Waikiwi my 12 foot skiff.

Waikiwi.

At age 14 I had been working for a year or so with a local lawn mowing contractor, during my free time, at weekends and during school holidays. I earned some money which accumulated to a sum sufficient to buy my own sail boat. I trawled through the Auckland Star Classifieds for a boat for sale. One came up in Greenhithe. It was described as a 12 foot sailing dinghy on a registered road trailer. Father and I went to view it and were immediately impressed by its quality. It had beautifully varnished timber decks and varnished spruce mast. The double chine, plywood hull was immaculately painted in bright yellow with white below the water line. No one had any idea what class it was but I did not care, it looked just right to my eye. I paid the $150.00 asking price and made arrangements for its delivery to our family home in Waiake. The owner had to take it for a WOF. This took much longer that anyone had anticipated. My brothers and I sat on the curb waiting for several hours before it finally arrived in the late afternoon.

We rolled the trailer into our driveway and immediately set about rigging it up. 

What a monster it turned out to be. This was a boat to be reckoned with. The rig and sail area were big enough to power a boat of twice the size. The fully battened mainsail and genoa jib were of a beautiful light blue terylene sail cloth. It also had a masthead spinnaker in lightweight, rip stop nylon in navy blue and white stripes. The spinnaker pole alone was almost as long as the boat!

Waikiwi, From Left: Brother Marten, me and Father.

Waikiwi was 12 feet long and the mast was 18 feet. Once rigged it would not sit upright on the beach without the support of its trailer cradle. It had 2 trapeze wires with harnesses. No one locally had any better idea of what this boat could be. Someone suggested that it might be a Cherokee. (designed coincidentally by John Chapple, more of him later)

At the next available opportunity I took it to the beach for my first sail. All my friends were sailing P class and Starlings. They and their parents thought I was mad thinking about sailing a boat like Waikiwi by myself.

I didn't care. My first sail was memorable.

Thankfully the wind was light. Waikiwi shot away from the beach at high speed. The centreboard was close to 6 feet long which made it difficult to manage. I felt mildly anxious but exhilarated. This boat was a thorough bread after the Heron! After a short time I sailed back to the beach and made the obligatory passenger trips for my brothers, my Father and other curious onlookers keen for a ride. Oddly they never wanted to sail with me again after that.

I sailed Waikiwi at every available opportunity including every day after school. This involved handling the heavy road trailer and walking it all the way down the hill to the beach 2.5 km away and back again, up the hill, when I was cold and exhausted. This was no mean feat! There was an incentive for me to attain my drivers licence. (That is another story)

With a newly fitted longer tiller extension I rapidly learned how to manage this oversized sailboat including single handed trapeze, jib and spinnaker handling.

I did not realise it at the time but I was developing a level strength, fitness and skills that few of my peers could match. At age 14 I was a relative giant at over 6 feet tall and I weighed 12 stone. Furthermore I was reading everything that I could find about sailing. I read every book on the subject in our school library, in our local library and it gave my parents the perfect gift idea for every birthday and Christmas for several years running.

My father subscribed to several sailing magazines including Seaspray, a New Zealand wide yachting and boating publication. He also bought back issues when they came up for sale. It was from these back issues that I learned what Waikiwi actually was.

In an issue from the 1960's I found an article about the Silasec Cup which was alternately contested one year in Australia and in NZ the next. This issue covered the shock defeat of the reigning Australian champions to a North Shore based man called John Chapple and his boat Flamingo. Black and white photos illustrated the article and to my amazement and surprise the boats were identical to Waikiwi. Each competing boat featured a Q emblem on the sail. My mystery had been solved, Waikiwi was now identified without question as an unrestricted 12 foot skiff Q class from the early 1960's. The article revealed to me that Waikiwi was between 10 and 12 years old, no longer race competitive in her fleet but still relatively quick for its size and weight. 

Once I knew this I set about painting her new identity on her mainsail in the form of a capital "Q" in black enamel, the start of my sign writing career.

Once I had mastered sailing Waikiwi I began paying the entry fee to join in the local weekend yacht racing at the Torbay Boating club.

The race committee put me in with the Paper Tiger race feet, these were 14 foot racing catamarans, still popular today. We had a summer of comparatively light winds that season, as a result, me in my Q class sailing single handed, cleaned up on the scoreboard more often than not. I was getting attention from the senior sailors in the club and earning the respect of my peers for my skill and local knowledge. I quickly realised that boat speed wasn't everything. I learned to read the wind shifts on the water, to look for the tide and use its advantages when they were there. I read the racing rules and used them to my advantage as well. I could tack very quickly compared to a Paper Tiger which came to a complete standstill when tacking. Once it got above 10 knots of wind though, I was overpowered and they showed me a clean pair of heels. 

