Pretty Good Start

Dabbler Sails starts 2010, our 20th year, with a nice mix of commissions. Already behind us are an 80 sq ft lugs’l for Iain Oughtred’s double-ended Whilly boat, a bigger jib for the South Jersey Beach Skiff we equipped with new sails a few years ago, yet another sprit-boomed sail for Hugh Horton’s Bufflehead canoe (this one went to Switzerland), and a few repairs (sun damage). Currently we’re laying out a little lugs’l in 4 oz cream cloth for New Zealand designer John Welsford’s burdensome 9 ft Sherpa dinghy. Next will be a suit of tanbark sails for Welsford’s Navigator yawl (the photo is a Navigator we made sails for in 2008). The new suit will incorporate full battens in the main and mizzen. Following which a 104 sq ft gaff sail in cream cloth for a classic Beetle Cat, circa 1960. The customer is salvaging brass slides off the old sail so we don’t have to use the stainless steel ones that are the only kind offering today.

Digital Database

Small-boat designs popularized in WoodenBoat have always been responsible for a significant percentage of Dabbler Sails’ work. The magazine has been a prime source of information and data ever since the loft started up nineteen years ago. But my collection only went back to issue 100 (when I began advertising there), and it has often occurred that a customer was commissioning a sail for a design described in those first hundred issues. That rankled. Sure, I had the sail plan, but sail plans don’t tell the whole story. Photos and/or details of the boat provide inspiration, and it’s sometimes possible to pick up an impression that contributes to a better sail. Now, suddenly, the digital age to the rescue. That little gadget in the photo, a flash drive that plugs into your computer, has all 200 plus (up to the date of purchase) issues of WB, in PDF’s, complete with a superior index. Turn pages one by one, or zip to a specific article. Enlarge any detail or text you want to focus on. Print out the data you need. I now keep the gadget plugged in, and check out new queries to see if WB had anything to say about that design. I gave about 100 lbs of paper WB’s to a friend. In my spare time I browse all those early issues.

Boxing Day

That’s an Oceanus Ship’s Cloth sprits’l, destined for use on a 16-foot dory, hung up in the loft for final inspection - the last sail of 2009. The day after Christmas it got boxed up ready for shipping out via UPS. It was the 56th sail for the year (a typical annual output) and the 979th since our loft opened in 1991. We made twice as many lugs’ls (18) as any other type, followed by 9 each sprits’ls, gaff, and bermudan sails. A few canoe sails, three or four gunter sails, and a handful of jibs for the sloop rigs rounded out the year’s production. Most interesting commission? The old-fashioned low-peaked gaff main and balanced/clubbed jib for a restored 96-year-old Great South Bay (Long Island, NY) ice scooter. Sails for that job were in a soft 6 oz white Dacron, with vertical panels and traditional corner patches to suit her age. See www.ice-scooter.org for photos of these unique boats.

Dabbler Ducks

When the box of duck logos gets nearly empty, it’s time to break out the silk-screen rig, cut up some scrap sailcloth, slop on the ink, ply the squeegee, and produce a batch of about 50. After they air dry, they get ironed to “set” the water-based ink, and cut out into circles with the heat knife. Only about 50 because logo making is tedious -- not half the fun of making sails. That’s enough for 25 sails -- one for the sail, one for the sailbag. If it weren’t for the accident that the duck can only appear on the port side of the sail (he’d be flying backwards on the starboard side) we’d need 75 logos for 25 sails and bags. My wife styled our duck after those on ancient Egyptian frescoes. Dabbler ducks are the ones that frequent shallow water, tip up their fannies to feed off bottom growth, and take off in a vertical leap. Mallards are the common dabblers. Others are widgeons, teal, wood ducks, and pintails. “Dabbler” was the name of our first catboat, befitting a shallow-draft design. Also fitting for the traditional small craft we cater to, most of which busy themselves in shallow waters.

Boomless Lug Sail

This must be the year of the lugs’l. We‘ve made twice as many of them (16) as any other type. That’s more than a third of all our sails so far in 2009 (45). This is an example of a boomless one, on Paul Labrie’s Matinicus 18 design. Not as efficient as a boomed sail, but for a boat that is to be rowed as much as sailed, a practical compromise. One less spar to stow when rowing, and the option of rowing without striking the rig at all, by brailing up. Brailing is of course more common, almost de rigueur, on sprits'ls (we‘ve only made seven of those this year). Here we see the boat on first sailing trials, the sheet being hand-held to determine where the sheet leads - a series of thumb cleats inside the combing - should be placed to suit various points of sail. For a demonstration of the utility of having a brailing line in such a sail, see below.

