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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...

The extreme bimodal distribution of the responses is ... interesting. Clearly there are few Real Canadians on this forum.

I'm no help about the kit, but I do have a P15 which I have had for 2 years and like a lot. It's a high volume, dry, and stable solo canoe. I have even poled it a few times, which is supposed to be difficult with a 15 foot canoe. However, the stock configuration is not optimized for solo...

Glenn, I think the usefulness would be limited, depending on your location. On a lake or in very flat terrain, you might be able to hit a 2 meter band repeater. Down in a stream valley or a deep canyon your signal would go nowhere. I was backpacking last week and took a handheld ham...

No, the doctors did not sew his head back on. This article may be of interest in case anyone encounters a severe C-spine injury. The patient sustained an "internal decapitation," in which the skull was dislocated from the top of the spine; in this case there was no fracture of any bones. The...

David R. Brower, ed., Going Light With Backpack or Burro. San Francisco: Sierra Club (1951). A portrait of wilderness travel 70 years ago. Cooking over an open fire, hobnail boots, external frame backpacks, mouth suction for snakebites. The chapters on burro management especially piqued my...

Understood, Erica! It's probably best to learn one thing at time and concentrate on Zoleo, since that's your emergency communication. You already know how to find your way with the paper maps.