Re: The design of the Swallow.


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Posted by Jonathan Labaree on March 10, 2003 at 22:43:28 from 207.5.234.19 user JLabaree.

In Reply to: Re: The design of the Swallow. posted by John Nichols on March 10, 2003 at 21:06:20:

Wow, a lot of good information in that post, John. This is a longish reply, sorry.

I'll have to look and see what Gardner says about the design of the peapod that gives you misgivings about making your Swallow broader amidships. The peapod was my first boat so naturally planking was challenging, but I didn't have anything for comparison. If you want a wider midsection, I wouldn't hesitate to design it that way unless you think planks will be too wide in the middle and too narrow at the ends.

The steam box doesn't have to be fancy, but when you get to bending in the frames, you will find that it can go pretty fast, so you may want something that will fit all of your frames. You bend them in, secure them to the keel (with a copper nail, perhaps), clamp them to the sheer, and move on to the next one before fastening them all in properly with rivets through the planks and screws into the keel once they’ve cooled. You don't have to do it that way, but it's kind of fun. Many steam boxes are just four boards held together with external framing. PVC pipe also makes a decent steam box as does stove pipe. It doesn't need to be leak-proof since you are not really trying to build up pressure, but you want it pretty tight so you don’t loose too much steam. You might find a length or two of stove pipe handy for creating a steam box for steaming the ends of the lower planks where they twist a lot at the stem.

Steambending is great fun – it seems like a miracle when it works. I strongly recommend getting green wood with as straight a grain as possible. That will vastly reduce the number of broken and splintered frames when it comes time to bending them in (you will get some broken ones almost no matter what you do). Sounds like that will mean a bit of a trip, but you will find it worth it and will likely save time in the end.

Mystic is indeed a wonderful place. The museum is full of great boats, models, and exhibits. John Gardner was a wonderful human being - very low-key, very knowledgeable, extremely pleasant, and a great teacher. I feel very fortunate to have known him and to have had the privilege of his looking over my shoulder from time to time as I sputtered along on that peapod. You speak of splitting the planks in half – that’s just what we did with the peapod, at John’s advice and with his guidance. It worked beautifully and saved a lot of time.

Most travelers I have used in traditional boats have been little more than a yoke of line secured to both quarters with a block running along it. The sheet often starts at the end of the boom, goes through the block on the traveler, and then goes back to a block on the end of the boom, and then to one closer to the mast (perhaps a couple of feet from the end of the boom), where it is more convenient for handling at the helm. Alternatively, it can come right from the traveler to a block partway along the boom, but that can get in the way of things back aft. I’ll try a quick drawing and email it to you.

If you are going to be planning in this boat, you may want something a little more sophisticated. I’m not very sophisticated, so you’ll have to get that advice from someone else, but it will probably be something you have to buy.

I have mentioned it here before, but one of the fun things about that peapod is you can sail it without centerboard or rudder. It’s not terribly weatherly, but it’s a lot fun and great to see people’s reactions when they realize you don’t have a rudder.

In case you haven’t already found it, you might be interested in the Woodenboat forum. You sometimes have to take the advice you get there with a grain of salt (that goes for what you hear from me, too!), but if you have some specific questions, you are likely to get some decent answers. The address is below.

You mentioned elm. What were you planning to use that for?

- Jonathan



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