NEW lead keel layout for the Somes Sound 12 1/2

If you want to (or must) build your own mold then cast your own keel or have a foundry do it for you, the long-awaited lead keel layout and details plans page is now available for order—with a set of Somes Sound 12 1/2 plans, or all on its lonesome by mail or download. Details on our website....

More about Rugosa, a little Rozinante

Rugosa has attracted a lot of attention. She is small enough that she can be built in a reasonable amount of time. Her type, the canoe yawl (she is technically a ketch—and I have called her a canoe ketch—but the type are called canoe yawls . . . I stand corrected), is well suited to the look of a lapped hull, and glued-lapstrake construction will make a modern one piece, low maintenance boat, plus the laps make her a drier boat.

Rugosa layout and lines sketch

She is shoal draft so she can get into all sorts of interesting and fun places. She can also be moved and stored on a trailer. At the same time, Rugosa is big enough that she can sail out into stretches of open ocean between harbors, coves and bays.

She is inspired by one of the great practitioners of the art of yacht design, L. Francis Herreshoff. His Rozinante is a wonderful sailer and Rugosa, with a more modern hull and keel shape, will also sail great and be maneuverable.

She has a little cuddy for keeping clothes and food dry and we want to make room for portapotti.

 

When I first drew Rugosa a number of years ago it was with a sloop rig: efficient, good looking and easy to handle. In fact the first version had a sliding gunter main so the mast is shorter and easier to set up, plus the weight of the yard at the top of the sail brings the main down quickly when the halliard is let go.

That said, the ketch rig is cuter than a bug’s ear! But it is also practical . . . really!

 One day you are out for a nice sail, lovely day, warm, perfect breeze, but then a squall blows through with pounding rain and heavy gusts turning the surface of water white. You easily and quickly drop the main to sail nicely balanced under jib and mizzen until the little storm blows through, then raise your main again and sail along happily again in the sunshine behind the dark clouds.

If it is a blustery day, put up just the main and sail Rugosa like a big dinghy, tiller in one hand, sheet in the other and she is perfectly balanced. If it is a gusty day, you can put on all sail, then ease the main till it luffs in gusts, sheeting it back in again in the lulls.

The mizzen can also be used for holding the bow into the wind or pushing the stern where you want it, such as dropping off a mooring in a crowded anchorage. Back the mizzen, the stern is pushed around, drop the mooring, sheet in the jib, and off you go. No worries about drifting onto the boat behind you, tiller useless in your hand.

What about those light days when you wish you had a couple more sails to put up? You can put up a genoa or an asymmetrical, like any other boat, but only on a ketch or a yawl can you put up the saltiest of sails, the mizzen staysail!

Fall is . . .

. . . the time that people think about boats for next year. When they talk to friends, conversations start something like this:

“I’ve been thinking about a boat . . .”

or

“Wouldn’t it be really cool to . . . “

Then our phone starts to ring and the inbox fills up.

Some of the conversations we have been having lately are centered around a bigger version of our Somes Sound 12 1/2, that is taking Joel White’s Flat Fish (which is the shoal draft version of the Herreshoff Fish Class) and designing it for glued lapstrake construction and with many of the modifications we made to the Haven to create the Somes Sound.

LOA      20'-5"
LWL     16'-1"
Beam      7'-6"
Draft       2'-2"
Displ.     ~ 3,000 lbs.


SAIL AREA
Marconi    254 sq. ft.

At the same time there have been discussions about the lovely L. Francis Herreshoff canoe ketch Rozinante, but it would be expensive to build and can’t go in shallow places. I pulled out an old file (see the discussion on the web site) and updated the drawings for a 20’ version with a sloop and ketch rig.




LOA                 20’ (6.1 m)
LWL                18’-3” (5.56 m)
Beam                 6’ (1.83 m)
Draft                  2’ (.61 m)
Displacement    2,500 lbs. (1,134 kg)


SAIL AREA
Sloop              198 sq.ft. (18.39 sq.m)
Ketch              192 sq.ft (17.84 sq.m)

Here are two boats that are nearly the same length, weigh about half of what a Rozinante weighs (and be about half as expensive to build) that would float in water not that far up over your knees.

The Lapped Fish is wider and so is about 500 lbs. (250 kilos) heavier–and roomier.

The Rugosa has a longer waterline so would have a higher hull speed.

The Lapped Fish has her rudder hung on the stern, which is simpler to build than the rudder on Rugosa.

The Rugosa has a more modern under body so when will have less wetted surface and be more maneuverable. The ketch rig on Rugosa is cute as a bug’s ear and also puts the mast further forward so the cabin is bigger and there will be room for a portapotty and some bunks. On the Lapped Fish we would have to make the cabin longer and shorten the cockpit to fit the portapotty in it.

Both boats would be lovely, fun and easily built in glued lapstrake construction. For more on Rugosa, including downloadable sailplans for both rigs, please visit our website. A similar page for the Lapped Fish will be up soon.

Comments, suggestions, questions? We’d love to hear your ideas!

