Feb 6. Clearwater

The south Idaho guys (Tiger, Max and Clay) all say that the Clearwater is a good river to bust my chops on, so what the hell. Its 45 degrees down there today. Let's get going. As usual, we didn't get into the water until 1pm. I gotta get moving earlier in the morning. (Retired Lazy)

Captain Doofus ready to go down with the ship. We launched at the rest stop just below Lenore. Should have launched another half mile upstream at Lenore, just to get into some rough water around the bend here. Next time. 

Old Beta quote "The back of Bryan's head. Not very interesting, but neither is the front."

The sun can out right after launch, and it was looking rosy, warm and promising. Then the overcast came and the headwind hit after the first hour, and we were quite chilled by takeout at 4 pm. 

Brian and still the back of Bryan. I've got that dumb, confused "is this camera working" look, but I suppose I deserve to be made fool of. 

There's the front of Bryan -- aka "Lame".  I have an idea that we are going to do many foolish things together, but only on the weekends until he retires. 

Broad, gentle river here. 

"Me doing my best Kate Winslet impression. Haven't got the ass for it. 

Here is the boat at the takeout, just above the bridge to Kendrick. 11 miles, which we hurried through because of the chill. 3 hours, but fishing would be much slower. We went through a number of rapids, some with waves as big as 3 ft, with some pretty big submerged rocks in them.  I gotta say that the boat just didn't give a rat's ass. Hardly upset it at all. Not a hint of water in the boat. Real easy to point and skitter, even in the middle of the Rapids. Damn, drift boats are fun. And very comfortable. Very low wetted surface and draft, so the wind blew it easily when the oars were not in the water. Had to row forward through the calm stretches against the wind to keep headway. Probably did this for an hour total, but I didn't have to work hard. Just a chop down and slight forward push every 10 seconds to keep the boat moving with the river and facing downriver. 

Sun's going down. Good time to get out.  

That was well worth doing. As Bryan said "Best thing I've done all week."  In years for me. (No offense, family). 

Feb 5. First Launch

Well, I ran out of things to do, so I guess it's time to put in or shut up. But I am a chicken, so even though this boat is designed for rough water, I thought I'd launch it on my home waters of Spring Valley Resevoir. No current and wind, just to get an idea of how the thing rows. Plus, Spring Valley is only 15 miles from my house. 

Turns out, Spring Valley is still covered in ice and it snowed a foot out there last night. We had a long deep freeze in December, and even though it's been in the low 40s for a month, it still hasn't thawed. 

It's still plenty thick for walking and ice fishing. I considered launching the boat on the lake anyway, just to see how far it would row in the snow, but I had no one with me to take the silly pictures, so I didn't. 

Clear back through Moscow and Pullman to Wawawai -- an hour and a half drive, it's almost 50 degrees down on the Snake River. It's like summer down there. It's an easy single-handed launch and recovery of this boat with the roller on the back of the trailer. Plus the boat is very light. You can see that it floats only 2" deep when empty. 

The varnished interior glows in the afternoon sun. Thanks to Mike Hamby for telling me to finish the interior bright and not paint it. He was right. 

I tried some minimal maneuvering on this maiden voyage. It rocks easily from side to side, but has plenty of reserve stability due to the highly flared sides. The further over you go, the more buoyancy goes into the water. And the thing spins on a dime. 180 degrees on one stroke. I was out there spinning didos and yucking it up. It'll have to wait until summer to do a full swamp test. 

Old dork selfie while standing in the angling stand with the Snake River breaks for a backdrop. 

Easy to load up, even with a quartering tailwind of 10 mph. 

Feb 4. Finishing Touches

After a bit of modeling and mocking up, I determined that the oarlock should be about the top edge of my kneecap. So I drilled the oarlock holes and stuffed them in there. Ready to row. 

Trailer mud flaps, to keep water out of the back of the lights. Not much left to do. 

Oarlock mounted. As usual, I learned enough on the first one to do the second one well. 

This is all the steel not used in the trailer. I'm getting better at estimating materials. 

Feb 3. Rope Work

The oars need a chafe guard bellow the button. Leather can be used but I thought I'd try rope. I thought the oar was too large diameter at the button to add more that 1/8" nylon rope, so this is the only color I could find in that diameter. On testing it I found the fit in the oarlock loose. Now, you can adjust the width of the oarlock by bending, but I decide to leav the oarlocks and use 3/ nylon rope for the chafe guard, which came in better colors. Also, I bought the two piece button from Sawyer oars. 

