Thread: Nice rowboat, nothing fancy.

I've been thinking a bit since the other day. The whole launch and retrieval thing worked ok, but was more of a rigmarole that I'd like it to be. If I'm going to use this boat frequently, launch and retrieval should be as easy as possible.

The cradle works, but is heavy. Getting it on and off the truck is ok at home, where there is a level concrete slab to stand on, but not so good in the average beach parking area. The height of the frames, combined with the weight of cradle and boat together, is right at the limit of what I feel like managing after a long row. Also, getting all the bits and pieces required, like rowlocks, thwart, bailer, PFD, etc, etc from truck to beach and back again is a nuisance when the boat has to be transported upside down on the cradle.

Speaking of which, inverting said boat after a long row on a breezy morning is a nuisance too. So, ideas:

1/ Attached is a picture of how the steel frames on the truck attach to the side of the tray. As mentioned before, these frames are higher than is really convenient, but have to be that high to fit over a weatherproof canopy that came with the truck. The canopy is in perfect condition, and may be handy for camping sometimes, so I want to retain the ability to use it. However I won't be using it often, which means most of the time I'd like the rectangular frames lower.

I can drop them about 300 mm without the boat cradle interfering with the cab roof. This would be great for getting things on and off. What I've figured out is that if I get a grinder and cut the welds holding the frames to their mounting plates, without borking either, I can then modify the mounting plates with a bit of steel angle welded on to them. This would be drilled to take a suitable bolt (or maybe two), and a matching hole drilled in the box section frame. Materials and labour required will be minimal.

These matching holes in the frame can be drilled at two heights: one to give the current height to enable use of the canopy, and the other to give a height 300 mm lower so things just clear the cab roof. By extending the angle iron vertically for about 150mm, I should be able to get a solid bearing so the frames don't tend to wobble around the bolts. With the frames set to the lower height they would obviously stick down past the bottom of the tray, but would still be well above axle height anyway. That should be fine.

An added advantage here is that by separating frames and mounting plates into separate units, fitting the frames to the truck and removing them from it will be a much easier operation. All things considered, this sounds like the winning option.

2/ Ok, so I can sort the frame height out, but that cradle is till heavy and bolting it to the frames and unbolting it requires climbing around the truck lining holes up, plus messing around with spanners. It'd be cool to leave it up there most of the time, except when I want to remove it at home. It'd also be cool to transport the boat right side up in good weather, which would enable some stuff to stay in the boat where it's wanted. If the frames are lowered I can do this, since the stemhead would then be low enough to fit under a standard 2.4 metre high carpark access, and would also fit under the shade sails at home.

So, next cunning plan is to make up that removable bow chock (with carpet padding) for right-side-up transport and bolt that to the cradle. This should let me just pick the bow of the boat up and place it on the rear cradle crosspiece, then go pick the stern up and just slide the boat up onto the cradle. Once it's up, tie it down to the cradle and it's ready to rumble. Since the boat by itself is about half the weight (or less) of the boat/cradle combo I am very much liking the sound of this.

3/ So, if cradle stays bolted to truck, how does boat get from truck to beach? Obviously I need a custom dolly for it, with nice wide tyres that will work on sand. This would be great, since everything can get put in the boat at the truck, and there will only be one trip down to the beach. It'll also be lighter and easier to manoeuvre, so I'll be able to get it down narrower and lumpier tracks with less hassle.

The other thing about having a lightweight dolly with nice wide tyres is that if I ever find myself up a creek on an ebb tide, and have to get the boat across drying sand flats, I'll be able to simply roll it along instead of having to drag it. This has to be good.

These wheels are looking like the best option locally: http://beachwheelsaustralia.com/comp...tility-wheels/ I'm thinking of the 26 cm foam-filled tyre since the price is the same as the 20 cm ones, it'll be better on sand and on rough surfaces, and the weight difference is negligible.

The dolly frame will be timber of course, probably more Surian cedar. Haven't figured it out completely yet, but it's a simple enough project.

So yeah, that's where I'm up to. If I can get that lot sorted, things will be much more usable.

And obviously I still have to make that passenger seat, and after the trip the other day, in all that shallow water over a lovely sand bottom, a push pole (with the upper end doubling as a boathook) is definitely on the to-do list as well. That's a really nice way to travel over sand flats if you're not in a hurry and want a change from rowing.

