Proud Grandpa!

The launch in context.

Well,  Coltishall was blooming cold; Great Hautbois was wet - mostly - but spirits were undampened, even if there was considerable use of the black sacks for over-skirts and ponchos!  Never forget the black sacks!

The CanoeMan staff were super helpful, ferrying us around and loaning at least one adult waterproof.  Thanks guys!

So - the well-known first day's paddle down from Aylsham to Great Hautbois - 14.4km by Google Earth.  Grandparents, Daughter and 3 grand-kids in two canoes!  Which bit did the grand-kids like best?  The Chute at Aylsham of course!  A broken willow tree added an extra portage....... One of the little ones (aged 4!) fell asleep in the boat.  Not surprising really.


Here's a couple of them in my boat, meeting swans and cygnets ......















Day two; daughter and grandsons had to head home; sad.  SWMBO had really had enough on day one - better safe than sorry.  But The Old Man had spoken to the 8 year old grand-daughter the day before and she was up for the trip to Wroxham.  The wind had gotten up overnight; we seriously thought about calling it off but I reckoned I could always steer the drift downstream.  Wrong!

Wrapped up against the cold (12.5 degrees), and fighting hard against the wind, I overheated.  And the seat wouldn't let me kneel and my lower back was murdering me (excuses, excuses....).  So we pulled in to the bank and swapped seats - slowly; I really was very uncomfortable.

And my co-paddler had lost the plot a bit.  So she turned round to face me and played Lady Muck and we sang, and she admired a demoiselle fly that had taken up residence on her hand; and I found a comfortable twist to my back and we paddled on (or I did).

And we got to the public mooring by St Mary's Church at Wroxham - and the wind really hit us.

And my excellent paddle-partner answered the call, turned round and dug in.



Young people never fail to amaze me; she had never paddled for real, either single or double-blade, until the day before.  And now she was making a real difference to the speed and steering of the boat.  Mercifully!



Made it!  Warmly received by the staff, who had very kindly transported Kingcup to the office the day before.  And who then fashioned  a "leash" for the little boat (it really was VERY windy) and off she went - and the boat...

Brilliant.

This is a great little boat; light as a feather, stable, steerable.

Ratty would be delighted.

First gloss coat....

... and the thwart made.  But I forgot to photograph that before I turned the boat over for the first gloss coat.  It looks pretty in the picture, but the primer is thin in places in an attempt to make things smooth, so the reality is not quite as pretty (yet) as the picture suggests.  But time is pressing.

As well as the thwart, I decided to add a layer of glass cloth inside - to resist those little feet and to provide a non-slip surface!  And I then epoxied all of the inside.  I can varnish it later but at least it's waterproof now.

Finally, I inserted and epoxied in a copper pipe through what will now be the bow, for a painter / safety loop.  I have some very clever pipe-surrounds to make it look good in the end.

Think I'll paint the gunwale green and call the boat "Kingcup",

although we all know it's really called W Y C ;-)

The clue's in the name.......

..."for the grandchildren"!

So, I can imagine scuffing on the stems and abrasion to the lower edge of the sheer strakes.  And I finally decided to apply a layer of glass tape to these external edges.  Should have done it from the outset really, but at least this way I have a very smooth base to work from!





Leave the ends until the resin has gelled a little - it's easier to cut.




And peel the surrounding tape before the resin fully sets - it comes off better that way!

Stuff happens......

... and sometimes life gets in the way of things.

Never mind; after one or two substantial set-backs - like the sheer planks coming un-epoxied.  I'd better go back to the beginning.


I'm really not sure what the intersection should be between the curve of the hull and the sheer planks.  I've seen this sort of dipping-down on other examples; I tried to reduce it some by "rounding" the angle E-G-F.  On reflection, I think that another time I'll make a width jig to bring the top edges to the required separation, clamp the sheer strakes outside the bottom piece and keep the floor curve smooth.  If you see what I mean?


Anyway.  I also decided to use epoxy only (no tape) to fasten the seams.  It's worked for me before, but the tension in those same sheer-strakes popped the joint.  Hmmmm.  The stem joints have worked fine; but I might give in and tape all the joints anyway.  I just like smooth joints.

Anyway - now it's all together, I need to add the weave-filling resin to the tape which I HAVE used at the vertical sheer joints.  And to decide whether to tape all those seams - at least on the inside....





















Next step after that is to trial-fit the gunwales so that I can establish the sheer-line.  Have managed to find a few more clamps - but I shall need to make some more - as in the plans.  But here's a trial fit.

I have found this difficult

...  OK.  Problem number 1; I have four "pump up" clamps, no G clamps and a selection of rather pathetic, plastic "grips" 

The bit that I have found particularly difficult is holding the sheer plank ends in tension towards the centre of the boat in order to cut out the "wedge" that will produce the tumblehome.  Mark F Pettingill, in his book "Building Sweet Dream" - a two-sheet canoe along the same lines as the present Nessmuk - shows a mid-ships template that both sets the gunwale width and the tumblehome angle.  No such template exists for Nessmuk.

But you do need to set the 24" width.  In the end (too late really) I made a jig to rest on the gunwales mid-ships and to give me some sort of stability.  Without this, everything is just too mobile......

