Scows

[Dave 'doc' Fleming]

Ishmael, I perhaps was not clear about the usage of 'woids' in our e-mails.
No doubt in my mind that the shaping of a Scow hull would be ever so much easier than a fully shaped round bilge hull.
As how that effects the total man hours to completion,one vs. the other, I have no idea.
It might be sorta a dead heat.
40 or 50 foot vessel for fishing would have proportionally lighter scantlings than the same size scow.
Humping that big stuff around the yard for scow work would be a chore. Though it is true if a shipwright can't move a timber no one can.
I am quite familiar with the physical location of both Anderson and Seimers yards and they both are/were on a steep incline from the road above and the water is very shallow with just a few cuts to further out in San Francisco Bay so delivery of timber would have to be timed with the tides. I don't see that much coming overland. They, the yards were out in left field so to speak.
But that is the view from today and perhaps in times past easier.
Stones a well known round bilge builder was originally where the St. Francis YC is now.
They moved over to the Alameda Estuary after the 1906 earthquake and there were several big shipyards over on the Oakland side of the estuary too.
Benecia was another location for some yards and there might have been some just up the Napa River near the now defunct Mare Island Naval Shipyard. Hell there could have been builders just about anywhere on the Bay even up the Sacramento like later time Stevens Bros. Yacht Yard.
But I go off on one of my infamous tangents here.
The question of which was really "quicker" to build is interesting and for me a challenge.
I will have to dig out my notebooks on past projects and see if I can put together some hypothetical man hour comparisions.

Just for an example of today man hours used in building a 260 foot Pacific Class Tuna Seiner ran about 200,000 man hours to sea trials.
Now that is a big boat. Main deck house, level one of two is 80 feet long by 30 feet wide. 2 seat Bell Jet Ranger Heli looks positively small on top of house roof.

[Kermit]

Sounds like a plan, doc! Nichols sometimes has some big corners going unused, and they fer sure could turn over about anything. How about they just build me one in steel?

I know--I could get my brother-in-law to do the welding in aluminuminuminum. He spent lots of years welding up Al seiners and such, and a scow should be a cakewalk for him. Can't you just see a big, shiny, polished silver scow pushing through a Salish Sea sunset, heading for the schooner races in PT? S'pose the "Adventuress" and "Zodiac" folks would mind? And there's any number of aluminum seine skiffs in these parts that would make for a great yawlboat hanging in those aluminum davits. "Clayton Moore" painted on the transom. Hi ho, Silver!

Whoa! Whadaya think--tanbark sails?

[Dave 'doc' Fleming]

Heck Kermit, get one of those 'uptown' painters that makes sheetrock look like marble and have him spray paint the Al. hull in a wood finish and no one will ever know.
They will be amazed at the size of plank you found for your authentic scow.
Definitely tanbark but use tyvek for the material. It is all the rage in the rec.boats.building news group or so it would seem by the number of posts about it.

[Kermit]

They make tanbark Tyvek now? I've heard about woodgrain duct tape. Will wonders never cease?

Maybe it could have the KW or Peterbuilt logo on the mains'l! Get one of those truck painters to airbrush some romantic/fantastic moonlit scene on the topsides. How about a COE cab for a wheelhouse, "Buddy" in italic script under the window. Complete with a sleeper! A turbocharged Cummins in the yawlboat. Hey, I think there's corporate sponsorship in this! Whadaya thinkin' there, good buddy? Come back?

[Dave 'doc' Fleming]

Kermit, I see that you too have vivid imagination.
Since Kenworth is up there getting such a sponser should be easy for ye. <BG>
As an owner and driver of a one of those big rig wanna bee's aka Dodge 3500 Cummins. I am with you in spirit if not in the flesh.
When we, SWIMPAL and I were working at MARCO, we got the eldest a tour of the newer Kenworth factory over by I-5 for his birthday. Young fella didn't come down to earth for days after.
Ah, us boys with our toys, does it ever really change?
PS: Tyvek with a wood grain doesn't ring my chimes. But woodgrain Al. sounds like something that really would intrigue the folks at Boeing for the next generation of big jets. Just imagine, a super 7XXX with wood grained fuselage. Why the mind boggles!
Makes the Spruce Goose look like a piker.

