April 15, 1998 Issue |
May 1, 1998 Issue |
April 15, 1998 Issue
LCMM Small Boat Show
Our Tenth Annual Small Boat Show will be held at the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum on July 11th and 12th. The core of the show is handmade boars and accessories. The primary purpose of the event is to showcase the wares of regional boat builders and related crafts people and to do so in an interesting, attractive and festive setting. We hope to see 30 exhibitors and 50+ boats at this year's gathering and upwards of 2000 visitors. As usual, exhibitors will be provided space under tents in our central quadrangle and will be invited to do demonstrations of their craft. Boats can be tried out in the water of North Harbor, just down the hill from the main exhibit area.The Museum's setting on the shore of Lake Champlain is beautiful. Add to that good food, live music, children's activities, and all the regular museum exhibits and you have the ingredients of a great weekend for visitors and exhibitors alike. And again this year we'll have the Second Annual Lake Champlain Challenge, a 3-mile race for rowing and paddling craft to be held on Sunday, July 12, during the show. Last year's race, the first, was very popular. We think this event will draw even more serious boat people to the show this year.
Interested readers and boatbuilders are invited to inquire for further details.
Don Dewees, Show Coordinator, Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, RR3, Box 4092 Vergennes, VT 05491
Happening at IYRS
The Replica of H M Bark Endeavour: The 18th century ship that Captain James Cook sailed around the world on one of history's most celebrated voyages of dis-covery, will visit our International Yacht Restoration School in Newport, Rhode Island during its seven month, 16 stop tour of the east coast. Endeavour is due to arrive at IYRS' docks on July 25. During her two week stay the public will be allowed to hoard and sample life at sea more than 200 years ago.The Endeavour replica was built in Australia t0 the specifications of Cook's ship from plans held by the British National Maritime Museum. Commissioned In 1994, the replica is operated by the HM Bark Endeavour Foundation as a floating museum. The ship's first visit to North America is sponsored by the National Ge-ographic Society.
The ship will be manned by an amateur and professional crew. Members of the public may apply to be selected to join the amateur crew for the voyages between the North American ports and for the transat-lantic voyage. Onboard conditions are as near as possible to those of the 18th century although Endeavour is fitted with engines and modern navigational and safety equipment as well as modern heads and showers.
While she is docked at IYRS, visitors may tour Endeavour- to view artifacts and replicas of the cabins as they were used by Cook and the scientific party, officers and crew. Volunteer guides will explain the workings of the ship and the conditions in Captain Cook's time.
Coronet World Cruise, March 22, 1888 to April 25, 1889: A number of remarkable events occurred during Coronet's 13 month world cruise over 100 years ago. These included: 1. Coronet became the first private U.S. yacht to round Cape Horn. 2. King Kalakaua and his royal entourage boarded in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii). 3. Emperor Mitsuhito visited onboard in Yokohama, Japan. 4. The Sultan, Prince and the Secretary of State visited in Singapore.
Not caring for the voyage past Cape Hatteras or rounding "The Horn", Bush and guests traveled from Brooklyn to San Diego by land, vacationing in California until Coronet's arrival. During the world tour Coronet and her crew visited:
Honolulu, Sandwich Islands; Yoko-hama, Japan; Hong Kong; Singapore Roads; Colombo, Ceylon (Sri Lanka); Bombay, India; Aden (Arabia); The Red Sea; Suez City; Suez Canal; Great Bitter Lake; Malta; Madeira; Brooklyn.
IYRS, 449 Thames St., Newport, RI 02840, (401) 848-5777
Seeking Small Sailboat
The Boy Scout summer camp that serves my area has a fleet of aluminum outboard skiffs that serve as their rowboats. They row about as sweetly as so many mortar beds, and this gives the young scouts a very wrong idea of what rowing is all about.Over the last four years, therefore, I have ferreted out and refurbished five row-boats of different types, and donated them to the camp. This has spurred growing interest m rowing A couple of staff members rowed in college and the two sliding seat craft I found and fixed up thrilled them; These fellows use them to introduce youths to the real kind of rowing.
On talking with the waterfront staff, I find they would now love to have a real small sailboat added to the fleet. They have some Sailfish and a sailing catamaran, but no traditional type on the order of a Blue Jay, Beetle Cat or Turnabout. So I'm seeking the donation of something of this general type. The pond is half a mile across and often gets a good southwest breeze coming up from Buzzards Bay. I can do wood and fiberglass work and can refurbish something in doggy condition, but would rather not get involved with a real restoration job.
Also, they'd very much like to have a basic sea kayak. Nothing sophisticated but one good enough on which to learn the basics of handling this type of craft.
If anyone has anything within rea-sonable distance of my town I'd be happy to hear from them.
Bob Whittier, P.O. Drawer T, Duxbury, MA 02331
Top Of Page
May 1, 1998 Issue
Letters From Readers....
I Just Can't Breath...
Rob McAdams' experience with west-ern red cedar sawdust is not unusual, one in twenty people are allergic to it. For this rea-son OSHA set the eight hour exposure limit to western red cedar dust at 2.5mg/cubic me-ter, while the limit for other wood dusts is twice as high. But even 5mgtcubic meter is not much dust. In a 20'x 20'x 10' high shop it would take only a half teaspoon of dust uniformly distributed to produce that con-centration.Lauan dust affects some people also. Dynamite Payson wrote me, "I just can't breathe any of the dust without half chok-ing." When Sandy Mitchell was sanding lauan ply for a fberglass duckboat in Nelson Silva's shop over a dozen years ago he de-veloped a severe rash all over his body with an accompanying fever.
Over 300 varieties of wood are known to cause dermatitis. Heartwoods are worse than sapwoods, perhaps because of the natural poisons they contain that make them more decay resistant. It isn't just synthetics natural products are full of poisons.
Paracelsus got it right back about the time of Columbus. He said, "Everything is a poison. It is just a matter of the dose."
David Carnell, Wilmington, NC
Cockleshell Plans Available
Yes, Cockleshell plans are still available. My moving from university to univer-s~ty to pursue my new degree has made it quite difficult for peope to fnd me to buy these plans. Now that I'll be hunkered down for a while doing my graduate studies I'll be less of a moving target.Last June I brought my two personal Cockleshells to the WoodenBoat Show and was thrilled to meet many who had bought plans in the past. Those now wishing to reach me can be assured they will be able to do so at this address.
Eric Risch, 38 Hayden Point Rd., S. Thomaston, ME 04858, (401 ) 782-6760
Handbook for a Cheap Boat Derby
I bet there have been many articles along the lines of "a boat from a sheet of plywood" over the years in Messing About in Boats. What would it take to throw them all together for a kind of handbook for the cheap boat derby? Or perhaps an invita-tion/competition for some new designs? I'm sure all you need is another project!David Beede, Gainsville, FL
Editor Comments: Putting together a compendium of bygone articles from 350 back issues is a project I indeed do not need, and no staff exists to carry out such a re-search/production effort.
Shapely Lugsail Rigging
After reading Reed Smith's article, "The Shapely Lugsail", I'd like to pass on a suggestion I found helpful to me. As my rig is a standing lug, not his balanced lug, it may not work for him.Run a small line from where the hal-yard ties onto the top spar around the star-board side of the mast, then back to the hal-yard from the port lide of the mast, through a small block at the halyard, and back to the starboard side of the mast to a cleat on that side.
What this does is pull the top spar - against the mast and hold it there whether reefed or not. I adopted this from the sail plan for a North Atlantic 29.
Tom Arnold, 2617 Roosevelt, San An-tonio, TX 78214
