16/30 Build, Clayton NY 2007

In March of 2007, I participated in the first build of the hard chine 16\30 sailing canoe at the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, NY. Then curator John Summers had documented a surviving example and developed the boat for modern stitch and glue construction. I had been corresponding with him on the first sailing canoe I had collected, and he offered me the opportunity to build a new 16/30; I sent my deposit immediately. 

Below is a shot of the fleet of these boats built by Fred Gilbert in Brockville. The boats constituted a sort of One Design for members of the canoe club to race against one another.

Photo courtesy of Dragonfly Canoe

Below is a fantastic post card of  the Gananoque Canoe Club in the Thousand Islands area of Eastern Ontario, which saw much sailing canoe development, racing and general use. On the dock is one of the hard chined 16/30s. John Summers graciously shared this image he discovered.

Courtesy John Summers

On arriving at the ABM to begin construction, John had by this time completed the major work on the first hull, which was on site to provide inspiration as well as act as a reference point during construction. Awaiting paint and sails, it was ready to go.

My own hull, September 2007, 7 months later at the Killbear Paddlers Rendezvous. Having been sailed previously at the ABM boat show in August, it was now time for me to get on the learning curve.

The ABM workshop was wonderfully equipped, large and warm for boatbuilding in March. Day one saw the stitching of plywood panels begin immediately after brief introductions and a run down of the impending schedule.

Quickly the shape went from floppy banana to boat hull with the addition of the sides.

With stitch and glue construction the boat derives it shape and rigidity from bulkheads rather than traditional framing. Ulitmately it provides a hull that is much more stiff and maintenance free.

Once the hull is trued up it needs the seams filleted and fiberglass taped, which strengthen and lock the shape in place. 

The boat takes shape

Fillets visible.

A nice shot of the Kingplank, in which are located the mizzen mast tube, along with the post for the norwegian tiller, which is peculiar to these boats. 

Along with bulkheads and taped seams, the hull is covered in  a layer of fiberglass cloth saturated and filled with epoxy. 

Gunwales and doublers in place on the rear bulkheads, the front has been notched out and is waiting for kingplank and mast tube.

The happy day when the sails arrived. For the first time we realized what 90sq ft of sail spread on two masts looks like on such a narrow hull! 

Cockpit floor, and centerboard trunk in place. Hull is self draining through slot with floors angled down to center

Difficult to interpret Johns expression here. I would like to say approval, but disbelief seems more likely. All boats progressed at roughly the same rate, and are ready for decking after being sealed with epoxy once more internally.

Ready for the ride home, with decking secured  but not installed. My plan was for a bright finished top, and painted hull as would not have been out of place on a period boat. 

The finished product, ready for sailing. The boat turned out wonderfully, and its a safe bet that there wont be any others at the majority of boat shows.

30th WCHA assembly at Keuka Lake NY, where the theme was sailing canoes. 

four 16/30s showed up, all but one from the first building course. 

Likely the largest gathering of sailing canoes in many decades.

 Equipment failures happen, whether new or antique. A broken spar disabled this one, all a part of using and racing boats.

A calm moment on Keuka Lake, in the finger lakes region of NY.

Historic sailing canoes Widgeon and Apache

Widgeon, a remarkable sailing canoe thought to have been built by William English, and in the collection of the Canadian Canoe Museum. Below is a link to an article on their blog, mentioning lines we took from another thoroughbred sailing canoe built by Fred Gilbert of Brockville and belonging to a friend in the Eastern United States. Apache was one of a half dozen boats built and raced in the 20s and still surviving today.

Details of the seat bridge on which the sliding hiking board travels, allowing the sailor to hike out off of the boat to balance the large amount of sail. Early racing boats such as this were built to the 16\30 class rule, which stated that the boats could be no longer than 16', no wider than 30", and carried up to 90' of sail on two masts. This was later abandoned as the English sloop rigged canoes proved superior, but the early days of sailing canoe racing utilized the ketch rigged configuration. 

Although fixed, many boats featured a seat bridge that was adjustable fore and aft, allowing the sailor to select the best position for trim.

Mizzen mast tube, showing brass flange locating it on deck. Tubes run down and locate in a block on the keelson, and must bear tremendous strain from the large sails.

Sternpost cap appears to have been replaced with a piece of cast metal cut to fit; typically the fittings were slender and sometimes delicate, and subjected to racing and rough handling its not uncommon to see replacement pieces. 

Head on profile, showing classic profile of an early non-planing hull.

Self draining cockpit, showing arrangement of main and mizzen cleats, and wooden-blocked fairlead for mainsheet. Centerboard slot runs up the middle of the cockpit and provides a drain, as the boat is sealed up with hatches and bulkheads. 

http://www.canoemuseum.ca/index.php?view=entry&year=2010&month=08&day=30&id=25%3Alines-taking-and-lofting-a-historic-sailing-canoe&option=com_lyftenbloggie&Itemid=137

Lines-taking and lofting a historic sailing canoe

Posted in The Canadian Canoe Museum on August 31, 2010

From John Summers, CCM General Manager

I spent an interesting few hours last Sunday measuring a boat. Why would you want to measure a boat, in this case an historic sailing canoe? Well, for a old boat like this, built in the early years of the 20th century, the plans, if there ever were any, are long gone, and so the only way to build another one is to measure and draw it. This involves two related steps: 1) lines-taking; and 2) lofting.

In lines-taking, you construct a geometric box around the boat and measure in from it to points on the canoe's surface. Because a canoe is mostly curves, you need to pick up a number of points so that you can later connect the dots and re-draw the curve. In lofting, you take these measurements and draw full-sized plans of the canoe on white-painted plywood [it's called lofting because it was originally done in the mould loft, usually on the second floor over the boat- or ship-building shop]. From these full-sized drawings, you can either build another canoe, and/or reduce them to scale drawings and plans that others can use.

The photos show Andre Cloutier, a canoe collector from the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association, CCM Curator Jeremy Ward and canoe-builder Dick Persson of the Headwater Wooden Boat Shop in Buckhorn, ON using a finger gauge to lift measurements from the canoe and transfer them to a lofting board, and also Cookie the Golden Retriever, tired out after a long day of watching grown men crawl around on the floor drawing with pencils. An emerging drawing of the boat's cross-sections, or "body plan," can be seen next to her.