the approach

For the last 3 weeks I’ve been connecting with a group of teenagers as they learn about water, boats and the making of boats. The Milwaukee Community Sailing Center asked me to help in a summer program along with a group called Teen Approach. I was to provide what was needed to have the young people build and then ride in a boat. I had done a similar workshop last year.

I was to work with the teens and volunteers and a staff member from the Teen Approach program in the afternoons for 7 days. During the mornings instructors from Milwaukee Community Sailing Center (MCSC) taught the kids how to sail out on Lake Michigan.

I considered several designs and chose to stay with the design of the boats we built last year, a design called the “6 Hour Canoe”. An optimistic name that provides that sometimes critical ingredient needed in any challenging venture.

I prepared several pieces the week before the class so that the project could flow smoothly and be accomplished within the short time frame. We initially started with 6 students, various scheduling conflicts winnowed the core group to 4 by the time the boat was launched.

MCSC provided a shop space for us to work and this was how far we got by the end of the 3rd day.

The gunwales as well as the chine logs were clamped into place with dry wall screws as the epoxy thickened with cotton fibers that forms the adhesive we used through-out sets up. This meant a lot of screws were driven in and a lot of screws were removed. “Not the screws again!”

Soon the boat builders were fitting the bottom onto the upturned hull.

Once the outline had been traced the cutting could begin.

At this point we were down to 5 builders and they each took a turn using the jig saw while the others held the work piece in place, offered advice or took some time to absorb what it was they were doing.

The boat has nice lines. The boat builders sealed any exposed end grain with epoxy resin and filled any gaps and all screw holes with an epoxy filler. Lots of sanding brought the boat to a smooth enough surface for painting.

Sanding was one of the steps that the builders seemed to enjoy the most. Bending in and gluing the gunwales was an early step, a dramatic step and a somewhat tense step. They seemed relieved once the process became predictable. They also started taking ownership of the project, realizing that they were close to accomplishing quite a feat.

Soon the major, local media showed up…

…and the builders found an eloquence that was very refreshing, but not really surprising as they were being interviewed.

More paint!

As one coat dried I took a poll to see how many of them thought their boat would float. Four out of five maintained the optimism we started with. The fifth relished his outsider position for a short while before joining in to form a consensus.

There was some mixed opinions however when I asked them why it would float. Gravity was considered, the fact that wood floats was a popular view point, but there was a certain amount of doubt about the answer. Another break in the action as the paint dried allowed an opportunity to fill a large bucket with water and get down to some serious experimentation. We were able to discover the concept of displacement by using a shop made measuring device (a scrap of wood and a pencil) and we were able to witness a small plastic tub float until filled with water. The plastic tub, quickly known as a boat, was able to carry quite a number of stones without sinking but displacing ever more water, until of course the large rock appeared. It’s always good to check for the limits.

The force of the displaced water on our plastic boat could easily be felt and soon issues regarding the difference of weight and mass were being bandied about until another consensus was agreed upon about the weight of the water displaced and the weight of any vessel. OK, we could feel safe that the boat would float based on more than a democratic vote over the matter.

Now, the really important part needed to be resolved. Two parts actually, the boat’s name and it’s decoration.

The name was decided to be “Teen Approach”, the name of the summer program they attended, but also there was some mention of their own approach. Purple waves were added by some drawing an outline in pencil, another darkening the outline with a marker, a painter weilding a big brush and another with a small.

Screw eyes were added to attach light line that would hold in inflatable racing buoys that worked well for the additional flotation required by those who happened to have been sitting behind some desk indoors while the colloquium on displacement was being held. Tomorrow would be the launch.

The crew had dwindled to four by that time.

But…

…these seasoned shipwrights had brought along a contingent from the rest of the Teen Approach program to witness the launch and provide some labor for hauling the boat to the water.

The good ship was brought to the water.

And launched!

“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing -absolutely nothing- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing…”

-Kenneth Grahame

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Weather Class for Sailors

My son, Joseph Fillingham, will be teaching a class on weather for sailors through the Milwaukee Community Sailing Center. The class will be held on Thursday, February 28th, 2008. He’s posted about it on his web site and you can see more here.

Joe has a degree from the University of Wisconsin in Atmospherics and Oceanography. He has also been sailing the Great Lakes for many years and has been a sailing instructor for several years as well. If you have any interest in sailing and are near Milwaukee, Wisconsin you will want to sit in on this class.

Ahhh summer…

We drove north to be with extended family for a Christmas get together over the weekend. We had to drive through very dense fog with almost zero visibility at times on Saturday, then the temperature dropped on Sunday as very gusty winds came through. Sunday morning started out around 40 degrees before sunrise and had dropped to 16 degrees by 9 AM. Luckily we missed the worst of the snow, just to the west of us they got 10-12 inches.

