surf row boat

[mupwi]

Hi all I am looking for plans for a boat that I can use to row out through the surf ( around a 5ft break) to go fishing and snorkeling at some reefs about a mile offshore.

Something I can handle by myself and sometimes take one passenger/second rower. I was thinking of something like a dory one of those ones with the flat sides for easy building decked in the bow and stern. to give buoyancy if it does get swamped by a wave.

btw how stable are dorys for geting into from deep water I hear they get more stable as there gunel tilts closer to the water as it would when geting back in from the side just want to make sure it would make a practical dive boat otherwise I was thinking a small outriger float that could be riged for boarding at sea

[Captain Blight]

I think you've got exactly the right idea. maybe with a small sail for the stern so she'll ride head-to wind in one location and not swing around all over the place. Sharks live around reefs, you know, and it might be nice to get the fish in the boat quickly.

[keyhavenpotterer]

For two oarsmen, not sure about one, Paul Garside's Surf Dory






http://www.gartsideboats.com/catrow2.php#154

[RFNK]

If you really mean 5' surf, then a dory, decked or non-decked, isn't going to serve your purpose. If you're intending to row or paddle out through breaking 5' waves then you need a craft that will actually penetrate the waves as you can't actually row over a breaking 5' wave (the surf in the post above looks about 2-3'). If you put an outrigger on a boat for the surf, you need to be sure that it can be turned upright by the number of people you intend to carry. Polynesian outriggers built for this purpose are essentially hollowed out logs that the crew sit on top of rather than in - they don't hold much water, and they're designed so that the crew can flip them upright. Even so, these were designed to be paddled out through breaks in the reef rather than through breaking waves. Your best bet would be a fully enclosed ocean kayak or surf ski that can be boarded with reasonable ease. An open boat for just one or two people isn't practical or safe for handling 5' breaking waves, and an outrigger on such a boat would just increase the risk and difficulty.



This wave might be close to 5'. I wouldn't like to be trying to row a dory over it. Rick

[Chris Ostlind]

How do YOU measure waves for height estimation, RFNK?

[Thad Van Gilder]

The local lifeguard boats do a great job in 5 foot breakers easily. They are based on seabright skiffs, are 17 feet, and are very good rowboats. I am far from in good athletic shape, but I can still row one through the surf single handed. The important thing is to learn to launch in low sea conditions and time your push off just right to start pulling before the next breaker hits you.

By the way, they are open boats, and used to be made of wood. I replaced a stem on an old wood Van Sant. The next 'glass ones are made by Van Duyne in Linwood, NJ and Tony Petroni in Ventnor, NJ

-Thad

[TerryLL]

We just had a very long discussion on this subject. A review of the comments might be helpful. Here's the link:

http://www.woodenboat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=89809

It would be very helpful to know where in the world you are, and to have pics of the surf you're dealing with.

[mupwi]

I live in Durban south Africa and do some free dive spearfishing at the moment I have to just swim out through the waves with all my gear I use an old bodyboard at the moment for a float wich helps along with my long fins and just dive I bit beyond the back line but I want to get out to the better reefs further out. we don't have much problem here with the sharks they hang around and sometimes steel fish off your float but very rarely bother divers.

My outrigger idea was more for something that could be rigged just for wet boarding and stowed for actually rowing around I will try get a pic of the surf this weekend I would normally launch in more protected launch areas with a break around 2-3 foot but would like 5 foot upper limit for a safety margin I could take my mirror dingy out if it was flat but I wouldent trust it if the surf picked up at all and I don't what to limit my self to perfect days or I might never get out there.

When I was younger I used to surf a 10foot break I bit down the coast and would never think of rowing through that but I think 5 foot is doable.

rfnk unles those are children in that boat I would say that is at least 8 foot judging by the size of the men and there sweeps

[TerryLL]

Here's my initial thoughts:

A double-ended surf dory or gunning dory is an ideal boat in surf, both going out, and more importantly, returning to the beach. Without some modification they are unsuitable as dive boats, because they are tender, and will roll the gunnel under with the weight of one diver climbing aboard.

You might consider carrying a couple large tubular boat fenders under the seats. Once beyond the surf these fenders could be mounted just under the gunnel. You would need some eye-straps on the outside of the hull for tying on the fenders. The buoyancy of the fenders would allow you to climb in without filling the boat.

Or you might just consider a row of fenders permanently mounted along each side, ugly, but effective.

