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.

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.

The original Tilikum