Michael Storer's Interesting Boat Links

[keyhavenpotter]

Thanks Michael. Here is a link to my own attempt at carbon spars on a lug rig.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/2784884...7606252376718/

The dinghy is a local Keyhaven Scow. The sail is a Sanders sail designed for alloy tubes. In the pics I am "racing" in very light winds and quite a strong ebb tide.

The gaff being a tapered section origionally made as a windsurfering mast.
When I put my Scow together from a set of mouldings I fancied doing a carbon rig if possible. Was going to use a carbon windsurfing mast but ended up locating a carbon tube maker locally.

They are 50% carbon and 50% glass. It has worked quite well but looses shape in stronger 20 knots plus winds. As you say the mast needs to be stiff for a lug rig - in strong winds I can see mine bending away from the boom.

I am planning to add unidirectional carbon on the top of the gaff, and bottom of the boom to stiffen them somewhat. Thought an extra layer of the tubular carbon for the mast might stiffen that. Stiffening the mast is most needed I think.

We use 6:1 downhaul and 4:1 kicker. ( 16mm harken aero blocks - lovely jewel like blocks with 2.5mm dyneema lines - shrounds and halyards also 2.5mm dyneema)

One of the things I was keen on was a lightweight bouyant set of spars. When capsized with alloy spars the dinghy settles at about 45 degrees below horizontal. I thought the bouyancy would help to hold her at horizontal and make it easier to right.

Hope this UK lug rig stuff is of some interest - Brian.

[coogzilla]

Howdy All,

I will occasionally put an interesting new boaty link up in this thread (now I can edit old threads I can simply add to this first post).

I have to get to the bottom of it ... but there is a festival in Taiwan that involves burning ... this.

The link to all the pics are here

OMG Michael. The Junk is a beaut. Why the hexx would they fry it. How stupid.

Coogs

[Boatmik]

Howdy Coogs,

They build one once a year - it is all fake - but with quite a lot of authentic features.

This is from my web friend Mao

The series you asked is a local religious activity called "Shao(burn) Wang(Wang Ye, God of Pestilence) Chuan(ship)" , meaning "Burning the ship of Wang Ye, God of Pestilence".

It's a very common religious activity held at many southern port cities in Taiwan and also the south-eastern sea-side part of Mainland China.

The custom was formed because there were too many pestilences and plagues burst in the sea-side port cities in the old days. Fishermen and villagers built the ship of Wang Yeh to gather all the bad things and sickness in town. In the old days, they then sent the ship away after ceremonies symbolizing sending all the bad things away.

If ever the tide takes the ship back to the shore, which means the back luck and plague comes back with Wang Ye , the villagers have to build a temple to worship the ship and Wang Ye then.

In this one I attended, they don't really send the ship to the sea(meaning traveling the river of earth), they burn it on the shore in stead (meaning traveling the river of heaven). I think in this way it eliminate the variables and strengthen the meaning of wiping the bad things away. During the process, all the local gods will have to come out to greet Wang Ye and his ship, just like the grand touring of Mazu, goddess of sea, which is also worth seeing. Check my other series:http://www.flickr.com/photos/maopopo...7604550754738/

Some of the local people dress as Gods of Bad Luck (found out just now .. the Gods of PESTILENCE) - and go aboard the ship - then it is burned.

As you can see .. every business in the local area will be making a motza (heap of money) as people come from all round the island to see such a wonderful and crazy thing.

At the moment there are close to a million young people in Sydney to see the Pope.

All I can say to either situation is "Why Not"! (though I am a little more likely to go to see the boat rather than the Pope!)

Anything that moves life out from being the same all the time is great. New ideas, understanding other peoples ideas - all good!

MIK

[b.o.a.t.]

Howdy Coogs,
They build one once a year - it is all fake - but with quite a lot of authentic features.
Some of the local people dress as Gods of Bad Luck - and go aboard the ship - then it is burned.

