Dr. Gordon Fisher

You may remember that another reproduction of the Queen Anne guideboat was completed and launched this spring.  Dave Bloom followed the plans in my book and did a marvelous job in crafting his version.

When Dave said that he was coming to the Adirondacks in July, I suggested that we get together.  At the time I thought that the meeting might not happen.  The reason being that the Adirondack Park is so immense.  At six million acres it is greater in size than Yellowstone, the Everglades, Glacier and Grand Canyon Nation Parks combined.  So, depending on just where in the Park Dave was staying, it might take many hours of driving to meet with him.

It turns out that I should’t have worried.  He had rented a camp on Lake Eaton, a lake adjacent to Long Lake.  So he was about 3 miles away as the crow flies.  We got together and here are a couple of photos of his boat.

The boat is extremely well crafted.  Dave chose to equip his boat with a floor cradle like that used mainly by hotel guides in the late 1800’s.  They would often take the lady hotel guests out for a row.  The women of that era would dress in their finest when venturing out on the water, even to wearing spiked heels.   These would wreak havoc on the thin planking of a guideboat without the protection of the cradle.

Dave felt that his boat was quite stable.  His four year old grandson was entirely comfortable riding about in the stern seat.  Here is Dave beside his boat on Lake Eaton.

Here are some details of how he went about building his boat.

“I used northern white spruce for the the laminated ribs and stems and quarter sawn white pine for the planking.  I used cherry for the decks and seat frames and mahogany for the gunwales.

I used West System epoxy instead of resorcinol mainly because I was concerned about keeping the temperature warm enough in my shop (for resorcinol to cure properly), and because I had a fair amount of experience using epoxy.

The few changes I made were primarily with the gunwales and stems.  I shaped the gunwales similar to the Grant design with the addition of of a bead on the lower edge.  I like the look of it and I thought I might be able to bend it dry since it tapers near the stems.  However, I ended up steam bending them anyway.

I extended the stems up and rounded them so that the brass stem cap could flare out and wrap over the top…also similar to the Grant stem caps.  I kept the Chase deck design, however.  I think it looks great and since the deck design is sort of a signature of the designer, I didn’t want to change it.”

Great job, Dave!  I hope we can get together again next summer.

Next time, Return of the Wild.

As explained earlier, backing out was the old time guideboat builder’s term for hollowing out a plank so that it would fit over the turn of the bilge in the hull.  The turn of the bilge is the region where the hull makes a transition from being nearly horizontal to being nearly vertical.

Accommodating this rather abrupt change is daunting.  It is so daunting, at least for me, that I threw in the towel and went a different route.  Lewis Grant, who took over the guideboat shop his father founded in the 1880’s, put the difficulty of backing out thus, “To concave and convex the siding to 3/16 inch was a piece of work that one of the best house building carpenters in Boonville (where the Grant shop was located) could not learn to do right. He could work to a straight line but not to a true curve on this fine work.”

There are those who have a natural talent for doing such fine work.  Allison, the Adirondack Museum’s Boat Builder-in-Residence, can back out a plank using only her eyes to gauge how much to remove at any point along a plank.  Remember, when backing out a plank, the amount of material to be removed depends on the position at any point of the plank on the hull.  The greatest amount of removal is at the midships with the least amount (or none) as one approaches the stems.

This spring Dave Bloom finished a replica of the Queen Anne guideboat built by Caleb Chase in 1893 for the Pruyn family at Great Camp Santanoni.  He did so using my book “Tales of an Historic Adirondack Guideboat and How to Build one”.  It was gratifying to know that all my hard work climbing all over the original Queen Anne to get every possible measurement paid off.  I did get it right!

Now Dave was not to be dissuaded from backing out planks the old fashioned way.  In his email to me here is how he did it.  The first step was to make templates of the rib curvature at every 3rd rib station or so.  The second step was to mark the stations on the plank and shape the curvature from the template across the plank at each station using a sharp carving gouge.

The next step was to connect the dots, so to speak, using an an inshave (a curved draw knife).

