New sailing video posted

With help from Matthew, my video-savvy son, I am posting our second sailing video on YouTube. It features more and more extensive shots of the boat and its performance on Lake Nockamixon this past week.

Life After Building

Sailing is all about waiting for the right weather.

In theory, the transition from builder to sailor is straightforward: I start building; I finish building; I go sailing. But I am realizing that the building never really ends: A day of sailing leads to a few days of tinkering and improving. For every hour under sail, I spend a couple of hours back in the garage.

That’s what happened after my first sail, anyway.  Immediately after returning from our inaugural sail, I made a long list of necessary fixes and needed improvements. Over the next two weeks, I focused on the most urgent upgrades.

Sturdier chains and no "quick links" strengthened my bowsprit.

First, I removed all of the “quick links” I used to connect the bowsprit chains to eyebolts on the hull. They were recommended by my boat’s designer, but during our first sail, one broke outright and two others started to pull apart. Clearly, they were not up to the strain. I bought larger chain and connected it directly to the eyebolts on the keel and chainplate straps on the hull (simply by prying open the turnbuckle eyebolts, inserting a chain link, and then squeezing the eyebolt shut).

Next, I tackled the most serious problem we faced the first time out. In mid-lake, while sailing under a stiff wind, the turnbuckle holding my starboard stay unwound itself and the stay flew away from the hull. This was a potential catastrophe; it’s common for masts to break when stays fail. Fortunately, were able to drop the sail in time and reattach the turnbuckle.

Back home, I considered buying larger turnbuckles, but those intended for boats were remarkably expensive ($40 each from one boat supply company). So I decided to simply lengthen the stays slightly so that I could turn the screw more fully into the turnbuckle. I hoped that this would prevent unwinding or, at least, give me time to see it happening.

Finally, I made several changes and improvements to my lines. Most significantly, I removed the plastic hoops used to hold the mainsail to the mast. They were bulky, cut into my mast, and didn’t fit over the hinges at my tabernacle. After extensive research I chose to instead lace the sail to the mast using a “forth and back” pattern that, I read, minimized binding. This link shows how it works.

Once finished, I was ready for my second sail, but the weather was not cooperating. Day after day, the national weather service predicted thunderstorms. Meanwhile, these overcast days were weirdly still. I never used to think about wind, but now I anxiously stared at treetops, looking for the taletale shimmer of leaves. But even the flimsiest branches were as lifeless as a painting. Was this normal? It struck me as unnatural.

Finally, the threat of storms diminished and light winds were predicted. More importantly, it was also my son’s eighteenth birthday and, coincidentally, the first day of his two day sailing course at the Lake Nockamixon Sailing School. Do you remember my oldest son? He’s the one who started building a small sailboat about a year ago. Since then, his interest in sailing has turned into an obsession that now exceeds my own. Young people have the wonderful opportunity to live life more intensely than older people.

His plan is to take a “gap year” between high school and college, buy a used cruising sailboat, sail down the Intracoastal and, possibly, to the Bahamas. He will do this with a friend and finance the whole adventure with their combined savings. Does this sound risky and financially irresponsible? Maybe so, but if not now, then when? When I’m not worrying for his safety, I’m jealous—and filled with self recrimination that I didn’t do this sort of thing when I was younger.

To win our blessing (and a small financial contribution), we asked him to complete a variety of skill-building experiences. One was to complete a formal sailing class. That’s what brought him to the Nockamixon Sailing School and their ASA certified “basic keelboat sailing course.” So on the appointed day, we drove to the lake with our Pocket Cruiser in tow. Avery would board the school’s 24-foot Catalina with four other students, while I would continue my program of self study and sail our boat with the assistance of  my two other children.

The view from the cockpit.

It was a perfect day. By the time we arrived, the sky was a scenic mix of blue and billowing clouds, while the lake surface was pleasantly rippled by light winds. I left Avery with Captain Tom and the other students, a friendly group of young men, most in their 20’s and early 30’s. Back at our boat, we quickly raised the mast (avoiding the tangles and confusion of our initial launch) and, with growing confidence, backed the boat into the water.

While our first launching was marked by an embarrassing drift into a stone jetty, we now managed to raise the sail and get underway with a measure of grace. We sailed upwind, tacking repeatedly from shore to shore as we slowly made progress down the long, narrow lake. Winds were light, but the sails rarely went slack. Both Sophie and Matthew took turns at the tiller and proved to be natural sailors.

Matthew relaxing.

Sophie sailing

Not worrying about imminant disaster, we were able to enjoy each other’s company and exchange pleasantries with passing boats. I started to realize that several sailors were going out of their way to sail next to us so they could offer complements and ask questions. “What kind of boat is that?” they would inevitably shout across the water. My answers became practiced. “Nice boat,” they would conclude as they waved and sailed away. Without question, we were the slowest sailboat on the water, but we were also the prettiest.

