GOOD OLD BOAT
NEWSLETTER

December 2000

Contents (what's in this issue)

How to contact us
 
Good Old Boat Magazine
7340 Niagara Lane North
Maple Grove, MN 55311-2655
763-420-8923; 763-420-8921 (fax)

Karen Larson, Editor
Jerry Powlas, Technical Editor
Dianne Sivald, Newsletter Editor
 

http://www.goodoldboat.com/

Happy Holidays from Good Old Boat!

We're thinking fond thoughts of our readers during this holiday season. We've come a long way with your support and enthusiasm. In the coming year, Good Old Boat is going to make a magic leap forward in numbers of subscribers and in terms of a number of other key indicators. We look forward to the new year as the big one for this little start-up (upstart?) magazine in the big wide world of publishing. We'll tell you more about this in the newsletter as time goes on. Stay tuned.

Chicago Strictly Sail

We've been asked to present once again in Chicago at the Strictly Sail show. And we'll be there with bells on doing a presentation once each day for the duration of the show. This year's slide show will be on wilderness cruising. If you've ever wanted to leave the dock and its amenities behind, we'll show you how: no trash removal, no refueling, no water refills, no ice, and no pumpouts.

Web additions

Our Web site continues to get more sophisticated with the help of our Webmaster, Jerry Stearns. We've got a shopping cart now and we take credit cards, making it easier to order books and subscriptions. (And just in time for your holiday shopping! Uncanny timing on our part, don't you think?) We just got our hats and shirts posted, too. Of course, Jerry's also improved the friendliness of the posted version of this newsletter. And our pages are getting easier to navigate as time goes on. We welcome your thoughts as we make these improvements.

What's coming in the January issue

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BookMark

Did we tell you about BookMark, by the way? Mark Busta has been with us about a year now with the high-falutin' title of Director of Circulation and Merchandise. (Hey, when you've only got three people in the company, you can have any title you want. Cool titles sometimes substitute for salary or pay increases, we've learned.)

When Mark turned in his gun and badge at the St. Paul Police Department for a Mac G4, and a desk in our family room, he brought with him a load of skills we needed. Mark's setting up Good Old Boat merchandise sales with the primary emphasis on nautical books and videotapes that we feel we can recommend to our readers. He's earned the nickname BookMark for his work to find you any book you're looking for whether it's in or out of print, perhaps even if it's not a nautical book. He's getting good at this new sort of "detective work," so if you've got a book you'd like to find, perhaps BookMark can do what you've been unable to accomplish. Contact him at Mark@goodoldboat.com, 763-420-8923 (ph), 763-420-8921 (fax). Nobody else has BookMark.

The rest of Mark's merchandise emphasis includes the sale of Good Old Boat logo hats and shirts. He handles these merchandise activities in between the ongoing circulation work involved in maintaining the subscriber database (new subscribers, renewing subscribers, notices about renewing, and so on). Come see our Ship's Store, including logo clothing and books.

A news blurb:

The Jubilee Sailing Trust (JSK), a UK-based organization, is demonstrating that almost anything can be achieved by a motivated group of mixed-ability people. Tenacious, the largest wooden tall ship of its kind was born from the idea of enabling able-bodied and physically disabled people to work and sail together.

Construction of Tenacious began in June 1996, with more than 1,300 mixed-ability volunteers helping to build the ship alongside teams of skilled shipbuilders. This three-masted barque is about 213 feet long, boasts 21 sails, and weighs 690 tons (the approximate weight of two 747 jumbo jets). The ship is made of Siberian larch timber, glued together with epoxy, and encapsulated in epoxy.

Adventure holidays for novice sailors and seasoned yachtsmen are available. See the JST Web site at <http://www.jst.org.uk/>.