The following summer I began to tire of battling with Waikiwi on the race course.

I did not enjoy being the odd boat out all the time and the miss match when the wind blew hard made life very difficult for me. This was to be a summer of cold south westerly winds. I could not find a suitable crew and preferred my own company on a boat anyway, something I have never lost.

I took to sailing long distances, sometimes with a friend Peter Bailey in his Sunburst and occasionally with a girlfriend! The first girl I ever kissed was onboard Waikiwi during a homeward sail from Stillwater where I found a proper rival in the form of an old school friend Jeff Thompson in his R Class, Rebel. He had painted a large wine glass on his mainsail which you could see from miles away.

On one of my solo trips to Stillwater, on my homeward beat, the wind increased to a worrying degree. I could not reduce my sail area and I found myself overwhelmed, unable to make progress. I returned to Arkles Bay, the nearest beach where, fortunately for me, our sailing club fleet had made an interclub day visit. I hurtled down wind and made an impressive landing on the beach in front of a crowd of onlookers. I was able to convince my friend Kim Dikstaal to assist me to sail home. Kim put on my spare trapeeze harness, we tied her unrigged Starling to a stern tow line and set off for Torbay in a stiffening easterly. It was rough going being held back by the towed boat wich lurched and fretted at the end of the tow line, Waikiwi really wanted to be released, Kim was a highly skilled sailor with instincts and reflexes at least as good as mine and we enjoyed the teamwork that we developed, I don't mind admitting I was very impressed by her by the time we got back to the beach at Torbay. Sadly she did not return my interest being a year or so older than me and with a long list of older suiters in the senior ranks of the club, I stood no chance. We remain life long friends though.

That year (1974) there was to be a regatta hosted by the Torbay Boating Club. The North Island Paper Tiger Championships. I longed to compete in this regatta. There was a local Dr, Tom Ord, who was and older gentleman of heavy build who wanted to but could not compete because of his size, inexperience and a certain wilfulness that prevented him from learning. We could all see this and to his credit so could he.

Being a successful local GP Tom had the means to have a very high quality sailboat made for him. It was painted bright orange (which, being the Dutch national colours, my Mother approved of). 

Tom asked me if I would like to campaign his boat in the upcoming regatta which I readily and excitedly agreed to. So that was me occupied at every available opportunity, out learning how to sail a PT as quickly as possible. Off the water I continued to study the art of sailing tactics from Paul Elvstrom and Jack Holt, books in my birthday list collection. I applied what I learned into the mix of my local knowledge. 

When the much anticipated weekend finally arrived I paid my entry fee and set out to beat the fleet. I was in the running the entire weekend scoring a 1st and 2nd though not quite consistent enough to beat the senior, more experienced PT skippers for line honours.

I admit to feeling disappointed and was ready to go home without even a minor prize. However, the race committee had a surprise for me when, with the encouragement of my parents I reluctantly attended the social and prize giving at the clubhouse by the creek on the last evening of the regatta. I was painfully shy at that time and chose to stand at the very back of the room whilst the beer flowed and the smoke filled the crowded, noisy room. I was looking for a way out, when all of a sudden, in a gap in the cheering, I heard my name being called out, I had to hear it several times before I reacted. I was pulled roughly through the crowd and shoved on to the dias where the club Commodore and the class designer warmly shook my hand and presented me with a prize and a trophy! 

I just stood there dumbfounded and even more embarrassed, red in the face. 

"You won the regatta on handicap mate" someone shouted (I think it was Simon Grain, someone I liked and admired who liked and admired Kim). I wanted to disappear. 

I walked home in the dark with my trophy and my prize feeling perplexed and confused, what was a handicap? Father explained it to me with a broad grin on his proud face.

New use for Toroa's old sail.

I've been restoring a full scale model of an Asian elephant that I built many years ago (1992). To find out why go to www.harmen.co.nz

Don't worry the sail will get a new life once the elephant project is completed.

I had a dream last night that I lashed my two Ramex Coleman canoes together to make a small, double hull, Hawaiian style sailing canoe. Guess I'd better make it happen!

Lookfar's new rudder

I purchased a new rudder for my canoe project from our on line auction site.
It was listed as a brand new, unused, 30 year old, laser rudder, just what I wanted!

Pictures say it best:





















I had to modify the anodized aluminium cheeks by cutting away a section from the leading edge under the upper pintle to allow for clearance of the cast nose molding of the canoe.


















I cut 30mm off the Coleman, cast aluminium, nose molding to allow the closest possible fulcrum point to the stern of the canoe. I then drilled a perpendicular hole one oversize from the pintle pin. The hole drilled to one side is for the control line that keeps tension on the rudder blade in the down position. The line is secured by a cleat forward, close to my sitting position, on the gunwale.

















