Adaptive Curmudgeon

Everything on my blog, including talking animals, is true. In case you had doubt, here are a few photos from my walkabout.

Back at camp just before sunset. Pretty isn’t it?

For several days while camping, this is what I saw as I brewed my morning coffee.

It’s only a tiny boat, but the water’s just as blue and beautiful.

Someone (not me) said “small boat, big adventure”. It is true that things get lively when waves are a couple feet high. Not too crazy, I reefed the sail and that seemed adequate. The boat handles waves better than the novice captain.

I pulled up to an unnamed island and felt like Tom Sawyer exploring for pirate treasure. What a silly and wondrous thing it is to wander around a little island, barefoot in the sand, thinking “this is my island”. At least for a while… it was all mine.

Exploring Tom Sawyer Island.

I can row whenever the wind stops. I’m still working on the ergonomics. At first is was chaos. Then I fiddled with the reef points to get the boom to hang above my head, pulled the rudder above water, removed the daggerboard, and everything calmed down. It worked! Not as fun as sailing, but I wasn’t stuck without options in windless conditions.

The boat is capable of sailing in “thin” water. If I pull the daggerboard and retract the rudder it can float along in almost nothing.

The new tent is a success. The kayak was my “backup plan” if the boat didn’t work out.

In this photo my gear is a bit of a mess, but you can see I’ve got room for a decent amount of camping/fishing gear. That cheap nylon anchor rode is total shit. It seems to exist only to tangle around me feet. I’m going to replace that. Also I can easily move at “canoe speed” while eating Pringles. Win!

Notice the inspection port for the port side buoyancy tank. (There’s another one on the starboard buoyancy tank too.) It’s not strictly necessary to have an inspection port on a small boat like this but I cut a hole in both perfect airboxes anyway. I had two reasons. First, I can cram gear in there. Pretty much anything that can fit in an 8″ circle can go in the airbox. Once I know what’s most useful I’ll probably stick some tools and emergency gear in there permanently. Second, I wanted to be able to cross the American/Canadian border without some badged nitwit freaking out that I’ve sealed six kilos of coke in the airbox. (No insult intended to our friends to the north. Almost every Canadian border guard I’ve met has been kind and reasonable. The nitwits are from my side.)

By the way, dual redundant airboxes… how cool is that? You could hit this thing with a meteor and it wouldn’t swamp. Small but (within reason) safe is the way to go. I haven’t done a capsize test but will try it when the water’s warmer. Having built it myself I’m pretty confident in the craft’s seaworthiness.

Speaking of nitwits, this is the sign installed to keep people like me from doing precisely what I was pondering.

All I needed was a few tablespoons of cheap coffee grounds. What I got were two bottles of Starbucks Frappuccino. They probably saved my caffeine addicted life. I intend to pay it forward someday… I’ll become the Johnny Appleseed of overpriced sugary Frappuccino?

For the summer following my first boat’s cruise missile attack on the waves I happily stayed on shore. I nibbled away at the third boat’s build. Thankfully, the simple design meant it had an occasional straight line and that was a lifesaver. Even so, I was building from scratch and had never done such a thing. I often had to learn some new woodworking technique. Every step was a delightful lesson in a skillset I’d never before considered.

I took my time; playing tortoise over hare. I was interrupted many times. It sat unfinished a whole winter. It was constantly put on the back burner for a dozen of life’s other issues. I also wasted excess materials through delays, experimentation, and ineptitude. Money well spent! I was having a ball.

Like everything, my build went overtime, over budget, and had many setbacks. Not despite this but because of it, building a tiny little sailboat was the best thing I’ve done in years.

Here's some Curmudgeonly advice about building a boat:
If you're considering it, do it. Start immediately. 
Don't wait another day. You will have the time of your life.
However, if you just want to own a boat and not build one... 
...run away from the workshop like your hair's on fire.

I had a lot to learn but also building any boat (even a tiny simple one) is more complex than it looks from a distance. Nothing is easy! If you think it’s no big deal to build any boat then you’re a victim of one of two misunderstandings. Possibly you’re already experienced and don’t remember your learning curve. More likely you’ve been mainlining Dunning-Kruger.