New Peregrine

Please visit our website for more photos.

Joe Thompson, Salt Pond Rowing, recently completed this Peregrine, set up with a Piantedosi Row Wing. The boat is currently for sale, for more information please contact Joe directly.

Silver Penny, a "little Sjogin"

There have been a couple of threads on the WoodenBoat Forum about a 22' double-ended Swedish-styled sail boat called Sjogin and the efforts to develop a set of plans for her, just completed by Paul Gartside. Because the boat is lapstraked, I was asked to come up with an idea for a 19' trailerable version for glued lapstrake construction. I sent sketches to a couple of the forumites and you can see the posting here.
 
You can also see the start of the thread for the plans here that include links to other threads about Sjogin.

These days I am thinking of moving the cabin aft a little, narrowing up the forward end and widen the aft end so that the top of the cabin will be higher aft than forward. There still isn't room for a sliding hatch but there is room for a lifting hatch. The idea is a person can be sitting in the cabin with their head sticking out the hatch, with drop boards in place, and have a modicum of privacy without feeling like a Jack-in-a-Box with the lid closed. My original thought was that the cabin was part of the charm of Sjogin but that it was mainly a place to throw extra clothes and lunch to keep them dry. However, an enclosed place to sit on a potty would be awfully nice.

One thing that I did, after looking at many pictures of Sjogin, is draw the design without a picture in front of me. I wanted to draw a version from my impressions of Sjogin, not copy her. There are many subtleties to this boat, some of which I think I captured, but there are some that I missed. For example, the cabin sides are actually curved, instead of straight as I drew. I think I'll work that into a new sketch, when I can get to it.

These sketches are the first step in the design process that we talked about in the first edition of LapLines. After making a few more sketches, the next step would be to start drawing a sail plan and lines drawing, then work out the final shape in a half model. But this design points up another step I would like to take. For several years I have been thinking of methods for making a model of a new design that included the major elements of the boat—rails, cabin, coamings, etc—so you could see better what the final boat will look like, but not have to spend 1,000 hours building it. This little version of Sjogin would benefit tremendously from making such a model.

Many thanks to Russ Manheimer for so enthusiastically posting the drawings for our Silver Penny. And thanks for Rod Brink for his comments and tweaks to the sketches. We're still working on that cabin and getting closer.

About the design's name, Silver Penny: Centuries before the English and French ventured to explore  this side of the Atlantic, a small silver Norse coin arrived here on our lovely little part of the Maine coast. Six or seven or nine hundred years later, it was dug up by amateur archaeologist Guy Mellgren, later identified by British coin dealer Peter Seaby . . . and met with astonishment of all and no small degree of skepticism by many. A Norse coin in Maine? Were Norse explorers really here, did they give the coin to one of the people they met? Perhaps. But it is far more likely that the coin was passed from one person to another along what is now the coast of the Maritimes and New England. And that little coin doubtless made a good part of its journey by boat, since native people here were accomplished mariners, used to traveling all along the coast. So, in honor of this link to our maritime heritage and that of the original Sjogin: her name, Silver Penny.

Maine State Museum photos

A tiny bottle of champagne, please

For a small launching: the first article—"Idea to boat: Design sketches out of the closet"—for our online newsletter:

We'll be talking about the rest of our design process in future installments, then we'll see what subjects climb to the top of the list. Suggestions are welcome, just zap us an email and we'll add your ideas to the list. Thanks!

Boat Ideas of the Year

NFB concept, version 5.0

Despite the lingering effects of the Great Recession (or maybe because of them) people are thinking about, and dreaming about, boats. Why not? To think about going where the water sparkles, the birds soar, the wind sings, and your biggest concern is the weather and, man, am I hungry (sailing does that to me, at least.) We have heard from many people with ideas about boats, boats that if things were a little better, they would build or buy to go out on.



At this time of year Maine Boats, Homes, and Harbors magazine comes out with their most interesting copy, the Boats of the Year issue, that reviews all the boats built in Maine and surrounding states and provinces during the past year.  In that vein, let’s take a look back at the ideas people are having about boats, what they are thinking and dreaming about building and sailing.



All of these design requests were solid enough to warrant sitting down and working out a concept sketch for the boat. They came from editors and publishers who have a better grasp of the big picture than we do, from groups of people expressing the same idea, or from  people that would have bought the boat or the plan if we had it. Over the coming weeks we will post design sketches and discussions of these boats.



Dragon Flyer. A 10' kit boat for kids that could be assembled in two and a half days for family boatbuilding events. Drawn when WoodenBoat put out a call for designs for the Family Boatbuilding event at the WoodenBoat show. Carl Cramer, publisher of WoodenBoat and Professional Boatbuilder magazines, said of our description, “Sounds perfect.”



Fox. Another 10' kit boat for kids, with a shape based on the Javelin model (see below). Both of these 10' designs are small enough that they can be easily car topped—even on little hybrid cars—carted down to a beach and launched. Both boats have a flexible rig that will fit those who are learning to sail as well as those who want to have fun sailing fast.

