Plywood Boat Plans | Rowing the Atlantic When you need to be a Tiger

Plywood Boat Plans

If you hang around long enough with ocean rowers, and find that youve developed a taste for expedition rowing (albeit in events you can fit into a weekend), sooner or  later youre going to come to the conclusion that, if your piggy bank can cope, theres really no good reason NOT to row an ocean yourself.

And so it was that my husband and I set off from the Canary Islands in our tiger-striped boat, and landed in Barbados nearly 11 weeks later. Along the way, wed lost a rudder, been brought another, seen dolphins for 30 seconds, enjoyed eating biltong in bed (only one of us), listened to all seven Harry Potter books, and been reminded almost every day that ocean rowing is much more about the ocean than it is about rowing.

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Event: Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge 2011

Where: La Gomera (Canary Islands) to Barbados

Distance: 2,549 nautical miles (as the storm petrel flies)

Duration: 75 days, 1 hour and 29 minutes

Boat type: 23 plywood ocean rowing boat Dream It Do It

Number of crews in the event: 17 started, 12 finished

Event Organiser: The race is now organised by Atlantic Campaigns

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We were last in our race, but were eternally relieved to have finished. A famous solo ocean rower, Gerald dAboville once said "You do not conquer the ocean rather, it lets you pass." Spot on.

Heating up Christmas lunch. The best meal of the trip.

But whilst our row was slow (as it turned out, we decided we couldnt really be bothered with the 2 hours on/2 hours off routine that is the quickest way to get across, given our only objective was to get to the other side, still happily married), our expedition blog proved to be very popular – not least because the supporters of all the other crews found them,selves suffering from ocean rowing-supporting withdrawal symptoms once their crews had finished (the fastest two finished in just over 40 days).

The links below point to some of the better postings from our original blog. Please bear in  mind that it was written whilst at sea, which explains some of the bad spelling (our Land Team Communications Manager did her best to sort this out, but she was working with some pretty awful material) as well as the deranged humour.

Day 9: Wildlife at sea

Day 14: Making tea at sea

Day 17: On salt

Day 18: Outbreak of OARS in SW London

Day 25: A day at the sales

Day 29: The catch

Day 32: The Atlantic Ocean plc

Day 40: Ocean strategy

Day 44: Im just going to have a quick shower

Day 52: Wildlife action

Day 69: The sounds of the sea

Day 72: How would you like your ocean?

Barbados is a very nice place.

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Boat Plans Bartender | Tour du Leman 2013 Like how you DREAM sculling to be

Boat Plans Bartender

The problem with my fifth experience of the 160km Tour du Léman a lAviron, round Lake Geneva, was that everything was so perfect, theres a serious risk that all future participations can only be a disappointment: the weather was idyllic; our safety boat driver kept us entertained in ways no safety boat had ever tried before; and we even found a solution to one of our major food issues.

Mind you, we did struggle a bit with a wonky rudder, and a trapped nerve in my neck meant that I found out my left arm didnt work properly during the race when the rate went above 24, but it would be boring if it were simple...

Food for thought... and for fuel
Although not all of my crew-mates are always in agreement with me on this, I rather enjoy the fact that the 40CHF entry fee includes free accommodation for three nights in a nuclear bunker "dormitory" just up the hill in Cologny, from the organising club, the Société Nautique de Genève. 

However, one challenge with this arrangement is that its self-catering. The German contingents, who generally arrive in their clubs minibus (and theres another distinction  – most British rowing clubs dont even have a club minibus), unpack impressive spreads from their cool-boxes including interesting-looking breads (I imagine theyve carefully tested quite how high-fibre a meal is advisable before sitting in a rowing boat for 15 hours) washed down with crates of beer and cartons of orange-juice.

For our first few occasions at this event, we tried eating out, but this proved to be expensive, and also it took too long by the time wed walked into town (lacking a club minibus) and back. And then there was the question of how to get a decent breakfast early in the morning on race day before the bakery round the corner opened.

Rowing is a fuel-demanding activity.

This year, we got it right. Helped by the fact that one crew member had accrued a lot of air miles from business travel and so could fly British Airways, with its generous luggage allowance, as opposed to that available on the budget airline the rest of us used, a crew saucepan and kettle were packed, and we each brought our own plate, mug and cutlery. The dinner solution involved a packet of pasta (gluten-free for one crew member) and each girl bringing a Dolmio tub sauce of her choice. Meanwhile we were thrilled to find that you can now get "porridge pots" that already contain dried golden syrup (no, I have no idea how your dry golden syrup either), and come in gluten-free as well as gluten-full varieties for Little Miss Difficult Guts, which miraculously comes to life with boiling water. 

