It “ain’t” logical, but I also like….

Shantyboats are about living slow on the water.  Noticing things, and leaving other worlds behind.   They are about practicality and affordability, up to a point, and there is an epically large streak of individuality in these boats.   My Escargot does and is all those things, and when I build another it will be all that, with just a bit more room, especially standing.

I spend the other half of my considerable time spent dreaming about boats.. on sailboats that, while they take a cue from the ideas above, strike off in an entirely different direction.

Smallish to freakishly small expedition sailboats.

Yes, they are slow, for the most part, so really seeing the world go by will happen.   Some of them are pracical and affordable, if not necessarily the MOST practical and affordable boats.  Some are really NOT either practical or affordable.  All of them are a bit odd in one way or another.

I’ve read all the books on such things from Tinkerbelle, to Father’s Day, and the video at this link  explains the appeal of these boats the best.   Within all of us there is a sense of adventure, a desire to do something that really challenges us, that is anything but the dull and the mundane that we can sometimes settle into in our lives.    For some, it is buried deep within, and when it surfaces it seems more nightmare than dream.   For others, the dream becomes their life, and that’s how they chose to spend it, on mountains, hanging off cliffs without a lifeline, in fragile craft on the water or in the air, or crawling through tiny cracks in caves deep in the earth.   For most, for me, it’s a whimsical thought trotted out at moments of stress at work or home, a fantasy of escape, that “someday, someday”….

Except when it isn’t, on those days, sometimes for weeks and months, when I dream of action.     I’ve actually started twice.

First, with the Micro 8 from Selway Fisher.

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Yes, that serious face is mine, standing in the framework of the boat, and that’s just about as far as I got.   In the midst of building it I got a major promotion at work, and have spent much of the time since, well, at work, if not literally, then with much of my thought and worry.   Eventually, I threw in the towel and asked my son to cut it up and throw it away.   Ouch.

I set out again, unbelievably, building the “much more reasonable” ten foot long version!   The Micro 10!  

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Same end result.  And yes, that’s my meter maid car in the background, my daily transport at the time.

But I can’t give it up. Yesterday I turned 59 and my father died at 61.   His father died at 43.  My mother’s father died at about the same age.  Now, I don’t smoke three packs a day, and antibiotics would have saved my two grandfathers.   But still, life can fly by.  I want to keep doing things.    I’ve changed the direction of the adventure considerably in that I no longer dream of ocean voyages, well I do just a little, but for the most part I dream of adventures on the nearby Puget Sound.   I’d love to sail the entire Puget Sound over the course of a few weeks, lying low if the weather gets really foul, but otherwise pressing on.

A complication is that my wife would like to sail with me now and then, and I’d like that, too, though I don’t want the rarity of that to get in the way of others plans.  That sounds colder than I mean.  I could modify several of these boats to allow for outside seating for two with wider hatches that fold back to become a seat as you can see on Serge Testa’s boat.

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So where does that leave me?   Well, remember, this is all broad fantasy at this level.  Each of these boats interests me in SOME way:

N.E.D., the Nesting Expedition Dinghy.   Cute like a pregnant guppy or goat is cute.   Lowest cost of my favorites, in building, trailering and upkeep.  Not suitable for the larger waters of Puget Sound, but I can drive to all the small water places in the Sound and be safe there.  Plus, I have a sense that this boat will be crazy popular, so there will be something of a community, which has some advantages as I retire and get older.  Plans aren’t released yet, but they should be cheap should CLC go ahead with this design.   This would only work for my wife if I built two, and she wants to sit and knit, not sail!   This would be a great little dinghy for one on my next shantyboat.

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The Nesting Expedition Dinghy, a Micro-Cruiser by John C. Harris.clipular

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While are at CLC, the NanoShip.  Just under 13 feet.  Cute, in an old school boat kind of way.   More capable than the NED, though it is much more complicated, too.  There will be a kit offered.   Ideally I’d have a boat that protects me from the Seattle rain.  This doesn’t.  Others here do.

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NanoShip 2.2 Construction Plan

Souriceau.  Man, what a beautiful boat, and man, is it different than any other boat here.  Expensive and time consuming to build, but what a piece of art that boat would be.   Lovely.  I’ve almost hit the plans order button a few times, but worry it is just too big a project financially and in the amount of time it would take to build it well.   Compared to the NED it is a Ferrari, in every way.  Good and bad.   Generally I’ve not been a Ferrari kind of guy, leaning more toward the Hudson, Desoto, Checker, Model T, Reliant Robin sort of conveyance.   I’m usually the same in boats.