After a couple of hours, the sailing school’s boat came into view and I caught of glimpse of Avery at the helm. He looked confident. We waved enthusiastically, and he gave a curt wave back before leaving us in his wake. I didn’t mind. He was 18 and living his own life.

So far, all of my fixes and improvements were working. My chains were holding and my stays were staying. I was especially proud of my “forth and back” lacing. The main sail rose easily up the mast, held tightly and had a salty, uncluttered look. But we had one new challenge ahead of us: anchoring. During our first sail, I realized that sailing is constant work and that it’s not possible to, say, enjoy a picnic lunch while holding the tiller in one hand and the mainsheet in the other, so I decided that I needed an anchor so we could find a quit cove and pass an idle hour with good food and a book.

My "Chinese" anchor. It worked--but not for the right reasons.

Small anchors are cheap, but I’m cheaper still, so I decided to build one. I found plans for two online. One was a simple “fill a milk jug with cement” affair. I happened to have both a milk jug and a bag of cement, so I made one of those. But the other anchor really captured my imagination. It was based on a traditional Chinese design and looked like a giant fishhook. Most of it is made from wood, but the actual “hook” is simply a length of metal pipe. In theory, the anchor drops, metal part first, into the lake bottom, where it catches and holds. I was intrigued by this simple technology and happened to have an old pipe and most of the needed hardware. An hour of work got the job done and I took both aboard the boat. If one didn’t work, I planned to use the other.

We located a promising anchorage about 50 feet from shore. With Matthew at the tiller, I went forward, lowered the sail and dropped my “Chinese anchor” into the water. It went down about ten feet before the line went slack. I played out the rope (which is called “rode” when it’s attached to an anchor for some reason). I could tell that it was dragging and not really catching. But then, after letting out most of my line, it went taut. I yanked, and it didn’t move. Success! We brought out our sandwiches, opened sodas (for the kids) and coconut water (for me).

After lunch it was time to get underway. Matthew went back to the tiller and I started yanking at the anchor. The boat moved forward as I raised the line until we were right over the anchor and the line went straight down. I pulled; nothing happened. I pulled harder; nothing happened. I wrapped the line around my hand and heaved with all my might. Slowly, the line came out the water. Finally, I saw something at the surface: it wasn’t my anchor; it was a giant…something–a large latticed structure covered in grasses and slime. I couldn’t even tell if it was metal or wood. In the middle of it all was my anchor, its hook caught in the three-inch thick latticework. My children were appalled. “Is it a dead guy?” Matthew asked. I gingerly slipped off the anchor and the structure slowly sank out of view.

So I know my anchor works—when it gets hooked on lake bottom debris. Under normal conditions, I am less confident.

We had been on the water for nearly three hours; we still had three hours before Avery’s class ended. We put on more sunscreen and continued our tacks upwind, accepting more complements, gaining occasional sightings of the sailing school boat. To get away from the sun, the kids rested in the cabin. Eventually, we decided to turn back toward the marina, explore the upper reaches of the lake before returning home.

Me relaxing. Sailing is easy when you have a good crew.

It was during the final hour of sailing that we encountered our only difficulties. The main problem was that I blundered into a boat race. In the distance I had noticed a knot of sailboats, but not until I was amid the group did I realize that they were following the same circular course and being observed by judges on a pontoon boat. This was all new to me and my understanding dawned slowly. Nobody seemed to care that we crashing their race and we were not the only non-racers in this part of the lake, but I felt like a dope and tried to stay out of their way by heading over to the far western shore. However, returning to the marina required tacking back upwind, which was hard to do when I had to stay out of the middle of the lake.

To add to our confusion, the wind picked up and started shifting directions unpredictably. One of the racing boats capsized and had trouble righting itself, which was sobering to watch.  After nearly five hours of perfect sailing, we were caught in a maelstrom of gusting, unpredictable winds and racing, capsizing sailboats.

Six hours later we return safely to harbor.

Before long, the winds eased and the race ended. Relieved, we plotted our course back to the boat launch. By the time we had the boat on the trailer and all our equipment back in the car, Avery came sauntering up. He looked sunburned but happy. A wonderful time was had by all.

Launching: The Full Report

I’m trying to find the right way to tell the story of our launching. I feel it calls for solemn toasts and inspiring words, something on the order of Neil Armstrong’s “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” After all, this was the culmination of two years of hard work and about twenty-five years of dreaming. It’s not enough to say, “Well, it was fun.”