When we made it back home, safe and sound there was a hand made Christmas card in the mail that contained a CD of pictures. The card and pictures were from Fred and Pat, very close friends. Fred and I use to share the shop space that I eventually took over after Fred moved out. They also happen to own a small sailboat.

One day back in 2006 they were out sailing and I sailed by while single handling the Orca. Pat took a series of pictures as I tacked around them and then sailed on. I’d been badgering her for copies for some time and low and behold here they were on the CD. What a great summer’s day back in 2006.

Look Ma, no hands!

What a great gift to have received as winter starts in earnest. Thanks Pat!

Salvage continues on the Falcon

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran a story in this morning’s paper about the continuing salvage of the Falcon, the Chinook 34 aground on the north side of Milwaukee. The online version has a link to a cool time lapse sequence of the boat being cut up. It would appear that Jerry Guyer waited until there was enough ice and the boat was driven close enough in to have reasonably safe access to the boat. If you look at this earlier photo from the Journal Sentinel you can see why.

Other blogs have been carrying some gorgeous photos of the Falcon as it lay wrecked. Mike Fisk, in particular, has been shooting beautiful shots at dawn. His creative viewpoint is definitely different than mine on this . Not to criticize his work at all, which I admire. To me the wreck of this boat is a tragedy. This shot of his most closely reflects my sense of tragic loss.

As I spoke of in my first post about the Falcon I see the hopes and hard work, the dreams and excitement that go into the hard effort of wresting order out of chaos. It was a dream to do something as “impossible” as slip across the water using only the wind to move you, a dream to cross an ocean, a dream to reunite with a lover. The tragedy here, luckily, isn’t due to a loss of a person’s life. The tragedy may be that with just a little more information, a few more skills, a little more understanding of the realities involved in sailing and navigation that the life of those dreams could have been fulfilled.

We all wonder at some point if our efforts are enough, if there isn’t just one or two more things we should do or know or understand. Are we making a colossal, yet easily avoidable mistake? Life must move on and we cannot obsess about every detail so we trust our experience and our skills, we listen to others and in so doing we contribute to creating a social net on which we rely. When we succeed, when we’ve breathed new life into our dreams we know we’ve done so with the unimaginable help and support of many people. When we run aground and our dreams become wrecked on a rocky ledge we are alone and left bereft.

Then, often, something amazing happens. Someone like Jerry Guyer appears. Someone who has seen wrecks before, someone who can figure a way to, if not save the dream, clean up the mess. That mess must not be left to haunt us with the melancholy reminder of loss and failure. This is part of our social compact. The dreamer who has failed is not alone after all. Without the inherent chance of failure the dreamer could not achieve the “impossible”, our dreams would not have a chance to flourish. And so we must all touch the dreamer, lend a hand in cleaning up the mess created when the chance of failure takes its toll. And we do, even if it is to simply witness a salvage with respect and empathy and to learn from that experience and to share that gained knowledge freely. In so doing we knot together that ephemeral, yet critical net which will be used to support new dreams. Dreams that may someday slip safely pass the rocky ledges too close to shore.

Chinook 34 wreck

Yesterday my son Joe and I went down to the lake front to check on the Chinook 34 wreck, the Falcon. It is working ever closer to shore. Joe took some evocative pictures here’s one.

It should be interesting once the ice starts to build around her. The ice could lift her further ashore or it may send her back out into the lake to be pounded even more on the rocks.

Joe also got a close up of some of the damage to the hull. The orange circle shows where we are guessing the rudder post was torn out. The rudder is missing. You can just see the prop in this image.

She has an inboard engine and will likely be leaking fuel soon.

boat wreck

Forty nine years ago today the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald sunk in Lake Superior.

University of Wisconsin

Detroit News

Great Lakes and Seaway Shipping

I thought I’d post a picture of the Chinook 34 wreck here in Milwaukee as a small way of commemorating the wreck of the Fitzgerald. An earlier post has more about this boat.

As I walked down among the rocks along the Lake Michigan shore this morning, looking for the wreck, wondering if it had already been salvaged I heard the irregular clang, …clang of a steel halyard hitting an aluminum mast, a doleful signal, a warning of yet another losing battle with entropy. There it was, maybe a little north of where it had been the last time I saw it.

A boat like this is a combination of a wide variety of parts brought together and maintained to create a unitary whole. It is a system of fiber glass, steel, aluminum, Dacron, nylon, wood, glass rubber, brass and much more organized to handle water, fuel, electricity and wind to allow people to move across bodies of water. This boat, this system is slowly being dis-organized, it is slowly becoming unified with the universe as undifferentiated elements. The waves and rocks are entropy’s mill, grinding organization out of this being.

