Humble Pie For One

I would say that I am a pretty patient person, at least with most things besides computers.  

I've been waiting for the perfect combination of quite specific conditions for a couple of summers now with the hope of taking the boat that I built, an outrigger sailing canoe, on a short overnight expedition to surf, spearfish and camp onboard. I won't go into the details of my plan, but because of my planned route and the nature of my trip I had to wait for the stars to align with favourable winds, tides, swell and weather all falling over a 48 hour period.  Last summer I took the boat on a maiden voyage along a short stretch of my route; this spring I tested the boat's abilities to launch through surf and return again, using the experience to make some minor modifications; then this July the weather was perfect however I had work commitments.  I scoured the weather forecasts daily.  I started to become impatient.  In mid-August there was a day that looked do-able; not ideal, but I thought that I could give it a shot.

My alarm was set early and I got up in the dark.  I'd set the boat up on the beach just above the high tide line the evening before, so I arrived early and loaded it whilst the local small-boat fishermen prepared their boats and reversed them into the water.  I launched twice, and I returned twice.  I never did make it to the beach where I had planned on surfing, or to the small cove where I had intended to moor up and sleep under a boom tent on the hiking boards strapped across the outrigger arms.  I spent hours at sea out in the bay battling against the wind, swell and the power of a big spring tide.  I couldn't sail upwind so had to drop the sail and paddle, but for a solid hour I made no progress against the elements.  I measured my progress against the flow of the pushing tide by triangulating my position with a lobster-pot buoy and the westernmost point of a small bay.  If I paused my paddling the wind pushed the bow around so that I was broadside on to the large swells so I had to pull relentlessly.  Continuing to my intended camp spot would have been foolhardy so I turned around, put the mast back up, raised sail and then slipped.  One leg went overboard into the water and I landed heavily on the gunnel.  With the sail up and a following wind it took me less than ten minutes to retrace my course which had taken over three hours in the other direction.  

Back on the beach one of the fishermen, Lloyd, told me that I did the right thing coming back - he didn't think it a good day to be out in a little boat like mine without a motor.  The next day the bruise under my leg came out, a proper deep one the size of a dinner plate, and I ached from the hours of paddling.  I felt pretty humbled by the entire experience.  What must it've been like for the early Polynesians who explored the Pacific Ocean on boats not dissimilar to mine, or for modern day fishermen who still use these boats across the Pacific and Indian Oceans to scrape a living?  The Ocean is massive…my small boat was like a grain of rice in a swimming pool out in the bay, and yet only ever a mile or so from safe harbour. 

And now the seasons have started to turn.  Perhaps next summer...

Howls From The Pit: An Reun Govynnus

"Ships are the nearest things to dreams that hands have ever made."

Robert N. Rose

I've heard it said that whenever you start a project, plan for it to take three times longer than you expect. I'll put my name to that.

An Reun Govynnus was a pretty ambitious project that I cautiously took the lid off back in March last year in the first "Howls From The Pit" post, and considering all of the other things that I had going on last year I really shouldn't have publicised the fact that I aimed to launch her in the summer. Needless to say I missed my planned launch date and the boat's still sat down in The Pit, 95% complete but still confined to dry land while I work on the finishing touches and take the winter to go back over her and make sure everything's all ship-shape and Bristol fashion. I don't want this fancy floating box falling apart on me when I'm around the back of the headland after all.

Since March last year a lot has happened, but often it sometimes doesn't look that way. The eight foot outrigger arms (iakos) were laminated up with 5 strips of ash sandwiched between layers of iroko top and bottom and formed to a curve to meet the outrigger float (ama).

Following a self imposed "tread lightly" sustainability challenge I researched all of the different options available for sheathing the hull and ended up opting to use standard fibreglass cloth and epoxy resin from a local surfboard materials supplier. Not all that sustainable I hear you say, but I had to balance out sustainability, safety and cost; hemp cloth absorbs a lot more resin and only really works with epoxy so would add weight and expense, after a few tests and enquiries I decided against bioresin and fibreglass (questionable bond strength with wood), and in the end after checking every cloth/resin combination the best option was the least environmentally friendly one. But it works and now the hull sections are laminated and painted white.