Yet, with a few days’ reflection, what I most remember was the simple thrill of seeing the boat float and actually move forward under sail. Sitting at the tiller, feeling the tug of the water on the rudder, hearing the rustle of sails above, watching the bow point to a distant shore, and knowing that every bit was built by my hands, was deeply, almost indescribably satisfying.  The four hours passed so quickly, we all (my crew and I) swore it felt like an hour at most. It was, we all agreed, very, very fun.

It’s amazing how quickly old worries and preoccupations disappeared. Once in the water, I no longer worried about leaking or sinking. And I completely forgot to worry about my choice of glues or the durability of my hardware store paint. When the boat slid off the trailer and bobbed in the water, these fears evaporated. Instead, I found myself simply reveling in the experience of being on my boat, working the lines and bringing the craft to life.

“Bringing the craft to life:” Yes, that statement helps capture the experience of sailing my boat. While it’s possible to admire the boat’s lines and color scheme when it is sitting in a garage, it feels essentially lifeless and graceless when sitting under florescent lights and covered in a thin film of dust. But on the water and under sail, the boat gleamed and the sails breathed. The joy was seeing it come alive.

Our first hurdle was to fix tangled halyard lines. My son is helping me consult the instructions.

Still working on the lines. There's nearly 300 feet of rope on this boat!

Finally fixed. it took us over half an hour to get the boat ready for launching. Unfortunately, we don't have any still photos of the launching or sailing. Check out the Youtube video (the link is in my previous "Launched!" post).

We chose a day with a careful eye on the weather. A pleasant day was promised—sunny and in the 70s. Wind was my only concern; it was blowing around 15 miles and hour and gusting to over 20, according to radio. That’s not tornado weather by any means and, for most sailors, it represents nearly ideal conditions. But for my launch, I wished for something more benign. I didn’t want to tax my boat or my crew on our inaugural sail. But I wasn’t going to wait for a less windy day; even worse would be a day without any wind. Launching on a still lake would be anticlimactic, to say the least.

We chose to launch at Lake Nockamixon, a rather large body of water in eastern Pennsylvania. It allows motorboats, but seems most popular with sailors. Nearly all of the boats in its 600-berth state park marina are either sailboats or innocuous pontoon boats. In preparation, I had carefully plotted the route to the marina (I was almost as worried about trailering the boat as I was about launching it) and even zoomed in on the boat launch with Google Earth so I could mentally rehearse strategies for backing the trailer into the water. I didn’t want to look like a hapless first timer, jackknifing my trailer and dumping the boat sideways.

My old Subaru cooperated by not breaking down or balking at the weight and we arrived early afternoon. I proudly drove past the sign “trailers only beyond this point” and slid into the parking area, where several other sailboats were being prepared for launching. Their owners seemed skilled and purposeful.

Affecting what I hoped was an equally confident manner, I directed my wife and two teenage boys and began to raise the mast and attach the stays. Decorum was lost, however, when we realized that our halyard lines were hopelessly tangled. The sail came back down and we spent several minutes trying to remember if the line went through the double pulley and then through the single pulley—or the reverse. I actually brought along my boat building instructions and (to my quiet shame) surreptitiously consulted the rigging chart to set it right. My wife threatened to say loudly, “Do you need the instructions, honey?” Trying to be nonchalant, we untangled the mess.

Now it was show time. There were four areas to launch boats; three were occupied. The only available spot was downwind and near a jetty. I sensed trouble, but plowed ahead. I drove the car down to the launch and backed up to the water. The night before I read about backing a trailer in a great little book called The Complete Sailor. The trick, my book said, is to place my hand on the bottom of the wheel and move it in the direction that I wanted the trailer to go. This helps novices avoid the tendency to point the car in the wrong direction. With this helpful guide, I avoided excessive embarrassment. Pretty soon, the trailer was going underwater and the stern was getting wet.

With much help and advice from my family, the boat was unhitched and pushed into the water. I was just about to shout for joy when, suddenly, I saw the starboard stay go slack. A moment of confusion was immediately followed by intimations of disaster until my oldest son realized that the culprit was a “quick link” holding one of the bowsprit chains to a turnbuckle. The strain of moving the boat had pulled the relatively weak coupling apart. The bowsprit loosened, releasing tension in the stays.

The problem was small, but the implications were serious. If I couldn’t reattach the chain to the hull, I couldn’t sail. Fortunately, I had the foresight (or lack of confidence in my building skills) to bring my toolbox. In fact, before leaving home I told my wife that I had packed enough tools to build a house. So with the help of a Vice-Grip, hammer, and countersink (don’t make me explain this combination of tools) I was eventually able to squeeze my chain directly into a turnbuckle. I was relieved, but humbled. The boat was floating, but I had to overcome a mechanical problem even before I had set foot on deck.

