Thread: Wanted

Originally Posted by bitofascallywag

gee you fellows make me giggle at times,are you going to do anything in your life or just waffle on,gerr isbn0-87742-289-3 read and understand that book and you will be laughihg in my humble opinion...

Er, Daddles has just launched one boat about a week ago. I've launched two this year.

I spend the last couple of years building up ooomph to build the two boats this year (as I now see with 20/20 hindsight).

Dingo has been building up steam and will break into action soon.

If you are a real artist - you know this well!

It's just the smarter of us get on with other things while we are going through the periods of steam building.

MIK

Originally Posted by Wild Dingo

finally settled on the 3 designs that most suit my tastes wants and needs in a boat...

Well ... fess up oh wily coyote!

DAMN!! Why must people do that!! I mean there I go spending an hour writin a bloody fantastic bit of really clear heady disertation and theory thinkin Ive nailed it in under a page Im doing well... and just as I start pattin me back someone like Doc Mik wanders in and in several short friggin sentances says just what I did!! :eek:

buggar that hurts

sigh... ah well... you forgot that I have personally designed and built one small boat and restored another along that road Ive also redesigned an old design and created half models of the ones that most please me Ive also become a grandfather had a daughter go missing and found been working away etc etc etc... its all relative is what I meant... Im gettin there!!!

Strewth Im down to friggin 3 designs!!! That is a hell of an achievement!! now if my mind can just settle on one I will be fine... but how does one choose between Crowninsheilds Fame (the one with the fine ends and sexy looks) Petersons Susan (this be the schooner that is designed rock solid) or Wharrams Tiki 38 (which just appeals to me personal asthetic eclectic tastes) ??? bloody damned near impossible!! And hence the need for a project boat

Otherwise apart form the actual time to build her Im about ready to start

Building these wooden boat thingies is a lot like writing - it's a mix of art and craft. The art occurs in your subconscious, while you're doing other stuff (like trying to work out how you're going to get out of your latest stuff up). The art then comes out through the actions of your conscious and this is where the craft comes in - the exact placement of a line on a plan, taking that extra shaving of timber off, getting the poxy mix just that little bit wrong .

You can't learn this from a book. You can find new techniques to try, you can discover how other people got around your latest disaster, but you won't learn a damned thing until you go out in the shed and do it.

One of the joys of boats, much like my own game 'writing', is that the path o the end product is individual. Well, it should be, and I keep running into people who think boats should be chosen and conceived and built according to set principles. Well, that works and just as there are a lot of half baked writers producing competent and worse work, I see a lot of that in wooden boats. Hell, some of the forums have reduced wooden boat building to almost the 'cookie cutter' level that f/glass boating is accused of. Pah.

Shane (our beloved Mad Dingo) is a creative builder and the boat he eventually produces will be a joy. That boat will be preceded by many minor steps, such as canoethingy and the soggy mass of boat plans, and each of those add their own pleasure to the boating universe. His decade of racing around and driving everyone who'll listen mad with his searches and investigations, has filled his soul with a love and knowledge that bursts forth in some surprising ways, each wonderful in itself. Even the soggy mass of plans has had its place in that story, in that it has now concentrated all that effort, freed that maelstrom of love and knowledge of the extraneous clutter. The next step in his path might be a restoration. It might be canoethingy on steroids. He might even launch into his dream boat, but each of those is predicatable so I think it'll be something else again.

I for one will be relaxing and enjoying the show ... and ducking the insults.

Richard

would you believe I wrote that on coffee? I need to change my brand :eek:

Bloody hell, the yanks on the CY forum are, once again, carrying on about Tom Hill's amazing and complicated way of making lapstrake boats hard to build. This time, it's articulated and multipieced plank patterns - sheesh, we planked a 6m Motor Cruiser using no more than a long piece of plywood and a pencil.

Sorry, I've been listening to Moose (TAFE instructor) too much - eighteen months after I finished the course and I can still hear him in my head.

Richard

Originally Posted by Wild Dingo

... well a small two or four sheet ply isnt brain science I guess but once you move onto larger boats and in particular large timber sailing boats its an increadible amount of work figuring it all out

Howdy Dingo

Having read your own quote above you probably can guess what I am about to say! )

While designing small craft can be approached as not being brain science - if you want a boat that is lovely and works really well ... it certainly is.
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First can I set the scene - do you remember a film made in the mid 60s "The Flight of the Phoenix". Plane crashes in the desert and when one of the passengers turns out to be a plane designer they set about making a new plane from the wreckage of the old.

