Jim Michalak's Boat Designs
1024 Merrill St, Lebanon, IL 62254
A page of boat designs and essays.
(1 April 2020) We recall a great tale of two totos. The 15 April issue will look into the mysteries of water ballast.
THE BOOK IS OUT!
BOATBUILDING FOR BEGINNERS (AND BEYOND)
... is out now, written by me and edited by Garth Battista of Breakaway Books. You might find it at your bookstore. If not check it out at the....
ON LINE CATALOG OF MY PLANS...
...which can now be found at Duckworks Magazine. You order with a shopping cart set up and pay with credit cards or by Paypal. Then Duckworks sends me an email about the order and then I send the plans right from me to you.
REND LAKE 2020...
...will take place on June 12 and 13, always on the weekend before Father's Day weekend. I promised to remind all of us to try to get the good campsites. They are sites 24 through 30 and especially 26 through 29 if possible, this at the North Sandusky campground at Rend Lake. Let's give it a try. This is not really organized but if you nail one down, let me know. I will be trying too. {Update as far as I know. We have nailed down sites 24, 26, 27 and 28 so we have gotten the two sites at the end of the loop next to the water. Good job. For the record, I found using the old fashioned phone reservation system at 877-444-6777 where you talk to a real person works best for me by far.)
Tale Of Two Totos
MARC SMITH from Bloomington Indiana...
... attended the very first Rend Lake Messabout way back when. And the second year he arrived towing his new Birdwatcher with a pair of Totos strapped to the Birdwatcher roof. That was in the early 1990's. The boats were built by his daughter and her friend, under Marc's watch, and he recently found these old photos of the projects. This was way before this website and before digital for most of us. But his story still stands very well...
"GIRLS, AGE 11, BUILD TOTO
Small boat tinkering led me to the Small Boat Messabout in southern Indiana and Illinois. Phil Bolger�s building ideas were key to this movement. I built his Windsprint and later his iconic Birdwatcher. Accompanying me on these weekend messabout excursions was my eldest daughter, Kim, who enjoyed the camping, boating, and attention from the adults.
At the conclusion of her sixth grade I ask her if she and her friend, Hadley, would like to build their own canoes. They both jumped at the idea! It was about three weeks before our next Small Boat Messabout and they wanted to build the boats to take along. We chose Jim Michalak�s Toto and I emphasized to the girls that I would only supervise their work but they would do all the building themselves. They enthusiastically agreed.
First, I showed the girls how to measure and lay out the offsets from the plans and they went to work on the scarfed sheets of Luan.
Next came the cutting out of various parts. Using the jigsaw was a new experience but they mastered it quickly!
Then they glued the frames.
Attaching the sides and bottom to the frames and it is starting to take shape!
The last panel is inserted and with one girl below passing the copper wire through pre-drilled holes and the other on top twisting them together they completed the stitching process.
One boat is duct taped and turned upright ready for filleting with filled resin.
Inverted once again, the wires are trimmed and the seams smoothed for the outside taping to proceed. Here the seams are taped and the bottom is glassed. When dry they will begin painting them with their color of choice.
Let the painting begin!
With the threat of rain they moved to the garage and decided to paint the interior white to accent the natural wood of the frames.
Painting the paddles...
NICE JOB LADIES!!
It is finally time for sea trials!
And on the launch ramp at Rend Lake three weeks later!
What a sense of accomplishment for two industrious young ladies!
Building confidence and memories for years in the future!
Marc Smith,2018 Bloomington, In.
River Runner
RIVER RUNNER, FLOAT BOAT, 15-1/2' X 45" X 100 POUNDS
This was a custom project for a man who wanted a Lowe Paddlejon boat but found they were quite rare, essentially a custom order. The idea of a boat like this is to float mild rivers with a guide in the stern directing with a paddle and a passenger or two up front fishing. You might recall the design I did last year called Ozarkian which is very similar, maybe the father or grandfather of the Lowe design. (I suspect southern Missouri is sort of jonboat heaven, the source of most of them both in spirit and in material. I recall driving the interstate down to Springfield, Mo. about ten years ago and near Lebanon, Mo I passed what seemed to be miles of aluminum jonboats and pontoon boats stored in fields along the highway. Even little children there must know how to weld aluminum.)
He sent me some photos of a paddlejon he had seen recently and a sales brochure. I tried to copy the lines, thinking all the time that these boats are a lot more subtle than you might think. At the time I had no real Lowe around to study but the brochure left me with the impression that the paddlejon was perhaps a regular small power jon made long and double ended with swept up lines both fore and aft to allow easier paddling. But it is not quite a true double ender in that the stern transom is raked for the usual 15 degree motor mount. As far as power goes, a boat like this won't plane nicely at all, trying to stand on its stern at the least excuse, so I say 3 hp max.