The inshave does the “heavy lifting” of backing out.  Dave finished the process using a plane with a curved sole, a shaped card scraper, and sandpaper wrapped around a heavy cardboard roll.

The other side of the hollowed out plank needs to have a convex curve applied to it that is parallel to the inside curve.  Dave marked the final thickness on the ends and edges of the plank and then removed the excess using a smooth or jack plane followed by sanding to the final shape.

Great work, Dave!

Next time we will see his finished guideboat during its visit to the Adirondacks.

Last time I wrote I promised to tell about the last Howard Seaman Memorial Guideboat race held in Long Lake and how I actually came in first despite overwhelming  odds against winning.  This race was held every year in Long Lake during July to commemorate the feats of Howard Seaman.  Howard was a Long Lake resident who championed guideboat racing and won many a grueling guideboat race including the 44 miler from Long Lake to Tupper Lake.

Long Lake had established a tradition of holding a boating “regatta”, a combination of races meant for fun as well as more serious canoe and guideboat races.  Some of the fun races were stand-up paddling and hand paddling in canoes as well as singles and doubles canoe races for adults and children.  There was even a tug-of-war between two canoes tethered together.

The regatta is always held at the Long Lake town beach.  The beach is a fine sandy beach that looks north down nine miles of lake to its outlet.

At one time many guideboats could be seen on Long Lake. But as time passed their popularity waned.  People still enjoy getting out on the lake but they now have other options for venturing out on the lake.  Kayaks are very popular and so are stand-up paddle boards.

The guideboat boat race that I entered was held about 10 years ago.  There were barely enough entrants to call it a race.  I was very hesitant to join in such a competition since in no way did I consider myself a racer.  I just like to plod along at a reasonable pace when out in my boat. However, since I had brought my guideboat to the beach that day it was hard to refuse the entreaties of the race officials to enter the race.

The race course headed straight down the lake to a buoy about one-half mile away.  The racers were to go around to buoy on the starboard side and head across the lake to another buoy.  Here again another turn to the starboard and back to the beach.  It was certainly not a long course, more of a sprint.

A question that immediately came to mind was how was I to stay on the starboard side of the buoys.  When rowing you see what has gone by and not where you are heading.  The best you can do is to snatch some glances out of the corner of your eye from time to time.  I soon found that these glances were not enough to pick up a buoy.

There were three entrants in the guideboat race, another fellow younger than I, and a woman, Mary Beth.  Now at the time I knew that Mary Beth had raced guideboats before so I knew that she would be hard to beat. Fortunately I didn’t know then that she was student of Howard Seaman’s.  When she was younger in the evenings she would row down to Howard’s home on the lake.  As she rowed back forth in front of him, Howard would coach her on her technique.  One day he said to her “You’re going to enter the 44 miler, aren’t you?”  Mary Beth knew this was a real test of endurance the included a one mile “carry” of her 60 pound guideboat around the Raquette River falls.  Knowing that she couldn’t refuse she replied “Well, I guess”.

So the three boats line up on the shore and await the starter’s blast on the horn.  I am now looking not for a victory but only not to embarrass myself.  The horn goes off and each of us gives  mighty heave on the oars. Almost simultaneously with the starter’s horn there is a load CRACK.  Out of the corner of my eye I see a large Northern Pike leap out of the water.  Could it be?  (Later, others said they saw it too).  One of my male co-racer’s oars has broken in two. So he is done for the day.  Mary Beth pulls out to an early led, as expected.   She maintains her lead but I don’t fall too far behind.

After the race I am awarded first place for the male racer and Mary Beth first place as the female racer in the Howard Seaman Memorial guideboat race.  Somewhere in the Long Lake archives there is a trophy bearing our names (I think there is).

 

There are many larger than life Adirondack legends from the 1800’s; Northwood’s man Ruben Carey, guide Honest John Plumley, and the eccentric preacher man Adirondack Murray to name just a few.  But there were also some Adirondackers in the 20th Century who distinguished themselves and became legends in their own right.

Howard Seaman was one of those.  Howard was a pretty ordinary guy.  He served in the Navy during World War II, came home, married his sweetheart Frances, and ran a successful construction business.  But turn him loose in a guideboat and suddenly he became a totally different person.

