Tillikum

A canoe is a very small yacht. That is the assumption that the rebuilding of TILLIKUM is based on and the premise that will be behind the future adventures of this three masted ship that carries a famous name. Like this one, the original Tilikum was a three masted modified sailing canoe. We hope to follow in her footsteps, if not across great oceans, then across great continents.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

An Electrifying Experience, and Sea Trials.




Tillikum gains Electricity.
A Proper Yacht these days has electrical power to operate its various expensive gadgets: bilge pumps, lights, depth sounder, radar etc.. I wanted Tillikum to be up to date as well and I was particularly interested in an automatic bilge pump. I imagined being in an emergency situation where the canoe was taking on water and I was too busy rowing or sailing for my life to stop to bail. It would also be nice to plug in a navigation light or even a VHF radio.


The perennial problem was weight, but I found a small gel cell 12v. 7.5 amp. hr. battery that would fit through the hatch in the rear flotation compartment. I glued a plywood base for it to rest on into the bottom of the compartment with a bungee cord to keep it in place even in an upset. Wires from the battery (fused) lead through the bulkhead (sealed with marine silicone) to an automatic bilge switch and 500 gph. bilge pump set at the rear of the slot that forms the keel. A second set of wires and fuse serve a waterproof socket into which I can plug a variety of lights and a flexible solar panel for recharging. Anything else, like a GPS map plotter or cell phone can run on their own batteries.


Tillikum goes to Sea.
Late summer is a busy time around our house for my wife Heather, with a whole big vegetable garden to be processed into winter stores. There is no time to go gadding about with her husband in his latest toy, so when our friends Tom and Charlotte dropped in for a rest from their long Kayaking trip through the Gulf Islands it seemed a good time to take Tom back out to sea so I could try Tillikum out in salt water. We trailered Tillikum down to the head of Fulford Harbour and found the tide was out - way out! Having checked the tide tables, we were expecting this and it was the perfect opportunity to try out the carriage for the long walk over the sand to the water. The new wheels worked well on the hard sand and soon I was rowing out the bay somewhat disappointed not to find the canoe slipping along like greased lightning. She was no faster than my dory, but then, Edith is particularly fast.


An hour later and three miles from our launch site we went ashore at an island park for a walk and then I rigged the masts and sails and got Tom to take pictures as I sailed around in a light breeze. This time Tillikum tacked with no problems and sailed to windward well. With Tom back aboard we ran back up the harbour again in the light breeze. Running is the slowest point of sail but even so we only took another hour before we were beaching the canoe again and rolling it up to and on the trailer. Altogether a satisfactory sea trial.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Tillikum gets wheels.







Last time I put wheels under Tillikum, I borrowed the set I had made up for my dory. As they were designed to fit under the bows of the dory, the carriage was quite narrow and also fitted just back from the bow of the canoe: the weight 14 feet back at the stern was quite considerable. I needed a carriage that would be positioned close to the center balance point.







I had a couple of wheels saved from a broken lawnmower so these became the beginning of the new project. I removed the short axles and, after measuring the width needed amidships, I found a hollow metal tube the same diameter as the old axles and cut it to length. In itself it would not be rigid enough as an axle, so I forced a length of threaded rod down the center of it to stiffen it up and give a place to attach washers and nuts on to the outer ends of the axle.



A length of 2 by 4 was cut to fill the space between the wheels, a grove cut lengthwise and the axle glued into the slot with epoxy. (Washers between wheel and wood.)This stiffened the axle even more and gave a wooden frame to attach triangular plywood gussets on either end and either side. Onto these angled pieces were placed two plywood rectangular pieces to act as bunks (rests) where the canoe bottom met the carriage After a coat of paint I glued pieces of closed cell foam (old camper mat.) as the contact point for the canoe. Holes in the corners of the bunks took ropes to lash canoe to carriage. (I may replace these with cinch straps).