Persistence means you almost always win… if you keep trying and don’t die before the finish line you’ll get there. I completed my build late last summer. I did the last few finishing touches, fretted over how to rig the sail, and practically had to drag myself away from obsessing over increasingly minor details. These things don’t end so much as hit a point of diminishing returns.

(Also, the instant you’ve finished a boat… you start thinking about building another.)

I called it good and the next day (as soon as the mast’s varnish was dry) I set out to test it. True to form, I went solo. No, I don’t know how to sail.

Such a sweet feeling! Building a boat (even a simple one) is a whole different universe than simply buying one. When I finally got the sail raised I felt like Jack Sparrow, Captain Cook, and a Viking explorer all rolled into one!

“Sea trials” on a smallish shallow lake went well enough. I declared it seaworthy and went on a sail/camp trip to a vastly larger lake.

The boat did great but I don’t know how to sail. Also, combining sailing and camping was a fiasco. I backed off my camping plans but still froze my ass off.

Who cares about the details? I made a boat. My boat was fine. I. Made. A. Boat.

On the last day of that trip I got about a mile and a half from shore. That’s about as far from shore as a canoe should ever get. Even though it’s very small, my boat didn’t seem to be out of it’s league. Meanwhile, I had lines and knots and oars and shit everywhere. I was completely befuddled with the apparatus of harnessing wind. Then, as the wind remained predictable long enough to let me send the boat went where I intended it… everything clicked.

It dawned on me… I’m a guy who built his own boat. I did it! Fuck yeah!

I can’t describe how pleased I was. It’s just a tiny sailboat but I built the little bastard by hand and I did it right! It sailed straight, was airtight, had safety features like buoyancy tanks, didn’t break, and more or less went where I told it to go. If you’ve ever built something; an engine, a vehicle restoration, a clock, a computer, furniture… you know the feeling. What fun to be a MAKER! You can’t help but love what you’ve wrought. Humans weren’t put here merely to order shit off Amazon!

That was late in 2018. I wanted more sailing practice but it snowed. My fault for finishing so late. In 2019, even before my local waters were thinking about ice out, I set out on a road trip. I’d go toward any likely unfrozen lake and “wing it”. I started a travelogue about my “cabin fever recovery” trip. You’re reading it right now.

That’s how I wound up camping off season, in April, hundreds of miles from home, in a tent, near a lake, all alone. Next to the tent, still hitched behind my Dodge, was an old utility trailer. Strapped in the trailer, having patiently waited for thousands of miles, was my tiny little boat.

I built a boat! Life is good!

Halfway through building Plan C, the story took a twist. I never gave up on Plan A or Plan B. After years of seeking a boatright I finally talked a hippie (who has forgotten more about traditional woodwork than I’ll ever know!) into “repairing” Plan A. He kept it over the winter and did a pretty good job of doing whatever he did.

My Plan A boat was suddenly and unexpectedly “ready”. Cool!

Well actually it was mostly, provisionally, sorta, “ready”; based on some definition of such things which I didn’t quite understand. It’s still not “reliable to use today on short notice”. I gather that certain types of very traditional boats live along a wide and vague spectrum of “usability”. Some traditional boat guys seem so laid back with a little leakage, and bends and creaks, and who know what else (!) that I swear they’d happily sail a telephone pole nailed to a barrel straight into a hurricane. This is more “engaged with the seas” than I’m prepared to accept. But it’s definitely a thing; the more antique the design, the more the craft is just plain different than expectations we’d have for a modern sailboat.

That said, it’s mine and I’m not one to wimp out. Also, it looked gorgeous! I get compliments everywhere I take it.

Filled with trepidation, I took it on a sail/camp trip with some experienced sailors. They all loved the sleek lines and complimented me on the (in my eyes still incomplete) restoration. Then, we hit the water and I learned a new lesson. My “simple” craft was not the tame, lumbering, uninspiring, overgrown canoe I expected. It was lightning with a rudder. It felt dangerous!

The boat was gorgeous, sleek, leaked, creaked, flexed, and heeled over like a motorcycle on a hairpin turn chasing the devil himself. I’d like to point out I said “chasing the devil” not fleeing from it. That’s a deliberate choice. This particular boat just plain feels aggressive!