Brailed Up & Rowing

The Matinicus peapod shows off her style under oars. Since it’s calm, the brailed up lugs’l offers scant resistance to progress. If rowing into a breeze, the mast would be snatched out, the yard and sail rolled up with it, and the lot stowed in the boat. If expecting to sail, the boat can be launched with the rig in, but brailed up. The brailing line (a light, smooth braided Dacron) starts at the throat, secured in a grommet, and leads aft through another grommet in a reinforced patch precisely the same distance down the leech as the length of the head of the sail. The line is then led back forward through a grommet or tiny block at the throat, and down the luff in fairleads, to be turned aft at the tack and belayed handy to the helm. Brailing might be a tactic in a sudden squall, presuming the destination was to leeward.

Old Gaffer

Naval architect Frederick William Goeller, Jr. designed this sprightly 14-ft daysailer before the first world war. Rudder magazine published the plans in Volume 32, Number 11, November 1916. Goeller intended her primarily as a trainer for youngsters. Two mast steps were provided, allowing the boat to be rigged as a cat or sloop. The design was immediately popular, because the Sea Mew was inexpensive to build, relatively uncomplicated, and just right for backyard builders. The magazine was swamped with requests for detailed construction plans. A California sailing club ordered a small fleet of them from a local yard. Other fleets sprang up, for junior sailing programs and class racing. One of backyard builders who ordered plans was my friend and neighbor Nick England, who got around to building her in 1986. He sold her a few years ago, and she passed through several hands until the present owner decided it was time for a new suit of sails. Nick loaned me the original gaff sloop sail plan so I can get the dimensions right. (The tattered mailing envelope, with 6 large sheets of blueprints, still has the original postage on it -- 5 cents!) The boat is currently on a trailer, due to be towed out to a new home in Arizona for some lake sailing. Sails will be 5 oz low-aspect Dacron, with narrow panels, traditional patches, roping, and other details suitable to the design’s age.

Sharptown Barge

Cap’t R.D.“Pete” Culler’s elegant 24’ flattie “Sharptown Barge” is a dream boat for the traditional sailmaker, sporting a balanced club jib, sprits’l main, and sprit-boomed leg-o-mutton mizzen. Stephen LeQuire came across the design in the ’80’s, and bought a set of plans. Stashed them away, rediscovered them two decades later, and built her. Culler specified “boat drill, vertical cut, Cuprinol treated” for the sails. Dabbler Sails was fresh out of boat drill, treated or untreated, so we agreed on Oceanus Ship’s Cloth. Stephen towed the just-finished Barge down from his home in North Carolina to the 2009 (20th annual) Georgetown, SC Wooden Boat Show, where, to his surprise, she took first prize in the sail category. “There were many boats there far more refined than mine. But the judges weren’t impressed by varnish and polish as much as a whale of a good design and perfect sails.” (There’s no such thing a perfect sail Stephen, but thank you for the flattery.)

Sea Wind Revisited

The current owners of this 1966 Allied Seawind Ketch, aboard which my wife and I spent many happy years cruising the Eastern Seaboard, Bermuda, and Caribbean, are in process of restoring her down in Mobile, Alabama. Amanda and Robert found her in very sad shape at a local marina, more or less abandoned, with water over the floorboards, rails torn off, pulpits smashed, spars lying in a tangle on deck. They are now well along with her restoration, and recently commissioned a mule like the one in the photo (which we invented for her) -- the original sail didn’t survive hurricanes and intermediate ownerships. We’ve been following Amanda and Robert’s attentions to the old girl with great interest, and the invitation to contribute directly to her rebirth is a welcome opportunity. The miter-cut sail is set flying on a wire luff, with a half-wishbone spar (out of sight on the starboard side of the sail) tied in. The half-wishbone functions like a sprit boom, and makes the sail self tending. A detailed description of the mule rig appeared in the March, 1980 issue of SAIL magazine. An abridged version is on our Appendices page, under Published Articles. Sea Wind is shown here in 1979, lying off an abandoned Coast Guard station up in Maine. We had left the mule set to damp roll, as an annoying swell was coming into the anchorage.

Pro Bono Work

Sail number 970, and the 45th this year, feeding through the machine on temporary chutes set up for long seaming. This is a pro-bono job -- a new gaff mains’l for the Company Boat. The Muskrat’s current main is only a few years old, but I had an idea or two I wanted to try out in this very soft cloth -- Bainbridge 5.5 oz cream. At 280 sq ft it’s near the upper limit for our small loft. A lull in commissions encouraged the project, which can be set aside if the press of business requires. If I had to pay for the labor it would be a very expensive sail -- two reefs, three full battens, roped three sides, etc. Makes me think I’m getting a bargain, even though I’m using up a lot of expensive cloth.

