Mystic WoodenBoat Show 2010 : Episode 3

Now personally, I'm a small boat kinda guy. The big stuff holds some interest, but I am always interested to see what others have done with their canoes and kayaks. As a result, I've decided to devote today's post to canoes and kayaks at the show. The picture above shows some restored and un-restored beauties on Robert Ross's trailer. Robert Ross is the owner of Ross Brothers and they specialize in the sale vintage canoes and sporting goods among other things. Here's a nice detail view of an un-restored boat:


I think that the un-restored boats can be as beautiful as the restored boats. Often, the un-restored boats (like those in the Rossi Mill building at Mystic Seaport...) show artwork and detail painted on them that you don't often see put back on restored boats. Things like gilt work and hand painted scroll work. The old boats had some pretty fancy stuff.

Here's another view of Robert's booth showing a lovely courting canoe with long decks and wide thwarts. I love the way that varnish glows in the sun!


Detail of the deck:


He also had this cute 10' long pack canoe and a variety of paddles and oars. DD would probably enjoy something like this as it's a bit wider than my Wee Lassie.


Nick Schade of Guillemot Kayaks had a booth again this year and was featuring his nearly complete Mini-Bootlegger. This kayak was made from 1/8" thick Mahogany strip that was organized as it was cut from the board. The trim was Tiger Maple. A gorgeous effort - and it is available for sale. A mere $23,000.00.


Just look at the grain. Gorgeous.


Chesapeake Light Craft was back as well with their lovely boats on display. I can't say I'm much of a guy for plywood kayaks, but they do a nice job. This is only a small selection from their display - they offer an impressive number of designs for the home-builder.


In the, "I Built it Myself" area at the show this lapstrake sailing canoe based on a Rushton design was just arriving as I was leaving and had no signs on it.


This gentleman built a Redbird to the design of Ted Moores from Bear Mountain Boats and customized it very nicely. One of the customizations was lowering the sheer a bit at the bow and stern. My father and I built a canoe to this design and it is a pleasure to paddle, but the high bow and stern can be pushed around when the wind is up.


A very nice sculpted cherry yoke:


Bird's Eye Maple decks and grab handles:


A slick sliding seat arrangement for the bow paddler. This is a nice feature as such a design will let you shift the seat to adjust the fore and aft trim for paddlers of different weight.


A nice sea kayak - I missed the builder and design information - Oops!


A Tom Hill designed Charlotte lapstrake double-paddle canoe. This is a very popular design and there are quite a few of these about. They are nice, lightweight canoes that let you go where you cannot go with larger boats. I've got the marine plywood and the patterns cut out, but I've got too many other projects going to really get moving on this before I wrap up others!



Finally, a beautiful Wee Lassie built to the design of Mac McCarthy of Feather Canoes. Sadly, Mac's health has not been good, but I'm sure he would be heartened to know that his design won Best of Show for Human Powered craft. This build was faithful to Mac's design and well executed. Michelle Corbeil of WoodenBoat and I were nearly tripping on each other trying to get good photos of this boat. I'm sure her's are much better than mine!


The happy builder with his winner's award.


Still more to come!

Wordless Wednesday

Mystic WoodenBoat Show 2010 : Episode 2

One of the great reasons to hold a show like the WoodenBoat Show at a place like Mystic Seaport is the fact that there are many things to see besides the show itself. I know that I've heard from several people who took others who were not "Wooden Boat People" who still had a wonderful time enjoying the museum while they took in the show.

For me, one of the more interesting draws is the Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard. It is neat to watch traditional boat building as it happens. (FYI, another museum with this "plus" is the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michael's, MD - just not on the same scale. The past two years, the museum has had the Charles W. Morgan hauled for some well-deserved restoration and maintenance. The Charles W. Morgan is the last surviving American wooden whaling ship and was built in New Bedford, MA in 1841. A unique treasure.


She is a really large ship.