Strapped on amidships, partway in the unloading of canoe from the trailer, the canoe can be trundled around with one hand. Now I do not have to find a proper launching ramp or a full tide for launching. The canoe can be walked down any reasonably smooth beach, slid off the carriage into the water and the carriage left on the trailer for the reverse operation on my return.







Total cost: $0.00. Just the way I like it!

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Sailing trials. S*P*L*A*S*H.









This morning Tillikum slid up onto her new trailer, trundled down the road for a short distance, and, using a set of small wheels to roll her down the hill to the water, was launched into Weston Lake.










Finishing the trailer and completing the wiring for the lights took up a long time because there is a lot of other things happening at this time of year(I`m back to work on the folkboat). The set of wheels that slip under the end of the canoe were borrowed from my dory Edith. They enable me to walk Tillikum around by holding up just one end while the wheels support the other.










Before launching, the masts were stepped, sails rigged, and rudder mounted on the stern. What a lot of pieces of string! With sails hoisted, Tillikum slid into the water, was spun around to face out into the lake, and I stepped aboard after remembering to lower the centerboard and lifting rudder.










The breeze was light and fluky, so my first sailing act was to grab an oar and paddle Tillikum away from the water lilies. The breeze filled in lightly and off we went with me learning to use the push/pull tiller, adjust the mainsheet and release and haul the jib sheets (actually, the sheets to the overlapping foresail). Oh yeah, and steer! I left the missen sheeted in and looking after itself.







When my wife Heather had enough photos I picked her up and we went for a sail around the lake. A gust soon had us running fast before it and the long narrow hull moved ahead with a rush. She was fast before the wind but the true test began as we began to beat back toward our launch site. Reaching in the gusty breeze was a test of stability and we found that with two of us instinctively adjusting our weight she was stable; not rock solid, but for people used to tippy small boats and canoes, quite OK. An extra strong gust called for the main to be eased so the two smaller sails alone carried us along. As we tacked it was difficult to bring her through the winds eye and a couple of times we backed up with a reversed rudder to bring her around. The wind was very fluky and this may not be a problem in the future. We did sail back up the lake successfully however so on the whole I`m quite happy. There were so many unknown variables in my home design of hull and sail plan .







I did work out how to manage all those pieces of string eventually. The tiller was the solution that saved my having to manage two more strings as tiller lines. That would have been too much! Next launch will be in the ocean.








Friday, June 27, 2008

Canada Day Weekend. Big Pond Sailing.




Today Tillikum took a step foreward. She tried out the trailer I have been building for her ( up and down off our van roof regularly would be a difficult stretch.) and then tried out her new sails on Big Pond. She now has push/ pull tiller steering.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

What`s in a Name?

There`s nothing quite so rewarding as painting your boat. I used the same paint for the canoe as I used for my sailboat. It`s expensive paint (one part polyurethane) but I like the results and do not want to deal with peeling paint at a later date. I used a fiberglass wash, a white primer designed for this paint and did a careful job with a brush: two coats, to cover any lingering remains of the faded blue of the original gel coat. Sometime early on in the building process I decided to aim for only an OK quality of finish and the mirror finish shows up the blemishes. For the red and yellow stripes I used a hardware store plastic paint. For interior seats and floorboards I used floor paint I had on hand. Any parts covered in epoxy/graphite I left alone.

I painted the name and home port freehand between two strips of masking tape over lightly penciled in letters.

By using the Interlux Brightside“Hatteras off white” as the main colour inside and out I kept the canoe looking simple and uncomplicated. It should be cool in the summer sunlight. It will share one common colour and a touch-up paint pot with my folk boat sailboat “Safari Kati” that I am also working on.


