New Year's Row

Ravn and Paku waiting to be loaded onto trailers.

I know I'm a little slow on this post - like two weeks - but I need to write it so I can write the post I really want to write.

My wife and I had an enjoyable, but cold, row on New Year's Day. It was another drift down the Yaquina River. This time my wife didn't have to work so she was able to occupy the princess seat. In stead of a full codgery of Coots, only one other vessel accompanied us: Doryman and his wife, Mary, rowed their beautiful Culler skiff Paku.

Mary and my wife have many similar interests (yarn, knitting, violins and other stuff). Doryman and I often get together to "play boats" with his fleet of small craft. The Doryman has only about seven boats at the moment, but that number can and does change with alarming frequency. All his boats are made of wood and have either been extensively restored or built from scratch by Doryman. Some are even his own designs. If that weren't enough, he is also the current international president of the Traditional Small Craft Association.

In all, an interesting couple. Needless to say, we did a lot more talking than rowing. That was OK, however, because Doryman planned the outing so the ebb tide and the river's current gave us a two-knot, or better, push down the river. How could an outing like this get any better? Food and even more conversation, which is how we ended the day in a great little BBQ restaurant in Toledo. Thanks Mary and Doryman!

Rowin' on the River

As I hitched up the boat I could hear the surf pummeling the Oregon Coast even though my house is more than a half mile from the beach. This weekend the storm-warning flags flew for the first time in months. Driving south along the coast highway the wind buffeted Ravn on the trailer.

I picked up my friend, Scott, in Newport. He brought his fishing pole and net because the salmon are running up the Yaquina River. Both of us brought our foul-weather gear.

As we drove east the wind abated, but the sky was a threatening rain. We got to Elk City around 1 p.m. to total calm and no rain, conditions that would persist until about the last mile of our row. Nine other boats were there from the Western Oregon Messabouts (the Coots) -- 14 other Coots and spouses. it was an interesting group of boats that included a Bogler Light Schooner, two canoes, a Puddle Duck Racer, a Footloose Skiff designed by Warren Jordan, a Pete Culler Good Little Skiff and a Paul Gartside Riff.

We rowed six miles down the river on a falling tide that sometimes gave us as much as a two-knot push. The salmon were jumping and rolling all along the six miles of river, but Scott didn't get a bite. Only one other boat we passed caught one and it was dark (past its prime), they said.

I rowed most of the way while Scott fished. He did try out the new oars and agreed with me that they could stand to have more wood removed from the shaft between the leathers and the blade. We rowed double for a while: four oars first, then we both sat on the same thwart and rowed one oar each. The surprising thing was that we seemed to go as fast each rowing one oar as we did under four oars. What will it be like with four rowers!?

The weather was very nice for late October, no wind or rain and about 60 degrees. Then, about a mile from our goal, a gust of wind so sudden and strong that it took your breath away struck us and it started to pour. Everyone was ready with the rain gear and no one looked too uncomfortable, but we were all ready to get out by the time we reached the Quarry Boat Launch.

Mary, who organized the event with her husband Michael (a.k.a. Doryman), ferried the drivers back to their towing rigs. Once back at the boat launch, many helpers made loading the 10 boats a quick operation.

We then went to Pigfeathers, a great little BBQ joint in Toledo. The food, the company and the service was awesome! A nice end to a great rowing event!

For more (and better) photos got to Doryman's blog and John Kohnen's photos.

New oars!

Last night I finished the 10-foot pair of oars I've been working on for the past five weeks or so. Gluing up the blanks was a bit of a pain, so I dilly dallied around, putting off the parts I didn't like. After the glue up, the project went quickly.

I enjoy working with draw knives and spokeshaves and soon I was ankle deep in shavings. My Stanley No. 40 scrub plane and my Stanley No. 3 small smooth plane came in handy as well. Both these planes are more than 100 years old and work every bit as well now as they did when they were made. I suspect the 10-inch draw knife and the two spokeshaves are at least close to the same age, but Stanley planes are much easier to date because of the changes in the Stanley logo and the innovations the company made to their planes.

I used Douglas fir because I couldn't find spruce of the right size. As I was finishing up this pair a friend suggested that Port Orford cedar would be another good wood for oars, and I have no doubt he's right, but that's another difficult wood to find. The oars turned out heavier than I wanted, but they seem to be well balanced.

I used a pair of Norwegian oars that are more than 50 years old as my guide. These are the most beautiful set of oars I've ever seen. I just wish they were long enough, but, alas, they are only eight feet long.

I will see how well they work tomorrow on a 10-mile row from Elk City to Toledo, Ore., on the Yaquina River. My friend, Scott, who loaned me his 9-foot oars, is coming with me. This is a Western Oregon Messabouts/Traditional Small Craft Association event. The weather is not shaping up all that great - looks like we will have wind and rain - but the tide will be in our favor. A spring tide should give us about a two-and-a-half knot push. Afterwards we are eating BBQ at Pigfeathers, a great little restaurant across from the Toledo City Docks.

A row with neighbors

On Columbus Day I took my neighbors out for a row on the lake near our homes. I wanted to repay Ray for all the help he gave me during the building of Ravn. I also wanted to see how she would perform with four adults on board.

The weather was beautiful -- sunny with a slight breeze. I brought my 8-foot oars as well as the 9-footers I'm borrowing from a friend. Both Ray and I rowed and she move smartly along. Both our wives were in the princess seat and everyone had plenty of room. The boat was amazingly stable, which is great when you are loading and unloading folks who are not used to being around small boats. We all agreed after the row that we could have had a couple of grandkids in the boat without overcrowding the boat.

