Re: BIRDS
The first words that came to mind when I saw the photos was "Romp" - anyone else?
The kick-up rudder blade is "Bolger" looking in profile shape. Is it an off-centre centreboard then?
Thanks for sharing your photos. She's a larger boat than I thought it to be. I'm looking forward to viewing the interior and detail shots.
The kick-up rudder blade is "Bolger" looking in profile shape. Is it an off-centre centreboard then?
Thanks for sharing your photos. She's a larger boat than I thought it to be. I'm looking forward to viewing the interior and detail shots.
--- Inbolger@yahoogroups.com, "rjtrane" <jtrane@...> wrote:
> I have recently found a few photos of the Summer Hen - uploaded to an album, "Summer Hen."
> Once I find some detail photos, interiors, etc., I'll post to the same album.
> --- Inbolger@yahoogroups.com, "Peter" <pvanderwaart@> wrote:
> > > Are there any photos of the wooden Summer Hen then?
> >As I recall, no centerboard trunk in the cabin. Did the boat have bilgeboards?
A wonderful boat. Dare I say the biggest dinghy ever? If that can't
make your heart sing on a friendly afternoon, nothing will.
Did Philip Bolger develop this with you?
rjtrane:
make your heart sing on a friendly afternoon, nothing will.
Did Philip Bolger develop this with you?
rjtrane:
> I have recently found a few photos of the Summer Hen - uploaded to
> an album, "Summer Hen."
>
I have recently found a few photos of the Summer Hen - uploaded to an album, "Summer Hen."
Regarding the tabernacle of the Summer Hen - Since the mast was too long and too heavy for a single person to raise or lower without some mechanical advantage, we designed it to work with a worm-drive winch (Merriman centerboard winch). This was fastened to the base of the mast, about 3' from the pivot point, and it essentially pulled DOWN the base in order to raise the mast. Since it was a worm drive, it was completely safe - you could walk away from winching (to sneeze or have lunch) and the mast would remain at whatever position you'd achieved - raised, lowered, half raised, etc. Was it a bit complicated? Yes. Was it easy and safe to use? Yes. Is there a better solution? I don't know.
Once I find some detail photos, interiors, etc., I'll post to the same album.
Of interest, I am reverting towards the simplicity of my Hens with my current project - electric powered cruising yachts using renewable (solar) energy. Of course, these are not really "simple" nor inexpensive - but aimed in that direction.
Regarding the tabernacle of the Summer Hen - Since the mast was too long and too heavy for a single person to raise or lower without some mechanical advantage, we designed it to work with a worm-drive winch (Merriman centerboard winch). This was fastened to the base of the mast, about 3' from the pivot point, and it essentially pulled DOWN the base in order to raise the mast. Since it was a worm drive, it was completely safe - you could walk away from winching (to sneeze or have lunch) and the mast would remain at whatever position you'd achieved - raised, lowered, half raised, etc. Was it a bit complicated? Yes. Was it easy and safe to use? Yes. Is there a better solution? I don't know.
Once I find some detail photos, interiors, etc., I'll post to the same album.
Of interest, I am reverting towards the simplicity of my Hens with my current project - electric powered cruising yachts using renewable (solar) energy. Of course, these are not really "simple" nor inexpensive - but aimed in that direction.
--- Inbolger@yahoogroups.com, "Peter" <pvanderwaart@...> wrote:
>
> > Are there any photos of the wooden Summer Hen then?
> > Please, please post any if you can for Bolger fans to view.
>
> I was on the Summer Hen at the Newport Small Boat show. I was interested in a boat of that size at the time, though I don't think I could have afforded a brand new one. I doubt there is any chance I could find the pictures I took.
>
> I had a couple of impressions. The rig looked small to my eye, but the main had a powerful, heavily roached shape, and it's easy to be fooled. Mr. Bolger had a habit of supplying plenty of sail and letting people reef. I don't remember the cockpit, but the interior was quite nice with comfortable sitting/sleeping.
>
> The boat was setup with a tabernacle for the mast which was a rather elaborate metal construction. To me, it looked heavy, expensive and over-complex, and I was quite surprised. Mr. Trane was very clever with the mast-lowering arrangements on his other boats and they were not conspicuous or complicated.
>
> IIRC (it was a long time ago), the layout gave preference to going forward thru the cabin and popping out a hatch rather than going forward topside. This was another of PCB's fairly constant notions. As I recall, no centerboard trunk in the cabin. Did the boat have bilgeboards?
>
> I have a vague memory of reading PCB's remarks about why the boat did not go into production. It didn't help that the prototype was heavy, but I suspect bigger factors were that the tooling would be expensive and the market would be small. E&D never sold a lot of Dovkies and Shearwaters, even with clever and persistent marketing.
>
> If you want a boat something like this, I suggest you hunt up a Shearwater and a Bay Hen and take your pick. The Shearwater is longer and lower inside, and the more complicated boat. Mr. Trane tweaked the Bay Hen to be just about as "no fuss, no muss" as a little cruising boat can be.
>
> Peter
>
> Are there any photos of the wooden Summer Hen then?I was on the Summer Hen at the Newport Small Boat show. I was interested in a boat of that size at the time, though I don't think I could have afforded a brand new one. I doubt there is any chance I could find the pictures I took.
> Please, please post any if you can for Bolger fans to view.
I had a couple of impressions. The rig looked small to my eye, but the main had a powerful, heavily roached shape, and it's easy to be fooled. Mr. Bolger had a habit of supplying plenty of sail and letting people reef. I don't remember the cockpit, but the interior was quite nice with comfortable sitting/sleeping.
The boat was setup with a tabernacle for the mast which was a rather elaborate metal construction. To me, it looked heavy, expensive and over-complex, and I was quite surprised. Mr. Trane was very clever with the mast-lowering arrangements on his other boats and they were not conspicuous or complicated.
IIRC (it was a long time ago), the layout gave preference to going forward thru the cabin and popping out a hatch rather than going forward topside. This was another of PCB's fairly constant notions. As I recall, no centerboard trunk in the cabin. Did the boat have bilgeboards?
I have a vague memory of reading PCB's remarks about why the boat did not go into production. It didn't help that the prototype was heavy, but I suspect bigger factors were that the tooling would be expensive and the market would be small. E&D never sold a lot of Dovkies and Shearwaters, even with clever and persistent marketing.
If you want a boat something like this, I suggest you hunt up a Shearwater and a Bay Hen and take your pick. The Shearwater is longer and lower inside, and the more complicated boat. Mr. Trane tweaked the Bay Hen to be just about as "no fuss, no muss" as a little cruising boat can be.
Peter
Reuben, the Summer Hen #476 info in that post is well sourced, as after eight years lurking in this group I think you would know. Having delurked now, perhaps you may fill in the details if there's more, but I think your timing poor. Why now?