Painting on a name has got to be a magical moment. Up to that moment the canoe is just that - a canoe, and possibly could be a “Traveller”, or “Raven,” or a dozen other names with their attendant indications of personality. Tillikum was by no means obvious until I realized that I had built a three masted modified sailing canoe, just as Captain Voss had done around one hundred years before. The fact that his Tilikum`s name meant “friend” in a west coast Indian language clinched the decision. In Victoria, the word is also spelt “Tillicum,” so this led me to combine the two spellings to make a uniquely spelled name for this canoe. TILLIKUM. Now she is named, she has taken on a separate personality. I called her home port “Victoria” to be like that first and famous ocean going canoe and our own schooner Shiriri.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Wings.




Of all the design considerations, it was the sail plan that occupied a lot of my reading and thinking hours. It was so fascinating and there was so much choice!

Although the first dream image showed only one mast and a triangular kind of sail, I knew this was only a starting point: the sail plan would need to be low and spread out fore and aft. Three masts would do this but would this create a wild complexity of sails and standing and running rigging? I reached for books that described traditional sails like sprits and lugs and pictures of sailing canoe rigs.

The slants of the fore and aft masts evolved from the configuration of the flotation compartments at bow and stern which sloped ( and now had holes cut in so that, with a watertight hatch, they could be used for storage).Using my usual try it and see if it looks right process I used sticks as masts and spars to help me test different configurations. I then cut, tapered and rounded three cedar sticks for masts and built some supports into the canoe. There were three different types of supports at deck level. The foremast passed through the front deck, the mainmast through a piece of plywood attached at the front end to the underside of the front seat and the after mast through a plywood crosspiece at deck level. Cedar was what I had available to make the masts from and although not strong, it is light and all through the project I have worried about adding too much weight. I wrapped the places that would take the most bending stress in fiberglass cloth for strength. I made the spars in the same way, adding chafe resistance with epoxy/ graphite where spars would rub against masts.

Even at this point I was switching back and forth between a sprit rig or a lug rig. Both had their advantages, and I had used a standing lug sail on my dory. Fortunately my wife, Heather, is used to my dithering over decisions and is quite easy going as long as it does n`t involve her. I settled on a lug rig in the end but it was a near thing! The slant of the fore and aft masts was useful. The aft sail would naturally swing inward where it would normally be for sailing on the wind, and the fore sail would swing out to the side for off wind work! I added a (removable) pole outrigger on the stern to allow the easy sheeting control of the aft sail. None of the masts needed the support of standing rigging and the lug sails had only one halyard and one sheet each. I also made a small triangular sail for the aft mast for use as a riding sail in strong winds. All other sails had reef points built in so their size could be reduced. In theory, Tillikum can sail with main alone , or fore and aft alone or with a variety of reefed combinations.

Sail cloth for my tiny sails came from a big light used genoa; bought very cheaply. While I dreamed of red sails in the sunset, price and practicality won through. I first made paper patterns by sticking the sheets of newsprint directly to the yards when they were set up in their proper places and after looking and imagining how they would interact and how they could be raised and lowered, I laid them out on the sailcloth and cut them out. ( no changing my mind again now!) In a couple of hours, Heather and I had them sewn up and the next day I put in the grommets that would allow the sails to be attached to yards, sheets and allow for reef points.



This has been a most satisfying process for me because sails are such a dynamic medium - like kite making, but more so. Will they work as I imagine? Not perfectly, I`m sure, but that is part of the fun and I`m working in such a small scale, with such inexpensive materials (There is a lot more of that genoa) that I am free to try things out. Have I given the canoe too much sail? Too little? Will she go to windward well? Will three sails and tiller lines wrap me up in too much string? How exciting!

Friday, June 6, 2008

The Lifting Rudder and Centerboard.



While proceeding with step by step gluing up the decks and combing, I was also designing and making the centerboard and rudder. I read a lot and looked at many pictures and found there were two main solutions: either the rudder was fitted to a shaft set in the stern, or it was hung outboard on the stern. I decided on the more straight forward on-stern attachment and found two secondhand gudgeon fittings originally meant as sailing hardware. The first gudgeon screwed directly to the top of the stern, and the second to tapered pieces of hardwood through bolted and glued to backing plates inside the canoe just above the waterline.