The lower Gudgeon is from a wrecked rudder off my old X Class yacht from the 1960's, from my "just in case it might come in handy one day" box. As you can see I bent the cheek plates around to the shape of the canoe stern. I bolted the assembly with 1/4" stainless steel machine screws, washers and nuts to the Ram X plastic hull. I shaped a pine block to fill the void created by the offset, female, gudgeon flukes. The black compound you see is a polyurethane "dubbin" adhesive used by the car industry to glue in car windshields, it's the toughest, meanest adhesive/sealant known to man.

















The lovely mahogany tiller is from an old P Class yacht which I kept from a restoration project on my son Robert's 3rd sail boat in the 1990's ( again from the same "handy" source). The tiller did not fit perfectly into the rudder head stock to begin with so some slight modification was needed for it to fit snugly.

















The tiller extension is from a window cleaners, telescopic extension handle.
I connected it to the tiller with a small stainless steel swivel, one end of which I bent out flat to create a saddle to bolt the assembly on to the underside of the tiller. This keeps the extension tube low, under the up sweeping curve of the tiller.
The cheek plate on the extension tube is cut from one side of a spinnaker pole fitting from a small sail boat, just the right diameter dish section to allow bolting to the side of the tube.

















The tiller is secured in place with a stainless steel locating pin drilled to fit through both the folded stainless steel cap of the tiller stock and the tiller itself. I always retain small items like these with a little lanyard so as not to loose them.

How does it handle you ask?

I launched Lookfar last night on the high tide. There was a 6 knot southerly, I sheeted in the tiny sail, dipped the starboard lee board, pulled on the rudder blade control line and the little canoe came alive, perfectly balanced, a delight to sail.
The rudder has transformed the handling of this little sailboat. Upwind no rudder is needed but downwind the hull wants to wander so the rudder helps to make the hull track straight. The new rudder makes a big difference to tacking and gibing control as well.
My old friend Mitchell says of my Lookfar project, "It's funny how the simplest, cheapest, smallest, closest to the water boats often provide the best boating." He should know, he showed me how!

Thanks for reading my blog.

Harmen

Lookfar takes me on our first voyage.

This morning I made up a couple of trolling lines with two different lures with the intention to try my luck at fishing whilst sailing over to Motukaraka Island.

From our house we look out to a headland promontory which was a Maori, fortified Pa site in days gone by. The fact that this was once so is clearly evident when you walk up to the knoll on the ridge of the headland. There is evidence of dwelling and storage pits and palisade levels as well. It is at once clear why such a site would be inhabited by Maori in pre-European times. The views are unbroken for 360 degrees which means that you can see anyone approaching from any direction. The proximity to exceptional fishing grounds at the mouth of a significant tributary to the harbour makes the site absolutely perfect for supporting a reasonably sized population, worth defending.

View from our home in Rawene

At the foot of this steep, grass covered headland is a long mangrove covered island called Motukaraka. (Karaka is a species of native tree with large, glossy, dark green
leaves and large oval berries that are a brilliant orange when ripe. These trees thrive in coastal, subtropical Northland. Motu means Island in the Maori language).

Since Julie and I bought this property over 3 years ago, I have longed to sail over and explore this inaccessible region of the Hokianga Harbour's northern coastline, so clearly visible from our house.

The tide is full at midday on a full moon so, with an extra high tide on the ebb, a great sailing forecast, Westerly, 10-15 knots and everything prepared, I slipped Lookfar into the water at 11.30 am and set off. (My survival kit includes a water bottle, a knife, spare rope, food, and cell phone carefully sealed in a zip lock bag and a snap lid plastic container all loaded in a plastic pail which doubles as a bailer).

It was one easy beat with the 10 knot westerly wind on the port bow laying the mouth of the Tapuwai river where Motukaraka island lies.

The scenery is spectacular with virgin native rain forest reaching down to the coast in many places, interspersed with the green clearings of old settlements and farms visible along the shore. My layline points to the beautiful red and white, native timber church of "Our Lady of the Assumption" with its polished silver steeple that proudly presides over the tiny settlement of Motukaraka.

(Please see the previous post for images of the church and the farm house I mention here)

Passing the settlement close by I sailed on the incoming tide right into the Tapuwai river mouth with Motukaraka island passing on my port hand side.

Once into the inlet proper with a beam wind, we sailed on to the cemetery, attracted by the huge white, wooden cross on the western bank of the Tapuwai river. (Tapuwai means sacred water in the Maori language. I may yet find a link between the name and the cross).

I was determined to navigate the narrow channel between the headland and Motukaraka island. The tide was still on the rise as we made our way on starboard tack into the narrow channel.

















