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Two 12-15 ft. painters for each canoe. One 50 ft. throw bag. All are polypro and float. What would you use the static line for? IIRC it is non-floating and has minimal stretch; probably polyester with maybe some high-tech fibers. I can't think of a use on the river, except for a pulley...

Michael, thanks so much for this TR. The Allegheny is a river I'm interested in, and not too far away. Please tell us about PA boat launch permits. Does it really cost $22 to put your canoe in the river there, as shown on the state website? Here in VA the state owned boat ramps are all free...

Maurice Leblanc, Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Burglar. Inspiration for the Netflix series. Borrow and read online with a free archive.org account: https://archive.org/details/arsenelupingentl0000lebl_u9d5 William A. Tidwell, April '65: Confederate Covert Action in the American Civil War. A former...

I really amazes me how people can be such slobs. Our local conservation organization looks after one small river which is entirely in one county. This year we collected almost 2 tons of trash and 204 tires. We get the usual plastic bottles and plastic wrappers from hay bales, as well as wire...

Glenn, thanks for all you do. Today is Sunday, so the check will be in the mail tomorrow.

Yes, Glenn. Stripperguy, I just found your building thread and discovered that you also have a Shopsmith. And your workmanship is so much better than mine! The awful crunching sound you experienced is one reason I decided to build a boat with a pivoting centerboard. If you are able to...

You can see the centerboard of my boat protruding below the hull in the designer's drawing. The centerboard goes through a hole in the bottom of the hull. The centerboard case, or trunk, keeps the water on the outside, and also provides structure to take the lateral force of the board...

OK, back to centerboards, and time for a simple physics lesson. If a boat is to sail in any direction besides directly downwind, she has to have an underwater structure that resists sideways drift. Remember vectors from math class? A sailboat's direction of motion is the resultant of the...

I will explain centerboards shortly, Glenn, but first I should show how to make wedges. They are easy on a table saw, radial arm saw (shown here), or bandsaw, using a simple jig made from scrap lumber. Two identical wedges with their sloped faces together will have their outer faces parallel...

Changing the pulley gave the saw 25% more torque. This was just enough to enable it to cut the centerboard case, a 5 inch thick sandwich of hardwood, plywood, and fiberglass. However, the cut required a very slow feed rate and the saw protested. Don't try this at home, guys, find a bigger...

The bandsaw could, in theory, make a more accurate cut. But the little Shopsmith saw from 1957 bogged down in the cut. I needed more power. A trip to the farm co-op yielded a 5 inch pulley to replace the saw's original 4 inch driven pulley. The new pulley had a larger bore than the original...

I made a mockup centerboard case from scrap lumber for practicing my cutting techniques. Using the circular saw yielded a pretty ugly cut. This was not the way.

Thanx for the "likes", Gamma!

Moving from stern forward, it's time to trial fit the centerboard case. I won't be able to accurately determine the height of the center thwart risers until the CB case is fitted. I sure don't want to install the CB case as designed, with big screws going through the bottom of the keel. That...

I don't especially like the way the seat risers are designed on this boat. In traditional skiff construction, the risers are usually inside the frames and are often continuous from bow to stern. For the Sailing Skiff 15, the risers are drawn in three short sections and do not always bear on a...

Three carpenter's levels and two plumb bobs assured me that everything was level athwartships. With everything level, the boat is chocked and braced.

With the boat right side up, I spent lots of time scraping epoxy drips and filling glue joints. This was not a very photogenic operation. Then it was time to level the boat. Leveling fore and aft required establishing the baseline. The forward end was easy. The baseline and sheer strakes all...

I have seen ducks in a stream doing forward ferries and eddy turns, just like whitewater paddlers. Looked online for a video but could not find one.

Fair winds, Fitz, and thanks for your contributions to the forum.

In 1944, Army Corps of Engineers geologist and cartographer Harold Fisk drew a series of maps depicting the wanderings of the Mississippi's meander channels. He relied on historic sources and geological evidence to determine the river's shifting location. The white areas of the maps depict the...