Are there any photos of the wooden Summer Hen then? Please, please post any if you can for Bolger fans to view.
I assure you that in my mind any commercial or personal details are incidental to details about a Bolger design provenance, construction, history, performance and use. Other commercial or personal factors may have a bearing on these considerations, but are in the main quite secondary to those of the design and the designer. It's rather about the boat design, and about PCB and Susanne. It's about the work of PB&F.
Reuben, you certainly have my sympathy for the circumstances you say that led to your company no longer building the Hens. I didn't know that. The sudden loss of a partner is more than enough of a header such that any course may be altered to some considerable degree; and kids come first.
AFAIK, your Florida Bay Boat Company built the first Hens, 1981 to 1987. Then Hen building was licensed to other builders who variously built some or all of the design range. The molds went to Mirage Fiberglass from 1988 to 1991, and to Custom Fiberglass from 1992 to 1997. The molds then went to Soveriegn for 1997. Those boats were poorly built possibly due to Sovereign being on the way to going bust then also. The licensed building of Hens, and their molds then went to Nimble Boats who produced just 13 boats from 1998 to 2003. Nimble themselves ceased both building and business for a time subsequent to the death of Nimble Boats founder Jerry Koch. Nimble came back but not with Hens. The Hen molds were then transferred to Marine Concepts, but no Hens were produced.
I last read a few years ago that the molds were then still extant, but sadly in a bad state and stored outdoors. The Hens are much loved by many, and many more lust after them in vain. So there's an evident demand for them, and for any information about them including where they came from, and why they aren't coming freshly forth now. That information has been provided around the net to varying degree. I think it good that you set the bolgersphere record straight.
I don't know exactly what to make of the discrepancy between your report of your wooden Summer Hen as built and sailed, and the report about same from other close sources - I'd only be guessing. That other info will be found by googling, by searching the various sections in this Yahoo! group webpage sidebar, particularly by widely reading around certain of the Links for context and clues, and by searching the group archives that you seem familiar with.
Are there any photos of the wooden Summer Hen then? Please, please post any if you can for Bolger fans to view.
I assure you that in my mind any commercial or personal details are incidental to details about a Bolger design provenance, construction, history, performance and use. Other commercial or personal factors may have a bearing on these considerations, but are in the main quite secondary to those of the design and the designer. It's rather about the boat design, and about PCB and Susanne. It's about the work of PB&F.
Reuben, you certainly have my sympathy for the circumstances you say that led to your company no longer building the Hens. I didn't know that. The sudden loss of a partner is more than enough of a header such that any course may be altered to some considerable degree; and kids come first.
AFAIK, your Florida Bay Boat Company built the first Hens, 1981 to 1987. Then Hen building was licensed to other builders who variously built some or all of the design range. The molds went to Mirage Fiberglass from 1988 to 1991, and to Custom Fiberglass from 1992 to 1997. The molds then went to Soveriegn for 1997. Those boats were poorly built possibly due to Sovereign being on the way to going bust then also. The licensed building of Hens, and their molds then went to Nimble Boats who produced just 13 boats from 1998 to 2003. Nimble themselves ceased both building and business for a time subsequent to the death of Nimble Boats founder Jerry Koch. Nimble came back but not with Hens. The Hen molds were then transferred to Marine Concepts, but no Hens were produced.
I last read a few years ago that the molds were then still extant, but sadly in a bad state and stored outdoors. The Hens are much loved by many, and many more lust after them in vain. So there's an evident demand for them, and for any information about them including where they came from, and why they aren't coming freshly forth now. That information has been provided around the net to varying degree. I think it good that you set the bolgersphere record straight.
I don't know exactly what to make of the discrepancy between your report of your wooden Summer Hen as built and sailed, and the report about same from other close sources - I'd only be guessing. That other info will be found by googling, by searching the various sections in this Yahoo! group webpage sidebar, particularly by widely reading around certain of the Links for context and clues, and by searching the group archives that you seem familiar with.
--- Inbolger@yahoogroups.com, "rjtrane" <jtrane@...> wrote:
>
> I found this post today (5/23/12) and feel the need to comment.
>
> Phil Bolger did a great job of designing the Summer Hen.
>
> I had built a Black Skimmer and loved her. Others asked me where they could get one, and I told them that I'd built her. It was suggested I build some more. I didn't want to start with a boat that size, so my first production effort was the Marsh Hen, a double-ended sharpie design. She was followed with the Mud Hen, the Bay Hen and the Peep Hen. When I wanted to build something bigger, I went to Phil with the idea of taking the general styling of the Peep Hen and expanding on her to build a suitable sharpie with curves for FRP female production building.
>
> Together, we came up with the Summer Hen. Once the design was complete, we built the prototype from strip-planked cedar and surfaced her in FRP. We never did get around to building a mold.
>
> We took the prototype to the Small Boat Show in Newport RI and came away with several firm orders for the Summer Hen. This was after taking many sails around Newport Harbor. The Summer Hen sailed great, due to Bolger's design. She tracked like she was on rails - but would tack and gybe handily. And she was fast.
>
> But, we were not completely satisfied with her, so we never did make the molds and refunded the deposits from Newport.
>
> I don't know why you get the idea she didn't sail well - because she did. Unless, perhaps you were aboard her in Newport?
>
> I also don't know why you feel the need to discuss the company going bust. It never did go bust. When my wife died of cancer at 42 years of age, I was already developing the Florida Bay Coasters designed with Jay Benford. Becoming a single dad all of a sudden, I felt the need to decide between the Hens and the Coasters. I chose the Coasters and licensed the Hens to other builders - the last of which was Nimble Yachts. Hundreds of Hens were build by myself and more hundreds built under license. Florida Bay Boat Company, closed financially sound. NOT BUST!
>
> Reuben Trane
>
> --- Inbolger@yahoogroups.com, "c.ruzer" <c.ruzer@> wrote:
> >
> > Hens.
> >
> > Summer Hen #476.
> >
> > Designed for:
> >
> > Reuben Trane, The Mad Scientist.
> >
> > 'It started in 1980, when Trane switched from making movies to building sailboats designed for shallow-water cruising, the so-called Florida Bay Hens.
> >
> > "I always loved Phil Bolger's designs because they offer the biggest bang for the buck," Trane says. "At that time I had a small shop in Miami, and my late wife and I talked about building liveaboard power cruisers."'
> >http://www.tradeonlytoday.com/home/497735-reuben-trane-the-mad-scientist
> >
> > IIRC PCB designed the production mold, which was built, but then some nong glassed the mold itself as a boat! Perhaps it was just when the company went bust in untimely fashion? Talk about sinking... Summer Hen didn't go too well! - lotta wood init - no doubt too heavy Phil remarked. Dryly or Astonished? Ended with nothing to crow about. A big pity for the flock (I love 'em, those Henshttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hensnest/).