This close to the mangroves with our tiny Optimist rig the wind was very fluky indeed so, as a result, there was much tacking from one mangrove covered shore to the other. Eventually we rounded the gentle bend in the channel heading now in a southerly direction with the wind on our starboard beam. I was heading for the landing of an old colonial farmhouse, which is also visible from our house. I pulled Lookfar high up the gentle clay incline and dropped the sail.




















I retrieved my food, water and cellphone and made my way up the track to the old dilapidated farm house. From there I climbed the steep grassy slope to the crest of the Pa site I mentioned earlier.

What a sensational view!
















Looking west towards the harbour mouth.
















South west.
















South.
















South east.
















East, south east
















East: Exactly the same view as ours only in reverse. For the first time I was able to see back toward our home (on the middle ground peninsular of Rawene below the prominent hump on the skyline to the right of this image).
I called Julie on my phone and asked her to look my way through her binoculars. Yes she could see me waving my hat, through the clear air, over several kilometers.
















North east.

It is a wonderful feeling to be able to cobble together a tiny sail boat and make a trip like this. I find it very satisfying. I return to an earlier, much simpler time in my life when trips like these were the norm for me.

I had intended for Toroa to fill this role but since my illness I've lost some of the energy and physicality needed to keep and handle such a vessel.

Down the grassy ridge and back to Lookfar before the sea breeze comes in and the tide begins to flood. 20 knots of wind against a 4 knot tide makes for a choppy and uncomfortable ride in a small boat.

















Lookfar, homeward bound.
Photo by Julie Holton

















Lookfar, almost home: Photo by Julie Holton


I can lift Lookfar bodily out of the water and haul her easily up the grassy bank at home.
As for fishing? Well I had my hands full on the return trip so I left my lines for another day.

I think I will construct a small canoe stern rudder to keep us on track down wind, the paddle is OK but does require some muscle to keep on course in the puffs.

"Lookfar" A converted Coleman Ram X 15 Canoe

Today I launched my little sailing canoe.

I called my canoe "Lookfar" after the wizard Sparrowhawk's sail boat in Ursula LeGuinn's wonderful trilogy "A Wizard of Earth Sea"

I spent yesterday assembling my collection of bits and pieces and this is the result.

The Optimist sail and rig was retired from the learn to sail fleet here in Rawene when my son donated new sails last season.

Paul Bowker kindly gave me the old items. I took them home, washed the sail and set to with a needle and polyester thread to repair the loose seems and batten pockets.

I needed to run a cord into the luff tabling pockets as the brass rings had corroded away. The tack, clew and peak rings I reinforced with monofilament nylon line using a rolling blanket stitch.

I built a mast step cradle for the canoe from triangles of plywood glued to a base block of cedar. I drilled a hole through the block for the mast step and capped the base with an aluminium plate.

To fit the mast cradle into the canoe I removed the front seat, a molded plastic panel, to reveal the two tubular cross thwart frames.

I fitted the cradle in between the two tubes and rested the base block on the keelson.
I then replaced the seat panel and refitted it through its original fixing holes with long stainless screws securing both the seat and the mast cradle together into position. For extra strength I lashed the four corners of my new cradle to the thwart tubes and to the tubular keelson.

I chose a point behind the midship thwart on the keelson to attach the two parts of the main sheet.

For lee boards I modified the old ogive section blades that I kept from Toroa's earlier incarnation.

These were perfectly suited to being cut down and bolted through the gunwale with stainless steel threaded rod, nuts and washers. I pinched the bolts up tight which allowed for rotation of the pivot with enough friction to hold them in any position I
choose.

Here's the result.
















Prior to lee board attachment.




















Lawn sailing.
















Launch site is the little beach at the bottom of our property
















I wonder how it will sail?
















Lee board down, sheet in, Hmm not bad!
















Steering paddle is restrained midway down the shaft with a measured length of cord attached to the keelson tube behind my sitting position. I can toss the paddle from side to side and it just sits there waiting for me to grasp it.




































Ease sheet, very responsive.
















Into 6 knots of breeze from the North East
















Bye bye.
















Time to come back and reassure Julie.
















I look cool sailing along. Look ma no hands! Actually I can sail this thing without a rudder just shift my weight and or the lee board position forward or aft to alter course, butt steering still rules, Sweet.




















Still looking cool.
















Coming in to land.




















Easy peasy. Even the birds like it, I'm a bird magnet!

All photos by Julie Holton.

If you want a selection of solutions for your canoe conversion then here's a great web page on the subject.

Toroa's new Gibbons Dierking rig

Chris sent me two photos of Toroa with his new Gibbons Dierking rig.















Nothing more to add until I hear more about sea trials

No Direction Home (Augmented)

I'm not at all sure how I came to this point in my life.

Bob Dylan once said that he was born a long way from where he was supposed to be. I feel the same way! ( though, thankfully, I was not born in Duluth, Minnesota)

After watching Scorsese's "No Direction Home" I was moved to reflect on my creative output.