Got the basic idea sorted for the dolly. Obviously it'll be filleted with timber and/or bog where necessary for bonding strength, but the gist of it is as shown in the attached pic. It will just slip over the aft end of the garboards and bottom, with a pin being inserted through the dolly's side supports and the boat's sternpost to hold the dolly to the boat. This hole will be bored to 12mm, filled with goop, then bored again to take a 6mm stainless pin, with plenty of epoxy surrounding the hole.

This should be adequate, and will make the dolly easy to fit and remove at any time. The drag from the 6 mm hole in that location will be negligible, even for racing fanatics, and the sternpost is quite solid. Width of the dolly baseplate is 400 mm and length is 230. The width is enough to give stability on uneven surfaces, up to 45 degrees laterally, since it may end up trundling down bush tracks with sand, roots and whatnot.

Re wheels, on second thought I'm thinking I might use the "25.4 cm EVA Utility Cart" wheels. These are much cheaper than the others, much lighter, and have adequate rated load for a boat this light. Tyre width is only 60 mm, which may be a bit undersize in sand. However, if necessary I can use four (two each side) to give a total tyre width of 120 mm each side, and this will still be cheaper and lighter than using two of any of the other wheels. With effective tyre widths of 120 mm, and only carrying around 20 kg* total even with some extra gear aboard, I think it would haul fairly easily even on dry sand.

*Given that I'll be holding up around 15 kg of the total at the bow.

Yeh the wheel to sand bearing is going to be an important factor, especially if there's soft sand about.
I think you are doing the right thing to pay attention to the handling on dry, I have always found that a boat's use is directly related to the ability to launch by the rowing crew.
Looking real good right now
couldn't see any empty paper cups and bubbly bottles at the launching. also seemed to be a shortage of ladies to drop a few drops of bubbly on the bow,
anyway you do have a name.

I didn't want to have to deal with extra people at the launching. I just wanted me and the boat, so I could get out on the water (finally) and go for a good row without any distractions.

I also didn't want to be drunk, ergo lack of champers.

Ok, I now have a dolly of sorts. Will see how it goes. I don't expect this to be the final version, but it rolls.

Uses the same wheels as the big cradle, which are frankly a bit crappy (I'll get some better wheels in a week or so when more cash is available). They just sit in the axle holes in the frame and are kept there by friction. It works well enough on the big cradle for trips of 100 metres or so, so should be fine. The chocks inside the top frame sit against the ends of the quarter knee, and the rope around the aft end of the skeg is just to stop the dolly flopping around when the boat is lifted, or when reversing.

Also made a sort of impromptu fender to hold the bow of the boat off the ground when using the dolly, so I can just stop anywhere and put the boat down. The bow chocks for right-side-up transportation are fixed to the cradle now too. These can be removed at any time since they are secured with standard hex head roofing screws.

Anyway, it works. I can leave the cradle on top of the truck, bolted to the steel frames. Wheel the boat up to the truck, lift the bow up onto the rear end of the cradle, then go pick the stern up and slide the boat onto the cradle, then tie the boat down to the cradle. Much easier than trying to unload the cradle/boat combination and trundle that beast around. Looks like a workable solution.

Got out for another row this morning. Only three and a half nautical miles this time. I didn't want my backside to be as sore as last time.

Anyway, first thing is that I have the on-shore handling system mostly sorted now. Just need a few more tweaks to the actual loading and unloading to make it a bit easier. Speaking of which, the boat has acquired some minor scrapes while sorting all this out, and the aluminium plate I bonded into the aft corner of the garboard/skeg has paid for itself already. If it wasn't there I'd probably have scraped through to the wood by now, since 6oz glass has little resistance to point load abrasion. As it is, I just need to touch up the paint.

The dolly works well too, even with the crappy wheels. Handles sand fairly well, especially if it's bit wet, but is usable on dry sand due to the light all-up weight. New wheels will make it a lot better.

However, I did remove the lugs/spiky-bits that bore against the for'd ends of the quarter knee. They didn't locate that well, and were prone to causing minor damage to the boat. What I've gone with instead is a continuous rope from the dolly and around the rowlocks and back (see attached pix). This works really well. Just fit the dolly to the boat, then drop the rope over the rowlocks. The dolly stays put, even on rough ground or when reversing, and no damage to the boat.