Anything to keep the "mainlanders" away huh....
Wonder how long before our "South Islanders" start doing something of the same... (g'day Sir Vern)

[Boatmik]

Ha AJ,

It is a hugely interesting question whether the Mainlanders could do anything about it at all. And it looks like it might all be quite unnecessary with regular commercial airline flights starting a couple of weeks ago.

While every Mainland Kid is told at school that they could overwhelm the island in 15 minutes it is strange they have not tried. There are three main reasons for this. The huge technical problem of moving large numbers of people and equipment across water; on paper the mainland looks like having the numbers but a huge proportion are permanently needed to fix any more local problems in the west, south and north; and probably most important ... that no mainland leader wants to be the one that loses a war and proves the Island's independence.

The main shift is that the mainland has finally realised that its previous posturing is counterproductive and was pushing the island's voters towards the side of politics that threatened independence and to acknowledge the huge financial and business exchange between the two. Many big island businesses have been in the mainland for decades.

I'm just hoping this is a chance for closer links between the two sides and a dawning period of stable and warm relations between Mainland Australia and Tasmania.

Best wishes
Michael

[hairymick]

G'day Michael,

That last post of yours was a bloody Classic!. Love ya work mate.

[Boatmik]

Oh my god!

As you probably know I am a big sucker for historic photos of boats.

It might seem like the resources from the US and the UK are quite good, but often the problem is accessibility. And in Australia we have lost most of it.

Anyway ... ran across a large archive of German sailing club and cruising memorabilia mostly between the wars.

The German boats were incredibly sophisticated for their era and the rigs in particular were a big influence on Australian Skiff classes.



I haven't had a good look yet, but some wonderful, wonderful boats and material from clubs and magazines. I just wish I could read German a bit more easily!!!

I particularly like the canoes and the restricted class Rennjollen (Jollyboats) which are miles ahead in terms of hull design and sheer elegance compared to British, Australian and US models of the same era.



If you think it looks familiar ... this is the same heritage as the OZ lighweight sharpie. By the way ... the boats were only lightly ballasted and stayed capsized if they went over.

The site is here .. they even have a couple of video clips ... and HUNDREDS of photos.
http://www.yachting-history.org/english.htm

Some of these classes are still around today

Michael

[Boatmik]

More Taiwan Boats.

People may or may not be aware that Taiwan has its own aboriginal people belonging to quite distinct groups.

Some lived inland, but others were coastal and some live on the smaller islands around Taiwan. Their culture is distinct from the prevailing Chinese culture.

The group here are on LanYu Island which is just under 40km to the East of the Southern end of Taiwan.
Map



Anyway my web acquaintance, Mao, her husband Kevin and their friends, travel all over Taiwan and she takes wonderful photos. She and her friends go kayaking, hiking and are very outdoorsy. The pictures above of the Chinese Junk that was burned to get rid of the "Gods of Pestilence" are hers as well.

went to see it last month and this is very rare 'cause fewer and fewer people there know how to build a traditional ten-men's kayak or twenty-men's kayak, also the ceremony of kayak launching. Check out the photos first and I'll upload more and talk to more later.

This series is of a 10-man boat at Lan-yu Island.
All Mao's other pics of the Taiwanese Aboriginal boat launching and feast are here



Much of the decoration of boats and ornaments have patterns that represent snake skin. I really like the decoration. These are the first good photos of the wooden boats I have seen. I did see a fibreglass replica at a great Maritime Museum in DanShui (it is at the university there and consists of beautifully made models).

Note how the real thing is partially stitched together. I really want to have a closer look at how this is done. Wonder how they make those tabs stand inwards and don't split from the tension?



Originally it was thought that the Taiwan Aborigines had a headhunting tradition as their villages displayed skulls in the main central area.



However once the European scholars put away their shock and assumptions and started to ask a few more questions it turned out that many of the skulls are rellies (as we would say in OZ ie relatives) put in a central place for both memory and probably protection. Enemies killed in battle had their skulls displayed too. But it has an interesting mix of threat and respect mixed in rather than how I would have thought of it had I not known about the relatives getting the same treatment.