Anyway; I hope and expect that others may be able to tell me what I should have done differently but I have ended up having to cut the gores twice and thus have a 1-2mm gap between the plank ends....  Having tidied up as I went along, I am now going to have to create some wood-dust as a filler!

I still think that I shall have to take out a little more from the left-hand planks in this image - the stem nearest the camera is a bit over to the right to my eye. 

I know that the stem tops don't coincide - but I think that's a cutting error, rather than an alignment error.

And I shall just have to bite the bullet and buy some more clamps - aren't they a price?  C Clamps in the Laurentians, Canada, come from £2.18; one well-known builder's merchant here in the UK has them from £5.00!

Ho hum - here's the image;  a bit more filleting out of the Sheer planks tomorrow I suspect.

The puzzle deepens - and wise words....

I wrote to Simon Clements, the leader of the course shown in the link from the Pitts-Rivers Museum, asking if he knew the whereabouts of Phil Green, the designer of Nessmuk – the “Wee Yellow Canoe”..

Here’s his gracious reply….

“Dear Grizzle
 
Nice to hear from you. I had the very same problem before the PRM course here in Oxford. I knew Phil through canoeist magazine where I wrote several reviews of his canoe designs. In our correspondence he gave permission for me to use his design for courses, his suggested fee was the price of the plans per boat, approx £20. Time passed and later when I wanted to run the course  I was unable to contact him despite fairly exhaustive searches ...

I lost contact with Stuart and Becky Fisher who wrote canoeist magazine when they left for pastures new, they knew Phil very well and were my initial contact.
Phil often said his primary reason for doing the plans was to get "folks out on the water" so if you cannot get in contact with him perhaps do what I did and donate the price of the plans to a charity of your choice, preferably something riverine with young people.

I have often wondered what became of him.  I have built at least six of his boats from a variety of his plans and despite their simplicity I have always found them excellent. His "Sweet Dream" Canoe was developed and promoted in the States in a slightly modified form in a book called "Building Sweet Dream"( I forget the author) [MARC F PETTINGILL .... Other bookshops are available)   

and is the "big brother" of Nessmuk, and in my opinion one of the most practical and elegant solo open canoes ever.

Let me know if you do get in touch with him,?

Best wishes and happy paddling, if I can help in any way please let me know.
       Simon”

I replied:

Dear Simon,

Such a kind and helpful reply; would it be O.K. if I added it intact to the blog?  It all adds to the story and would, perhaps, go some way towards encouraging others who follow us to make a donation, too!

And he responded:

“Hi,

Absolutely, it is all about getting "folks on the water" it is an ideal boat for D of E projects,
Sea scouts and schools DT projects; so the more the merrier."

So – I’m still chasing the trail – anyone with any more information, please let me know.  Anyone with any more of the plans – likewise!

And if you decide to build one yourself – you know what to do for a build fee – at least for now :-)  and here’s some information from Simon Clements to be going on with.

“Hi,

I have just checked out your blog; the cracking along the stem cuts on the canoe are caused by starting at the base and working up to the gunwale.

Phil originally used two slip knotted strings to gradually draw the two side pieces together a little bit at a time, I have always done this dry and although it makes a horrific noise on occasion it does prevent those stem cracks...It's not called tortured ply for nothing...

Also you will only get a tumble home on the hull by cutting the wedge out of the side panels as per the plans. I have made several Nessmuk with less tumble home and they get progressively harder to paddle the wider they get.
Remember you are sitting on the bottom of the boat which means a short steep paddle stroke at the best of times. However if you go wide and maybe fit a deck, rudder and lee boards and a small bermuda sail these little boats sail like a terrier chases rats!

They are such good fun

S”

Progress - and a minor panic!

Sunday - day of rest.

The lawn's already cut so - time off for good behaviour and away to the garage!

Progress today has been 4 hours.

Cutting out - pretty straightforward with  laser-marker power saw for the straight bits and a powered jig-saw for the curves.  I'd have liked to do it all by hand but I'm not buying a pull saw for one job!

Watch-points (who says watch-points?).

Check and re-check the relationship of the blade to the bench - the ply slides around...

Cut the lines G-F       LAST - it makes the piece much easier to handle for the longest time.


So then I pushed the lower end of the piece out of the garage and doused both sides with boiling water....

 





It seemed like a good idea.....

Then I began to "roll up" the sheet towards me before tethering the bow and stern tips with a single cable tie.  Seemed like another good idea ( I couldn't find any string which is what the instructions call for) but I don't know whether it was a result of that, or the result of the three-ply, 4mm wood that I'm using, but this appeared (at both ends!).


I (very) rapidly found and stripped some copper cable and inserted "stop ties" medial (central) to each impending split - things seem to have stabilised!
 
I had tried to work my tie-holes from the initial bow-tie downwards (I have no idea why) - not a good idea; work from the "keel" towards the stem.

Life is made easier if you temporarily tether the cut ends of the  sheer-strakes (previous cut G - F).  Stops them thrashing around; my clamps weren't up to the job for this so I drilled a couple of holes near the upper and lower edges and used a cable tie in each place.

So - steady progress - but it IS a day of rest so I've stopped at bow and stern secured; one sheer-strake in place but not cut.

 

I need to ask my contact about the height of the sheer above the chine and the width of the boat at the gunwales - and hence the tumble-home.......