Dr. Gordon Fisher

Every second Tuesday in August there is a happening in Long Lake, NY.  In case you are in town and not paying attention, a large circus-like tent goes up in the center of town just before the event occurs.  That is the first sign that the happening, Author’s Night, will soon be coming to Hoss’s.  So what is Author’s Night and who is Hoss?  And what does this have to do with guideboats?

Author’s Night gathers as many of those who have written books (or songs) about the Adirondacks who wish to attend.  Some of the writers live within the Park but that is not a requirement.  Author’s Night started out small, maybe a dozen authors, but has grown until this year over 90 came.  Below is the original sign used to publicize Author’s Night.

Note that in 2009 Author’s Night was 25 years old.  So that makes this the 33rd year of Author’s Night.

The Hosley’s, John and Lorrie, own Hoss’s Country Corner in the center of Long Lake.  Now, the Hosley family has been in Long Lake for at least two generations.  John’s father was Doc Hosley who was the physician in Long Lake for many years.  The new medical center in Long Lake is named after Doc and his wife Janet.

Hoss’s Country Corner is a general store that sells just about everything.  As you might expect, since they sponsor Author’s Night, they have a great collection of Adirondack-themed books.  Here is Hoss’s Country Corner.

I am always amused by the bear out front.  Bears are Long Lake’s official logo so it is fitting to have two of them out in front of the store.

The Author’s Night hosts, John and Lorrie are most gracious.  All authors in attendance are treated to a sumptuous BBQ dinner beforehand at Long Lake’s  Mount Sabbatis pavilion.

The burgers are great.

The overlook from Mt. Sabattis gives a stunning view of Long Lake and the North Country.

Mount Sabattis was named after a Native America guide who lived in Long Lake and who endeared himself to the early settlers there.

Here are the Author’s Night sponsors, John and Lorrie.

All right, lets get back to Author’s Night (AN).  Since I have written two books on the Adirondacks; Tale of an Historic Adirondack Guideboat and how to Build One and Guideboat Paddles, an Adirondack Treasure, I have attended AN for at least ten years.

I love to attend AN because it gives me a chance to show off my guideboat, Showboat.  Many who attend AN are unaware of guideboats and enjoy learning the rich history that evolved around them.  At one time Long Lake was at the very heart of guideboat production.  It may have even been where the first Adirondack guideboat was built.

So I load Showboat on its trailer and we head for Hoss’s.  Here we are arriving there.

Authors are given a spot under the tent so that they can greet the guests and talk about their offerings.  Fortunately my spot is at the end of the row of tables so I can pull Showboat up next to the table.

Every year I get to meet some old friends.  One of them is John Michne who authored a book on building the Virginia, a guideboat originally built by the Grants of Old Forge, NY.  John’s book complements mine since it presents an alternate guideboat building technique, wood strip, from mine on the traditional method.  Here is John at his table.

 

Here is John’s book.

A good crowd attended Author’s Night this year no doubt drawn by the festive atmosphere and the beautiful Adirondack summer evening.

 

 

It seems that every guideboat has its very own story.  So it is with Sally’s boat.  A friend of mine, Sally, mentioned that she had just sold her guideboat.  My ears perked up and I asked her to tell me about it.  She said that it was a small-sized  guideboat that was the only build of a friend of hers.  When I found she still had the boat I invited myself over to see it.

Here it is.  It has been kept under a shed roof and is in fine shape.

Sally told me it was built by Richard Storm of North Creek, NY for his wife. He worked at the Gore Mountain Ski resort where he suffered a back injury.  This rendered him partially paralyzed.  He powered through his disability by building a pole barn and then this guideboat.

The boat is indeed a small guideboat measuring just under 12 feet (11’11”) with a beam of 37 1/2″.  Here is friend Sally taking measurements of it.

One very odd thing about this boat is that it only has one rowing station.  It is in the bow.

Note that the strap needed quite a thick extension piece above the gunwale to make it vertical.  This is unusual since the gunwale should only need some minor planing to remove some of its upper surface to make the strap plumb.