Weather warning
The default start time for this event is 9am, but wed always felt that this was a bit of a waste of good daylight rowing time (given that event the fastest crews take around 12 hours and so you are bound to finish in the dark), so we were delighted when it was announced the day before that the start would be brought forward to 8am. The reason why, was less good news, though.

The organisers always work closely with a local weather forecaster, whose gloomy prediction was that there would be a nasty storm at the top of the lake around 5pm. Which is roughly when the slower crews like us (we were the only womens crew this year) would be getting there. We felt that their official advice on how to deal with this situation – "row as fast as you can to get past there as soon as possible and then stick close to the shore if the storm does break" – wasnt particularly cunning, but it wasnt like we could actually think of a better one ourselves.

Jockeying for position at the first turn.
(This photo is too small to show the big grin on my face!)

Who coxes when?
The start of the race was the usual frenzied 1km sprint across the lake before turning through 90 degrees round a buoy to head out along the northern, Swiss shore of Lac Léman. As usual, we started off with me in the coxing seat because, although everyone takes equal turns coxing ad sculling in this event, Im a cox who sculls, whilst the others are rowers who cox, and so this was not only our fastest combination, but I was the one who positively enjoyed steering through the melee.

We were quite pleased to reach that point in 5th place overall, although inevitably various mens crews then powered past us as we settled into a sustainable rating.

SSSHH
Our flag this year read "SSHHH" which are the first letters of our names. Rather appropriate, we thought, for an event where the primary selection criterion is the ability to "shut up and row" which, I learned from the website of a French womens ocean rowing crew called, very neatly, "Rames Dames", translates exactly as "tais-toi et rame".

Despite being reinforced with a coat-hanger, the flag had a tendency to swing round to bowside which, as it happened the boat did too. We never quite worked out why, and it stopped doing it after a few hours, but it did make navigation a little difficult, especially if the cox was busy getting a sandwich out, retaping her hands, or carrying out other personal activities of the type that these blogs dont go into, remember?

Hey Monsieur Music Man
As I mentioned in my account of the 2009 race every crew has a motor cruiser assigned to it as its safety boat, although their attentiveness and patience with shouted exchanges in school girl French has varied over the years. And whilst our 2009 safety crew were lovely, this years boat took their duties to a whole new level. Talking to them afterwards, it turned out the boat was skippered by the Head of Safety for the whole event, and this was the last year he was in charge, so he seemed to want to go out on a high, which he certainly achieved. 

The first hint that this wasnt just another cruiser patiently following us at a polite distance came at some point in the early afternoon when we were plodding away, putting in the strokes, Suddenly, the National Anthem came blasting out across the lake! We all burst out laughing, and the jolly feeling was a real help.

Perfect sculling conditions.

Later, towards the top of the lake, we were enjoying sculling along (at square blade, of course) on the most perfect flat water in "baby bears porridge (pot)" sunshine (not too hot, not too cold, but just right), and I had just commented to the girl in front that "this is how you DREAM sculling to be like" when a small motorboat headed out from the shore at high speed, throwing up a huge wash, and on a path that was clearly going  to intercept us. Immediately, Superstar Safety Boat hunted him down and successfully headed him off. Such attentiveness to our sculling pleasure!

As darkness fell, he found yet more ways to help the long kilometers just fly by, but more of that shortly.

Tightly round the island at Villeneuve.

Round the bend
The race organisers provide GPS co-ordinates of the various markers that all crews have to pass round during the race. This ensures, amongst other things, that we all really do go ROUND the lake, and dont just nip up the middle and go straight back. The event is the Tour du Léman, after all. 

But given that this is Switzerland, the homeland of accuracy, weve always been slightly bemused that the GPS co-ordinates given for the one waypoint which is actually a small island (and therefore is fixed from year to year, unlike the buoys which can move) are always marked as "approx" and, from past experience were more like "inacc" or even just plain "wrong". So, this year, making use of the marvels of modern technology, Id take the actual position of the little wooded island at Villeneuve from Google Earth, and was delighted to find that it was spot on.

Having passed Villeneuve at 5.45pm, there was no sign at all of the forecast storm, but as we reached the next point, Le Bouveret, where we saw one crew "abandoning" (wed noticed that they were a mature crew who appeared to be being coxed by a teenage girl who we think was the daughter of one of the rowers – and we later learned that she was shivering with a temperature by this point, so they sensibly pulled out), drops of rain started to fall.