The instant the sail found a puff of wind it took off like a spooked horse. I clambered all over the thing pulling lines, yanking at the rudder, wondering what I’d gotten myself into, and (involuntarily) swearing. (That’s the only sailor skill I have.)

My attempts to control it had minimal impact. The boat shuddered, vibrated, and tore at the water like it was pissed off having spent so many years on land. Gaps opened and closed as the oakum sealed planks moved about; leaking here and sealing there and then sealing there and leaking here… all the while still accelerating. I wasn’t worried about a few gallons of water because I was told to expect it. I was far more concerned I’d go overboard while the boat took off on it’s own.

Soon it was going fast enough to go up on plane. What fresh hell was this? I thought it was a displacement hull; something for sleepy fishing trips and carrying around a tent and a cooler. Going up on plane is not something I thought it could do. The boat didn’t ask my opinion, it just did it.

It didn’t steer well (or I was doing something wrong) so I madly struggled to get it to tack or gibe or wherever the hell I needed to do to turn it around. It took all I could do to get the beautiful but unmanageable wooden torpedo turned around and headed back toward a safe harbor. I didn’t care if I gracefully landed at the campsite or crashed into shore like a runaway train… just so long as I got back to land again.

Being an old design, it lacks something I only noticed when I was far from shore. It has no safety margin! There’s no buoyancy tanks, no ballast, no nothing… if I capsize this beast (and it was already heeled over at some ungodly angle!) I doubt I can right it. (Did I mention I have no idea how to right any capsized boat? Yeah that’s part of the “don’t know how to sail” subset of personal failings I’m working on.) I’d likely just try try to row it ashore while it was swamped and that didn’t sound like an easy prospect. Basically, I’d be flotsam. Live and learn.

Of course that was all a moot point because the boat was having none of it… I was still upright and streaking through the waves. (I suspect it would take a hell of a lot to capsize it. In fact I think I was just scratching the surface of what it could do. I’m not experienced to assess “seaworthiness” but it seemed to shrug off waves like a boss.)

It stayed heeled over and the sail seemed to know what to do on it’s own. It scooped great gobs of air like a muscle car’s air intake while it crashed through the waves like it it’s sole remaining fuck had been given decades ago. My boat had zero fucks to give! Certainly the screaming monkey clambering around the wet hull was irrelevant. My “control” was at best a suggestion.

On the other hand, I had to admit it was a pretty epic ride!

I had somehow gotten my hands on something very awesome and powerful. Even if it was not under my control, it was a rush. If Thor had a fishing boat… this craft would knife it in a bar fight.

Overall, it was waaaaaay out of my league. I mostly clung to the hull and gibbered in fear. As a canoe guy, I didn’t know sailing could get so crazy.

Back on shore, I dragged it above the water line and waited for my pulse to recover. Then I examined my future. A novice like me trying to “singlehand” this particular boat is like a 16-year-old with a learner’s permit trying to get a Lamborghini to the mall. I’d bought a dragon when I wanted a mule.

Still, I have no regrets. Someday I’ll “grow into” that gorgeous bucking bronco. I added my requirements for “easy to handle” to my Plan C build. For now, Plan A is staying under a tarp on the lawn while I “level up”.

I couldn’t go canoe camping anymore so I needed a new approach.

Plan A was a very traditional old school double ender in need of “TLC”. I couldn’t fix it enough to use it. Plan B was a less antique design but still quite old little wood sailing dory. It also needed “TLC”. Repairs on this one were less esoteric but my ham handed approach hadn’t been sufficient.

So I took on a 60 payment financing plan for a sloop. It’s a brand new, deep keel, two masted, 30′ fiberglass sailboat. It has a 15 HP outboard and all the electronic gadgetry; fuel injection, GPS navigation, VHS coms. It has a berth for sleeping and a galley for cooking. I also ponied up for a membership at the most exclusive marina in the state and have monthly slip fees.

Ha ha ha… of course I didn’t do that! Curmudgeons do things the hard way!

I started working on Plan C. My third attempt (but who’s counting?). I would rise above my inability to repair pre-existing boats by building entirely from scratch. In an abundance of caution (which was wise) I’d build the simplest, smallest, crudest, boxiest, sailboat you’ve ever seen!

