Evolving 'Polly Wee'

[Timmo]

Evolving nicely.

She'll be spacious by the looks of her, just the job!

Tim.

[Michael Rogers]

Chris

For various reasons I have only just seen (get your act together, this man) your post in July with the sad pictures of the quiet end (or ends) of a Thames barge. Do you know her name, and where the pictures were taken? For what it's worth, the shape of both bow and stern suggest she was built by Howard and Son in Maldon, and her name might clinch (or disprove) it. Not that it matters that much, except to oilies (= nautical anoraks) like me.

With reference to the dory hull form, does anyone know the 3 masted (fore and aft) gaff schooner Trinovante, which sails out of Ipswich and over-winters at St Osyth? She cruises fairly far afield in summer, often to Norway, with enthusiast (paying) crews which change on the various legs. She was designed, and built in steel and almost single handed, by her owner-skipper John Shores. He was inspired by the dory hull shape (the Portugese version, in case it's different) and has translated it into an 80 ft vessel. Trinovante has a flat bottom and a longish, heavy but not very deep keel. She sails beautifully, and is as seaworthy as they have ever come. Highly recommended (if you can afford it!), and you'll learn a lot - John and Su are consummate sailors and excellent teachers.

[Chris Waite]

Questions, questions

1.  Don't worry about the bulkheads Paulie, they'll be coming and anyone who feels so reckless as to want one themselves has my blessing, admiration, free plans (ask Graham about this one) and unending advice, but let a chap get the transom on first.

2.  Thank you for that vote of confidence TimmO; yes quite a lot of room but remember the bottom six inches will be fenced off and liable to flood as part of my ballast programme.  That is actually one of the reasons the hull is rather tall, ballast and me and camp-kit makes three.  The other is that like an RNLI lifeboat 'tallness', buoyant superstructure in their case, makes it difficult to turn them upside down.  As she goes, the forces of nature will have to lift perhaps one hundred and fifty kilos of ballast over the flotation provided by the fore and aft buoyancy tanks and the side decks.  None of this slipping gracefully beneath the waves like 'Rosie Mae'.  Also bear in mind that the floor is only three feet at its widest, so still quite narrow.

3.  Michael, the old barge was indeed at Maldon, taken by myself along with the one of the barges huddled alongside the staithe there, in the (?early) 1970's, when I was a student and used to go to nearby Burnham-on-Crouch on sailing expeditions.  I am sorry, I don't know her name.  One of my all-time favourite sailing vessels, the Thames barge and a dream for a live-aboard, which fortunately never materialized - I'd never have kept up with the maintenance.  Interesting you should pick up on the dory hull too.  My first real design from scratch was a thirty-two foot dory; see my introduction:  
http://uk-hbbr-forum.967333.n3.nabble.com/Chris-Waite-td1642369.html
That was in 1991 or so and I caught up with her again this Autumn, also over in Essex

 
       Chris W

[Paul H (admin)]

Chris Waite wrote

2.  ......The other is that like an RNLI lifeboat 'tallness', buoyant superstructure in their case, makes it difficult to turn them upside down.  As she goes, the forces of nature will have to lift perhaps one hundred and fifty kilos of ballast over the flotation provided by the fore and aft buoyancy tanks and the side decks.    Chris W

Ah - an excellent design sir......the 150kg will be so unstable inverted she won't stay inverted. Something around 50kg of air bouyancy should do the trick. Wood supports up to 90% of its own weight leaving 50kg bouyancy for the heavier than water stuff (outboard etc).

ttfn
Paul

[Chris Waite]

Outboard, Sir?

Outrageous!

Sail and oar alone are the energy of ecology

CW

(Come on chaps, it's a joke.  I know there are solar panels, batteries and electric motors; using at least-ish
as much fossil and/or forest to manufacture as the ply, epoxy and terylene for the boat, of course)

[Timmo]

Oars, paddles, sails, electric outboards are all blissfully quiet. So much pleasanter when proceeding in company! Though I do appreciate the services of a powered craft have helped many of us out of trouble on occasions.

I do have an outboard, but it rarely gets used. You see so much less of the worlds beauty because the noise of the machine has  scared much of it away long before you get there. Was interesting on the Oxford canal recently. Two of us in kayaks passing the occasional narrowboat. Once ahead of each powered boat there was so much more wildlife to see. You knew there was another boat ahead when there were fewer birds, water voles, etc. around. Funny, the people in those boats may never know what they're missing.

Anyway, I'd be over 36 stone in weight if I didn't have to exercise sometimes.

