Scout'n the Olympics

For the drive out to La Push i grabbed a map. As we made our way around Discovery Bay i started to zero in on river drainages.   Maps, rivers, and geology, these are problems i have. They are becoming more and more acute with the Ford out of commission, and a unknown group of boaters to find. Anyway here are the hits, first off the Dungeness River.

you can see a link to more info here.

Next up in the map o' boating the Grey Wolf. Sounds really rowdy and fun, perhaps a summer rain event will let me into this canyon. It lives right next door to the Dungeness.

As above so below see info here. Other searches turn up little on the run, sweet.

So far these haven't been looking good for Florence. As boats go she be a little bigger than your average canoe let alone kayak. Without the I.R.H. finished let alone started the harder little stuff is off limits until i can find someone to boat with. This includes most of the newly freed Elwha River. So without further ado here are some of what we did find.

If your new to the area (I am) the first stop west from the Elwha River is the odd little town of Forks.  I new nothing about Forks but there are two distinct vibes. One is of logging, no mater your environmental views we depend on it, your not sitting in a plastic house. (sorry bubble boy)

 The second vibe is annoying,

Horny stupid teenagers need to realize that because a  little logging town is overcast and full of pale looking folks in work cloths does not mean that over sexed goth-awful vampires are running a muck, seriously.

(Dear Forks, I would like to apologize on behalf of the human race for Twilight, i hope you can capitalize on this tragedy.)

Ah, back to boating.

On a map Forks looks like a hub of great rivers, First is the Soleduck River. AWA Has several sections mentioned in their database although it's spelled Sol Duc there. As you drive west from Lake Crescent to Forks You pass over it several times. Looking up and down the river corridor it looks fantastic! Clear water and beautiful river banks bordering on temperate rain forest. I may be proven wrong after floating some of these lower sections but it sure looks great.

                                                 

The Sitkum River is next, looks like good kayaking and if a way can be found to get a small drifter in possibly drift able. I didn't get any pictures before the confluence with the Calawah but it looks good to go.

The Calawah comes next. There is,  "in map land ," a clearly marked boat ramp at the confluence of the Calawah and Sitkum Rivers. Damned if we could find it. Further down stream just outside of Forks is a lower boat ramp.

Up Next in the wild wild world of rivers around forks is the Bogachiel river. The Calawah flows in just west of forks near the Steelhead ponds. There were a basket full of fisherman here as well as at least a dozen drift boat trailers. I don't know why they were absent at some of the other put-ins but it was packed there. No pictures but there was a King Fisher that looking like he was doing better than most of the fisherman. There is defiantly drift possibility, although if not fishing going during the off season, a must.

As you head west out of Forks towards the town of La Push and Rialto Beach following the Bogachiel you come across the confluence with the Soleduck River. Here to was evidence of floaters on both the Bogachiel and the Soleduck. Finally from here the whole drainage hits the Pacific. It looks like you could take out in La Push but a run in with the Tribal Police caused an about face (never made it to the ramp), i would take out on the Rialto Beach side.

Where does this leave me?? Looking forward to Boating this odd drainage and exploring these.

Happy New Year.

La Push

Went for a ride out to Rialto Beach to look at the waves the other day. Aside from getting profiled and subsequently pulled over in La Push (no ticket and funny story, ask in person) we had a great time and were able to do some scouting for easy "drift boat-able" rivers. (see next post)

Rialto Beach was a little rowdy, of course i had to get as close as possible to the action without getting wet. With some serious thought i decided; i suppose i could get a sea kayak into shore it would not be pretty and as for getting out...

As you can see the beach  to the north really wasn't there, high tide was putting the waves right into the LARGE drift wood on shore. The sea stacks to the south and the subsequent cross currents may have been navigable from the ocean into the safety of the Quillayute River  mouth but it would have been real exciting if you got yourself into the breakers. I am looking forward to getting the kayaks into the water here when the seas are a little more forgiving. 

Like being on a boat only in a house on land.