(this is all based on almost no scholarship from me ... so hope I didn't get it too wrong!)



Anyway ... not sure how often this happens. I know the Aborigines still use the boats for festivals and celebrations. One reference shows them as using the boats to collect flying fish?!?

Note how compact and fine lined the boat is for something that will support 10 men and fish!

Anyway ... thanks Mao for the pics!!!!!
All Mao's other pics of the Taiwanese Aboriginal boat launching and feast are here

Best wishes

Michael

[Boatmik]

Howdy ... just received an email from Mao who took the photos in the post above.

She said

I'll try to write more to you about the kayak of LanYu.

I have interviewd a LanYu writer when he was building a one-man kayak.
They think a real Lan Yu man should know how to build a boat, catch good fish (they seperate fish into fish for men, for women, kids and old people), and build a house of his own.

They sing songs to tell old stories and glorious histories (though now few young men know how to chant in their native language).

They have many taboos and customs different to Inland Taiwan aboriginal people. I love
Lan Yu very much.

I'll try to find time to tell you more. (sorry my work is overwhelmingly busy recently)

[keyhavenpotter]

Beer Luggers are sailed off the shingles beaches of Beer in south Devon. I guess you guys wished you had a place called Beer!

The sail look like a normal dipping lug except the lazy sheet runs right round the outside of the rig.

When tacking, pulling on the new sheet, the sail rolls round the outside of the luff and pops down the new leeward side of the boat. Hard to describe, and interesting to watch, see if you can make out what's going on.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-Gp71JdmPs[/media]

Brian

[b.o.a.t.]

some interesting links which have cropped up or been stumbled across in the last few weeks.

http://www.sailinganarchy.com/index_page1.php ensure your wallet is securely bolted to a fixed object before clicking the link. Often has budget boating articles (eg a really pretty girl in cocktail dress scraping the Bolger "Gypsy" she's building) but has a lot more on cutting edge high performance stuff.

http://www.madmariner.com/docking_game_a a bit of fun. Says it has a bow thruster but I reckon they've cheated on the coding - it's a stern thruster. The e-zine site seems ok too, but mostly about boats which suck at least 4 litres of juice per km.

http://www.thecoastalpassage.com.au/ for the serious cruiser in Nth Qld.

http://www.mit.edu/people/robot/alaska/alaska.html Seattle to Alaska in a sailing canoe. Hmmm .... Adelaide - Brisbane in a GIS ?

cheers
AJ

[Boatmik]

Howdy AJ,

Ha ... I had originally meant this as a collection of links that are highly edited by Moi!

Do you mind if I create a separate thread for ones that you and others suggest and move your post there?

They are good links (well apart from not wanting anything to do with Sailing Anarchy - their news pages are somewhat useful, but their forums are full of the sorts of people that make me wish I had a daughter so I could forbid her to marry any of them)

haha - not construing that as your fault old bean!!!!

But comments and links that relate to or expand what I am putting up here are VERY welcome.

My main focii are
1/ High quality photographic and other resources of traditional boat types and archaic raceboats
2/ Technical articles and resources that are REALLY useful and that others may not even imagine exist.
3/ Other interesting stuff that is in-depth on a particular subject that relates to sailing or other boat use.

MIK

[b.o.a.t.]

That'd be a good move Michael.
A thread anyone can add their interesting links to - a bit hard to relate stuff like sailing anarchy to Storer Design except as (mostly) the antithesis!
cheers
AJ

[BobWes]

Brian -

We don't have a place called Beer. Best I can do is Whiskeytown. Whiskeytown Lake is in northern California, maybe 3 hours north of Sacramento. I am planning to race in the Whiskeytown Regatta next May.

Bob

[keyhavenpotter]

Great answer Bob!

Look forward to a full report.

Brian