One for everyone

In speaking with Will Keene, president of the Edson Corporation, at the Annapolis boat show, we got to talking about the systems on boats and which should be given first consideration when a refit is planned, or when a boat is being built, or when maintenance work is undertaken. As ludicrous as it seems, Will noted that some new boats require steering systems to be run in strange ways to make room for speaker wiring arrangements and other systems which would seem to have less to do with the safety of the boat. Where do the systems on the following list fall in your list of priorities?
Email us with your top three systems and tell us why, if you have strong feelings about this. We'll print responses and the results of this informal vote:

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More boat names

Quite a few years ago, and three boats ago, our Cal 25 was taken off her mooring by a freak storm and bashed to pieces on the beach against a large log. We used the insurance money to buy a very unfinished wooden 33-foot Meadowlark hull, and spent three years finishing off this ketch. Along the way, we salvaged the keel from the Cal, and used the lead in casting the long skeg for the Meadowlark. For obvious reasons, we named the Meadowlark, Silver Lining. Then we named the dinghy, Cloud.
Doug & Julie Stewart
Nanaimo, British Columbia
 
After traveling around in the Navy for 20 years, and five boats later, we settled down in Virginia Beach. My wife informed me that she was never going on another boat unless it was the Queen Mary. You guessed it; I bought a Pearson 30 and named her Queen Mary.
Jim Borberg
Virginia Beach, Va.
 
Tell the Editor in Chief of Unending Boat Name Stories that a few years ago I had a Sabre 34 that I christened, Alchemy. I named the tender, Transmutation. Ha! NOBODY got it - people looked, screwed up their faces, and mumbled something about how sailors should be better spellers. So much for being clever.
Art Ross
Sale Creek, Tenn.
 
Haven't got enough of boat names yet? Take a look at the BoatU.S. site: http://www.boatus.com/names/. This site has lists of names and the top 10 over the past several years. Where do they get this information? They've been making vinyl letters for members for years. This sort of work causes them to gather this data whether they mean to or not. After all, who can resist?
The editors

Kids like Milo assure our future

David Rogers first wrote this for Points East magazine, a regional publication for the Gulf of Maine. We liked it so much we asked his permission to reprint it for Good Old Boat subscribers.
 
Ryan, Cuthill & Feinberg. No, not a firm of trial lawyers. Rather, two old men and a boy. They've never even met. What they have in common is that they believe in saving boats.

If you're a rancher, you've probably seen young kids hanging around the corral, talking quarter horses and rodeo and maybe dreaming of having their own prize beef critter in the state fair. But on the coast of Maine, the dream is boats. Ask around a local boatyard and you'll probably find a kid like (but not quite like) Milo Feinberg.

Milo started haunting Eaton's Boatyard in Castine a few years ago. He was seven. Owner Kenny Eaton couldn't miss him. "I never met a boy with more questions. He was just dying to get a boat."
It wasn't long before boat and boy were one, thanks to the legacy of senior partner Ryan. When Dr. Ryan returned to Virginia several years ago, there was no room for his old skiff- a boat he built from a kit in 1975. He turned it over to Eaton's with the benediction, "It's a nice boat -- maybe somebody can fix it up."

"This boat," explained Milo with pride, "is perfect for a kid like me. First of all, it's got a flat bottom so you can jump around without it being too tippy, and it can carry a lot of stuff. Second, it's 16 feet long -- that means it rows fast. Being narrow helps me control the oars better since I have short arms."

The boat was originally designed for use on shallow southern streams. It's known as a Wisp. It has rattan seats. With instruction from Kenny Eaton and practice with his mom, Milo quickly became an expert Wisp oarsman. He has re-painted the boat several times. He named it Penelope: -- "Not like in Homer and the 'Odyssey,' but because my aunt is named Penelope, and she is really nice."
Asked why kids like boats, Milo opined the following, "It's more fun to row and move by oars than by car. Kids like to control things bigger than they are. They like to move around without boundaries, without grownups telling them where to go."

Over the succeeding winter, Milo continued to study his boats. Being a wooden boat owner, he subscribed to WoodenBoat magazine and inquired about admittance to the boat school in Brooklyn. For reading, Milo tackled the 1930s stories of Arthur Ransom about kids having boating adventures in England's lakes region. He read lots of other seafaring tales and the history of famous yacht designers.

Monthly, Ken Eaton would receive "Milo-grams" containing drawings, sections and interior layouts of original Feinberg yacht designs -- including his own Z-class concepts.

In 1999, after a long career in teaching and 25 summers helping out at Eaton's Boatyard, Bob Cuthill retired, leaving behind an unfinished spare-time-project: an old wooden Turnabout. The Milo-grams were about to pay off big. Eaton presented him with the unfinished Turnabout.
In Milo's constellation of nautical superheroes, like Herreshoff and Joel White, Ken Eaton's star shines even brighter. Of Kenny, Milo said, "He is my friend. It's a good thing there are Kenny Eatons in this world."

