BUILDING LILY; the Orkney Yole Association

Blaeu, Atlas of Scotland 1654, ORKADVM ET SHETLANDIE Orkney and Shetland

courtesy Wikipedia

North Isles Yole "Lizzie" racing in the Sanday regatta at Kettletoft during the 1950's. She is a smaller example of the Yole , she is rigged with a Dipping lug.

Lizzie II, a North Isles Yole. Built by Richard Wilson and his father Andrew. Launched May 2008.

Gremsa, A South Isles Orkney Yole built by Len Wilson

A simplified drawing of the hull lines of the 18' South Isles Yole Emma. Drawn by Dennis C Davidson.
Lily was built to these lines.

Lily begins

Planking begins

Nearly finished planking

Deck beams in place

a consultation between Association members

Lily's striking hull with hard bilges

Lily launched!



all photos courtesy Orkney Yole Association

Off John O' Groats, at the northeast tip of Scotland, lies a group of islands known collectively as Orkney. Inhabited for at least 8500 years, these islands abound in Mesolithic and Neolithic sites. Invaded by the Norse and annexed by Norway in 875, Orkney was pledged to Scotland in 1468 by the King of Denmark in lieu of a dowry, and finally annexed in 1472 after a failed redemption attempt. Rich in Nordic culture, and perhaps the most 'Viking' county of the UK, Orkney continues it's vibrant life and heritage.

The Orkney Yole Association has been responsible for a revival of interest in their local Yoles, setting up regatta's, preserving boats and knowledge and leading the way to new boats being built.
These boats are related to the Sgoth Niseach, or Ness Skiff, or Ness Yawl, by way of likely being the model followed by builders on Lewis and Harris. As Len Wilson of the Association states, "Be aware that we are not the same people as the Gaels in the west. This is Viking country. There is no Celtic heritage here, though there is a relationship in the boats. I am not an expert on the western boats but I know we exported Orkney yoles to them back in the 18th century and I see similarities in some of the photos".
The association's website is full of information and history and current activity.The boats were central to the islanders way of life until recently." Until the mid 1960s the yole was the Islanders' motor car and pick-up truck, transporting coal, peats, animals, animal feed, fish, cheese and eggs to the market, the weekly groceries and, of course, passengers". The Orkney Yole is built lapstrake, upright in the Scandinavian way. Originally sprit rigged , as with most Scandinavian workboats, there have been dipping lug versions and more recently the gunter main has predominated. There is a brief but enlightening discussion of yole types on the association website here.
The building of Lily, pictured above, was financed in part by the UK's Heritage Lottery Fund and built by Orkney's last commercial boatbuilder, Ian Richardson. Please visit his website.
The association has also produced a lovely calendar, which I've written about previously. Thanks to Len Wilson for his help and generosity.

The Voyage Of The Damien

Damien is a Robert Tucker design with reverse sheer

courtesy Creed O'Hanlon

courtesy Gérard Janichon

Damien departs La Rochelle in May of 1969
courtesy Gérard Janichon

In the ice
courtesy Gérard Janichon

Passage du cap Horn d'Est en Ouest, le 4 mars 1971
courtesy Gérard Janichon

Damien returns to La Rochelle, September 1973, after 50,000 miles
courtesy Gérard Janichon

After the first Damien there were several iterations, larger boats most with steel hulls.
cf. Northanger
courtesy Gérard Janichon

One of several books on the journey
courtesy Gérard Janichon

By Creed O'Hanlon

In May, 1969, a small sloop named Damien slipped its mooring within the French harbour of La Rochelle, on the Atlantic coast of south-west France, and made its way seaward through the 12th century fortified stone walls that protect its entrance. Once across the narrow channel between the harbour and the low shores of Ile De Ré, it altered course northwest, out into the wide maw of the Bay of Biscay. She wouldn't be seen again off this coast for another four years.

The beginning of this voyage was the culmination of a long-held dream for two young Frenchmen. Five years earlier, when they were both still teenagers, Jérome Poncet and Gérard Janichon seized on the idea to build the 33-foot, cold-moulded, reverse-chine Robert Tucker design and follow in the wake of their hero, Bernard Moitessier.

They ended up sailing to places even the far-voyaging Moitessier had never ventured.

