Started fiddling with the leeboard thwart and leeboards that we bought for SCOUT. It did not come with instructions, so we need to gather a little more information and play around with it a bit. (One leeboard shown, there is one for each side).
Clips to grip the gunwale.
The leeboard carriage bolt has a squared shoulder that fits into the squared hole on the thwart.
The leeboard is held in position with a washer and a locking lever, not very well though, the leeboard droops. I looked at another thwart that we bought and it has homemade rubber washers between the leeboard and the aluminum thwart, that might make it sticky enough to keep the leeboard held horizontal.
The leeboard is shaped with a blunt leading edge and tapered trailing edge. At lesat I think that is how it goes. That is the only way that makes sense to me with how the handle cutouts are oriented.
Nothing but free time on our hands back in 1958, everyone needed a Grumman canoe or aluminum boat. We found a fun advertising brochure on ebay, it has lots of great information and some crazy ideas of what would be fun
The temp index here in Florida is dropping below 100F, so maybe a few projects will start moving again. One we worked on earlier this year was a gaff rigged sailing canoe, using our Grumman 17 canoe SCOUT as the platform. We are having fun with it, we were inspired by Skipper's family, they built a sailing canoe with a lateen rig when she was little. It had a nice shark nose, and tail, and sported a lateen rig. Capn Jack did a nice job fashioning the spars, a pair of leeboards and line steered rudder. Admiral Nelson did a beautiful job of trimming down a Sunfish sail to about 60 square feet.
Sea Trial reports from 1970 were that the canoe was fun, but some of the Test Crew reported concern over capsize potential and staying clear of the maze of lines. The trick was to stay low and go slow, in light winds. We have experienced similar characteristics, but are still in the early stages of the CDIO lifecycle, hovering around the design phase and focused on fashioning a rudder system next.
Capn Pete Culler said boatbuilding was "mostly about correcting one mistake after another, with the first mistake having been to have begun in the first place. But oh what fun!"
Sea Trial Notes (for Doug, substitute yard for gaff): A few more musings on the SCOUT's canoe yawl Sea Trials. We have to be careful launching because the sail rig makes SCOUT a little top heavy, so we leave the stern up on the beach until it is time to go. If we raise the gaff on the beach, we have to keep an eye on it, because if the boom swings off to the side the hull wants to roll with it. I boarded the canoe and sat on the bar thwart just aft of the leeboard thwart. On a side note the leeboard thwart makes a real nice seat amidships, and so does the daggerboard for that matter. I lowered the Skipper's swivel leeboard easily and paddled away from the beach with the kayak paddle, aka double paddle.
Once clear of the sand groins and piers, we turned into the light breeze to raise the sails.
To raise the gaff I grabbed both the throat and peak halyard and pulled them together. I had changed both halyards to longer pieces of line, so that the lines reach all the way to the stern seat when the rig is down, so that is 30+ feet of line, 2 of them. I pulled them until the throat halyard was taut, then continued to pull on the peak halyard until the sail peaked to a nice shape, there should be no sags and no tight vertical creases. At that point I looked around for a convenient place to secure the halyards, that day I tied them off to the aft bar thwart, and made a note to cut a small wooden thwart to mount jam cleats there, close to the stern seat. I may also add a ring fairlead on the leeboard thwart, to keep the lines off to one side in case there is someone sitting amidchips. One of the test items for the sail rigging was to see if I could do most of the work from the stern seat, and if I had the cleats back aft I could do that.
I sheeted in the mizzen and found that the boomkin is too short, the painters cloth stretched and also saw from later photos that the mast needs to be taller, that way we can tie off the mizzen a bit higher and change the boomkin angle a bit, raise the forward end about 2 inches so we can take the flutter out of the leech of the sail. Next we did a few paddle tacks, which were a lot easier with the leeboard to provide some lateral resistance and aid in steering.
Then it was time to maneuver back to the dock for glamor shots. I was able to do a few wide tacks, once the breeze gets on the beam there is a lot of freeboard and SCOUT wants to go sideways, I found that gybing my way around was easier, same thing we found on the Dabber with its standing lug rig.
After a few flybys of the Skipper/photog I raised the swivel leeboard, crawled forward and dropped in the daggerboard/leeboard. This would require some good balance if the wind or chop was up a bit, that's a lot of movement fore and aft to the stern seat.
Now about that seat, the balance would be better if I sat forward, on the bar thwart just aft of the mid leeboard thwart. But that is not what the Seminole did...of course he did not have a leeboard or mizzen either...
Anyway, the daggerboard was bigger and I could feel the difference, that would be best for bay crossings in deeper water. For gunkholing and skinny water ops, the swivel leeboard is better. I did a few turns with the daggerboard, then pulled it out and went back to the swivel leeboard. Skipper wanted to see it in action again and we drifted up to the beach with it down, easy to raise, then I put it down again to watch it feather into the retracted position as the bottom came up to meet it.
The swivel leeboard is the best design for beaching, whereas the dagger-leeboard will raise itself up in the trunk, sometimes, it the curved edge is forward, but it is not guaranteed. The other issue with a daggerboard sticking up out of a trunk is the boom can catch on it and cause the shoreline capsize after a beautiful sail, usually when everyone is watching.
Pulling the canoe up onto the beach, the same note applies as launching, SCOUT was more steady with her flat bottom securely on the grass, but she can still roll over if the sail is up and boom swinging around. It is also easy to point into the wind, loose the halyards and drop the rig, so far the gaff and boom have dropped straight into the boat and laid nicely on the thwarts. Downrigging was pretty easy, there is just a lot of line to manage. The boom and gaff fold up almost all the way and the mizzen boomkin folds up also, the rig does not take much storage space. I removed the leeboard thwart as it is big, not needed for paddling, and SCOUT could not be stored on her side with it attached, but the main and mizzen thwarts are tucked out of the way.
Next up, ergonomic testing for cupholders and rudder attachment ponderings. Anyone have an idea on how to attach a Sunfish gudgeon to the stern of SCOUT without drilling holes? Ooh, as I type I think I see a potential solution...