I selected a ridiculously “simple” boat plan. Almost an insult to hydrodynamics. It would probably make anyone at a marina laugh and throw rocks at me. But screw them. I needed to start somewhere and how many people in a marina could build the boat they own?

This isn’t to say I was merely fabricating a toy. All reports indicate the very small boxy design is surprisingly seaworthy for its diminutive size. I think of it as the VW Beetle / dunebuggy of the sailboat world; tough and usable but crude, small, and slow. Also, it’s said to be fun… which, when you get right down to it, is the whole point. Most importantly, I’d build every damn inch of it. At the very least I’d know how to fix it when I (and this is almost guaranteed) inexpertly sailed it straight into a wall.

My “design specs” were that it had to carry myself and a week’s gear across lakes that would eat a canoe but nothing more. I would not mess with blue water, fast currents, or ocean level challenges. There are no passengers in my plans and it didn’t have to be fast. Settling on a squarish design meant it was easier to build but I wouldn’t win any beauty pageants. Speed is almost irrelevant. I only needed to travel at the speed of canoe (which is ridiculously slow). Later I added that I needed a gentle craft that a novice could handle alone.

This was to be my learning boat. But first, all hell broke loose…

I was earnestly seeking a “new way” based on a type of craft I’d never used and couldn’t quite describe. I wasn’t sure where to start. Locally I couldn’t physically find a craft that seemed right. (I do live in the hinterland.) Lost between kayaks and bass boats (both in stock at a dozen dealerships within driving distance) I was grasping at straws. In retrospect it seems obvious my first few feints in the right direction would end in failure. Fits and starts are a sign you’re learning and growing. Show me a man who’s never failed and I’ll show you a pitiable creature who’s never enjoyed a proper challenge.

I bought “study plans” for a Chesapeake Light Craft (CLC) Northeaster Dory and read every word. I was about to build a kit. This was going to be a very expensive build. It would probably exceed $5k by the time it was done. In retrospect, the build vastly exceeded my ability. I now know it would have taken many years to finish the kit! (And not an inconsiderable number of years to absorb the strain on my budget.)

Literally days before I was going to pull the trigger, I found a different choice. I discovered a traditionally built “double ender” on Craigslist. It was “in need of TLC”. It had been built (by hand) by a man who might have been a genius and at the very least I wish I’d met him. Alas he’d passed on and in his absence the boat had deteriorated. I had a naive and totally misinformed idea of how to fix it. The very traditional design exceeded my ability. I tried but failed. I began calling around to find a “repair guy” who could do what had stumped me. In a world of rotomolded kayaks, welded aluminum bass boats, and fiberglass sailboats I was doomed. I kept calling around for years!

A few years later, almost frantic to have a small wooden rowable sailboat, I bought a little 14′ sailing dory. It too came from Craigslist and it too was cheap. I towed it home a very long distance through a snowstorm. It looked awesome, right down to special traditional hemp rigging, but it leaked. It wasn’t usable. I wasn’t surprised it leaked but thought it might be easy to goop it up with something chemical to limp around a lake for a few years. I spent many hours building a cradle to lift and rotate it. My intentionally half assed repairs didn’t work out.

With boats, you can do it right… or you can sink. I (temporaily!) tabled my Plan B boat.

Stung by two failures, I backed up a bit and took an introductory traditional boatbuilding class. In three days, I learned the vast immensity of what I didn’t know! I’d been swimming in circles, lost in a universe of ignorance! I was shocked at how completely clueless I’d been. I saw the folly of my attempts at repairing both craft. It wasn’t so much that I was an idiot or had done everything wrong. It’s that you cannot reason your way out of problems that are necessarily solved only with experience you lack.

My problem wasn’t lack of raw knowledge. You can read anything in a book. I’d been stopped by situations of which I didn’t even know I was ignorant.

There was so much to learn.

Challenge accepted!

In fact, my goals had changed too:

I no longer wanted to be a guy who owns a boat. I wanted to be a guy who built a boat.

There are many of the former, almost none of the latter. In twice failing I’d found inspiration to chose the path less traveled. That’s just how I roll.