The real oddity about this boat is the single rowing station, that being in the bow.  It means that, to properly trim this boat, two people would have to go out together in it.  Apparently this was the case since the builder built it for his wife and they would always go out for a row together.

This boat is one of the Raider class that I talked about earlier.  Raiders were smaller guideboats that were used to get back into remote ponds and “raid” them.  Here is a Parson’s built Raider that measures 14′ 3″.

Note that the Parson’s boat has two rowing stations just like its larger cousins.

Alas, the marriage broke up and Richard took the guideboat to Rapid City, SD.  This was a mistake since the boat totally dried out in the low humidity there.  Richard sent it back to the North Country where it was repaired by Bunny Austin to seal its many leaks.

Sally then took ownership of the boat and it has been living with her ever since.  One further mishap with it was an errant pine bough that fell and punched a hole in the hull.  Bunny was called upon again and repairs were made.

 

“A fourteen ship that weighs only sixty pounds and carries a thousand pounds over rough water; which is safe; which travels easily four miles per hour; which never leaks; and which lasts, with ordinary good care, for twenty years-needs to be made by a man who knows how, and who is passionately fond of being honest.”

William Boardman, Lovers of the Woods

Boardman summarized in a few words all the attributes of that lovely, revolutionary   wooden craft called the Adirondack guideboat.  Only the statement “which lasts with ordinary good care, for twenty years” might be questioned.

This is the twentieth year of life for the first guideboat that I built, the Frances C. We have gone out together almost every summer day, sometimes regardless of the weather, for twenty years.  How has she fared?  Pretty well, I would say.  Except for the time I forgot to turn her over on her rack.  She filled with water during a springtime storm and fell off sustaining a nasty gash.  But repairs were done and the scar is a reminder to me to be more careful of her.

In honor of her twentieth birthday she gets a sprucing up.  She will get a total cleaning up and a new coat of varnish.  First she needs to be brought up to be under cover on our screened porch in Long Lake.

I brought in a couple of young fellas to sand her top to bottom with 220 grit paper.

After sanding the hull I go over it with tack cloth to remove any trace of dust.  Then varnishing can proceed.  I use Epiphanes Wood Finish Gloss marine spar varnish.  It is a great product that provides wonderful protection while being easy to apply.  I tip the hull up to make it as horizontal as possible while I apply the varnish to reduce its tendency to run.  I use a foam brush which gives a nice, uniform coat.

Now, the inside of the hull.  This is a bit more complicated because of the ribs.

With her new coat of varnish its back to the water with Frances.  Will she last another twenty years?  I’d say the prospects are good.  Her planking is made of Atlantic white cedar, a wood that is almost totally rot resistant.  The property of this wood was recognized by the early settlers on Eastern Shore of Maryland.  They used this cedar as boundary markers knowing that it would last for decades if not hundreds of years.  The downside of this wood is that it tends to split easily.  Oh, well, take the good with the bad.

Another thing going for the Frances C. is its laminated ribs.  The combination of thin strips of ash held together with resorcinal resin makes an extremely strong, tough rib.

Another treat for me was that our fifteen year granddaughter was here with us for the summer.  When I suggested she take Frances out for a row she exclaimed, “But I’ve never rowed a boat”.  I said “So here is a chance to learn”.  She did and before you know it she had the hang of it.

 

 

Well, the time as come to part with one of the guideboats I have built.  There are three in the garage under the house so they are a bit stuffed in there.  Besides there is another being built.

After much agonizing I have decided to sell Thankful, the latest guideboat in the stable.  It was a difficult decision since I revere them all.  Anyway, here is the story on Thankful.