Next came the hard part—getting aboard, raising the sail and getting away from the dock. Here’s what happened: I decided to raise the jib but not the mainsail before getting underway. We all got aboard and started drifting away from the dock. I went forward to raise the main sail, but before I made much progress, we were close to the rocky jetty. I shifted strategies and grabbed a paddle, but it was too little, too late. At the last minute I jumped overboard and, standing in water up to my waist, pushed the boat away from the shore. Did I mention that it was a pleasant day and the jetty was crowded with sightseers? “Well, he needs to get his boat away from the rocks,” I heard one older lady explain to a wide-eyed grandchild.

Safely away from land, I was finally able to raise the mast. Immediately, the wind grabbed hold and we shot out to the middle of the lake. My oldest son was at the tiller, grinning like the Cheshire Cat; this, he felt, was what sailing was all about. My wife was not so sure. She had fantasies of dangling her arm in the water while reading a book, not holding on for dear life.

In truth, I was a bit nervous, too. There was so much that I didn’t know about this boat. How far can it heal? How fast can it go? It’s not a large boat, but it’s much larger than a Sunfish. And I simply didn’t know what to expect from a flat bottomed craft. We waffled upwind as I fought competing urges to race ahead and ease off for safety.

Still, this was, perhaps, the best part of the afternoon. We were making good progress and I always felt more comfortable going upwind. We tacked a couple of times and nobody received a concussion. How much time passed? My son guessed fifteen minutes; my watch said an hour. I looked back and realized that the marina was a surprisingly far away. We decided to turn down wind and head back.

As I have written in before, I grew up sailing a small boat on a small lake. As a child, I didn’t have any formal training as a sailor. I felt competent, but I had no awareness of sailing terms or concepts. Sometimes I needed to let out the sail; sometimes I found it better to keep it close to my side. I understood that the boom would swing from one side to the other when I turned. But I had no concept of “close hauled” or “broad reach” sailing. I know that it was sometimes hard to make reliable turns, but I didn’t know why.

In hindsight, I realize that, as a boy, I tended to take the easy route and muddle through the hard parts of sailing. This meant that I looked for opportunities to sail across the wind (reaching) or slightly upwind (close hauled, I think it’s called), which gave me the most sense of control and the easiest tacks. But I struggled with downwind sailing. Only later did I learn from my books that downwind sailing really is harder. It’s harder to judge winds, make turns, and avoid jibing—a sudden and unintended swing of the boom from one side of the boat to the other.

So as we turned and headed downwind toward the marina, my Achilles heal was once again revealed. Gusts, shifting winds, and a disoriented captain meant that we bobbed and weaved about, catching wind one moment, stalling the next, and making quick turns to avoid jibes when they threatened. “Where’s the wind?” I kept asking my family. Three hands would point in three slightly different directions.

Inelegantly, we made our way back down the lake, but just as I felt that we were finding our sea legs, we faced our next major challenge. Sitting at the tiller, I saw the starboard stay fly away from the hull and hang limp in the air. I looked at the mast saw it bending about 10 degrees to the left, straining against the two hinges holding it to the tabernacle. Without the support provided by the vital length of wire, the mast would almost certainly break.

I handed the tiller to my son and clamored forward to lower the sail. My first thought was to reduce tension on the mast and, if necessary, sail home with the jib alone. But once I had the sail down and could inspect the stay I realized that nothing was broken; the turnbuckle simply unscrewed itself (how could that happen? I kept thinking). But this gave me hope. If we could straighten the sail, I might be able to screw the turnbucke back in place.

Our plan was simple. I told my son to turn the boat to further reduce tension on the starboard side and to have my other son push the mast with all his might. I grabbed the stay and turnbuckle, willing them to come together. “Almost there!” I yelled. “Try again!” After a minute of frantic and frustrated effort, I gained just enough slack to bring the two parts back together. We were saved.

Exhausted and almost giddy, I decided that we should take a break. We kept the mainsail down while I crawled into the cabin (for the first time while under sail) to lie down and eat one of my wife’s homemade empanadas. I felt a great rush of happiness and affection for our boat, despite the glitches. “I love my boat!” I enthused, my mouth full of food. By the time I finished my dinner and came out of the cabin, the winds had died and we were drifting toward shore. More frantic work ensued as we raised the sail and pointed the boat back out toward open water.

Emboldened by our ability to overcome nearly every possible catastrophe, we sailed past the marina before deciding to head back upwind and toward home. For me, this was my opportunity redeem myself. After a disastrous departure, I was determined to return with skill and grace.

Over the course of the afternoon, I watched sailboats depart and return. Nearly all did so under power. But we didn’t have an outboard. We had to sail in–and I had one chance to get it right. We sailed perpendicular to the marina and I started to turn in, but I realized that we weren’t lined up correctly. We would almost certainly get pushed too far downwind. I turned away and headed back upwind. My family groaned. They wanted the boat to work like a car. But, I explained, boats don’t work that way. You need to work with the wind. Sometimes you have to go away from the place you want to go. My wife had another idea. “I want you to get a motor.”

