Neoma reaches adulthood

My Phil Bolger-designed Birdwatcher, christened Neoma, made her last cruise of her first sailing season near the end of September on Lac La Ronge in north-central Saskatchewan, a vast, wild but moderately accessible lake that has become her de facto home waters. To recap, I had veered from Phil Bolger's drawings in a few small details:

• no over-head Lexan panels or "skylights" for me
• my oar ports were store-bought port lights, the oars and locks borrowed from a rowing shell
• I had put the sail rig and off-centre centreboard to port instead of to starboard, to favour right-handed crew
• my steering linkage was made of #50 roller chain, sprockets, flange bearings and and shafting, all inexpensive, common items from an industrial hardware supply

All those modifications worked beautifully well for me.

When it came to the sailrig, I had made bigger changes, and trouble-shooting my cat-ketch, spritsail rig was the task of this late-season voyage.

After finally getting the boat to open water (see my next post on oars, motors and moral purity), Mark and I made sail. With the mizzen now smaller, with about 20 square feet trimmed from its trailing edge, we hoped the helm would balance better. I had re-cut and resown the ill-fitting jib, and we hoped this would now do its job without bellying out into a terrible shape, and pulling Neoma's bow to leeward.

The wind was snapping hard, big whitecaps were rolling down from the northwest, and the little boat absolutely tore away on a beam reach. The weather helm was much reduced, but still significant. But we had more sail up than was really prudent. We turned a little downwind after rounding a point, and the boat was surfing like a dinghy. We were clipping eight knots at times. We sailed this way for an hour or so, covering a lot of lake and fighting to keep up navigation-wise. Just in time for lunch we got under the lee of a small island and dropped the rig in a glassy bay in front of an empty island cabin.

For the afternoon, we decided to set main and jib only — no mizzen. The boat was tamed right down, the amount of helm was just right and the sailing was very relaxing. It started to drizzle. The beauty of Bolger's design is that you never have to have your upper body out in the elements, yet you don't feel stuck "indoors" either. Tucked under the superstructure, but with the breeze moving through the boat, the effect is like sitting on an open-air verandah.

We noodled around the lake for the next three days, and the boat worked perfectly, without fuss or bother. The morning we were going to turn back west for the marina, the wind had veered halfway round the compass, so we had a following breeze to take us in. It was more than a breeze, really. It felt like half a gale, and we had to cross the very open south bay of the lake. The waves were steep-fronted whitecaps and had built to about five feet from trough to peak — about as big as they get on this lake. As we left the shore behind us, and no land visible ahead, I hoped everything would hang together. It was a long way to drift even right-side up. I tried not to think about broaching and being upside down.

In fact, the boat showed no tendencies that way, and we had a wonderful crossing. We just rode the swells and took pleasure in the boat. Everything worked. There seemed to be no terrible strain, or even a moderate one. The last cruise of the season was going to be over all too soon. I have to say I felt a bit of pride at that moment. I had built a boat, had designed and built her sail rig, and it was carrying us capably through the Canadian wilderness. I thought of all the adventures to come. Neoma had grown up.

Launch 1.0

You would think building a boat is like getting married or bungee jumping — the kind of enterprise that culminates in a Big Day, the Bold Leap. The first launch of my own Birdwatcher was extremely low-key. Quite alone, I hauled the Neoma (as she was now called and how I will refer to her from now on) up to the lake. She slid from the trailer into the water with no fanfare. I was satisfied to see she floated level athwartships and just proud of her designed waterlines as an empty, un-rigged boat ought to do. Actually, there were two bystanders. My high-school shop teacher and his wife, who I had not seen in years, happened to be just coming ashore. My old teacher had nothing complimentary nor congratulatory to say, but then he never had in high school either. His wife, however, remarked: "What a beautiful boat!" She uttered these words unbidden, before she knew I had built the thing, so that was good enough for me.

