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Free Videos

Hey Chuck ~

I've seen some great posts on Duckworks recommending our video website, OffCenterHarbor.com. We appreciate that!

As a thank you, here's a link where Duckworks readers can get free access to several of our best videos... 10 videos in all.

They can click here to see one of our favorite videos: The Virtues of a Flat Bottom Skiff.

And they can also sign up on that page to get access to the 10 additional free videos...

Our growing collection of 150+ videos gives rare access to the leading craftspeople who build, restore, paddle and sail these wonderful boats. Centuries of authentic know-how are passed along in the videos.

We're also extending a 25% discount off the membership fee to Duckworks readers who decide to join after watching the free videos. Enjoy and happy boating! 

Steve Stone
OffCenterHarbor.com Co-Founder and Filmmaker



Interactive online boat building classes

Hi Chuck,

I am going to give my first interactive online class starting May 10th. It will be through Fyne Boats in the UK and geared toward students over there. The classes go for 9 days from 11 AM to 7 PM UK time Class will run over 8 hours as needed.  The student will be able to build any stitch and glue kit offered by Fyne Boat Kits. The student is responsible for all materials and tools required for their individual kit. There will be an short orientation class the week before the class starts to be sure all students can sign on and be able to interact. We've learned that this a critical part of the class and allows the students to become familiar with the classroom and how to use the interactive tools.

At the start of each class the task is demonstrated, the students are asked if they have questions and those are answered then the students proceeds. This the method I use in my face to face classes. I will check in on each student from time to time and then when the task is complete we'll move to the next task and so on through each day.

Tuition is 600.00 dollars (not sure what that is in Pounds)

Here is the link to the sign up page for Fyne Boat Kits.

https://www.fyneboatkits.co.uk/info/online-boatbuilding-courses/    

Thank you,

David Nichols


Thanks

Happy New Year! Thank you for what you do. It is really appreciated.

Carol Warren Newbury


The good old days

I was 27 and my brother Charlie was 29 in 1975 and we wanted a big sailboat to party and take wild women out in. We hung out at the Tampa Sailing Squadron and sailed a lot with the "old guys" who had big boats. We wanted a big boat fast and didn't have any money. This didn't stop my brother, he can do the impossible. We picked out a simple, shallow draft hull from Howard Chapelle's "American Small Sailing Craft" and started building. The only considerations in construction were cheap and quick. These are the only plans we had to start with and this is the boat we ended up with 11 months later.

It turned out to be the perfect shallow water boat. It had no plumbing, inboard engine, electrical system, kitchen, bathroom or debt. It did have a huge interior with lots of cushions and play space. We just took the things you would take on a camping trip. It was fast and fun, turned out to be the party boat for the whole squadron. Helen and I took our honeymoon in it. Named it "HELEN MARIE". The moral to the story is keep it simple and fun if you're looking for a boat to go sailing in.

Dave Lucas


Seen on Facebook (on our new Page there)

Bob Throne posted in Duckworks Magazine

Bob Throne

Bob Throne

1:17am Jan 9

Hear,hear Chuck ! I suspect - hope - this will function more like the 'Comments' feature you used to have at the end of each article. As you know, it was invaluable to me, and led to many of the DW friends I now have. Hope the Forum will continue to, as longer threads there are edifying too. It's too damn cold to touch the boat right now, but just a bit of a thaw and I've got plans for Wanderer. Family health is headed in the right direction (knock wood). Still start my day w/ DW. Cheers !


RIP

Sad news of the passing of Percy Blandford from his FB page today. Truly a giant in the development of the post-war DIY ethos in general, and amateur boatbuilding, esp. SOF kayaks, in particular. Gavin Atkin posted a nice tribute to him on the occasion of his 100th birthday.

Best, Joe 


Percy Blandford

Hello Chuck

I thought this Link might be worth sharing with the Duckworks community. Tribute to a prolific pioneer of home boat building. I had a Lysander 30 years ago. It was a great boat but had to sell it when I moved to New Zealand.

Deek


Thanks

I am thankful to you for publishing the FFLN 17 story. I have a number of responses from your site and from Europe. (Young Germans love it!) Some have called it crazy, nutzy and insane. (Those are the polite and publishable ones.) I guess that's why Bolger and I got along so well. With him we lost the only creative mind in the boating field. He once told me that he liked the late Dynamite Payson because Dynamite never questioned his unique (creative?) plans, he just went ahead and built them. Dynamite told me he did not question Bolger because he did not understand the plans well enough to question them! A great pair!

For my next act: a 16-ft. sailboat that has -- count them -- 12 new, never-been-done features. A sail plan done by guy who was sailing coach for the Americas Cup team and a new-and-different building method.

