October 2024 Archives - Small Boats Magazine

A Compact Collapsible Shelter

Christopher Cunningham — Tue, 01 Oct 2024 12:30:49 +0000

The only places I could find to change into and out of my boating clothes were the portable restrooms—exceptionally awkward and unpleasant changing spaces. I shopped online for pop-up camp shower tents. I bought one, but it was too bulky and heavy when folded and provided much more room than I needed when set up. I continued my search and found Pankay’s offering, billed as a “Pop Up Privacy Tent, Portable Outdoor Camping Bathroom Toilet Tent, Collapsible Shelter for Camping & Emergency.”

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Living with Small Boats

Jenny Bennett — Tue, 01 Oct 2024 12:30:21 +0000

Small boats have introduced me to some wonderful people, from fellow boatowners, to builders and designers, historians and teachers. They have opened conversations and led me to some of the warmest, most generous, straightforward people I’ve known.

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Boil-in-the-Bag Plank Bending

Greg Rössel — Tue, 01 Oct 2024 12:27:19 +0000

There are few techniques as efficacious and expeditious as using steam to plasticize wood—especially when bending planks. The technology is simple: you need a steambox, a high-capacity steam generator, plenty of fast-action deep-throated clamps, a gaggle of small wooden clamping pads, and hopefully, some reliable helpers to assist with bending the plank to the vessel. Once planks are removed from a steambox, they immediately begin to lose their pliability, and every second counts. For two or more people working in concert, this can lead to a bit of a scramble—even with extensive preparation and experience. For a lone builder, it can be a nightmare. As luck would have it, there’s an alternative—the trusted, boil-in-the-bag technique where you bring the steambox to the boat, not the plank to the steambox.

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Hatch Cove Kayak

Ben Fuller — Tue, 01 Oct 2024 03:29:34 +0000

Greenlanders would call the Hatch Cove Kayak—the newest design from David Wyman—a qajariaq, a “kayak-like” boat. Noted designer L. Francis Herreshoff would have called it a “double-paddle canoe.” But perhaps the best description for us might be a recreational touring kayak or “RTK.”

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Gannet

Daniel Friesen — Tue, 01 Oct 2024 03:17:58 +0000

A group of us in the Oarlock & Sail Wooden Boat Club in Vancouver, British Columbia, were looking for a new boat to build. Our requirements included room for more than two crew, stability, self-rescue capability, and exciting performance—along with beauty, of course. Our search naturally led us to the designs of the late Iain Oughtred, and we chose his Gannet, the middle size of his trio of planing dinghies.

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A Solar-Powered Cruise on Lake Nipigon

Tim O’Meara — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 20:58:41 +0000

An hour into the crossing, I saw that the “house” battery, which stores the power from the solar panels, was not feeding the motor battery as it should to replace the power drawn by the motor. I turned the motor off and inspected all the electrical connections while Eric checked the fuses. Nothing seemed amiss. I dug the clamp meter out of the port seat locker and began testing each part of the electrical system. The meter’s digital readout showed that the solar panels were feeding the house battery properly, and the house battery was fully charged, but no power was going from the house battery to the motor battery. We looked dumbly at each other for a long moment as the boat rocked awkwardly in the waves. We had exhausted our limited electrical know-how, and we both knew we couldn’t continue the trip if the motor battery couldn’t recharge. We began checking everything again…and again…testing and pondering and cursing in vain as the boat drifted broadside to the waves.

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Victorinox Paring Knives

Jenny Bennett — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 20:26:53 +0000

Five years on the Victorinox Classic Paring Knife lives in a bucket on my 16′ sailboat and has been used for cutting everything from nylon three-strand rope and small bits of softwood to apples and rags. It remains sharp, and its handle has retained its vivid color.

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C.D. Mower’s Snow Bird

Jenny Bennett — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 20:06:29 +0000

Geoff had built a strip-planked Wee Lassie but wanted to try his hand at traditional construction. He acquired some rudimentary plans for a 12′ Snow Bird, a 1932 Frostbite dinghy designed by C.D. Mower. They had been published in a 1933 issue of The Rudder magazine and consisted of offsets and drawings along with the advice that “Anyone who has had any experience building round-bottom clinker-built dinghies will find sufficient information on these pages to enable him to build a Snow Bird for himself.” He had no “round-bottom clinker-built” experience but decided to give it a go.

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