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salt and wood

“Re use it or lose it”

Category Archives: Salt

July 2, 2012 R 14: White

“I don’t like work–no man does–but I like what is in the work–the chance to find yourself. Your own reality–for yourself not for others–what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means.”
― Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

June 1, 2012 Boat 31: Greek Style

 

This clunky tanker was thrown together very quickly. A low centre of gravity with mid mounted foam raising the deck. A bucket sail combination with a cylindrical mainsail and a side mounted directional sail on the bow. An additional flat sail was added to the main sail to pull this lug through the water. She sailed surprisingly well, albeit to an onshore breeze that meant launching her into the chop of the point, that was handled admirably and a short sail back to shore. And no it didn’t sail backwards.

June 1, 2012 Boat 30: Hemisphere

All there is to say about this self-righting number is that the coloured plastic components made for great pictures against the sky and the decomposing concrete head wall at the end of Yarra Bay. The foam was tied over the hull instead of wedged between the hull and ballast bottle.  This resulted in a submarine sailing style. That seemed to stabilize the craft if only slowing her down a little. Overall she set of true and confidently cut out into Botany Bay.

 

March 12, 2012 R12: Orange Blue and Blue

“Few men realize that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings.”
― Joseph Conrad

March 12, 2012 R11: Blue Yellow

“But his soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked within itself and, by heavens I tell you, it had gone mad.”
― Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

March 12, 2012 R10: Blue Float

“Joy and sorrow in this world pass into each other, mingling their forms and their murmurs in the twilight of life as mysterious as an overshadowed ocean, while the dazzling brightness of supreme hopes lies far off, fascinating and still, on the distant edge of the horizon”
― Joseph Conrad

March 12, 2012 R9: Orange

March 12, 2012 R8: Blue Orange

March 11, 2012 Boat 29: Flood Cat

As a result of recent extreme rainfalls great areas of parkland and streets adjoining the Cooks River of the Inner West of Sydney have been inundated to record levels. Flood Cat is an assemblage of detritus selected from the long flotsam lines that marked the extent of the high water.  One interesting component was parts of some sort of Chinese shrine that had been dislodged someplace by the flood and washed up here in the park. I employed a skimmer design for lack of keel material on hand. This was a spontaneous effort so I did not even have a knife to work with. A crude and fast operation. The most interesting outcome was that the tidal flow was running down stream but the breeze was pushing upstream. So it sailed well cutting a noticeable directional wake and covered allot of water but little actual ground. A bigger sail would have cancelled this out and seen it sail upstream successfully.

March 3, 2012 Boat 28: Mellow Flying V

Mellow because its yellow and Flying V because the keel is a V drink bottle and a reference to the Gibson Flying V guitar. Self-righting flotsam boats with a sand and water filled keel was one revelation. But adding a glass bottle instead of plastic takes it up a notch, being heavier, serving the purpose better. Glass bottles are a scarce material for a flotsam boat as obviously most that find their way into the sea sink. Somebody has to drink enough of the contents to create buoyancy and recap the bottle before it goes overboard. Which means glass bottles on the beach are either accidentally lost overboard or the result of obsessive-compulsive litterers. In a similar vein rudders are more difficult to come by, as they need to be fine flat and dense. Fine flat and dense things tend to sink when they fall overboard. The rudder on this boat is a piece of angle bar that was unscrewed from a piece of ply that it hitched to shore on. It fitted pretty snugly over the rectilinear timber hull. I used a bit of flotsam and rope as a sled to collect bits for this one, on this grey day it must have looked like a scene from ‘The Road.’ You can see in these pictures that the aluminum can rudder made way for the angle bar rudder by launch time. The handle of the detergent bottle strapped to the bow is an air rudder helping pull the bow forward. How did she sail? Well there was a slow consistent breeze but now real wake off the bow to talk of at launch. I think the sail was set a little to far back causing her to stall at times. So to tell the truth she was doing as much drifting as sailing out.        