Great cast Jimmy Stewart, Richard Attenborough, Peter Finch. A good solid 4 out of 5 stars.

But there is this scene about two thirds through where they have gotten over insurmountable hurdles to have the plane mostly together.

Then they find out the designer designs MODEL PLANES!.

Of course there is a massive crisis of confidence.
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There are lots of people who don't do much work or have much background who come up with a new small boat design - a little 2 or 4 sheet boat.

The results might be good enough for themselves - and good on them for trying their arm.

If you are after excellence - a boat that fits the purpose (or purposes) like a glove - is easy to build, has a good appearance and will whop anything similar that comes near it in terms of speed and fun of use - well, then you need a fair bit of knowledge and put a fair bit of it into practice.
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So to compare the amount of work between designing a proper small boat and a "real" boat.

Aesthetics
Loveliness - comes from history - knowing what boats actually look like. It is amazing what a gorgeous thing you can choose with one carefully selected curved line on what is basically a ply box - here is my best example. This is a flat bottomed square sided boat. But the canny designer has fooled everyone's eyes with one curved line - and the designer had better be able to model it in three dimensions too - because if he gets it a bit out it will look stupid from one angle or another.because it will appear to go down when it should go up.

That line is out of history - out of our race sense of boats. And to manipulate that sense you need to see lots of boats and think about them.
See Pic of BETH Below

Basic Calculations
So now to go to the function. The only place where there is timesaving in drawing up a plan in a small boat is that you don't have to do the elaborate weight calculation to establish the centre of gravity of the boat (both longditudinal and vertical) - you can just move the crew around

In a bigger boat you have to count every piece including crew tankage, engine, where it is in the height and length of the boat and how much it weighs - This figure is essentail for working out the speed prediction for power boats (which feeds into the power requirement) and the stability prediction (which feeds into how strong the rig has to be) for sailing boats.

But every other aspect is the same as a larger boat - how does she trim when heeled, what will happen when she sticks her nose into a wave, will she have weather or lee helm, what are the heeled waterlines doing, is the sailplan in the right place, is there enough lateral area for when the sea gets up.

Engineering
Then we get to the engineering. Small boats have to be portable - which means the bits have to be light. Which means that a designer uses all his engineering skill to get the weight out. To keep things light and efficient.

The small boat designer who is also a good student of history will have a strong sense of just how big things really need to be - so can often do this part efficiently and quickly - just working off what he knows - "brain science" in operation

But if he moves away from what he knows - then he has to do the same calculations as the larger boat.

Construction Schedule and Drawings
One of the time savings in bigger boats is that no-one is going to build one without a reasonable amount of knowledge.

So the designers tend to skimp on detail.

In fact Nat Herreshoff could send down 5 items and his workers could build the boat. They just used his wonderful HERRESHOFF'S RULE to work out the sizes of all the other bits

offsets from the half model,
drawings of the keel arrangement
sailplan
Interior layout
the displacement figure

But as small boat designers we know that for many of the people building it will be the first thing that they have ever built.

When I first worked for Duck Flat my aim was to learn the bits I needed to design boats. And where I learned it was standing at the saw bench cutting up bits for kits that had been ordered. The plans were by a huge range of designers - you get to know pretty quickly as soon as you start sawing wood whether the guy has done a good job or not.

Murray Isles and Iain Oughtred had good timber lists in sizes that were commercially available. There are plenty of designers who STILL don't know thay you can only get kiln dried timber in thicknesses of 50mm - so one dimension of any specified piece has to be less - almost all timber is kiln dried.

Bolger uses good sizes but the info is on the typewritten key to parts - usually a single sheet listing the pieces - the order of the list is the order in which they go into the boat. So you refer to that then go back to the drawing to scale off the length.

It's OK but it is a bit of a pain if you are only a USER and not a BUILDER (see previous posts in this thread). Bolger's fame (and he is one of my guru's too - the most wise of the wise) relies apon the books of Dynamite Payson - which are written step by step with illustrations, as well as his own books which are intelligent and really well written - but as a designer for first time builders he is tricky to follow without Payson or Duck Flat or someone interpreting for you.

It soon became clear that most designers are pretty crappy at this side of things - Bolger is spot-on in his info even if it is a bit sparse.

But a rule of thumb for designers - the fewer boats that they have designed and the fewer boats they have built the worse their instructions are, the more useless bits of timber they have in the boat (more cost, more weight) and the more they are going to mislead someone that it all is so simple.