The launch was not a party for a number of reasons. As I mentioned in the last post, it took place in fall, late September, 2006 to be exact. That is damn near winter at my latitude, and the sailing season was over. The lake where we have a cabin, where Neoma would begin her sea trials, was deserted. It was a grey Monday morning, and everyone I knew was sensibly employed 200 kilometres south in the city. The building phase was not finished enough to celebrate anyway. The experimental rig, the pieces of which were stowed in the boat, had to be put up and fitted out, her tangle of lines riven through fittings yet to be installed. Her experimental leeboards, her oar locks, her anchors, had similarly to be rigged. Oh, and the running lights . . . if there was time. I knew this would take a lot of fiddly work, and I had given myself three full days to get her sailing. This process would yield the data needed to tweak the details over a final building winter back in the shop.

As was so often the case building my BW, I was almost right.

In her helpless state, Neoma's first voyage was under tow, behind our aluminum skiff. She charged wildly from side to side, the same way she would do at anchor, the first of a hundred problems to address. I strung together an assortment of objects — oars, a bailing can, an empty tool box — to form a kind of sea anchor roped to her stern. This tamed her enough to get her home.

My neighbour has a front lawn behind her beach, and I borrowed this clean turf for a shipyard. Starting with the rig, I staked the sails out flat on the ground, then lay the masts and spars into position. I measured the amount of bury the masts would have when stepped in the boat and marked this with bands of bright tape. Without any further measuring, I could then position the various padeyes, drill holes in the spar-ends and tie on the blocks through which the snotters are led. (I won't get into a full discussion of rigging a spritsail here. See Pete Culler on Wooden Boats.)

It was not tricky, but it was slow work drilling and screwing down so many fittings, trimming and whipping so much line. I had bought a metric tonne of new hardware and had to choose what would be used, what returned. Even by my September, Canadian standards it was very cold. I was wearing shorts to facilitate wading out to the Neoma as needed. Incipient hypothermia dulls an already-slow brain. That one measurement I mentioned . . . for the amount of mast bury? Well, I made an error and thus had to relocate most of my handiwork by two inches.

(Observant readers will have noticed that I mix metric and Imperial units of measure. This is a peculiarity of Canadian life. Officially, we switched to metric in 1970-something, but our close ties to American and English culture keep both systems in play. It's kinda fun, once you get used to it.)

The leeboards were a harder problem. I had made them far too heavy with lead ballast, uncomfortable to even lift. You need only enough lead to keep the business end of the board immersed; therefore, the board as a whole should just float when tossed overboard. It's a good thing I kept a safety line rigged, because my boards went to the bottom with brutal force. I hung these on temporary, prototype fittings made of caster swivels and with little davit-like arms to hoist them. If the concept worked, I would refine the fitting arrangements in the shop. But the boards were so heavy that I began to fear setting sail with them strapped on a boat that was otherwise very light afloat.

Neoma charged to-and-fro when moored from a bow line, just as she had under tow. Not only that, but she pounded noisily, as I had been told sharpies do. Only a very drunk sailor could hope to sleep aboard such a ship. I solved this by tying her off to a cleat on the bow quarter. She held instantly steady and went quiet. The price is that the strain on the anchor is higher, turned more broadside to wind. With a boat so shoal draft, finding a really snug, wind-protected anchorage should not be a problem, and so the higher anchor load is only marginal.

My three long days of work went by fast, the wind blew icily, punctuated by spits of cold rain. Around noon on the last day I had rigged everything as well as I could. It calmed but was still windy enough to move a boat. The breeze was onshore so that, if all hell broke lose I could douse the rig, drift in, and walk home. Even the sun shone now and then. It was about time to sail.