The best conditions ever.

Was our blissful row up to this point about to descend to the horrors wed experienced in 2012?

To our immense relief, no. Those few drops were all we got, and the rest of the evening remained pleasant. Whoever was coxing did put on the communal coxing coat whilst they werent rowing, but the rest of us finished the race in shorts and t-shirts. Just wonderful.

On and on and on
In due course we passed Evian, where the brightly lit casino gives you something to look at for 10 minutes or so, after which darkness fell completely. However, as we passed each little town, we were amazed that people appeared on jetties shouting positive (albeit slightly unidentified) things, which we found most energising. We couldnt work out at the time quite how all these lovely people knew we would be passing, especially as the field was quite spread out by now, though we later learned that the amazing organisers had contacted various watersports clubs round the lake about the event, and as every boat was carrying a tracker, they were watching to see when each crew would pass.

Anyway, we were loving the attention and having a great time, when Super Safety Boat added the icing to the cake by getting his speakers out again and playing us some bursts of the Spice Girls, Abba, and anything else to do with powerful women and water that he could find clips of on YouTube.

Later, having exhausted his store of musical puns, he played some more extended chunks of booming rock, which was great for us, but we always wondered if the organising club received complaints later from residents of quiet lakeside villas who had their repose disturbed so uncharacteristically at 11pm.

We gave top marks to the timing team at Sciez who whooped and hollered as we swung round that buoy (although the timing teams at other points had been on particularly good form this year too).

Helpful young men.

Help when you need it most

And whilst were on the subject of the many lovely volunteers at this event, an absolutely top team is the bunch of club juniors, mostly boys, who are tasked with helping competing crew get their boats onto the water before the race and, more critically, off the water after. 

Managed by the wonderful, tri-lingual Norina, a bunch of young men is just what you need after 15 hours rowing!

However, one of these young lads finished up doing rather more than hed signed up for: a local crew arrived for the race with the news that a crew member had been taken ill overnight and was unable to row. Im not sure how much "volunteering" was involved, or whether he was simply handed a pair of shorts and told to get on with it, but one of the boat boys was rapidly "recruited" to take his place, and successfully rowed the lake. An impressive feat psychologically as well as physically. Respect, young sir.

"Wow, look at that amazing, magical fairy standing on
your hand! Its a special one that can only be
seen by people who have rowed round Lac Léman!"

Magic

As always, the organisers do a great job of making an occasion out of each crews successful completion of the tour: each one is presented with a bottle of champagne and theres an official photograph, no matter how late is is. The photo on the left was snapped by the official photographer, with the wonderful Stéphane, Chairman of the Organising Committee, poised to present us with our champagne. I cant remember what we were actually discussing, and it was probably our stroke girls impressive lack of blisters, but its a shot which just demanded a caption competition...

Detail, detail, detail
In case you havent noticed, I love this event for the size of its challenge but also for the lovely people who organise it and help out in so many different ways, from collecting us at the airport armed with a sign on a blade, to the weather forecast, the timers, the safety team, the boat boys, the chef who produces lasagne late into the night for the crews as they get in (and a totally separate dish for Miss Gluten-Intolerant) and above all to whoever laid the trophies out for the prize giving with a nautical theme. 

Every competitor gets a trophy,

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Boat Plans Bruce Roberts | The Rules of Expedition Rowing

Boat Plans Bruce Roberts

Expedition rowing is not like "normal" rowing. Sure, you sit in a the same kind of boat, and do the same kind of stuff with the blades. Thats not what I mean. Expedition rowing requires strict adherence to three key rules. Ignore them and not only will you suffer, but your crew mates will suffer too, and theres every chance that you wont make it to the end of your chosen expedition.

However, Im not sure which order they belong in. Maybe theyre equally important? 

1. Eat. 
You use a lot of fuel when rowing long distances. Fact. Your fuel tank is not large enough to do the whole thing in one go (think Formula 1 in the 1990s, say, and not like it is today). Fact.

This all seems perfectly reasonable and sensible as you read this in front of your computer or other online device. But youd be surprised how often people get this wrong. although theres a good reason why they do.

Which is, that when you havent eaten enough, your decision making ability is impaired. And this leads to you making poor decisions about eating. Which only leaves you MORE "not having eaten enough": you can see the obvious spiral downwards.

