RE: [bolger] Re: towable storage & Martha Jane

I am willing to believe that there are seaworthy canoes in your neck of the woods, and I have seen seaworthy "cargo canoes" on James Bay that had big outboards and no more than vague shape relationship to the canoes that people paddle on streams, rivers and lakes. The classic Grummand aluminum canoe typifies the type of canoe I am talking about and people drown in that sort of canoe on a regular basis. I built Windsprint and it seems very much like a canoe - both double ended, shallow sided - and yet in conditions Windsprint was perfectly safe in I had one of the most terrifying experiences of my life - no possible heading to keep water out of the canoe. My cousins who are avid canoeists survived an experience in a very expensive white water canoe they were crossing a lake in only because of their skill and strength and ability to bail and paddle at the same time.

Eric

--- Inbolger@yahoogroups.com, "Roger Padvorac" <roger@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Eric,
> I live near Seattle in the land of oceangoing canoes, and I don't understand what your concern is about canoes. Oceangoing canoes have been in use here for thousands of years. Some of Bolger's sharpies have nearly the same proportions and shape as these oceangoing canoes, and I find it fascinating that he considered this a valuable shape for a plywood boat.
>
> Any boat or canoe with the proportions and shape of the Zephyr is working with the design principles of ocean going canoes.
> www.instantboats.com/zephyr.htm
> The main difference between the Zephyr and ocean going canoes is they have slightly higher sides and a bow that is raised and pointed more than the Zephyr. A major goal of the Instant Boat series was quick, easy, and inexpensive to build. Anybody willing to buy a few more sheets of plywood could raise the sides several inches and the bow a foot or so, and then thicken the bottom of the boat. Besides providing better protection when a wave dumps you on a submerged rock, the thicker bottoms provided a critical bit of ballast.
>
> There are many different kinds of canoes, and so a person would need to match the canoe to the tow boat, and to the expected conditions. There are canoes that can't even cope with ripples on a pond, and then there are canoes for the north Pacific in bad weather.
>
> People travel by canoe from Seattle Washington to Alaska. The fur trappers would take cargo canoes filled with tons of furs down the rapids of major rivers in spring flood. Some canoe styles are extremely seaworthy for a small boat. Besides this, the canoe shape has a small amount of drag compared to regular boats. All of this is part of why so many explorers used large canoes to go exploring. This is why Little and Walsh used a storage canoe to extend their cruising range by increasing the amount of supplies they could take with them.
>
> The book "The Canoe: A Living Tradition" has excellent text and pictures that do an amazing job of conveying the strength and versatility of canoes in a wide range of conditions.
>
> This thread started with a concern that the Martha Jane didn't have enough cargo capacity for an extended cruise where an engine would be used quite a bit and there was a need to take a lot of fuel on the cruise. Yes, towing a storage boat will slow the tow boat down. However if this is only done once in a great while, towing the storage boat to increase cargo capacity is reasonable option compared to buying a bigger boat, with more cargo capacity, that isn't needed or wanted most of the time.
>
> The larger boats, with lots of cargo capacity for supplies for extended cruises, cost lots of money to build or buy, and then cost lots more money for moorage or storage. For many people the only feasible plan for acquiring the cargo capacity for extended cruising is towing an economical storage boat.
>
> Some people enjoy building boats, some don't. Canoes are already optimized for low drag, and so buying a canoe that fitted the conditions of the cruise, and outfitting it with a stout cover is a comparatively quick and easy way to get a towable, seaworthy, storage container.
>
> I don't remember the book "Beachcruising and Coastal Camping" mentioning construction details for the cover, and now thanks to Mark's email of December 19, there are some specific suggestions for making your own cover for a storage boat.
>
> A seagoing canoe with a really stout cover is possibly even more seaworthy than the Martha Jane and other small cruising boats. The covered canoe could survive temporary immersion from a large wave, and I'm not sure the Martha Jane is that seaworthy. So in this context, it seems a storage canoe could be seaworthy enough to match a small cruiser for an occasional extended cruise. This is a key point - the towed storage boat doesn't have to be super seaworthy, it just needs to be as seaworthy as the boat towing it.
>
> Sincerely,
> Roger
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Eric" <eric14850@...>
> To: <bolger@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Sunday, December 19, 2010 6:17 PM
> Subject: [bolger] Re: towable storage & Martha Jane
>
>
> > Canoes are DANGEROUS except when used for their designed purpose streams, ponds, and along shore of lakes. Use a special built torpedo, kayak, or seaworthy row boat covered over as described or otherwise. Torpedo built with four sides having the same curve would be easy to build, and the midsection storage area would not be hard to make water tight.
> >
> > I would be very surprised if towing storage wouldn't slow any mother ship down much more than carrying that load in the mother ship. The only reason I can see for towing storage would be to remove flammables from the mother ship, or because there was no room to store the items on the mother ship.
> >
> > I've towed an 8' pram, 8' planing dinghy, and a Bolger Tortoise. Only the Tortoise towed tolerably, and it noticeably slowed the boat. The other two were like a sea anchor. Bolger says his Light Dory tows well, but... towing crap slows you down. Do it only if you have no better choice.
> > Eric
> >
>