A friend gave me a quarter inch thick piece of aluminum out of which I first cut the centerboard shape and then with the remainder glued up a composite wood and aluminum rudder blade which would pivot up and down at the base of a laminated plywood rudder stock. The most difficult problem for me to solve was finding a pintle to fit both the gudgeon and the thickness of the shaft. No such animal! Eventually I took two galvanized nails, cut off their heads, and bent them the to a 90 degree angle in the vice. After carefully lining everything up I drilled two holes into the leading edge of the rudder shaft, applied epoxy, and pushed the cut nail ends into the plywood. The bent ends were angled down and the whole rudder hung right away so that every thing could be finely adjusted before the setting glue made every thing final. I now had a rudder whose blade could lift if it touched ground, which could be raised by a lanyard to any degree including a vertical position (if I wished to row backwards), and which could be lifted completely off. The nail pintles were of soft iron so that under extreme shock they would simply bend rather than break themselves or the rudder stock.


As the canoe would be impossible to steer with a tiller ( too far back and with a mast in the way)I decided to use a cross piece( yoke) at the top of the rudder shaft to which tiller lines could be attached so the canoe could be steered from anywhere. This too was designed to be removable if needed.


The centerboard case had been built for a one half inch wooden centerboard, but the quarter inch aluminum had obvious advantages: it was not buoyant and was abrasion resistant. Unfortunately it was too thin for the width of the case. I solved this problem by gluing quarter inch plywood to the sides of the aluminum and then faring the whole thing to a streamlined taper at both edges with the belt sander. I coated it all with an epoxy/graphite mix. The centerboard was then wedged temporarily into place in it`s case and a hole drilled through case and board for a bolt on which it would pivot. Besides being a tight fit, the bolt had rubber washers at either end to prevent any leaks. A wire was attached to the top of the centerboard and lead through the top of the case so the board could be raised.


It was difficult to estimate just how large the rudder blade should be so I made it large and plan to trim it as I start using it. Too large a blade will be awkward and strain the rudder stock and too small would be ineffective. It is all part of the fine adjustment process that is built into this style of design and construction.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Side Decks.



I removed the final clamps from the newly raised sides with some satisfaction and imagined how the canoe would handle under oars and sail: not very well it told me. The sides were fragile and would be too easily submerged when the canoe heeled under sail. I knew all about this because sailing my dory involved keeping a delicate balance between letting her sail on her chine, which she preferred, and having water pour over the gunwales. For an expedition boat I needed a more stable platform: I needed side decks. These would also give rigidity to the sides and add more buoyancy if the canoe heeled right down. It is so satisfying when a solution to one problem solves others as well.



By attaching another full length cedar strip to the inside of the ribs terminating in the Vs of the bow and stern I created a narrow surface to which I could glue curved strips of quarter inch plywood. A bow cambered deck flowed naturally from these plans and I needed to solve how the stern would develop as well: a small triangular hatch fitted well into this section: a perfect place for an anchor rode, as the canoe could just as easily be anchored from the stern as from the bow - easier in fact, because with masts and camping gear in the way it would be difficult to reach the bows.

Tillikum from the stern

Before fitting and gluing the deck pieces, I cut small blocks of foam insulation and placed them on the inside of the raised side decks to augment the flotation (First coating the wooden surfaces with a thinned epoxy to seal them from moisture) if the canoe should be completely swamped. Then the bow and stern decks were glued into place followed piece by piece by the side decks. All pieces were cut oversize and trimmed to fit later. I used copper brads to hold the plywood into place until the epoxy had set. To protect the side/deck edge, I glued a hardwood strip that tapered toward the ends. This widened the sides another inch! I was step by step creating a ledge under which I could place another section of foam flotation.

The blocks of foam flotation.