Tim.

On 5 Nov 2011, at 10:51, Chris Waite [via UK HBBR Forum] wrote:

> Outboard, Sir?
>
> Outrageous!

[Paul H (admin)]

Timmo wrote

Oars, paddles, sails, electric outboards are all blissfully quiet. So much pleasanter when proceeding in company! Though I do appreciate the services of a powered craft have helped many of us out of trouble on occasions.

I do have an outboard, but it rarely gets used. You see so much less of the worlds beauty because the noise of the machine has  scared much of it away long before you get there. Was interesting on the Oxford canal recently. Two of us in kayaks passing the occasional narrowboat. Once ahead of each powered boat there was so much more wildlife to see. You knew there was another boat ahead when there were fewer birds, water voles, etc. around. Funny, the people in those boats may never know what they're missing.

Anyway, I'd be over 36 stone in weight if I didn't have to exercise sometimes.

Tim.

On 5 Nov 2011, at 10:51, Chris Waite [via UK HBBR Forum] wrote:

> Outboard, Sir?
>
> Outrageous!

Well chaps, if I take MilliBee down the Thames I can row her for about a mile before I'm cream crackered......so alternative propulsion is needed.

Having shared a lift with Chris III to the Hamble I have already offset the carbonification of my wee little 2-stroke.....which is relatively quiet a tad over tickover which is plenty fast enough.

But I maybe persuaded to splash the cash on a Honda generator that are about as eco friendly as possible
 - 4 stroke so no smoke,  52db noise at 1/4 load - bird calls are 44db, conversations are 60db

It can be turned off at "inappropriate times" and run from the battery, hopefully charging at campsites, the sun might shine on the PV panels or maybe 2 people could row MilliBee?

-Paul

[Timmo]

And you can charge people's mobiles... there is certainly merit in the generator idea. It's how the Navy is powering some of it's newer ships. Optimal power generation via dedicated generators and all propulsion via electric drives.

Considering the noise of the traffic at the Marlow campsite on the last Thames raid a small generator would have been unnoticeable if it had been running a few yards away from the tents down where the boats were moored.

Would be interested in experimenting with a quiet generator at a quiet campsite just to see how far away/screened the genny would have to be to blend into the background murmur of birdsong.

Tim

> But I maybe persuaded to splash the cash on a Honda generator that are about as eco friendly as possible
>  - 4 stroke so no smoke,  52db noise at 1/4 load - bird calls are 44db, conversations are 60db
>
> It can be turned off at "inappropriate times" and run from the battery, hopefully charging at campsites, the sun might shine on the PV panels or maybe 2 people could row MilliBee?
>
> -Paul

[Michael Rogers]

Chris

I am ancient enough to have learned to sail out of Brightlingsea in the late 1940s (no, that's not a misprint), at which time there were still working Thames barges, some even without auxilliary engines. They used to moor up, sometimes alongside each other, off the mouth of Brightlingsea creek with that unforgettable furled-aloft rig against the sky, and the bargemen (two to a barge) would work in and out of Brightlingsea creek in their heavy boats (tenders), often nonchalantly sculling with one oar. There were smacks in sail too, out of West Mersey.

I had a youthful ambition to be the first to take a T B round Cape Horn, but I dare say that sprit would be a bit of a liability in anything of a severe seaway....

Incidentally, (yes I'm getting off the subject, I'll stop in a mo) I was shocked to the core when I went back to Brightlingsea a couple of years ago (actually off the aforementioned schooner Trinovante) and saw what that unspeakable monstrosity of a multi-storey 'development' has done to the appearance, and probably function, of the place. I've been in mourning ever since. They might as well abolish all planning controls forthwith, because they've obviously been completely ignored for years. Further words (you are probably relieved to hear) fail me.....

[Anders]

Generators.... If there´s something I dislike, its generators. Just put them a few meters away and cant hear them. Well, someone else might hear them and in the end they always mean more consuming. charging the mobile phone, the gps, the camera, the camcorder, the small telley, the little fridge, etc.

Come on lads, have you forgooten the old Baden Powell boyscout attitude

[alopenboat]

On 7 Nov 2011 at 0:01, Anders [via UK HBBR Forum] wrote:

>
>
> Generators.... If there´s something I dislike, its generators. Just
> put them a few meters away and cant hear them. Well, someone else
> might hear them and in the end they always mean more consuming.
> charging the mobile phone, the gps, the camera, the camcorder, the
> small telley, the little fridge, etc.
>
> Come on lads, have you forgooten the old Baden Powell boyscout
> attitude
>

He's right, you know, Paul. Let's round up a few boy scouts to do the
rowing for us!