The person who really lifted the game was Iain Oughtred - anyone who has seen how his plans take a first time builder through the process to build a flawless CLINKER boat with nicely lined off planking will know what the standard can be.

So standing at the Duck Flat saw bench I decided that Oughtred would be the standard for my plans - that they would tell people how to use the materials, how to use the tools, all the different little methods of boatbuilding required for them to get the boat together.

It takes me a couple of weeks to draw up a new small boat (assuming I don't run into any technical or aesthetic issues that I can't resolve - like with the rowboat for Midge and Daddles) but the documentation and illustration can take twice that - and I have to build every step of the boat in my head to make sure it all works - framing allowances, bevels etc

Just as an illustration - everyone (including you Dingo) should go to
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~storerm/Paddles/FreePaddle.html and download the PDF file for the free paddle plan - its only 300k

But in those 19 pages is everything you need. 19 pages for a paddle.

I offered it for free so people could see the difference between an OK set of plans and GOOD ones.

And having a good plan is only worthwhile if the boat is any good - that it fits its purpose excellently.

Absolute 100% brain science - if you want to do a good job of it that is.

MIK

Now your just plain scarin the hell outta me! :eek:

Okay so maybe I should offer a sorta apology for my statement alluded to by Doc Mik? No worries... what I meant to say there was that COMPARED to a 30-40ft sailboat a 2 sheet ply in not brain science... well okay it is but NOT AS MUCH!

Sadly in some aspects I do believe that we do become somewhat annul about it all... and Im the first to admit my failings in that area ... we often become bogged down with the science of it all rather than the practicalities of doing... yes one can do all the science do all the things to make the most perfect shape and form for a... paddle... or one can simply make one then as time and use dictate change its shape and form to what best suits the user of the... paddle

And like most things we can make more of it than is actually necessary... a paddle that is

Pedantic Doc Mik pedantic ol chap

I do love these conversations!

Howdy Shane,

Another lead - perhaps - now I know you better.

But first some pretty pics - are these the Crowninshield and Peterson boats (respectively, images at bottom).

My general comment about the Wharram is if you haven't got a huge sailing background you might be quite happy with it - scale off the interior distances in the study plans with a bit of care too - don't trust his drawings of little people. BTW I love the look too.

The two schooners are just fabulous. I'll have to eat my words about not building a schooner under the mid thirty foot mark - Peterson has resolved the technical and aesthetic considerations nicely.

Going back to the OZ stuff for a moment - you really need to ring the National Maritime Museum in Sydney and organise to speak to David Payne on one of his days there.

He has such a leaning toward traditional craft that he will have a VERY good idea of what is available on paper from the museum - perhaps all is not lost.

Tell him that you are looking for a real classic, that you have the skills money and infrastructure to build a traditional boat - some capacity to fill in gaps - if not too enormous. And whether he knows of something.

And as a Parthian Shot - as far as brain science between a little boat and a big one ... I'm sticking to my guns son - small boats are perhaps 80 to 90 percent of the work of bigger boats. If you want them to work well - it's not in the drawings - its in the thinking and calculation.

In a good boat there is no gap between the science and the practicality - in a poor one they never meet!

MIK

Aye Mik mate that be them... first bein BB Crowninshields 40ft schooner "Fame" designed 1910 built for his own pleasure 1912... second being Murray Petersons "Susan" at 28ft a rather huge chunk of wee boat and a progression from his Coaster Schooners... his son Bill by the way an NA in his own right has recently redone the Susan with a cutter rig... looks damnable smart to just quietly

As to Wharram... well mate its the hippy yippie in me.. the lure of the islands and all that as well as the sheer desire for deck space that makes his designs so pleasing... but as always your right one must not take the little frilly bits as gospel in a design such as wee people or birds and such its the numbers that do matter.

Yes yes mate okay you win stick to your guns and I will bow to your experience and say there is a major brain phart in the making with a small boat just as in a large boat there Im an agreeable chap eh!

Now I must get to the shed mate and do SOMETHING before my week off ends and I end up doing zero!! :eek:

Originally Posted by Wild Dingo

... but as always one must not take the little frilly bits as gospel in a design such as wee people or birds and such its the numbers that do matter.

Also be warned about the bare breasts and grass skirts - not to mention bare botts that appear in his catalogues.

Have you ever seen what a grass skirt does to a bilge pump in an emergency?

I have always had a yen to redraw parts of Wharram's calalogue.