I thought I would lift a section on Howard Seaman from my friend Hallie Bond’s book “Boats and Boating in the Adirondacks”.  It is on page 260 of her book.  It is a wonderful description of Howard’s accomplishments.

“Long Lake native, Howard Seaman (1916-1986), was a great promoter of guideboat racing.  He encouraged and taught young racers and entered scores of races himself, winning most of them.  In 1977, at the age of 61, he won the grueling 44-mile solo marathon from Long Lake down the Raquette River to Tupper Lake.

Seaman had a short, sharp stroke.  He was once measured in a sprint at fifty six strokes per minute.  A passenger remarked, ‘every time Howard pulled on the oars he would snatch the boat out from under me, and the stern deck would fetch up on the knobs of my spine and the small of my back, and take off a little hide there.’

Seaman’s winning record was probably due to his strength, build, stroke and knowledge of racing strategy.  Adirondack guides adopted an easy stroke they could keep up for days on end.  They sat up straight, and rowed primarily with their arms, their feet braced for comfort against one of the ribs.  Racers like Seaman, however, used their backs.  He added the broomstick foot stretcher for better leverage.  He also reduced friction on the oarlocks by inserting a neoprene sleeve into the strap and by greasing the pins before each race.  He replaced the original brass oar pins with stainless steel pins for strength.  His boat was probably not built specifically for racing, but its narrow bottom board contributed to its speed; 6 7/8″wide contrasted to the 8″ or wider ones of H.D. Grant.

Seaman’s oars were made by Lyman Beers for him about 1950.  They were used only for long distance races and are lighter and more delicate than Seaman’s sprint oars.  Made of soft maple, they have a great deal of spring in them.  They are also well balanced because of their long overlap of fifteen inches.  The boat pictured below is as if prepared for a racing carry, with the oars shipped with their blades towards the bow, held in place with rubber straps and by the padded yoke.

Howard Seaman raced this boat in one-man competition from the 1940’s until his death.”

One of these days I will tell the tale of how I won the last running of the Howard Seaman Memorial Guide Boat Race in Long Lake.  The outcome was decidedly due to divine intervention and is a hilarious story.

Most Adirondack guideboats are propelled by a pair of eight foot long oars.  They are commonly made of cherry, spruce or maple.  The blades and looms of these oars are usually quite lean so that one can feel them bend under the power stroke and spring back just before they come out of the water to begin recovery.  A delicious feeling!

The oar socket/oar lock arrangement for guideboats has always puzzled me.  Every guideboat that I know of uses pinned oars.  The oar lock has a 1/2 inch pin that goes into the “strap”.  The pin is at the base of U shaped “horn” that, in turn, is attached to the upper part of the oar loom by another pin.

The strap, oar socket, was usually made of a manganese bronze casting and was often beautifully decorated.

This method of connecting oars to the boat has its advantages.  The narrow beam of a guideboat requires that the oars overlap to gain as much leverage as possible.  Pinned oars automatically set the oars at the proper spacing.  One can always let go of the oars without fear that they will slide out of the oar lock and go overboard.  It is said that the guides favored pinned oars because they could let go of the oars to cast a line or take a shot at a moment’s notice.

The great disadvantage of this arrangement is that one cannot feather the oars, or turn the blade so that it is parallel to the water, on the recovery phase of rowing.  This becomes a distinct liability when rowing into a stiff breeze.  More than once have I found it almost impossible to make headway when rowing into a stiff breeze even when using a oars that I could feather.

The early guideboats apparently used an arrangement whereby the oars could be feathered.  Below is a photo of what I call the “bookcase” boat.   It is perhaps the oldest survivor of the earliest “guide’s boats” that we know of.  It was acquired by Franklin Brandreth and remains in Brandreth Park, a family compound on Brandreth Lake, not far from Raquette Lake here in the Adirondacks.