I tow an EP behind my Pearson Triton. It takes .1 or .2 kts off under
power around 5kts. If any water gets in at all from rain or spray it
increases the drag immensely. I can tell from the wake it makes if there
is any weight in it.

http://tritonclass.org/mir/144ta5.jpg

HJ

On 12/19/2010 5:17 PM, Eric wrote:
> Canoes are DANGEROUS except when used for their designed purpose streams, ponds, and along shore of lakes. Use a special built torpedo, kayak, or seaworthy row boat covered over as described or otherwise. Torpedo built with four sides having the same curve would be easy to build, and the midsection storage area would not be hard to make water tight.
>
> I would be very surprised if towing storage wouldn't slow any mother ship down much more than carrying that load in the mother ship. The only reason I can see for towing storage would be to remove flammables from the mother ship, or because there was no room to store the items on the mother ship.
>
> I've towed an 8' pram, 8' planing dinghy, and a Bolger Tortoise. Only the Tortoise towed tolerably, and it noticeably slowed the boat. The other two were like a sea anchor. Bolger says his Light Dory tows well, but... towing crap slows you down. Do it only if you have no better choice.
> Eric
>
>
> --- Inbolger@yahoogroups.com, "Roger Padvorac"<roger@...> wrote:
>> Hi Don,
>> In "Beachcruising and Coastal Camping" by Ida Little and Michael Walsh, they talk about using a regular canoe as a towable storage container for long voyages and expeditions.
>>
>> They rigged a canvas cover for the canoe so in bad weather the waves would wash over it without swamping it. The cover wasn't watertight enough to withstand long immersion, but plenty watertight enough for waves splashing over it. Once the cover is on the canoe, then all airspaces below the cover become flotation. So between this flotation and the cover preventing the canoe from swamping, a covered storage canoe can hold a lot of weight.
>>
>> The canoe would be longer and narrower than a June Bug, and so would have less drag on the tow boat. Also with the narrower width, with the canoe it would be easier to rig a simple canvas storm cover for it.
>>
>> Plus in pinch the canoe can be used as a life boat or tender. If its an emergency, if the cargo canoe is still full of supplies, it would be a better choice to toss out some of those to create capacity for crew.
>>
>> The authors did mention that their first method for securing the cover on the storage canoe wasn't secure enough, and it started coming undone during a storm and the canoe started taking on water. Then they had some difficulty doing a self-rescue. Even a small wave going over a boat has a lot of weight and momentum, so if it was me, I'd test the canoe cover by jumping up and down on it a little bit. I weigh about 155 pounds and if I weighed 250 pounds, then maybe I'd settle for just walking on the cover a bit and bouncing on my toes a bit.
>>
>> Sea water weighs about 64 pounds per cubic foot, so a wave dumping a half foot of water on top of a 17 foot canoe would be thumping about 900 pounds down on the cover. Now that I did some numbers, on second thought, maybe I'd put on a heavy backpack, and then jump up and down on the cover. The most critical scenario is the worst storm you will be in, so that's the one you need to test for. While it will be nice that the cover keeps the rain off your stuff, if the storage canoe sinks during a storm because the cover was breached (while canoe is still attached to the main boat), that would be a bad problem all around. So making sure the cover on the canoe is truly secure is critical.
>>
>> If you were really wanting the June Bug as a tender, it doesn't seem like it would have much drag when its empty, so the main boat could tow the loaded covered storage canoe and then the June Bug could be towed behind the canoe. For an afternoon sail this would be somewhat awkward, but for an occasional long-range cruise it would be a simple way to increase the total cargo capacity for the expedition without having to own and sail a large boat every time you go out on the water.
>>
>> They make some pretty big cargo canoes, and so with a cover over the whole storage canoe likely you could tow an additional 1,000-2,000 pounds in supplies. So with the smaller cruising boats, with towable storage like this, you could easily double the amount of fuel, water, food, and spares you carry for critical equipment.
>>
>> Then, if you aren't going THAT far, with the storage canoe you can throw back in all the luxuries you were crossing off the list to free up capacity for more fuel and water in the main boat :)
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> Roger
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "daschultz2000"<daschultz8275@...>
>> To:<bolger@yahoogroups.com>
>> Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2010 7:11 PM
>> Subject: [bolger] Re: Martha Jane
>>
>>
>>> Nels,
>>> Yeah you are certainly right about problems in using the sponsons for anything but flotation. Bad idea on my part. A June Bug as a tanker is probably not a bad idea though, and I'm not sure a 15-18hp is a huge amount heavier than a 9.9 so I'm still comfortable with that.
>>>
>>> Building according to plan, Keeping the glass cladding to a minimum, and especially not exceeding the scantlings specified should result in a light boat which has more useful load. I would include an electric pump to empty for ballast for better motoring.
>>>
>>> MJ is a big box and could be readily overloaded I'm sure, but that's not, IMO a design flaw, just something an owner needs to watch.
>>>
>>> Don
>>>
>
>
>
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On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 11:34 AM, Roger Padvorac
<roger@...> wrote:

>
>
>
> Hi Eric,
> I live near Seattle in the land of oceangoing canoes, and I don't understand what your concern is about canoes. Oceangoing canoes have been in use here for thousands of years.