The day before, nursing an aching heart, I read Pippa Blake's auto biography "Journey"

I knew Sir Peter Blake reasonably well over many years as I had been involved on the margins of his various projects when I was a spar maker and rigger (Ceramco and Lion) and then again later as a sign writer (ENZA and NZL 32, Black Magic).

My son Robert was the youngest member of Team New Zealand for two successful defenses of the Americas cup in Auckland and earlier attended Takapuna Grammar school where the Blake's children studied when living in NZ.

Pippa's story reminded me of my own, but it also got me thinking. Like Bob Dylan who spoke of the journey in terms of never arriving at a destination; to arrive would mean death.

Sailing, art, music, family, mortgage (death pledge) all the distractions, self doubt, parental and societal disapproval and lack of support of a chosen path.

I have to leave all that behind me now and take a fresh new path.

I believe that my almost obsessive involvement with the marginal and the different is profoundly symbolized (for me) in the proa.

Perhaps I was drawn to activities and interests that very few knew much about as a way to withdraw from a society that shunned those that were different.

New Zealand is a new land of immigrants that have settled here in successive waves over the lat 1200 years only.

Each new wave has had to fight for a place and for acceptance. Only the third or fourth generations finally feel as though they have been accepted as a legitimate New Zealander.

This blog has given me an outlet for expression on an international level. My writing has connected me indirectly to a community that I feel a part of (at a safe distance). Perhaps that community shares something in common with me other than simply odd shaped sail boats. Reading between the lines of all my writing I begin to see a recurring theme.

Michael Scacht said; "Harmen comes to proas in a way with which I can personally identify: as a vehicle for understanding more than just sailboats. A way of looking at the world. And when I say “the world”, I don’t mean the atoms, I mean the invisible connective tissue".

'"Seek and ye shall find" one of the great teachers said. The seeking itself is the finding, since one can fervently seek only what one already knows to exist.' so says Gabor Mate, MD in his excellent book " When the Body says no"

In many ways my eccentric quest to explore the different has been an attempt to express a creative urge, though tainted with a pathological fear of success and acceptance. I think I avoided anything that set me up against anything mainstream or conventional for fear that I would be compared with someone more competent than myself and found lacking.

So much of my activity in the arenas of art and sailing has been in isolation, at a safe distance from my community. Frustration has been the result. Perhaps this stems from a feeling of being so close and yet so far from what I truly wish for, that sense of belonging, reciprocated by those I love or admire.

In my other existence I have been a professional and semi professional musician. I practiced in relative isolation to become a reasonably competent drummer. Many years later (perhaps frustrated by my lack of success) I rejected this pursuit and chose a very marginal instrument, the one string bass, (skiffle bass, wash tub bass, tea chest bass).
This instrument I made completely my own. I was considered by my musical peers as a freak, a virtuoso, and much else besides. Few people understood how it was played in tune. Trained musicians of extraordinary skill and virtuosity marveled at its uniqueness (and its strangeness). Somehow though this activity was acceptable in a community that could tolerate (even admire) such eccentricity and I was safe because there was so little to compare me with!

To qualify for those patient enough to have read this far, I simply mean to share what I am learning about myself in the hope that I will say or do something that triggers recognition, that catalyzes something that might provide an insight to themselves and in so doing myself as well.

I have an idea for an exhibition featuring self portraits in the context of my journey to date. Another project in the wings are a series of paintings based on Henry Winklemann's 19th and 20th Century, black and white photos of famous New Zealand Keel boats. It could be interesting to look back on my journey whilst moving forward, somewhat like rowing a boat.

Harmen

Toroa is on a new tack

Well that's it then Toroa has his new owner, Chris from Auckland.

Toroa will sail on the Manukau Harbour and later on the Whangarei Harbour.

Chris appeared mid week, mid afternoon. We had Toroa loaded and lashed down to the trailer with the two of us talking constantly. I was aware of how intimidating it must have been for Chris with so much strange information to absorb. I gave him a file of images of Toroa in varying stages of rig so that he can reference them when he is setting up. Chris has some work to do repairing the abraded keel line and applying the new abrasion strip to the keel, antifouling and paint. I've agreed to visit him once he is ready to rig and launch.

Chris stayed overnight with Julie and me before heading off back to Auckland.
We traveled with him for a small part of the way to complete ownership transfer of the trailer at the Post Office in the Northland town of Kaikohe.

We said our goodbyes and Chris left with some of what I have come to identify as the result of my life's work to date.

I feel now that giving Toroa his wings was a good decision for me at this time. As Mike Toy, Jefferson Chapple and Gary Dierking unanimously reminded me, "Toroa is not who and what you are, your identity is intact with or without him".