> >
> > Mad Scientist indeed!
I found this post today (5/23/12) and feel the need to comment.
Phil Bolger did a great job of designing the Summer Hen.
I had built a Black Skimmer and loved her. Others asked me where they could get one, and I told them that I'd built her. It was suggested I build some more. I didn't want to start with a boat that size, so my first production effort was the Marsh Hen, a double-ended sharpie design. She was followed with the Mud Hen, the Bay Hen and the Peep Hen. When I wanted to build something bigger, I went to Phil with the idea of taking the general styling of the Peep Hen and expanding on her to build a suitable sharpie with curves for FRP female production building.
Together, we came up with the Summer Hen. Once the design was complete, we built the prototype from strip-planked cedar and surfaced her in FRP. We never did get around to building a mold.
We took the prototype to the Small Boat Show in Newport RI and came away with several firm orders for the Summer Hen. This was after taking many sails around Newport Harbor. The Summer Hen sailed great, due to Bolger's design. She tracked like she was on rails - but would tack and gybe handily. And she was fast.
But, we were not completely satisfied with her, so we never did make the molds and refunded the deposits from Newport.
I don't know why you get the idea she didn't sail well - because she did. Unless, perhaps you were aboard her in Newport?
I also don't know why you feel the need to discuss the company going bust. It never did go bust. When my wife died of cancer at 42 years of age, I was already developing the Florida Bay Coasters designed with Jay Benford. Becoming a single dad all of a sudden, I felt the need to decide between the Hens and the Coasters. I chose the Coasters and licensed the Hens to other builders - the last of which was Nimble Yachts. Hundreds of Hens were build by myself and more hundreds built under license. Florida Bay Boat Company, closed financially sound. NOT BUST!
Reuben Trane
Phil Bolger did a great job of designing the Summer Hen.
I had built a Black Skimmer and loved her. Others asked me where they could get one, and I told them that I'd built her. It was suggested I build some more. I didn't want to start with a boat that size, so my first production effort was the Marsh Hen, a double-ended sharpie design. She was followed with the Mud Hen, the Bay Hen and the Peep Hen. When I wanted to build something bigger, I went to Phil with the idea of taking the general styling of the Peep Hen and expanding on her to build a suitable sharpie with curves for FRP female production building.
Together, we came up with the Summer Hen. Once the design was complete, we built the prototype from strip-planked cedar and surfaced her in FRP. We never did get around to building a mold.
We took the prototype to the Small Boat Show in Newport RI and came away with several firm orders for the Summer Hen. This was after taking many sails around Newport Harbor. The Summer Hen sailed great, due to Bolger's design. She tracked like she was on rails - but would tack and gybe handily. And she was fast.
But, we were not completely satisfied with her, so we never did make the molds and refunded the deposits from Newport.
I don't know why you get the idea she didn't sail well - because she did. Unless, perhaps you were aboard her in Newport?
I also don't know why you feel the need to discuss the company going bust. It never did go bust. When my wife died of cancer at 42 years of age, I was already developing the Florida Bay Coasters designed with Jay Benford. Becoming a single dad all of a sudden, I felt the need to decide between the Hens and the Coasters. I chose the Coasters and licensed the Hens to other builders - the last of which was Nimble Yachts. Hundreds of Hens were build by myself and more hundreds built under license. Florida Bay Boat Company, closed financially sound. NOT BUST!
Reuben Trane
--- Inbolger@yahoogroups.com, "c.ruzer" <c.ruzer@...> wrote:
>
> Hens.
>
> Summer Hen #476.
>
> Designed for:
>
> Reuben Trane, The Mad Scientist.
>
> 'It started in 1980, when Trane switched from making movies to building sailboats designed for shallow-water cruising, the so-called Florida Bay Hens.
>
> "I always loved Phil Bolger's designs because they offer the biggest bang for the buck," Trane says. "At that time I had a small shop in Miami, and my late wife and I talked about building liveaboard power cruisers."'
>http://www.tradeonlytoday.com/home/497735-reuben-trane-the-mad-scientist
>
> IIRC PCB designed the production mold, which was built, but then some nong glassed the mold itself as a boat! Perhaps it was just when the company went bust in untimely fashion? Talk about sinking... Summer Hen didn't go too well! - lotta wood init - no doubt too heavy Phil remarked. Dryly or Astonished? Ended with nothing to crow about. A big pity for the flock (I love 'em, those Henshttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hensnest/).
>
> Mad Scientist indeed!
>
Nocturnals.
(BWAOM, p392)
The
Shady Lady
in
THE CURE FOR ANYTHING IS SALT WATER:
How I Through (sic) My Life Overboard And Found Happiness At Sea
by Mary South (HarperCollins ebooks)
CHAPTER ONE. It's never too late to be who you might have been. GEORGE ELIOT
"Not long ago, I was probably a lot like you. I had a successful career, a pretty home, two dogs and a fairly normal life. All I kept were the dogs. Then one day in October 2003, I quit my good job and put my sweet little house on the market. I packed a duffel bag of clothes and everything else I owned went into storage. Within weeks I was the proud owner of an empty bank account and a 40-foot, 30-ton steel trawler that I had no idea how to run. I enrolled in nine weeks of seamanship school, and two weeks after my course ended, I pulled away from the dock on my very first trip: a 1,500-mile journey through the Atlantic from Florida to Maine. My transformation from regular person to unhinged mariner started casually enough.
~ 16 ~ THE CURE FOR ANYTHING IS SALT WATER [quote: "The cure for anything is Salt Water... sweat, tears, or the sea" -- Isak Dinesen] Shady Lady was only thirteen years old. Photos suggested that the interior was positively spaciousand good-looking, in a utilitarian way. (Even a lot of the luxury trawlers have interiors that look like fancy RVs or tacky 1980s condos.) The listing details claimed two staterooms, two heads, a pilothouse, a big salon with a galley in the corner, a walk-around engine room with workbench (virtually unheard of on a 40-foot boat) and plenty of outdoor deck space. Fuel capacity was 750 gallons, which gave this boat a cruising range of over 3,000 nautical miles. Its tanks held 400 gallons of water. And it was at the high end of what I had decided I could affordroughly one-quarter of the price of a used 40-foot Nordhavn. A call to the broker revealed that Shady Lady had been on the market for a few months and that the owner was also the builder. A master steelworker, Mel Traber had built the boat for his retirement, with the design assistance of the LEGENDARY PHIL BOLGER. Since I'd become a fanatic researcher, I already owned a copy of Bolger's book, Boats with an Open Mind. I rifled through the index and found Shady Lady on page 392. She was featured as an example of a rare trawler design by Bolger, whose cult following consisted mainly of sailors. I saw only two immediate drawbacks to this boat. I had originally hoped to find a vessel capable of circumnavigation not that I was deranged enough to attempt that, but I liked the possibility of it. Bolger's text revealed that Shady Lady was designed for going as far offshore as Bermuda, which is about 600 miles out. Unless I added paravane stabilizers (the large outriggers that you see on many fishing boats), she would roll a bit too much for the kind of continuous and serious
~ 17 ~ swells an ocean crossing might entail. She also lacked other equipment that would make her ideally suited for a transatlantic crossing: a backup (or "wing") engine, a generator, a water maker. Most of this could be added if I had the money but for now, I would have to limit myself to coastal cruising if I bought this boat. My other hesitation was that despite liking almost everything else about Shady Lady's lines, I had some aesthetic concerns about the stern. In the small online photo, which was difficult to see, its rear end looked big, high, square. Lots of junk in the trunk. Bootilicious. Packing much back. I tried gently quizzing the broker about this but it was hard to be subtle. "Ummmm. I really like the looks of this boatit seems greatbut the. . .ummm, stern. Is it kind of. . .ungainly? Boxy? Ummm, I guess what I mean is. . .butt-ugly?" His stiff reply was, "I don't know. It looks fine to me," in a tone that implied I must have some kind of sick derriere fetish to even notice such a thing. I knew I needed to get down to Florida right away and have a look but my house closing was just a few days away and I was only about halfway through my packing."