Note the date of 1848 on the deck.  It has a flat bottom board and ribs taken from roots.  It employs only four planks on each side rather than the usual seven or eight possessed by later guideboats.  There appears to be a half round cut out on the gunwale to fit a carrying yoke.  The fulcrum for the oars is provided by thole pins rather than an oar lock/socket arrangement.  This is revealed by the block at the midships that has three holes drilled in it.  The tholes, or two wooden pegs, drop into these holes to provide the fulcrum for the oars.

I decided to fit my first guideboat with spruce oars from Shaw and Tenney that had buttons and leathers.  The leather sleeve protects the loom from wear from the ringed oar lock and the “button”, or leather ring,  keeps the oar from slipping overboard.  I must maintain the proper overlap for the oars to get the greatest leverage on the oars but I can easily feather them. Another advantage is that they won’t “jam” when I am around a dock and am trying to push off.  Why guideboat builders never used this system of connecting the oars to the hull I don’t know.  It provides the advantages of pinned oars with the great advantage of being able to feather them.

The button has worn so in eighteen years that the ring can now slip out.  I have been lucky so far that I haven’t lost the ring but I must do some repairs before that happens.

Below is a photo of my son Stewart rowing the Thankful. You can see his intense concentration as he maneuvers the boat to get it going where he wants.  Note the overlap of the oars set by the pinned oar arrangement.

One final photo.  While out on a dusk motor boat ride on Long lake we were rewarded with this stunning sunset over Owl’s Head Mountain.

Next time, Howard Seamen, guideboat racing legend.

The time has finally come to launch my latest guideboat, the Thankful.  I have chosen the name in honor of one of the most accomplished guideboat builders, Caleb Judson Chase. Chase was born the youngest of six children in 1830 in Ticonderoga, NY.  Soon after he was born his father died and his mother remarried.  This may have influenced his decision to leave home as a young teenager to join his brother Cheney in Newcomb, NY.  There the two of them operated a sawmill and Caleb began to farm.  Over time he learned a number of trades including gunsmithing, guiding and boat building.

He began building boats in 1850 at age 21  and continued to do so for fifty years.  He was quite successful in this endeavor and it allowed him to build a family compound on Rich Lake that included an attractive home, a workshop, paint shop, an ice house and 88 acres of productive farm land. He and his wife, Thankful, raised seven children.

He was  an innovator and realized that guideboats could be made lighter and would ride better in the water if they were double-ended rather than square-ended.  Soon other builders began making their boats double-ended.  The transition to double-ended  guideboats was complete by about 1870.

Chase was the builder of the Queen Anne, Anna Pruyn’s favorite guide boat. Robert and Anna Pruyn were the builders of Great Camp Santanoni.  They particularly loved wooden boats and had as many as eight guideboats at various locations on their 12,000 acre Great Camp property.  I have reproduced the Queen Anne three times now with the Thankful being the latest of those.

An acknowledgement of chase’s mastery of building guideboats appeared in the September, 1901 issue of Field and Stream, “No Adirondacker of the old school but knows the old boat builder of Newcomb, at least by reputation, for the famous “Chase boat” has for for over fifty years been regarded as the most perfect type of woodman’s craft built or used in the North Woods…”

As a tribute to Chase I have decided to name my latest boat after his wife, Thankful, and to launch my boat on his beloved Rich Lake.  Rich Lake is  off Route 28 N just as you approach Newcomb.  Although it is not far off the “beaten track” only those who are aware of its presence can find it.  The lake has a marvelous sandy beach that gently slopes so that you have to go many strides to find deep water.

July 2nd is a beautiful late spring day in the Adirondacks, perfect for launch day.  There is a brisk breeze from the northwest that bids you wear a light jacket to stay comfortable.  We hook up the boat with its trailer and head for Newcomb.  My son Stewart is again with me for this launch as he was 18 years ago for the launching of my first boat, the Frances C.  This time he brings his two children Paige, age 13 and Evan, age 16.

Here, we have arrived and are preparing for the launch.

Stewart and I carry her to the waters edge and in she goes.

So off we go on her maiden voyage.  What fun!

I hand the boat over to Stewart who is soon racing about with his mom and kids.

So all good things must come to an end.  We haul Thankful out and find that she has taken on a little water.  We choose to believe that most of it was was dragged in from everyone getting in for a ride.  It is certainly not enough to be concerned about.