Getting back to the lines, I had the feeling that these are made from a constant width piece of aluminum, say 32" wide on the bottom and 16" wide for each side for a total panel width of about 64". Stiffening wales are already pressed into the panel. The flat wide panels are folded with a brake such that the proper flare of the sides is established. The end chines are notched and the end bottoms drawn up and the end sides are drawn in to close the notches which are then welded shut. But the chines for the main portion of the hull are not welded at all, just bent. There seems to be another trick in that the top of the sides bends inward a lot sooner than does the bottom of the sides, resulting in a rolling flare that gives the boat a somewhat elegant shape (I think). So you might think a manufactured jonboat is a dumb and brutish thing, but I'm quite certain most of them are actually pretty clever.
Jim Hauer built the prototype in Green Bay and sent these photos. I think it came out exactly as hoped. Remember, this is not really a rowing boat as much as a floating boat so the face forward rowing will be used more to steer than to propel. The photo of the man paddling in the stern shows that the aft transom is still up giving good flow lines there, unlike a square stern power jonboat. Under power Jim said that 2.5 hp is about all you can take, the boat not behaving well above that.
Anyway, River Runner uses five sheets of 1/4" plywood. The idea of the light ply is to keep the boat light enough to manhandle into a truck or onto a car roof but it will take a diligent builder to keep it light. I suspect the aluminum original would be no heavier. Simple nail and glue construction.
River Runner plans are $20 when ordered direct by mail from me.
Prototype News
Some of you may know that in addition to the one buck catalog which now contains 20 "done" boats, I offer another catalog of 20 unbuilt prototypes. The buck catalog has on its last page a list and brief description of the boats currently in the Catalog of Prototypes. That catalog also contains some articles that I wrote for Messing About In Boats and Boatbuilder magazines. The Catalog of Prototypes costs $3. The both together amount to 50 pages for $4, an offer you may have seen in Woodenboat ads. Payment must be in US funds. The banks here won't accept anything else. (I've got a little stash of foreign currency that I can admire but not spend.) I'm way too small for credit cards.
We have a Picara finished by Ken Giles, past Mayfly16 master, and into its trials. The hull was built by Vincent Lavender in Massachusetts. There have been other Picaras finished in the past but I never got a sailing report for them...
And the Vole in New York is Garth Battista's of www.breakawaybooks.com, printer of my book and Max's old outboard book and many other fine sports books. Beautiful job! Garth is using a small lug rig for sail, not the sharpie sprit sail shown on the plans, so I will continue to carry the design as a prototype boat. But he has used it extensively on his Bahamas trip towed behind his Cormorant. Sort of like having a compact car towed behind an RV.
And a Deansbox seen in Texas:
Another prototype Twister is well along:
A brave soul has started a Robbsboat. He has a builder's blog at http://tomsrobbsboat.blogspot.com. (OOPS! He found a mistake in the side bevels of bulkhead5, says 20 degrees but should be 10 degrees.) This boat has been sailed and is being tested. He has found the sail area a bit much for his area and is putting in serious reef points.
AN INDEX OF PAST ISSUES
THE WAY BACK ISSUES RETURN!
MANY THANKS TO CANADIAN READER GAETAN JETTE WHO NOT ONLY SAVED THEM FROM THE 1997 BEGINNING BUT ALSO PUT TOGETHER AN EXCELLENT INDEX PAGE TO SORT THEM OUT....
THE WAY BACK ISSUES
15apr19, Polytarp Sails 2, Mayfly16
1may19, Sail Shaping, Blobster
15may19, Sail Shaping 2, Laguna
1jun19, Capsize Lessons, QT Skiff
15jun19, Rend Lake 2019, Mixer
1jul19, Scarfing Lumber, Vireo14
15jul19, Rigging Lugsails, Vamp
1aug19, Rigging Sharpie Spritsails, Oracle
15aug19, Rowing1, Cormorant
1sep19, Rowing2, OliveOyl
15sep19, BC Scram Pram, Philsboat
1oct19, Herb's OliveOyl, Larsboat
15oct19, Herb's OliveOyl 2, Jonsboat
1nov19, Herb's OliveOyl 3, Shanteuse
15nov19, Herb's OliveOyl 4, Piccup
1dec19, Taped Seams, Ladybug
15dec19, Plywood Butt Joints, Sportdory
1jan20, Sail Area Math, Normsboat
15jan20, Trailering, Robote
1feb20, Bulkhead Bevels, Toto
15feb20, Cartopping, IMB
Table of Contents
