A Seil in California

[Thorne]

Re: A Seil in California

Looking good, although it looks like your initial determination to not overthink the oars may have slipped a bit... ;-)

Since ash isn't known for having much rot resistance, you may want to glass the CB and finish it bright. That will make it much easier to spot any damage to the wood after a few years. My CB's always seem to have the dual function of depth finder as well as foil.

[pez_leon]

Re: A Seil in California

More oars! Both cheeks are glued on to the already tapered loom. The same taper is then bandsawed into the cheeks. The tapered loom serves as a guide to bring the cheeks into plane.


The scrub plane makes quick work of this job. I am constantly surprised by how useful this tool is. When you're using it right, it makes an unzipping sound as it breaks back these fat shavings.


All four oars are planed smooth and ready to be shaped. The template makes quick work of marking out.


But where did the template come from?


The patterns arrived a few days ago from France. Included on this mylar sheet is a full-scale drawing of the oar blade. Once the pattern is unrolled and the builders are silently cowed by the scale of the thing they have committed to make, one need only slip a piece of scrap wood behind the mylar and trace the desired shape with a pounce wheel. Voila- your template is laid out in the form of tiny pinpricks. I was curious to see how accurate I could make this step (it's going to matter a lot more when I'm laying out the strakes!) I'm reasonably pleased with the results. I think I can do better next time if I can convince my manager not to repeatedly get his head, feet, and arms between my eyes and the pounce wheel. Or to not dance a jig on the slippery template.

[pez_leon]

Re: A Seil in California

The oars finally look a bit like oars. This is the last chance to shape them together.


The blades are to be shaped from a rougly trangular cross-section where they meet the loom into a flat rectangular cross section at the tip of the blade. Many saw kerfs down to layout lines allow accuracy and prevent uncontrolled splitting.


The mallet is stolen and banged against the workbench while the manager belts show tunes at full volume.

[nrs5000]

Re: A Seil in California

The mallet is stolen and banged against the workbench while the manager belts show tunes at full volume.

That's awesome, my boys appropriated my mallet this weekend to reenact scenes from Asterix the Gaul!

[pez_leon]

Re: A Seil in California

Since ash isn't known for having much rot resistance, you may want to glass the CB and finish it bright. That will make it much easier to spot any damage to the wood after a few years. My CB's always seem to have the dual function of depth finder as well as foil.

I like this idea a lot. I, too, get double duty from my foils.

[Michael_Owen]

Re: A Seil in California

I used ash just as you did for a daggerboard and it has been great. A bit different, since it is not submerged all the time. But if you're trailer-sailing it should be fine.

Mike

[FF]

Re: A Seil in California

With such beautiful oars you will never need an outboard and your boat will look so much better.
Frank

https://www.oarandsail.nl

[callsign222]

Re: A Seil in California

This is one of my most favorite Vivier designs. If I was living further south in quieter and warmer water I’d have this boat. Maybe even here, for Maine, maybe... but it was right on the line for my kind of sailing up here which can be rowdy with consequences and I passed. It’s the consummate river boat, I grew up on a large river and man, whoa she’d be perfect there.

damn I love this design!

Rig wise maybe contemplate a standing lug with a spritboom. You’d get the tensioning aspect of a boom with the boomless lug versatility. It will be lighter and easier to handle than a full boom. Some days you could skip the boom if you wanted. Vivier might be happy to draw you one. See: Ilur Waxwing for reference. Carbon helps here with friendliness immensely.

[pez_leon]

Re: A Seil in California

Lots and lots of carving:





Carving handles. John DeLapp's excellent oar plans refer to this shape (defined by the overlapping circles just visibly scribed in the end-grain of the handle) as a "modified norse grip". I made my last set of oars to his plans and liked it.





Yielding something still unfinished, but oar shaped.



James

[pez_leon]

Re: A Seil in California

Pictured above is the first pair of oars. This boat has two rowing stations and thus calls for two pair. The second pair will be a bit different. Why?

it looks like your initial determination to not overthink the oars may have slipped a bit... ;-)

That's why

First, a disclaimer: Don't take anything below as a reflection on Mr. Vivier's oar plan. Any issues I flag were likely a result of my decision to change things.

As designed, the oars for the Seil 18 ride on thole pins.

Picture not mine, found via google images - Fabianbush.com?

I'm sure this works great, but I figured I'd stick with an oarlock system I know and love. I'll install open-topped oarlocks on this boat. I do occasionally feather my oars and I like to change my hand position from a full overlap to something futher apart, which thole pins wouldn't allow.
Vivier's plans call for mostly square sections in the loom. So that I could use oarlocks, I slightly reduced the section of the loom from the oarlock to the blade and then rounded them so that they could move within the oarlock. That's a change that could affect the balance of the oar.
The balance of the oar is also affected by the shape of the loom inboard of the oarlock. However, this "inboard portion" ended up really small in the pair of oars pictured above because the Seil is designed to allow two smaller rowers to row side-by-side at a single station. If I were building this boat a few years ago I would briefly smiled at this idea before throwing it out and making what I thought would work best for me alone. Now, I have two rapidly growing oarsmen to consider, and if I stretch my imagination I can just barely imagine them pulling sweeps. Maybe even pulling sweeps while I idly drink coffee and admire the landscape. If these strapping lads are to row abreast, they'll need to extend each oar pretty far out of the boat, meaning that I'll place the buttons awful close to the handles, meaning that there's very little inboard loom to counterbalance the blade. As a result, these oars don't balance as I'd like.



