- The steam-bent coamings are clearly derived from wonderful classic daysailers like the Herreshoff 12-1/2. They look great and also work great; the angled backrest is very comfortable.
- I'm also a big admirer of various Atkin sailing skiffs such as, say, Willy Winship. (Alas, I've never sailed one.) I'd like to think there's a bit of Atkin in BELLE's strong sheerline.
- I've sailed numerous catboats over the years--Beetles, mostly--and I'm a big fan of the type for shallow-water cruising. BELLE's hullshape has a just as hint of Cape Cod cat in her, shallow and quite beamy (compared to a number of current row/sail designs) without being anywhere near as extreme as a true Cape cat.
- BELLE's gaff-sloop rig, simple "lift up" rudder, slatted seats and floorboards, and small foredeck with storage underneath are also traditional daysailer/catboat elements that I've loved for years.
- The basic hull construction--narrow flat bottom and plywood-epoxy lapstrake planks--is based on my experience building Joel White designs such as Pooduck. It's a wonderful way to build a strong and relatively light boat.
I took these elements, and other ideas I've developed over the years, and put them into BELLE in what I hope is an interesting mix of old and new.
Q: Why design your own boat? Aren't there lots of good designs out there?
Yes, there are lots of terrific boat plans available from excellent designers like Joel White, Iain Oughtred, Phil Bolger and many more. I suppose I decided to design my own boat because I was looking for something a bit different than what I had seen available--and I was looking for a new challenge. Being a boat carpenter is my "day job", so I knew that I could build the boat reasonably well. But I had never designed my own boat, so it was definitely something new for me.
Q: Why design/build a 16ft gaff sloop with minimal overnighting camp/cruiser accomodations?
After thinking it over, 16ft struck me as a pretty ideal size for a small trailerable daysailer. I kept thinking of the wonderful Herreshoff 12-1/2s, which are about 16ft long (over all) and other boats I've sailed in that size range. I'm not saying my boat will be as good as a 12-1/2, one of the great daysailers of all time, I'm just saying that's one of my inspirations! My next thought was that a 16 footer might just be big enough to pack gear for two people for a long weekend of coastwise cruising with minimal--OK very minimal--accomodations. As a camp-cruiser, the idea is that you'd pack a tent and probably spend most nights in a tent ashore. In this part of Maine there are 100s of islands to explore, it sounded quite tempting to try that type of cruising. (I'll let you know after I try it!) I resisted the urge of going bigger with all that implies in increased weight and cost. Finally, I decided that the boat should be a darn good daysailer if nothing else, and what's wrong with that?
The gaff mainsail gives you a powerful rig with a lower center of effort (less healing) than a marconi, with shorter spars for easier trailering. For trailering, the mast fits inside the boat--not lashed on top as would be typical of a longer mast--with just a few inches sticking past the transom (see photo here). BELLE's gaff sail is high-peaked and doesn't need a topsail.
Q: How hard was it to design your own boat?
I found the whole process enjoyable, so I guess I wouldn't call it "hard" in that sense. But I did take the math side reasonably seriously; I've heard about people designing "by eye" but I wasn't comfortable with that. I found two books very helpful, the first for the detailed explanation of the math involved, the second for an older approach (and information about things like wood spars that simply don't appear in more modern books):
Principles of Yacht Design (Larrson/Eliasson)
Elements of Yacht Design (Skene, original edition, in a new paperback edition)
I'm designing the boat strictly by hand, with pencils and paper and battens, the old-fashioned way. That said, after the boat is done I might learn some CAD and try to get the design into some sort of computer format. But I'll only do that after I've sailed the boat and come to some sort of conclusion about how successful the design really turns out to be. That's the scary part of this whole thing!
In addition to books, I've been studying boat plans for a lot of years. For this boat, I called upon my interest in many boats, but especially helpful was the study of the following plans: Paul Gartside's Swansong, Joel White's Pooduck (which I built about 10 years ago), and William Atkin's Greenshank (which I have in the wonderful old book Workable Plans for Practical Boats). N. G. Herreshoff's Coquina is also a gem of old-school lightweight daysailer construction. These plans provide a goldmine of information about scantlings, sail plans, construction details, etc., that I could use as "benchmarks" for my own ideas.
See my Sketches and Plans page for the results of my labors.
Q: When will you have plans that we can look at on your blog?
Yes, there are a couple of scans of my hand-drawn plans here.
Q: Will I be able to build BELLE if I read your blog?
No, I'm afraid the blog is not a complete introduction to boat building! It covers the highlights and things that might be different about BELLE than other boats, rather than a soup-to-nuts introduction to building the boat. You'll need to do your research before attempting something like this, although an intrepid amateur builder should absolutely be able to manage building a boat like BELLE. There are a number of good books out there on glued plywood lapstrake construction, including:
Clinker Plywood Boatbuilding Manual
How to Build Glued Lapstrake Wooden Boats
Q: I want to know more about the history of science fiction. Where do I look?
Try here...hey I didn't say every question would be about BELLE!
This page answers some of the questions I've been hearing recently. I'll add more as time goes on...and people ask new questions!