A couple of days later, fellow boat builder David Heineman dropped by with this giant hand decorated celebratory cookie. Boat builders are very nice people.

So feeling the pressure on all fronts, I bided my time before turning back toward the launch. “We’ll head for the one the middle,” I said, pointing my boat at the center dock. We were moving fast, but I could tell that we were slipping downwind—leeway, I believe it’s called. I adjusted the tiller and pointed the boat about 15 degrees upwind. “Look!” I said to my family. “Can you see how we need to go sideways in order to sail straight toward the dock?” Yes, they could all see it. Pretty cool.

Closer…closer. Please, god, don’t blow it. And at the last possible second, I straightened the tiller and we slid with perfect precision alongside the dock. I jumped out and looked around. Nobody was watching.

Launched!

With clear skies and a steady breeze, I decided to seize an opportunity and take the boat for a test ride. There is much to say about this momentous event, but I decided to first post a short video, which captures the excitement, confusion, and sheer silliness of our inaugural four-hour sail.

If you are impatient for news, it’s enough to say that the boat floated, sailed, and was all I hoped it would be. Take a quick look at this video while I work on my written report.

 

On the trailer and out of the garage

It’s late and I’m tired, but it was a productive day. I’ll fill in the details later, but here are the highlights:

I bought the trailer a few days ago and spent a couple of days making necessary modifications. I needed to fabricate a slot to support the Pocket Cruiser’s distinctive keel, elevate the bunkers, and move the axels a foot forward in order to lower the tongue weight. (I learned a great deal about trailers this week. The salesman explained that most trailers are built for power boats, which carry their weight in the back. In contrast, sailboats carry most of their weight in the front. To balance the weight more evenly, it is generally necessary to move the wheels forward.)

Getting the boat on the trailer was a nerve wracking task, although it was, in the end, relatively easy. With help from my kids, I was able to lever the front end onto the trailer, elevate the back on five gallon buckets, and winch it forward. What a relief it was to see it safely settled on the trailer!

A couple of days later, after completing most of the rigging, I hitched the boat to the car and pulled it out of the garage. This was a moment’s work, but it felt momentous. After all, this was the first time the boat had left the garage. My kids’ first response: “That’s a small boat.” And they were right. Outside, the boat seemed to shrink. “It will look even smaller on the Chesapeake Bay,” I predicted.

Once outside, I was able to raise the mast and attach the stays—wire rope used to support the mast. Once in place, I raised the sail to the top for the first time and guess what? It worked. By golly, the gaff rose with only minimal effort and took the full sail along for the ride. A puff of wind started yanking at the sail and I quickly dropped it back down, but I felt satisfied. Aside from some tinkering and final lashing, I’m just about ready to sail.

I learned the hard way to not make predictions, but my plan is to take the boat to the water in the coming week. More work remains (the jib isn’t finished), but it’s ready for a quick test run. At last, I’ll finally learn if this thing will actually float.

Cheers to my daughter, who documented the whole process with her camera.

Rigging—at last

Rigging is the final and, for me, one of the most confusing steps in the boat building process. Each day I go to the garage and make a little bit of progress, but it’s hard going. There are dozens of bolts, pulley, turnbuckles and chains–and yards and yards of nylon line. I feel like I am both the spider and the fly—catching myself in a web of my own making.

Just a small sample of the hardware used to rig the boat. Note the pulleys, turnbuckles, clips and role of wire rope.

For an experienced sailor, the work might be easy. But for me, every step is a voyage of discovery. “Oh, so that’s how I raise the sail,” I exclaim as I examine the various pulleys and lines that link the gaff to the mainmast. “Well, that makes sense,” I think as I study how the mast is secured with wire rope and clamps. I am learning to sail simply by learning how my boat is rigged.

Along the way, I had a small revelation. Rigging is really the most important part of the boat. Without a thoughtfully rigged boat, you don’t really have a workable craft. Are you laughing at this obvious insight? Go ahead, but look at it from my perspective: I have spent two years building the hull and cabin, worrying every day about its shape and whether or not it would float or sink. In terms of time and materials, the hull felt like the main act. Of course, the sail and mast were exciting additions—they made a sailboat sail—but I didn’t appreciate their complexity and importance. Until recently, I viewed them as oversized curtains.

But as I begin assembling the pieces—attaching the boom, hanging the sails, sliding the gaff over the mast—I realize that everything above the cabin is part of complex,  interconnected machine. Every piece has a functional purpose, and each piece must relate to all other pieces in a harmonious way. A sailboat with poorly designed or incorrectly built rigging would be like a car with an untrustworthy engine. It doesn’t matter how cool you look if you break down or can’t maintain control.