After rounding Ushant, the westernmost extremity of France, they made their way 'up' the English Channel to the North Sea and after a layover in Bergen, in Norway, continued north to Spitzbergen, in the Svalbard Archipelago, well inside the Arctic Circle. They then turned south-west to Reykjavik in Iceland. From there, they laid a course past Greenland's Cape Farewell to the east coast of the USA. After rounding Cape Hatteras and beating south to the Caribbean, they port-hopped to the north-eastern coast of Brazil, where they decided to sail 2,000 nautical miles up the Amazon before resuming their voyage south. Months later, after rounding Cape Horn from east to west, they double-backed and sailed homewards through the Southern Ocean, via the three great Capes (including a second rounding of the Horn). They eventually logged more than 55,000 nautical miles over a track that spanned the parallels of 80ºN and 68ºS and encircled the globe.

Janichon and Poncet were among the most prominent of a distinctly Sixties' generation of young French sailors who were all inspired not by phlegmatic English deep-water sailors, such as Francis Chichester, Alec Rose, Blondie Hasler, Bill Tilman, Robin Knox-Johnston and others, but by the somewhat hermitic, hippy-ish Bernard Moitessier and his 'agricultural', Jean Knocker-designed, 39-foot steel ketch, Joshua. Born and raised in colonial Vietnam, Moitessier was a tough, highly skilled sailor – arguably, the most accomplished of his age – but he was also a man very much of that odd, spacey time: a dope-smoking, philosophical, manic-depressive visionary for whom ocean voyaging was as much an opportunity for Zen-like self-exploration as it was an adventure.

Damien's long, extraordinary voyage attracted little attention outside of Europe and Janichon's classic book, Du Spitsberg Au Cap Horn (From Spitzberg To Cape Horn) was published only in France (one of many wonderful maritime titles assembled by the local house, Arthaud). The influence of Moitessier's reflective interior monologues are occasionally apparent not only in Janichon's writing but also the narration for the 16mm film Poncet and he shot during their voyage (just as Moitessier did on his non-stop voyage around the world during the Sunday Times' Golden Globe Race in 1969). An excerpt from Janichon's film, during which Poncet and he recklessly pilot Damien right up to the sheer blue cliffs of a towering, castellated iceberg in the high latitiudes of the Southern Ocean, can be found here: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9t2bt_retour-sur-le-voyage-de-damien_travel

In these days of corporate sponsorships, professional crews, and exotic multi-million dollar vessels built to claim the most arcane of ocean passage records, its worth reminding ourselves that the men and women who undertake such unsung, unsponsored, under-funded but perilous voyages in small, spartan yachts for no other reason than the voyage itself – think Roger Taylor in Ming Ming or the Berque twins, Emmanuel and Maximilien, in their tiny, home-built Micromegas – still have more capacity to capture our increasingly meagre imaginations than the flashiest, fastest, highest profile, round-the-world racer.

'Precious', a Sam Rabl Picaroon for sale in San Diego

Illustration by Irwin Schuster, courtesy Annie Holmes

Precious racing circa 1995

Precious at the Coronado YC 2005

courtesy Annie Holmes

Precious at a boat show

interior

Aft shot showing boomkin

Precious nuzzling Little Bird, a Rabl Titmouse, Annies newest passion.

all photos courtesy Annie Holmes

Mike Taylor of DIY Wood Boat.com sent me an email about a boat for sale by Annie Holmes in San Diego. Annie is the author of 'Skiff Song', which looks to be an interesting saga about the search into the history of a fifty odd year old small wooden boat which led to some unexpected results ( see below). Precious is a Sam Rabl Picaroon and appears to be absolutely gorgeous. Weston Farmer said she was “A delight to the eyes of every sailorman,” and the designer say's she's "the same boat in which Hank Hemingway had his great adventure in the Gulf of Mexico".

Here are some particulars:

She is 1" x 3/4" strip-planked mahogany over oak frames, and is water-tight.
(She was coated with epoxy inside and out before launching.)
She is 18.5' on deck and 24' overall.
Her beam is 8'1".
She displaces 4,000 lbs. and draws 3.5'.
She has a Sunbrella 3-piece full boat cover.