I had been looking at photos of the sailing canoes of a hundred years ago that were also partially decked in and decided to build a combing along the inside edge of the deck. This would catch water running down the decks, provide a lip to which a spray cover or tent could be snapped and create more freeboard in case of a knock down.

The bow. Applying decks one piece at a time. Oversize, and then trim to fit.

This combing required some pretty tight curves,especially at the bow, so I glued it on in two stages; of quarter inch plywood strips laminated one to the other. Really tight curves were created on the wood-stove top with wet plywood held to the hot metal and bent into a curve amidst steam and smoke. They were then temporarily clamped into their final positions until dry when they would hold their shape while being glued and clamped. An epoxy fillet to fill the angle between deck and combing strengthened the joint. After planing and belt-sanding all to perfection I coated all with a thinned (with ten percent lacquer thinner) epoxy mix that could soak right into the wood.

*This project went ahead in small steps because I only had a limited number of C clamps and spring clamps. It would have been a perfect project for someone who only had a few minutes each day after work to build, but had weeks and weeks to complete it. For me, it meant that I had plenty of time to doodle ideas for the next stages in my sketch book and research in boatbuilding books. Then there were the middle of the night awakenings to find I had solved another problem in my dreams!

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Playing House. - Raising the Sides.


Here I admit right away that I like to plan in conjunction with the canoe rather than first thinking it all out in my head. I interact. Once the replacement gunwales had been sprung and glued into place, holes patched with epoxy and fiberglass, and a midships bulkhead and centerboard case installed, I cut the carrying yoke out, as it would be in the way of the central rowing position. Now I could step into the hull and sit on a temporary seat and start creating a set of measurements around my body. How high must the seat be for a comfortable rowing position? If the seat is here, how high does the oarlock position need to be for rowing, how far aft of the seat and how far apart? If I want to sleep on board, (and I thought that was important), can I be comfortable in the six feet between the central bulkhead and the stern flotation compartment.? Fortunately, I was all alone in my studio so I did not have to worry about how others might view my playing house within this beat-up old canoe.


From all these measurements I could begin to formulate the first step of building up the sides. They needed to be higher by a few inches and wider. Like most canoes, this one had high raked up ends and a low freeboard amidships so it seemed reasonable to flatten the sheer line by raising the sides in the center and tapering them off into the ends. A big concern was to keep things as light as possible so I used some " mahogany"quarter inch plywood. The obvious way to raise the sides to give height and width was to use the outside of the gunwales as a base and attach short ribs to the inside at intervals to support them. I then ripped the plywood into long thin strips and clamped one side up to see how they would have to be cut to shape and scarf jointed. Once again you will notice that I`m holding parts up to the canoe and taking measurements while at the same time figuring out how to do it. It`s a co-operative process: the parts are informing me how best to proceed.




I have my own rough cedar lumber and plenty of scrap pieces of wood so the materials at hand guided my decisions as well. Because red cedar is light and could be cut in long thin strips, I found it made sense to use it to spring a strip from bow to stern on either side to create a smooth new sheer line and gunwale edge. But first, the plywood strip scarf joints were created with a belt sander, glued together and then they were clamped and glued to the gunwale. Finally the new upper gunwale pieces were bent into the shape of the new sheer line and glued to the outside edge of the plywood sides.( This also gained an extra two inches of beam.) That`s much the best way to go especially with this by guess and by golly style of boat building. I`s all very precise in the end, you just have to get your mind turned around in the right direction.


In terms of innovation in this phase of the building, placing the new gunwale strip on the outside rather on the inside was unusual. It just grew out of the process and invented itself. If I had planned this in advance, I`m sure I would have followed standard boat building practice and attached the new gunwale strip to the ribs first and then applied the plywood to the outside (and lost two inches of width). This may seem a picky point, but I would guess that discoveries often have their birth in semi structured environments like this. There`s nothing quite like messing about while building boats!


* I read John Gardner`s book Building Classic Small Craft and Wooden Boat Magazine for reference throughout this project. No harm in using the accumulated experience of many people, and the ability to read print and images for information and create syntheses is part of the skill set I brought to this project.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Casting Loose.



