First day dinghy cruising with Enrico Franconi’s “Liguria Project”, with the intent to sail from East to West along the coast of Liguria, from Bocca di Magra to Bordighera, on MIRA, a homemade dinghy, class Goat Island Skiff.
Buying plans in Australia has changed. Duck Flat Wooden Boats in Adelaide are no longer my plans agents. We have alternative arrangements for buying plans as books and plans as PDFs. Duck Flat are growing the Boat Restoration and Repair side of their business.
Three times in my life I have gone sailing in small boats without a lifejacket. Two times the boat sank. One time I capsized and found that swimming and trying to get back on the boat is very difficult in FRESH water. Also a hint about how to get kids to wear their lifejackets … wear YOURS!
Building boats from older plans often adds a lot of labour and materials cost. Some old plans are great. But many are utter rubbish. Having a living designer or other people building the same boat is really useful for most builders.
Ultralight strip planked boats using Paulownia, Balsa and Western Red Cedar. Superlight Eureka Canoe and Goat Island Skiff and the amazing 12lb balsa canoe
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.
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.
Jani is a friend of Perttu in Finland.
Jani wanted a boat for rowing and fishing. He built a Quick Canoe and modified it with outriggers and also worked out a scheme where it can carry one or two people simply by changing the bow.
Maybe it is so clever because Jani is an Industrial Designer!
Finally after many years of selling the plan I have a photo of a boat with the outriggers from the drop-in outrigger plan.
Every part of the outrigger is very light. The first one we built had each component under 10lbs.
It can make a canoe or kayak into a killer sailing boat. Or can convert a canoe, kayak or suitable dinghy into a stable fishing or diving platform for paddle or outboard.
Clint Chase in Maine is about to make a batch of oars that are suitable for Storerboats. They are nicely balanced with the right amount of spring.
He needs to do a batch to make it cost effective, so if you are interested in some handcrafted oars contact him to see which sizes he will be making first.
Tom has built his MSD Rowboat in Brisbane.
I met up with him recently and we drove down to the coast towing the rowboat to the river at Nudgee. A bit of wind and a lot of current because of all the rain.
Tom has trimmed down the skeg to get the boat to balance nicely in all directions. Before the modification the bow used to blow around – now it behaves nicely.
I took quite a few pictures.
People as far away as Texas, California and Australia (me). Not a huge number, this cruise works well with up to around 12 to 15 boats. A huge thanks to Jim Thayer who thought up the event.
Before we look at the boats and meet the people the scale of the area has to be seen to be believed.
Astoria Maritime Museum – Now the really cool thing happened. Long had organised for us to see the storage sheds across the road.
It is the highest I have ever sailed by far – about 2500 to 3000ft above sea level.
A very nice bunch of folks. And got to meet BobWes (from my forum), John Kohnen (the author of the “mother of all nautical links”), Jon Kowitz and Andrew Linn (puddle duckers that sailed in the Texas 200 so triumphantly) David Luckhardt (who I missed in S.F.) and a whole bunch of other boat people and a swag of interesting boats.
Well, this is the first real post on Wordpress and it is about my trip to the USA for the Puddle Duck World titles plus a couple of months of other boating adventures.
Gifted Amateur Boatbuilder Chris Perkins has laboured during some of the most difficult boatbuilding weather to produce the prototype of the new RAID41
First we had a computer drawing
Then pics of a mock up model
Now we have pics from American where one is being built by some young people as part of the Compass Project organisation’s Classes.
Boatbuilding school report – 12 different projects and sometimes up to 30 people miilling around.
The projects were
Two different CLC (Chesapeake Light Craft) Kayaks
Four Iain Oughtred Clinker boats – Puffin, Fulmar, a pram and a Skerry Skiff.
A couple of John Welsford’s designs a dory and a Jeanette.
A Bolger Gypsy
A Murray Isles Coorong Traveller
and one of my OzRacers