Thanks guys!

Once again I was surprised by the level of interest shown in Toroa. Chris was the person who originally purchased Takapu.

Once he knew that Toroa was for sale Chris approached me to reverse the sale of Takapu and opted instead to buy Toroa.

I will continue to keep this blog current as I still have a great deal of unpublished information about my activities, stories of my Proa adventures, building pics and a great many images of other proa projects including those of the launching of Papa Tom Davis' Proa "Takitumu."

I also wish to continue documenting my own adventures and future endevours relating to canoes.

Harmen

Takapu has found a new opportunity

Takapu has found a new opportunity.















He is returning to Auckland and the Waitemata Harbour. His new owner has plans to resurrect him to his traditional form.









Takapu is 6.9 meters long from tip to tip and weighs around 100 kg. The hull and deck is constructed of three diagonal skins of Sapele Mahogany veneer laminated with West System Epoxy.





















Ama is strip plank cedar sheathed with West Epoxy and 8oz glass weighing approximately 30kg. Primed with two pack epoxy primer.























The steering dagger board rudders are 30 mm 7 ply Meranti sheathed with S glass and epoxy and finished in graphite impregnated West Epoxy.

















The boards are bi directional, ogive section.


If you want to learn more about these hydrofoil boards please follow the link where Tim Anderson explains my system better than I can
.
http://web.media.mit.edu/%7Etim/pix/2004_nz/50_nz_4-15-04/_nz13.html

In Limbo

The best sailing summer that I can remember and I am no closer to finishing Toroa.
Work commitments and ill health limit my activities.
I have made some modifications to my Coleman canoe as promised and I can now row from a central position after some changes to the central alli tube spreader which is now a third thwart.
I have a pair of 8 foot oars which are mounted through rowlock wings made from aluminium channel extended by 300 mm from the gunwale bolted through the alli side strake. The last remaining project is the yawl rig for which I have accumulated the sail fabric, the masts and steps and some rope.
Photos to come.

I've also built a cajon drum and have begun to assemble a small drum kit to extend my musical opportunities in our new community in Rawene.

http://harmensmusicblog.blogspot.com/

Takapu awaits a new opportunity.













photo by Russ Brown 2003


Takapu at his winter retreat, Shelly Beach Herne Bay Auckland
The owner of Takapu at the time this image was taken has approached me and we have agreed on a way to get Takapu sailing again.

Harmen

Equinox, gale force wind, freezing hail! Spring's here.

Julie and I have moved from Waima.


We swapped our home of five years with people whose roots are in Waima. Their house in the little township of Rawene suited our needs and was similar in value. Now we live within one minute's walking distance to my work at Hokianga Hospital. No more car commuting!

Our new house looks out over the inner Hokianga Harbour so I'm back in touch with the pulse of the tide.

We moved in a convoy of small vehicles the 16 KM (12 miles) in the pouring rain one day in June
with lots of help from our friends.

I hooked up Toroa to the car on his road trailer and said goodbye to the place whare he was rebuilt.

I was alone in the car as we drove the Waima hill and descended into the Omanaia valley. All was going well until we came to the Rawene intersection from State Highway 12. at the turn, the right hand trailer tire burst.

I decided to proceed slowly on the rim, not having a spare to fit. A scene from that great Roger Donaldson film "The World's Fastest Indian" came to mind

The ride was a further 6 KM at 5 KM per hour, I was The World's Slowest Pakeha!

Flump, flump, flump, flump, wobble, wobble, wobble, It was slow noisy progress and to top it all off the car began to overheat. The cooling fans decided to go out in protest. Rovers are very self conscious cars and don't like drawing attention to themselves.

As we rolled past my place of work all my colleagues came to the roadside to jeer at me attracted as they were by my appalling progress. We finally pulled in to our driveway where I disconnected the trailer and left Toroa exactly where he stood.... until yesterday.

Over the three month gap Julie and I have established ourselves in our new environment. Last weekend I finished setting up my workshop with my wood tools on one side and my engineering tools on the other.
My saw bench is in its rightful place outside the workshop with enough undercover space around it to do some real work again.

With my now accessible tools I've unbolted the offending wheel and cut off the mangled tire from the rim. I took the wheel to our nearby garage where I asked the mechanic to fit a recycled tire which I found in the fill behind a retaining wall where my saw bench is now located. So I still don't know what's good and what's bad. Now I'm able to mobilise myself for another assault on the summer sailing opportunities.

My health is still not so good with my right wrist and ankle so swollen that I believe they will never be useful again. Just as well that I have a left hand and a left ankle that are still reasonably OK. (OK?
I think that "OK" must be derived from the Scottish "Och Aye") it has to be.

Toroa still needs a good water blast and also a coat of gloss paint. Who knows when that will happen?

