On the Road

Remember the rowboat race this summer?  Of course you do.  Well, I foolishly purchased three half-completed Norwegian faerings (traditional rowboats) last year and it’s time to get down to business and fix these up.  You can see  one of three faerings just beyond the Onkel Ole (blue boat).

Here is the sail that came with the boats–also one square traditional sail.  This is a dipping lug.  With this sail and the half finished hulls, our local shipwrights and I begin to piece together the missing parts…..

The above photo is the second hull filled with all sorts of sailing stuff–masts, yards, rudder parts, and what is normally regarded as ‘furniture.’   All the lighter wood is yellow cedar and represents our continuation of this project, started by a Port Townsend boat building school about 10 years ago.

These seats fit passively over the thwarts and are carved on the underside as to placement…..

We’ve three boats, with four oars each so Petersburg’s premier shipwright Andy cuts out these 13′ masterpieces and begins to shape them perfectly.  Andy is the “Stradivari of spruce.”

Here is Andy storing the masts and oars he’s built– what craftsmanship!

Remember Michael from this past summer’s Katahdin refit?   Here he and I are forging nails, rivets and roves out of iron to fasten the rest of these faerings.  Ho ho ho!

Here are the nails, rivets and roves…..

And here I’m backing the rivet while Michael peens the rove into place–drawing the plank into the frame.  We make many sizes–some 2-3″ which fasten the thwarts as well–making this faering sturdy enough for coastal plundering.

Here’s the rudder design and execution–all hand forged.  The gudgeon is designed to slip down on the long pintle while underway.  The top of the pintel is visible above the waterline and is  a perfect curve so the rudder  can be removed/engaged while converting from sail to rowing.  Another elegant Norwegian design!

Many of the fasteners are not iron, but oak tree-nails or “trunnels” as they are pronounced.  Here, Andy is hand carving slightly tapered (at the head) oak drifts that are driven through the hull into frames and then wedged on the opposite side.  This is all that holds them and when they are wet, they swell slightly making the faering stronger.  Most ships in the early viking age and beyond were entirely fastened with such “trunnels.”  OK–time for launch….

Only one leak–we left out a nail but a quick knife sharpened plug and it’s good to go.

I’m ready to leave the dock like a fearless Viking on the maiden voyage.   This boat is very ‘tender’ meaning it’s tippy.  I clearly need more ballast especially if I’m going to sail this.  Here’s a movie of the maiden voyage:

Here is the faering’s new home–The South Kupreanof Yacht Club located here at Totland.  This is the newest addition of our fleet of 13 boats!  Can’t wait to rig her sails and pillage and plunder the coast like a good Norwegian…..  Stay tuned.

Every year, we host a Rainforest Festival here in Petersburg and one of the events this year was a tour by Breakaway Adventure Tours of the Le Conte Glacier which is a tidal glacier.  To get you oriented here’s a NE Google view–the yellow line is the Canadian border and beyond that, the Stikine River.  Also visit this site hosted on pbase by John Scurlock.

Icebergs can be seen here in this digital photograph–and many of them make it past our house about 25 miles distant in the Wrangell Narrows.  I lassoed one last year and dragged it up our beach for free ice.  And the Petersburg fishing industry in the past century used this as a source for ice for the fishpacking industry.

We’ve had record rainfall this August–I measured about 25 inches over a 30 day period and officially in town about 18 inches fell during this month.  Of course, the rivers ran wild and waterfalls were abundant–this is the approach into Le Conte Bay.

This berg is grounded at the entrance of the bay where fjords are shallower.  This is because the ice (which reached the entrance up until about 250 years ago) released their rocky contents when spreading out into Frederick Sound.  Today, this glacier is backed up about four miles.

This is a side canyon with Castle Mountain in the distance.  These peaks we see due east from our house; they have been honed sharp by glacial action over the millennia.

As we enter closer to the source, we encounter hundreds of harbor seals.  Sometimes Orcas will hunt in here–a captive meal of sorts.

And here’s the glacial face with a huge serac breaking off.   We are parked about 1/4 mile away so the sound arrives late–which is equivalent to dynamite!   A gleeful passenger raises his hands in excitement!