Deciding to build a centerboard case into the old canoe was a case of opting to follow the dream rather than settle for a simple fix.. It was the fatal step beyond which I would continue to work to bring the canoe forward out of the dark and into the light of realization. I put it off for days and finally attacked it in a tentative and harassed sort of way. When the call comes, the builder is often reluctant to accept.

The obvious place for the centerboard was between the midships bulkhead ( itself necessary because I needed to place some lateral support here as I was going to remove the carrying yoke that had served that purpose) and the front seat. I also wanted to place the main mast just aft of the front seat rather than through the middle of it because I needed a full time functional seat for a second member of the crew and as a second rowing station. The canoe has a narrow slot down the centerline and that would serve for the mast step and the slot that the centerboard case would be glued into.
The case was glued up (I used West System epoxy with a variety of fillers throughout the project.) from two side pieces of half inch plywood ( previously coated on the inside faces with epoxy/graphite) and two three-quarter inch wide end pieces that projected slightly below so they would reach to the bottom of the slot. I then fiberglass wrapped the ends of the box to give strength and make it leak proof. To fit the box tightly into the slot , I planed the bottom edges and trial fitted until it was a tight fit. I mixed up a batch of thickened epoxy, and set the case down into the bed of epoxy and at the same time glued it vertically to the central bulkhead. Having fastened this into place with temporary screws (drywall screws work great for this) I placed two lengthwise support pieces on either side of the case against the bottom of the canoe and bent and clamped them into place with props sprung down from a beam overhead.



This all sounds ploddingly workmanlike, but words cannot describe the frenzy when the epoxy is mixed and pieces are being fitted into place. The final wild moment came when I realized that those two side logs had to be sprung into place into the about- to- cure epoxy and I had no way to clamp them. I unsuccessfully tried bricks as weights and then remembering how dorys are traditionally made with the bottom pressed into a curved rocker shape by props wedged down from an overhead beam. That saved the day.
For those who might think that I should have thought of this in advance, I can only reply that too much thinking in advance is dull, dull, dull and that while I may not gamble in Las Vegas or ski straight down precipitous slopes I do indulge in free-for-alls like this. Ah, how satisfying!


The final stage was cutting the hole through from the bottom of the canoe into the centerboard case. The messy bottom joint was exposed and had to be filed smooth, gaps filled, and fiberglass cloth folded in to make a strong leakproof joint between hull and case. To support the sides of the newly cut hole I glued hardwood strips and faired them into the keel. All this took a lot of time and fiddle and gobbled up a lot of epoxy.


By the time I completed the case, I was fully launched and happy. Things just moved ahead from there and the difficult start-up phase was passed successfully. Casting loose from the shore is the most difficult part of any journey.



Black Bottom.
A book on wooden kayak construction described the process of coating the bottom in a coat of epoxy mixed with graphite to give a hard, slippery surface. I copied this idea for Tillikum. I had used this mix on my dory to harden the high abrasion parts of the bottom to good effect, and needed to thicken up worn areas where the canoe had been run up on beaches. Once these parts had been toughened up, I painted on a single layer over the whole bottom. It will be much more likely now to withstand the wear and tear of ocean and river travel.



Centerboard rather than dagger board.
The canoe must be able to adjust instantly to very shallow water. A daggerboard must be lifted in advance of shallows or it will break or at least stop the canoe while a centerboard will simply slide back up into the case as it touches ground and then drop again when the depth increases. I also designed a rudder that would do the same. More on this subject later.



Sail plan.
Establishing the position of the centerboard and to some extent the rudder influenced the future positions of the mast(s) and sail(s) as the center of lateral resistance of the hull was now established. Each modification called up further ramifications and this I found very interesting. I do not play chess, but imagine the ability to visualize how each move fits into the whole game is part of the satisfaction. As an artist too, I am used to developing an image within an ever shifting set of parameters and bringing all (hopefully) to a harmonious outcome. Something I bring to boat building that is strictly my own, is my artist`s pleasure in pushing the limits and inventing on the fly.