Money's tight everywhere. Where did it all go? Rescuing the US economy?

Meanwhile I'm going to convert our little red Coleman canoe to every form of propulsion known to small boats. A yawl rig, row locks and outboard bracket, that way when I'm sick I can still go boating with minimal stress physically.

Han's Comment on my blog post "Takapu the Proa a Dissertation"

Hi Han

I read about the Gondola in a "Wooden Boat Magazine" article many years ago. Since then I have wanted to study one closely, in action, to see what other benefits there may be from the asymmetry.

From my experience with the Proa I have learned that good design (especially design features with a long successful history) usually solves at least three problems at once.

I believe that this hull shape could simply offset the thrust of the oar but I believe that the answer may not be so simple, it may also have a more fundamental reason. One reason will almost certainly be the need for extra buoyancy over the side that the oarsman stands, on this long slender hull, to keep the boat level for the comfort of passengers.

Another will be the need to counteract a tendency that long slender hulls have to broaching. My experience with long symmetrical canoe hulls is that they have a strong tendency to track off course when a small force acts across the line of least resistance, i.e. wind or wave action. I believe the reason for this broaching action is the result of a pressure differential that gets started when the hull turns through the flow and water speeds up around the outside of the turning circle. This in turn generates lift which exacerbates the turning moment into a logarithmic spiral. The result is almost impossible to correct with any kind of lateral counter force like a long sweep or paddle (a disastrous situation in the congested busy waterways of Venice!).

With an asymmetric hull the pressure differential is constant and therefore more predictable for the oarsman to counteract. Lastly I believe that the oarsman exerts a slight diagonal force in the thrust sweep of his oar which results in lift from the rounded side of the hull. This thrust/lift combination in turn reduces the amount of effort required to move the hull through the water, the same phenomenon that a fish utilises when swimming.

Re rudderless steering.

The Patin Catala of Spain is a great example which has evolved into a very successful sailing class.  http://woodenboat.com/boat/?p=1358

Best

Harmen

2 answers to 2 good questions

Dave ? contacted me with a question asking for me to elaborate on aspects of my sail construction spar materials and tack connection. He also wanted to learn more about the Kiribati Dimple and its effect.

My brown "Novathene" Polytarp sail is laid up with the warp and weft at 45 degrees to an imaginary straight line along the leach between the two spar tips. This orientation allows the fabric to distort freely in both directions, across the sail and down its length, opening up the leech and at the same time accommodating the variable luff curvature induced by the flex in the luff spar and boom without adversely affecting sail shape. The loose bias of this cloth shears and stretches to create a surprisingly fair curve with no induced shape sewn into the panels as we see in a modern sail.

The two spars are made from 4 scavenged windsurfer (sailboard) masts.
The luff spar is constructed with a sleeve joining the bases of two of the fibre glass masts resulting in the tapers running out to the tips top and bottom.
The boom is one mast sleeved into the other with the tapered end to the clew. The angle of intersection at the tack is 60 degrees making the sail roughly an equilateral triangle though to be traditional the Micronesians make their booms slightly longer that the main hull and the luff spar and mast slightly shorter and of roughly equal length.

You will notice that there no empirical rules in any of my commentary only a "rule of thumb" which irritates purists and control types terribly, this rule of thumb also applies to the hull shape.

I have made my connection between luff spar and boom at the tack connect by means of a very small jaw made of marine ply scarfed into the tube section of  the boom which forms an open crutch against the luff spar. The jaw is held in place by the luff and foot tension exerted by the sail when it is bent on with  all its supporting lashings to the boom.

I'll illustrate these details when I have more time.

I'm not to sure how I can expand any further on the Kiribati Dimple idea if it is not made clear from my chapter in my dissertation with comments contributed by some true experts in my later posts on the subject.

There is no science yet to support my hypothesis on the subject of hull asymmetry. I can only speak from experience the publication of which again has left my ideas open to derision and doubt from some surprisingly bright people.

"Hull asymmetry takes various forms throughout the Pacific. In Micronesia, where it was most highly developed, the backbone of the canoe is bent in two directions during construction. In other instances keels are straight but sides are built with parabolic cross sections, one side made rounder than the other and featuring a shallow concave indentation in the lee side of the hull below the waterline. Michael Toy designed the hulls Takapu and Toroa with this feature. He understood that asymmetric hull curvature works as a hydrofoil designed to counteract leeway. My personal experience is that, as the vessel gathers speed, it begins to make ground to windward to the extent that I always have to head below my objective so as not to over shoot the mark."

I drew this illustration showing the sections of the hull of Takapu.
The sections are derived from the plans as drawn in 1977 by Mike Toy. The keel is straight, the volume of the windward side is perhaps twice that of the leeward.

