Thread: Goat Island Skiff

I took the little bloke to the TWWW show today particularly to see Paul's GIS. The boat is indeed very beautiful and I also had the pleasure of meeting Paul himself. He is an exremely nice bloke and offered to lend me a hand whenever I needed one. Seeing a finished Goat was just the thing to feed my enthusiasm and certainly fired Lachlan up. The other highlight was seeing the 18' skiff Brtitannia in the flesh. I had already read Lachlan the story of it from Australian Wooden Boats, Vol 1 so we were both equally excited. A very comforting thing about the TWWW show was the number of grey and white beards to be seen, I fitted right in and felt very much at home .

cheers,
clay

Michael Bogoger - aka The Dory Man - recently published a little writeup that I did on our GIS, Sisu. His blog can be viewed below. He also has done write-ups of a variety of interesting boats over the years. It's a site worth poking around a bit in. Good publicity for the Goat, and he was kind enough to say some flattering things about my firm. I think I must owe him a beer.

http://dory-man.blogspot.com/

Prosit,
David G
Harbor Woodworks
http://www.harborwoodworking.com/index.html


"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled". -- Richard Feynman

Originally Posted by seajak

I took the little bloke to the TWWW show today particularly to see Paul's GIS. The boat is indeed very beautiful and I also had the pleasure of meeting Paul himself. He is an exremely nice bloke and offered to lend me a hand whenever I needed one. Seeing a finished Goat was just the thing to feed my enthusiasm and certainly fired Lachlan up. The other highlight was seeing the 18' skiff Brtitannia in the flesh. I had already read Lachlan the story of it from Australian Wooden Boats, Vol 1 so we were both equally excited. A very comforting thing about the TWWW show was the number of grey and white beards to be seen, I fitted right in and felt very much at home .

cheers,
clay

If you are at a loose end during the hols ... you could consider dropping over to see Paul or inviting him over to see your GIS.

Hmmm - we used to call this process a "boat crawl" when I was involved with the Wooden Boat Association here in SA.

Maybe we should have a boat crawl in Adelaide, guys. In a couple of weeks Duckflat will start another of those D**n storer rowboats. So we could go see ...
Mike's Coquina,
DF Storer Rowboat and see the Herreshoff Dulcenea they are selling.
Daddles' Rowboat and Yellowtail.

Could be fun.
MIK

Originally Posted by arbordg

Michael Bogoger - aka The Dory Man - recently published a little writeup that I did on our GIS, Sisu. His blog can be viewed below. He also has done write-ups of a variety of interesting boats over the years. It's a site worth poking around a bit in. Good publicity for the Goat, and he was kind enough to say some flattering things about my firm. I think I must owe him a beer.

http://dory-man.blogspot.com/

Prosit,
David G
Harbor Woodworks
http://www.harborwoodworking.com/index.html


"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled". -- Richard Feynman

Great article David and thanks for the link....yet another interesting site to visit Now if you could just explain the Richard Feynman quote I'll be able to sleep tonight.

Originally Posted by Boatmik

If you are at a loose end during the hols ... you could consider dropping over to see Paul or inviting him over to see your GIS.

Hmmm - we used to call this process a "boat crawl" when I was involved with the Wooden Boat Association here in SA.

Maybe we should have a boat crawl in Adelaide, guys. In a couple of weeks Duckflat will start another of those D**n storer rowboats. So we could go see ...
Mike's Coquina,
DF Storer Rowboat and see the Herreshoff Dulcenea they are selling.
Daddles' Rowboat and Yellowtail.

Could be fun.
MIK

Good idea Mik you are always welcome but in my case you will need to enjoy looking at a pile of wood and a set of plans.

Originally Posted by m2c1Iw

Great article David and thanks for the link....yet another interesting site to visit Now if you could just explain the Richard Feynman quote I'll be able to sleep tonight.

Good idea Mik you are always welcome but in my case you will need to enjoy looking at a pile of wood and a set of plans.

