Peterborough Mermaid

At 14' long, the Mermaid by Peterborough  and Playmate and Fox by Chestnut were great little boats. Still retaining the fine entry, nice hull shape and proportionate lines of the larger boats, they are nice to look at and have a sweet shape. Accordingly, they are great paddlers.  This one came to us in original condition, made some time  in the late 1950s -1960s this boat will look tremendous with a complete strip and revarnish and new canvas.  Sale pending, photos below.

Some of my Sailing Canoes

Once in a while posting in a blog can be enjoyable, while reviewing the photos and material. Its easy to get excited about these, which are a significant part of my collection. While i work on, and will always enjoy paddling canoes, i am drawn to sailing canoes above all. I have kept several historic paddling canoes but the next few projects will be sailing canoes. 

These shots are in another post, of a home we renovated after purchasing several years ago. This is what my understanding wife came home to, and was less than impressed. A great photo op, it was necessary temporarily as the garage was full of tools and materials. Personally i thought it made the room and really picked up the hardwood floor. It was subsequently removed to allow for furniture and the other trappings of life. 

Flash forward 6+ years later, and another home renovation saw it sneak back in. Same reaction, same end result - relagated to the shop, despite my best efforts to demonstrate the aesthetic value it brought to the room.

Photo courtesty of John Summers

Nice indoor display of a racing decked sailing canoe, complete with ribbons! This was the display i was going for but have been, to date, thwarted.

Photo courtesy of John Summers

A wonderful shot of a Fred Gilbert- built sailing canoe before the decking and cockpit floors are in. Gilbert built some great sailing canoes, including championship winning boats, in the early part of the last century. 

Photo courtesy of John Summers

Another shot, presumably of the same boat,

An oft-seen photo of Leo Friede, a champion canoe sailor on his boat Mermaid, sometime around 1920, +/- 10 years. This is a perfect example of the sliding hiking board, which was developed in order to balance the 90sq ft of sail carried on two masts. This was the standard ketch rig, until Uffa Fox and the Brits campaigned sloop rigged planing canoes in the 1930s, making this rig non competitive and hence obsolete.

My own 16/30 replica, modeled after a Fred Gilbert built boat from around 1913.

The initial learning curve is steep, wet and loads of fun.

Besides having a working replica, I was fortunate to locate an original complete boat. The only thing missing were the sails, understandable after close to 90 years.  Much of the decking, 1/4" mahogany, was with the boat but had been removed and was in poor shape. The batten seamed cedar hull, however, is in remarkable condition.

This early boat does not share the self draining cockpit of the Gilbert boats pictured above, but is open with the centerboard trunk stayed off with a thwart, and evidence of floorboard clips to hold them in. 

A massive centerboard, it is also drilled for several height positions. They do not pivot, so a grounding would not be advisable!

Slender, long hiking board, with rails underneath for holding the seat bridge. 

Details of the seat bridge, rabbeted to accept the rails of the sliding seat. The outer ear rests on the hull, and the wing nut and bolt connect it to cleats on the inside of the coamings.

Deck framing showing both forward mast positions, and bulkheads. These boats would leak constantly, due to the immense wracking strains placed on them but the large sail area and skipper hiked out on the board. This one has no solid kingplank, only filler pieces between the beams, and the deck skin to provide rigidity.

Hatches, fore and aft on this boat, would have given access to the sealed areas behind the bulkheads to facilitate bailing them out. 

Norwegian tiller, which connects to the rudder around the mizzen mast, and is behind the sliding seat.

The rudder on this boat is of the kick up style, whereas many are solid. This prevents the rudder needing to be removed on encountering shallows.

Photo courtesy of Corbis

A photo of Ralph Britton, champion canoe sailor and contemporary of Leo Friede, showing similar profile of rudder.

Photo courtesy of Corbis

Leo Friede, showing hatch, mizzen mast and Norwegian tiller and rudder connection.

The owner of this boat knew nothing of its origins or race history, having been collected by his father many decades earlier when he was a young boy. His father had maintained it posessed a winning history, but no record was kept. He was not a sailor and did not campaign it, but kept it for probably 50years until his passing. A quick search of the ACA records have not readily revealed its builder or owner, so it will be the subject of a trip to the New York Historical Society's records to pour over their large collection of American Canoe Association records, in order to try to determine its provenance.

  

Killbear 2012 and small canoes

For the past 15 years, there has been a Paddlers Rendezvous at Killbear Provincial Park near Nobel, just outside of Parry Sound Ontario. A low key, loosely organized gathering which varies in attendance year to year, and occaisionally produces a new boat, either a first time attendee or a newly completed project someone has brought.  Typically held the weekend after Labor Day, the event is open to all. More posts will follow with photos from previous years, however this year was subject to heavy rains which limited attendance, as well as activities. Nevertheless, it is Georgian Bay and not much short of lightning or a hurricane will keep me off of it.

This year, part of a project for the upcoming 2013 WCHA annual assembly, i donated a Chestnut Cronje - a great cruiser used for tripping by Camp Keewaydin, the oldest canoe tripping camp in existence and operating in Canada out of Temagami. The boat left for Massachusetts with friends that will completely restore it in time for it to be auctioned off, to raise proceeds for the organization. This boat was built in the mid-sixties, and has had a hard life and many thousands of miles of trips, summer after summer. Retired from the fleet of wood canvas boats the camp still uses and maintains, its one of several we have.

What the heck found its way on the trailer? A Mirror dinghy for free, but turned out to be too rotted to warrant the work to bring it back, so it has a date with the sawzall. The rig will be kept, but the boat is gone. The little boat in John Deere green seems to be a Peterborough Mermaid, or perhaps a Chestnut Playmate - we'll likely know for sure once its stripped. Found on a yard with a for sale sign and half full of water, it had to come home with the rest. 

Not one to leave things alone, it had to be paddled! Problem was, the canvas was split along the keel the full length of the boat. Luckily we had duct tape, or as i like to call it, race tape or hundred mile-an-hour tape from its applications on the oval tracks holding racecars together on Saturday nites after they traded paint. A mere 26' of tape and we were off. The canoe got lots of use, as at 14' they are not common, and it was a very stable, responsive and well behaved boat for its size.

17' Chestnut Cronje model, built by Donald Fraser.

Out of Camp Keewaydin's fleet in Temagami, this boat has been on numerous long trips, however unlike the majority of their boats, this one had not been rebuilt/repaired, and was as it was delivered in the mid-'80s. It was due for a recanvas, and some repairs. 

Donald Fraser had been the sales manager at Chestnut when they closed their doors in 1978/79, and with great foresight purchased several of the more popular molds, among them the Cronje and Prospector. 

He the continued to build and supply Keewaydin, the oldest canoe tripping camp in Canada, who still use cedar canvas canoes to this day. With Chestnut gone, he filled the void for some time. 

The boats are very well built, and of a higher caliber than Chestnut had produced in some years, owing to him being able to control every aspect of the build in a somewhat unhurried fashion, compared to factory production

Carry thwarts, unusual to Canadian boats but spec'd by Keewaydin

Fraser script, a similar font to the one Chestnut used in the 60s and 70s. Mr Fraser gave permission to reproduce the decals, so now we can complete any Fraser canoe we work on to the way he shipped it. 

Fleet number on the bow, K on the stern per tradition. 

Nearing completion, waiting for seats and stembands