Instead of 5ft tall perky semiclad nymphs (they do make the interior look both bigger and more attractive) to do 5ft tall retirees wearing cardigans with knotted kercheifs on their heads and ample bellies and nether regions.

Not to mention the sandals and socks.

Ah - truth in advertising.

MIK

To be honest mate its a detraction for me... sorta like Gardner and his pipe smoker and pelican or Daneil Bombeidear here and his fancy art work... mmm come to think on that he was a marine artist as well as designer could explain it eh! both of whom have some fine designs theyre just a bit over busy to my eye

Just the design is pure enough tantilising enough and motivation enough... as well as that Ive got this imagination thing that can picture what I want without any help from anyone else... to me if you cant see yourself on the deck at the tiller in your mind then the boats not for you... sorta like me and say the bartender or a Kurt Hughes trimarran I cant see myself on one just not me you know?... whereas a Susan or a Fame I can see me plain as day tiller in hand sails full and by and gone over the horizon

Dingo!

Don't even THINK about a Wharram. Look by all means but DON'T TOUCH.

Bloody hell, I watch this thread, hang on to every word, (except what pimple writes) and then you start being seduced by one of Jimbo's Bimbos....

Aaaaaaaarrrrrgh!

If, I mean IF... no I mean IF you don't cross him off your list of things to MAKE as opposed to admire for all he did, I'll feel compelled to contribute further to this thread, and nobody wants that do they??

IF you want Wharramesque, check out John Hitches Hitchhikers or one of half a dozen evolutions.... or just find a teachest, and crawl into it under a cold shower.

Cheers,

P (They are pretty to look at and VERY cheap to buy though....)

What an amazin response midge mate! :eek: So is this based on personal experience of Wharrams? and if so which ones and if so why and if so did you build it yourself and if so what were your sailing experiences? please continue the discussion!

You see midge old mate... and I mean this in the nicest way... Ive heard a mass of misinformation regarding them form people who have never sailed them and Ive heard a mass of misinformation from the acolytes of James and Hanneke... and Ive sailed on 2 Tikis one a 21fter and one a 30fter and found them comparable to many others better than some and worse than others on some points... mind you Crowthers designs (Locks not his son) are brilliant but different on many fronts... I as Im getting older am begining to kinda like the idea of a bridgedeck... but then a bridgedeck doesnt sit well on a Wharram does it?

You see mostly when I see a design I like its based on first emotion... I like it from a personal asthetic view I can see myself sailin happily away for years to come... then I loose the emotion and try like buggary to get a ride on one to feel it under my feet... in the case of Fame and Susan thats just not about to happen since I didnt win lotto... again!!... so a trip to the states to have a ride isnt gonna happen any day soon so theyre like some asthetically wonderful dream...

But with some... one can find a design and by hook or by crook manage to cadge a sail Wharrams are easy everyone Ive met with a Wharram is more than happy to have you aboard!!

On the other hand Ive found in my several contacts with James himself that hes an arrogant self opinionated self righteous p****k and personally I cant stand the git... but thats a personal thing not related to his designs I also dont like the way hes taken credit for whats been a design for centuries ie: the polynesian double canoe and the dutch wingsail... from my standpoint I cant fault the Tiki design and mate Im more than willing to sit and read whatever experiences you may have had of a personal nature related to them.

And yes your right they are cheep enough... when you find them for sale that is!... you can build a Simpson for instance and it increases with value whereas a build a Wharram and it seems to quickly decrease in value for some reason which Ive so far been unable to fathom

On a purely asthetic value Wharrams have a romance a quality that spells and screams pacific islands long white beaches palm trees and well... damn it all as Mel Gibson said in Braveheart... FREEDOM!

So mate tell me what it is and why you dont like them... dont hold back son... let it all out!! Its okay I can take it... Seriously I can

mmmm I just had a re-read of this ruddy thread of mine and... STREWTH!! Have we taken a diversion and a half!!!

I mean this is a "WANTED" thread!!!

Doc Mik!! You bloody reprobate you did this to distract me from my goals didnt you? You dont want me to get my mits on an old project boat do you?!!! No you dont you cheeky buggar! You want me to see the errors of me ways and start a friggin new build dont yer! I got your number mate!! see you want all those pics eh? new keel sittin purty then the frames goin up then... for the bloody isnt it!!!

see all this other stuff was just a diversion tactic wasnt it? AND it worked!! :eek: hook line and flamin sinker!!

ahhh well tis a good enjoyable thread... and maybe someone will recall what the damned thing started about!!... maybe???