February 2024 Archives - Small Boats Magazine

Rowing into Gray

Christopher Cunningham — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 17:42:47 +0000

I didn’t need to wait long for the reward. The first three strokes left my lethargy in the Whitehall’s wake and returned me to a feeling of vitality that rowing had been giving me for decades. My hands had been at the keyboard and the mouse for days, and the pressure of the oar handles triggered in them an impulse to pull just as the pressure of a harness does to sled dogs and draft horses. I could feel the contact of the blades with the water not as vibrations of the handles in my hands but as if my sense of touch and proprioception extended to the blades themselves.

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Shop-Vacuum Filter Care

Christopher Cunningham — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 19:49:03 +0000

There had to be a better way, and it didn’t take long to find one: let centrifugal force do the job. I’d already figured that out with my food processor: Rather than do an unavoidably ineffective job with a spatula, I pour out the blended batter and spin the blade in the empty processor bowl. It’s instantly clean. Spinning a shop vacuum filter is equally effective. All it takes are a couple of plywood discs, a machine screw with washers and a nut, and an electric drill. To contain the dust, a 5-gallon bucket and a piece of plywood big enough to cover its top will do the job.

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Wyman 12

Steve Brookman — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 01:08:50 +0000

Soon after my wife Susan and I relocated to Blue Hill, Maine, I realized that we would need a boat to get to the sailboat that we’d moored in Blue Hill Bay in front of our house. The Wyman 12 is about as basic a boat as there is. It is simple to build, easy to row, stable, and can carry a load. Its flatiron skiff design has been, and is still, the pickup truck of workboats along our Maine waterfront for many years.

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Salish Coastal Cruiser

Christopher Cunningham — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 01:00:55 +0000

In the past year Rick developed another fast rower, the Salish, a coastal rowboat that can’t be swamped. He described the Fine in his website as a “full-body workout machine…wider than a rowing scull, thus more stable, and suitable for ocean rowing, in reasonable conditions.” About the Salish he wrote: “Salish is built for enjoying and exploring coastal waters. She is self-bailing, and by virtue of this, will handle conditions that open boats like Fine may not.”

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The ShelterTube Garage

Walter Gotham — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 20:03:33 +0000

Four weeks after I placed an order with ShelterLogic, my unit arrived by truck. Neatly and efficiently packaged, all the tube ends were protected by plastic caps. As I unboxed it the quality of the components was impressive; this is a well-thought-out design. The standard of construction and the organization of the kit are excellent.

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Backcountry Boatbuilding

Tyler Sauter — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 15:26:23 +0000

We have traveled and sailed all over the world and have discussed many voyages that we have yet to, and may never, embark upon. This particular adventure, however, started off as a question: if we were to find ourselves stranded on an island with a ditch bag that was equipped with minimal tools, would it be possible for us to build a small craft to navigate to the safety of an inhabited shore? We wanted to find out.

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Building CLEAR SKIES

Jenny Bennett — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 15:05:33 +0000

In Newfoundland, small working boats are known as either punts or rodneys. There seems to be little consensus as to the origins or true definition of either, although most agree that the rodney is the smaller of the two, typically no more than 16′ long, while both are smaller than 25′ with keels and round bottoms. Derrick decided he would follow tradition and build a punt for sail and oar.

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A 10×42 Waterproof Monocular

Audrey and Kent Lewis — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 15:00:05 +0000

The monocular weighs only 11 oz, is a comfortable size to hold, and has a good ergonomic feel to it, thanks to the body’s slim, straight design—made possible by its roof prism, which takes the inverted image coming from the 42mm lens and flips it vertically and horizontally without requiring the zig-zag shape a monocular equipped with Porro prisms has to have

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