The other rope around the aft end of the skeg turns out not to be necessary and will be removed. It always ends up dragging loose on the ground anyway, so obviously isn't needed.

Ok, so after the first trip I was looking at the scunge line along the boat from the foam and crud in the water, and at the just launched shots, and thinking about trim. I had an idea she might have been trimming down by the bow slightly. So, I fired up Delftship and ran some numbers, since I now had exact weights to works with. When I weighed the bare hull, I supported the boat right at one end and lifted the other end while standing on bathroom scales. Repeated the process for the other end, of course. The stern was only 1 kg heavier than the bow, meaning the CG is almost exactly halfway along the boat. This is further forward than I had anticipated when drawing this critter, and when I did a basic moment calculation taking myself, oars, etc into account I found that yes indeed, she had been trimming down by the bow a bit.

A bit more number crunching told me that a couple of kg down aft should do the trick and put her in level trim. Funnily enough the new dolly weighs a few kg, and it's CG would be a bit further forward. Near enough. So, today's trip was made with the dolly in the boat, with one wheel sitting as far aft as it would go between the garboards, and the other 200 mm or so behind the footrest. This stopped the dolly rolling around and it just sat there nicely.

This seemed to work very well. The tracking is now much better. Winds today were varying, depending where I was on the winding creek, and ranged from almost none in a wind shadow to moderate, gusting fresh occasionally, in other sections. A gust on the bow will still make her want to fall off a bit, but is easily corrected. However the behaviour with the wind astern or on the quarter seems very good, with only minor corrections required. This is where the Herreshoff/Gardner 17 footer tends to misbehave, unless fitted with a sizable fin.

If left to herself, Alexia will actually sail downwind without any corrections at all, albeit at an angle of about 15 degrees to the wind. In the same situation, the HG 17 will round right up. When actually rowing, keeping Alexia going straight offwind is close to effortless. You just nudge one oar a bit harder sometimes. So, looks like the built-in skeg cum Sea Bright Skiffish garboard, or whatever you want to call it, is doing the business pretty well. For the moment I'm calling that another design characteristic that works as intended.

The boat still has little lateral resistance when there's breeze on the beam, but that's a built-in fault that affects just about any lightweight flat-bottomed boat. The Herreshoff/Gardner 17 footer is the same. You have to be careful when rowing along a lee shore, particularly if the wind is gusting, and make sure you give yourself enough water. The only way around that is to add lateral resistance, and a fair amount of it if you want it to do much good.

I have thought about this, and am reserving the option of adding a small daggerboard that would fit under the base of the passenger seat. Although a nuisance in really shallow water (and you always end up pushing it when cruising in a boat like this) it could be a decided benefit with a fresh breeze on the beam over any distance. If set up as a daggerboard rather than a fixed fin, it would still be removable for shallow water or good conditions, or beaching. If I do this, I'd also make a plug to fill the slot completely. I'll use the boat a fair bit more before deciding one way or the other though, as I am reluctant to complicate a dead simple boat that seems to work.

I'm also considering minor changes to the rowing position. Every time I go out in this boat I seem to cover distance, since it's so easy and so much fun. A more comfortable seat that won't torture my backside over long distances is definitely on the to-do list. I'm thinking I might lower it an inch too. This isn't for stability, more to raise the oar handles further up my torso on the pull. I could raise the rowlock blocks, but lowering the seat is easier if I'm making one anyway.

Speaking of stability, she has heaps. If I hadn't been worried about making her stable enough for mugs, and was only designing for myself, I'd happily knock 100 mm off the metacentric height and save myself some wetted surface. Might have to build another boat sometime.

beautiful.
just
beautiful.

As I said to a bloke on the beach, there's no point building ugly boats. Takes just as much work, and is not as much fun.

I've been out a couple more times now. Yesterday evening I put her in at Mullumbimby to check out the upper reaches of the river, since I'm planning on doing the Mullum to Brunswick Heads run in May next year. Won't be going for line honours (it has ridiculously fit nutters on carbon surf skis doing that) but will cruise it on a personal best basis, like a lot of people in all sorts of boats do.

