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.

Getting the Right Rake

Atkin specifies Valgerda's mast should rake five inches in 10 feet, that's one in 24 or about two degrees. You don't have to hang around me long before you discover that I'm not a whiz at math or even simple arithmetic. Finding where Ravn's mast step needed to be had me scratching my head for a while. Finally, I took an eight-foot two-by-two, stuck it through the mast partner and marked it. Then I measured five feet up from that mark and made another mark. I made a block two and a half inches long and found another stick longer than five feet. I taped the whole thing together making sure one end of the shorter stick was at the five-foot mark and the block was level with the mast partner. Then I taped a spirit level to the whole lashup. Ravn's keelson is level so I was able to gage when the second stick was perpendicular. I made a mark. Phew!

A pattern, a chunk of purple heart, some time on the bandsaw and hollow-chisel mortiser, rasp, files and sandpaper and PRESTO! A mast step! I also added an screw eye to anchor a downhaul for the boom at the jaws. A little epoxy and I checked another item off the list.

Speaking of lists: I don't have an exhaustive list of jobs left to finish. I only make a series of short lists - with never more than six or eight items. I made the mistake once of ticking off the items remaining to be finished while talking to a friend. This was not written down and I skipped a lot of the small stuff. Still, that experience nearly sunk me into a state of depression. So, to keep off the Prozac, I make my lists short. When I get everything checked off the list I'm working on, I throw it away and start a new one.

Kjeip or Kabes

I love rowing, but I am not a fan of oar locks. I've tried about every kind, and they just don't feel right. There's something about how the metal engages the wood that takes away from the organic feel of bone and muscle moving wood through water.

My eyes were opened several years ago when I rowed the Hewitt R. Jackson, a replica longboat built by the Grays Harbor Historical Seaport in Aberdeen, Wash. The longboat has 10 rowing stations, is 26 feet long and displaces more than a ton. It's a replica of the longboat Capt. Robert Gray carried aboard the Columbia and would be almost identical to the one in which Capt. Bligh made his famous open-boat voyage.

When I was with the Grays Harbor Historical Seaport - first as an employee, then as a volunteer and a board member - I had many occasions to sail aboard the seaport's flagship, the brig Lady Washington. As wonderful as crewing aboard a square rigger is, the longboat was much more fun. Although there are 10 rowing stations, she will move along smartly with only four or six rowers.

Part of what makes the longboat experience such fun is that the oarsmen pull against a thole pin with the oar held in place with a rope gasket. This was the eye-opening experience I had. This arrangement cured all of the complaints I had against metal oar locks. In addition to the feel - that can't be matched by metal oar locks - thole pins and rope gaskets are traditional, cheap, easily replaced and just look bitching!

Thole pins are what Atkin specified in the plans for Valgerda. I was planning, looking forward in fact, to putting thole pins on Ravn... that is until I saw pictures of faerings fitted out with kabes or kjeip. (I believe that kabe is the name Shetland Islanders call them and kjeip is the Norwegian.) These are even more traditional (on faerings, at least) than thole pins. And they are way more bitching! The problem for me was that I didn't have anything but pictures to go on in designing the two pair of kabes for Ravn.

I scoured the internet for anything I could find out about them. Other than a few pictures and some vague descriptions, I didn't have much to go on. I did decide that I liked the looks of the kjeip on the Viking-era faerings better than later, more modern - like, only a couple hundred year-old, versions. The Viking-era kjeip were made from a section of log with a branch sticking out from it. This would be much stronger than one carved out of a chunk of wood because the grain of the wood would flow correctly - otherwise you have, what woodworkers call, "a short-grain situation."

As soon as I decided to put kjeip on Ravn I should have shouldered my ax and bow saw and headed into the woods, but I didn't think I would have time to find what I needed and have them dry in time for the launch. Boy, was I blind: that was about 18 months ago!

Last winter I decided to dive in and make some out of white oak and glue some reinforcement pieces on the sides to strengthen the short grain so it didn't break off. This all looked good on paper, but once I sawed, glued and started to shape them I soon lost my enthusiasm. They just did not look right.

My enthusiasm returned a couple months ago when I spotted some eight-quarter purple heart in a specialty hardwood store in Seattle. I'd also been revising the design in my head and had a solution to the short-grain problem. Finally, last week I put pencil to paper, came up with a shape I liked and suddenly I was a kjeip maker again. My solution to strengthening the short grain is to drill a half-inch hole through the middle of the upright portion of the kjeip and epoxy in a half-inch dowel of purple heart I turned on the lathe. It sounds easier than it was, but it wasn't too bad.