Thankful is a reproduction of a guideboat built in 1893 by the esteemed builder Caleb Chase for the owners of Great Camp Santanoni in Newcomb, NY. The original, named the Queen Anne, was cherished by the Pryun family who then owned Camp Santanoni.  This boat was handcrafted just as the original except for its laminated ribs and stems made of Spanish cedar.  No glue or fiberglass was used in constructing the hull.   It features:

• Spanish cedar planking with inter-plank joinery sealed with tiny copper tacks driven and clinched every inch  to render the hull watertight.
• Hand caned seats and seat back, all made of cherry.
• Cherry gunwales.
• Decks of bird’s eye maple and cherry.  Panels are “book-matched” to give an unusual figure.
• Five coats of marine spar varnish to protect against moisture and UV radiation.
• Traditional guideboat oars of cherry 8 feet long.
• An authentic reproduction of a Chase guide’s paddle, made of cherry.

Length overall: 15 1/2 feet, Beam 38″. Weight: approx. 65 lbs.

Price: $7000.  If interested call me, Gordon, at (302) 690-3280 or email me at gordonfisher1@verizon.net.

Here are some photos of Thankful.

Last time we talked about the vast changes that the age of steam brought to the Adirondacks.  The railroads brought tourists from New Your City to the heart of the North Country via an overnight trip.   Steamboats then carried passengers fresh off the sleeping cars to the large resort hotels in Raquette and Blue Mountain Lakes.

Guideboats served a role too.  There were many boarding houses and other small hostelries that were not served by the larger steamboats.  Guides provided a kind of taxi service for these smaller establishments. They also provided transportation on lakes that had no steamboats, like Long Lake.  Long Lake was a major corridor for those heading north to Saranac Lake and beyond.

The advent of steam-based transportation was, at first, a boon to the guides.  The railroads brought an abundance of tourists and sportsmen needing their services.  The advent of stream was a double edged sword, however, as we will see from the story of the Buttercup.

Behind Long Lake’s municipal office building is a peculiar looking structure.  It is basically a roof over a chain-linked fence that houses the Buttercup.  Below is a photo of it.

The sign at the enclosure gives the story of the Buttercup as follows:

“On September 12, 1959, the long-lost steamboat Buttercup was found on the bottom of Long Lake by amateur scuba divers George Boudreau and Franklin McIntyre.  The Buttercup was the first steamboat on Long Lake.  It was scuttled by the guides in 1885 because it was taking away their business of rowing visitors and sportsmen through the lakes in guideboats.

The same night that the guides sank the Buttercup, others blew up the dam six miles below the foot of Long Lake.  It was ten years before another steamboat appeared on the Lake.

Buttercup was part of a grand scheme put forward by Dr. Thomas C. Durant and his son, William West Durant of Raquette Lake, to provide a continuous, comfortable transportation route from Raquette Lake to Saranac Lake by railroad car and steamboat.

Interesting artifacts found in the boat are displayed with it.  They include the brass steam whistle, the steering wheel, the steam gauge, some of the spindles that supported the roof, and the axe which was used to cut the hole (on the port side near the engine) which sank the boat.”

Here are some photos of the Buttercup:

Just about everybody in Long Lake knows the story of the Buttercup.  In fact, it is so renown that a play was written about it and given by the town citizens a few years back.

Whenever I view old photos of steamboats in the Adirondacks I almost always see guideboats in the photo.  Why is that?  What is the connection between the two?  Well let’s see what role steamboats played in the the history of the region and see where that leads us.

Steam power caused a revolution in the development of our nation.  Travel by train opened large areas of previously inaccessible territory.  Now, many could afford to travel to wilderness areas like the Adirondacks.  Railroad tycoons like the Durants seized on the opportunity to capture this new source of revenue by expanding their network of rail lines.

There is a fascinating diorama at the Adirondack Museum that cleverly depicts how the steam revolution shaped the history of the Adirondacks.  To travel to Raquette Lake from New York City, travelers boarded the New York Central train at Grand Central Terminal in the evening.  Sleeping cars were provided since the train would not arrive at the destination until the next morning.  The New York Central train arrived at Old Forge, NY in early morning when it was switched to the Raquette River Railroad which went on to Raquette Lake.  The heavily loaded train pulled these cars over steep grades until they arrived at the Raquette Lake terminus.  On weekends the arrival was delayed some three or four hours because of the extra sleeping cars required to carry all who had bought tickets.  The photo below is taken of the diorama.  It shows two steamboats waiting to take travelers to their lodging after they have had breakfast in the terminal.