And here’s the consequence–a small tsunami–this one about 15′ tall and surging towards us–what excitement!  This glacier extends down below sea level to bedrock; here about 700′ so when submerged bergs break off–they’re launched into the air with no warning or sound.   This is indeed a wild place!

Glacier ice is not white, nor clear, but absorbs and reflects many spectra resulting in many beautiful colors.  I call this the Horsehead Iceberg–what a beautiful trip!  Come up for our Rainforest Festival next year.

So as not to let down our most ardent fans–here is the next chapter in the refit of this 112 year old tug….

OK–we’ve painted the upper and lower house, plus hauled out on the marine rail and cleaned & painted the hull.   So I’m now turning to the interior machinery–so put on your overalls and enter the the engine room by clicking the above link…..

OK–you’ve seen the engine running but it wasn’t that simple.   After four years of sitting at the dock, all this beast did was to hiss and spit rust and water from everywhere–and at 250 lbs starting pressure this is a lot of hissing.  The engineering is a snake-pit of pipes, tubes, valves,  etc.   Below is the control part of the engine which can either be started from the bridge, back (‘Texas’) deck or right here with the manual over-ride.

Part of the problem was this air valve which pumps air in the 7th cylinder–at the very top of the photo above and stores it in two huge air receivers for future starts.    This is critical–as this engine lacks a transmission and clutch–it is a direct reverse–meaning that in order to back down the boat, I have to shut down the engine, shift the cam and restart–all within a second–and then power in the opposite direction.  This means bringing the entire crankshaft, rods, pistons,  main shaft and propeller (many tons) to a complete stop, then moving the cam 2″ and restarting everything in the opposite direction.  This takes a lot of air.    So all valves must function.  This how I found one when I took it apart:

This is the valve responsible to supply air into the receivers and reaches several hundred degrees in temperature and is under a constant 250 lbs. pressure.

This is the “seventh” cylinder all rebuilt including the valve pictured above.  It is powered by the main engine to pump air–which is needed for restarting the engine.  On top are two triangular valve housings–letting air in (green piping on  right) and out (yellow piping on left–to be stored for the next start).  The blue pipe is water coolant.

Here are two open bays showing the camshaft–each supplying the needs of a piston–which is 10″ in diameter and weighs 250 lbs. each.  The head is about 400 lbs, and a piston rod is about 200 lbs.  This is a lot of mass to turn and reverse direction.

Each bay exhibits four cams and each cam has two lobe strategies for running in both directions.   No clutch, no transmission…..very simple.  Moving the cam engages the second set of lobes and the timing is now directed to a reverse start and the engine runs the opposite direction.  The cams (in order from left to right here) are 1. fuel, 2. intake valve, 3. air start, and 4. exhaust valve.

This engine was built in 1944 by Washington Iron Works and is a model 6-R-13 (6 cylinders, 13″ stroke and right hand).  In dual engine applications, these engines were cast as mirror opposites so an engineer could tend to both from a center isle-way.  In the Katahdin, it is a single engine but this was built as the port engine for the USS Glassford, a ship that was never built as WWII was winding down at that time.

Washington Iron Works built thousands of engines for 101 years in Seattle (where the two sports stadiums now exist).  Only eight Washingtons are still powering vessels.  Here’s the engine when it was built in 1944–still in the factory.   It has powered three other boats including the Foss 15 which spent a lot of time here in Alaska.

BTW, everyone asks me where I get parts–I’ve a 40′ steel container with two other engines all broken down.  The Katahdin engine will run forever.

OK–here are all the moving parts exposed which require oiling every two hours times six cylinders.  All the pushrods are exposed on the outside of this engine, unlike the modern automobile engine.  The four functions that run this engine (see above) are:  Bendex (fuel) injectors, intake valve, air start valve, and exhaust–see cam description above.  Everything moves when this puppy lights off.  OK–here we go:

and….

After three days of fiddling around with all these controls, I finally found the shifting problem–I’d inadvertently positioned a brass disc in the selector valve backwards–no air, no shift.  This has been corrected so it’s time for dock trials, then sea trials….Stay tuned……