Railyn On Skailyn

Last Saturday I worked on some lashing rails. They're meant to be mounted on the inside of the gunwale in the fore and aft sections of Shan Skailyn. The idea is to have some handy spots to lash and tie things to. They're all done now, though unfortunately, I've come to realize I don't have any proper size screws to mount them! I just ordered some and thankfully the helicopter is scheduled to bring some food in to us (remember, we live in the middle of the jungle here) in just a couple weeks, so I won't have to wait too long.

In front of the rails in the picture, are two odd looking pieces I made up as a way to mount my anchor, which I bought a couple months ago when we were out in town last. More on that in the next post. Gonna have to catch you up on a series of smaller details in the next few posts.

Finished Oar

Once again, I found myself limited to just a few hours of work on Shan Skailyn this last weekend. Is it me, or do things just keep getting more and more busy? No problem. Just plug away when you can and it'll eventually get all done.

I managed to finish the steering oar. Turned out pretty nice, though I do wonder about it's flexibility, if it may be too much. Oh well. I'll leave that up to future experience to tell me. Again, this is a backup steering/propulsion system. I simply modeled after the diagram in Gary's book. Went with the 10' version. Total weight is 3.6 kgs (7.9 lbs). Seems a bit heavy to me. Though I'm not sure what one might expect from a 10' oar weight wise. Only thing left on the oar at this point is to put the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th coats of exterior varnish on the oar. Also note the texture I put on the handle (see picture in previous botched post). My thinking was that it would provide better grip in wet conditions. I'm wondering if it might only serve to expedite the development of blisters. Hmmm. If it does, I can just wrap inner tube strips around it for comfort. Hmmm. Why didn't I just do that in the first place?!

One other thing I did on Saturday morning was to varnish the underside of the fore and aft decks. This is something I neglected to do initially, thinking it wouldn't be a problem to just leave the plywood bare on the deck since it's in a sealed compartment. However, as I've thought over things, I've come to realize that my original thinking was naive. In a water craft, I think one can assume everything will get wet at one point or another. Best to leave zero surfaces unfinished if I want to extend the life of the material. So I got that done. Not an easy job on an assembled boat. I had to assemble the fore and aft pieces and turn it upside down on a table so I could sit up inside the hull and reach my arms inside the sealed compartments and apply the varnish all the way to the stem. Now I know why I've delayed doing that. All that work and it feels like I didn't really accomplish anything meaningful, at least not anything perceivable. But I do rest better knowing I've taken a good step toward preserving Shan Skailyn. After reading Chris Grill's blog (grillabongquixotic.wordpress.com - gotta check it out if you haven't already) and seeing what happened to his deck, I'm taking whatever measures I can to keep this one intact as long as possible. Of course his boat, Desesperado, has been in the water nonstop for more than a year, not to mention it's a completely different construction method and material. But the principle is the same... water eventually rots wood. Thus it is a good idea to do what you can to keep the water off the wood.

2012_11_9537.jpeg

The attached file was originally sent with another message.

File Name: 2012_11_9537.jpeg

Paddles and Oar

Today didn't feel like I got much done on Shan Skailyn. I'm mostly working on all the peripheral stuff these days. Anyway, I managed to get a second paddle done. I really like the wood used for the blade on this most recent one (the lighter colored one in the picture). It's much lighter and straight grained than the other stuff I used. The other one looks like rosewood, but feels too light to be rosewood. The other stuff was a major pain to plane down because of the irregular grain. I will definitely be making the third paddle out of this lighter weight straight grained stuff.