So, here are some tips to remember about eating on expedition rows:

1. Eat when you have the opportunity. Dont wait till you feel hungry. You may not have the opportunity to eat then.
2. If you feel too tired to be able to make the effort to eat, use your last reserves of effort to eat. It will be worth it.
3. If you feel so tired that you dont think even eating will help you, eat anyway. It WILL help.

To help with point 1b, make sure you have easily-digestible, easy-to-eat food close to hand. I am a big fan of having a Ziplok bag of Jelly Babies by my rowing seat. My crew mates are often fans of this too (offering round Jelly Babies makes you someone people want to row with).

My crews hands after our first 160km race

round Lac Léman. Note the lack of blisters.

We wore gloves.

2. Look after your hands (and bum).
As far as Im concerned, there is absolutely no need to finish up with raw hands and skinned bottom at the end of an expedition row. Or, worse, part way through one.

Injuries like that are almost certainly going to  doing to reduce your physical performance, but they will also get you down. And long-distance rowing is generally hard enough mentally, without you making it unnecessarily worse.

So heres the deal: wear gloves. No, I know that, with one exception I can think of in the last 15 years, no international rower wears gloves. Or even any good club rower going to do an outing or a race. But this is different. Its expedition rowing. Youre not just nipping up and down the river for an hour and a half and then going home. Youve got to keep rowing all day. And possibly the day after too. Maybe even for several after that. And "once its gone, its gone".

Gloves may also not be enough: use tape too, and take supplies with you.

And heres what happens if you dont: the double Olympic gold medallist and ocean rower James Cracknell famously went on to do a race to the South Pole, in which he got infected blisters. However, he admitted later that when he felt his boots starting to rub, he didnt call for his team to stop so that he could tape up the friction points, and when they did next pause for a scheduled break, he didnt grab that opportunity to do so either, as it was a lot of effort and he was exhausted (Im sure he was).

And the point here is that, only a small part of the way in to his long trek, his feet were clearly not going to get any better by being ignored. It is NOT "manning up" to put up with the pain. Stop and tape up at the first sign of tenderness.

"Happy bum."

The same goes for your bottom. Fixed-seat skiffers face the greatest challenge here, with  condition known as "skiffers bum" being widespread, even from a 45 minute trip round up the river and back on a Sunday morning. 

Nevertheless, when I turned up for my first "meander" with a large piece of upholstery foam, there was a lot of laughter. Which had died down by half way through the first day. And when we assembled for my second, well, lets just say that "Square Sponge" had plenty of company (and the local branch of Fabric World couldnt understand its unusual spike in foam sales).

Things arent quite so difficult in the gluteus maximus area for sliding seat rowers, but theres still no need for unnecessary suffering. "One seat pad good, two seat pads better" pretty much sums it up, as far as Im concerned, and in a survey of people Ive rowed round Lac Léman with,  100% agree.

3. Shut up and row.

Perhaps this should be rule Number 1 because, whilst the two rules above define WHAT you should do on an expedition row, this is the very epitome of HOW you approach the whole thing. 

Its also the basis of how you should choose your crew mates (never, ever embark on any row  further than about 15km with someone who cant do this, and dont even contemplate more than 5k with such a person if there is a sharp or heavy object in the boat, just in case youre tempted).

Incidentally, I was amused to read on the website of a French womens four called, of course "Rames Dames",  who rowed the Atlantic, that the concept has universal traction: their team slogan was "Tais-toi et rame".

When the going gets tough, just shut up and row.
(Note good observance of Rule 2 here.)

Just in case youre not quite clear why this is so important, perhaps because you are planning an expedition row but havent yet experienced one, Ill try to explain. Much as all of us who get as far as our second expedition row love doing it, expedition rowing isnt the same as going to Disneyland. If it were, everyone would be doing it and you wouldnt get the sense of achievement. As my slightly baffled stepmother commented "You seem to spend a lot of time, cold, wet, tired and in pain". I pointed out that on some rows the weather was nice and warm and it didnt rain, but she was right about the other two.

But when youre tired and in pain, you want to have faith in the rest of your crewmates. When you do, you can safely be determined not to be the weak link and let the others down, which will help you push on. You dont want to know that theyre struggling, and they dont want to know that you are. The last thing they need to be thinking is "Is X going to make it?", "Is Y not pulling any more and am I going to have to work harder as a result?", and definitely not "Why doesnt she shut up?" And, frankly, if you dont talk about it, it isnt so bad.

Telling other people about your (rowing) problems (during an expedition row), is pure selfish indulgence. It wont make the boat go faster or the finish come any sooner. Dont do it. 

Expedition rowing: great to do and
great when it ends too.