With the impending doom forecast for Sunday night and Monday. Which in my estimate aught to be a hell of a good time...

I thought i should show you all some photos taken lately of the place, there is even a video! Were super tec savvy out here, ha!

As promised here is the short video of waves basically on our deck.

So as long as were not washed into the Strait of Juan, and the world doesn't end as conspiracy theorists and crack pot Mayans predict i'll try and blog a little more often. If the world does end i for one hope our Mutant Zombie Vampire Bieber overlords have a sense of humor, and yes those are the worst things i can think of right now.

Some school pics

School is going well, we have moved on from making wooden novelties an into making boats. I have had a really hard time deciding what path to take either large Craft or Contemporary. In the end I chose large craft, they are building two replica decked Whitehall row boats. One of them will have a chair strapped to the deck. You can use your power of deduction to figure out what/when/who's boats they could be.

 

I have continued to work on the I.R.H. The lines plan is doneas well as the offsets. Up until Friday I was trying to find someone to put the design into Rhino (a Cad program for boat design). My reason behind this was simple, if the boat is in the computer patterns can simply be printed out, little or no lofting just building.  Well its not going to work out that way so the prototype may not be done until after my spring trip. Sort of a bummer but i am still going to try. I just need to find a place to loft and build it.

 

So here are some pictures of school stuff. The below picture is for my dad, he was asking how to make boat sauce. So here it is, Just remember its for paintin' not drinkin'!

 



So here is the view from my desk. There is the makings of a half model on as well as some miscellaneous stuff.

 This is the how to for lofting out a rabbit. For the uninitiated the rabbit is where the planking (sides) are let into (notched) the stem (front) of a boat.

 Here are plans for the oars that will go with the little skiff we are building. I made one of em'. Like most things in life its all about the layout.

 I must say the one i built looks good, Sam is still finishing his up,tough part is going to be making them exactly the same. I think i should make a set of these for the I.R.H. when i finally get her built.

 

 

On to the skiff. Not a lot to say about the construction. She is a basic skiff as skiffs go but its been fun to do thus far.
 

 

I.R.H Model

During the long weekend i have been working on a model of the IRH. I really didn't want to get into as much detail as say Roger Fletcher would. What i needed to know was whether or not panels cut from the design would in fact stitch together.

I started the project by making a base out of cardboard.

On this base i marked the scale 1' lines as well as the center line. After this i cut out the stations upside down and with a extension, you'll see in the pictures.

In the above pic you can see the station going onto the base. I attached all the stations than braced them in between. At this point i tried to pull panels off of the model. This was not easy so i glued thread along all of the chines and along the gunwales so i could see the lines better when copying them off the model.

With the threads in place i was really able to get in and create blank panels.

I then traced the paper panels onto cardboard and cut them out. Using duck tape i made up the model.

 It is not perfect. However it does tell me that the design should go together with real plywood. Next i need to estimate how many sheets of ply i will need for the hull. Then create full size panel drawings. This may be as far as i get for a while. Tomorrow its back to school. Id does look as though the IRH is one step closer to becoming a reality.

Boat School

So school has officially started. Its really good to be back at something like a job even though i am paying for it. For those out there who care days go something like this.

1) Wake up in the dark and brew coffee.
2) Drive through sunrise to school.
3) 1-2 hour lecture, topics so far have included spiling, scribing, northwest boat building history, and the use of the band saw.
4) Shop time.
5) Clean up.
6) Go home to eat and sleep.

This week has been focusing mainly on simple joinery and the sharpening of tools. I have never really used chisels,so that alone has been an education.

I didn't take any pictures this week but i'll try and get some for next week. Oh and lea is getting sick, so i'll half to deal with that to, damn.

Incurable Rapid Happiness I.R.H.

Some of you may know others may not that after the completion of my dory Florence I started a design of my own.

