Love Him or Not Book Review

 

Capt. Larry Simns has probably had some effect on your life if you are in any part of the seafood industry, if you like to fish, if you are concerned with water quality, if you love to eat seafood, if you live or work near the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed, are a politician in the Maryland State House, or for a variety of other reasons. If you dont know his name, or the only thing that you do know about him is his name, then you should read this book.

In the newly released The Best of Times on The Chesapeake Bay, An Account of a Rock Hall Waterman, Capt. Larry Simns (the n is silent), and co-author Robert L. Rich, Jr. tell the story of how he grew up in the small harbor town of Rock Hall on Marylands Eastern Shore. He began his education in seafood harvesting at six years old, he went through brutal but valuable apprenticeship with seasoned and unforgiving Captains in his teens and he grew to become a respected Captain and seafood business owner in young adulthood. He recounts how he reluctantly found his voice as he began his rise within local groups of watermen to become a legendary advocate for them and the Chesapeake Bay in response to critical declines in seafood populations in the early 1970s. In his 40 years as President of the Maryland Watermens Association, he was not only recognized for his work by professionals with interests in the fisheries from Maine to Alaska and the Gulf Coast, he also worked with Senators, Governors and U.S. Presidents.

If you spend any time with a waterman,it would be difficult not to notice that theirs are very tough jobs. Many of our neighbors start their day at 3:00am. They work when its 20 degrees outside. They work when its 100 degrees outside. The brutal apprenticeship that Capt. Larry went through was important for learning to live in an environment that might be idyllic one moment and potentially deadly the next. There are some very exciting moments in the book. In fact, Capt. Larry went through more than one situation where he almost didnt survive.

 

He clearly explains how various finfish, oysters and crabs were harvested, having experience with pretty much every method used. He explains how "The Bay" changed after Hurricane Agnes. A resulting drop in seafood harvests coincided. Other factors including pollution from other sources led him to the chain of events that made him the powerful advocate he is. He discusses how he worked with others from various disciplines including biologists, environmentalists, and others to create policies that were not always popular. An amazing journey for a waterman from Rock Hall, Maryland.

 

Theres a whole lot more here and I highly recommend this book. Most of the chapters are brief, but full of information. It provides an education about the Chesapeake Bay, Eastern Shore life, the history of its watermen, issues surrounding its protection and much more. One gets the sense that, knowing he wont be around forever, he would like for this book to help pass critical information to those for whom stewardship of the Chesapeake and the life within it will pass. We should pay attention.

 

For more information go to: 

http://www.thebestoftimesonthechesapeakebay.com/

Book Details

The Best of Times on The Chesapeake Bay, An Account of a Rock Hall Waterman

Lived by Captain Lawrence William Simns
Written by Robert L. Rich, Jr.
Illustrated by Ann Crane Harlan.

ISBN: 9780764342776Soft Cover 288 Pages 42 illustrations

 

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Joining Plywood Jigsaw or Puzzle Joints

I apologise for my long gap between posts, life has been very full for awhile.

Jigsaw joints have become a popular method for joining 8ft plywood lengths into the long panels needed for building most boats. It is an easy process for those who are building from a kit but it is impractical for most people building from scratch. If building from plans or from patterns then you will have to make every cut by hand using a jigsaw and the accuracy necessary for a close-fitting jigsaw joint is just not possible to achieve.

For those who have not seen a jigsaw joint, the form is exactly the same as the interlocking curves of a jigsaw puzzle, except that the interlocking curves are laid out in a straight line rather than in a grid pattern. This forms a very accurate and secure junction between the two parts, unable to slide apart and needing no clamps, while the glue sets.

Jigsaw joint configuration.

The two parts have glue applied to the bonding surfaces, then they are laid on waxed paper or plastic to prevent adhesion to the surface below, aligned properly then a rubber mallet is used to force the fingers of the upper part down into those of the lower part. Care must, of course, be taken to ensure that the surfaces of the assembled joint are perfectly flush or there will be a permanent deflection at that point. The photos below, courtesy of Chesapeake Light Craft, show the joint before and after joining.

