Showing posts with label Canoes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canoes. Show all posts
Wednesday, 26 April 2017
Circa 1890 Bark Canoe photo Five Canoes Starting from Island Portage
An now expired Ebay ad featured a circa 1890 albumen stereoview image. Captioned as "...Five canoes Starting from Island Portage", it shows a group of men with their bark canoes loaded with gear. Publisher T.W. Ingersoll was located in St. Paul, Minnesota but there is no additional information on the specific location of the shot. There must be thousands of Island Portages out there.
Unfortunately, no clear views of the paddles being used are visible (unlike a similar scene from an 1895 Canadian Geological survey photo - post here). But a guide in the foreground is tumping a large pack cloth roll along with sacs of supplies thrown on for good measure...
Pack Cloth Roll closeup
Monday, 24 April 2017
Book Review Building Outrigger Sailing Canoes
Building Outrigger Sailing Canoes By Gary Dierking
International Marine, 2007
ISBN 9780071487917
$22.95
Review by Bob Holtzman
Gary Dierking is an American who has lived in New Zealand for many years. A skilled boat designer and builder, he has been fascinated by multihulls since his youth, and he has devoted much of his professional energies to catamarans, proas, outrigger canoes, and their ilk. While much of his work is, full custom, he also series-manufactures at least one outrigger canoe of his own design in composites (i.e., fiberglass).
In Building Outrigger Sailing Canoes, Dierking presents three of this own designs in full detail for amateur construction. These boats are:
- Ulua: A 17'9" Hawaiian-inspired design with a tacking rig for strip-plank construction
- T2: Also 17'9" and strip-planked, based on Micronesian canoes, with a variety of shunting sailing rigs
- Wa'apa: inspired by Hawaiian "three-board" canoes, and designed for stitch-and-glue plywood construction, she can be built as a 16-footer, a 24-footer, and/or in modular sections that allow the owner to switch back and forth between these two lengths with the inclusion or exclusion of a central 8' section between two 8' fore and aft sections.
These are beautiful boats, even the square-sided Wa'apa, but if your dream of the south Pacific includes floating idylls in calm lagoons with fruity alcohol drinks in a coconut shell, these boats won't do it for you. Looking at their lines, one can only conclude they are screamers: exciting craft that should keep any sailor on his toes and run rings around most sailboats twice their length.
Dierking includes complete building plans for all three boats in the book and, with its 8.5" x 11" format, reproduction is large enough (just) to build any of the designs right out of the book. (If your eyesight can't handle the size, or you want the greater precision that larger plans might allow, they are also available in larger formats from the author: http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/garyd/) The step-by-step explanation of the building procedures is concise and clear: so much so that one wonders why authors of other books on strip planking and stitch and glue construction need twice as much space to cover the same ground. Perhaps it's partly a function of Dierking's 3D how-to illustrations, generated in a drawing program and extraordinarily concise and clear in their own right: they reveal how the things go together more clearly than any number of 2D drawings and verbiage. This is one multi-skilled individual: he can design a boat; do the research on the cultural background; draw; write; and his workmanship as a boatbuilder is of a very high order.
The only thing that keeps me from being too envious is that I was his editor at International Marine (yes, this is the disclosure), and in that role, I do believe I considerably improved the book's organization. Indeed, I'm immensely proud of having helped bring this book into publication, for I feel it's one of the best boatbuilding books published within the past five years or so (I've read a few!). But the credit is the author's.
Of real importance is Dierking's presentation of numerous sailing rigs: several versions each of tacking rigs and shunting rigs, including an original, windsurfer-like shunting rig of Dierking's own design. (He calls it the Gibbons/Dierking rig, named for naturalist Euell Gibbons, but I feel he's being too modest. The rather crude rig that Gibbons designed provided only a bit of general direction to Dierking, and it suffered from tremendous weather helm. Dierking's version is really unique, perfectly balanced, and very sophisticated.) He gives the pros and cons of each rig type and provides useful guidance in how to sail a shunting rig -- something with which few Western sailors are familiar.
The boats are not simple -- they have a lot more bits and pieces than your average design for amateur construction of comparable displacement -- but none of the procedures are difficult. To build any of them, you will need a certain amount of dedication. They're also rather limited in their applications. For their length, they won't carry much, and they provide essentially no protection from the elements, so neither cold-weather sailing nor camp-cruising are really practical. But the benefits are numerous: they're beautiful; they're attention-getting (I think it would be impossible to take one off your roof rack and start assembling the components on the beach and not draw a crowd); and they're really, really fast.
Saturday, 22 April 2017
Sailing Canoes of Granada
Still further south from the gommiers of Dominica and Martinique and the canot of St. Lucia is another expanded and extended dugout, the sailing canoe of Granada. When Douglas C. Pyle visited the island in 1975, "a handful" were still in use. It would be a surprise, though a pleasant one, if any still exist 35 years later.