Admittedly I haven't had Flo on enough water to really  know all her quirks but several things struck me as I was rowing about. First and foremost it is a big boat. I know that at 17 ', she is smaller that many dorys and most of the oar rafts out there, but her size and the spread of her oars 18' really limit the rivers/streams row-able  Another issue is the oar lock angle, its steep. I could build some monster oarlock that allows me to mount the locks in a more verticle orientation (giving more range of motion) but that seams to go against the aesthetics of the original design. Finally its a big job to move a dory in and out of the river when the rivers being run don't have boat ramps (or really shitty ramps) and your by yourself.

So I tossed these thoughts in the ol' salad spinner and let them twirl with the rest of the random thoughts.  A few weeks went by, I was out in Port Townsend visiting the Northwest School for Wooden Boat Building (where I'll be going in a few weeks) and I saw some fine row boats with double chines. Hmmmm, that would solve the oar lock problem. But how short is to short?

Pen to the sketch book I started thinking about it. 15' seemed good but what's 2ft. If I 'm gonna go small I may as well go really small sub 10'? So it turns out that a sub 10' dory looks like a weird bath tub. Than I started drawing 10' double enders. These looked OK but really more like some cracked out kayak or canoe. adding a transom really fixed that right up.

After a couple of drafts I started to circulate the hull drawings to a few people. I had a couple of folks (namely Tom Martin) get me thinking, why I had drawn that flat spot in the bottom?  My reasoning originally was for carrying capacity and stability. After some thought I realized that longitudinal stability would be just as good with a continuous rocker (rocking chair). As for carrying capacity, this thing will already be able to hold enough beer I won't need a tent.

I really didn't need to name this thing, after all whomever builds one can call it whatever the hell they want. But originally I was going to go with Stupid Fish (I wish fish were stupid than I might be able to catch more) but I found a much better name in Tom Martins book Big Water Little Boats Inside there is a quote by Marston, "Incurable rapid happiness." I shortened it to IRH as the intended goal of this boat is indeed "incurable rapid happiness".

Here are some snaps of the drawings at this point.

So where does this stand now? Well in the next week or so I'll  get these drawings off the graph paper and inked onto something better. Then off to Kinko's to have copies made. I want this to be a free design, you can decide to stitch & glue (what I am planning) or ladder build the boat. I should have the drawings available for some small (copy and shipping) fee really soon, so if your interested comment on this post and I'll make sure you get them.

Oh, and here is a stencil of a snail.

Yep, a snail.

That Grand Canyon Portfolio

I don't think I have written much about my Grand Canyon trip on this blog yet. I can honestly say it was one of the most trans-formative experiences of my entire life. If you ever get the chance to go on a  private trip go. Figure out how to skip out for a month and go. If you come back and think, "hey that sucked". I will let you beat the crap out of... ...some one else. Point is the place is Magic. Not rabbit out the hat magic but Magic faeries, unicorns, elves, gnomes and shit, Magic.

So when one decides to take such a trip one must record it for posterity. After the tragic loss of my camera gear a couple of years ago I decided to just take a sketch book, old school.  In doing this I thought I would come back and make... I have no idea what I thought I was going to make of this. What has ended up happening is this, I have created a dream. Every time I go to make art the canyon is  there right under the surface.

After getting home and the usual recuperation I tried to change my life. Took what I thought would be a better job. Moved to a different place, was hopeful. But life like the Colorado can sometimes eddy fuck you if  you don't pay attention. (sorry mom that's what its really called.) It took a couple of really hard pulls, building a boat to stay sane, making art to stay sane, dreaming about the canyon to stay sane, and getting the hell out of that eddy!

Well as you know I made it this far. Trying to stay on the bubble and still thinking about the Canyon.

Back to the Art. I thought I would end up getting a canyon portfolio together and that would be the end of it. But the pieces just keep boiling up, less and less like the original place. More and more just a dream. But good or bad they are what they are. This project isn't going to end so here is an update two years later.

Some of this was done on the river, some much much later. These are not the best photographs of the work, I would like to keep it safe from copy.

Pic