Wood Boat Plans And Kits | Lots of fun but no holiday!

Wood Boat Plans And Kits

Much too busy!

I have been flat out working at SCAMP Camp ( with a side expedition to the dentist to get a broken tooth fixed) pretty much ever since I got here to the Port Townsend area so have been very lax in my postings here on the blog.

We do though have a pretty good Facebook page up and running, thanks to my helpers there, thats Jackie, Pete and Chuck.  Lots to read and lots of pics.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/440526479459574/

We’re having a lot of fun at the SCAMP build class, halfway through the build class the boats are about on track with all of the frames and internal structure up, and tomorrow (Monday) we’ll be hanging the first pair of planks,  filleting  which is a seemingly endless task, fitting the cleats to which the cockpit floor and seat tops will be fitted  and organising for the second pair of planks.

By Wednesday the boats should be all planked up, “Real” boats, and this crew are doing a nice job of them.  Well done Dana, Bruce, Steve and Daniel.

The photo software “here” is not working the way I want, so please forgive the lack of pics on this post, it wants to do “Cloud” storage rather than keeping them on my hard drive, I’ll work it out.

In the meantime, its Sunday morning as I write, I had a little sleep in, and am now fiddling around learning the new sofware on the Macbook Air I’ve just bought as a replacement for my old laptop.  Nice, it runs for around 12 hours on a charge, great! The old one struggled to get 2 hours.

So I was reading some of the threads over on the WoodenBoat forum, a good plae to “hang out” when wanting some interesting reading, and found three threads on builds of my designs there that will interest.

Suzy Jackson is coming along well with her Navigator build, lots of pics there,

http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?176883-Elena-a-Welsford-Navigator-cruising-sloop

Mal is making very good progress with his Sundowner,

http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?148391-Welsford-Sundowner-build

This is a very substantial little boat, lots of space inside, and he’s doing a decent job of it.  Nice work Mal.

There is a good thread on a SCAMP build “here”.  Bruce in South Australia is coming along well with his little boat, and has documented the victories and trials that he’s encountered along the way.

http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?182771-Romana-de-Scamp

And there is discussion on the big “Pilgrim”  open boat cruiser I designed for myself a while back but never got further than the frames before circumstances meant I had to abandon the build and find somewhere else to live and work.

The pics of Chip Matthews big curvy beauty are well worth a look.

Thanks Chip.

http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?86953-Pilgrim-from-John-Welsford

I’ll be back in a couple of days, I promise.

John Welsford

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Boat Trailer Plans Australia | From Desolation Sound BC

Boat Trailer Plans Australia

Morning has broken-------

In these deep sided sounds the sun does not come up over the tops of the trees until a little later than you’d be used to, but we’re only about 3 weeks short of the longest day and the dawn is very early.

So this morning we had daylight early, but sun about 8 am.

What sun though, the air is crystal clear, see forever air, so clear that distances in this enormous place are very deceptive.

Desolation Sound is stunning, piloting our ship around in here is an adventure in ever changing vistas. From the low rocky islands with little channels winding into the hidden anchorages of Prideaux Haven to the astonishing vertical granite walls, thousands of feet high, of Toba Inlet.  There is infinite variety here.

We spent our first two nights in Roscoe Bay, walked up to Black Lake where we swam in warm waters dark with tannin from the forest around, lay out sunning like lizards on the rocks, explored the forest trails and watched the deer walk across the path just a few paces ahead of us.

Our next night was in the cove up past Squirrel Cove General store, and stopping at the store was the first time I’d had to bring this big lump to a dock, in among other boats at that. It is not quite like parking a car!

But the ships big single propeller tends to kick the stern of the boat one way in forward and the other way in reverse, so I pulled in and put her in reverse to stop “Grand Mariner” about a metre out, the prop walking the stern across toward the dock on the port side while I  used the bow thruster to push the bow in the same direction.

The fenders touched so gently that Jackie did not wake from her nap on the settee.

Whew!

That general store is great, I’d rate it with the Brooklin General store just down the road from WoodenBoat magazine in Maine, and the Nordland General Store on Marrowstone Island across from Port Townsend. They’re a vanishing breed, but such a treat to shop in, all the unexpected treasures lurking on the shelves and in the corners, and the people behind the counters know all the places, the gossip and the places to go.

Our fourth night was in Prideaux Haven, we wriggled in there through tiny channels, standing up on the top deck wearing polarised sunglasses, watching carefully for the shallows and the rocks and anchored in about 10m of water with just enough space on each side to swing with safe clearance from the rock walls of the cove.

Day five, 10 hours of gentle motoring, Jackie and I taking turns steering on our way up the Homfray Channel, around the corner into Toba Inlet with its snow capped 5000ft high mountains, white foaming waterfalls cascading down through the forests that cling to the rocky sides and past the huge granite walls with horizontal marks where the glaciers that formed this amazing place had ground their way past.

Toba Inlet is like a wind tunnel, I imagine that there are big differences in air pressure from one end to the other which cause high winds in here when everywhere else is calm.  We encountered 25 knot winds in there, enough to make steering our ship downwind a little demanding, but coming back upwind she handled the steep short chop quite happily.

Last night we stopped in Walsh Cove, a tiny harbour in behind Gorges Island in the Waddington Channel.  Its small but very deep, and my first attempt to anchor did not stop us when I backed up so I pulled the anchor up and tried again.  This time was ok, holding at half throttle in reverse but I have all the chain out just in case.  I think its 200 ft of 3/8in chain with a 40 lb Manson Supreme anchor on the end of it (They’re made about half an hour away from my home in New Zealand, very good anchors by the way) so I’m very glad of the electric winch.

Today I’m planning to take us around into Pendrell Sound which has the peculiar reputation of having the warmest water north of Mexico on this coast.

I’ve asked, and was told that its because its on the midpoint of the tidal flows behind Vancouver Island. That is, some of the flow comes around the south past Victoria and through the Straights of Juan de Fuca, and some comes around the northern end and they meet here in Desolation Sound. Pendrell being the nexus. This means that the water here remains and does not flow away carrying the sun warmed water out into the deep, and I feel like going for a swim.

At 50.18 deg. North. 

With snow capped peaks all around.

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Boat Building Plans And Kits | Facebook travel and stuff

Boat Building Plans And Kits

We’ve  started a Facebook page,  I’d tried to do that a couple of years ago but got annoyed at how many emails it dumped into my inbox and spent ages trying to unsubscribe to no avail.  But since Yahoo made such a mess of their Yahoo groups system Facebook has become much more popular, and it seems the way to go.

With the help of Jackie Monies and Chuck Leinweber I now have a Facebook page that works, and I  am impressed at how many people have joined up.

My thoughts are that I’ll use this blog for mostly technical stuff, tools, ( I’ve another one to report on, have the photos and will do that in a couple of days) building, projects, and such, and use the facebook for more social stuff and interactions with everyone “out there”.

So if you have not caught up with it, here is the link.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/440526479459574/

Today,  in about 6 hours I’m walking up the hill towing my suitcase, heading for the bus stop into the city where I’ll catch the airport shuttle,  this trip is a long one,  3 months, I’ll be back in late October.

Ive several boat shows to attend, sailing events, SCAMP Camps,  Red Lantern Rally, and lots of driving.  Ill be visiting several JW builders, seeing a lot of new places and meeting friends new and old. 

Travel at this time of year is not a bad idea, its summer in the USA, and here we’ve just had the coldest day for more than 60 years, its raining right now and my heater is on full. So I’ve got to pack, tidy the ship and switch all the systems off, go and rob the bank, then its make that walk up to the road and along to the glass bus stop with the amazing view out over the sea.

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