It might seem surprising that I did not, in the end, go sailing that fall. Looking back, I wonder why sober second thoughts won out, for I was absolutely busting to embark. It was the monstrously heavy leeboards that still bothered me. The otherwise lively little boat felt unnatural with them strapped on, wallowing under their weight. I decided to try a capsize test. Standing on the top deck, I looped a line as high as I could reach up the mast, then climbed down and waded into the shallows with it. I started heaving and pulled Neoma onto her beam ends. I could not decide if the force required was a healthy amount. What worried me, though, was that one leeboard now hung straight off the beam as such boards are meant to do. Dangling straight down into the water, its great weight now had no righting potential as a keel or ballasted centreboard would have. Rather, it served to pin the boat on her side.

I was not afraid of drowning. No, like a real man, I was afraid of looking like a fool. There seemed a possibility of sinking my boat on her maiden voyage. I had no supplemental floatation to offset the over-abundance of lead in the leeboards. My submerged windows seeped a little. Not much, but enough to make a long drift to shore nerve-wracking. The lake, while neither remote nor large, was devoid of boat traffic. I was cold and tired and, frankly, a little fed-up. The previous three 12-hour days working in the cold and wet had been preceded by weeks of backyard preparations. Come what may, I would need another whole day's labour just to get my boat back to the city.

I gave up. It was heart-breaking to de-rig everything and retreat. I dragged my ridiculous leeboards ashore and left them to face the coming winter exposed to the elements. They would never see action, though their lead would be harvested for the next set of boards. I would have to await another spring to experience the Birdwatcher under sail.

Tinkering with the best-laid plans

My intent to experiment with the Birdwatcher design had to do mostly with the sail rig, which I will deal with in its own post. As for the boat itself, I did not plan to deviate from the drawings, and didn't much. The Birdwatcher is a great boat as is. But once you get into the dust and screws of a project, you start to think about how things could be tweaked differently. Here and there, I found a few ways to construct the Birdwatcher more simply, and more strongly.

As I mentioned last time, the basic hull comes together very quickly. You position the frames on a strongback, plumb and square them up, scarf together the side panels and hang them on the frames and screw them into the stem and stern pieces, and before you know it you've got something boatish.

You can build Birdwatcher with the chine logs inside, outside, or none at all, relying on epoxy alone. I chose outside logs because it seemed a good idea to have some lumber where the boat was likely to take a hit. When a sharpie heels over to sail, the chine becomes a keel. I read somewhere that exterior chine logs also gave you a toehold to climb back aboard if you go for a swim, planned or otherwise. In practice they do, though it takes a lot of upper body strength to climb up even in ideal conditions. Re-boarding would be nearly impossible without the external logs.

I had already decided to at least give leeboards a try, so I did not build a centreboard right away. I determined, however, that if and when I did put in a centreboard, it would go on the port side, not to starboard as Phil Bolger showed it on his drawing. I never got a chance to ask Phil his rationale. Mine was this: the mast is stepped on the same side as the centreboard. You hoist it onto your shoulder and walk it upright. I figured it would be better for a right-handed person to have the mast on the left shoulder, so when you get it into position, you have your good mitt available to toggle the mast partner lock closed. In practice this is true.

The use of polycarbonate (Lexan and other brand names) for the extensive windows was problematic.
The material itself if brutally strong, much more so than plywood of the same thickness. You can hit it with a framing hammer and it won't break. But it is difficult to affix to a wooden structure because its thermal expansion rate is large. Bob Larkin has done some great work on this and posted useful information on his Birdwatcher II website -- which I did not see until much later. I just drilled oversize holes, almost a quarter inch. They require some sort of washer, and I used faucet stem washers from the plumbing aisle. They work and are cheap, but crack after a season. I need to find something better. The fasteners, about one every 10 inches, hold the polycarbonate against weather stripping. In practice, the assembly is not entirely tight and will seep if you heel the boat right over so the windows submerge. I am not quite comfortable with the strength of the windows still.

