Why a Drift Boat

Drift Boat

It's gonna be tough cause I'm hungry. But here goes. 

I don't recall the exact moment that a drift boat became a necessity. I've never really had much use for the patient and/or social activity that is fishing. Fishermen often fail to impress me with their attempts at eloquence in describing "the moment", "the place", or "being one with nature". I fail to see how ripping a fish from its habitat forcefully by a hook in the mouth only let it go again is somehow a religious experience. Unfortunately I seem to have to have acquired the same regard for religion itself. All of the above is more a statement about me rather than a judgement of fishing or religion. 

But upon my recent retirement I decided to try to be less of a prick and somewhat more social. For me this is no easy task. About 85% of the things that people say seem to have no value to me, so I have to work hard to find interest in what I would normally consider mundane. Plus, I'm less than 3 months into retirement and have still not been able to decompress. I've been a software engineer for 27 years and have lived my life tightly coupled with each of a hundred projects that all had to be completed ASAP. So it was with both these thoughts in mind that I decided on this project. I need to be more social and slow down. I figure a hands-on project will help me do that. 

Out of mostly randomness I chose my brother in law Ken as a partner in this social pursuit. Never a stranger couple will you meet. Ken has spent a lifetime perfecting his embodiment of "a day late and a dollar short" (he's a magnificent procrastinator) in such a perfectly social way that there is not one event or phrase or song or place or hair that does not bring to his mind at least ten stories of "buddies" or "trips" or "mountains" or "fish". I would bet that he has at least a thousand Facebook friends, and a hundred stories with each of them. I once spent half a day with Ken in a crappy, windowless Austin pool hall waiting to meet one of Kens buddies while the gorgeous spring sun shone outside. On that day I heard easily a hundred of Ken's stories, one of which was about an accidental side trip to a wedding in Mexico when he intended to only go to Corpus Christi. 

I, on the other hand, scarcely take time to say bye to the wife on the way out the door to my next gig or job. I thrill to look at a boat's well turned sheer line far more than someone telling me about a boat trip. Let me at the machinery of the project. The vehicle is what I lust for. Any vehicle. Except a car. A car is so common. Give me a bike or a boat or a plane. These vehicles can take me where no normal vehicle can go, even if only in my imagination. Humans just get in the way. 

So I decided I could learn something from Ken:  patience and sociability, and maybe even a little procrastination. And I thought the best way to do so is with a vehicle. And a drift boat specifically because it is a unique type of boat that is used only on rocky western rivers that are sprinkled with white water. And the best use of them is fly fishing. Ken is great at fly fishing and could teach me, and he would have reason to do so if I built him a drift boat. 

I have never built, nor ridden in, or even seen a drift boat up close. I've barely looked at them close enough to know what type of trailer is used to transport one. But I do read. Voraciously.  Ravenously. And that's when I'm not curious. I've had a subscription to Woodenboat magazine since 1992 and I read every article in every bimonthly issue and then keep them all on file. I also have a collection of boat books that if stacked in a pile would be about as tall as my wife - most of them dealing with boat types and plans. One of my favorite books is Howard Chapelle's American Small Sailing Craft in which he describes the lines and construction of every major type of small work and/or pleasure boat made in America from the 19th century onward. Sharpies to gill-netters, I know what they are, how they are used, strengths, weaknesses, etc. It's a hobby. (I'm worse with airplanes). 

So I went right to the three articles on drift boats in Woodenboat in the last 20 years, one of which was a reasonably well detailed history of the drift boat's evolution on the McKenzie, Rogue and Salmon rivers. But that was just a start. I then bought three books on drift boats, one history, one full of plans, and the best one by far was on usage. That book, by a guide on the Yellowstone River in Montana was GREAT. He covered the shape of western rivers and their obstacles, how to navigate said obstacles in a drift boat, where the fish will be depending on the river structure, where to guide the boat for best positioning of the anglers, and the life cycle of insects that the fish feed on, hence the style of fly and casting best suited to the current situation. I learned a great deal about drift boats more than I expected and was now ready to select a design. 