Next time; Straps and Horns.

 

When we arrived in Long Lake one of the first things to do was to get the guideboats, now three, in the proper order.  The Frances C., the first boat I built, would come out of hibernation.  She would go down onto the dock and be ready for a summer of out and about on the lake.  The other, newer guideboats would go into the protective cocoon of the garage.

The Frances C. was soon launched and both she and I were delighted to be back on the water.  Despite a winter of bitter temperatures with weeks of below freezing temperatures and excursions well below zero she took on not a drop of water.  Then it came to me that she was nearing the end of her teenage years.  Indeed, this summer she will be eighteen years old.

I thought that she had endured some not too gentle treatment in the last 18 years and yet looks pretty darn good.  The Atlantic white cedar she is made of can certainly take a beating.  It is virtually rot resistant and for that reason was used by the colonists in the Tidewater country of Maryland and Virginia for boundary markers.  Some of the markers are still around after 300 years.

The Sikiflex 291 LOT bedding compound seems to have worked just fine.  No leaks unless I get careless and leave her out in the sun too long.  If that happens I get her back in the shade and make sure she soon gets back on the water.

The Epiphanes varnish is also a winner.  I have only re-varnished the boat once in her 18 years and she still shows no need for refinishing.

It was good to see that she was treated like an honest-to-goodness guideboat over the fourth of July weekend.  My boys took her out on several fishing expeditions.  Then the youngest of the Fishers, Paige, age 13,  got to go fishing with her father in the Frances C.

So Happy Birthday, Frances C.  Many happy returns.

Next time, the launch of the Thankful.

At last the time comes when my boat “fledges” its nest and heads for its permanent home in the Adirondacks.  There is concern over the move since we will be travelling a long way over interstate highways and country roads.  My main worry is the weather.  It is the time of the solstice when weather patterns can cause severe weather, even tornadoes.  So we watch the forecast carefully and decide go on Saturday, June 20th since it is predicted to have good weather along the entire 400 mile route.

My friend Ed and his future son-in-law Drew offer to help me load the boat on our Suburban.  They are both tall men so that will make things easier.  It turns out that Drew grew up in Raquette Lake which is only about 14 miles from Long Lake.  He went to the elementary school there which, at the time, had an enrollment to 22 students.  It has been closed for some years now as the number of school age children in the town has dwindled to a handful.  Drew knows Adirondack boats and waterways well, having raced in the three day ninety miler paddling a canoe from Old Forge to Saranac Lake.

We decide to take the boat out the sliding glass door in my shop, hike it up a small hill to the Suburban, and load it on top.

I thought I could get away with using the roof racks to support the boat on top of the car.  But the sheer line is too great for that to work.  Drew suggests gunnel blocks to  mount the boat and stand it off from the roof.  We decide that Cabellas is the best place to get them so off I go to purchase two sets.  I have already bought some super tie-downs to strap the boat to the roof rack.  They are made by a company called Ericson and they are way better than any others I have seen.  Rather than simultaneously pulling two spring-loaded levers apart to loosen the straps you merely push a button.  Below are a gunnel block and a tie down.

As night falls the boat is securely fastened down using three tie downs and ropes on the front and rear.  We are ready to roll!

We awake the next morning at 4:30 am to the pitter-patter of rain. I guess this is the 20% chance of rain that was predicted.  As we head around Philadelphia the rain becomes a downpour.  Our luck holds and once we are about 50 miles north of Philly the rain ceases and a very pleasant day takes its place.

A milestone is reached when we enter the Adirondack Park.

We finally reach our lakeside camp.  The Long Lake water level is very high for this time of year.  Our “marsh” is now a part of the main lake.  Below the boat takes in its new surroundings having successfully traveled from Delaware to Long Lake

The next adventure is the boat’s maiden voyage.

 

 

This will be my 14th year as a docent in the Adirondack Museum’s boat shop.  During that time, I have been asked a great many questions about guideboats, their construction, and how they came about.  By far the most popular question is “How long does it take to build one?”

