OK I was wrong. When I finished Wairua I said I didn’t have another boat in me. But I now find I have and agree boatbuilding is like sex, when you have just finished one project you don’t have too much interest in a repeat for a while, but give it time.
Having completed the move to a new home and worked out how often the neighbour with the sensitive ears goes out it is time to get my hands back on the tools. There is good fishing just off home and plenty of beaches that are only reachable by boat. We also want to harvest the driftwood and seaweed for the garden too. Many years ago I found a piece of a wrecked steam ferry built around the turn of the century so there could be a bit of diving and salvage work on the schedule. Sure I have Wairua but she is my pride and joy and hacking about doing things like fishing and landing on rocky beaches is not what I had in mind.
I have been working on a display of designs for the website for Stuart Reid and fastened onto his Longboat. At 5.2m she is quite a big boat and looked a worthy choice. So I had Stuart run up a set of drawings for me. I was going to build her heavy but that would be a mistake because on inspecting the plans I find her worthy of a much more sophisticated building project than I had in mind and if I do her properly she will row and sail really well. Longboat will do fine as a winter project.
So what now?
John Welsford and I were going over his new plans for Pathfinder when the subject of my project came up. “What you need is to build Trover, “I’ll send you a set of plans and you can photograph her construction for me” John said. I think I fit John's specification very well "assembled by unskilled labour using hand tools only, very cheap ( very important), good load carrier, stable, super seaworthy and with good working space for the crew.”
Trover first appeared on site last year associated with the Fat Canoe and the ABET scheme to put the fishermen of East Timor back on the water. Trover was the next generation and is designed to be quick and economical to build, but tough and seaworthy and capable of handling not only rough weather but rough handling.
Wairua has a 5hp twin cylinder Evinrude that never gets much work and a bit of extra seatime pushing around a bit of a workboat would be good for both of us. I can get 6 knots out of Wairua with this motor so it should perform OK on Trover. But who knows there might be another bigger outboard in offing as well and come to think of it my father’s old Seagull is in the garage too.
There is no twist in the chine or topside panels, most of the pieces of ply are straight rips evenly divided into the 1200 width of a ply sheet. Sides are 400, chines aft are also 400 while the forward chine panel come out two in a sheet width. Transom is 600 high, frames are ex 70x20 ( finished ) simple laps at the corners, the bottom is two 600 wide layers laminated up on a jig to the ski shape and the srtingers bent on and glued. Note that the constant angles mean you should be able to bevel all the stringers and frames on your table saw.
John has taken some of the frame heads high to provide tying off points for towing, anchoring, nets or whatever, the gunwale is solidly reinforced by three 70x20 with blocking so she will take some abuse, note also the sacrificial skids at the edge of the bottom panel.
The beach near here is a bit exposed and roughs up enough for us to have our own surf lifesaving club. That is why I launch about 3 km up the road at Castor Bay where there is a breakwater to settle things down. Trover has the credentials to break out through a surf line and with her inboard outboard well will bring me home without a wet motor too. I can probably transport her the 400m to the beach on a beach trailer and so will not have the expense of a road trailer and all of the paper work that requires.
So Trover it is and I will keep you posted with building progress over the next couple of weeks and then tell you how she handles. I have this sneaking suspicion that there might just be a few Trovers around before long.
Dave
ps. The plans have arrived but I have not looked at them in detail yet. I will have them safely tucked away in my boat during the Christmas cruise and plan to make a start in January. Yea well, the Ganley got in the way of that so Trove is waiting for another winter to roll along.