The thing that took the longest was the shaping, first with a bandsaw, then with rasps, files and sandpaper. The process reminded me a lot of making cabriole legs, like Queen Ann and Chippendale tables have. The difference was that nearly any furniture wood is more yielding than purple heart. The stuff is like a mineral!

I used my best epoxy-gluing techniques to attach them to the gunwale and then reinforced the join with some 5/16 dowels. With no metal fasteners, you can remove the whole affair with a handsaw should it ever need to be replaced.

A hole - drilled on a near diagonal from outboard, aft to inboard - is for the length of quarter-inch line that will capture the oar. I may eventually splice together a proper gasket, but for now I want to play around with the length of the loop so I will use a Zeppelin bend to join the two ends.

Keel Questions

The keel on Atkin's Valgerda may be the most controversial element in his design catalog. Yesterday I received an email from Tom in Georgia, who is about to order Valgerda plans, but needs shallower draft than the 18 inches drawn by Atkin. Here's part of my reply:

"I looked at the Atkin keel and decided to go with a little deeper version of what a traditional faering would have. Faerings, according to Atkin's own account, had a 4-inch keel that ran the length of the boat. I deepened that to 6 1/2 inches and included about 100 pounds of ballast. Without any keel at all the boat draws 6 inches, so I figure mine will draw about 12 1/2 inches. It also looks better to my mind than the Atkin keel. No doubt his would go to windward better, but not much better, I'll bet. The decrease in the wetted surface should improve performance under oars and all points of sail other than hard on the wind. That's my justification. For more on my thinking on the keel look at this post http://valgerda.blogspot.com/2009/09/ravns-keel-part-one_19.html and the two that follow it. You can also look at Rick Nardone's excellent build at http://ricksboatshop.blogspot.com/2010/04/closing-in.html and the comments following it.

"I did think about a centerboard, but not for too long. In the second issue of Boat Design Quarterly O'Brian talks about a Valgerda that he rowed and said it was a fine boat "except the builder ruined it by giving it a centerboard." I understand your need for shallow draft, but not having a centerboard opens up the inside of the boat in a wonderful way. I think it weakens the boat to have a centerboard and the board is always a maintenance problem and the case usually ends up leaking. That said, I'd love to see a Valgerda with a centerboard. I bet, with a proper foil, it would go to windward better than the original design. But, I think what we are taking about here is a full redesign.

"If I wanted a boat like Valgerda, but with a centerboard, I think I would build a Ness Yawl. They are beautiful boats and designed with a centerboard and kick-up rudder. Check out the voyage of my friend Giacomo from London to Istanbul in a Ness Yawl http://www.manontheriver.com/."

Rick Nardone and I have discussed this as well. His solution (unless he sells his boat and the new owner wants something different) is to go with a 4-inch deep keel like the original faerings had, but include the lead ballast into the keel. Since Atkin's lines are true to the original faerings it will need some ballast. Workboat designs need additional ballast because they were designed to carry cargo. I much prefer to have my ballast built into the keel than have it loose in the bilge. Having it in the keel means more room in the boat and less danger of loose lead damaging the boat or the crew in a knockdown. Having the lead lower means better righting moment too.

Valgerda's keel was a hot topic on the Wooden Boat Forum. The thread started in January 2001 and went on until late 2005. (http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?t=11679) I'don't think you could go wrong building the keel according to the design. I also think the Vikings knew a thing or two about boats. Whether my solution is a good one or not remains to be seen.

Paint the damn thing!

There are some projects on a boat the will go on for ever if you let them. Such is (was?) the figurehead on my boat. I could not leave it alone! I would walk by the bow of the boat on my way to do something else and grab a carving gouge or my patternmaker's rasp or a scrap of sandpaper and an hour... or two... or three later I would still be at it. I worked like I was in a trance.

There are at least two dangers in this: one is that you don't get anything else done (which happened to me since I was supposed to be building a cradle for my new grandson, Corbin, who came two weeks early) the other is you can get carried away and ruin what you are working on -- a slip of a carving gouge could really have set me back.

I decided today that I would allow my self 30 minutes for some final sanding, then I would paint the damn thing. In the background of this shot you can see the spray paint can containing the primer. Right after I took this picture I finished masking it and primed it. Now I can finally move on to other projects on the boat and finish the cradle.

I missed the first wooden boat show of the season in Depoe Bay so I could go to Washington and see my new grandson. This lets me procrastinate finishing the boat a little longer. I am feeling the pressure to get it done because we are beginning to have some very nice days. Days that would be great for sailing and rowing.