As a builder, a maker, as one who seeks to dance a kind of jujitsu with entropy, to put together matter and forces to create beauty and usefulness, maybe a message as well, it is painful to hear that irregular clang announcing what I know is always inevitable, and often, inevitably on some lonely shore.

Todd

Boat Aground, Surfer Aids in Rescue

I just heard that a sailboat went aground near here this weekend. It was just a few hundred yards from where I was surfing on Saturday. Here’s a link to the local tv coverage WTMJ4 . A local surfer, Alex Guerrero donned his wet suit when he saw the boat and made his way out to help in the rescue.

Alex is a great guy. He also owns his own sail boat. He works for Cramer Marine and I’ve known him for several years. The ironic thing is that I was just talking to Alex’s boss, Gene Cramer on Sunday about how dangerous that very area is to boaters, how I can stand on large boulders with only knee high water over them that are 400 yards or more off shore. Earlier this year I was out in the line up waiting for waves and a large sail boat, a ketch if I remember correctly, was sailing right towards me. It seemed that all of a sudden the skipper must have seen me and he tacked right out into the lake immediately.

The boat that went aground was a boat that had been in the Cramer Marine yard for sometime as the owners worked hard to restore it into sea worthy condition. Their plan was to sail around the world. This may be a picture of the boat before it was in Cramer Marine Chinook 34. I’ll have to check with Gene to be sure if that is the very boat. If it’s not it is a boat that looks just like it. I found it on Cramer Marine’s Chinook owner’s page.

The area where the boat went down is near these coordinates: 43deg 3mins 57 seconds N, 87 degs 51 mins 59 seconds W. It is near what is known as North Point and use to be marked by a light house on the bluff above the point. The light house has been restored as an historical site but is not functional as navigation marker.

Todd

UPDATE 10/31/07 10:00 AM: Joe and I just got back from a surf check and saw the boat. It is hard aground just a few yards north of North Point. It’s on it’s port side in about 3 feet of water facing in shore with a jib still hanked on and partially up. We couldn’t see if the hull had been holed and it didn’t have the look of a lot of water inside. The wind is supposed to back around to the west then north west today as a cold front drops through. This could be good for the wreck, however recovery is going to be very hard. It may be too far in and could eventually end up onshore and cut up. What a sad end that would be.

I probably posted the wrong image in that link above about the very boat. But at least you get an idea of what the boat looks (looked) like.

A little weekend surf.

I don’t access a high speed connection on weekends. This blog will more than likely not have weekend postings.

I did access some surf this weekend though. Friday night into Saturday the wind blew close to 20 knots out of the north north west (NNW) and that set up some sweet waves by Saturday afternoon. There’s a spot I like on a NNW that’s less than 10 minutes from my house. The waves wrap around a point and large structure and come pealing in parallel to shore for some really nice long rides. There some pretty good size boulders out there and you have to paddle several hundred yards to get to the line up, but the waves are worth it. At least I think so. So far I’ve had a hard time getting any of my surfing buddies to try it. One guy did and really liked it, but he’s flying all over the world on business these days and hasn’t been surfing much.

On Saturday I was able to get a couple of more friends to try it and a surfer that’s new to the local scene paddled out as well. So we had a total of four surfers on chest to head high peaks that peeled along glassy walls for yards and yards and yards. Everyone was hooting and hollering and having a gas. It was pretty cool to have the new guy out since he was a California surfer and this was only his third time surfing fresh water.

Sunday I was able to put the winter log on Orca’s mooring. A messy job as you have to haul out the summer mooring buoy that is about one third covered in slimy algae and handle the heavy, algae covered chain. All from your little eight foot dinghy. I was also able to take the rest of the sails back to the shop for winter storage. Soon Orca will be tucked away under her winter tarp for a long winter’s nap. That’s alright, at least I can rest easy knowing she’s safe for the next couple of months. And, I can look forward to winter surf season, when winter storms tear across the plains bringing howling winds that push up great waves on Lake Michigan.

A sailing picture

Just thought I’d through a picture taken of the Orca last summer. We’re the dark blue hull with my son, Joe, on the bow deck.

That graceful structure in the background is the Calatrava addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Photo credit should go to Peter Reick.

On My Desk

I’ve got a lot to do today as I will be taking tomorrow off to haul the Orca out of the water for winter storage and I took off a little early yesterday to go surfing with my son. Sailing on the Great Lakes means storing your boat on land during the winter. I also take down the mast, set it on two “A” frames I set up on the boat and cover it all with a huge tarp.

Anyway, I thought I’d just look through one of the piles on my desk to see what’s there.