[Ian McColgin]

For this job I like the Chamberlain gunning dory (John Gardner's book) better than the excellent Garside as it's lower and more readily rowed by one person. Off the Oregon beach I was unafraid to take Leeward out through surf I could see the horizon over if I stood at the low ebb of the waves on the sand. This put the waves about 6' trough to crest, which is how most oceanographers measure. Measuring ambient sealevel to crest results in an estimate of half that, but is not useful in how the wave is experienced.

A power boat must drive through the wave and has a very hard time when the motor cavitates. Oars are safer in surf. If you get the stroke timed rightly, you'll fairly easily hold the boat in place as the wave goes under - mostly, lot's of spray and slosh if you catch a curl.

Leeward had the first and last stations bulkheaded and foamed so swamped she'd float high. She had an inner bottom 2" above the real bottom - also foamed - so she'd float high enough to self-bail through a pair of Elvstroms when light or when moving forward even moderatly laden.

I found the installation of the rudder and especially the centreboard essential for easy rowing against strong winds - tack, don't buck it directly.

When coming in through surf I either:

Turned around (midships oarlocks could be managed from the aft of center thwart that way, from the back end of the CB trunk when going forewards) and rowed against the waves as they overtook me, backwatered in on the slicks. Had to do this after the rudder was installed as even pulled up it would grab the water when that end of the boat was pointed down.

Or

Steering oarlock was mounded just ahead of the last frame, canted out a little, and I could steer from there to catch the wave, ship oars and stand, steer and surf. Tres exciting and not always dry . . .

Note: If you have a two or more break beach like we had in Oregon, seeing over the first break for measure - about 6' - means you'll be facing something higher in the next or third breaks. But they are also farther apart and you should be able to pick a pull through that does not leave you victemized by being at the bottom of a breaking curl.

With practice, you'll learn your limits. The nice thing about a boat that will self=-bail when empty is that as you learn and take some inevitable dumps all you have to do is hang on to your oars and ease in somewhere near the boat till you both roll past the surf.

Once you're carrying gear for real, everything should have it's secure stowage - build in tank racks probably either side of the CB trunk and maybe draining boxes for masks and fins and spears and whatnot - so everything can stay lashed in place and not become part of the free surface problem when (WHEN, not IF) you are rowing with the boat awash.

Have fun &

G'luck

[Ian McColgin]

Oh yeah, swimming aboard. Leeward's rail would kiss the water when I put my 220# on the rail - I could walk the rail in flat water without shipping any. This made swimming aboard really easy and only shipped a few gallons. Forget having fenders or extra floatation, at least with the Chamberlain. A conventional dory would swamp if you try that and I think the Garside is a little high to take that level of roll without also taking too much water.

G'luck

[RFNK]

The estimation of wave size is a debatable point. of course. Personally, I reckon if a wave stands about 5' above the apparent sea level, then it's a 5' wave. Sandbar or reef shape, a bit of backwash etc. will kick sections of it up a bit more, and a surfboat crashing through it will make that part of the wave look a bit bigger too, but having seen many surfboats going in and out of the surf, I can tell you that the wave in the photo above is really only about 5'.

5' surf in Durban is pretty serious surf to be rowing about in. It's not an area with gently sloping beaches and waves rolling in. It's like Australia - the waves stand up and break, and there's rarely much time between one breaking wave and the next. A bigger boat with a crew can handle this most of the time (and the difficulties and disasters associated with surfboats in the hands of experts in moderate surf are legendary) but a single-handed dory would be just grist for the mill. A proper surf craft, built to take you through breaking waves, that can't be swamped, that can have an ourigger or stabiliser added beyond the break perhaps, would be much more manageable and safer in my opinion.

If the area under consideration has deep channels or other ways to bypass the surf, then, great! A rowboat sounds perfect. But, if it's really about taking off from the beach to get through the break, then a surf ski or good ocean kayak would make a whole lot more sense. Rick

[TerryLL]

Oh yeah, swimming aboard. Leeward's rail would kiss the water when I put my 220# on the rail - I could walk the rail in flat water without shipping any. This made swimming aboard really easy and only shipped a few gallons. Forget having fenders or extra floatation, at least with the Chamberlain. A conventional dory would swamp if you try that and I think the Garside is a little high to take that level of roll without also taking too much water.

G'luck

Ian,
How was your Chamberlain built, and do you have some idea of her weight? The two Swampscotts I built would definitely go rail-under with the weight of one person. Your dory sounds ideal to the task.

[Ian McColgin]

I built her just as Gardiner show - seam batten style. Very tender initial stability and huge stability at rail almost down. I used to work standing on the garboard/midstrake seam most comfortably to have a low rail for hauling.