Tricky stretch of river up there when the tide is down a bit. I can see it being a bit of a mess when they have a hundred or so boats of various types trying to fit in the very narrow channels. It's a typical, slow-moving smallish river, in that it cuts its channels on the outside of the bends and has wide shallows on the inside. The sharper the bend, the worse it gets. The channels can be quite narrow, only just wide enough for your oars in places, with water outside the channel often being under a foot deep. Oh, and there are snags too, of course, just to make it more fun. Short version: it's a prick of a place to run a race.

However, enjoyable enough for a quick cruise. Nice scenery, even if the water is a bit muddy that far inland. Plenty of wildlife. Knocked off a few miles, going with the last of the ebb on the way down, and against it on the way back. Made an effort to keep up a solid pace on the way back, as the first real "training run". Mile and a half over the ground, with ebb tide of about a third of a knot against me. Didn't time it, but I don't expect the time was spectacular. Anyway I made it back without having a heart attack (famous last words).

It was hard to tell how fast I was going. This boat just doesn't make waves. I suppose it must make them sooner or later, but I've seen little evidence of that yet. Well ok, it makes divergent waves from stem and stern, but the transverse ones (the ones relevant to "hull speed") which must exist, just don't seem to be noticeable. If I could tell where their crests were I could easily estimate speed from wavelength, but they're basically invisible so far. I'll have to learn to go faster and see if I can make them show their faces. Will also have to start timing runs so I can keep track of progress (I am determined that there will be progress ).

Snuck in another quick jaunt, with no serious attempts at speed, at Clarrie Hall Dam. I was just checking the place out, since it has great surroundings and will be a good place for training runs. No current at all, plenty of space and plenty of depth, so should be easy to get reliable data on speed. However, this first outing there was just a short cruise.

One thing I did find was that the oar blade shape I chose just happens to be near ideal for rowing through dense patches of water lilies. It wasn't intended for this, but it turns out to be very handy. There are quite a lot of lilies on the edges of the dam, as well as other water weeds that are similarly tangly. This also applies to some stretches of some rivers around here. The heel of the stem is around the waterline too, meaning that doesn't snag weeds either. That one actually was deliberate, since I was aware of what the local conditions can be like. Getting stopped in your tracks by weeds around the bow is no fun at all.

Anyway, with the blade's upper edge mostly parallel to the water, then drooping off at the tip, and with no inner corners on the lower edge, and with a large blade area that has more below the shaft than above it, I found that by keeping the blades just slightly higher than normal I can scoot through hordes of obstructive octopi very easily indeed without any tendency for the blades to get tangled. This is kinda cool, and I'm rather pleased with it. No use whatsoever for racing, but very handy for general use.

Pix taken at the dam.

Well, I have actually made an effort to time some runs. Only two so far, today and the day before yesterday.

I've worked out a nice training course at the dam. This is a good place for it since there is no current, and winds early in the morning are frequently minimal. On the way down I just cruise, often following the shore for more interest (a bit of exploring is always fun), and often push rowing backwards just for a change. There happens to be a private pontoon/jetty in one side valley of the dam, about 150 metres from the starting point of my run, so this makes a good place to stop and stretch my legs after rowing down there. This gives me a nice warm up of a bit over a mile and a half or so, and a bit of a break, before I get all serious about it. The run back is where I get serious.

So, the first timed run the other day was embarrassing: 21 minutes for 1.45 nautical miles, with a slight headwind for the last half. The slight headwind theoretically would have slowed me down a little bit, but on the other hand it was bloody refreshing by that stage, which probably helped.

That run worked out to an average speed of only 4.2 knots (4.8 mph) which, as I said, is embarrassing, but did give me a good idea of how hard I could push with my current abysmal fitness level. I'd paced myself for this first timed run, since I didn't want to end up having to take a ten minute break for gasping and wheezing halfway back. Got to the end ok, and figured I could go a bit harder next time.

So today I went a bit harder. The aerobic stuff is what's limiting me at the moment, but that will improve with more rowing. Today's time was 18m 15s, which is significantly better and works out to 4.8 knots (5.5 mph), again over 1.45 nautical miles. Wind was neither for or against me, being a slight crosswind most of the way. Could still have gone a bit harder, but not much at the moment.

I should be easily under 18 minutes by the end of the month, which is promising if not awe-inspiring.