[Kermit]

Okay--okay. I'm getting it. Maybe Boeing could design some nifty airfoils to use as sails. I know a former truck painter who could paint 'em up to look like sails--seams, reef points, whatever. Maybe even a few faux repairs. Gotta get some of the Seattle high-tech in on designing the control systems. This is beginning to make the KALAKALA resurection look positively uninspired!

[Earl]

Kermit,
I drove over the road trucks for 20 years. Peterbuilt conventional cabs are small and the wireing on Kenworths start going to heck in a hand basket after about five years. Give me an International(Barn Yard Buick) Any day.
Earl

[Bear's Oil]

After distilling all the information that I have collected from you guys and after having become somewhat of a scow/sharpie scholar, I think I have an idea of where to start. I hope the building process is shorter than the previous sentence, however.
It sort of boils down to two Chapelle representations: The 22 footer in "Boatbuilding" and the 26 foot "Tuckerton Garvey" in ASSC.
I actually feel I might have the skills to expand these two into a real boat.
The worst case scenario (since I have a good, cheap source of cedar) is that I might end up with the biggest rowboat on the pond...or, since I enjoy gardening I might well have a raised bed capable of handling even potatoes.
But....here come the Q's for you old timers..
1. I want a cheap, simple, safe, portable rig. I am leaning toward a sprit-ketch configuration. Loose footed or sprit-boom? Which makes most sense?
2. The 22 footer is a lee-boarder. Keep the lee boards or go to a center board?
3. Do "forward skegs" and "cutwaters" effectively improve handling in chop?
4. Chapelle mentions using frames on each station as moulds. Makes sense, but how are the frames temporarily tied into the strongback?
This should get this thread moving again!!! I love this

[Kermit]

Hi, Larry--I just got back from Ohio. With some HEAT in the shop, boatbuilding could have been tolerable. But cheap cedar? In Ohio?

The only question I'm able to shed much light on is the sprits'l one. I have a skiff with a sprits'l, and I like the rig very much. I don't think I'd hesitate to do a sprit ketch. As to whether to use a "sprit boom," I recommend it. Both snotters are run aft to cam cleats, and sail adjustments are a snap. It's really easy to tweak sail shape if you're into that performance thing. Sprits'ls also do much better off the wind and in light air with the addition of spritbooms. I can't attest to the use of two sprits'ls, but see no problems. A couple of worthwhile things to consider are some reefpoints (even though I've never used the ones in my sail) and a brailing line for each of your sails. It's great to ease the snotters a bit and pull the sail up to the mast. No sail wallowing around in the way in the cockpit. It's sure an easy rig to set up and strike. I keep the sail lashed to the mast, and roll the bundle around the mast and stow it in a long zippered sailbag. About all there is to rigging it is to drop the unstayed mast into place and then feed five lines to their places--sheet, halyard, two snotters, and the brailing line. Go sailing.

[dadadata]

Larry, I think either would be fine.


1. I want a cheap, simple, safe, portable rig. I am leaning toward a sprit-ketch configuration. Loose footed or sprit-boom? Which makes most sense?

I'm not sure what is a sprit-ketch. A "periauger"? (Two masts, no jib?)

I think you want a sprit boom on your sails. Loose footed sails are a great pain to sheet. it can be done but it's sort of a question of "do you want to enjoy sailing, or become a loose-footed sail sheeting expert?" Sprit booms are a wonderful thing.

If you don't like the sprit poking in front of the mast, do what Commdore Munroe did. Put a yoke or jaw on the mast, and put your snotter at the clew end of the sprit boom.

2. The 22 footer is a lee-boarder. Keep the lee boards or go to a center board?

Leeboards are fine and you'll have a much bigger boat if you keep the CB trunk out of the interior. Jim Michalak and Pihl Bolger both have lots of experience with leeboards, and sail a leeboard sailing canoe, and again, it's fine.