Most expedition rowers arent daft, and we can all spot a bit of discreet back stretching whilst the cox is changing over. But the trick is to smile cheerfully at the person behind you as you try and get your spine to click, find something positive to say something like "The waters nice and flat here" or, of course "Fancy a Jelly Baby?", and gloss over the fact that youre wondering whether youll need a crane to life you out of the boat at the end.

And, above all, no one likes a whinger.

4. If its valuable and would sink, tie it on. 
This one clearly isnt in the same league as the first three. But, having had one expedition row disappointingly turn into an unplanned swim, I can promise that it would have been even more frustrating to have lost my camera (waterproof), GPS, and torch, all of which had been tied on and were successfully recovered with the boat.

5. Know how to use your abdominals.
When you back hurts, and it almost certainly will, you can reduce the strain on your back by engaging your abdominals aka "sucking it all in". Its an effort, but nothing like as bad as rowing for another two hours wrapped in lower back agony.

If it helps, engage the services of a Posture Pixie to sit on your shoulder and whisper "Sit up" in your ear at regular intervals.

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Boat Plans African Queen | Gig rowing for river rowers skiffers

Boat Plans African Queen

Today I was lucky enough to be taken out for a "taster session" in a Cornish Pilot Gig (in Hampshire, but you can eat Cornish Pasties there, so why not?).

On hearing that I was a river rower/skiffer, the coach immediately told me that "This is completely different", and it turned out that he was right, in several ways. Heres what I learned...

A bit of history first
When a big ship approaches a harbour, however skilled her captain is, a pilot will usually be taken on board to guide her in, because of the need for detailed local knowledge – shoals, rocks, whether the neighbourhood pirates were still sleeping it off after last nights orgy, rip tides and so on.

Nowadays, this is all very organised with pilots formally associated with each port, and the putting aboard of on on incoming ships arranged by radio. But back in the days when big ships had sails, and small boats were powered by oars, it was a free market, and the first pilot that reach the ship got the job. Which is why pilots paid good money to be taken out by the fastest gig. So early gig races were serious, professional affairs, and probably meant the difference between the rowers family getting fed that evening or not.

A bit of geography second
For the benefit of non-UK readers, or exceptionally geographically challenged Brits, Cornwall is the long bit that sticks out on the bottom left of the UK. Its the first bit of England you come to after youve crossed the Atlantic or come up from the Bay of Biscay, so a lot of big ships used to come in there, which is why they have a big pilot gig racing tradition.

Langstone Cutters Gig Club, with whom I rowed, are considerably further east along the South Coast of England, in Hampshire, but Cornish Pilot Gig racing is a popular and growing sport, and its nice that the gig love is being spread.

Whats different?
These are the personal observations of a fine boat river rower/Thames skiffer, and do not pretend to constitute expert opinion on the sport of gig rowing, but they should be helpful starting points for others like me who ever venture out in a gig.

1. Theyre heavy.
2. Its fixed seat, and there six rowers rowing sweep oar, sitting offset away from the blade. In the boat I was in, stroke rowed with her  blade going out out their left, which I think is standard. This leads to the next point.
3. Strokeside is bowside, and vice versa.

4. 

   The thole pin on the left is sacrificial.

   They use thole pins, but not as skiffers know them. Theyre just round dowels, tapering towards the bottom. Fascinatingly, the bow-most one is made out of some kind of hard wood, but the stern-most one is soft wood and is deliberately "sacrificial", so that it breaks if the rower catches a particularly bad crab. Apparently the record for broken tholes by a  single oarsman in an outing is four.
5. Theyre heavy. 
6. There are no buttons.
7. Your outside hand holds the blade in an UNDER-hand grip (still with thumb over the end). Having your hands holding the handle in opposite directions makes the blade stay square and with the right amount of inboard (which it otherwise wont do because of the lack of button).
8. Your feet just rest against a wooden bar that has four widely-spaced adjustments: there are no footstraps.
9. If you catch a crab, you lift the handle up so the blade comes out from between the thole pins.
10. Theyre heavy.

11. 

    Monogrammed cushion comfort, in club colours,
    including for the cox, I was delighted to see!

    The upholstery is extremely sophisticated. I experienced serious cushion envy.
12. Gloves are de rigeur (rather than being accessories of shame whose wearing has to be hotly justified, as in other rowing circles).
13. "Toss oars" means "put your blade vertical", as all of us who have rowed in the Queens Rowbarge Gloriana know.
14. Really, theyre very heavy.