Dragonfly

This photo appeared recently (as a black & white) in Messing about in Boats magazine, one of the publications where Dabbler Sails advertises. I thought it looked familiar. Sure enough, rummaging through a file of snapshots sent by customers over the years, there it was. Ed Hammer designed and built the two-person sailing kayak in 2004. He called her the Dragonfly. He and his wife Sue live near the Parker River in Newbury, Massachusetts, in a “little hunting cottage” they restored. An adventurous couple. They have also restored a Gloucester fishing boat, and lived aboard that for a year. Also restored a houseboat the family uses as a retreat on the river. Describing the Dragonfly, Sue wrote it has “beautiful sails made by Dabbler in Virginia.” That made my day. Thank you Sue.

Pathfinder

Tom Williamson appeared here a few years ago, showing off his Arch Davis gunter-sloop-rigged Penobscot 17. Here he is again, showing off New Zealand designer John Welsford’s popular Pathfinder design. This boat has an international following, participating in raids and rallies all ‘round the globe. You can see a spectrum of Welsford's designs at www.jwboatdesigns.co.nz. Tom has tied in a nice reef, but plans to return the sail to us after the end of his New England sailing season to have a second reef installed. Retrofit reefs are a common request, and a straightforward bit of sailmaking, except when trying to match a previous batch of colored cloth. In this case we’ll be searching our current stock, or scraps and leftovers, for a close match for that 5.5 oz Hayward Mills tanbark.

Bench Work

Coming up on a job involving a dozen hand-sewn brass rings, rat-tailed boltrope, and a score of spur grommets (a big lugs‘l and jib with lots of reefs), it seemed like a good time for a new, better-organized sailmaker’s bench. The one I started out with 18 years ago was proving too small to hold all the handwork tools I routinely use -- fids, awls, mallets, palms, needles, twines, scissors, etc. Some of my favorite tools were awkwardly located. The old bench had been knocked up in a hurry out of 2x12 stock. The new longer one is made of 1x12 stock (plain old pine shelving), light enough to shift easily. The fiddles keep stuff from rolling off when set down too close to the edge. My wife sewed up the velour cushion -- now I can sailorize in style.

Sewing the Sail

At this writing the sole prop is working on a 97 sq ft lugs’l for Iain Oughtred’s 16’10” double-ended beach boat “Terrik.” The cloth is Oceanus Ship’s Cloth, that nice soft stuff that imitates the extinct Egyptian cotton canvas of yesteryear. The way Oceanus falls into soft folds reminded my wife, kibitzing, of this lush painting from amongst her vast library of art books. Spaniard Joaquin Sorolla captured the scene in 1896. The workspace is cramped -- no room to spread things out -- but no matter, it’s clean, well-lighted, and filled with the delightful scent of all those flowers. The sailmakers look happy, a marked contrast to photos I have of dour-looking men bent over acres of canvas in an English loft of the same period. I speculate the sail might be for a lateener or felucca, that long, narrow 19th-century Mediterranean craft, called falua in Spain. Elsewhere in Dee’s big book, World Impressionism, is another Sorolla painting, of a fish market, with rows of tunnies in the foreground and lateen yards in the background. If I had nothing else to do, too much money, and was willing to climb aboard airplanes, I would go stand in front of “Sewing the Sail” (seven by nine feet!) where it hangs in the Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna de Ca’Pesaro, Venice.

Working Sail

My earliest exposure to sailmaking was watching Bahamian women, seated on the ground under coconut trees, hand seaming and roping sails for a smack boat like this one I photographed in the Berry Islands, circa 1969. Their sailcloth was Vivetex, a cotton duck, roped with Manila. Wm. R. Johnson, Jr., was cruising among the Bahamian Out Islands during those years, collecting material for his Bahamian Sailing Craft (see Books on Small Craft Rigs on our Appendices page). He described smacks like this one, whose sails “are of the leg- or shoulder-of-mutton variety and are handsewn of heavy cloth. A large wooden headboard is fitted. The foot is nearly as long as the luff and a deep roach is cut in the foot. There is no lacing on the foot . . . the bolt rope is sewn all round the sails, both main and jib. Reef points are rarely provided, but a tricing line is employed for reducing sail in bad weather. This line runs from the masthead down through a grommet midway on the foot rope and up to a block on the opposite side of the mast, then down to a cleat. By hauling down on this line the sail is gathered up and the area is reduced.” The aerodynamics of these home-made sails? Well, rough native boats sometimes out-sailed yachts of the same size, but that must be attributed mostly to the fact they carried much more sail than the average yacht. Of course they had no motors. Conch meat is draped in the rigging to dry in the sun -- a staple food for the crew of two or three. Fish kept live in a mid-ships well are destined for the market. Note the “chain plates” -- slabs of hardwood (probably a local mahogany called “horseflesh”) bolted though the bulwarks.