~ 22 ~ ...And there was Shady Lady. She looked all wrong for that spottoo distinctive, too majestic, way too salty. I experienced an immediate joy that overpowered all common sense. I hadn't even been aboard yetshe might be a disaster. But something in me knew right away that this was my boat. The first thing I did was walk to a nearby finger pier and gaze across at her stern. It was all right. Not svelte but cer
~ 23 ~ tainly not the clunky eyesore I had feared. While the broker unlocked the boat, I climbed aboard and checked out the decks. They were white and almost blinding in the harsh noon sunlight. There was plenty of space at the bow, which was high and solid-looking. Side decks with hand railings stretched back to the stern, which was big and open, with room for a table and chairs. You could have a dinner party for six back there and still have room for a wandering mariachi band. There was even more deck space above the salon, where a hard-bottomed dinghy lay, lashed to one side. I couldn't believe my luck. I had all but given up on the idea of outdoor space as I researched trawlers. Even the very expensive ones had tiny rear cockpitson smaller boats designers almost always preferred to utilize every square inch to maximize the accommodations. Much as I might want to be sunbathing, the pilothouse would be where I'd spend most of my time underway and I loved Shady Lady's. It was shippy, with a forward rake to its big view. The instruments were all aligned overhead on a cleverly hinged shelf that folded down for access to the wires at the back. The electronics weren't new and they weren't fancy, but there seemed to be plenty of them. It was hard to say what was missing since I couldn't even identify most of the equipment. But I liked the white chart table that was topped by a cabinet with four mahogany-stained flat drawers for holding paper charts. There was an upholstered bench with a toggle switch on the armrest that Skip explained you could use like a joystick to maneuver the boat around crab pots and other obstacles without having to get up and adjust the autopilot.
~ 24 ~ THE CURE FOR ANYTHING IS SALT WATER The helm was a stainless steel wheel to starboard, just above the steps to the salon. If the pilothouse had excited me, the salon left me speechless. There were seven 23-inch portholes with tempered glass and aluminum bolts and hardware. (Most boats I had seen had portholes of 9 inches or less, if they had any at all. The trend was toward larger, squarer, picture windows.) The interior felt bright and spacious, with more than 6½ feet between the cabin sole and the painted steel beams that ran overhead. Usually, interiors turned out to be smaller than they looked in website photos, but I was amazed by the size of the salon. In the forward port corner was a galley with a stainless steel sink, a small wood-topped cutting counter and a full-size gas stove. A big cabinet with reach-down refrigerator compartments bordered one side, and perpendicular to that was a long countertop, with storage underneath. Behind the counter was the sitting area: nothing fancya varnished trestle table with a matching bench on one side and an upholstered settee on the other. The white surfaces with dark wood drawer fronts and trim (known as "Herreshoff style" in boating circles) continued throughout the boat and did a lot to keep things cheerful. At the forward end of the salon, a short flight of stairs led down to the guestroom. It had a double berth and a small head on the port side and a single berth on the starboard side. Overhead was a big square hatch that propped wide open for sunlight and air. The portholes down here were somewhat smaller but still very big. If you turned and faced the stern, you were in front of an
~ 25 ~ other doorway with metal steps that went down into the engine room. Because Shady Lady had a box keel, the engine sat down very low, providing extra space and stability. You could walk all the way around the engine, which was a very basic Ford NorEast 135-horsepower diesel. Of course, I knew absolutely nothing about anything in this engine room at the time and planned to have an expert survey it for me. In the meantime, Skip showed me all of the well-thought-out details and explained that this was an excellent diesel to have because parts were readily available for it anywhere in the world. Everything on this boat seemed to be about simplicity and good design. I had looked at enough boats to know that the average engine "room" was hidden under a hatch in the salon sole. Once you pulled up a bunch of heavy floor panels, you faced the unappetizing prospect of crawling down into a tiny dark hole with a big hot engine and no room for maneuvering. That was what an engine room looked like. This one was bigger and brighter (and probably cleaner) than my first apartment in New York City. We passed back through the salon and down the steps to the master stateroom in the stern. On the starboard wall was a white countertop above a series of built-in varnished drawers. There was a queen-size bed with room to walk around on either side. On the wall at the foot of the bed was more storage: two dark varnished cupboards on either side of a matching bookcase. A countertop and sink lined the port wall, with a toilet tucked away behind a small privacy wall. At the other end was a steel shower stall with a built-in bench. Big portholes everywhere.
~ 26 ~ THE CURE FOR ANYTHING IS SALT WATER I was beside myself. This boat appeared to have almost everything I wanted, even though I had long since concluded that it was going to be impossible to find at any price. I shot a roll of photos and then Skip locked up. We sat down at the small lakeside concession stand, and I started filling out the necessary paperwork for making an offer. I didn't even need to think it over. What I knew about boats was very little, but I had fallen in love at first sight. This was my boat. I had to get it. There would be a survey before our deal closed, and that would give me an opportunity to back out if my beloved was revealed to be a crazy waste of money. Skip had some fried conch and a Heineken as he walked me through the forms. I was too wound up to eat, but I was not about to stand by and witness the tragic spectacle of a man drinking alone. My beer was icy cold, the day was swelteringly hot and I was happy as a clam. I flew home, and two days later, my belongings were gone, I was no longer a homeowner and I had made a deal on the boat of my dreams. P EO P L E O F T E N A S K M E , why this adventure, why a boat and a life on the water? There's a popular belief that those who go down to the sea in ships must do so because they were born to itor because they were exposed to it so young that they caught it, like some kind of virus. In my case, I have no single, logical explanation, though I can offer up a host of coincidences. I have lived near the ocean, off and on, throughout my life. I crossed the Atlantic
~ 27 ~ by ship several times in my youth...