I also realize that my inexperience with building and sailing means that I am probably making countless small mistakes that will certainly cause countless small frustrations when I finally drop the boat in the water and raise the sails. Already, I can tell that I don’t like my tabernacle and that my mast hoops are too small. But I am reassured by comments from fellow boat builders who tell me that rigging is not a one time effort, but an ongoing project—tinkering and refining is simply part of the process. My goal for the moment is to assemble something that is workable, not flawless.

Steel bars, quick links, turnbuckles, and chain attach the bowsprit to the hull.

The fully attached bowsprit.

I began with the bowsprit, which looked fairly straightforward and self contained. As you might recall, I cut the actual bowsprit a couple of months ago from a piece of 2×3, but   not until week or so ago did I finally attach it to the boat with chains. In theory, this was a simple project but, like everything else, it took much longer than expected. To attach the three lengths of chain, I needed an impressive assort of hardware, including eyebolts, steel bars, quick links, and turnbuckles. Until recently I had never heard of a “quick link” and had never used a turnbuckle, but by the time I had made my third trip to the hardware store, I was fully acquainted with the turnbuckle/quick link/eyebolt aisle. Remarkably, my local Ace Hardware affiliate had everything I needed. I complemented the salesman on his store’s attention to the needs of boat builders, but he didn’t get the joke.

It seemed like a lot of work for a small addition to the boat, but as work progressed, I came appreciate the importance of the bowsprit. For a long time, I considered it a decorative addition and the chains mere jewelry, but I began to realize that strong chains are needed to secure the bowsprit so it can support both the jib (the small forward sail) and the forestay (wire rope used to securely hold the mainmast upright). Again, the point was reinforced: Every part serves a purpose.

Various double and single pulleys are attached to the top of the mast.

Next, I turned to the mast. Here I had an opportunity to hang several double and single pulleys that will, in time, help me hoist and drop the mainsail. I had never used pulley before and I was thrilled that I finally had a use for this elegant and ancient technology.

In the coming days, I will run the lines through the pulleys and finish lashing the sail to the boom and gaff. With the stays attached to mainsail, I look forward to the next and possibly final milestone in the building process: raising the sail. I can’t think of anything to do after that. It must be nearly time to hit the water.

Sailmaking for the impatient sailor

Sailmaking is one of the great and ancient mariner arts. It conjures images of crusty old sailors sitting on barrels surround by yards of cotton canvas and pipe smoke as miles of thread are worked through fabric.

Unfortunately, my approach to sailmaking is considerably less romantic.

The completed sail. My son is keeping it from flying away in the wind while I stand on the roof of my workshop to take this photo.

First a little background. My research over the past two years suggested three possible routes to the acquisition of sails for my Pocket Cruiser. First, I could purchase ready-made sails for about $600. So many Stevenson boats are built that several companies (including the boat’s designer) offer sails that are just right for my boat. That’s the fastest and most expensive route. I just place my order and wait by the mailbox.

Secondly, I could buy some Dacron sailcloth and sew my own sails. It sounds intimidating, but it is doable. Boat designer Jim Michalak has a detailed discussion of  sailmaking in his novice-friendly book Boatbuilding for Beginners and Beyond. For anyone who knows how to use a sewing machine (and I do), this is a worthy option. The downside is that even inexpensive sailcloth costs real money and I assume that a serious time commitment is involved.

Finally, there is the quick and cheap option. A growing number of backyard boat builders get  on the water without delay by cutting a workable set of sails out of large plastic tarps—the kind used to cover outdoor furniture in winter or protect a woodpile from rain. They come in surprisingly large sizes and advocates say they are nearly as durable as Dacron—at least for a while. Instead of thread to sew their sails, these guys use guy materials—duck tape for the seams and grommets for the lashing. In an afternoon, I learned, it’s possible to turn a very large sheet of polytarp into a fully finished sail.

Polytarp sails are not perfect. While reasonably sturdy, they don’t last nearly as long as real sails, I am told. Pete Stevenson, my boat’s designer, admitted that they are generally good for a “season or two.” He and others recommend against their use on long voyages. This leaves me wondering how they will fail. Do they degrade and rip? Do the grommets pull out? My suspicion is that the duck-taped seams will peel and shred. But in either case, the consensus is that they are a functional but short term solution.

On the other hand, they are cheap–and that tipped the balance. I purchased a large 16’ x 19’ polytarp from an online supplier for about  $70 last fall (sailmakers are not limited to green or blue tarps found in home centers; I chose a plain white material). For taping the edges, a single small role of duck tape is enough. The grommet kit is also economical.

