Paddle takes me on a rowing trip up the Omanaia River.

"Paddle to The Sea" with his rowing frame and modified thwart lashed into place ready to row.

Over the last few weeks I've been refining an accessory to my Coleman Canoe that I called "Paddle to the sea"

I recently purchased a length of 50mm, (2 inch to you Americans) stainless steel exhaust tubing. I had it bent by a local automotive exhaust specialist on their tube bender. I provided a profile which I roughed out in scrap plywood with a jig saw to fit in the hull, slightly aft of the centre support beam tube.

As with Lookfar, I modified the crossbeam tube by removing it, cutting two aluminium gussets to fit in the same bolting pattern as the tube to gunwhale connection. I rotate the tube so the folded tube crimps point upward and bolt them to my fabricated, 3mm aluminium plate gussets. This allows me to drop the cross tube 75 mm (3 inches) below the gunwhale. 

I then fabricated a plywood thwart seat the same as with Lookfar, which when inverted, looks somewhat like the tail plane assembly of a light aircraft. I lashed this seat on to the centre cross beam (see the photographs).

 

plastic rowlocks like these are low cost but are noisy and very flexible, I chose them because they were inexpensive however I plan to replace them with metal ones before I try again.

Here you see a detail of my lashing and a glimpse of my gusset which supports the canoe's central cross tube.

A view beneath the assembly showing the method I used to locate the vertical spine of the thwart seat assembly onto the keel tube.

The rowing frame which resembles an oversize handlebar for a motorbike, was lashed in to place when I modified the cross beam. The outrigger tube lashed behind  the cross beam and the lower part of the outrigger tube in front of the vertical support post tube. This cants the outrigger tube aft giving me the ideal offset for ergonomic rowing and perfect lashing opportunities to best support the whole assembly against the significant lever forces induced by vigorous rowing.

I've used a pair of 2.4 meter, 8 foot oars.

I found the ideal ergonomic row lock positions in and old boat handling manual from my late father's library. 1500 mm (four foot four inches) between row locks, (for eight foot oars), 300 mm, (one foot) outboard of the gunwhales, row lock position, 160mm, (seven inches) above rowing thwart seat, and 300 mm (one foot) aft of the thwart seat.

Seems to work OK, rows like a real one.

The apex of the triangle on the thwart seat points forward.

The handle bar similarity is emphasized in this image.

This really is one of the most versatile and enjoyable canoes I've ever owned, the possibilities are very exciting.

I find I can cover about half a boat length per oar stroke making this a very comfortable rowboat with plenty of power. I can accommodate two passengers as well as room for gear.

Paddle to the Sea.

Paddle to the Sea. illustration by Holling Clancy Holling. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1941

'You, Little Traveller! You made the journey, the Long Journey. You know the things I have yet you know. You, Little Traveller! You were given a name, a true name in my father's lodge. Good medicine, Little Traveller! You are truly a Paddle Person, a Paddle-to-the-Sea!'

I reflect on the nature of Journey. I was strongly, profoundly influenced by the writing and illustrations of this man Holling Clancy Holling and his wife Lucille.

The nature of The Journey has emerged for me throughout my life to reveal the metaphor so lovingly woven into the fabric of this timeless story. I think of my Children that I have released into the world, the way in which their achievements come back to me like miracles to show me that one man alone cannot know and do everything.

Paddle to the Sea. illustration by Holling Clancy Holling. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1941

These two images of Paddle to the Sea are from the book by the same name by Holling Clancy Holling.

I acquired a second Coleman canoe that will be named "Paddle to the Sea" in honour of the legacy left to me by Holling and Lucile.

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