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| The Granada sailing canoe had something in the looks of a whaleboat. (This and all other images from Pyle, Clean Sweet Wind  . Click any image to enlarge.) |
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| The dugout origins are just discernible in the small hollowed keel, to which three wide strakes have been added, followed by rough, widely-spaced frames and partial frames. |
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| The waterlines and buttocks are very nice, but the sections look scary. The sailplan looks fairly powerful for such an unstable hull, but it's wisely kept low. |
:The lines show very clearly that no effort was made to give the hull any shape other than that assumed by a hollowed log wedged slightly open at midsection. They were propelled by sailing and rowing simultaneously, a practical mix in the flat water and fluky breezes that prevail in the lee of all high islands such as Granada.In spite of Pyle's criticism of their unsophisticated lines, he says the canoes were "versatile...capable also of operating in the open sea," and he describes a regatta in nearby Carriacou where the boats seemed to perform adequately, though hampered by their blue denim sails.
In any case, I find the buttocks, waterlines, and sheer profile pleasing. The sections, however, are another matter. Where the bottom of the canot was just slightly flattened, and the gommier almost perfectly round amidships, the Granada canoe's bottom is nearly a rounded V. Lightly laden, this boat would have little initial stability, though I think she would firm up when heeled down onto her wide flared sides.
Friday, 14 April 2017
Dugouts Coexisting with Bark Canoes
It wasn't really quite that neat. In the Northeast, for example, Maine represents the southernmost range in which the white birch grows to sufficient size to produce canoe skins. Nice sheets of canoe bark were a valuable trade item, exported by Indians from Maine and Quebec to nearby states, and so some bark canoe building did occur somewhat south of Maine. But dugouts were much more widely used than bark canoes throughout most of New England, including southwestern Maine.
Let's start in prehistory. Although the date for the invention of the birchbark canoe is in dispute (some say it might have been just prior to European contact; others place it some 500 or 600 years earlier), it is clear that dugouts were widely used throughout coastal Maine prior to that, including areas that would later become birchbark country. As far back as the Early Archaic (10,000 to 8,000 BP), tools such as gouges and whetstones were in use -- tools that may well have been used to hollow tree trunks for canoes. By the Moorehead phase (6,000 to 4,000 BP) of the Middle Archaic, there is clearer evidence. Finds of numerous swordfish bills and quantities of cod and seal bones in archaeologically excavated coastal settlement sites are sure indicators that the people were venturing away from the shore, and since the bark canoe certainly did not exist at that time, the dugout is the only craft in which they could have done so.
The earliest dugout of which I've read from the region we're discussing (New England through the U.S. midwest, and adjacent Canadian provinces) is a 2,000-year old example discovered in Lake Mary, Kenosha County, Wisconsin.
In 1634, the poet William Wood, who produced the first detailed map of southern New England, described dugout building in Massachusetts, writing that they were not greater than 2' wide and about 20' long. An eastern white pine dugout discovered in Weymouth, Massachusetts in 1965 (image at top of post) measured 11' x 2 ' 11" and has been dated to about 1500 A.D. -- i.e., before European contact. Three dugouts found in 2001 near Worcester, Massachusetts, date to the mid-1600s -- a time at which contact had occurred, but may not have yet significantly influenced the Nipmucs living some 75 miles west of Plymouth. For details on this find, which is an active achaeological project, see Project Mishoon.) A pine canoe found on Lake Ossipee, New Hampshire, and owned by the Museum of New Hampshire's History, has been dated to between 1430 and 1660.
In 1643, Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, described the local dugout canoe, or mishoon:
Mishoon an Indian boat or Canow made of a Pine or Oake, or Chestnut-tree: I have scene a Native goe into the woods with his hatchet, carrying onely a Basket of Come with him, and stones to strike fire when he hadJeld his tree (being a chestnut) he made him a little House or shed of the bark of it, he puts fire andfollowes the burning of it with fire, in the midst of many places. his come he boyles and hath the Brooke by him, and sometimes Angles for a little fish; but so tree continues burning and hewing untill he bath within ten or twelve dayes (lying there at his worke alone) finished and (getting hands) ranched his Boater with which afterward tree ventures out toflsh in the Ocean.... Some of lthe canoesl will not well carry above three or foure: but some of them twenty, thirty, forty men.... Their owne reason hath taught them, to pull of a Coat or two and set it up on a small pole, with which they will saile before a wind ten, or twenty mile.... It is wonderfull to see how they will Denture in those Canoes, and how (being oft overset as I have my selfe been with them) they will swim a mile, yea two or more safe to Land I having been necessitated to passe waters diverse times with them, it hath pleased God to make them many times the instruments of my preservation. and when sometimes In great danger I have questioned safety, they have said to me: Feare not, if we be overset I will carry you safe to Land.... (this quote taken in full from Rhode Island Sea Grant, here).In a series of posts (titled, confusingly, Michigan's Whitewood Canoes, Whitewood Dugout Canoes VI, and Whitewood Canoes VII) on his inactive but still present eponymous blog, Jim Woodruff explains that southern Michigan was south of the range for canoe birch, but within the northern limit of the range of the tuliptree or yellow poplar, known to settlers as whitewood. Early settlers found very large whitewood dugouts in wide use there by the local Pottawatomie people, being used even for lengthy voyages on Lake Michigan. In contrast, the Chippewas or Ojibwas in northern Michigan were bark canoe builders, but they too were known to build and use dugouts. A 30-footer was acquired by a Euro-American from a Chippewa in 1837 and, in 1864, a large number of dugouts were built and used for a Chippewa migration. Whether this was an expedient due to pressure from Euro-American settlers, or an established element of their material culture, is not clear from Woodruff's post. (In the migration incident cited, the canoes were built somewhat inland, and hauled by wagon to the nearest waterway -- obviously not part of the indigenous technology.)
