1997
Summer's Goal and Winter's Work
by Steve Rosenau, Denver, NC
Troop 707's summer camp goal has been to win the Visitor's Day canoe race since I have been with the troop. We'll practice several weeks before on a local lake to find three compatible paddle's (they used to use four paddlers per canoe in the camp race) and practice strokes and steering. It's a slow process because most sessions turn into play time, like turn turtle and hide inside the hull, see how deep it can sink with 8 scouts standing on it, and bumper boats. So far, we got second place by backing up first in the aluminum Grumman, waiting for the 20 boat congestion to clear, and shooting through the available holes while most troops were banging it out with paddles and making lots of speed sideways.
Bumper boats is my favorite, where two ABS plastic boats compete to ram the other amidships, occasionally rolling over. It can be rough on fingers and is high on strategy and knowledge of boat characteristics. Powerful arms and body helps, too. The Penobscot is faster, straight tracking, and tippy, while the Pathfinder is a tugboat, fast to turn, and hard to tip. By the time one boat wins with five significant collisions everyone is whipped and ready to rest.
But that was just an introduction to the real story, the ongoing wooden boat saga. During the practice races they used my cedar stripper and won. And won again. And again. After six wins, their victory waves and taunts grew wilder and louder, and then we swapped boats. Dad's skinny arms and Rachel's bow strokes blasted us off the line and into an insurmountable lead within seconds, and they quit, seeing the obvious loss, the wide smirks of victory, and hearing, "Remember your physics, boys, F=ma!, hull design, and et cetera."
Having completed one cedar boat, I was eager to start another and share the canoe tripping experience with our scouts. Our troop leaders kicked the idea around for weeks, discussing logistics, minimum scout requirements, travel, costs, and schedules. Involved were time-share condominium plans, power plant rotating 12 hour work schedules, band camps, scout camps, school starting August 4, 1997, and the northern bug season. By September 1996, a trip date of July 12 - 25 1997 was virtually locked in.
At first there wasn't much interest by the scouts. We started on the Scoutmaster's son's boat, with special emphasis on craftsmanship. It was a modified MCA Explorer design, with less freeboard and a 29 inch beam, something I would want for myself. Brian has become an outstanding Eagle scout, and we felt it was worth the extra effort. On the canoe's debut at the Court of Honor in November, the troop involvement took a big jump, with parents coming over to look and the scouts bragging on their participation. Talking up the trip wasn't necessary with a killer visual aid like a freshly varnished canoe glistening on the back table.
Boat two was delayed until January first, waiting on the custom ordered 18 foot cedar boards, scheduling time at the cabinetry shop owned by the grandfather to rip and route the strips, and cutting out the new MCA Explorer forms without any design changes from plastic laminated cabinet stock. It was tough to wait on wood when the scouts were out of school. No wood, no work.
Having learned some on the first two boats, I scribed the centerlines of the forms with the thinnest of lines and began setting the forms. The garage floor wasn't level in the least and the strongback had a 15 degree twist, but a bubble level and string fixed those problems. We marked the base position on the floor in case it was shifted during construction.
January first in Denver, NC was a T-shirt day, reaching 60 degrees in the afternoon. Our older scouts converged on the form starting at 10:00 and by three we were ready to lace the football. The tongue and groove 3/16 by 18 foot strips were a breeze to glue and staple in. At times we had two teams on each side: one working up to the bottom and the other lacing down towards the gunnel. Each scout had their own assignment and backup jobs: glue wiper, big stapler, little stapler, staple pounder, strip layer, and strip holder person. Tools were being lost by the minute and search parties launched to recover them from inside the form stations, the workbench, or the floor. Our first strips were in the worst of the hull curve and laid with an intentional 3 inch drop from amidships to the bow and stern, relieving the curve reduced stress on the strips allowing the boat to be laid up with only staples, not with the nails, screws, holding blocks, and tie wire used on previous boats to force the strips to conform.
Lunch was provided by DeLane, "the Canoe Widow", and we concluded with an outside basketball game with the old geezers winning again. We thought the canoe needed a rest to let the glue dry and take its shape before doing the slow detail work to transition from the bow to the real football lacing. By Saturday we were back at it, having just the football to do. It was a confusing mess with angles being cut towards the bow and stern and meeting somewhere in the middle, not always where the fitters thought they had agreed to, and on both sides of the boat. Staple pullers were pulling the dry areas behind us and by 3:00 pm, we were putting in the last 3 foot long toothpick while teams were being selected outside. ACC basketball is big in North Carolina! Sunday, the surforming and sanding started and it was resin-primed by evening. I have heard of fast assembly, but this was the first I had seen it. And the joints were reasonably good. The four ounce glass cloth and West System epoxy was a breeze to lay on the outside.
Having finished the outside of the Suddreths boat, we popped it off the wax papered forms, and placed it on some inverted speaker cabinets so the legs would keep the boat from rolling off. Foam was underneath and cardboard tubes and foam padded the short legs. An ideal arrangement, it had been used twice before with good results. This time, one speaker stand was too far from the bow when the interior was glassed. Once it had hardened and we were inspecting the finished hull, a serious flaw raised its face. The hull had been pushed up by the flat speaker cabinet bottom, and it was locked in place by the interior glass and resin. We were screwed, big time. Even worse, it had been noticed before we had glassed, but the significance not realized. All were instructed to get my undivided attention the next time they saw what could be a flaw of this magnitude. Beat me if necessary, but let me know before it's too late.
The fall 1996 issue of Epoxyworks discusses removal of resin and cloth using heat guns, so we'll make a test sample, and if successful, we'll remove the glass in the worst of the bulge, push it out, and re-glass that section. When a mistake is made, proceed with caution so it doesn't get worse. Don't want to burn the boat up with the heaters! Right now, the scouts are calling it the Hunchback. The others were duly named "the Old boat", "Brian's boat", and, "No problem, it's Doug's boat".
Doug's boat was on the forms a day after the Hunchback was popped off. Progress was slower, and more putty used to fill the gaps. We did move the cabinets further apart before we glassed the inside. The interior bow and stern glassing looks quite good, since this is now old hat. The gunnel wood, 18 feet of clear redwood finally arrived today. I was hoping for something like spruce or fir for lightweight strength, but it looks like the redwood will do. It cut well, lays well, and will have some extra cedar on the inside to add some stiffening. These are lightweight lake boats, so it should work. I have pulled redwood apart in a hammered dulcimer before. Trial and error rules down here.
The seat frames and middle carry thwart are being made up in Hickory, NC, the furniture capital of this area. Some of their scrap wood is ideal for this. And someone else gets in on the fun so I can type this up. February 28, we are going to Scout camp to practice canoeing skills, portaging, and speedier setting up and packing up. Last time they were given warning that a stampede of bears was coming through in 30 minutes and they better be packed and on the water before they arrived. They made it. Their scout leader turns into a papa bear if they play too much during practice. Maybe a mosquito-crazed herd of moose next time.