Annie says, "She's a departure from the original design in that her builder made her a Marconi cutter rig instead of a gaff sloop with running back stays. That explains the boomkin and bowsprit, which are not on the original drawings. She is much easier to sail single-handed for that reason. I've owned her for 25 years and keep her in tip top shape. I bought her in early 1985 from the builder, who is a consummate craftsman. He still builds gorgeous custom violins and guitars, and he built this boat over a two year span and put her in the water in 1980. Her decks and laserettes are teak. Her full keel has a 700# (or thereabouts) lead insert. She is roomy and lovely inside: varnished louvered cabinets, a working sink, lots of storage, and two six-foot bunks. Light grey upholstery with forest green piping. She has a full compliment of sails, including a spinnaker, 180 lapper, staysail, main and jib. My jib is an old Hobie jib which fits fine. I should get serious about replacing it, as the plastic window is cracked. One of these days I will if someone doesn't buy her first. At her last haul-out I stripped and varnished and over-painted the mast and spreaders, so that won't have to be done for some time. She's as lovely as she looks in the photos.

She is a dream to sail, and I've won lots of racing trophies with her, racing against other wooden boats. She's taken prizes at local wooden boat shows as well. I have used her gently over the years and she always gets double-takes wherever we go.

I'm now in my seventies, and I have another Rabl boat, a mahogany strip planked Titmouse, which is on a trailer and will be cheaper and easier for me to maintain."

(Annie is the author of 'Skiff Song', a memoir about her search into the history of another boat, her 1939 vintage Australian 16-foot racing skiff, that took her on an amazing adventure down under. She has since donated the boat to Australia as a gift from the U.S., as it was the last of it's vintage.)


Please email me if you have interest and I will forward your interest to Annie so that she can contact you.

Bernard Smith 1910-2010

Cover of "The 40 Knot Sailboat"

Bernard Smith
Courtesy Mr. Smith's Amazing Sailboats

Full size trials
Courtesy Mr. Smith's Amazing Sailboats

Courtesy ArtFormFunction

Bernard Smith passed away recently at the sprightly young age of 99. He was a tireless innovator, inventor and experimenter. Dubbed 'sailing's rocket scientist' his designs were instrumental in pushing the sailing envelope. I've written about him before, and his discoveries inspired many, including the builders of the visionary Vestas Sailrocket. His inquiring, restless mind led him to investigate many lines of inquiry, as his wife said, ' he was interested in everything'.

Thanks, Bernard.

There's an extensive bio/eulogy written by Frank Delano for fredericksburg.com here.

Slider's Basecamps for Beachcruisers

Phil Maynard in his stitch & glue melonseed and Mike Wick in his Bolger Gypsy heading South.

The beach at Assateague, 1/4 mile walk from Green Run.

You can see that my Gypsy has low freeboard and was prone to swamping when she was
an open boat. She was planned for rowing more than sailing.. I built the red sunbrella
deck in this picture to make her more seaworthy. It didn't help. The next winter I built
a plywood and epoxy deck that worked well.

Green Run. The campsite is up among the trees. The building is a boarded up hunting
shack, abandoned before 1965 when the Island became a national park.

John's sprit-rigged melonseed with Home Depot high-tech daggerboard clamp. They are
perfect for shallow water sailing.


all photos courtesy John Guideras

See details of the Assateague trip pictured here in the article by Mike Wick below.

Ray Aldridge has a weblog named for his self built and designed beachcat Slider. It contains lots of info on the boat and beachcruising in general. He's building a database for beachcruisers worldwide, a guide to areas accesible to shallow drft small cruisers. What a great idea! But he needs your help. Read his explanation below and then enjoy the article submitted by my fellow Delaware River TSCA member Mike Wick about a trip he and two friends, John Guideras and Phil Maynard took to Assateague Island, in two Melonseeds and a Bolger Gypsy.

Base Camps

Big Lagoon State Park, Florida

Dog Island, Florida

Apalachicola, Florida

Davis Bayou, Ocean Springs, MS

Driftwood Campground, Cedar Island, NC

Fort Walton Beach and Destin, Florida

An invitation: help me compile a free base camp database, available to all small boaters on the worldwide web.

For a while now I’ve been thinking about how to make Slider’s site more useful.

I’d like to offer information of interest to small boat sailors in general, not just to those who might be interested in a boat like Slider.

One idea came to me in part because I’ve been the book reviewer for Living Aboard magazine for a number of years. Many cruising guides have passed over my desk, as a consequence, and I’ve noticed that there are very few such guides that would be particularly useful for small sailboats. There are cruising guides for deep draft cruising boats, full of dire warnings about “reported shoaling to 3 feet” and other remarks irrelevant to small boat sailors. And then there are the guides meant for kayakers, who require nothing but on-foot access to the shore, and who must be very cautious about crossing open water.