~ 60 ~ CHAPTER FOUR The sea hates a coward. EUGENE O'NEILL
June 23, 2004, was a beautiful day, on its way to being another scorcher, but it was still too early to be hot. I was hanging over the railings of the boat with a can of navy blue paint, writing BOSSANOVA on the gray, sun-bleached hull. John was doing some final errands. We were getting underway today, and I had waited until the last minute to put the new name on the bowthough I had managed to letter the stern the night before. My original plan had been to repaint the entire boat soon after I closed on it, but the unexpected bottom job at the survey had cleaned out my coffers. The truth is, I didn't even have enough money to buy vinyl transfer letters, let alone have a professional do the fancy job the boat deserved. I'm not sure why I had thought waiting would solve anythingit's not like I was planning on getting any richer soonbut I guess I dreaded doing what I knew was
~ 61 ~ going to be not such a great job. I wanted to narrow the window of embarrassment for the Bossanova. I had also procrastinated because changing the name of a boat is considered extremely unlucky. A couple of my close friends had begged me to keep Shady Lady. Their rationale was that it was so not me that it was hysterical. They later confessed to a darker desire to order me a Members Only jacket with Shady Lady embroidered on it. Very funnyand it sums up exactly why I had to go with a new name. I remember sitting in the Hinckley office and hearing somebody bark out over their handheld VHF, "Yeah, I've got Mary here from Shady Lady"every guy in the room turned a hopeful, salacious glance my way only to find not a wanton hussy but a cringing tomboyand at that moment I knew that the old name had to go. Besides, she just felt like a Bossanova to me. I'm the kind of girl who will cross a street to avoid walking under a ladder and who has practically driven into a ditch to avoid the path of a black cat. It's not so much that I believe these superstitionsI just don't see the point of tempting fate. With this in mind, I exhaustively researched boatrenaming ceremonies designed to take the bad juju out of the occasion... Later that day, after I had painted the name on the stern, I went forward with another margarita, splashed it liberally across the anchor locker and bow and over the side into the water. Then I officially pronounced the vessel Bossanova and drank the remainder of the cocktail. I knew the margarita was an unorthodox alternative to the traditional blessing with good champagne but, in my mind, the quality of my offering was what mattered. And I make a mean margarita.
~ 64 ~ All in all, I was happy with how the dogs and I had welcomed Bossanova into the world, but I was decidedly not happy with my hand-painted lettering job. I am not a vain girl. Sometimes I go days without even glancing in a mirror, and then when I finally do, I think nothing more than "Yup, that's me, all right." A friend once described my rumpled sartorial style as "home from St. Andrew's for the weekend," and I noticed recently that all my childhood photos showed me wearing khakis and navy blue sweaters, an urge I still have to fight daily. But I felt real pain whenever I failed to keep Bossanova looking good. I thought my boat was gorgeous. I was proud of her and I felt a duty to keep her looking her best. The new name looked awful. A couple of guys stopped to tease me about it on their way up the dock to Storm-Along, a beautiful motor yacht ...
John came down the dock, brandishing an air filter triumphantly. The previous owner had run Shady Lady without one for more than ten years and never had a problem. I had absolute faith in Mel's advice and I also subscribed to the motto If it ain't broke don't fix it. But there was an obvious basket attached to the engine that cried out, in its naked emptiness, for a filter. Clearly the manufacturer had intended one. Chapman had also drilled into us the importance of keeping dirt and foreign bodies out of the engine. With two broken-coat Jack Russells aboard, I had dog-fur tumbleweeds if I didn't sweep on the half hour. So I decided to err on the side of caution. The filter had been easy enough to find at NAPA, but installing it was a bear. The bolts on the holder had ossified from disuse and John had a tough time getting them off. Once he had the filter installed, he couldn't close the bracket again. But he used a few small pieces of wire to keep it in place. We decided that a jury-rigged filter was better than no filter at all.
~ 66 ~ THE CURE FOR ANYTHING IS SALT WATER At this point, I was pretty determined that nothing was going to keep us from getting underway...
Ahead of us, a bedraggled sailboat putt-putted along at a tortoise's pace. Its deck was cluttered with jerry cans and drying clothes; a battered inflatable dinghy bobbed along in its wake; its hull was painted in a patchwork of faded colors. This boat looked like it had dragged itself halfway around the world and was now officially exhausted. After a while, at a very wide point in the channel, I signaled that I was going to pass. We were happily waved ahead, but within a few seconds we felt a sickening thump. Mariners always say that the only people who haven't run aground in the ICW are liars. Still, it wasn't until I had powered us off the shoal, fifteen minutes later, that I was able to joke that I was glad to get that little tradition out of the way. Of course, I could afford to laugh. At 30 tons, the Bossanova's steel hull was built like a tank and
~ 72 ~ THE CURE FOR ANYTHING IS SALT WATER her unusual box keel meant the propeller shaft exited the boat in a straight line, making it less vulnerable than a typical (angled) shaft. When I had gunned the engine enough to kick up great balloons of sand in the water, we finally floated free and were none the worse for wear. I was now even more impressed with my sturdy little ship and her excellent design. Later that morning, John would also very briefly touch ground, twice in several minutes, as we negotiated a portion of the channel that had become very shallow. It occurred to me that, technically, since we'd now run aground three times, any curse the name change might have brought should be history. I worried about the technicalities, though: did touching ground count as running aground? I suspected we had to get hung up to get credit for the incident. That would happen soon enough. Shoaling in the ICW is a hot-button issue among boaters in recent years..."
(It seems to be available in full here, but BEWARE of an ANTIVIRUS SCANNER [freewincolourscanantivir: Exploit Rogue Scanner (Type 1588)] & possibly more nasties lurking somewhere about on the page of this particular e-reader. I withdrew, but someone better able may assess the site for safety -- I'd like to read all there myself, and see the photos:http://www.scribd.com/doc/36239697/006074703X-Cure-for-Anything-is-Salt)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bolger/message/41766
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bolger/messages/41766?threaded=1&m=e&var=1&tidx=1
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Bolger4Sale/message/272
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Bolger4Sale/message/303
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Bolger4Sale/message/337
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:cHwK-KeMTlkJ:www.scribd.com/doc/36239697/006074703X-Cure-for-Anything-is-Salt+soundings+magazine+bolger&cd=119&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au&source=www.google.com.au
There's plenty of other birds mentioned, but... spartina is a grass?