Sailing canoes. Small and light, these are like building a big model, and they are boats that will also go. Our daughter suggested a boat that kids could tow on a light trailer behind a bike, and  a sailing canoe is one of the possibilities that would work. Over the year we had requests from a number of people for this kind of boat.



High school boats. There is a movement afoot to start sailing teams in some of the many high schools that don’t have them. The cost of the boats s a big stumbling block so these designs are for boats that can be built from kits in high school shops for the teams to race. These designs include two easy to build sail trainers, a V-bottom chase boat, and four varsity racing designs that will also be the most challenging to build. The idea is to pick one design from each category so that each school can grow its builders and sailors.



Time of Wonder boat. Inspired by the drawing of two kids sailing in the Robert McCloskey book, this boat is an answer to the numbers of people that have found our Somes Sound 12-1/2 just a little beyond their means or too big a project to tackle.



Bigger Daniel outboard skiff. This summer my Modern Methods class at WoodenBoat School built the hull for a 12-foot V-bottom outboard pram we call the Daniel skiff and there were several requests from different folks for a bigger version. I drew a 17' version with a center console as a chase boat for the high school sailing teams.



Little Sjogin. The original Sjogin is a lovely 22' Swedish-inspired work boat style design built in the 60s in New Jersey and is much loved by those on the WB forum (Update on developing plans for "Sjogin" 11/15/2010), where pictures are often posted. We were asked for a design for a smaller—19'—trailerable version.



Javelin. A 20' version of the Open 60 class, minus the (very expensive) deep fin keel, that could be built from a kit. Like the high school boats, the idea is to get more people sailing. This is a boat for those that like to read Outside magazine who want to go wild places on the water, a boat that that is environmentally friendly, plus fast and fun to sail and can be rowed when the wind cuts out. The hull design has a chine with a cambered bottom made of batten-seamed plywood, and the topsides curved in section and built in glued-lapstrake construction. This is a rounded hull that is speedy, drier and easy to build.

Fish Class in glued lapstrake. WoodenBoat forumites (Falling in love) and others who like our Somes Sound 12-1/2 have also talked about the idea of doing the same thing to the bigger versions of the Herreshoff and Joel White designs.



Javelin 26. A bigger version of Javelin that could take a whole family and specifically requested for sailing in the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta. This is a boat that would be capable of keeping up with bigger boats in fleet. This is also a boat that fits the requirements of the WoodenBoat Design Challenge III, if I had time to draw it.



New folkboat. An updated version of the venerable lapstrake design with the same philosophy of simple, economical and seaworthy, for one-design racing and for short cruises. I’ve also drawn this boat at 26' so it can also race in events like the ERR.

More soon!

John

We have a workshop!

The first Somes Sound 12 1/2 workshop will be Saturday and Sunday, May 7 and 8, here at our shop in West Brooklin, Maine. If interest warrants, we'll schedule a second workshop for one of the following two weekends.

For all the details, please go here:

Spring will happen.

We hope. We'd like to help it along, so . . . .

www.brooksboatsdesigns.com

So far, $35 plus a little shipping will buy. . .

. . . a set of Compass Harbor pram plans and a copy of our book, How To Build Glued-Lapstrake Wooden Boats.

Only two more days left to bid!  Go here to see the online auction listing and bid.

All proceeds go to help our most wonderful Brooklin library, the Friend Memorial, which holds an annual fund-raising auction every Valentine's Day. This year, they're doing an online auction as well. There are all sorts of interesting items to bid on. While you're there to check out the pram plans and book, take a look around for more boat-related items, including a set of Siri plans from Doug Hylan, offerings from WoodenBoat, and much more. And if you visit Brooklin, please make sure to stop in at the library, it's a treasure . . . and there's even a screened gazebo tent on the lawn with a table inside so you can check your email and enjoy the shade and flowers at the same time.

Design review of the Compass Harbor pram

 

. . . just published in the latest issue of Mike O'Brien's Boat Design Quarterly. As always, this issue contains a fine collection of wonderful boats, and the best boat design writing you'll find anywhere, anytime. And some very kind words about our Compass Harbor pram, for which we are very appreciative and grateful. To download and read the entire review article, and learn how to subscribe to Boat Design Quarterly, please visit our website page, here.

Ten days

If you're still thinking, there's still a few days left to order plans and books; we send out everything Priority Mail so unless you're very far from Maine things ought to reach you in time. And there's always a gift certificate, downloaded to print or email, for a truly last minute present.

If you're wondering what else might make a great present for a boatbuilding someone you know, the photos pretty much say it all: you can never have too many clamps or battery drills (or batteries . . . .) It's also likely that decent chisels, and a lovely plane or two (www.lie-nielsen.com) would be welcome. Especially this low-angle block plane. John's is in pretty much constant use, which may be why I can't find a photo of it lying around in the shop.

And if they've got everything else they need, more shop space is a gift that will never be returned!