The plans call for polycarbonate on aft sections of the top deck as well as the sides. This overhead window is for keeping an eye on sail trim. I chose to use plywood down the whole top deck for a number of reasons. First, sitting in my unfinished boat, I realized that the sails would be easily viewable on one tack without a window, and on the other tack just by leaning forward and having a peek. Besides, this is a cruiser, not a racer. In a ten-hour day, you won't want to watch the trim that closely, believe me. And once you know the boat, you can feel out-of-trim in the seat of your pants. The plans specify plastic on the angled part of the top deck too, but these areas are so tiny that the windows add little to the view. Second, using all wood on the top would increase the strength enormously. Third, there seemed no good way to make the top very watertight where plastic met plastic. Fourth, the top is where you lash the rig at night, where you cook and fillet fish and sometimes stand. It takes a beating. Finally, it seemed the helmsman would be happier without the sun beating on his head. All these things have proved true in actual practice.

The last consideration for the polycarbonate: how dark should it be? The stuff is very expensive, so you don't want to buy it twice. Some people have used it clear, or just barely tinted. Aesthetically, I much prefer the darker look, about as dark as a pair of sunglasses. It makes the boat look all of a piece. In practical terms, it affords more privacy. A strong tint hides the blemishes that polycarbonate gets as soon as you start using it. You might worry that the dark stuff will impede the view, be a disadvantage in low light. On the contrary, we just don't realize how terribly bright it is outside, especially over water. It is very relaxing sailing behind strongly tinted windows. In fact, they don't seem strongly tinted at all, but just right.

Two other small changes. I did not build the integral wooden anchor chock on the bow as shown on the plans. It just looked too complicated, would take a lot of upkeep, and metal anchor rollers are cheap and easy to buy. I built both the stem and stern as Phil Bolger specifies on so many other boats -- but not this one -- with a true stem or stern piece inside the hull panels, and false ones screwed to them outside. The drawn ones were more complex in order to be more economical of lumber.

As for the Birdwatcher's oar ports, I bought ready-made ones from a chandlery, which seemed the easiest route to leak-proof assembly near the waterline, plus I could see through them. These opening ports would turn out to be useless for their stated purpose -- this boat is just too big to row effectively. I had read as much before building but, as a competitive rower, I felt like I would be capable. In practice, rowing this boat is demoralizingly difficult, especially from the position Phil Bolger specified. You are so far aft that the boat is uncontrollable in any kind of cross wind. Even in a flat calm, the boat tracks very poorly. I think two rowers standing fore and aft could handle the boat in some wind, but that would mean four long oars and locks, which take up a lot of room in a small boat and add up in cost. I will return to this topic later, but want to introduce it now in case anyone who reads this is about to install oar ports. At least hold off awhile, because the whole subject of auxiliary power in this boat has been the subject of major re-thinking by Phil Bolger himself -- he drew Birdwatcher II to address this issue. And that, too, will be addressed in a later post.

My ports may be useless for rowing, but they are invaluable for ventilation at night. You can have them wide open in a pounding rain and not a drop comes aboard. You can wake from sleep, prop up on one elbow and get a quick look out to check your anchor is holding, or what the overnight weather may be doing.

Finally, I built some handsome little cupboards for stowing small items and installed these at the middle frame position, at the widest part of the hull. Fortunately I made them removable, because they were useless. I failed to consider that the middle frame is also the deepest part of the boat and thus where the bilge water gathers. If you have cabinetry there, rainwater or spilled tea runs right underneath and can't be sponged up. They also take up a cozy space right next to the helmsman where someone could snuggle in,  thus diminishing the romantic capabilities of this boat. Maybe the idea of sailing with your arm around someone has no appeal for you. But have a thought for the future generations who will inherit your boat!

No, I think this boat is too small for furniture. I have found it much more practical to load the boat with Rubbermaid tote containers. These can be wedged into place for sailing amidships for sailing, then re-positioned for camping afloat. If you camp ashore, these boxes are essentially rain-proof and damp-proof.