The two steamboats waiting at the terminal are the Kiloquah and the Sagamore.  The Sagamore has a green guideboat on its upper deck.  In the diorama, the Kiloquah steams off to the Antlers Hotel on the point and then east up the Marion River which is almost directly across from the terminal.  When it reaches the source of the Marion River passengers disembark and take a very short ride on a narrow gauge train that traverses Marion River Carry.  Here is a depiction of the carry by the diorama.

Fortunately, the narrow gauge train used on the carry was rescued after years of use and is now in the Marion River Pavilion at The Adirondack Museum.  Here are some photos of her.

Before we leave the Kiloquah, here are some old photos of her.

On the far end of the Marion River Carry another steamboat, the Tuscarora, boards the travelers.  This steamer will traverse the Eckford Chain of lakes (Utowana and Eagle)  before entering Blue Mountain Lake, its final destination.  It will stop at several hosteleries including the Prospect House, the first hotel in America to have electric lights in every room.  Below is an old photo of the Tuscarora.

The Tuscarora was bought by by a camp owner on Blue Mountain Lake.  She was dry docked there and converted into a guest house.  There was talk of restoring her and bringing her to the Adirondack Museum.  However, it was felt that the expense to restore her was too great to justify doing so.  As far as I know she is still in dry dock on Blue Mountain Lake.

Here are two other steamers stopping at the Prospect House on Blue Mountain Lake.  Note they both have guideboats on their upper decks.

We left the steamboat Sagamore at the train terminal at Raquette Lake.  Remember, it had a green guideboat on its upper deck.  The Sagamore steams up into the north end of Raquette Lake.  It must have stopped at various lodging places as well as the carry between Raquette Lake and its northern sister, Forked Lake (pronounced Fork Ed).  Here is a clue as to why guideboats hung around with the steamboats.  They must have been used as water taxis. Forked Lake provided access to Long Lake but there were no steamboats operating on Forked Lake.

But a guide and his boat could row you down Forked to the carry around Buttermilk Falls and thence into Long Lake.

So early on guides welcomed the advent of steamboats because it brought a new clientele.  These travelers were more of the sightseeing type rather than sportsmen. But the relentless thrust of technology always causes disruption of old patterns and ways of making a living.  We will see how this played out in an uprising by the guides as the steamboat encroached on the their livelihood.

Next, the steamboat Buttercup.

 

 

This summer the Adirondack Museum celebrates its 60th year of being a vast reservoir of Adirondack history.  Many have told me what a fine Museum it is, one of the best they have ever visited.

It is fitting that the Museum is changing in response to our ever changing world.  The Adirondack Museum will no longer go by that name but will now be called “the Adirondack Experience, the Museum on Blue Mountain Lake.  Coincident with the change in name is a new exhibition entitled Life in the Adirondacks.  As explained in the press release, this exhibition will feature “wonderful artifacts, media and digital technology, hands-on interactive experiences, and stories of work, life, and play in the Adirondacks.”  Planning for the exhibition has been underway for several years.  Last year the Roads and Rails building was closed while the new exhibition was created in 19,000 square-feet of space.

It is an exciting time for the Museum and I am honored to play a small part in the official opening of the new exhibition on Saturday, July 1st.  I have been asked to display my collection of guideboat paddles along with their history while I demonstrate guideboat paddle making.  With our departure for the North Country coming right up I started to scurry about to finish long forgotten projects.  I discovered two reproductions of Caleb Chase guideboat paddles done last summer that needed varnishing.  Here they are:

Here they are being varnished.  I lay them flat and do one side at a time to avoid runs.  It takes longer but avoids the hassle of having to rework paddles wherever the varnish has run.  Here are the finished paddles.

The paddle on the left is a steering paddle and is made of figured cherry.  The one on the right is a hunting paddle and is made of Spanish cedar.  Both exhibit chatoyancy, or the “cats eye” effect found in gem stones and certain species of wood.