The actual work is really just a matter of drawing several long lines and cutting out a very large triangle-ish shape. But the work is not without its small challenges. First is the problem of workspace. I discovered that I do not have a flat surface anywhere on my property that is 16 feet wide and 19 feet long. My garage is large, but all available floor space is now occupied by my boats. Outside, my bumpy, sloping yard was entirely unhelpful. My driveway is gravel, and not suitable for careful measurement and cutting.

In hindsight, it would have made sense to cut my sail two years ago when I could roll the tarp out on my not-yet-cluttered garage floor. That’s actually Jim Michalak’s recommendation. Sails take up about as much space as the boat, he argues, so use your floor space to make the sail when you still have the space available. It’s sound advice, although I don’t know if I would have followed his recommendation even if I had read his book two years ago. I was too eager to start cutting wood.

My imperfect solution was to roll out part of the tarp in the garage, draw a couple of lines, and then roll out the other side and draw the rest. It took a long time and made me worry about inaccurate measurements, especially since there are no right angles. The bottom edge of the sail (the part tied to the boom) is 83 degrees to the side tied to the mast, for example. This required measurements with a laughably small and primitive protractor. Even a small twist in the fabric would send the lines off course. To double check my work, I took the tarp outside and opened the whole thing  on the driveway.  I fixed a couple of wobbly lines and then set to work with my pocket knife.

Two edges were wrapped in duck tape: the bottom edge, which will be tied to the boom, and the angled top edge, which will be lashed to the gaff. Making grommets was the most time consuming work, and a new experience for me. I was entertained (at least for the first few grommets) by the task to punching out holes with simple metal die, inserting two parts of the grommet and then tapping them together with a mallet and specially made metal punch. After about a dozen holes, the novelty wore off and I was ready to be done.  The result can be seen in the photo.

I also need to make the jib, but that’s a smaller and simpler project. Now that I know how to process works, I can get that ready in an  hour or two. On to the next step.

Don’t forget to use the boat

My eagerness to build boats and, at the moment, finish my Pocket Cruiser has one disadvantage: I sometimes forget to actually use my boats. Day after day, I tinker with my sailboat while my little green canoe sits unused in a corner of the garage.

I made amends today by taking the “Six Hour Canoe” to a nearby lake. Arriving soon after sunrise on a weekday, I had the water all to myself and felt that nature was on full display for my private enjoyment. Birds filled the air and I lost count of the number of great blue herons I startled along the shoreline.

I love the woods and generally take hikes in nearby state parks three or four times a month, but nature looks different from the water and animals act in unexpected ways. Soon after launching I noticed two deer in the treeline—a common sight in rural Pennsylvania. But they surprised me by casually wading into the lake and swimming to the opposite shore—maybe 200 yards across deep water. Their heads were all that I could see—two furry bumps on the calm surface, moving purposefully from one shore to the other. I had never seen deer swim. But, then, I had never seen deer from a canoe.

I was on a large lake dammed and maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers. Farther down, it opens into an impressive body of water and is filled on summer days with dozens of noisy powerboats and jet skis. However, I launched in the upper reaches, far inside a no wake zone, a region used only by fisherman, most working the waters with quiet trolling motors. But even they were largely absent as I explored a deep inlet that eventually turned into a shallow marsh fed by a narrow but navigable stream. I paddled   upstream until it become too narrow even for my canoe, found a spot just wide enough to turn around, and let the current take be back into the lake. Hearing the grasses slide under and around my little boat as I rested the paddle on the gunwales, I felt inexpressibly happy. I was exactly where I wanted to be.

I hugged the shoreline, working my way back to the parking lot as the sun started clearing treetops. I watched turtles sunning themselves on logs and felt quite self satisfied as I poured a mug of French roast coffee from my thermos and scanned the trees for birds, vowing—for the hundredth time—that I would eventually learn to identify more than robins and chickadees.

This trip was also an opportunity to test a small modification to my canoe. The six hour canoe has a high rocker and flat bottom, which makes it hard to track on the water. During my first outings last fall, I noticed that it wanted to skitter around with each push of the paddle. In addition, the flat bottom was easily scraped when dragged in and out of rocky or sandy shorelines. To fix both problems, I decided to attach a small keel— a strip of  1×2 pine down the center of the hull. I tapered the ends and held it in place with six stainless steel screws (a dab of caulking at each screw hole helped create a watertight seal). I finished the job with a coat of paint.

As I hoped, this small addition protected the bottom from scratches and did seem to help keep canoe on track. I felt like a veritable Daniel Boone (who was born nearby) with what I imaged to be my expert handling of a wilderness-worthy canoe. I’m sure I really looked like a middle aged guy on a manmade lake, but a couple of hours of solitude at sunrise can do wonders for a man’s fantasy life.