3. Do "forward skegs" and "cutwaters" effectively improve handling in chop?

Bolger advocates a sort of a box-keel. I think it depends on how much chop (where are ya sailing?). Tom Clapham advocated a sort of faux-deadrise section at the bow. Contact me offllist for a scan of a Thos Clapham sharpie plan from Forest & Stream.

I'll also send you some stuff that Conor O'Brien published on his small boat rigs. A ketch with a sprit type rig. Say, I'll also include "at no extra cost" the Commodore's rigging plan for his boat "Utilis", the simplest ketch known to science.

4. Chapelle mentions using frames on each station as moulds. Makes sense, but how are the frames temporarily tied into the strongback?

Beats me. I'd use plywood frames and remove or cut out the parts that need to be cut out after planking.

[CUSTOM SKIFFS AND REPAIR]

Take a look at an alternative scow in the runabout version. I can do a hull in a sailboat version up to the mid 20s'and I am also doing a redoe on a Charles Wittholtz 22' catboat that I have the plans for if you wish the hull done and you finish the boat. www.clis.com/customskiffs

[dadadata]

<<
Jim Michalak and Pihl Bolger both have lots of
experience with leeboards, and sail a leeboard sailing canoe, and again, it's fine.
>>

Ooops, that's **I** sail a leeboard sailing canoe.

[John B]

This is of interest only from a historical point of view but I just took a collection of photos yesterday of an old and dead NZ scow Rahiri ex Daphne.
I've posted a topic in misc on it but here is the album URL http://albums.photopoint.com/j/Album...7037&a=9296203

[Bear's Oil]

Christmas came early in Ohio! Friday's mail brought a mailing tube containing about $50 worth of material from the Smithsonian. Plans for "Rising Gale", an "Egret" type sharpy (ordered for interest sake) and a 24' garvey "gunkholer".
The garvey is a flat bottom, centerboard type apparently based on the "Tuckerton" garvey as defined by Chapelle in ASSC. There are three rigs suggested: gaff, Lake Erie and sprit. The boat has a neat "pop-up" cuddy, choice of radiused or transom type bow, motor well, and a host of other feature many of which have been discussed in this thread. Goes to show...HIC seems to have thought of everything!

[Bear's Oil]

Christmas came early in Ohio! Friday's mail brought a mailing tube containing about $50 worth of material from the Smithsonian. Plans for "Rising Gale", an "Egret" type sharpy (ordered for interest sake) and a 24' garvey "gunkholer".
The garvey is a flat bottom, centerboard type apparently based on the "Tuckerton" garvey as defined by Chapelle in ASSC. There are three rigs suggested: gaff, Lake Erie and sprit. The boat has a neat "pop-up" cuddy, choice of radiused or transom type bow, motor well, and a host of other feature many of which have been discussed in this thread. Goes to show...HIC seems to have thought of everything!

[Alan D. Hyde]

Since Chappelle has come up here, I do have one Chappelle story.

My father was friendly with an English multi-hull (trimaran) designer by the name of Eric Manners. That's another story for another day. But once, as a boy, in the early 1960's when I was maybe 12 or 14, my father (who is an engineer)and I had an hour or two discussion with Howard Chappelle in the Smithsonian.

Mr. Chappelle and my father did most of the talking; I just listened. My father had read and carefully annotated Chappelle's books, and had studied Manner's design rationale carefully, and had corresponded with Manners on it quite a lot.

Chappelle was obviously a master of his subject, and he and my father had a very lively discussion. He was not nearly as smitten with multihulls as was my father, who raced Hobie Cats successfully for many years.

Chappelle had a very dry sense of humor, and advanced his points based on tradition and experience. My father's points of view were based primarily on engineering considerations. They had an amicable discussion, but could not come to an agreement as to the potential value of trimarans for ocean cruising (This was before Art Piver disappeared).

Alan

[This message has been edited by Alan D. Hyde (edited 12-20-2000).]

[BrianCunningham]

At the risk of being sacraligious ( it's not wood )

here's a modern 64 foot version of the scow
1 it's steel
2 it needs a lot of work

But for $3,800???

Drop a trailer on it, and you've got your houseboat!


I've also opened another thread about it in the MISC section http://media4.hypernet.com/~dick/ubb...ML/001389.html

the link to the ad is over there.