"Sea oxeye daisy, mangrove, saltwort and spartina grass lined the banks. Wading birds, including shorebirds, ospreys, cormorants, brown pelicans, roseate spoonbills and wood storks, watched us slowly passing, rarely perturbed enough to fly away. There were dozens of dolphins, a couple of manatees, and plenty of people fishing from the banks. It felt sleepy and peaceful as we chugged along through our first day without even a hiccup. After all those months of sitting in a classroom, we were finally experiencing what had drawn us to school in the first place. We were really doing it!"
Whatever did I think "spartina" was?
(BWAOM, p392)
The
Shady Lady
in
THE CURE FOR ANYTHING IS SALT WATER:
How I Through (sic) My Life Overboard And Found Happiness At Sea
by Mary South (HarperCollins ebooks)
CHAPTER ONE. It's never too late to be who you might have been. GEORGE ELIOT
"Not long ago, I was probably a lot like you. I had a successful career, a pretty home, two dogs and a fairly normal life. All I kept were the dogs. Then one day in October 2003, I quit my good job and put my sweet little house on the market. I packed a duffel bag of clothes and everything else I owned went into storage. Within weeks I was the proud owner of an empty bank account and a 40-foot, 30-ton steel trawler that I had no idea how to run. I enrolled in nine weeks of seamanship school, and two weeks after my course ended, I pulled away from the dock on my very first trip: a 1,500-mile journey through the Atlantic from Florida to Maine. My transformation from regular person to unhinged mariner started casually enough.
~ 16 ~ THE CURE FOR ANYTHING IS SALT WATER [quote: "The cure for anything is Salt Water... sweat, tears, or the sea" -- Isak Dinesen] Shady Lady was only thirteen years old. Photos suggested that the interior was positively spaciousand good-looking, in a utilitarian way. (Even a lot of the luxury trawlers have interiors that look like fancy RVs or tacky 1980s condos.) The listing details claimed two staterooms, two heads, a pilothouse, a big salon with a galley in the corner, a walk-around engine room with workbench (virtually unheard of on a 40-foot boat) and plenty of outdoor deck space. Fuel capacity was 750 gallons, which gave this boat a cruising range of over 3,000 nautical miles. Its tanks held 400 gallons of water. And it was at the high end of what I had decided I could affordroughly one-quarter of the price of a used 40-foot Nordhavn. A call to the broker revealed that Shady Lady had been on the market for a few months and that the owner was also the builder. A master steelworker, Mel Traber had built the boat for his retirement, with the design assistance of the LEGENDARY PHIL BOLGER. Since I'd become a fanatic researcher, I already owned a copy of Bolger's book, Boats with an Open Mind. I rifled through the index and found Shady Lady on page 392. She was featured as an example of a rare trawler design by Bolger, whose cult following consisted mainly of sailors. I saw only two immediate drawbacks to this boat. I had originally hoped to find a vessel capable of circumnavigation not that I was deranged enough to attempt that, but I liked the possibility of it. Bolger's text revealed that Shady Lady was designed for going as far offshore as Bermuda, which is about 600 miles out. Unless I added paravane stabilizers (the large outriggers that you see on many fishing boats), she would roll a bit too much for the kind of continuous and serious
~ 17 ~ swells an ocean crossing might entail. She also lacked other equipment that would make her ideally suited for a transatlantic crossing: a backup (or "wing") engine, a generator, a water maker. Most of this could be added if I had the money but for now, I would have to limit myself to coastal cruising if I bought this boat. My other hesitation was that despite liking almost everything else about Shady Lady's lines, I had some aesthetic concerns about the stern. In the small online photo, which was difficult to see, its rear end looked big, high, square. Lots of junk in the trunk. Bootilicious. Packing much back. I tried gently quizzing the broker about this but it was hard to be subtle. "Ummmm. I really like the looks of this boatit seems greatbut the. . .ummm, stern. Is it kind of. . .ungainly? Boxy? Ummm, I guess what I mean is. . .butt-ugly?" His stiff reply was, "I don't know. It looks fine to me," in a tone that implied I must have some kind of sick derriere fetish to even notice such a thing. I knew I needed to get down to Florida right away and have a look but my house closing was just a few days away and I was only about halfway through my packing."
~ 22 ~ ...And there was Shady Lady. She looked all wrong for that spottoo distinctive, too majestic, way too salty. I experienced an immediate joy that overpowered all common sense. I hadn't even been aboard yetshe might be a disaster. But something in me knew right away that this was my boat. The first thing I did was walk to a nearby finger pier and gaze across at her stern. It was all right. Not svelte but cer
~ 23 ~ tainly not the clunky eyesore I had feared. While the broker unlocked the boat, I climbed aboard and checked out the decks. They were white and almost blinding in the harsh noon sunlight. There was plenty of space at the bow, which was high and solid-looking. Side decks with hand railings stretched back to the stern, which was big and open, with room for a table and chairs. You could have a dinner party for six back there and still have room for a wandering mariachi band. There was even more deck space above the salon, where a hard-bottomed dinghy lay, lashed to one side. I couldn't believe my luck. I had all but given up on the idea of outdoor space as I researched trawlers. Even the very expensive ones had tiny rear cockpitson smaller boats designers almost always preferred to utilize every square inch to maximize the accommodations. Much as I might want to be sunbathing, the pilothouse would be where I'd spend most of my time underway and I loved Shady Lady's. It was shippy, with a forward rake to its big view. The instruments were all aligned overhead on a cleverly hinged shelf that folded down for access to the wires at the back. The electronics weren't new and they weren't fancy, but there seemed to be plenty of them. It was hard to say what was missing since I couldn't even identify most of the equipment. But I liked the white chart table that was topped by a cabinet with four mahogany-stained flat drawers for holding paper charts. There was an upholstered bench with a toggle switch on the armrest that Skip explained you could use like a joystick to maneuver the boat around crab pots and other obstacles without having to get up and adjust the autopilot.
