The scow at Crystal River...

Needful reading, the Wisconsin idiocy spiral continues, and some seriously bizarre stuff concerning the "most progressive trade agreement in history"...

A cool scow...

Some more serious scow goodness to check out with your Sunday brunch...

Listening to Sons of Bill

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a matter of seaworthiness...

In the "hardly surprising" department, this really says a lot, and some needful reading...

I was recently looking at the study plans for one of Reuel Parker's boats, a scow as it happens, and there was a comment by Reuel that got me thinking...

"Scows are not considered seaworthy types, although they can make coastal trips and island passages." 

The thing about seaworthiness is it's a pretty fluid concept at best and, in most cases, something of a gray area being dependant on many factors. Which means that one person's seaworthy vessel may seem like a floating death trap to another. Having crossed seas with an internally ballasted shoal draft sharpie that drew eighteen inches, I used to have this pointed out to me on a regular basis...

That said, scows of the traditional sort are not seaworthy in the same sense as a keel boat with external ballast. For starters internal ballast is not very good at righting a fully capsized hull and if that's going to be your main criteria of seaworthiness a scow may actually seem somewhat lacking...

Just like a modern catamaran. 

Seriously, if you applied the same thought process that makes a scow unseaworthy to just about any production cat currently being built today you'd have to come to the same conclusion... Catamarans are unseaworthy.

You might want to think about that for a moment or two...

Which does not mean that I think all modern production catamarans are unseaworthy (just some) or that a traditional scow is either. Just that they are both different in ways you should be aware of.

Like I said before, seaworthiness is a pretty slippery notion and depends much more on the person sailing a boat rather than the actual design. Sailing a traditional scow has a lot more in common with sailing a catamaran than it does with an externally ballasted monohull...

So, would I consider sailing Reuel Parker's scow across an ocean?

Sure I would. Then again, before I did I'd sail it a lot, practice deploying a parachute sea anchor/heavy weather tactics, and sort out the best way to hove to with the board up because I'm not real keen on surprises further offshore than I care to swim towards land. Of course, anybody considering a trans-oceanic passage would do the same no matter what sort of boat they intended to cross with.. 

Right?

Listening to She & Him

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In the "Don't need to show you no stinking pointy front" department...

Just frelling depressing, a good point, and Badtux talks fairness...

A serious scow project.


SCOWTRAILER from Martha's Vineyard Productions on Vimeo.

More iformation on the project can be found here.

Listening/watching Stevie Ray Vaughan play 12 strings

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Yeah, this boat would certainly work for me...

Why I can't vote for the President of the US of A, some needful reading, and the death throes of anchoring in the sunshine state...

So, a while back I was talking about a scow schooner that Tad Roberts was working on and, lo and behold, it's no longer vaporware and it even has a price... This, my friends, is some kind of goodly thing.

The new design goes by the name of Laura Cove and it shoehorns an amazing amount of livability into it's 28 X 8 foot envelope... A scary amount as it happens because, comparing it to my CAL 34 (33.5' X 10'), I'm pretty sure it has as much usable space and stowage with somewhat better livability.

Just think about that for a moment...

I won't even go into the fact that with it's draft of 15" (yes inches) you can almost always find an out of the way place to anchor which is something I see as an important feature with the growing anti-anchoring mind set in a lot of places.

Then there's the rig (which I'll be going into some serious depth on in the near future) and you know how I feel about balanced lug but the short form is it's cheap, simple, and powerful so makes all kinds of sense. For those enamoured of the junk rig (not as cheap, simple, or powerful but it does reef easier) that works as well.

As far as costs go, a boat like this would not cost a lot in materials ($8-10K) and labor would work out to somewhere between 600 to 1200 hours of industrious productive work (we don't count the time you sit staring at your pile of fifty sheets of plywood or daydreaming as productive work). So, a finshed boat ready to leave the dock to go cruising for $15K would be very possible... Possibly a lot less if a group of builders got together and went the co-op route for needful stuff.

I'd color that affordable.

