Boats & Boatbuilding
Friends went on an evening trip to see the full moon, and took me along.
Here’s a quick VR movie from the sail…
FullMoonSailVR (Quicktime required. Click and drag to pan; shift or control to zoom.)
… and a simple, flat panoramic photo of the same thing.
This is something of a ‘blast from the past’. A few years ago I competed in the (then) annual Sea Capers Build-a-Boat Challenge. The rules were slightly different every year, but the gist of it was to design and build a boat for less than $100 (Canadian, even) in two hours or less, and then navigate it around a short course in Ganges Harbour. The first boat back to shore, and still floating, was the winner.
We all have gifts; mine is, apparently, designing and building really cheap, fast boats. With the help of a few good friends and many supporters, I managed to win 3 out of the 4 years that entered.
See the 2003 competition and the 2004 competition.
I’m a big guy who likes small things. “Big” is not just a vague, subjective call. I’m 5cm short of 2 meters tall, and 100 kilo’s. Anthropometric studies peg my size at the 95th percentile for North America. (This is especially convenient for consumer product development, since it’s typical to try to cover 90 percent of the bell curve of body size variations. Along with a 5th percentile woman, the two of us can cover the spread.)
Small things are a minor theme in my life. I drive a smart car that’s half the length of some cars on the road and half the weight of MINI Cooper. The Cross Ion pen in my pocket is about 4 inches long folded up. I’m typing this on an Apple keyboard that’s about 11 inches wide and mostly about 1/4 inch thick… I could go on….
One of the first, if not the first, Constant Camber sailboats designed by Jim Brown and Dick Newick was christened “SIB”, for “small is beautiful”. To my mind and eye small is beautiful. Not just as a manifestation of form-follows-function minimalism, but also as a result of the “reduce” component of the “reduce, reuse, recycle” imperative. Small things just take less resources to produce, maintain, and dispose of. So small is green, too.
I guess I’d never fit in Texas…. maybe in Japan, though. Well, I suppose I’d stand out there in more ways than one! I don’t think that small equals less; it just means different design decisions, different values, and different results. Treehugger has a brief article on a nice example of this: New York Times On Living in 435 Square Feet : TreeHugger”
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Tags: small, smallisbeautiful, reduce, green
Besides the fact that the Alpha Z continues to rack up design awards of all kinds, besides the fact that it is one of the most stunning boats on the water, this project speaks volumes to me about scope: at an estimated USD$250,000 this client could have had a modest yacht of much larger dimensions. By keeping the scope of the project limited to a runabout, he’s been rewarded with a truly world-class, one-of-a-kind craft.
Here’s some really innovative thinking that has resulted in a number of record voyages: Nigel Irens’ Ilan trimaran concept. With roots in sailing trimarans, these power tri’s are ultra-efficient record setters. The smaller iLan Voyager set a round-Britain record, and the larger Cable & Wirless Adventurer set a round the world record. The Adventurer achieves about 1 mpg, which is maybe not that bad when you consider that my diminutive Bardick gets about 20 mpg, and the iLan Voyageur weighs in at 53 metric tons—more than 200 times the displacement!
Not a lot of tripping or other progress to report lately… lots of work calls, it’s gray here, and one of the dogs hasn’t been feeling well. But I did find time to replace the original bow light, which had succumbed to corrosion in such a way that the inside was almost completely gone, and of course, not functioning. With the new one in place the running lights are ready to go.
Still undecided about the stern all around light. As installed, there is no switch; when it’s plugged in to the socket, it turns on. Consequently the wiring is very simple, with just an inline fuse and a direct connection to the nearby battery. It should be hard to forget to leave it on or off inappropriately. It’s just that it’s not terribly convenient. But then how often is it used anyway?
A quick trip around Scott Point through Captain Passage was an opportunity to shoot some photos myself, for the first time from the boat, and to make a few additions and adjustments.
Finally figured out a way to cover the back “deck” with a nice pad. This one uses Coroplast as a base, and has a half inch layer of EVA foam under a two inch layer of soft open cell urethane foam, covered with a marine fabric. Carpet tape, white duct tape, a few stitches, and some grommets hold the whole thing together. It will be interesting to see how it holds up. It is quite soft and comfortable, especially for the dogs, and wipes clean easily, while still allowing access to the stowage below.
The main reason for the pad is to give the dogs a place to feel comfortable, and a short cruise around Long Harbour confirmed its suitability.
Pulled up the beach, I had the opportunity to make a few adjustments. The throttle cable was rather loose, so that the throttle had to be moved quite far before brought the motor up out of idle. It may be a bit too loose, still, but the motor is responding much more quickly now.
(boating, gulfislands)
She is in the water! The splash from the christening is actually visible in this photo, below the bow eye. The control cables are finally in, and adjusted… and even color coordinated. (Many thanks to the good folks at Harbour’s End Marine.) This is a spot in the Salt Spring Marina where she will stay for a month while we work out the kinks.
Time for a test drive!
So the boatyard trailer arrived, the boat was loaded without event, and hauled to the public ramp in Ganges. The motor started smoothly… and then wouldn’t respond to the throttle… because the control cables were never installed! Off to the yard to check stock for the needed parts: none available on the island. Time to wait for the courier from Victoria, and to perform the installation tomorrow.
In this photo, taken a few days earlier, for Transport Canada documentation, you can just see the ports in the starboard side of the engine cowling where the control cables should be.
The boat has been christened! As seen here, it’s waiting on blocks for the boat yard transport trailer. Fuel tanks are filled, in place, and strapped down; windshield has been cleaned (finally!); all the wiring and electronics are in place: she is ready and waiting for the water! What a difference from the corroded, holed, peeling hull that was plunked down in the dirt of the driveway a year and half ago.
The christening was eventful…