Of goosenecks and tabernacles

Until very recently I assumed goosenecks were of interest only to geese and tabernacles were the natural habitat of Mormon choirs. Now I know that they are also parts of my boat’s rigging. Both were installed a few weeks ago.

A gooseneck is an elaborate hinge that connects the boom to the mast. It allows the boom to swing sideways and also fold up and down. My boat’s designer included instructions for fabricating a sturdy gooseneck from iron rods, a short piece of pipe and some pins. But I’m impatient and also largely disinterested in metalwork, so I purchased a simple and serviceable gooseneck from Duckworks, my always reliable source for “exactly what I needed” boat building parts.

Here’s how it looks:

The tabernacle is simply the lower part of a hinged mast. It sits upright through the boats cabin and with the mast. Creating the tabernacle was much more difficult—emotionally, at least. I built my mast some months ago and devoted two full weeks to its carefully assembly. Now I had to cut it down at its knees. The bottom four feet would sit in the previously assembled mast box and become the tabernacle, while the top eleven feet would be reattached with some sturdy hinges and serve as the mast. This allows the mast to drop for transportation without having to be completely removed and disassembled.

To avoid mistakes, the rule is “measure twice, cut once.” But in this case, I think I measured a hundred times. I absolutely did not want to make a stupid mistake and cut the mast too high or too low. So only after reviewing my plans for the tenth time, did I finally take my circular and slice through the mast.

The next step was to reconnect the bottom and top portions with hinges. The designer called for two 12 inch gate hinges, one on each side of the cut. This made sense; the hinges had to securely hold the mast upright. But I had a couple of problems: The largest gate hinge I could find was ten inches long and, furthermore I also discovered that my gooseneck got in the way; I could use a hinge no longer than six inches on the inside.

A quick tour of boat building Web sites reassured me that many other builders had made similar modifications and that, in the end, the mast would be held up by the stays— which the nautical term for ropes that reach from the top of the mast to the hull below. The results strike me as functional, if not especially elegant.

Perfection Versus the Real World

While living on the Eastern Shore of Maryland I saw plenty of shiny new yachts. Most were kept in resort town marinas and saw, at best, occasional use by their absentee owners. They were pretty boats, to be sure: freshly varnished teak and pure white paint.

After a few arrivals and departures from a sandy beach, this is what my canoe looks like underneath.

But the boats that most captured my imagination were the old wooden workboats—the fishing and crabbing boats that were built from thick timbers by old-time craftsman who took their skills for granted. Most were scuffed, scraped, splintered, and hastily repaired. They exuded a strong odor of dead fish and dried mud on hot summer days.  But after decades of hard work, they exhibited a depth of character that no weekend yacht could emulate. Like a crumbling stone wall in an abandoned farm field, they became part of their environment. They blended harmoniously into the salt marsh landscape of the Bay precisely because they were rough hewn and hard used.

Maybe that’s why I never aspired to yacht-like perfection in my boats. I want people to know that my boat is homemade; I want it to look used. While I admire the stamina of builders who spend weeks and months faring their hulls and applying six, eight, ten coats of marine varnish (sanding between each), I was satisfied with grinding down the rough spots and slapping on a few coats of porch paint. Up close, the casual approach is obvious. There are bumps and drips just about everywhere. But I am perfectly content with the results. My boat feels “real.”

Every well used canoe needs some mud.

Still, part of me wondered if I would regret my hasty approach. Once I was on the water and my boat was exposed to the revealing glare of sunlight on water, would I wish for greater perfection? Maybe I would feel embarrassed by my humble work whenever a gleaming yacht slid passed.

But I recently had a revelation about this urge for workshop perfection. A few days ago I took my canoe—the “six hour” canoe I built last fall—to a local lake for its first outing of the season. This was only its second trip to the water and I doubt its total use by the family exceeded an hour or two hours of paddling. But by the end of the day, as I lifted it out of the water and hoisted it back onto the roof of my car, I immediately noticed that this new, barely used craft was coated in mud. Underneath, the paint had scraped off down to bare wood and fiberglass where the canoe dragged along the shoreline.

A quick once over with a hose and a touch up with a paint brush would make the canoe nearly good as new. But why fret about this “damage”? The canoe was just being used as a canoe should; the mud and scratches are badges of honor. And I’d rather enjoy my canoe than worry about every little ding. Instead, I found myself feeling smug that I didn’t waste my time sanding and painting. Why pursue a notion of perfection that cannot be sustained in the real world?

Back home, my Pocket Cruiser has yet to see the water; it has yet to see sunlight or rain. It has not yet hit a gravely beach, or hosted children with muddy feet who spill their drinks. It has not yet hit a dock—hard. But it will and, when it does, my brightwork won’t look so bright, the white paint will show dirt, the paint will scrape away and begin to bubble.

I can’t wait.