Anyway, today's speed of 4.8 knots is up into the range where Michlet reckons this boat should have a significant resistance advantage over the Herreshoff/Gardner boat. Can't actually verify that at the moment, since I don't have an H/G handy and haven't rowed one for years, but will be running some comparisons when I can arrange it (March or April next year, most likely).

ETA: My target is 15 minutes flat. Should be achievable, without going to steroids and other forms of insanity (like giving up ice cream).

Oh yeah, here's a couple of funny things I saw the other day.

I kinda like the raft. Reminds me of stuff we used to build as kids. Anything to get out on the water.

Ok, so I was fed up with my butt getting sore while rowing. I could have made a nifty laminated contoured seat like a trad wooden sculling seat, or I could have done several other things, but frankly at the moment I am totally over doing fancy woodwork projects for this boat. I may do more fancy stuff later (in fact it's certain, barring asteroid strikes etc) but not now. I just want to go rowing. Comfortably.

So, since I had more of those bits of old carpet and foam underlay that I've been using for padding cradles, etc I decided to to make myself a bum pad. After playing around with various ideas I came up with the monstrous-looking concoction in the pix. Layer of carpet top and bottom, one continuous layer of foam underlay in the middle, and three extra strips of foam each side (75 mm , 50 mm and 25 mm wide) to make a nice cradle effect for the outer sides of said bum. It's stitched together along each end with a basic coarse running stitch, using nylon brickie's line. This will keep it together, but will make it easier to dry out the middle if (when) that is necessary since it's not held together all the way round. I'm not too fussed about it getting wet, since rowing in the rain will be a rare thing and this boat is stable enough to stay right side up.

This thing is really comfortable, as far as I can tell from testing it by sitting on a concrete slab. From thirty feet away it looks as flash as a custom professionally-made sheepskin cushion, and I'll be sitting on it rather than looking at it anyway. Will see how it goes in action tomorrow, but I figure it has to be a lot better than the status quo.

Total cost: nuffink. Total labour time: about an hour, including head scratching and making a cup of coffee.

Originally Posted by Sumbloak

Well,

That run worked out to an average speed of only 4.2 knots (4.8 mph) which, as I said, is embarrassing, but did give me a good idea of how hard I could push with my current abysmal fitness level. I'd paced myself for this first timed run, since I didn't want to end up having to take a ten minute break for gasping and wheezing halfway back. Got to the end ok, and figured I could go a bit harder next time.

So today I went a bit harder. The aerobic stuff is what's limiting me at the moment, but that will improve with more rowing. Today's time was 18m 15s, which is significantly better and works out to 4.8 knots (5.5 mph), again over 1.45 nautical miles. Wind was neither for or against me, being a slight crosswind most of the way. Could still have gone a bit harder, but not much at the moment.

I should be easily under 18 minutes by the end of the month, which is promising if not awe-inspiring.

Anyway, today's speed of 4.8 knots is up into the range where Michlet reckons this boat should have a significant resistance advantage over the Herreshoff/Gardner boat. Can't actually verify that at the moment, since I don't have an H/G handy and haven't rowed one for years, but will be running some comparisons when I can arrange it (March or April next year, most likely).

ETA: My target is 15 minutes flat. Should be achievable, without going to steroids and other forms of insanity (like giving up ice cream).

Just as a matter of interest I looked up the best times for individual rowing sculls. It is 6.33 minutes for 2000 meters. Your course is 2684 meters so you would need to complete it in 8.5 minutes, if you wanted to at that standard, which of course you don't as giving up ice cream is far too high a price to pay.

Before I gave up selling paulownia some years ago I sold some to a guy in WA who was going to build a racing scull out of it. He was going to send me photos but he either forgot or has not finished the craft. Pity it would have been interesting to see how it compared to professionally built craft.

Whitewood

Well even with steroids and no ice cream, this boat isn't going to be anywhere near as fast as a scull. Also, by scull standards I'd be "lightweight masters" on a good day, not "mid-twenties gorilla". Like I said, I think fifteen minutes (ish) is probably doable by me. Perhaps mid to low 14's for someone younger and beefier. If you want to go faster than that, you'd need a faster boat (which I may build sometime).

A paulownia scull should be quite good if done right.