I glued up the biofoam offcuts using old tyre inner-tubes to strap it all together then glued on balsa and western red cedar nose and tail blocks made from workshop offcuts. I had to stand the ama on it's end in the yurt in our back yard to use it's own weight as pressure on the glue joint with the tail block which made for quite a neat image.

The deck panels had the admiralty nautical charts for the coastline where I live etched onto them using a laser cutter in case I lose my charts overboard and I realised then that all of the clamps in the world still wouldn't be enough to hold them to the tight curves as the glue set. I begged and borrowed as many clamps as I could and cut up sections of drainpipe to apply pressure in between clamps, and the decks are on.

This winter I've had even less time than last year to sneak down and whittle the boat but I've ripped down leftover lengths of iroko and capped all of the gunnels so they're looking all classic in dark hardwood. I've spent a lot of time trimming glue overspills and working on small important things that I can't even see when I step back, knowing that it's the small things that count.

I also saw an advert in my local Newsagents window, advertising an old mirror dinghy in need of some TLC. I called up and on December 27th I headed along to the next village of Rock, just inside the Camel Estuary, to take a look. The dinghy has a hole in the hull and some bits of rot that need cutting out and patching, but it came with spare everything, even a complete set of spare sails. The price on the advert had said £60 and as the elderly gentleman talked me through all of the bits laid out in his garage I was sure that he'd made a typo and that I was £540 short.

Luckily for me it wasn't a mistake so I'm now the proud owner of TWO un-seaworthy vessels. I think that makes me a Commodore? Or a straight up idiot. Probably the second.

I assembled all of the bits a couple of weekends ago on a windy but sunny(ish) January morning with my great friend Alex of Initiative Surf filming my fumbling and confusion (see below, thankfully sped up and crammed into 30 seconds), and the plan is to cannibalise all of the spare bits of the Mirror for An Reun Govynnus and get her under sail. Then I can patch the holes and have two boats...but one step at a time. Three times as long right??!

"A lot of people ask me if I were shipwrecked, and could only have one book, what would it be? I always say "How to Build a Boat."

Stephen Wright

Top two images shot by Dave Williams.

Bottom two images by Mat Arney.

Mirror Dinghy footage shot and edited by Alex Espir.

Howls From The Pit

"I love working. I've got to work every day with my hands. Even if I am doing paperwork all day, I've got to go home and chop vegetables or something. It's really important to me."

Yvon Chouinard

Founder of Patagonia, environmental philanthropist and climbing legend

The Pit: Surfboards, Boats & Bikes.

I lose my pencil about ten times a day, and it nearly always turns up tucked behind my ear.

Inking in the spray job on The Phoenix; rising from the ashes of Scotty's longboard.

Welcome to The Pit.

Being productive with your time, whether the outcome's tangible or not, is pretty important.

When the Rawkus Racing boys moved their car and tools out of one of the garages underneath our house leaving nothing but a classic mechanics calendar, I wasted no time in filling one corner of the garage with tools and a workbench. Suddenly, all of the unfinished projects that I had burdening the lower end of my to-do list looked like they might actually get done.

Eight years ago my friend Scotty snapped his longboard and I promised to re-shape it into a new shortboard...eight years, twenty-odd home moves across four continents (only four moves for the board) and finally I managed to reunite foam, trestles and plane in the same place and get it done.

Over the course of multiple Sunday afternoons I've slowly crossed off all of those "little" jobs so this winter I thought I'd take on a singular big project. Being descended from boat builders on both sides of my family (my Dad's Dad built motor-torpedo boats during WWII and my Mum's family were the last wooden boat builders in Port Isaac, Cornwall) it seemed like the right thing to do to complete the circle, take a deep breath and build a boat.

"An Reun Govynnus" has progressed enough now (it actually looks like a boat rather than just a pile of wood and big receipts) that I don't mind taking the cover off it.

A 16' Hawaiian style outrigger sailing canoe built as far as possible using sustainable, reclaimed and recycled materials (FSC plywood, reclaimed hardwood school science desks and biofoam offcuts from a surfboard factory so far), the pieces are slowly coming together with the aim being to splash her in early summer...surfboards strapped across the outrigger arms ready for coastal surf exploration, camping and spearfishing trips.

My housemate's on the lifeboat crew so it'd better not sink.

I'll keep you updated.