But really we should talk about a couple other things first. Material (aluminum, fiberglass, or wood) and "Build or Buy." I talked with a couple avid fishermen I know about the best materials. Aluminum boats are strong and have a few structural advantages. Some even have an entry do on the front - no small convenience since there are dories with very high peaks and lots of rocker and so much flare that entry and exit can be tough, especially for retired folk. But aluminum boats are COLD, and a lot of drift boating around here goes on in January - steelhead. My sources tell me that they like fiberglass as being warmer and still plenty strong and rugged. Fiberglass boats can take a lot of abuse. Personally I think the well built ones are a bit heavy, but I have no data to back that up. That's something I should have looked up and didn't - the comparative weights of different boats. And wood, which is the warmest and most human, but likely to be the weakest and requires constant maintenance and shelter. 

And the material decision cannot be made in isolation. Any of these are fine if you choose to buy, though special attention must be payed to the soundness and previous maintenance of a wooden boat. But the decision to build alters the choice of material. I looked at a few hundred drift boats for sale on the west coast on Craigslist and found few I'd like to buy. Anything that was as good as I thought I could make was $3-4k which would be fine, but I'd say only four or five boats were worth a look. Most were poorly kept and had few amenities. There were a few wooden boats that seemed made with care but none of them had as pleasing line to my eye as I have seen in plans I have perused. 

I had pretty much decided to build from the start but I did carefully consider the options and I think building has been the right decision for a number of reasons. So then I have to decide on materials. I would not be I afraid of learning to bend and weld aluminum for a drift boat, though I was quickly dissuaded by the cost and the coldness. A tig welder would cost about $2k and would be a great way to justify building an aluminum boat, but I just didn't like the idea. And I have no idea what sheet aluminum costs or where to get it. Plus I saw no aluminum plans online. 

Fiberglass is not completely out of the question but I would either have to make a female mold from a boat I admired or borrow one (I know of none). To make a female mold I would have to find a boat shaped exactly how I want, flip it upside down, and build a reinforced fiberglass mold on top of it. Then I would have to pull the mold off the original boat, flip the mold (about 3 times as heavy as the eventual boat) and then build the final fiberglass boat inside the mold - a duplicate of the original. This method is only cost effective if twenty or more copies are made. 

I could try a moldless composite boat but that's just about the same as building a wood boat and covering it in fiberglass, and all of the wood boats are basically made that way anyway. So wooden boat it is. 

The original drift boats, made prior to WWII were glorified row boats with large transoms pointed downstream while the rower pulled upstream to slow the drift of the boat toward obstacles. But with the advent of high quality plywood in lengths of up to 16' on the Oregon coast, drift boats quickly morphed into high-rocker double-end dories, pointy at both ends - much lighter than the original rowboats. The real trick is to get all those curves out of flat, flat plywood, and to make it both a good boat and pleasing to the eye (often complimentary objectives). 

As it turns out I have been carting around a set of drift  boat plans since about 1997. My father received them as trade for a Biennial Flight Review from the designer, who was also a pilot. The plans are by a fellow named Tracy O'Brien from Chehalis, and are for a stitch-and-glue 14-foot boat, which is on the smallish side as drift boats go. I thought the lines were reasonably sweet. I've seen many wooden boats that don't look as good. And I liked the idea of as light and small as possible. Plans typically cost $50 or more, so I think I'll just go with these. 

Oh, "stitch-and-glue". The old way to build any plywood boat is u-shaped frames first, usually upside down, then skin, with a decent sized chine log either inside or outside the skin. It's hard because the frames must be held exactly in place throughout the process of bending on the plywood, and we're talking about some pretty serious bends here. After it's built, there are frames crossing the floor of the boat at 18" intervals, and the sheer strake (a long horizontal strip of wood the length of the boat on the inside of the frames) is well inside due to the width of the top of the frames all the way fore and aft. Frame drift boats always look overbuilt and heavy to me. 

In the "Stitch-and-glue" method, the builder cuts out the plywood shapes of the sides, bottom and transom first (there are only 4 pieces of wood in a basic drift boat) , stitches the stem and the chines together with strong, flexible steel wire, then flips it over and puts weight on the bottom until the boat pops open to the proper shape. Then a fiberglass fillet is used instead of a chine log to reinforce the seams. Fiberglass tape is used on the outside of the seams. Using this method, a basic boat shape can be achieved in less that a week. Although I must warn you, bending the sides to stitch to the bottom is quite a chore, though it is probably easier than bending plywood onto frames. 

Now you understand all of the "why", and maybe I do also. Now we build. 

I started building this boat about a month ago. In fact, it is nearing completion, so I better get started on the blog. The date of the blog won't match the date of the work, so I'll have to put the date in the title or something.