~ 24 ~ THE CURE FOR ANYTHING IS SALT WATER The helm was a stainless steel wheel to starboard, just above the steps to the salon. If the pilothouse had excited me, the salon left me speechless. There were seven 23-inch portholes with tempered glass and aluminum bolts and hardware. (Most boats I had seen had portholes of 9 inches or less, if they had any at all. The trend was toward larger, squarer, picture windows.) The interior felt bright and spacious, with more than 6½ feet between the cabin sole and the painted steel beams that ran overhead. Usually, interiors turned out to be smaller than they looked in website photos, but I was amazed by the size of the salon. In the forward port corner was a galley with a stainless steel sink, a small wood-topped cutting counter and a full-size gas stove. A big cabinet with reach-down refrigerator compartments bordered one side, and perpendicular to that was a long countertop, with storage underneath. Behind the counter was the sitting area: nothing fancya varnished trestle table with a matching bench on one side and an upholstered settee on the other. The white surfaces with dark wood drawer fronts and trim (known as "Herreshoff style" in boating circles) continued throughout the boat and did a lot to keep things cheerful. At the forward end of the salon, a short flight of stairs led down to the guestroom. It had a double berth and a small head on the port side and a single berth on the starboard side. Overhead was a big square hatch that propped wide open for sunlight and air. The portholes down here were somewhat smaller but still very big. If you turned and faced the stern, you were in front of an
~ 25 ~ other doorway with metal steps that went down into the engine room. Because Shady Lady had a box keel, the engine sat down very low, providing extra space and stability. You could walk all the way around the engine, which was a very basic Ford NorEast 135-horsepower diesel. Of course, I knew absolutely nothing about anything in this engine room at the time and planned to have an expert survey it for me. In the meantime, Skip showed me all of the well-thought-out details and explained that this was an excellent diesel to have because parts were readily available for it anywhere in the world. Everything on this boat seemed to be about simplicity and good design. I had looked at enough boats to know that the average engine "room" was hidden under a hatch in the salon sole. Once you pulled up a bunch of heavy floor panels, you faced the unappetizing prospect of crawling down into a tiny dark hole with a big hot engine and no room for maneuvering. That was what an engine room looked like. This one was bigger and brighter (and probably cleaner) than my first apartment in New York City. We passed back through the salon and down the steps to the master stateroom in the stern. On the starboard wall was a white countertop above a series of built-in varnished drawers. There was a queen-size bed with room to walk around on either side. On the wall at the foot of the bed was more storage: two dark varnished cupboards on either side of a matching bookcase. A countertop and sink lined the port wall, with a toilet tucked away behind a small privacy wall. At the other end was a steel shower stall with a built-in bench. Big portholes everywhere.
~ 26 ~ THE CURE FOR ANYTHING IS SALT WATER I was beside myself. This boat appeared to have almost everything I wanted, even though I had long since concluded that it was going to be impossible to find at any price. I shot a roll of photos and then Skip locked up. We sat down at the small lakeside concession stand, and I started filling out the necessary paperwork for making an offer. I didn't even need to think it over. What I knew about boats was very little, but I had fallen in love at first sight. This was my boat. I had to get it. There would be a survey before our deal closed, and that would give me an opportunity to back out if my beloved was revealed to be a crazy waste of money. Skip had some fried conch and a Heineken as he walked me through the forms. I was too wound up to eat, but I was not about to stand by and witness the tragic spectacle of a man drinking alone. My beer was icy cold, the day was swelteringly hot and I was happy as a clam. I flew home, and two days later, my belongings were gone, I was no longer a homeowner and I had made a deal on the boat of my dreams. P EO P L E O F T E N A S K M E , why this adventure, why a boat and a life on the water? There's a popular belief that those who go down to the sea in ships must do so because they were born to itor because they were exposed to it so young that they caught it, like some kind of virus. In my case, I have no single, logical explanation, though I can offer up a host of coincidences. I have lived near the ocean, off and on, throughout my life. I crossed the Atlantic
~ 27 ~ by ship several times in my youth...
~ 60 ~ CHAPTER FOUR The sea hates a coward. EUGENE O'NEILL
June 23, 2004, was a beautiful day, on its way to being another scorcher, but it was still too early to be hot. I was hanging over the railings of the boat with a can of navy blue paint, writing BOSSANOVA on the gray, sun-bleached hull. John was doing some final errands. We were getting underway today, and I had waited until the last minute to put the new name on the bowthough I had managed to letter the stern the night before. My original plan had been to repaint the entire boat soon after I closed on it, but the unexpected bottom job at the survey had cleaned out my coffers. The truth is, I didn't even have enough money to buy vinyl transfer letters, let alone have a professional do the fancy job the boat deserved. I'm not sure why I had thought waiting would solve anythingit's not like I was planning on getting any richer soonbut I guess I dreaded doing what I knew was
~ 61 ~ going to be not such a great job. I wanted to narrow the window of embarrassment for the Bossanova. I had also procrastinated because changing the name of a boat is considered extremely unlucky. A couple of my close friends had begged me to keep Shady Lady. Their rationale was that it was so not me that it was hysterical. They later confessed to a darker desire to order me a Members Only jacket with Shady Lady embroidered on it. Very funnyand it sums up exactly why I had to go with a new name. I remember sitting in the Hinckley office and hearing somebody bark out over their handheld VHF, "Yeah, I've got Mary here from Shady Lady"every guy in the room turned a hopeful, salacious glance my way only to find not a wanton hussy but a cringing tomboyand at that moment I knew that the old name had to go. Besides, she just felt like a Bossanova to me. I'm the kind of girl who will cross a street to avoid walking under a ladder and who has practically driven into a ditch to avoid the path of a black cat. It's not so much that I believe these superstitionsI just don't see the point of tempting fate. With this in mind, I exhaustively researched boatrenaming ceremonies designed to take the bad juju out of the occasion... Later that day, after I had painted the name on the stern, I went forward with another margarita, splashed it liberally across the anchor locker and bow and over the side into the water. Then I officially pronounced the vessel Bossanova and drank the remainder of the cocktail. I knew the margarita was an unorthodox alternative to the traditional blessing with good champagne but, in my mind, the quality of my offering was what mattered. And I make a mean margarita.
~ 64 ~ All in all, I was happy with how the dogs and I had welcomed Bossanova into the world, but I was decidedly not happy with my hand-painted lettering job. I am not a vain girl. Sometimes I go days without even glancing in a mirror, and then when I finally do, I think nothing more than "Yup, that's me, all right." A friend once described my rumpled sartorial style as "home from St. Andrew's for the weekend," and I noticed recently that all my childhood photos showed me wearing khakis and navy blue sweaters, an urge I still have to fight daily. But I felt real pain whenever I failed to keep Bossanova looking good. I thought my boat was gorgeous. I was proud of her and I felt a duty to keep her looking her best. The new name looked awful. A couple of guys stopped to tease me about it on their way up the dock to Storm-Along, a beautiful motor yacht ...
John came down the dock, brandishing an air filter triumphantly. The previous owner had run Shady Lady without one for more than ten years and never had a problem. I had absolute faith in Mel's advice and I also subscribed to the motto If it ain't broke don't fix it. But there was an obvious basket attached to the engine that cried out, in its naked emptiness, for a filter. Clearly the manufacturer had intended one. Chapman had also drilled into us the importance of keeping dirt and foreign bodies out of the engine. With two broken-coat Jack Russells aboard, I had dog-fur tumbleweeds if I didn't sweep on the half hour. So I decided to err on the side of caution. The filter had been easy enough to find at NAPA, but installing it was a bear. The bolts on the holder had ossified from disuse and John had a tough time getting them off. Once he had the filter installed, he couldn't close the bracket again. But he used a few small pieces of wire to keep it in place. We decided that a jury-rigged filter was better than no filter at all.
