October 2023 Archives - Small Boats Magazine

Quick Coils for Throwing Lines

Christopher Cunningham — Sun, 24 Sep 2023 18:26:47 +0000

The figure-eight coil is a modification of the landlubber’s way of wrapping line in loops along the forearm and around the left thumb and elbow, a method sure to create a tangle. Hold the end of the line in the left hand, palm toward your face with the line extending to your left, past the thumb. With the right hand bring the line down and across the back of your forearm sliding the hand along the line as you go. Make a turn under the elbow from left to right and come back up the back of the forearm, crossing to the index-finger side. Draw the line across the palm from index finger to pinkie. Repeat crossing the back of the forearm to the elbow. When you’ve coiled all the line, straighten your arm and the bottoms of the loops will slip off your elbow. Transfer the top of the coil to your right hand and hold the starting end of the line in your left hand. You’re ready to throw.

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Scotty Rescue Throw Bag

Christopher Cunningham — Sun, 24 Sep 2023 18:25:48 +0000

When I stepped aboard a friend’s little motor cruiser, the first bit of kit I noticed was a rescue throw bag hanging at the ready from the wheelhouse overhead. It got me thinking about the usefulness of a dedicated rescue line and the fact that I didn’t have one. I’d assumed that with all the lines I have on board, whichever one I could lay my hands on could be used as a throw rope in an emergency. But what I might have handy might not float or be coiled in a manner that I could deploy quickly and throw accurately.

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Reverse-Reading Compass

Ben Fuller — Sun, 24 Sep 2023 18:24:41 +0000

There are lots of compasses available. Some are removable, some want a fixed mount, but almost all of them assume that you are facing forward. If you’re rowing, that poses a problem. To see it as you row, the compass has to be between you and the stern. If you use a regular compass, set or mounted so its lubber line is parallel to the boat’s centerline, you’ll need some math.

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An Electric Journey to Knight Inlet

Tim O'Meara — Sun, 24 Sep 2023 18:22:54 +0000

I had gained a fair bit of boating experience over the years on various lakes and oceans, though never in this part of the world, and Craig had experience on Canadian lakes and around the Channel Islands of California. When I invited him to join me on the coast of British Columbia, I ran through the pros and cons of the boat and the equipment I had assembled, and recounted the planning and preparations I’d made over the previous months. I also noted that the experience and preparation did not guarantee I wouldn’t make mistakes.

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To the Rescue, After a Fashion

Christopher Cunningham — Sun, 24 Sep 2023 18:08:53 +0000

I came away from that incident with mixed feelings. I was, of course, glad that I could help, and I appreciated the attentiveness I’d learned from my father. But I was surprised and disappointed that things that I knew how to do had eluded me when I needed to put them to use. I knew that I should have rounded-up downwind of the capsized skiff to come to a stop alongside it, but it has been decades since I had practiced by throwing a cushion overboard and sailing around to retrieve it. I knew that I could have turned the VHF radio to Channel 16 and hailed the Coasties, but on the occasions that I was boating in the company of another boat which also had a VHF, I didn’t take advantage of the opportunities to practice making calls.

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Candlefish 16

Lilja Hanson — Sat, 23 Sep 2023 22:20:14 +0000

As with all of the designs from Devlin Designing Boat Builders, the Candlefish 16 is of stitch-and-glue construction. I was 12 years old in 2015 when my father and I decided to build a boat. To get a more complete boatbuilding experience, we opted not to purchase a kit, but instead to build the Candlefish 16 from the nine sheets of drawings included in the plans set.

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Joe Lanni’s LUCKY DUCK

Jenny Bennett — Sat, 23 Sep 2023 00:53:46 +0000

The Puddle Duck Racer was the brainchild of David “Shorty” Routh, who devised the class in 2003 so that amateur boatbuilders could get out on the water, easily and cheaply. Shorty enjoyed building boats, messing about in boats, and racing boats. But when he realized there was no club that catered to and encouraged all three, he established his own and created the 8′-LOA Puddle Duck Racer as the club boat.

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The Laker Canoe

Tim Cormier — Mon, 11 Sep 2023 00:27:49 +0000

The decision to build a cedar-strip canoe came about when a close friend loaned me Gil Gilpatrick’s “Building a Strip Canoe.” He thought it would be a nice wintertime project for me since I had recently retired. After a few reads of the book, my wife and I decided on the 16′ Laker design. It’s been many years since we have done any serious canoeing and now, with grandchildren, we thought having a nice stable all-around canoe would be best.

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