Milo, who winters on 98th Street in New York City, put his family to work. His mother, Janet, who teaches classical piano, helped sand and paint floorboards, which were occasionally left to dry down the hall near the elevator.

When the family returned to Castine for the summer, the bright red Turnabout was ready and became the smallest boat in the harbor to have its own mooring. The mooring ball says "Milo." George Plender, Castine's harbormaster, agreed with young Feinberg's analysis that since the Turnabout drew only an inch-and-a-half of water, it should have a mooring nearest the shore.
Milo christened the boat Espy, a family name shared by his mother and sister, Maeve, age 6, who had helped paint.

As explained by Feinberg, after starting out learning to row, a Turnabout is a terrific sailboat for a kid. "It teaches you to use the rudder and learn about tides and winds on a single sail. The boom is high so you don't get hit on the head, and you sit low on the floorboards, which is safe." Perfect for a boy weighing 70, exactly Milo's poundage.

Milo's dad, Alan, who travels the world as a concert pianist, acknowledges limited experience with sailing but said that his first sail with Milo at the helm explaining the technical intricacies of Turnabout handling was an uplifting personal moment.

In addition to thoroughly mastering the single-handed Turnabout, young Feinberg has started sailing on Mercurys and J-Ys. For the past three years he has also crewed on larger boats in Castine's Retired Skippers Race.

Milo is a frequent voyager around Castine harbor in his trademark red boat, or in the speedy green Penelope. In addition to his parents, most of the waterfront community monitors his adventures with almost parental pride and responsibility. "We feel Milo is safer out in his boat in the approved sailing area than he would be alone for even a moment in the city," said his mother.

To the cruising visitor, the diminutive Milo and his smaller sister Maeve -- "his first mate" as he refers to her -- present a startling sight. From even a short distance away, Espy appears to be sailing herself. Upon closer examination, what one really sees is the junior partner of Ryan, Cuthill & Feinberg taking over the venerable Maine tradition of going to sea in a boat passed from old hands to young ones. Hands and mind with growing skills, a new sense of self-confidence and expanding capabilities, and with new dreams of adventure in the lifetime ahead.

No boat is more worthy than a kid's first boat, and no one deserves greater praise than the people who bring them together.
 
We noted that Milo subscribed to WoodenBoat magazine and sent him a free one-year subscription to Good Old Boat. We were thrilled to receive our own "Milo-gram" complete with a Feinberg design.

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Mail Buoy

Spartite and Testors
Just got our November copy of Good Old Boat and read the review (of our Cap'n Pauley videotape). Bill Dimmitt generally hit the nail on the head with one exception. The part about us using Testors Plastic Model paint is exactly what Spartite suggests. To quote their directions: "For longest life, Spartite should be painted with a plastic-based (model) paint or covered with a boot." And, "Prolonged exposure to UV rays may cause cosmetic checking to appear on exposed surfaces. While this does not affect Spartite's integrity, painting the surfaces with plastic model paint (Testors) or covering with a boot eliminates this effect."

We, in fact, painted our Spartite with two coats of model paint and then painted over that with Petitt EasyPoxy. I think this needs to be pointed out to keep people from doing something to their Spartite that they shouldn't.
Paul Esterle (Cap'n Pauley)
Bristol, Tenn.
 

More on the Annapolis 25
Just finished reading John Grave's short piece on the Annapolis 25 and Annapolis Sailing School. Tidewater Boats (Jerry Woods, boatbuilding side of Annapolis Sailing School) built the Rainbow Knockabout (24-foot glass, not to be confused with the old wood KAs). The Rainbow Weekender (looked like a pregnant Rainbow and had bunks for a few). The A25 (same hull and sail dimensions as the first three) had a larger, higher freeboard and a square corner double doghouse that slept four and had an outboard in a well. Tidewater made about 60-65 of them. As the school started to charge more money for the cruise course, they needed standing headroom so they went to the 26, same doghouse look (larger though) and more beam.