I also laminated up some strips which will eventually be the oar paddle. I'm planning on having the oar, mostly as a back up in case the rudder fails. Not sure what length will be needed. Gary recommends 8' to 10' oars for his boats, or "generally half the length of the boat". So I went ahead and made a 10' long oar handle. You can always make it short, but not longer. It seems like I chose a fairly heavy wood for this handle. Not sure how I feel about that. At this point I don't have a whole lot to choose from, especially when I'm looking for 10' length. I could have made it all from one solid piece, but the wood I have isn't quarter sawn or anything special that will make it more stable. Often, once you cut into this stuff it bends on you. So I cut strips out of the same piece, alternated the grain direction between each piece and laminated it that way. Should be much more stable, and much stiffer that way. Not sure how thick of a handle I'm going to make. Gary's book shows as thick as 1-13/16". Since this is a heavier wood, I'm kind of thinking of going closer to 1-1/2" to cut down on weight, and hoping the wood is strong enough... no clue on the type of wood, by the way. I have a 2-1/4" brass oarlock on the way for which I don't want to undersize the handle too much. One downside to laminating 5 strips together is that it uses a lot of glue! I think I used nearly a quarter bottle of titebond III. Yeah, that's what I'm using for the paddles and other peripherals... hardly have any epoxy left and no moolah in the budget for more. So I'm saving what I have just in case I need to glass a bit more or glue something that is actually part of the boat.

Shan's Tiller

Having just come back in to the bush from being in town for a while, I didn't have a lot of time this weekend for anything but laundry, laundry, and more laundry... oh yeah, and unpacking boxes and boxes of food and trying to organize it all. Imagine only getting a grocery run every 2-4 months.

But I did manage to get some little bits here and there, during which I managed to glue up one more paddle blade, and even better, construct the tiller for Shan Skailyn's rudder. I was concerned about using a bolt at the pivot point (at the base of the tiller) for fear that the thing might work itself loose. Since I still have some leftover brass rod, and some loose stainless steel washers and retaining pins, I decided to rig something up with that. My only concern with the retaining clips is that they're yet another little pointy, grabby thing that a rope is bound to snag. We'll deal with than when it becomes necessary.

For the paddle blade, I'm not sure what kind of wood I'm using. It's the same stuff that the Mibu folks use for making siding for their huts. It's very very lightweight, long grained wood. Hope it's strong enough for a paddle blade.

Fighting Outrigger Canoe

One of my buddies here in Madang, Papua New Guinea, who travels around to a lot of out of reach places here, was given this model outrigger by people of Wuvulu island. The model is of a war canoe. They no longer make them like this, but their ancestors used to. Unfortunately my friend did not get any more information than that. Very interesting design though!

Anyone ever seen anything like this? Got any additional information to add?

Hmmm... a quick search on google shows a number of mentions of these canoes. Here's a clip from the following site http://www.janesoceania.com/oceania_arts1/index.htm

Canoes were honored above all other objects and frequently invested with religious symbolism, and among some Micronesian population their construction was the prerogative of high-ranking members of society. With their deep hulls, large triangular sails and sides painted sometimes in the solemnly religious colours of red and black, all united by a rare purity of line, these vessels were created not merely as a means of transport over the ocean but also as a source of communal pride. At Truk (Chuuk) the great war canoes known as wa faten were equipped with detachable carvings in the form of birds with tails spread and beaks facing each other. Far from being purely decorative, these embellishments to the prow and stern served to broadcast the intentions of the canoe's occupants: peaceful if the figures were in the low position, warlike if held high.

Maiden Voyage Shaping Up

I've taken advantage of the time out in Madang town to ask around and try to ascertain what the weather/sea conditions will be like in March when we're scheduled to embark on Shan Skailyn's maiden voyage. I've asked locals and expats alike. I spoke to a guy named Makka at the Madang Game Fishing Club who said at that time frame the sea should be really nice. One down side is that the wind may be a bit on the weak side. I guess that's why I'm making paddles! Makka has lived and boated here for over 40 years and seems to know his stuff. He mentioned that the fishing should be pretty easy out there too.

My excitement about this trip is growing. I recently put together a fly through using googlearth and have been able to virtually fly over the whole length of the coast we intend to sail. Also, when we flew out recently we flew the entire length of the coast in the helicopter. Several things that stick out to me are that there doesn't seem to be anywhere that will be difficult to land the boat except for one mile long stretch right at the town of Madang where it's all rocky. But everywhere else, there are landing sites and villages pretty evenly dispersed. The total length of the trip is about 87 miles, revised from my original estimated 70. We figure conservatively that if we're averaging 4mph about 5 hours each day, that we can get from Wab (close to Saidor) to Madang in just under 5 days.

Note in the picture that this is a birds eye view of the location where we intend to fly Shan Skailyn down to in the helicopter. From there, we'll get it all rigged up and get moving.