SEI afloat

Left to right. Blair, Paul and I about to pick her up and drop her in the water.  The designer is always a bit nervous on launching day. Float would be good, up the right way even better. 

It was a cool, grey and windy day, but the estuary is sheltered so there was not much in the way of waves when Blair, Paul and I walked the little boat down the ramp and into the water. She’s quite light at 76 kg, I can lift her on my own,  there would need to be a darn good reason for me to do that though but it does mean that handling her on the ground is easy, to pick one end up and drag her, or lift her around is easy.

I name this ship SEI.  May good luck  go with her and all who sail in her.

There are strong tidal currents here so we’d chosen to launch at slack water. We slid her into the water just before high tide, I shipped the oars climbed aboard and away.  She’s stable, steady enough to stand up and move about in, rows very easily leaving a particularly flat wake, and seems well balanced in a cross wind.

Ill get more pics when there is some light to show her off. In the meantime, check out the video on the link below.

I’d chosen 2.4m oars (8 footers) rather than the theoretical best length at 2.65m (8 ft 10in) so they’d stow easily out of the way of all the activity when sailing, SEI is after all primarily a sailing boat and when sailing the oars at this length will be stowed blade forward into the bow, with the handles out at the ends of the center thwart.  Out of the way, easy to access, and secure.

She is wider than most pure rowing boats, even with the oarlocks fitted inboard as far as possible on the gunwales, shes wide, that’s where the stability for sailing comes from, that and the fact that she’s wider in the bottom aft at the crew position than is usual in a double ender.  This is a “sailing” shape rather than a “rowing” shape.

Shes also workboat style, slightly chunky rather than graceful although she looks very nice from most angles.  I wanted her to have much more stability than other double enders of this general configuration,  that will help her sailing ability plus the seat and gunwale height is right for rowing.

She’s nice to handle under oars, tracks well, turns easily and is not sensitive to trim.  Even with a passenger aft she does not drag a wake behind, Denny and I want for a row up the river the following morning, she’d not been up there before and we covered about 4 miles out and back within an hour (the tide was helping, I was not out to break records).  Watched the sun come up, marvelled over the birdlife and the scenery up there.

Success, now I have to rig her for sail, that’s no big deal but I just couldn’t wait to get her afloat.

Thanks Emma, Blair,  Paul and Denny for the support at her launching.

Paul Mullings has kindly put together a video on YouTube that shows the action, Thanks Paul.

https://youtu.be/_PqePEjXHTc

 Now Im having an acute attack of "empty workshop syndrome". Ah well, there is only one cure for that.

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Another new launching this one is the 6 Metre Whaler

6 Metre  Whaler.

I orginally drew this design for use as a sort of “Outward Bound” education center boat, one that would carry 6 trainees and an instructor, all their gear for overnight camping and provide a “job” for each while sailing, and still be workable single handed.

The boat had to be less than 6 Metres long in order to avoid the expensive government surveys required of larger boats that are used to carry paying passengers.

That plus a nod to Naval tradition,  made for the yawl rigged, lapstrake planked 6m ( actually just a tiny fraction under ,  just to make sure) centerboarder that I dubbed the 6 Metre Whaler.  Its not a whaler, not really, but is much more closely related to the Swedish Spitzgatter shape being fine forward and full aft. This is a good sailing shape, fast, with strong resistance to both pitch and roll, stable and easy to manage.

Over the years the design has sold steadily, she’s proven to be a very good family boat, a cruiser, and although the gent who’s brief kicked the design off did not get his training program off the ground there are several Naval Cadet or Sea Scout groups using them as they were intended.

Mark Barrowsmith in New Zealands North sent me these three pics of his build, I’d just had a comment from a friend who lives close to the boat ramp in Opua in the Bay of Islands,  he mentioned that he’d seen a nice example of the design being launched, and voila! Pics arrive from the builder/owner.

I’m planning to drive up his way in a couple of weeks time, and hope to call to meet him and check the boat out.  There is no better way for a designer to spend an hour or so  than leaning on the gunwale of a new boat chatting to a happy owner.

Thanks Mark, see you soon.

By the way, Boatbuilder Peter Murton has one for sale. Its a very nice example, of course its professionally built so the standard of the structure is tops.  hes at the north end of the South Island, if anyone is interested I can pass the enquiry on.

The interior looking forward,  lots of space, lots of storage and lots of bouyancy.

 The interior looking aft, the engine lives in a well under the cover you can see under the tiller. Its accessible and easy to operate there, no hanging over the transom.  In fact, no transom!

On her trailer, looking from forward, I like the colour scheme.  Nice work.

 Side view.  Note that Mark has fitted the mainmast into a tabernacle to make it easier to stand up, and  has taken the tiller over the top of the after deck to get a little more swing.   I cant wait to see some pics of her out sailing. Nice job, well done.

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