The Museum’s sanctioned answer is 500-600 hours.  Hmm!  I thought after I built my first boat that it sure took me a lot longer than that.  But, being my first boat I thought “Well, I’m just a beginner so the pros can do it much faster”.  Then came my second boat and the doubts grew about it only taking 500 hours to build one.  After all, just applying four or five coats of spar varnish to the hull and sanding between coats takes well over 100 hours.  Then it takes me about 20 hours to make a guideboat paddle.  I suspect making two oars would easily take twice that.  So about 200 hours has been spent without even considering making the hull.

So what does the figure of 500 hours represent?  Is it for constructing the hull only?  Is it the the total hours to make a boat regardless of how many men (or women) worked on it?

I didn’t keep track of the hours spent building my latest boat but I suspect it took at least 1500 hours to build.  After all the boat is built predominately by hand.  For example, each plank is custom fitted to the previous one.  To hang planks properly you need to suspend any urge to meet a deadline.  As you step into the planking “zone” you become so involved in getting it right that the hours slip quickly by.

So how long does it really take to build a guideboat?  I came across a reference the other day that seems to give an authoritative answer.  On page 49 of the guideboat bible The Adirondack Guide-boat, by Kenneth and Helen Durant, I found these words.  The Durant’s were describing the guideboat production of the Grant boat building shop in Boonville, NY.  The Grants, Dwight and his son Lewis, are perhaps the most famous of Adirondack boat builders.  Here is what they had to say:

“With Dwight Grant and six carpenters at work in 1891, output reached a peak of 25 boats.  Dwight Grant and Lester Fox built the boats, the five other carpenters made ribs, oars, paddles, yokes and decks, and did the sanding, varnishing and painting.  Gus Syphert, a snowshoe maker, caned the sets and back rests.”

Later on in the next paragraph:

“Dwight Grant estimated it took 21 days of 10 hours each to make a 16 foot boat with three caned seats, one cane back rest, one pair of oars, a paddle, and a yoke.  The best carpenter in Boonville in the 1880’s was paid $2.00 a day.”

So it took 210 hours to build a guideboat using highly skilled labor in the 1880’s.  If those total hours are multiplied by the number of men working on a boat, seven, then it requires about 1500 man-hours to build a guideboat.

Phew! So I am not the awfully slow builder that I had come to believe.  I think that 1500 to 2000 hours is about what it takes me to build one of these boats.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Funny thing!  I have never seen another guideboat with a floor board.  There are guideboats with so called false gratings like that below.  According to Helen Durant,who co-authored with her husband Kenneth the all encompassing book, The Adirondack Guide-boat, these gratings protected the hull from the sharp heels of ladies shoes.

Ladies shoes? How did a work boat used for guiding “sports” from the City become so popular that provsion had to be made for women’s sharp heels?  During the later part of the 1800’s the Adirondacks became a mecca for those escaping the heat and pollution of the large cities, especially NYC.  Crowds brought by the railroad were transported to lake front hotels by steam boats.  One of the amenities of the hotels was to provide a guide and his boat for a day’s outing.  So the lowly work boat was gentrified and became a yacht meant for having fun.  Some guiding still went on but a majority of the boats built in the late 1800’s were sold to wealthy Great Camp owners or hotels.

To me, a floor board for a guideboat seemed to make sense.  When you step into a guideboat you encounter the feet of several ribs.  This is somewhat awkward since you are often in bare feet.  But I also fretted about the ribs.  Wouldn’t sandy feet or sandals quickly wear away the rib’s protective varnish?  So I decided that making a simple floor board for my boats made sense.  The extra weight of the floor board didn’t matter to me because I wasn’t going to be carrying the boat for long distances.

The floor board basically follows the profile of the bottom board.  This floor board is made of 1/4 inch thick tiger maple.  It contrasts nicely with the darker Spanish cedar hull.  I made two inch high stand-offs of Spanish cedar to keep it clear of the rib feet.  The floor board is fastened to the rib feet at three places along its length.

So, at last, the boat is finished!  I still need to fasten the oar sockets, or straps, but more on that later.

Coming up next “On to the North Country”.