiel, goes on to give some great resources that “opened my eyes” at different times in my life.
They focus on areas of structural design, sailing, sail aerodynamics and touch on a bit more.
A rare beast, a circa 1960s 12 square metre sharpie with some of the original rig is for sale. I am not involved, but in the interests of helping preserve a little bit of Australian sailing and boat design history I would like to help find it a good home.
The 12sq metre (heavyweight) Sharpie came to Australia for the 1956 Olympics. NZ first, Oz second.
However the boat totally changed the approach to the design of Australian skiffs. Thought you might be interested to read my understanding of the design issues and influence.
How the Sharpie name went from the USA to Europe and then to Australia – and how it changed our boats.
There are lots of tips for building and designing boats on the net.
“Rules of thumb” are often quoted to help with the calculation of how much sail or how much keel or centreboard area or how big a mast is allowed to be and many other areas. Can a boat be stretched or shrunk or lengthened?
But how correct are they? Are they the best guide?
Cameras, digicams, video cameras are fun on boats, but it is hard to get good pics of yourselves sailing the boat or the boat doing its stuff nicely.
John Goodman and Family built their Goat Island Skiff GIR and sailed it in the Texas 200 event as well as some solo river cruising.
They used a camera boom to great advantage – to move the camera away from the boat. Another alternative is a wide angle lens which can produce dramatic effects for marine photography but the toom seems much more useful. It works well with the steadying of anti-shake electronics.
You can pay money for dry bags to store gear in when canoeing, kayaking or sailing. Or pay even more for buoyancy bags that keep you boat afloat after capsize.
Here Ian tells us how we can make our own cheaply.
A nice little reverie from Clinton who built a Quick Canoe this year.
After a hectic day in the city he paddled out into the middle of the lake to watch the eclipse in his $300 canoe.
The dot in the bay above is Perttu’s Microcruiser sailboat on a three day trip on the extensive Finnish waterways.
The boat is tiny – 8ft long and is based on my successful OzRacer design (formerly OZ PDRacer)
It is a brilliant concept and sails well upwind and down on inland waters.
For the Goose – a first sailing report in moderate winds – and it works.
Also a free plan for a ketch/yawl version, and …
… Michael goes on a bit about the real differences between a ketch and a yawl
A few more pictures from the duckflat spring school.
Boats from Oughtred, Storer, CLC, White and Wooden Boat Magazine
I am currently helping at a boatbuilding school in Adelaide.
There are boats designed by me, Oughtred, CLC Kayaks, Joel White and Woodenboat.
People are from Queensland, NSW, Victoria and Perth.
First detailed sailing report of the Goose 12ft sailboat.
The Oz Goose is a 12ft sailboat derived from the smaller OzRacer/PDRacer/Brick line. It uses all the same running gear as the OzRacer.
A video of the Quick Canoe in action.
My Agent in Hungary who sells plans in both English and Hungarian has launched the first Quick Canoe in those parts. It is designed as a very simple and easy to build boat. It is not a perfect high performance boat, but the numbers have been worked out to give good performance despite the simple shape. It won’t be as good as the best fibreglass canoe, but it will be better than many average ones. And much cheaper and lighter.
The conservative viewpoint is that traditional rigs are not very efficient. However allied to efficient hulls and set up correctly, lug and sprit rigs can be very efficient indeed – not too much slower than “modern” rigs, particularly when the same lessons are applied to trad sails and way cheaper.
This is a WIKI drawn from the group on the Storerboats forum discussions on setting up lug and sprit rigs for best performance building on the information in my webpage.
John Owen Woodworks in the USA is now producing kits for the Quick Canoe 155.
This boat is designed to be a real alternative to a basic fibreglass canoe, but will be lighter and usually much cheaper.
Some have built one in very few hours.
Robert Hoffman has been busy using his BETH sailing canoe that he built over a cold Polish winter.
There are now videos. I have also linked to all my videos on youtube – so you can see many storerboats sailing.