You can see the original steering paddle being used at Great Camp Santanoni somewhere around 1895 in the photo below,  The women are out for guideboat ride.  The oarsman is being assisted by her friend who is using the original of the paddle above.

Hunting paddles were used when a guideboat was used to hunt deer at night.  The guide would propel the boat from the stern using a paddle like the one above.  The so-called “sport” would be in the bow with a rifle and candle lantern.  The guide would silently glide the boat along the lake shoreline.  Upon the sound of a feeding deer the sport would quietly light the lantern and take a shot at the dazed deer.  Jacking deer was outlawed in 1905 in New York State.

If you are in the Blue Mountain Lake area on July 1st drop in and say hi.  The paddles will be for sale as well as one of my guideboats.

Two years ago I promised not to mention tacks again.  But then I had second thoughts.  The following proverb brought new thinking to the value of tacks in building a guideboat.

“For want of a nail the shoe was lost,

For want of a shoe the horse was lost,

For want of a horse the rider was lost,

For want of a rider the battle was lost,

For want of a battle the kingdom was lost,

And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.”

It says that small things of seemingly little value can have great consequences in the stream of history.

So could a guideboat be built without the many small copper tacks that seal the seams between planks.  Nowadays, of course.  We have all manner of synthetic materials that are used to build guideboats, canoes, kayaks and other small craft.  Back in the early 1800’s definitely not.  Guideboat builders back then relied on tiny soft copper tacks, about 4000 in each of their boats, to obtain a water tight seal between each plank.

What would have been the history of the Adirondacks if there had been no guideboats, hence no guides, and therefore no city “sports” to take back the tall tales of a magnificent, trackless wilderness abounding with fish and game?

I talked to John Wilson, Boxmaker about tacks.  John makes a living teaching people how to make Shaker oval boxes and selling the materials to make these beautiful creations.

John acquired two machines to manufacture the small tack sizes used to make the boxes from the Cross Co. after they went out of business in 1991. He said these machines are quite old going back nearly to the Civil War.  He sells about 300-400 pounds of small tacks each year.  Tacks this small have limited use; for making Shaker boxes, guideboats, and for use in securing the leather flap in certain models of pneumatic organs.  Here is John displaying his wares.

Most guideboat builders use planking that is 3/16″ to 1/4″ thick.  They use a size No. 2 1/2 tack which is 7/16″ long.  This gives enough length to clinch properly.  Below are two versions of a No. 2 1/2 tack.  One has head diameter of 1/8″ and the other is 3/16″.  I like to use the larger head size because it shows off all the work done in constructing a traditionally built guideboat.  “When you got it, flount it.”  I think Joe Namath uttered those words.

I have just hung the second round of planking on my latest guideboat.  Here is a view of the “stuck” tacks on that round ready to be clinched.

Back when I first started building guideboats I was on a shoe string budget.  Unable to afford a fancy bronze clinching iron, I used one of those antique flat irons.  Back before electric irons, women had several of them that they used to iron clothes.  They heated them over the wood stove so that while one was being used the others were being heated up again.  Here is the one I use with its fancy cousin.

I find that the old flat iron is perfect when hanging the second and third rounds of planking when the hull is relatively flat.

It is getting near that time when we head back to the North Country.  I hear the black flies are out in force there.  We are hoping for some really warm weather between now and mid-June to drive them out.

 

 

The nascent hull is just about ready to begin planking.  Hanging planks on a traditionally built guideboat is the most difficult task when building one.  Since it has been three years since I built my last boat I feel a bit rusty.  Will the nuances in planking that I learned by trial and error back then come back to me?  My apprehension is well founded as you will learn as we go along.

Before I start planking I must attend to some final details of preparing the hull for the planks.  The ribs and stems are now attached to the bottom board, the spline is in place, and the hull is braced.  Now I must shave away the leading edges of the higher numbered ribs so that the planks will land on a flat surface and not a rib edge.  I start with a spoke shave to knock down the leading edge of every rib that needs it.

Here is where my sanding long board comes in handy.  It spans several ribs and ensures that they are all in line when receiving a plank.