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Souriceau Specifications

Lenght over all : 5.00 m – 16′ 5″
Hull lenght: 4.75m – 15′ 7″
Lenght at DWL : 4.75 m – 15′ 7″
Beam max.: 2.20 m – 7′ 2.5″
Draft max. : 1.35 m – 4′ 5″
Draft min. : 0.57 m – 22.5″
vertical and retractable keel
2 Berths
Galley and chart table
2 coupled tillers: one inside and one outside
Displacement : 530 kg – 1168 lbs.
Ballast keel : 120kg – 265 lbs.
Sail area : 18 m2 – 194 sf
TRANSPORTABLE, unsinkable
Built in glass-epoxy-plywood

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Farthing:   Just under 15 feet.   Plans are more than $1100!   Ack.   Strip planking, which is certainly not as quick as big slabs of plywood.   Beautiful boat, and certainly an unusual one!   A mighty big project, but what a boat you’d have once done.   One has been built professionally.  A facebook page about the project, though it seems a bit stalled.  He dreams of crossing the Atlantic.  A design brief by the designer.

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LOA 14’8″ LWL 11’0″ Beam 5’4″ Draft 3’0″ Displacement 2,160 lbs. Berths 1

 

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Selway Fisher has some beautiful boats with an old school look, and they appear relatively seaworthy, though not at all in the same way as boats like Farthing.   Morning Tide 14 is a lovely boat, a real work of art to my eyes.  It also would be a big project.  Lovely design, and he has a good number of other boats I’d be proud to own.   This boat and the others like it would be the best choice, most likely.  I rarely do the BEST choice across all categories.

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Which brings me to my favorite… today.. though it wasn’t two days ago.  I just can’t make up my mind!   Silver Gull 19.  It’s the biggest boat here, though certainly not by waterline length.  Those pointy bits really hang out there.   And today I finally found a person who has built one.  Lovely.   Easier to build, as the basic hull could be “done” in 4 days… at least to the point as being recognizable as a hull.   I think there are four bulkheads in those 19 feet.  The most difficult part would be the keels and rudder.   And trailering would be a bit of a challenge, like with the Farthing.   But this is an unusual boat in a good way for me, a well respected hull shape, though it would feel tippier than some of the other boats, superficially.   I could use this on any part of Puget Sound, on nearby Lake Washington, on the Columbia River and on any water in between that was more than a few feet deep.   I’d have an electric outboard just in case.  That’s true on almost all these boats.

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LOD 19’7″  LWL 13’7″  Beam 6’6″   Draft 3’0″or 2’8″ Sail Area 95 sqft  Displacement 1,885 lbs.
Ballast 785 lbs.

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silver gull front

Then there are some old favorites like Welsford’s Scamp and Tread Lightly.   I’ve owned both sets of plans, but sold them in that long no boat building lull.   Cute boats.  Capable, more so than NED, less so than Farthing and Silver Gull as far as rough weather goes.    Quicker builds than farthing, for sure.  Not so sure yet about the total time required for Silver Gull, so I’ll make no comparison there.

Scamp:   Cute.  Small.  Nice community of builders in my area.   That storage area up front doesn’t do much compared to most of the other boats here, and I am too big to fold up on the the cabin lip.

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Tread Lightly.   Of the two, I’d probably build this one.  I have a funny quirk in that I don’t like doing what a lot of others have done.  And it would have a place for a head, which my wife would like for the day sail now and then.  Lovely little boat with a lovely little story from the designer.

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Pelican.   Finally, for now, the old standby, the pelican.  Funky.  Capable.  A local group of sailors.  Cheaper and easier to build than some others, but I would really like to have an enclosed section so I can use this boat on rainy NW days and in some tough weather.  The Scamp and tread lightly have the same issue.  I could go to Fafnir, but it’s off the consideration list for now.

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And Chip lives just down the street from me.

For now I’ll use this page to dream and compare, adding notes here as I go along.   Hmm.

OK… here are the bigger sailboats that ring my bell:

Rufus by George Buehler.     I just love old school boats, especially those leaning so far toward shantyboat.   I’d have to make it trailerable, though.

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And then there is Oyster by William Garden.   I saw this boat once, and though it was in pretty sad shape, and I think was torn up shortly thereafter, this boat has promise.   Liveaboard.  Funky.  And I think capable given the waters I want to use.   A bit of a long shot these last two.  Also, if I did either of them.. THAT would also have to be my shantyboat.   One boat that would “do it all”… sort of.

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Author: Bryan Lowe

A website about Shantyboats and affordable living on the water. More than 800 stories to date, and growing.