Over the past 69 years, the Morgan has been at Mystic as a display piece for the museum. Because of the way she was rigged and loaded as well the fact her underwater timbers were in poor condition, she began to "hog". (develop a hollow in the keel) a Here is a shot of her keel from last year not long after being hauled:

A project was begun to restore the Morgan including the improvements to the shipyard's marine railway and other equipment used in the restoration including the ship's saw. Live Oaks that were lost to Hurricane Katrina were brought up for timbers. Lots of work has gone on in the bilge area of the ship and this year, her keel looks nearly straight.

She remains a wonderful exhibit - even as she is being restored. Here's a view from the stern lights:


And a deck prism:


There is still a ways to go before the Morgan is ready to be in the water again, but she should be in great shape when she does!

Mystic WoodenBoat Show 2010 : Episode 1

I took the day off on Friday to go down to the WoodenBoat Show at Mystic Seaport. If you have any interest in wooden boats, you're sure to see something that will draw your interest. The trip is a relatively short drive for me, but was rendered a bit longer than usual by two accidents. If you had the dubious pleasure of being on I-95 Northbound up near Mystic on Friday morning, this is probably what you saw as a result of the second accident:


Traffic was, frankly, brutal. It took me nearly an hour to go between exits 88 and 89 where I finally got off the highway. Traffic on the side roads wasn't much better, but I eventually reached the Seaport over an hour after my desired arrival time. Because of this delay I started out at the North entrance and made my way to the South end getting an overview of the show and taking a few pictures.


One of the first real stops that I made was at the docks near the Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard. There are usually a neat variety of small craft at the docks and I wasn't disappointed this year. What first caught my eye was Patina. Patina is a Caledonia Yawl by Ed Segen and was literally the "poster girl" from the WoodenBoat Show poster I put up previously. One of the reasons that this boat was used for the poster is that it was designed by Iain Oughtred - the very talented marine designer who was being honored at the show's annual dinner on Saturday evening.



Iain has a fairly broad catalog of designs and many of the boats that were at the show were his work. As I always note about my own student's work, even though the design is the same, they can be completely different. Take for example another Caledonia Yawl, Xena, build by Ken Ford with a unique bird's wing mast.


I was also very interested in seeing this new runabout by Timm Schlieff of Schlieff Boatworks. Timm is a very talented young man and was recently featured in both the editorial and a full article in the most recent edition of WoodenBoat magazine. The runabout was named Vixen and was being delivered to a customer in New Hampshire just after the show.


Up on the walkway was a Herreshoff Watch Hill 15, Kitty, from Alec Brainerd of Artisan Boatworks. They always have some beautiful boats on display at the Maine Boatbuilders show and Kitty certainly showed both the attention to detail and excellent craftsmanship that Artisan always puts forth.


On top of everything else, the folks from Mystic Seaport and WoodenBoat managed to order some of the most gorgeous weather that we've had in a while!


More to come!

Oh Help, Oh NO!!!

I had some dental work done last week and as a part of that dental work, I was given an anti-septic mouth rinse to use three times a day. As a side effect of the rinse, my tongue felt sort of strange - mostly in regard to how things tasted. Last night was my first night being done with the rinse and I decided that a glass of red wine would be nice as the taste wouldn't be spoilt by the rinse.

When I woke up this morning, I looked in the mirror and could only think of the wonderful children's book, The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and illustrated with both humor and talent by Axel Sheffler.

My eyes were orange. (Ok, sorta red...)

I opened my mouth...

My tongue was black. (Stained a purple-black from the wine...)

...are there?

I turned slightly just to make sure I didn't have purple prickles all over my back.

Oh help, oh no - am I a Gruffalo?

If you have children and haven't read them this book (or the follow up, The Gruffalo's Child.) I highly recommend them. We were introduced to them by my BIL and are very thankful for the it!

I also recommend waiting a few days after that mouth rinse for a glass of wine, too!

Wordless Wednesday

Which one is...

The Horn of Africa?


This?




...or this?