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January 7, 2012 Boat : Sketches 1

December 10, 2011 Boat 27: Blue Balls

sailing flotsam sculpture

1. Blue Steel ready to sail

sailing flotsam sculpture

2. Bow view

sailing flotsam sculpture

3. Port view.

sailing flotsam sculpture

4. Into the Cooks River.

sailing flotsam sculpture

5. Bon voyage

This little vessel was thrown together in 5 minutes from debris washed up along the shore of Cahill Park on the Cooks River. Without even a pocket knife on hand the styrofoam hull was shaped on the rocks and a shard of slate pushed into the foam as a keel/ rudder.  The fairly mid mounted take away food lid sail meant a feather was added to the bow to help pull the bow around in the wind. The lid sail was simply held in place by sticks sharpened on the rocks and pushed into the foam. The little Smurf holding his balls up was just for style points.

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October 6, 2011 Boat 26: T Bone

flotsam rubbish sailing boat

1. The makings of T Bone

flotsam rubbish sailing boat

2. T Bone test flight.

flotsam rubbish sailing boat

3. Starboard.

flotsam rubbish sailing boat

4. Port

flotsam rubbish sailing boat

5. Stern.

flotsam rubbish sailing boat

6. Bon Voyage

T Bone was an experiment to see if lifting the sail clear and high of the water surface would be more effective in capturing the breeze. The answer is who knows as while this was an intriguing sculpture that cast a pleasing reflection it was a failed sailing vessel. It set out very well and accelerated to a high speed straight away. But I had set an aggressive port rudder to cut her across the wind to the heads. I underestimated the effect of the vertical plank hull and each time she sped up the blue plastic rudder pulled to port and the blade hull dug in. Resulting in a more of less sideways sailing position. There was also to much buoyancy to far back meaning more of the front half of the hull was in the water trying to turn her backwards. Oh well. She was still upright and heading to the heads of Botany Bay when I left but more like a crab than a Marlin.

October 3, 2011 Boat 25: Wood if i Cood

flotsam rubbish sailing boats

1. The makings of Wood if I Cood

flotsam rubbish sailing boats

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flotsam rubbish sailing boats

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flotsam rubbish sailing boats

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flotsam rubbish sailing boats

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flotsam rubbish sailing boats

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flotsam rubbish sailing boats

7. Bon Voyage

flotsam rubbish sailing boats

8. Pirates

You know it took me a long time to get to this point. This was a day trip to the beach that I was not even likely to get time to whip up a boat. Not to mention the wind was blowing on shore. It just so happened I found a few bits here and there and voila, a boat. And not just any boat but a colour coordinated, rope weave crafted, wooden hulled, successfully engineered self writing boat that sat perfectly on the water and low and behold was bobbing around on the water next to me when the wind changed for the afternoon and she glided out into the bay in a smooth effortless fashion and to top it off she was headed for the open sea at the opening of Botany bay. To say I was feeling fulfilled would be an understatement. As we wondered up the hill to leave the beach I turned to get one last shot of her way out on the water from higher ground. It was at this point that I noticed the pirate attack under way. A small chubby child clearly to young to be in charge of a motorized dinghy had broken away from a large motor boat named ‘Risky Business’ and was heading at speed towards the (hence) Wood if I Cood. As my heart sank I watched him grab her by the sail and drag her behind his dinghy at high speed much the same way a hopped up Mexican might drag a captured cowboy. As he came in closer to the shore I yelled out “hey kid let it go out” and I could hear his mum yelling for his attention from the RB “Jordan let it go let it go”. She was clearly concerned that little Jordan may have enraged some beach dwelling boat making hobo and there could be retribution. I couldn’t watch. I tell my self he let it go and it stole away into bay on the evening breeze.

October 2, 2011 Boat 24: The Mystery

flotsam rubbish sailing boat

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flotsam rubbish sailing boat

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flotsam rubbish sailing boat

flotsam rubbish sailing boat

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flotsam rubbish sailing boat

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What an oddball. An almost hull free creation. It sailed surprisingly well. The theory here was that the half bottle located at the rear of the rudder shaft would add to the effect of the rudder and be weightless in the water but if she tried to tip forward in a gust and the half bottle lifted it would of coarse attain weight and hold her down. It sailed surprisingly fast but didn’t get to far before it tipped forward and the big floppy sheet sail dug into the water. This was in the days before I had developed the self righting tech seen on The Steve Kamper, Wood if I Cood and This Is Ship to name a few.