Woodruff goes on to argue that the dugouts used in Michigan were not as cumbersome as is often supposed -- he cites evidence that they were at least sometimes portaged. (Tuliptree is a particularly lightweight wood, and dugouts can be hewn to sufficient thinness so that they aren't outside the range of what even today's canoeists might consider portagable.) And he notes the one great advantage of the dugout: its toughness. One can drag a dugout over rocks and snags that would hole a birchbark canoe.
Finally, a paper by Edward S. Rogers ("The Dugout Canoe in Ontario", American Antiquity, Vol. 30, #4, April 1965) describes 18 dugouts in that province, ranging from 10' to 20'3", and built of basswood, pine, and possibly poplar. The paper found instances of both native and European construction of dugouts in Ontario. It was unable to determine unambiguously whether dugouts were used prehistorically or if they were a technological adoption by Indians in the historic period. Regardless, it appears that dugouts were not rare in Ontario even into the early 20th century.
(The image at the top of this post shows the dugout discovered in 1965 near Weymouth, Massachusetts, and on display in the Tufts Library in Weymouth. It is from The New England Indians: An Illustrated Sourcebook of Authentic Details of Everyday Indian Life, 2nd ed., by C. Keith Wilbur. Link below.)
Saturday, 8 April 2017
Sewn Canoes of the Society Islands
Capt. Henry Byam Martin, RN, was stationed in Tahiti in 1846-47, observing the French takeover of the island. Our most recent post looked at the dugout canoes of Tahiti that he observed, while the previous one examined a large sewn double canoe from the Tuamoto Islands that he saw in Tahiti This post will focus on native stitched boats that Martin illustrated in the Society Islands, of which Tahiti is one.
Capt. Martin relates the following tale concerning canoes and royalty on Raiatea:
Sources:
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| Titled "Cleopatra's barge: a free translation, Utaroa, 27th October, 1846." Utaroa is a community on Raiatea, one of the Societies, where Martin visited Pomare, the queen of Tahiti who had self-exiled herself while attempting to reestablish her position and authority in the face of the French takeover. Although Martin doesn't explicitly identify this image with Pomare, I believe the sketch's title is an ironic reference to her. The stout, seated, cigar-smoking figure in blue beneath the palm-leaf sunshade matches his description of her essential characteristics. (Click any image to enlarge.) |
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The previous image is from the cover of a published version of Martin's journal, while this one is from the book's interior. The color and detail are better here, but unfortunately the page gutter obscures the middle of the image. Between the two, one can make out the following:
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"Mr. Barff [a Christian missionary on the island] told me with reference to the ceremonies at Opoa point -- that formerly the Kings & Queens of Raiatea were inaugurated there. On those occasions the new sovereign landed from a canoe of state, which was hauled up the beach on the bodies of 6 victims -- one from each island. Hence it became a cant term to send for a roller -- which meant a mauvais sujet [lit: "bad subject," i.e., troublemaker] that the chief wished to dispose of."Although this sounds like a fantasy conjured by the prejudice of European cultural imperialism, many of the earliest European visitors to Tahiti -- those who visited before the onslaught of Christian missionaries -- observed and confirmed that human sacrifice was indeed practiced, and that those sacrificed for ritual purposes were typically -- and conveniently -- those very individuals who had made themselves inconvenient to the society.
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It is unclear at which of the Society Islands Martin observed this fascinating boat. It appears to be entirely of stitched planks: at least, the extreme rise of the stern would be difficult to form from a straight tree trunk, although carving it dugout-style from a curved tree is not out of the question. In any case, there are at least two courses of strakes, and the stitches appear to be continuous. The shield-shaped, square transom is unusual and eye-catching. Other features:
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Images and quotation from: The Polynesian Journal of Captain Henry Byam Martin, R.N. In command of H.M.S. Grampus -- 50 guns, at Hawaii and on station in Tahiti and the Society Islands, 1846-1847.
Also: Early Tahiti As The Explorers Saw It, 1767-1797, Edwin N. Ferdon
Monday, 6 March 2017
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