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Boat Plans Wood | Readership a thank you

Boat Plans Wood

I’ve been running this blog now since January 8^th2011. For a while it was an on and off thing, not regular, or much of a priority, but of late I try to find something of interest about Thursday each week so you’ll all have something to read.

Its worked well, not a lot of “followers” but there are plenty who just come and read now and again, the stats column that we bloggers can access shows where the readers come from and which posts pick up the most page views, and that enables me to see what subject matter is of interest.

A month ago, I was thinking that I might make it to 200,000 page views total by the end of the year, and thinking that was good going, and it is for a lot of bloggers so I was pretty happy with that.  But with a comment or two about the new  “Saturday Night Special”,   “SEI” and “Long Steps” designs there has been a considerable upturn in readership, and we rocketed past the 200 K page views total and are now close to 205 K and booming along ( so to speak).

Its gratifying that there is so much interest, and I thought that I should thank you readers for your interest and your patience when a post is late or missed.

It’s the readership that makes this worthwhile, it makes me feel as though I’ve friends everywhere, thank you, all of you.

An example of a relationship that has grown without having met him, is this photo from Steve Earley who sails his Pathfinder design "Spartina in the Chesapeake Bay and North Carolina area, hes a particularly good writer and his stories of cruising in that area are a wonderful tonic when, he being in the northern hemisphere summer I read his tales in the depths of my winter.

Hes done a nice job of Spartina, and here he is out enjoying her.  Nice one, thanks Steve, I do hope well meet up sometime.

Steve Earley photo. Thanks Steve,  now isnt that a great picture!

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Pontoon Boat Plans | Barnacle Bill magazine

Pontoon Boat Plans

 A subscription wont break your bank and youll get exceptional value for money. There is a good team of contributors and an enthusiastic and knowledgeable editor so its going to be a good read.  Its on topic for us small boat fans, this deserves support.  ( Plus its cheap while this deal is running).

50% off Digital Subscription for 2016!
12 issues for £12
Offer valid until midnight 24th December 2015

http://barnacle-bill-magazine.myshopify.com/…/barnacle-bill…

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Plywood Boat Plans | Annie Hill update

Plywood Boat Plans

For background to this post refer to my post dated Oct 29th

I called in on Annie Hill today,  in part because I was in the area for an engineering job and wanted a break before I drove the 2 hours or so home, in part because she and her friend Marcus are always good to visit, and in part because I wanted to see how she is going with building her new ( junk rigged of course ) home .

Chopping a rebate in a floor timber, shes more accurate than I am, I do that with a multitool and fill the gaps with epoxy!

Bow view of Siblem, there is not a lot of indication of the real shape as yet, but it will come.

She’s got the bukheads made and stood up, the daggerboard cases built and the insides glassed, they’re stood up and fastened in place, and she’s working on the notching for the stringers and some additional floor timbers to take the keel bolts.

View from aft, there is another frame to add 500mm aft of what you can see, its the transom and the twin skegs mount between there and the bulkhead you can see, the cutout visible is the motor mount.  An outboard, inboard, so to speak. 

LOTS of space in that boat for a 26 footer. 

For Annie this is a learning process, her other builds will have been as a helper to a skilled builder so here she is, 60 years old and busy learning how to do it so she can have a little ship that’s truly her own. Go girl!

Her “Fantail” has been sold by the way, so now she’s really committed!

So why build a new boat? One, there is a lot of thin water around New Zealand, and when you live on a very small income, you need to moor in the places that no one else sees as valuable, that plus they’re often the really interesting places anyway. That plus this boat has been designed to suit her proportions,  she’ll be able to see over the cabin top out of the cockpit when sitting down for example.

Oh yes, and at 60 years old, looking to live on board for the rest of her days, she said “ I don’t want to die on a boat made of frozen snot” ( fiberglass as L Francis Herreshoff described it).

The boats name, at this stage anyway, is “Siblem” that’s an acronym for “Small is beautiful, less is more”.  She says that the name might change, but that’s very much the philosophy.

I helped for a little while, just a took a few shavings out of a rebate with a chisel, so I’m now a member of the “Siblem club!”  There arent many of us. Very exclusive you know!

In reality I’m priveledged.  I plan to visit every month or so, will keep you posted.

 One more thing, Marcus has a junk rigged, cabin version of a Portland Pudgy sailing lifeboat for sale, I should have pics in a few days ( reminder to Marcus, hear that Marcus!). If anyones interested in a cheap but very interesting mini mini cruiser give me a shout.  Shes in Whangarei New Zealand.

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