--
Hoping for calm nights

Alastair Law,
Yeovil, England.
<http://www.little.jim.freeuk.com>

[Chris Waite]

Transoms then

The archetypal dory has a seriously raked ‘tombstone’ stern – like the business end of an exclamation mark.  The Thames barge on the other hand has a vertical shallow transverse shape, akin to the silhouette of a traditional champagne glass.

This ‘Premise 12’ needs to keep her stern well clear of the water for rowing and not to drag it even when sailing in ballast.  She also needs to be able to fend off a following sea without being pushed into a broach, but have enough flat area underneath it to allow for surfing down waves, if not really planing.  Oh, and it needs to be wide enough to take a block at each quarter for my ped-yuloh.  So something dainty, if not actually diminutive then?

  















































I give you a bijou little number in deep Thames barge,
tropically raked, with just a hint of chine….























Like it?

The Mad Ply Mutilator

(Tropically?  Well it was meant to be about twenty degrees, but it's a little over that, maybe twenty-three and a half degrees, innit?)

[Port-Na-Storm]

Simply Sublime.

I'm sure Polly gave a girlish giggle as her corsets were pulled into shape revealing the curvaceous contours of her counter.

G.

[Timmo]

Chris, I love your organic approach. She's going to be another beauty.


On 9 Nov 2011, at 16:55, Port-Na-Storm [via UK HBBR Forum] wrote:

> Simply Sublime.
>
> I'm sure Polly gave a girlish giggle as her corsets were pulled into shape revealing the curvaceous contours of her counter.
>

[Anders]

It looks very good. I can see that you´re an experienced ply mutilator working on a known concept. I think its the sweetest 3 piece stern I´ve seen. And a lot sweeter than many multichine sterns.

Maybe, we can meet and race some day in our wee boats. You´ll have the biggest boat, most sail, balast etc. But I´m a viking and a very bad looser.

[Bill Jones]

Thumbing through old copies of The Boatman I notice adverts for 'flexible plywood'. Did this idea come to anything? And was it developed for marine use?

 

Bill Jones

 

 

 

In a message dated 11/11/2011 08:27:21 GMT Standard Time, [hidden email] writes:

It looks very good. I can see that you´re an experienced ply mutilator working on a known concept. I think its the sweetest 3 piece stern I´ve seen.

Maybe, we can meet and race some day in our wee boats. You´ll have the biggest boat, most sail, balast etc. But I´m a viking and a very bad looser.

---

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[Timmo]

Flexi ply certainly exists. I've used it on a furniture project. Is actually quite floppy in one plane so needs frames to hold it in place on anything except very tight curves. I think torturing normal ply is more likely to produce fair curves.

http://www.solidwoodflooring.com/fpgeneralinfo.htm 

It seems expensive to me and I've not found it sold for marine use.

Robbins stock something called 'bending ply' but they point out the glue line is only 'moisture resistant' rather than waterproof. 

http://www.robbins.co.uk/pdf/Marine_Pricelist.pdf (down below the Teak ply and cabin sole materials on page 5.)

Having said that, many wbp boards that people use in boats are also only described as moisture resistant but seem to work and last very well, specially when encapsulated in epoxy.

Tim.

On 11 Nov 2011, at 13:53, Bill Jones [via UK HBBR Forum] wrote:

Thumbing through old copies of The Boatman I notice adverts for 'flexible plywood'. Did this idea come to anything? And was it developed for marine use?

 

Bill Jones

 

[Chris Waite]

This seems an opportune moment to expose a couple of meditations:

1.  Everyone has been so jolly polite thus far that there has been no mention of the elephant in the room.

This ply is rubbish, it has all the strength and flexibility of a golden autumn leaf; "I'll take eleven Pounds of autumn leaf please".  Serves me right for being such a tight-wad.  It has very few voids - I think I've seen one small one so far but is quite shy on the Resourcinol and it flakes along the edges.  The surface veneer is so thin it makes an average piece of A4 look quite substantial, so much so, that it creases inside bends

In general the stuff has fault lines, probably along joins in the first transverse sub-veneer; I have two tears to prove it.  Literally the whole thickness has ripped, once at the point of maximum curvature on a chine and another simply because I stressed it round the outside of a light batten temporarily screwed on as an inwale.  I have caught them and fixed a couple of kitchen widgets, those little plastic blocks used for screwing DIY cupbards together, across the advancing gap.  It also bends to the required shape but waits a few minutes, (or longer) until your back is turned then starts to click and snap like an ice flow playing 'Grandmother's Footsteps'.  It's natural shape is not really flat, but more the surface of a recently used swimming pool - sort of wavy.