The final effort before planking is to lay out the position of each plank on every rib.  I have a series of “tick tapes” do do this.  They are paper strips for each rib with the location of the trailing edge of each plank marked on them.  Here I am laying out the plank trailing edges using the tick tapes.  The Pony clamp is holding the tape to the rib.

The garboard is the first plank to be hung.  I was puzzled by the term “garboard” so I searched for its origins on the Net.  The term comes from the Dutch words “garen” (gather) and “boord” (board) which when combined became gaarboord.  By the early 17th century it had evolved to garboard.

The garboard plank is the easiest to hang on a guideboat for two reasons.  First you don’t have to fit it to a previously hung plank, an enormous plus.  You need only to cut one bevel on the side of the plank opposite the bottom board. Since the next plank must conform to the garboard you don’t have get its width just right.  Any deviation in the garboard plank’s width of up to an 1/8 inch or so will be made up by the next plank.  The second reason is that the bottom board side of the plank gets planed down to the level of the bottom board.  That is easy to do since it doesn’t have to be exact.

So I laid out the garboard shape by spiling.  I found that spiling didn’t allow for enough upward sheer near the stems.  This is probably because the last rib where you can strike an arc when spiling, number 11, is some distance from the stem.  So my first attempt at laying out the plank didn’t work,  The next time around I accounted for the amount of sheer and I was successful.

Fitting the stem end, or hood end, of the plank takes patience.  It must fit as closely as possible into the stem rabbet. I get a close approximation to the shape of the hood end using my template for the stem rabbet.

I use my sanding long board to shape the hood end until it fits.

Next, I cut the bevel.  I layout a 5/8″ line down the plank and then cut away the majority with a block plane.  I finish up with a cabinet scraper.  It gives me more control and takes off any rounding that may come from using the plane.

I then hang the plank temporarily and cut away as much of the overhang of the plank on the bottom board side as I can.  Here I am using a small flush cut saw which didn’t work very well.  I tried using a chisel too but I didn’t find the perfect way to do this.  You just have to be patient.

Now I walk unsuspectingly into a trap.  All four planks are ready to be hung but I must provide a scarf joint to join them.  The position of the scarf is always on top of a rib.  This hides the interior side of the scarf and provides a nice landing for it. I was unaware of this tradition when I built my first guideboat so the scarfs on that boat lie between ribs.  After almost twenty years of hard use their location has not been a problem.

So I marked off where the scarf was to fall on one of the planks and cut it along the line. Remember up front I said I felt a bit rusty.  Well I marked off the plank on the trailing edge rather that the leading edge where it should have been.  So when the plank was hung it was left flapping in the breeze, so to speak.

What to do? Well, there is nothing to do but scrap it.  Hours of work down the drain.  Then I remembered Bunny Austin’s advice to his nephew Keith who had just tried to hang a plank and had it crack on him.  You might remember that Bunny is a fine guideboat builder who comes from a line of six generations of guideboat builders.  Bunny told Keith to find himself a “crying chair” and get it out of his system.  Here I am with my crying stool getting my dumb mistake out of my system.

Not all was lost.  I had a perfect pattern for the successor plank.  And I might just be able to modify this plank for the number eight plank round.  It takes three planks on each side for that round and this might serve as the middle plank.  We’ll see.

Finally comes the time to permanently hang the garboard planks.  I apply a line of Sikaflex 291 LOT bedding compound to the bottom board and stem rabbet and fasten the planks with screws located at the center of each rib.  Screws are also located at the hood end and along the bottom board edge at 1 1/2″ intervals.

Here I am laying out the screw positions along the bottom board edge using a compass.

Then the screws go on.

So here is the garboard plank hung on the hull.

And here is the scarf done correctly.

Next time tacks!  There are about 4000 of them in a guideboat.

The reason I decided to write my book “Tale of an Historic Adirondack Guideboat and How to Build One” was because of someone like Brian.  I volunteer in the boat shop at the Adirondack Museum.  While Allison builds boats I answer questions posed by the visitors.  They are fascinated by the process of building a wooden boat that goes beyond description.  It is a marvelous piece of art.