On top is the December 2007 issue of Fine Woodworking with a couple of book marks I’ve stuck on (I like to use these little post-it sticky tabs as I scan magazines). One is for an article that discusses how to weave Danish cord for a seat. I love the look of a Danish cord seat and have been meaning to explore some ideas for seating based on that. I have a book that describes how to do it but this article has a lot of great pictures. The other article marked is about yet another set up for routing tapered, sliding dovetails which is a great way to hold shelves into the sides of a case for bookcases.

Next I have the December 2007 issue of Woodwork with an article marked that discusses wipe-on finishes and the “unfriendly” labeling many of them have. It’s important to get beyond the front labels and understand something about the chemistry of these finishes.

I also have the November 2007 issue of Dwell with a cover article about green architecture and sustainability. Designer Jennifer Siegal graces the cover as well. From skimming the article about her practice in the magazine she appears to be just my kind of designer, something about “crunchy-granola-meets-industrial-vibe”.

OK, American Style just arrived this morning with an awe inspiring article about the glass artist David Bennet. His use of blown glass and cast bronze in figurative sculpture is great.

I’ve got three or for sheets I printed out of mock-ups for my new web site with penciled in notes. I took a couple of them home to show my wife to get her feedback. Well worth the effort.

And now my copy of “The Yachtsman’s Guide to the Bahamas” originally compiled by Harry Etheridge (1910-1957) with Harry Kline as editor and illustrator. This edition came out in 1970 and was brand new when I got it. The cover is missing now and pages are well thumbed. At the time I was unpaid crew on board a chartered sloop, something about 40 feet long or so, that my captain had contracted to teach sailing and navigation on for the Bahama Sailing School based in Eleuthra. What a summer that was.

Moving on I see the Summer 2007 copy of Epoxyworks from the Gougeon brothers. This is a great little publication full of projects, tips and in depth data about using epoxy.

There’s also a July/August 1995 issue of Wooden Boat with an article marked about making the Six Hour Canoe. Earlier this summer I did a workshop for the Milwaukee Community Sailing Center in which we taught a group of teenage girls a little about boat building by building two 6 Hour Canoes in three sessions. On the fourth session they were able to paddle them around in the inner harbor. Many of these girls, although they live in Milwaukee, had never seen Lake Michigan.

Enough desk top excavation for now. Tomorrow I’ll haul out Orca so I won’t likely be back to blogging until next Monday. Have a great weekend.

Todd

Weekend

Saturday I was able to take a friend I surf with and his girlfriend, whom I’d never met, sailing on our Ranger 26, Orca. What a beautiful afternoon here in Milwaukee. The wind was out of the south south west around 20 knots. We’re on the western shore of Lake Michigan so that put the wind coming off shore which meant very little waves. The sky was clear, the air warm for late October. We reached on reefed main and big genoa north along the shore spotting sites we regularly surf.

After an hour or so the wind veered a little more south and we had to come about and beat back. The wind built some as did the waves and before long we had the occasional wave over the bow. I was a little afraid that one of my guests may get a little sea sick. Usually, that can happen as you’re sitting on a pitching boat, not thinking about much and just staring off into space. Luckily, my friend’s girl friend had taken 2 ginger capsules before coming aboard and my friend was an experienced sailor with little tendency to get sea sick. The ginger capsules worked great and we are able to carry on an animated conversation even as we pitched over ever building waves with the occasional spray off the bow hitting us.

M, my friend’s girl friend, works in internet sales for a large retail corporation and we began discussing my goals of a new web site with online sales capability. T, my friend is a writer and currently works as an editor for a sailing magazine. What a great afternoon we had out on Lake Michigan. We talked about classics, about the internet, about commerce all as the wind grew ever stronger. At one point M asked what kind of furniture I make. I found myself talking about the difference between Louis the IV and Louis the VI styles, about the history of Biedermeier, antique Asian finishes, mid-century modern and my own, organic, Scandinavian-influenced, studio based style. Luckily for M and T the harbor approached fast as we were really smoking along and I had to go up on the fore deck to take down the genny and could not carry on and on about furniture and art.

Sunday I ran into T at one of my favorite surf spots. The wind had built overnight and come more out of the south and we had chest high waves to ride that wrapped in around the sea wall along the north side of the Milwaukee harbor. Just as the wind backed a little to the west the waves cleaned up and offered a good 3 hours of surf. This spot is cool because we’re surfing right along the sea wall and rocks put in to protect the road that runs along the lake front and these both are great places for people to view us surf. Since it was again warm and sunny we had quite the audience. Too bad the waves tended to back off after the initial drop. Nevertheless it seemed that everybody was having fun.