Oh for some of the B&Q 4 mm. Brazilian Birch I used for 'Octavia'.  That took the agony of a wineglass stern without a murmur; no hot wet towels, just simple submission to a vicous clamp:























However B&Q doesn't seem to stock 4 mm. ply at all anymore and certainly nothing in Birch.

So do I give up, go on a Birch search and use this hull as a template now I've got the shape I was after, or do I do this....

I have the shape and it's extremely light, which is what I was hoping for.  I was always going to sheath it inside as well as out anyway - in Tesco's polyester cotton sheets, again like 'Octavia'.  Anyone who thinks this is a joke, just consider that cotton fibres are what some epoxy filler is made out of for strength and polyester is what your sails are made out of unless I am very much mistaken, or your boat's name is 'Polythene Pam'.  Think how hard you have to work to rip an old bed sheet, never mind a new one.  There will also be some woven glass mat under the floors, so how about

How about I drill an all enveloping grid of say 4 or 5 mm. holes every inch and a half or two inches throughout my crappy (sorry, but there really is no other sufficiently descriptive word) ply hull, so that the inner and outer layers of sheathing can hold sticky little epoxy cross-bonds - every inch and a half, all over, for ever, clamping the ply veneers together?  Remember of course that if no air can get in, there is a potential 15 pounds per square inch squeezing everything in place.

Or do I start again?


2.  And this brings me to the second meditation; are you out there Jeremy?

Because it was you who said that the trouble with water-ballast, is getting it in and out of the boat.

Now comes the time to expose my plans for water ballast.  All these designs with plywood tanks, need hatches that need to be waterproof so that they can get inside at least to periodically check the tanks themselves are still waterproof, if not to actually fiddle opening and closing self bailers, or valves, or such.

I was considering mounting a one and a half inch (38 mm.) system with a seacock facing backwards into a cavity in the skeg aft.  This would be attached to a closed circuit of two Plastimo flexible watertanks; think of it like a couple of very moist lungs - one each side of the centreplate case, under screwed down floor boards.  Also plumbed in would be a (manual) bilge pump leading overboard.  To flood the tanks simply open the seacock; emptying them would either be by bringing the boat slowly up the shore with the seacock open, or pumping them out if required afloat, with the seacock closed.

A minor sophistication would be to have a valve on each tank so that they could be operated independently; useful for counterbalancing a sleeping seadog lying to one side of the plate case, for instance.

Now I'm pretty sure I'm set to experiment on both counts

Do you dare me?

Cee Dubbaya

   

[Jeremy]

I like the idea of the flexible tanks in a box, sounds ideal.

The problems I've heard of regarding water ballast (and which I experienced many years ago sailing a borrowed 18ft trailer-sailer with this system) are to do with getting the water out.  The boat I borrowed was a nightmare, as the only way to empty the water out was to winch her on to the trailer.  This took forever, because with all the water in she was bloody heavy.  Add in that the water poured forth from the transom-mounted outlet like an elephant urinating, and that the said process took around ten to fifteen minutes, and I can confirm that I was not the most popular person on the slip at Falmouth that particular busy Saturday afternoon.

One way you might want to consider to empty the tank whilst afloat might be to add a second flexible bag tank alongside the water ballast one, in the same box.  You could then hook a pump up to inflate the second bag with air, forcing the water out of the other tank and removing the need for any form of outlet valve.  It'd be a bit like a submarine blowing ballast tanks.  In fact, thinking this through further you could dispense with the water filled bag altogether and just flood the box through access holes in the bottom of the hull that were always open (so free draining and no worries about nasties growing inside).

[Paul H (admin)]

There are a couple of advantages with Jeremy's idea of flooding the boxes:

1) You don't have to buy those expensive water bags.

2) You can fit submersible pumps just like the Paradox and pump out before reaching the slipway. A small solar panel would keep a battery sufficiently charged. They could double up with the manual pump.

3) If she takes on too much water, you can empty the boxes with the electric pumps in a seaway whilst frantically bailing the cockpit thereby avoiding the "Go directly to Davy Jones locker" feeling.

4) Screwfix stock push-fit plastic piping, valves and tank fittings at good prices. The tank fittings clamp to a panel.

-Paul