Wooden Boat Show Family Boat building

We are catching up with a nons stop summer of boating events and where best to start the series of updates than with the Wooden Boat Show in Mystic, CT. In 2 1/2 days, a father son duo built one of our Echo Bay Dory Skiff kits. They discovered that there is a lot of boatbuilding, sweat, creativity and work to do even starting from a kit.

 

They launched on the third day at 3pm. They were very proud and perhaps glad they had a break to enjoy their success. My former life was a teacher and instructing people to build their own boats. Getting new folks into small boats, building their own boats from kits, and experiencing success in everyway is the number one priority for our customers. Likewise, we felt this year's Family Boatbuilding was a success and will plan to do these boats again next year.

 

Birdsmouth Sparmaking Demo

Clint will be giving a hands-on demonstration of Birdsmouth sparmaking at the Wooden Boat Show at 1pm on this coming Sunday. Please come by. The show starts Friday in Mystic, CT.

See more at http://www.clintchaseboatbuilder.com/Birdsmouth.html

A new rig for a Goat Island Skiff, Spruce for Roger Long's Yawl Dory and more Birdsmouth Masts and Spars

The finished mast and spars delivered and stepped into John Goodman's Goat Island Skiff Yawl #1 in Houston, TX. John does the Texas 200 in a few weeks!

To find good spruce you need to go right to the source. I enjoyed some wonderful walking with a customer who is having a Yawldory by Roger Long, N.A., built and wanted the Spruce for the spars, masts, and oars (my job) to come from her friend's land. We walked (i.e., bushwacked) and tagged a few nice Spruce trees.

 

Birdsmouth Masts under construction for a Michael Storer Goat Island Skiff. With Michael's blessing, Clint drew a yawl rig for the boat.

 

Varnishing the Sitka Spruce/Northern White Spruce Birdsmouth mast allows the grain of the Sitka to deepen and develop the contrasting lighter-colored Northern White Spruce. You get some of the benefits of Sitka for half the cost by mixing it with the local spruce we get hear in Maine and Canada.

The two masts are for the Goat Island Skiff, a birdsmouth on the left and a hollow-rectangular mast on the right. The mast on right is a customer's that I took in to check for chafing and leathered the chafed areas to prevent more.

CNC Boat Kit Cutting at Harbor Sales; First Three Francois Vivier Kits Sell

 
 
 

Last week, Clint took a trip to Maryland where Harbor Sales is located and cuts our CNC boat kits. The goal was to oversee the cutting of three Vivier kits that sold, Youkoulili, Ebihen 16, and Beg-meil. Harbor imports the plywood and cuts the panels on any of their four CNC machines (one of which has a 10x23 capacity and the one pictured is a 5x12). They package and ship by UPS Freight the kits direct to the customer. Clint sends the building instructions and getting started materials from Maine. Francois send the plans from France. We get epoxy starter kits to customers from Duckworks in TX or System Three Epoxy in WA.

One of the special features of Clint's kits is visible in the close-up shot of the machine cutting the planks. You may be able to make out the 'NC scarf' being machined onto the end of the plank. These scarfs are snapped together and glued by the builder and fits such that the pre-cut spile and sweep of the planks are maintained and perfectly aligned. Hours were spent making this critical feature work perfectly.

Cutting starts in a room full of computers. The files are opened, modified and sent to the machine outside of the room. The cutter exits to a console next to the machine, calls up the file and commands the machine to do its thing. The machine moves fast and there is an automatic shut-off sensor in case you step too close.

Also in kit building news, the Drake Rowboat, winner of the Wooden Boat Show Concourse De Elegance in 2009, is on the bench as a 1/4 scale CNC model. This step always comes before cutting an actual full size CNC model which is test built and checked again and again to adjust the files until they cut perfect molds, planks, laminating jigs and whatever the kit components are for that design.

Echo Bay Dory Skiff Kits and Caravelle Commission

The Echo Bay Dory Skiff (EBDS) by Eric Risch is now in the process of being organized into DXF files for CNC cutting. The first 5-7 kits will be released at the WOoden Boat SHow this June in Mystic, CT., where families will build the boats with Clint Chase in 2.5 days, launching on the third day at the show. Caravelle, the EBDS's big sister, will be on display before it goes to customers in Martha's Vineyard will use her for exploratory rowing with their doggy in the stern sheets and for use as a tender to their sailboat on their mooring. They will car-top the boat regularly.

Eric Risch, boat designer, expounds upon the development and merits of his two fine skiffs..........

"One’s first impression of the 11½ foot Echo Bay Dory Skiff and her longer sister, the 14½ foot Caravelle, is that they look quite different from most skiffs their size. If their steeply raked ends with faired sides seem to have the “spring” of a traditional dory yet have the comfortable feel of a skiff, such impressions would be correct. Both designs are a studied effort to marry the best of the flared sided dory and flat bottomed skiff. This involved some very delicate tweaking of proportions from 25 years of experience with my original dory-skiff. The intent was to start with the clean, simple lines of a flat bottomed boat and make it both easily driven and be able to handle a bay chop with more confidence than typical of small boats.

So in the dory-skiff tradition, the Echo Bay and Caravelle’s flared bow and raked transom provide lots of potential buoyancy allowing a drier ride when water gets “bumpy.” Although overhangs do come at the expense of waterline, my original 12½ footer handled a steep bay chop with aplomb and just loved to slide over the waves with minimal fuss.

The flared hull sides offer a wide range of stability while retaining a wide enough bottom for a comfortable feel of initial stability. The idea was to use some of the traditional advantages of a dory’s secondary stability but minimize initial tenderness—assuming one chooses not to carry a full load of fish! In addition, the moderately wide bottom enables both boats to be very easily driven under oar while the ample beam at the sheer provides a good placement for the oar locks.

Some flat bottom skiffs are famous for the tendency to “slap-slap-slap” in the bow region from the water hitting the bottom panel—this can be quite annoying. Consider too that pounding into a chop robs energy from forward motion. The Echo Bay and Caravelle’s bow stems terminate well below the waterline, making a nice quiet row. When coupled to their strong skeg aft for balance, the boats track very securely in a crosswind, providing a more solid feel than is typical of their length.

Both boats can also serve as capable tenders for moderate to larger yachts. I towed my original 12½ footer on cruises and was pleased how well she behaved. In addition, sailing versions will be available. Their compact sprit rigs keep the center of effort low for ease of handling a moderate range of wind. But narrow boats designed for oar tend to be quite spirited—this is a quality that is best appreciated by more experienced and agile sailors.

The Echo Bay Dory skiff is set up for a single rower and for one additional passenger. The Caravelle is essentially a stretch version for tandem rowing. Both boats have an open clean look and are quite light weight for their length to be car-toppable in a practical sense. Neither relies on complicated framing for stiffness and uses instead one ring frame in the single and two ring frames in the double. The hull is 6mm Occume marine plywood that has a reputation for looking beautiful for decades. Both have “screw-and-glue” chines making it boat that will remain tight whether on the water or in your garage."