Applying glue to the bonding surfaces

Cleaning up the completed jigsaw joint

Tight joints as described above assume that you will assemble them on a large table or a workshop floor before moving the panel to the boat. This is OK for dinghies or for professional builders who have enough space and the staff to manhandle large panels from the shop to the boat and to position and clamp them accurately, all after applying glue to the framing of the hull and to the panel, trying to get it into exactly the right position first go so that it doesnt slide on that slippery glue and spread it everywhere except in the joint where it is needed, then clamp it accurately so that it can finally be fastened. You get the picture, of enormous potential for disaster.

For amateurs building bigger boats it is just not practical to assemble the panels before installation. Panels 8ft long are very convenient for one person to handle, without having to call on the wife, kids and neighbours to help with the task. I built the structures and interior of my Didi 38 "Black Cat" entirely single-handed. There was not a single piece of timber in that boat that I was not able to carry and set up without any assistance. But I made scarph joints by hand and I glued them in position.

Building with jigsaw joints and gluing the joints in position requires a slightly different approach. It is not practical to hammer a tight joint into place with a rubber mallet. The stringers and other supporting timbers are springy and will bounce away when hit, making it difficult to get the fingers properly flush. Another factor is that of longitudinal alignment accuracy. If the first piece is slightly out of longitudinal alignment on the framing then the accuracy of the jigsaw joint will force the other pieces to continue that misalignment. An error of 1mm on the first of 4 panels will grow to an error of 4mm by the end of the 4th piece.

The way to get around this is to machine in some tolerance into the joint. When the jigsaw joint curves are added to the CAD drawing of the panel, the curves are used to break the panels into the pieces that will fit onto 8ft sheets of plywood. Then the jigsaw curves must be offset into each panel by 50% of the tolerance that is decided upon. This means that each piece is minutely shorter than the designed length and the fingers of the joints are minutely slimmer. The result is a joint that can be easily pushed into place without hammering and which also has a small amount of wiggle room to allow for correction of minor installation misalignments.

This more loose joint may need a temporary doubler on the back between stringers so that small screws can be used to pull the fingers flush if the panel is curved at that point. Dont forget to use a waxed paper or plastic bond-breaker to prevent adhesion of the doubler to the panel.

After the glue has set you can use a belt sander to clean up the surface for a nice finish and a joint that will disappear in the painted boat.

For info on our boat designs, please visit http://dixdesign.com/ and http://dudleydix.blogspot.com/.

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To Paint or Not to Paint

Last week the builder of one of my boats asked me about painting the interior of his boat, what should he paint and what shouldnt he paint? I had not really thought of it before, that there are different thoughts about what to paint and why. Before I answer, I will tell you of my experiences on a wide range of boats, those built by me and those built by others.

On all of the big boats that I have built (they were all for my own use), people who visited the boats or sailed with us often commented about how fresh they were down below compared with their own boats or others on which they had sailed. I had observed this as well. There was never any diesel smell, never any dank, damp odour and never any need for air fresheners on my own boats. In contrast, many of the other boats were oppressive as soon as I went below, with some rather bad smells.

Most of these boats had been owner-built or owner-completed and they all had large areas of plywood that were unpainted, left as raw timber, under berths, in the bilges etc. My own boats had no exposed timber, not inside lockers, under cabin soles, inside the lazarette, under berths, not anywhere.

So, how does this make such a difference? A boat lives in a wet environment and most are closed up the majority of the time. When the sun is shining, the inside of a boat is much warmer than outside and that warm air soaks up moisture from any water that is in the bilge or elsewhere. Humidity builds up and creates an ideal atmosphere for mould to grow. Mould spores are in the air all around us and waiting to proliferate.

When the air cools in the evening the moisture is wrung out of the air again. It settles as condensation on hull, deck and joinery surfaces throughout the boat. It doesnt care whether they are exposed surfaces that you see whenever you are on the boat or hidden ones that you seldom see. The humidity is everywhere in the boat when it is hot, so condensation settles everywhere when it cools.

The unpainted wood surfaces absorb some of this moisture and hold onto it. It becomes that ideal environment for the mould spores to settle and grow. Once it starts, if left unchecked, the mould will spread throughout the boat and can also be the start of rot problems.