I have posted this before, but it is relevant in this tread now. Here
are two models of these capable oceangoing canoes:

This is the shape favored by the northern groups, especially the
Haida, Tlingit etc.

http://hallman.org/boats/NWCanoe/NWCanoe.png

and this is the shape favored by the excellent southern whalers, the
Nootkan's and the Makah

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hallman/tags/makah/

Canoes are DANGEROUS except when used for their designed purpose streams, ponds, and along shore of lakes. Use a special built torpedo, kayak, or seaworthy row boat covered over as described or otherwise. Torpedo built with four sides having the same curve would be easy to build, and the midsection storage area would not be hard to make water tight.

I would be very surprised if towing storage wouldn't slow any mother ship down much more than carrying that load in the mother ship. The only reason I can see for towing storage would be to remove flammables from the mother ship, or because there was no room to store the items on the mother ship.

I've towed an 8' pram, 8' planing dinghy, and a Bolger Tortoise. Only the Tortoise towed tolerably, and it noticeably slowed the boat. The other two were like a sea anchor. Bolger says his Light Dory tows well, but... towing crap slows you down. Do it only if you have no better choice.
Eric

--- Inbolger@yahoogroups.com, "Roger Padvorac" <roger@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Don,
> In "Beachcruising and Coastal Camping" by Ida Little and Michael Walsh, they talk about using a regular canoe as a towable storage container for long voyages and expeditions.
>
> They rigged a canvas cover for the canoe so in bad weather the waves would wash over it without swamping it. The cover wasn't watertight enough to withstand long immersion, but plenty watertight enough for waves splashing over it. Once the cover is on the canoe, then all airspaces below the cover become flotation. So between this flotation and the cover preventing the canoe from swamping, a covered storage canoe can hold a lot of weight.
>
> The canoe would be longer and narrower than a June Bug, and so would have less drag on the tow boat. Also with the narrower width, with the canoe it would be easier to rig a simple canvas storm cover for it.
>
> Plus in pinch the canoe can be used as a life boat or tender. If its an emergency, if the cargo canoe is still full of supplies, it would be a better choice to toss out some of those to create capacity for crew.
>
> The authors did mention that their first method for securing the cover on the storage canoe wasn't secure enough, and it started coming undone during a storm and the canoe started taking on water. Then they had some difficulty doing a self-rescue. Even a small wave going over a boat has a lot of weight and momentum, so if it was me, I'd test the canoe cover by jumping up and down on it a little bit. I weigh about 155 pounds and if I weighed 250 pounds, then maybe I'd settle for just walking on the cover a bit and bouncing on my toes a bit.
>
> Sea water weighs about 64 pounds per cubic foot, so a wave dumping a half foot of water on top of a 17 foot canoe would be thumping about 900 pounds down on the cover. Now that I did some numbers, on second thought, maybe I'd put on a heavy backpack, and then jump up and down on the cover. The most critical scenario is the worst storm you will be in, so that's the one you need to test for. While it will be nice that the cover keeps the rain off your stuff, if the storage canoe sinks during a storm because the cover was breached (while canoe is still attached to the main boat), that would be a bad problem all around. So making sure the cover on the canoe is truly secure is critical.
>
> If you were really wanting the June Bug as a tender, it doesn't seem like it would have much drag when its empty, so the main boat could tow the loaded covered storage canoe and then the June Bug could be towed behind the canoe. For an afternoon sail this would be somewhat awkward, but for an occasional long-range cruise it would be a simple way to increase the total cargo capacity for the expedition without having to own and sail a large boat every time you go out on the water.
>
> They make some pretty big cargo canoes, and so with a cover over the whole storage canoe likely you could tow an additional 1,000-2,000 pounds in supplies. So with the smaller cruising boats, with towable storage like this, you could easily double the amount of fuel, water, food, and spares you carry for critical equipment.
>
> Then, if you aren't going THAT far, with the storage canoe you can throw back in all the luxuries you were crossing off the list to free up capacity for more fuel and water in the main boat :)
>
> Sincerely,
> Roger
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "daschultz2000" <daschultz8275@...>
> To: <bolger@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2010 7:11 PM
> Subject: [bolger] Re: Martha Jane
>
>
> >
> > Nels,
> > Yeah you are certainly right about problems in using the sponsons for anything but flotation. Bad idea on my part. A June Bug as a tanker is probably not a bad idea though, and I'm not sure a 15-18hp is a huge amount heavier than a 9.9 so I'm still comfortable with that.
> >
> > Building according to plan, Keeping the glass cladding to a minimum, and especially not exceeding the scantlings specified should result in a light boat which has more useful load. I would include an electric pump to empty for ballast for better motoring.
> >
> > MJ is a big box and could be readily overloaded I'm sure, but that's not, IMO a design flaw, just something an owner needs to watch.
> >
> > Don
> >
>