Some visitors decide that they would like to build such a craft.  They often ask me how I learned to build a guideboat and if there are any books on how to do it.  The answer to that question 10 years ago was no, there was no book on building such a craft except for the Durant’s book on guideboats.  That boat gives plans and a general outline of how they are constructed but does not give the step-by-step instructions that these folks were looking for.

I decided that as I built my second guideboat I would document each step with the intent of writing a how-to manual for building one.  In the course of writing the book I learned of the romance that revolved around my friend’s boat the Queen Anne, the boat that I had reproduced.  So my book contains not only how to build such an extraordinary small craft but a bit of Adirondack lore as well.

This writing adventure was entirely audacious of me.  At the time I reproduced the Queen Anne guideboat I was a rank novice when it came to guideboats.  I had never ridden in one (and wouldn’t until I launched my first boat).  Fortunately I had some previous experience building wooden boats and had the advice of some old-time Adirondack guideboat builders.

Writing the book took an immense amount of effort.  When I finished the book I always had nagging doubts.  Was what I had written not useful?  Did I leave out some important part of construction?  So when I got the following email from Brian I felt that all the effort was more than worthwhile.  I had enabled someone with little or no prior woodworking experience, but with an overwhelming desire to build a guideboat, to do so.  Here is what Brian had to say:

“Maybe ten or more years ago I spoke to you at the Adirondack Museum about my desire to build a guideboat.  You were holding a beautiful paddle in your hand, which I could not help but admire.  As it turns out, with a few encouraging words from you, I am building my second boat now.  I would like to thank you for those words and your book on construction.  My path towards completing number one sounds a lot like yours.  It’s even named for my wife Jacqueline.

Hope to meet you again.”

 

So I asked Brian to share some of his background with me and photos of his boat.  Here is some more about him.

“I am a retired Master Plumber from the Albany NY local #7.  I have no woodworking experience but I’ve done many multi-year construction projects and used this experience to break down projects into many individual jobs.  I set up to build this boat after retiring (buying tools and making plans and patterns and a builder’s jig).

So here are some views of Brian’s boat under construction.

Brian’s boat is of a Grant design.  He laminated the ribs but otherwise the boat is traditionally built.  The planking is of eastern white pine with cherry trim.  He made the floorboard of ash and the oars of maple.  Brian says that it took him six years to build his boat from start to finish.  Now that is perseverance!

Here he is in his shop.

Brian’s shop intrigues me.  It brings back memories of the shop where I built my first boat.  We had moved from Northern New Jersey to a town west of Boston, Sudbury.  We moved into an old farmhouse built in 1895.  The basement, where the shop was to be located, had a dirt floor when we moved in.  My son Rob removed load after wheel barrow load of dirt from the basement so that we could pour a cement floor.

The shop had a low ceiling, so low that my youngest daughter’s friend Big Mike’s head extended up into the rafters.  The lighting was poor and the heating non-existent.  I envy Brian’s spacious and well lit shop.

 

Brian is apologetic about his first boat saying that his boat is not for show but for use.  It looks mighty good to me.  Here is a photo of construction at one end of the hull.  Notice the reverse curve of the ribs.  Now that is something I would hesitate to attempt. Planking a hull with this sort of rib construction looks exceedingly difficult.

Brian took an adult course in caning so he could cane his seats.  Here are the seats while he canes them.  I have always admired the “snowshoe” design of the Grant stern seat rest.

I caned my seats the first time around.  I found that I was not destined to be a caner.  Maybe it is just because my fingers are too big or some mental lapse thing but I just am not cut out for it.  It’s too bad because most lay people, when admiring one of my boats, will ask if I did the caning.  If I say yes they are greatly impressed.  I feel like telling them that caning has to be one of the simplest tasks in building a guideboat.

Finally, here is Brian out on the water enjoying his creation.  Being out in any boat you have built yourself gives profound joy.  After nearly twenty years out and about in my first guideboat I never grow tired of the bond between me, my boat, and what the old-timers called that beautiful sheet of water.

Next time: we start planking.