Swimming aboard did ship some water, all due to the thrust which adds to the body weight, but the amount is trivial. Just muscle up on the rail and roll the hips over sideways so you end up in the boat dorsel side down.

To another comment: It is important to state what is meant by wave height. I usually mention trough to crest even though this is ocenographer's and seaman's convention. If one want to call wave height as height above mean sea level, that's worth a mention. The problem with thant method is it does not account for the height one experiences in "negative waves" aka "holes" that in compound conditions can happen just as "rouge" waves happen. To my mind, the normal oceanographer's and seaman's convention of trough to crest makes sense as that's the size a vessel must overcome.

I might note that despite numerous broaches while surfing, Leeward never actually rolled over. At least in the seas I was in, she'd surf sidewise just fine. This was due to the roundish shap with fairly low angle garboards.

[neilm]

Dories are great but you might consider an ocean kayak if it's just you. 5ft surf seems pretty big for a dory small enough for one person to row.

If you have 2-3 people I'd go with John Gardner's Surf Dory.

Neil

[Ian McColgin]

I also enjoy kayaking and there's nothing like it for harsh ocean conditions, but I don't think it would be my first choise for lugging dive gear and perhaps a friend.

In the conditions contemplated, the smaller Chamberlain is good for one or two people. If you'll always have two or more, then a bigger boat is possible.

Enjoy & G'luck

[RFNK]

At sea, measuring waves from trough to crest makes perfect sense - of course. But once those waves hit a reef or a sandbar, they change shape and apparent size according to the shape of the bottom, the swell direction, the wind direction, the speed of the swell and deflection from other waves, including backwash. For example, the photo above of the surfboat crashing through a wave, shows a wave that appears quite large but this is most likely because it's breaking on a shallow sandbar - there's no longer the trough that the same wave would have before it at sea. Of course there's still some trough but nothing like the reasonably equal trough and height which is normal at sea. This effect is compounded by the offshore wind holding the crest back from breaking, so the wave becomes a little taller and steeper.

Anyway, it's MUPWI that knows what sort and size of surf he's planning to navigate. If it's going to be a lot smaller than what a surfer would usually call 5', then, no problem! I do wonder though how we can be talking about boats that can't be boarded without tipping a whole lot of water into them in the process but thinking that the same boat can be rowed through reasonable surf?

[Paul Fitzgerald]

I recall seeing pics of a surf dory somewhere which had a false floor enclosing a bouyancy tank.

The floor was above the waterline, and the boat had scuppers amidships with flaps so water could run out but not in, a bit like the transom flaps on a racing dinghy.
Seemed like a good idea, if you were swamped the boat automatically drained.

I also had a mate who built a Banks dory (straight sided) for diving, it was a real flop, there is no form stability and it was very difficult to get into it from the water without flipping the boat.

[Ian McColgin]

There's a reason that oceanographers and sailors speak of waves when "feeling the bottom" both "rising up" and "slowing down." The reason is that it's literally true, as anyone who has followed a wave chain over a bar will have readily observed. That's why an ocean wave might be but a few feet crest to trough and a few hundred feet crest to crest while depending on the shape of the beach it could ramp up to a few fathoms trough to crest and less than ten fathoms crest to breaking crest.

Wave height is most readily understood as the height a boat or other floating object rises from the lowest water point in front of the wave to the crest.

With Leeward - the gunning dory - the shape was such that, as I mentioned, I could walk the gunnel in flat water. With that much form stability at max heel - I weighed over 200# - you can see that essentially swimming aboard over a rail that was barely a half inch over the surface was easy. Of course with the pushing and all of the boarding, the boat rocked and shipped some water, but nothing much. Unlike many other boat shapes, the gunning dory will not actually flip over even with lots of weight on the rail. In some of my swamping tests I found the strongest way to bring her down was to stand on the gunnel holding the mast and really yanking. Even then, rather than flip right over she'd get rail down and slide under. Once well swamped, the high bouyancy in the bow and stern would right her.

Anyway, it's a great shape to swim aboard. I never tried to swim on with scuba gear but I think I'd shuck the tank, BC and weights; tie them alongside; swim aboard; and then recover the gear.

[keyhavenpotterer]

Ian, your description of walking the gunnel is very impressive. The hull shape and its buoyancy when on it's side, just keeping the gunnel at water level with all your weight on it is quite something. Does anyone have the lines plan, for this exact gunning dory, on a file which they could post here so we can look further at her lines?