Mould inside the boat can be difficult to kill off. It needs to be killed everywhere and the surfaces must be thoroughly dried then sealed with epoxy or paint so that the cycle doesnt start again. It would have been so much easier to have just painted everywhere when the boat was being built. Sure, painting everything will have added a few weeks to the build time but it will have been worth the extra effort to save the hassles of the future.

The same principle applies to preventing diesel smells. Every big boat has a diesel or oil spill or two in its life.That liquid will soak into any raw timber that it contacts. Once into the surface it is impossible to remove and it will result in diesel or oil smells inside the boat for the rest of its life. If those surfaces had been painted then the problem would never have arisen.

So, what coatings should you use? All surfaces of the hull and deck skins, as well as all associated timber framing (stringers, backbone, beams, sheer clamps etc) must be protected by three coats of epoxy. This should include the perimeter of bulkheads against hull and deck but you may prefer to coat all bulkhead surfaces as well. The epoxy needs to be protected from the attack of UV (even below decks) so I recommend painting over the epoxy with a prime coat, followed by undercoat and finishing coat of paint.

Elsewhere, coat with primer, undercoat and finish coat. That means every timber surface, whether you will see it again or not. If it is a sealed compartment, e.g. inside a swim platform, dont leave it unpainted either. These sealed compartments must be coated inside with three coats of epoxy but you dont need to paint them.

Aside from mould, smell and rot prevention, there are other reasons to paint everywhere. 

• Painted surfaces are very easy to clean. You can throw a bucket of water in the bilge or a locker, swill it around and then pump it out, no harm done. Or you can wipe it down with a damp cloth or sponge rinsed in a bucket, very easy.
• Light-coloured paint reflects light, unlike raw timber that absorbs it. The painted compartments are bright and make it easier to find things that have gone astray. A fully painted lazarette is not a dungeon that swallows up tools and other things that will not be seen again until you build up the courage to dive into that dark place in search of lost treasures. That also applies to cabins in the ends of the boat, which are much more bright and habitable if painted in light colours. Clear-finished okoume plywood becomes quite dark, has uninteresting grain patterns and is not as attractive as you might imagine, not by a long way.

This problem is not limited to owner-built plywood boats either. I have seen this regularly when poking around inside boats displayed on boat shows in London, Annapolis and other places. Many production builders dont bother to protect the timber surfaces inside lockers, lazarettes, berths or the bilge. It costs them labour and materials to do so and it costs the owner down the line to sort it out or live with the results.

So, dont bother to argue with yourself over which surfaces to paint and which to leave raw, just get down to it and paint them all. You can thank yourself later when you reap the benefits.

Allied to this is the need for good ventilation. Strategically positioned ventilators will help to keep the air fresh inside your boat, removing excess moisture and making it a much more pleasant environment for people instead of mould.

Dudley Dix
Dudley Dix Yacht Design
http://dixdesign.com/

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Across Atlantic Ice or people came to America by boat

In their book Across Atlantic Ice, the authors posit the theory that people of the Clovis culture came to America along the edge of the ice sheet that went from the northern coast of Spain to the northern Atlantic coast of America.  The idea is that they traveled by boat, skinboat supposedly along the ice edge and ate sea mammals that they killed along the way.
You can read the book if you are interested in the details.  The main reason the authors posited their theory of migration by sea was that the mainstream theory which had people walking to America lacked any evidence to back it up.  Had the Clovis people walked to America, there should be some trace of their presence in the form of spear points found in Alaska or Siberia, but there wasnt.  Instead, the authors claim that the Clovis trail of artifacts leads back to the coast of Spain.
Critics of this theory say that there is no evidence of the boats that the Clovis people supposedly used to make their crossing.  Of course there wouldnt be after all this time because the organic materials that made up the boats would long have disappeared.
But the main thing that interests me about this dispute is the inability of modern people to imagine the ability of earlier humans to build boats.  It is also something that the authors accuse their critics of. In any case, there are other migrations that were made thousands of years ago, like the migration to Australia that left no evidence of boats although they could not have been made in any other way given that even at lowest sea levels there was water between their starting point and their destination.
Michael Collins, the author of the foreword to the book calls this inability to imagine that ancient people were as imaginative as contemporary humans paleoracism. I dont know that I would call that shortage of imagination racism, but it springs out of the same place that racism does, out of the inability to give others full credit for human abilities.

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