~ 66 ~ THE CURE FOR ANYTHING IS SALT WATER At this point, I was pretty determined that nothing was going to keep us from getting underway...
Ahead of us, a bedraggled sailboat putt-putted along at a tortoise's pace. Its deck was cluttered with jerry cans and drying clothes; a battered inflatable dinghy bobbed along in its wake; its hull was painted in a patchwork of faded colors. This boat looked like it had dragged itself halfway around the world and was now officially exhausted. After a while, at a very wide point in the channel, I signaled that I was going to pass. We were happily waved ahead, but within a few seconds we felt a sickening thump. Mariners always say that the only people who haven't run aground in the ICW are liars. Still, it wasn't until I had powered us off the shoal, fifteen minutes later, that I was able to joke that I was glad to get that little tradition out of the way. Of course, I could afford to laugh. At 30 tons, the Bossanova's steel hull was built like a tank and
~ 72 ~ THE CURE FOR ANYTHING IS SALT WATER her unusual box keel meant the propeller shaft exited the boat in a straight line, making it less vulnerable than a typical (angled) shaft. When I had gunned the engine enough to kick up great balloons of sand in the water, we finally floated free and were none the worse for wear. I was now even more impressed with my sturdy little ship and her excellent design. Later that morning, John would also very briefly touch ground, twice in several minutes, as we negotiated a portion of the channel that had become very shallow. It occurred to me that, technically, since we'd now run aground three times, any curse the name change might have brought should be history. I worried about the technicalities, though: did touching ground count as running aground? I suspected we had to get hung up to get credit for the incident. That would happen soon enough. Shoaling in the ICW is a hot-button issue among boaters in recent years..."
(It seems to be available in full here, but BEWARE of an ANTIVIRUS SCANNER [freewincolourscanantivir: Exploit Rogue Scanner (Type 1588)] & possibly more nasties lurking somewhere about on the page of this particular e-reader. I withdrew, but someone better able may assess the site for safety -- I'd like to read all there myself, and see the photos:http://www.scribd.com/doc/36239697/006074703X-Cure-for-Anything-is-Salt)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bolger/message/41766
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bolger/messages/41766?threaded=1&m=e&var=1&tidx=1
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Bolger4Sale/message/272
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Bolger4Sale/message/303
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Bolger4Sale/message/337
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:cHwK-KeMTlkJ:www.scribd.com/doc/36239697/006074703X-Cure-for-Anything-is-Salt+soundings+magazine+bolger&cd=119&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au&source=www.google.com.au
There's plenty of other birds mentioned, but... spartina is a grass?
"Sea oxeye daisy, mangrove, saltwort and spartina grass lined the banks. Wading birds, including shorebirds, ospreys, cormorants, brown pelicans, roseate spoonbills and wood storks, watched us slowly passing, rarely perturbed enough to fly away. There were dozens of dolphins, a couple of manatees, and plenty of people fishing from the banks. It felt sleepy and peaceful as we chugged along through our first day without even a hiccup. After all those months of sitting in a classroom, we were finally experiencing what had drawn us to school in the first place. We were really doing it!"
Whatever did I think "spartina" was?
Seadogs.
Hark, the call is a barking kak-kak-kak.
Black Skimmer!
Picture this: "white on the edge, the rest mainly black, and the lower mandible is much-elongated. The eye has a dark brown iris and catlike vertical pupil, unique for a bird", and see a #294 in the usual colour choice, the clipper bow, the protruding cathead, the portlights: Black Skimmer!
http://floridabirdmagazine.com/blog/nestingbird/080710104326/Black-Skimmers---Home-Again.htm
http://what-when-how.com/birds/black-skimmer-birds/http://www.conservewildlifenj.org/species/fieldguide/view/Rynchops%20niger/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Skimmerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Skimmer
A few birds, many other designs, and one and a half decades later a $1000 design fee with retained rights was said to be the usual charged by PCB in 1984 as claimed by Denis Caprio in a clipped Soundings Magazine article that is available at Chuck Merrell's Private Postings pagehttp://www.boatdesign.com/postings/pages/Skimmer.htm
Hark, the call is a barking kak-kak-kak.
Black Skimmer!
Picture this: "white on the edge, the rest mainly black, and the lower mandible is much-elongated. The eye has a dark brown iris and catlike vertical pupil, unique for a bird", and see a #294 in the usual colour choice, the clipper bow, the protruding cathead, the portlights: Black Skimmer!
http://floridabirdmagazine.com/blog/nestingbird/080710104326/Black-Skimmers---Home-Again.htm
http://what-when-how.com/birds/black-skimmer-birds/http://www.conservewildlifenj.org/species/fieldguide/view/Rynchops%20niger/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Skimmerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Skimmer
A few birds, many other designs, and one and a half decades later a $1000 design fee with retained rights was said to be the usual charged by PCB in 1984 as claimed by Denis Caprio in a clipped Soundings Magazine article that is available at Chuck Merrell's Private Postings pagehttp://www.boatdesign.com/postings/pages/Skimmer.htm
Hens.
Summer Hen #476.
Designed for:
Reuben Trane, The Mad Scientist.
'It started in 1980, when Trane switched from making movies to building sailboats designed for shallow-water cruising, the so-called Florida Bay Hens.
"I always loved Phil Bolger's designs because they offer the biggest bang for the buck," Trane says. "At that time I had a small shop in Miami, and my late wife and I talked about building liveaboard power cruisers."'
http://www.tradeonlytoday.com/home/497735-reuben-trane-the-mad-scientist
IIRC PCB designed the production mold, which was built, but then some nong glassed the mold itself as a boat! Perhaps it was just when the company went bust in untimely fashion? Talk about sinking... Summer Hen didn't go too well! - lotta wood init - no doubt too heavy Phil remarked. Dryly or Astonished? Ended with nothing to crow about. A big pity for the flock (I love 'em, those Henshttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hensnest/).
Mad Scientist indeed!
Summer Hen #476.
Designed for:
Reuben Trane, The Mad Scientist.
'It started in 1980, when Trane switched from making movies to building sailboats designed for shallow-water cruising, the so-called Florida Bay Hens.
"I always loved Phil Bolger's designs because they offer the biggest bang for the buck," Trane says. "At that time I had a small shop in Miami, and my late wife and I talked about building liveaboard power cruisers."'
http://www.tradeonlytoday.com/home/497735-reuben-trane-the-mad-scientist
IIRC PCB designed the production mold, which was built, but then some nong glassed the mold itself as a boat! Perhaps it was just when the company went bust in untimely fashion? Talk about sinking... Summer Hen didn't go too well! - lotta wood init - no doubt too heavy Phil remarked. Dryly or Astonished? Ended with nothing to crow about. A big pity for the flock (I love 'em, those Henshttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hensnest/).
Mad Scientist indeed!