Jerry once told me he had Sparkman & Stephens design the Rainbow so eight drunks could sail it across the Chesapeake and not get into trouble. The 25 was more tender than the Rainbow. I saw a 25 as far south as Key Largo, Fla. I bought #55 (a 1970 boat) from the school in 76 when they were selling off their last five 25s to make way for pop top 22-23 footers (Chrysler 23s, I think). I sailed her until 1994 when I got another good old boat. The Annapolis boat shows are another one of Jerry Woods' creations.
Gil Regan
Forest Hill, Md.
 

Save that Volvo Penta 2, or not?
A question for Don Casey: My boat is a Columbia 24 Challenger built in 1966 or 1967 by GlasMarine Industries of Costa Mesa, Calif. The boat has not been in the water for eight or nine years. The engine is a Volvo Penta 2 cylinder diesel. Don't know if it can work again. Is it worth restoring -- all parts are intact. Should it be replaced by: 1) an outboard engine (in well); or 2) an Atomic 4? Can you advise me ñ cost's a problem naturally.
Lou Diamond
Sag Harbor, N.Y.
 
Don replies
Sitting idle for nearly a decade is not particularly good for a diesel, but it doesn't necessarily doom the engine. Diesels are famous for surviving neglect. Before you consider any other powering option, make an effort to bring the Volvo back to life. Your guiding principle in this endeavor is "Do no harm." That means lubricate everything before you turn anything. I wouldn't even try to rotate the crankshaft without first pulling the injectors and giving the cylinders a wall-lubricating dose of thin oil. Don't force anything. You can do more damage in nine seconds than nature did in nine years. If you have any doubts about what you are doing, find yourself someone knowledgeable to give you guidance.

I wouldn't be surprised if you were able to get this engine running with little more than a complete purge of the fuel system, including the tank. Other than filters, I'd hesitate to spend much on parts until after the engine runs. Then you can replace the injectors and probably the exhaust elbow if they need replacing. Parts are available for this engine -- a problem for a lot of other brands.
If the engine is terminal, a low-cost alternative is to replace it with another old Penta. There are a lot of them around -- running take-outs for more powerful engines. Price should be in the hundreds, not thousands. The beauty of this option is that another Penta is a drop-in replacement, and you have a full set of spare parts.

Diesel power is safer and more reliable than gas, and an inboard more seaworthy and more convenient than an outboard. Diesel power adds to the value of the boat; don't give it up without a fight. Good luck. Let us know how it turns out.
Don Casey
Miami, Fla.
 

A question for Ted Brewer
One point has always puzzled me about schooners, especially the traditional gaff-rigged ones: they are supposed to be best on a reach, and the traditional method of reducing sail when the wind pipes up is by dousing the main and continuing under fore and jib (or jib and staysail). It seems to me that the center of effort then moves quite a bit forward and would make for quite a bit of lee helm. The skippers of traditional schooners I've spoken to on various occasions tell me this is not the case. Could Ted Brewer give an explanation?
John Somerhausen
Douglaston, N.Y.
 
Ted replies
Traditional schooner hulls are of the long keel type and are less sensitive to changes in lead as a result. Howard Chapelle made this point in his book, Yacht Designing and Planning. Too, the schooner rig is usually given quite a small lead, ranging from 4-10 percent or thereabouts, much less than the 16-18 percent common on other rigs. Thus, when the main is doused the percentage of lead is not much, if any, greater than that of the typical sloop or cutter under full sail.

The owner of Ingenue, my 33-foot Bermudan schooner design, said that on one trip outside from Florida to New York they got caught in a blow and were able to jog to windward nicely under foresail alone. She had quite a cutaway underbody as she was designed as a racer, so I doubt if she would have sailed as well with a staysail or jib set in addition to the foresail. However, I once had a very wet, windy, and cold trip aboard Sophia Christina, a long keel gaff-rigged 45-footer of my design with about 10 percent lead. She did very nicely under foresail and staysail, moving fast and beating handily to windward with the engine just ticking over at a fast idle. There was definitely no trace of a lee helm.
Ted Brewer
Gabriola Island, British Columbia
 

Once more about Capt. Ron's boat
(As you already know,) the boat in the movie is a Formosa 51. I owned one for the last couple of years but recently sold this great boat. The actual vessel in the movie is in charter in Texas -- I live in Seattle. The movie portrays the boat fairly accurately except for gross exaggeration of the engine room. There is good engine access, but let's just say there is not standing headroom below the floorboards where the engine is located!
Trevor MacLachlan
Seattle, Wash.
(SailboatOwners.com)
 