Could I ask what you would estimate as her weight? Her weight could help counteract your weight on the gunnel. If she's a light weight then that's even more impressive.

Thanks, Brian

[TerryLL]

Ian's dory is the Chamberlain gunning dory as drawn by John Gardner. Lines, offsets, and building instructions can be found in The Dory Book, by John Gardner.

[Ian McColgin]

Also in his "Building Classic Small Craft."

Side bit - I started fooling with building her in '75. Wrote letters to John and, being so much smarter then than he was, departed from his strong back recommendation which caused the stems to spread during planking and Leeward's actually abuot an inch longer than designed. Also the garboard's upper edge takes an interesting wave like curve in the forward two feet.

But anyway, a few years later I got a letter from some hippies with no phone in the Maine woods who wanted $100 and promiced a lifetime subscription to a rag that looked likely to last maybe three issues. Seems John had handing over his mailing list.

By then I was hand longlineing ling cod off the beach and Leeward was proving her quality. But the timber recession was deep and most of my sales were really off-book barter and I really could not get $100 up. Total bummer.

Though you know, Pete Culler and George Kelley had the offer and wanting the magazine to happen but, being both a nudge frugal, they flipped a coin and Mr. Kelley got to spend the C.

Anyway, an aside.

Oh yeah - I departed from the plan by capping the gunnels wide enough (4" amidships) for comfortable hiking out. This helps keep the gunnel from sinking under water with my weight. Also, when walking I balance with an oar across to the garboard/midstrake corner. Naturally some of my weight goes there so perhaps I'm not putting a full 220# down on the gunnel. Still, she's got stunning rail-down stability. In numerous broaches in surf, she never rolled over but rather surfed sideways happily while crew and I wallowed helplessly against the garboard.

Should I build another Leeward, I think I'd try lapstrake rather than seam-batten. Epoxy glued plywood lap is no harder to make than seambatten, which I did not know at the time, and much easier to keep clean inside. In that case, I'd glass up to the top of the garboards, rather than all the hull as with Leeward.

[Bill Lowe]

I used a 17'Foldboat Kayak as a dive boat it would take fairly large surf and you could slither over the aft deck. The only time I had trouble was at Anchor Bay in northern Calif. 2 of us aboard and were semi swamped by unusually large breaker the next one pitch-poled us and we hit bottom and broke a stringer. We lashed a piece of driftwood in and the next had good diving. I spent several months in Durban at the YC and saw crews training in some awesome but surf boats but with a large crew. Good luck on your adventures.

[floatingkiwi]

If you are thinking of using a surf boat or similar,(as in the pic), and there is only one or two people on board, you will regret it. Those boats are designed to be exactly perpendicular to waves ,( requiring a skilled tillerman), and the usual several people powering the craft, give it the necessary speed and power to make each challenge possible. I call the waves challenges because every one is different in its own marvellous way. The waves in the photo are 1 foot windslop. I f a 5 foot wave was bearing down to break in front of me and I was in control of anything larger than my surfboard, I would be considering abandoning the vessel.
Get an inflatable with a solid hull, aluminium or glass, and with the right power you can run off the surf if needed and time your penetrations safely.
Safety first.
Kerry
For wet entry into an high sided boat, one could rig up a device with which to board over the stern and eliminate rolling her laterally.

[mupwi]

thanks for all the advice guys I think for now I will build an outrigger for my hammerhead racing ski with a spear gun rack for diving alone no need fore tanks ect. I only dive breath hold as for calmer days launching from more protected areas with mates or for going for a picnic on the lake with the girlfriend I am considering this one http://butlerprojects.com/boats/rowdory/index.htm with some more enclosed foamed decks in the bow and stern as suggested small enough for one big enough for 2.

TerryLL your idea of the fenders to attach to the gunnel was prety much exactly what I was thinking when I mentioned a derigable outrigger for boarding.

[mupwi]

thanks for all the advice guys I think for now I will build an outrigger for my hammerhead racing ski with a spear gun rack for diving alone no need for tanks ect. I only dive breath hold.

As for calmer days launching from more protected areas with mates or for going for a picnic on the lake with the girlfriend I am considering this one http://butlerprojects.com/boats/rowdory/index.htm with some more enclosed foamed decks in the bow and stern as suggested small enough for one big enough for 2. has anyone had any experience with this design.

TerryLL your idea of the fenders to attach to the gunnel was pretty much exactly what I was thinking when I mentioned a derigable outrigger for boarding.