You will see that section 5, the mid bulkhead frame is narrower than the preceding section 4 (and following section six, remembering that the hull is a mirror of itself end to end)

I now also believe that the dimple reduces drag by mitigating the secondary, lee side shock wave and the feature also assists with maintaining directional stability in a following sea.

How much asymmetry? Not too much and not too little!

Takapu the model: fish eye view

Holling Clancy Holling and me

 This post seems a long way off topic, however because of the relevance of Holling C Holling to my early development as an artist and sailor I've also chosen to put this up on my art blog as well.

Holling Clancy Holling and me.

On my 7th Birthday my Grandfather, Henk Oostenrijk from the Netherlands, sent me a book voucher.

My Mother and Father took me to a bookstore in Auckland City where I chose “Seabird,” a beautiful, hard cover book for children written and illustrated by Holling Clancy Holling and published by Collins on the subject of Whaling. My Mother dedicated the book for me by writing my birth date and my Grandfather’s name on the flyleaf.

I no longer have that original copy. It was donated without my knowledge or approval to a local school, fundraising book auction when my children were still attending primary school.

It did solve my Father’s problem of what to give me for my 8th birthday. My obsession that year with “Seabird” gave him the cue. I received from him a copy of “Paddle to the Sea.”

The following year it was “Tree in the Trail”

http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=fjLWevyUu0cC&printsec=frontcover&dq=seabird+Holling+Clancy+Holling&source=gbs_similarbooks_s&cad=1#v=onepage&q&f=false

Those three books changed my life forever. Long before I fully appreciated the literary contents of those books I was gazing in awe at Holling’s illustrations, many of which I copied. Not only that, I began to build my own canoes, models at first and then, on to the real thing.

Like Holling, I had a curiosity about many things and this lead to an interest in the canoes and the people of the Pacific Ocean.

I was compelled to make sailing models of outrigger canoes, whittled out of the dry, woody flowering stems of the flax plant that flourishes in the coastal areas of New Zealand. My friends and I would send them racing across the bay and watch them diminish, longingly, wondering where they might eventually end up, as they dwindled from sight; out to sea.

My first real canoe was designed by New Zealand designer, Frank Pelin and built to his plans by my father and me. That canoe was a 15 foot, plywood, hard chine adaptation of an American Indian birch bark canoe. I named that canoe “Seabird,” the canoe taught me about boat handling from a very young age. I used two types of paddle, the double Eskimo kayak style and the other, the traditional single paddle. My friends and I cruised the sheltered local waterways north of Auckland where we fished and camped all summer long.

Again much influenced by Holling’s realist style and parallel to his path, I chose a career as a commercial graphic artist and mural painter, which eventually lead to sculpture as well. These activities, though not my true passion, helped me to put food on the table for my family.

As I write this I am now in my 50’s and I still cherish and collect copies of Holling’s work. I haunt the children’s section of secondhand bookshops and charity shops always on the lookout for another, yet unseen Holling publication. In this way I have found a 1935 first edition of  “The Book of Indians” a later Collins republication of the same title and a 1948 first edition Houghton Mifflin copy of “Seabird”.

My continuing curiosity about Holling lead me to Walt Giersbach’s blog which seeks to illuminate that which was previously unknown about the life and work of Holling C. Holling and his wife Lucille. Now, thanks to the efforts of people like Joan Hoffman of Michigan and others, details and artifacts from Holling’s life are being collected, displayed, recorded and published so that more may benefit from Holling’s rich legacy, the body of work that he left for our benefit and enjoyment.

Thanks Holling C Holling for daring to follow your dream and so influence the lives of people like me so far away here in New Zealand.

Joan Hoffman, Holling’s biographer wrote me recently:

August 2010

Harmen,

Glad you made contact with Walt.

You and Holling would have had much in common. He had an early interest in canoeing and became very skilled at it. In the Holling Collection is one of his early drawings of a horse drawn at age three.

Holling became a bit better off financially after he wrote and illustrated Paddle-to-the-Sea and the four Houghton Mifflin Co. books that followed (Tree in the Trail, Seabird, Minn of the Mississippi and Pagoo). Before that he did a great deal of advertising and commercial art to put food on the table. He even worked for Walt Disney at times for a pay check. The children's books he wrote before Paddle were done as a sideline. There are about 20+ books Holling either wrote and illustrated or others he illustrated for other authors.

Holling was a talented writer as well as an artist. He wrote some poetry. One of his great assets was a supportive wife. She helped in so many ways. And he had an outgoing personality and could talk with young and old in all walks of life. He had a curiosity about many things.

You won't see any of Holling's work after Pagoo (published in 1957), although he lived until 1973. Unfortunately he developed Parkinson's with dementia. He worked on several other ideas but never completed them.

Joan Hoffman