(Don't forget that I published New Product Development for 25 years and wrote two books on that subject.)

Do you know that sailboat racing is the only sport you can take part in while sound asleep? (As when you are in a distance race and off watch.) You can also eat, drink, smoke, and such.

I like what you are doing by holding together the "lunatic fringe" (as Olin Stevens once called amateur builders). Yeah, he who designed the Blue-J -- the first boat I ever built and raced -- the largest-selling plan in history.

Thanks again for keeping the spirit alive.

Jim Betts


Sundowner

This Month's Treasure Chest has a link to a Wooden Boat Forum thread on building the Sundowner that is nostalgic for me, being as I built Sundowner #1. Charlie Whipple


Eric Henesvel

Hi Chuck,

Glad to see you are carrying Erics plans but can you tell him fewer monhulls and more multihulls especially his Sardine Run series. Thanks

Chris Wilson

Eric responds:

Thank you Chris.

I am updating these plans....Sardine twin and Sardine Run. (Duckworks will have them in a few weeks)

Have a good day,

Eric


Letter from the Frozen North

Thinking of today's article from Florida... see attached image.

Cheers from -22°C.

Herbert McLeod


More from Facebook

Kai Lüddecke

Kai Lüddecke

8:12pm Jan 24

Lots of Sharpies in the February Splash! This is my favourite! I love multiple masted rigs. I want to know more about this beauty. What was the original plan? Is the cabin removeable? Photos of the building process?


Man Overboard

Perhaps, I’ve told you this story.  Somehow, it bears repeating.  About 25 years ago, now.  On Memorial Day weekend, as I recall.  My friend, Kevin, and I had taken our families and boats out to Santa Cruz Island—one of the Channel Islands offshore Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties, in what’s known as central California.  The weather was pretty crummy, and we had cut the holiday weekend outing short.  Wives and kids had headed for home.  Kevin and I were still in the “underway mode.” 

We went back aboard Raindance, my 30 foot sailboat in her slip in the Oxnard boat harbor.  For some reason, instead of shucking sail covers, slipping dock lines, and heading for sea; we got interested in listening to the VHF calls coming from boats that hadn’t come in “early,” as we had.  It was kicking up pretty good outside the jetty entrance.  At one point, that afternoon, there were at least a half-dozen distress calls being sorted out and dealt with simultaneously by an obviously taxed LA Coast Guard SAR Ops center.  Two boats were reporting taking on water, one or two with fires, a swimmer foundering in the surf, and a medical emergency were all crackling in and out of the static.  Most of these calls were coming from boats roughly following the track we had taken the afternoon prior.  When, conditions were just unpleasant.  Not yet, dangerous.

Of course, we were second guessing the Coastie handling those calls.  Conveniently ignoring the fact that he had a much wider listening area to monitor and keep track of, with his high site antenna, than we could muster from a short whip barely 40 feet above sea level at Raindance’s truck.

By then, our “plan” to sail up the coast to Ventura Harbor and meet the families for ice cream had pretty much evaporated.  The real-time stuff coming in volleys of clipped procedural language and anguished cries of people calling for assistance became compelling.  Still, the local area chart was spread out on the chart table; in preparation for getting underway.  I had casually marked lat/long posits as they came across.  As was my habit in those days, I marked tracks and calculated probable SOA (speed of advance) when the information allowed. 

Then, a truly heartbreaking call broke through.  A lady was pleading for help.  Almost incoherent.  She was attempting to report a man overboard.  It took precious minutes for first an on-scene civilian boat, then the Ventura Harbor Patrol to sort out the fact that she was aboard a boat headed directly for the surf.  Through some just plain heroics on the part of the patrol officer, she was rescued before running ashore.  Then, as the MOB SAR went into action, her story came out in pieces.  The skipper, and only other person on her boat, had gone overboard nearly an hour prior.  They were on autopilot, heading from Santa Cruz Island, to Ventura.  She didn’t know how to disconnect the autopilot, nor how to manage the boat.  It had taken nearly an hour for her to figure out how to turn on the radio and call for help. 

I had their course and probable speed.  I knew when Kevin and I would have gotten underway.  The wind had been pretty constant, and assuming a double-reefed smash out to windward; I laid out our probable track.  It crossed with the MOB boat at almost exactly the spot her skipper went overboard. 

In my time at sea, I’ve rescued lots of people.  Some from drowning, some from shipwreck.  Some from inconvenience, and embarrassment.  Not that day.  I wasn’t “there.”  Apparently, nobody else was, either.

Dan Rogers


 

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