The only area I find a bit problematic is the size of the cockpit which is only four feet long. That said, our Jessie Cooper and LM2 both had cockpits that were right around four feet long and I don't recall ever having an issue at the time but, compared to the uberlong cockpit of the CAL 34, it would require a bit of readjustment.

This boat would make a great cruiser for a lot of people... I could certainly live with it.

More about it over at Tad's website.

Listening to a bunch of Paul Simon covers

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Is this the death knell of pointy fronts?

A good read on ethics/morality (yes, there is a difference), about that "discriminatory intent�, and an obviously compassionate politician's heartfelt solution to the homeless problem...

Did someone say scow?

Be sure not to miss the vitrual tour...

Listening to a proud father's son

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an interesting project...

What happens whenever Tucker (he really should have been a film producer) Carlson's lips move, a lot of money spent unwisely, and a must read about why we need to save the USPS...

A scow project I'll be keeping my eye on...

Listening to Larkin Poe



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Speaking of small boats and a good cause...

So, a guy I happen to know recently designed and built a boat. Fact is, it also happens to be a pretty cool sailboat of the scow variety but I don't think I'd be overstating the case to say it is, shall we say, somewhat petite.

So, here's a question... If you had just designed and built a pretty cool boat (that also happens to be kinda small) what would you do with it?

Since I happen to know folks who read Boat Bits on a regular basis are big fans of significnt voyages I'm sure a lot of you would do the first thing that came to my mind...

Go cross a couple of oceans!

What can I say but great minds think alike... Right?

The thing is, doing this sort of trip in a boat less than fifteen feet requires a certain amount of resources and, lucky us, we all need a super cool t-shirt or sticker to impress folks when beer can racing or hanging out at the weekly potluck...

For what it's worth, I know I'll be wearing some of these t-shirts myself (not that I'm trying to impress anyone or anything) because I always need a few new t-shirts and if I can support a good cause in the process, it's kind of a slam dunk...

For those interested in learning more about Yann's project and how to help support it all you have to do is visit his project site.

Just as an added incentive... Get a t-shirt or sticker from Yann and take a picture of yourself wearing it or where you put the sticker and send it to Boat Bits so we can make you infamous and, as you all know, everyone needs a day of infamy.

So it goes...

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another scow of interest...

A look at some (very) flawed logic, airlines and corporate greed, and reason #1039 why you might want to watch something other than FOX news...

So, just maybe, this scow thang is catching on...

More about this particular build here.

Listening to a bunch of versions of Hey Joe

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It floats!

Something really interesting/scary, nowhere near enough, and so much for infallible courts...

Skrowl floats!

Right side up too...

Listening to NineBullets radio

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Not quite as demented as you might think...

You can tell a lot about a country from its pizzas, a rejoinder of note, and... it's not too late to do the right thing...

I'll confess it's not easy being too far ahead of fashion and for the most part it's depressing always being right years before something becomes hip.

Takes scows for instance...

Anyone who knows me and a great number of people who don't are painfully aware that I think scows as a cruising boat make a lot of sense. Of course, most people I've preached the gospel of scows to think I'm either demented, an idiot, stupid, or a cocktail of all three. Face it, being ahead of the curve is a lot like Rodney Dangerfield's famous catch line...

"I don't get no respect..."

But fashions do tend to catch up and sometimes you get lucky to see that all-of-a-sudden folks are taking something like scows seriously. Maybe a little late to the party and a few sandwiches short of a picnic but, it's a kinda nice to find yourself being able to say I told you so...

Two, count them, two maxi scow projects (you can read all about them here)...

Sure, they're silly expensive penis substitutes but it means that if uberwealthy folks are commissioning scows it's an idea that now has some serious traction and I'm not quite the drooling stupid demented idiot waxing on about scows in the corner...

Listening to Seasick Steve

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A very cool build..

Somewhat nervous making, G&T on a roll, and some truly impressive stupidity...

I don't know if you've been following the build of Yann Quenet's SKROWL but you really should as it's turning into a pretty awesome boat.

Gotta love the paint job...

Listening to Jesse & Joy

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