Here is Nan modeling the sweet balance and lightness of these oars. Note the hunter green chafes, to match the boat. 

I took a couple of days and a small heater to dry the varnish on the floor, so now I can weave the seats in earnest. Warp all done. Had to tighten it 3 times. 

A third of the woof done. Each row has to be tight. 

All done. Two plus hours work. 

The rear seat uses non-stretch synthetic rope strung horizontally. That's why it's this color. I don't like it much yet. It might be better if I could get it tighter, but that's not easy. Lots of knuckle scrapes doing this. 

Feb 2. Details

Chamfer and varnish oarlock blocks. Weld end plates on open trailer beam ends. Paint trailer. Varnish oars. Etc. getting close now. Just piddly stuff to work on. 

I glued in the oarlock blocks to stand 3/16" proud of the sheer clamps. You can't have sharp edges on that so I hand chamfered the edges to a 45 degree bevel with a chisel. There is no other way to do it due to the curve and tight quarters. The bevel is wavy, but effective. These kind of rough-hewn details are really what make a boat personal. I put every wavy line in this boat myself. 

From the side. 

Feb 1. Seat Work and Varnish Everything

I got a little over excited about getting the boat done and started weaving the nylon rope before I had varnished the inside of the boat. It all has two coats of plastic but it still needs a coat of spar varnish for UV protection. 

Here is the start of the woven front seat, all of which I would have to take out to apply a coat of varnish, then put it all back in later. 

That's a 1 1/2" thick piece of oak with lots of buts in all the holes. I brings home the phrase "pushing a rope", because you can't push the flimsy role into the hole. To make it work, you have to tape this 1/8" dowel (stiffy) to the front of the rope. 

I mixed a fistful of sand into a pint of spar varnish and coated the floor and rear seat for UV protection and gription. Then I coated every other unpainted piece of wood on the top of the boat. Lotsa work. 

The rear seat carries a lot of tension on the unsupported underside of the frame, so it needs two 1/4" bolts of 10" lengths. You can't buy bolts in those lengths, so I had to use a die to thread both ends of a 1/4" steel rod. 

Here they are both installed, and varnished. Hey, they need protection too. 

The oarlocks arrived today. The best I could find. $50 each for cast bronze Cobras from Sawyer Oars. Nice. 

Jan 29. Oarlock Blocks

The oarlock blocks are where the oarlocks will be mounted. All the force of the oars are imparted to the boat right here. They look like a solid block of ash, but in fact are each made from 3 banana-shaped 3/4" thick pieces of ash. They're tough pieces that must be hand fit to the curve of the side of the boat. 

Here they are clamped into place between ribs 5 and 6. 

Side view. 

Jan 28. Glass the Oars

The book on oars I read shows a method to measure the flexibility of an oar, which is good to a point to relieve the stress on the body. But the boats and oars in the book were mostly Adirondack guide bots or Rangley boats, which, if you know your boats, are narrow beam, light boats meant to be to be portaged from lake to lake in upstate New York. Therefore in order to get enough inner loom for leverage they typically overlap the handles. Plus the flexibility of the oars is necessary because these boats are often used for a full day's pulling across lake after lake, sometimes into a headwind. This requires limber oars to relieve the constant stress. 

But our boat has a wide beam and drifts with the current of a river with sporadic rowing to position the boat. It's more like biking than walking in that you need lots of power for short periods and very little most of the time. Whereas rowing on flat water is like walking, in that you apply power all the time, walking up or down hill. 

Here is the method used to measure the flexibility of oars. I don't have a picture showing the whole setup, just the tip with the weight, but essentially you immobilize the paddle at the handle and the "button" (the oarlock) and then hang a 7-pound weight from the tip of the oar. Then measure the flex of the oar at the end of the loom and the tip of the paddle. I used a clamp and a half-empty can of paint for the weight, and the a-frame stand behind is for measuring the deflection. 1 1/4" in this case. 2" would be better for a full time pulling oar, but I think that's ok for a drift boat, whose oars are much less flexible (I'm guessing). 

Pine is light flexible wood, so I'm adding a layer of 6 oz fiberglass to the boar and the outer 2' of the loom. I'll let you know how well the oar works out.