Meantime, I'm almost finished with the final shaping of the 10-foot oars I'm working on. And across the country Rick launched his Valgerda on Columbus Day.

Ravn Rows in the Ocean

With the good weather quickly coming to an end here on the Oregon coast, I often forgo working on the boat to go out for a quick row. Last week my brother was in town and I took him rowing on the Salmon River and crossed a breaking bar out into the wide Pacific. With a four-foot swell and a fresh breeze Ravn was truly in her element. The photo shows the mouth of the Salmon River with Cascade Head in the background.

Ravn did what few boats can do of any size and that's to cross a shallow river bar with breaking seas. At no time did I feel like the boat was out of control or that we were in danger. This is what these boats were built for and centuries of refinement have made them very good at it. She tracked like she was on rails, even when we were on top of the breaking waves. It was nice having my brother there to direct me over the bar. You need a set of eyes looking looking fore and aft to negotiate such a maneuver. It would have been nicer still to have had a second set of oars for him to use, so instead of directing he could have rowed facing forward while sitting on the stern thwart. The added thrust would have been nice, but not essential.

Once we were out on the ocean we fished near some off-shore rocks. The boat held station like she had a parking break. There is a lot of boat below the waterline, even though I have opted for less keel than Mr. Atkin drew. Both my brother and I moved around the boat at will. This boat is very stable. It feels more like a 25-foot keel boat and not at all like a dingy.

After a couple hours of fishing (not catching, by the way) we came back across the bar and found a nice little beach inside the river's mouth to eat our lunch. My brother again proved his worth by guiding me between some suitcase-sized rocks until Ravn's bow slid up on the beach. I jumped out first (I had on rubber boots) and held the bow. My brother, in street shoes, was able to step off the bow onto dry beach. Another good reason to go with the a shallow keel.

I thought Ravn would be a lot less handy than her predecessor, a 13.5-foot Chamberlain dory. She is about three times as heavy, draws about eight more inches and is five feet longer. In other words, she's a lot more boat. I thought that would make her harder to launch and recover and harder to tow behind my little four-cylinder truck. I have not found that to be the case. It takes about the same time and effort to launch and recover the boat and I hardly notice I'm towing anything when I have her hitched up. While I generally agree with the old saw that the smaller the boat the more you use it. that's not my experience with Ravn. From the time I get it in my head that "Hey, I should go for a quick row," to when I'm actually rowing on the lake near my house is about 10 minutes. That's the same amount of time it took with my little dory. And, because this boat is so much more capable and seaworthy, I know I will use it more.

Ravn's Rowing Report

Since launching Ravn Aug. 21 I've taken her rowing four times and I'm happy to report that, true to her Viking heritage, she handles like a dream under oars. There's no question that she has some weight when you take that first pull, but the extra glide seems to more than make up for it. She also just brushes off small waves.

The other thing I'm really pleased about is how stable she is. While rowing alone I used all of my 250 pounds to try and push the gunwale down at the middle of the boat. I didn't even get my knuckles wet. On another occasion I took my wife, daughter and her two kids rowing with me. At one point during the voyage four of the five of us were standing and moving about the boat; it didn't feel at all tippy. The grandkids had a ball running around on the boat.

When you look at the boat from the end it is narrow on the waterline, which makes it such a good pulling boat. She quickly gets beamier, however, as the boat heels or as the load increases, making her more stable. This bodes well for her being able to stand up under the press of sail.

I rowed across the lake near my home last Saturday when the wind was blowing about 15 knots creating some nasty wind chop. She didn't ship a drop of water and behaved herself like a lady, tracking straight and true. I decided to stop rowing and see what she would do. She slowly came to a stop and then clocked head to wind. I think that is the payoff for having a long, fairly deep (for a rowboat) keel.

While at the Toledo Wooden Boat Show, a fellow Coot loaned me two binders loaded with information on Scandinavian boats. It included a monograph on the Hardanger Faering by Owen H. Wicksteed prepared for the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London, copyright 1978. The author's family owned Kari, a Hardanger faering built in 1892. (I believe that this is the boat on which Paul Fisher based his Kari 2.) The oars used on the Kari were 10 feet, four inches long.

All the rowing I've done so far has been with a pair of 9-foot oars I borrowed from a friend. They move Ravn along just fine, but I feel the need for a little more leverage. I'm at work on a pair of 10-foot oars modeled after a pair of 8-foot Norwegian-made oars that are about 50 years old. They are beautifully made and have a nice shape. I'm excited to finish them and try them out.

One concern I had about Ravn was that she would be more difficult to launch and tow than my 14-foot Chamberlain dory. I need not have worried; even though Ravn is more than three times as heavy and has a deeper draft, it is not noticeably more difficult to launch, recover or tow than my little dory was.

Launch day!

363 days after turning the boat over she finally got a taste of her true element. I worked late into the night sanding, varnishing and completing other chores so I could take her to the Toledo Wooden Boat Festival yesterday. My wife and I drove to Toledo and launched her about a mile and a half from the festival.

When I thought of launching Ravn I envisioned a larger affair with friends and food, but the actual launch was better than I imagined; just my wife and I at a quiet boat launch with no one else around. I tied a glass nazir (a Turkish bead that symbolizes the eye of God) around the stem with marline and tucked a spruce bow and a raven feather in the marline. Then I said a little prayer to God, poured my favorite beverage on the bow stem. Gave her a little shove off the trailer and she was afloat for the first time!

There's still a lot of work to do -- I need to make the mast, yard, boom, rudder, tiller and fit the hatches on the water-tight compartments -- but I feel like I've really reached a milestone.

The best part is that she rows like a dream. I'm eager to see what she will be like with two, three and four rowers.