Pete Culler specifies that oars should balance within 12" of the oarlock. John DeLapp calls for a hand balance weight of 1 3/4 lbs. These oars balance around 22" from the oarlock (assuming one is rowing with a one-hand overlap) and have a hand balance weight somewhere around 3.5 lbs. Not perfect. On the other hand, I do so like making oars. I won't feel too bad if I need to make a new pair.

Because I'm making two pairs of oars for this boat, I'll make the second pair balance properly for a one-hand overlap. I'm taking the looms down to round now. It's my first time using a spar gauge and I'm pleased with the results- and also happy to make my learner's mistakes here and not on my mast!

James

[pez_leon]

Re: A Seil in California

Rig wise maybe contemplate a standing lug with a spritboom. You’d get the tensioning aspect of a boom with the boomless lug versatility.

Thanks for the suggestion. I don't know enough about rigs to properly weigh the benefits of "the tensioning aspect of a boom". Would you please elaborate?

James

[callsign222]

Re: A Seil in California

Boomless sails are floppy and sometimes can be difficult to manage depending on point of sail and wind strength. But perhaps the sailor isn't interested in a larger cumbersome boom at head level, (though two Seils pictured above have traditional booms.) Enter: Spritboom. It's lighter and smaller, managed with a snotter, which tensions the sail, and is located higher on the sail. For me, it's the best of both worlds.

Just an idea.

[WI-Tom]

Re: A Seil in California

Boomless sails are floppy and sometimes can be difficult to manage depending on point of sail and wind strength. But perhaps the sailor isn't interested in a larger cumbersome boom at head level, (though two Seils pictured above have traditional booms.) Enter: Spritboom. It's lighter and smaller, managed with a snotter, which tensions the sail, and is located higher on the sail. For me, it's the best of both worlds.

It's always interesting to hear other thoughts about this. My own views have evolved now in my 4th year with my Alaska with its boomless standing lugsail. A few thoughts:

A. I think a boomless standing lug might be the perfect rig if you are looking for a boat that will disallow "type A" behavior, such as fiddling with adjustments and tweaking things. There's only a sheet, and a downhaul. That's it. If you're the kind of sailor who finds that comforting, a boomless sail may be right for you (it sure is for me). If, on the other hand, you find yourself thinking "There's a lot of twist in that sail, and I can't control it!" (while wishing you could)--well, a boomless rig is probably not for you.

If, on the other other hand, you notice the sail twist and think to yourself, "There's a lot of twist in that sail! It's spilling enough wind that I don't even need to reef quite yet," then again, the boomless sail may be for you.

B. As long as you get the sheeting point right, a boomless sail will perform well. You won't be able to let the sheet out much for downwind, but that doesn't matter. You'll be faster to keep it sheeted in a bit and tack downwind in a series of gybes. One of the most common justifications for a boom I hear is for downwind work, but I've concluded it just doesn't matter.

C. I haven't found my boomless standing lug to be floppy or difficult to manage--I'd be curious to here more about what you mean?

In very light airs for downwind work, I find I sometimes rig an oar to hold the sail out. Simple and easy to do, mainly to prevent the annoyance of constant gybing if you have to sail dead downwind (as I did last weekend while exploring a local creek). That's about the only time I can think of that a boomless sail might be described as "floppy." Usually it's enough to sit to leeward to keep the sail filled.

I think John Hartman's Ilur has probably hit on the perfect combination of sprit boom and boomless sail to enable fine adjustments and "type A" behavior. But one big advantage of a boomless sail is that it removes the ability (and thus, the need) to make those adjustments!

Tom

[callsign222]

Re: A Seil in California

Thanks for pointing this out.

Disclaimer to pez_leon: I am 100% Type A Sailor-Man and I view my sailing through the lens of racing Lasers, 420s, GIS's and other higher-octane boats. I demand efficiency and speed in the rig and abhor floppiness, which is undoubtedly subjective and relates to my past experience.

Traditional-ish hull with carbon spars, full battens, and spectra? That's me.

[WI-Tom]

Re: A Seil in California

Thanks for pointing this out.

Disclaimer to pez_leon: I am 100% Type A Sailor-Man and I view my sailing through the lens of racing Lasers, 420s, GIS's and other higher-octane boats. I demand efficiency and speed in the rig and abhor floppiness, which is undoubtedly subjective and relates to my past experience.

Traditional-ish hull with carbon spars, full battens, and spectra? That's me.

It'd be fun to go sailing with you sometime, and watch your furtive eyeballing of all the things I should be doing to maximize performance, but don't do.

And then see what happens when you take the tiller!

Actually, I'm sure there are things I won't even notice--we're often talking fractions of a knot, I'm guessing, for racing sailors. But it'd be interesting to see if you'd change anything about the rig and/or procedures to get the most out of it as is.

Tom