Monday, May 5, 2008

The Circle.


The first image of Tillikum surrounded by thoughts about turning dream into reality.

I started with crows even though this story purports to be about a canoe. Imagining begins well before the first design line is drawn and it is a step often skipped over in the rush to rational nuts and bolts planning. Can you imagine, what do you dream, are questions that access the creative and organizing parts of our mind. Crows were my dream guides for that important first imaging of a sailing canoe slipping along in the moonlight, still shrouded in darkness and mystery but on the way to take its part in the its developing design and construction.

Tillikum arrived first in the back pages of my sketchbook, a place I do my thumbnail sketches for all sorts of projects, and typically the first drawing was fairly complete, as though I had been given the whole before the parts and my job was simply to prove it out. I had dreamed for years of making a paddling canoe into a row boat: That long slim hull propelled by oars would be an interesting hybrid, and this drawing showed the raised and widened sides that would make this possible. Sails, I had already proven to work on another canoe journey and the gunwale flotation was an idea that worked well on my dory Edith. When a tent-like canopy idea surfaced I was on my way to adopting the camping/sailing model that we had used on our Wharram designed catamaran Amazon that we had sailed in the Bahamas. So perhaps the design roots of Tillikum were not that mysterious after all but the way all the design components gelled without conscious thought still fascinates me and I always give full room for its free operation.

Once the canoe is built, the final stage will be the fulfilment of the dream: the adventure into the unknown landscape, of new knowledge only revealed through experience. That step will be the culmination of the impulse that began the project and the closing of the circle where experience provides the matrix from which new ideas will spring.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

"I have slipped the surly bonds of earth...."







Today Tillikum rolled out of the studio, slid into Big Pond, and performed beautifully.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Tillikum gets a face lift.



When I first was given this canoe my first thought was to do the obvious repairs (replace rotten gunwales, repair holes and dents and paint it) but I have a compulsion to put a sail on anything I come across so my next step was to build a centerboard case, shape and glue it into the slot in the bottom of the canoe and then cut the hole through to the bottom. This proved to be a great user up of time and epoxy and so, having invested that much into this derelict fiberglass canoe I was lured into a continuing process of adding one more refinement after another. This is very different from working from plans and the process has its own unique frustrations and rewards.


The frustrations stem from having to adapt to and make allowances for what is there already - a canoe hull - and not really knowing what the next step is going to be except in the vaguest sort of way: no one had figured it out for me in advance. The satisfactions and rewards are the mirror image of the frustrations - All of the above call for imagination and research, problem solving and invention and when it is finished, if it performs well and looks beautiful there is a great sense of satisfaction.


After a winter of poking away at this canoe I am just about ready to launch it in the pond behind my studio to be sure that the modifications I have made have not been detrimental to its seaworthiness. I will then make sails, and do any necessary modifications to the canoe as it is tested out on the ocean.


While I am doing that I will describe the earlier steps along the way in some detail just in case there is someone else out there who has been given some thing like this canoe and knows they must either do something with it or take it to the dump. The technical details may be directly useful, but the process of design and development could be applied to just about any thing and that is my real interest.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Can you imagine...


Tillikum sails in the moonlight,
watched over by crows.

Monday, April 7, 2008

Down, but not out.

Beaten and dented, this old fiberglass canoe was left at the side of the road and labeled "Free".That was about what I could afford so she came home to stay and to be reborn as Tillikum during a winter in my studio.

Sunday, April 6, 2008


This first entry is the beginning of the story of a canoe that was left in the garbage and found new life and self respect as a three masted sailing ship. This first image is of the crow who saw the abandoned canoe and carried the message of its fate to me . I hope you will enjoy the story as it progresses week by week.

The original Tilikum