Good OLD Boat, you say?
In response to your article "What's GOOD OLD mean?" I feel a little silly after all this time hiding my face on the way to the mailbox. I was afraid someone might see the GOOD OLD and think I was a part of the AARP. And to find out my 1988 Catalina 30 is a GOOD OLD BOAT. Well it's just like they say you can never judge a book by its cover. Hey how about doing a page each issue that readers can write about the area where they sail? I am an inland lake sailor in Kansas and I don't think people realize all the places they can sail. I read a "for sale" ad in Soundings, and this guy wrote: "Must sell, job transfer to the Midwest." Hey we have water, too!
Donald Doherty
Topeka, Kan.
 

Say it isn't so!
I just returned from helping a friend in Philly work on a 27-foot Watkins that he saved from an unjust end. We discovered something in our cruising old boat yards last week while looking for sailboats that are restorable. They seem to be clearing out the yards and crushing the older boats. One yard we visited, where he bought the Watkins, had approximately 10-15 old boats three weeks ago. Last week they were all gone! The owner said they are getting pressure from various authorities to clean up. This occurred in several other yards that used to have a fairly good stock of good old boats. You may want to inquire of your readers if they are witnessing the same happenings.
Herb Landes
Sigel, Pa.
 

What makes a good old boater?
Another characteristic that might apply to good old boaters, mail buoy Oct 2000 newsletter, is after going to the Annapolis Boat Show that you wouldn't trade your good old boat for any of the new ones in your size range that you saw there.
Wayne Brown
Woodstock, Ill.
 

Good old bread
I enjoyed reading the newsletter article about baking Quick Bread. I don't have an oven, so I make mine on my alcohol stove in a pressure cooker (using it as a "Dutch oven" by removing the seal & pressure gadget). The recipe is a bit different from yours - thought you might like to try it:
Stovetop Beer Bread
3 cups self-rising flour
1 egg
3 Tbs. Sugar
1 can Beer
1 small Onion, chopped
1/2 small Green Pepper, chopped
Combine ingredients. Place in lightly greased and cornmeal (or flour) coated pan that will fit in the pressure cooker. Cover pressure cooker rack with foil and place pan on the rack. Cook for about one hour. Enjoy!

Pat Carlson

Seattle Beach, Fla.
 

Bisquick?
I checked the Bisquick label, and it's a mixture of flour, shortening, baking powder, and most notably buttermilk, which would contribute to the flavor. But there's a LOT of shortening ñ just look at the percentage of calories that come from fat, in the "nutritional info" part of the label. The shortening is probably what made the bread come out crumbly. (Incidentally, I like to top a casserole of chili with a crumbly "crust" of Bisquick.)

On board, you'd be better off carrying plain flour, which you can use for other things as well, plus baking powder, which should be kept in an airtight jar. The usual proportion is one level teaspoon of baking powder to each cup of sifted flour. (Use more baking powder if you add heavy stuff, like fruit or cheese, to the bread.)

My granny's recipe for baking-powder biscuits calls for one teaspoonful of baking powder, plus two tablespoonfuls of shortening (oil, butter, or lard), a good pinch of salt, and about 1/3 cup of milk or buttermilk per cup of plain flour. And I discovered long ago that if you don't have buttermilk, you could use plain yogurt with some milk or water stirred in. Mix the dry stuff, then cut in the shortening; then add the milk and stir it up. Knead it as few times as possible to get the dough to form (the more you knead, the tougher the biscuits will be); then pat it out, cut it into biscuits and bake until browned. I can't specify a baking time, knowing how variable stovetop ovens can be.

Another little goodie -- one that I've discovered myself -- is a seasoning that can improve almost anything (well, maybe not ice cream). It's usually found in Asian groceries, labeled Fried Shallots. (I've seen it labeled Fried Garlic as well.) They are brown granules with an incredible taste and cost about a dollar for a big bag. As long as you keep it in an airtight jar, it keeps for at least a year, and can really brighten up that boiled broccoli. No salt, no cholesterol, and considering how little you need, practically no fat either.
Peter Heinlein
Yonkers, N.Y.
 

Published December, 2000