We'll have to wait a couple of weeks then.

Originally Posted by m2c1Iw

Great article David and thanks for the link....yet another interesting site to visit Now if you could just explain the Richard Feynman quote I'll be able to sleep tonight.

m2 --

Did you figure out the Feynman quote yet? Can you explain it to me?

Prosit,

How about,

If it don't work, it don't work. All the hype in the world won't change that.

Bob

We now return you to your regular programing...

Originally Posted by BobWes

How about,

If it don't work, it don't work. All the hype in the world won't change that.

Bob

We now return you to your regular programing...

Thanks Bob that works for me

Cheers

Originally Posted by BobWes

How about,

If it don't work, it don't work. All the hype in the world won't change that.

Bob

We now return you to your regular programing...

Such a smart feller. No wonder you chose to build a GIS, eh?

Originally Posted by arbordg

m2 --

Did you figure out the Feynman quote yet? Can you explain it to me?

Prosit,

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled". -- Richard Feynman

Feynman was one of the greats. If you want to laugh so loud that you startle the other passengers on a bus ... read "Surely you are joking, Mr Feynman".

A hugely entertaining little book.

The quote above is from Feynman's dissenting appendix to the Space Shuttle inquest. The first one that blew up on launch (Challenger?).

Basically the panel that was asked to analyse the problems were carefully shepherded around NASA by management, but Feynman wandered off and talked to the Engineers who were actually trying to make the stuff work in the way management wished it would.

The quote reflects the difference between the calculated probability of a failure from a management team and compares it with what had actually been achieved.

MIK

Hayzzoooos Mik,

I figured that one was obscure enough I'd be the only one to know where it was from. Can't slip a darned thing past you, can we?

Shalom,

I have been discussing the GIS with an interested friend, and how it performs in the rougher stuff.

Can anyone relate their experience of sailing the Goat in a sea or a heavy chop? All of the pics that I've seen show the Goat with its bow clear of the water in flat water. In a chop, this attitude could predispose the GIS to some slamming.

My initial thoughts are that getting one's weight well forward when close hauled in order to "dig" the bow in a bit, combined with a slight heel should alleviate any slamming and likely will improve speed in such conditions. I mean, if sailing single handed, sitting abeam of the dagger board case, which is a good 30cm for'ard of the usual position. In this way, the boat's very fine entry would be quite an advantage I would think?

Can anyone relate if this works for the Goat?

Check with Joost who has had the Goat out in rougher water than I have.

But I have never noticed even the tiniest tendency to slam. The boat is so fine forward and the fineness of the lines means it doesn't pitch much either. If you have wide flat sections forward the bow will kick up suddenly because of the volume of buoyancy in the front end of the boat and has something big and flat to land on when it comes back to earth.

I would say for most normal sailing it doesn't slam at all. But Joost had it out on Loch Ness in rough conditions and a nasty chop.

MIK

Hello Woodeneye,

The GIS is very fast on all points of sail when the water is flat or in a minor chop as one would expect of a flatbottomed craft.

The Goat does not slam when sailing in bigger waves due to the longer length of the wave. Because the GIS is so light, she just floats over the top of them with no fuss at all.

Conditions that challange the GIS and its sailor most is smaller short chop (waves upto 2 ft maybe) and if the waves are coming from unpredictable and multiple the directions. In those conditions the boat might slam, if only a bit and loose some speed (foremost if there is not suffucient wind to blast the boat through/over the waves).

It does help a lot though to heel the boat a bit and to have the weight centered in the boat. I don't think that moving your weight forward another 30 cm's from the usual position just aft of the midseat when singlehandling will make much difference though. And your tiller extension will have to become annoyingly long...

What will help is adjusting your course a bit to avoid taking the waves head on.

Wake from motorboats she handles in the most perfect manner I have ever seen a boat do: she is so light an buoyant that the GIS will just wobble a bit taking the wake.

Hope this helps.

Best regards, Joost