[Warning, this post has generalizations that will piss off several outdoor recreation interest groups. If you’re triggered or think I paint with too broad of a brush… drink a beer and count to ten before commenting that I’m an insensitive jerk. It’s just a story on an irrelevant blog and nothing more. Nor am I required to write into each post a group hug for all of humanity. If my crude stereotypes chafe, accept my apologies. Rest assured we’d probably get along swimmingly in real life… even if you own a jet ski.]

After a lifetime of canoeing and countless glorious jaunts into the Canadian wilderness, things collapsed. I’d settled on a delightful routine of backcountry trips using a two-man canoe. Tragically, there came the year my canoe partner was physically unable to join me. I get it. Nothing lasts forever. That same year I broke an arm. Suddenly asymmetrical canoe paddling seemed like an ergonomic disaster.

Later, I discovered our trusty old (but restored) 2-man canoe was unmanageable for solo use. I spent endless days/weeks/months/years(!) fretting over a “new way”. I experimented with a kayak. Kayaks are cool but it wasn’t right for me.

I could have gotten a different, smaller, canoe but by then I wanted a new approach and the associated new point of view. Life is change. It was high time the man who’d eagerly paddled swamp, river, and lake since he was a Boy Scout left his comfort zone.

I settled on a sail over a motor, small over big, and simple over elaborate. Also I wanted to camp on land rather than sleep in a boat. My choices seemed reasonable (and ideally suited to my situation, budget, and personality) but they put me at odds with nearly every watercraft niche.

I should be used to it by now. I was already an odd duck. My ideas pushed me further out.

Kayaks (for no discernible reason) seem largely the domain of vegan cat ladies who carry them around on Subarus adorned with left wing bumper stickers. Most of them only paddle on sunny weekends. Invariably they paddle in groups. I suspect chardonnay may be involved? Not my scene. (Doubt my assessment of kayaks in America in 2019? Fine. Send me a photo of a burly man solo kayaking a moose quarter through a swamp and I’ll recant.)

Meanwhile Bubba fishermen seem to hold the opinion that nothing shy of 90 HP on a fully outfitted payment plan (bass boat) is sufficient for three hours fishing. They think it insanely weird I’d carefully avoid anything with a motor. (For them, the motor is part of the fun. I’m sick of motors on seasonal stuff. Keeping my motorcycle and snowblower running are dual opposed seasonal hassles and I’d like to keep overhead like that contained. Perhaps there’s a motor in my future but for the moment I’ve settled on oars.)

What shocked me most were the sailboat people. To my naïve surprise, they did not greet me with open arms. My small boat/camping ideas were heretical. Popular opinion insisted I needed a bright white, deep keel, 20′ (or larger!) fiberglass racing wonder. Also, only fools sleep on dirt and a monthly slip rental at a lakeshore resort was a wise investment.

When I abandoned my canoe, I’d stepped into a tug of war between warring markets. Motorboats and sailboats: both sides hate the other. Though they’d claim otherwise, I get the vibe that kayak women hate everyone more macho than a birdwatcher regardless of their craft.

I’d stepped in it! I’d hitherto ignored competing interests on the water. Since I was practically born with a canoe paddle in hand, have my own canoe, and don’t talk to anyone, I’d no idea of the Tribal animosities.

My questions about camping confused people. Only a tiny minority has the slightest interest in carrying a tent and sleeping bag. That group seems to be mostly canoe people; the very tribe I was leaving. For decades that’s what my gig was all about but I don’t see why it has to be limited to canoes? You can carry a (small!) tent in a kayak, or anything you want on a bass boat or a big sailboat… but almost nobody does. Occasionally a kayaker can be found camping (though limited to minimalist ultralight gear). It’s not common. I suspect deep keel sailboats are a bitch to put to shore so they strongly prefer stopping at docks. Motorboats (especially small flat-bottomed skiffs) could surely pull up on shores and sandbars anytime they want, but virtually without exception they come home to roost at night. Invariably, the few shore campers are outnumbered by orders of magnitude by rented houseboats and sailboats with berths. A special shout out to duck hunters who quietly go about their business at the crack of dawn (which is far too early for me). They’ve got plenty of gear (and moxie!) to camp but they appear more interested in retrievers than tents. They’d probably be great at camping but they seem to vanish without a trace by noon; like a stealthy army of anti-duck special forces operators.

Also, virtually nobody does anything solo.

I was on my own and looking for a new way. What to do?