In between, there seems to be relatively less coverage of cruising from the viewpoint of small open boat sailors, despite the fact that this kind of sailing seems to be growing in popularity. And these folks have a unique perspective as to what makes for a good cruise. Even the pattern of movement is usually different with a small boat cruise. While a live-aboard cruiser tends to pass through an area from end to end, the small boat cruiser is more likely to establish a base camp and sail forth each day in a new direction, until the area is explored for a few miles all around. It struck me that small boat cruising guides might best be organized by base camps rather than cruising routes, because spending one’s nights inside a big tent on land in relative comfort, and sailing every day is one of the most popular and luxurious ways to go cruising in a small boat. Why not, I thought, try to encourage the collection of some good base camp descriptions around the country or around the world– short articles that describe one person’s idea of a perfect base camp– its amenities and costs, a description of the place and of the surrounding sights viewable from a small boat.

When I was out cruising the coast for a few days, back in September, Slider and I visited an anchorage near Big Lagoon State Park, not far from the Florida-Alabama state line. I’d visited this well-situated park before, and the other day went back for a look. I measured the ramp, took a few pictures, and generally enjoyed the park. It seemed to me that the park had everything you’d want in a base camp, so I wrote the first piece and published it on Slider’s blog:

Big Lagoon State Park

I’m hoping my fellow small boat sailors will help me put together a selection of potential basecamps from everywhere there’s good sailing for little boats. I have a list of suggestions for the kind of information I think most of us would like to see, but I’m sure I’m forgetting lots of stuff, and I hope you’ll help me out with your suggestions and criticisms.

I think each base camp article should start with a bulleted list of basic info:

• Name of base camp: If nameless, pick a name! Link to pertinent website if possible.
• Brief description: One sentence summation of the base camp’s main appeal for small boat sailors.
• Location: Country, state or province, nearby towns, mailing address, and a link to a map showing the route and a link to an online NOAA chart, if available.
• Weather and climate: Here a link to a local weather page is nice. I like Weather Underground.
• Fees: Entry fees, ramp fees, camping fees, etc.
• Ramp: Depth, capacity, condition, parking, etc.
• Amenities: a list of resources in or near the camp: shady campsites, phones, ice, grocery stores, convenience stores, service stations, ice, restaurants, motels, libraries, marine chandleries, amusement parks, other attractions within driving distance, and so on.

As many useful links as possible should appear in this first small section. I’ve undoubtedly missed some good ideas, and I’d be grateful for any suggestions for adding useful data to this list.

The rest of the piece is up to you. Whatever way you choose to get across the pleasures of visiting one of your favorite base camps is fine by me. You can develop the attractions of the site in any pattern you prefer– put it in the form of a narrative about a trip, actual or ideal, or use any other approach you think will work. I may make suggestions and edit your material a little, but I’ll ask you to approve any substantial changes before I publish the piece. I think we should keep these descriptions to under 2000 words, if possible.

Photos are very helpful, I believe, but they need not be of professional quality to greatly improve any story. Include anywhere from 3 to 8 shots, preferably sized down for the web, but I can easily do this. A shot of the ramp, a shot of an adjacent beach or dock, a couple other nice views will lend a lot of punch to the story, and give your readers a better understanding of the cruising area the base camp serves. I like pictures of living things and boats, so the best shot of all would be a beachcruiser parked on a beautiful beach, with a sailor or two busy having fun.

Base camps need not be official campgrounds of some sort. For example, I plan to write a base camp piece on a great little cruising area in my own back yard. The gateway to the base camp is a city park here in Fort Walton Beach that has nice ramps, just a couple of miles east of a string of little spoil islands in Santa Rosa Sound, created when the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway was first dredged. These islands are popular on the weekends with locals, who set up tents and spend the day swimming, sunbathing, and fishing. During the week, they are largely deserted, and can provide an almost wilderness experience just a few minutes sailing from a small but lively city, with every imaginable amenity, and across a wide shallow lagoon from the Air Force-owned portion of Santa Rosa Island, which is almost pristine.

Another possible idea, for those who like a little luxury with their cruising, is to find an inn or bed-and-breakfast in a cruising area, and make that the base camp.

Or you may know of an island with organized camping facilities that can only be reached by campers with a boat or a ferry ticket. For example, right now you can camp at Ft. Pickens on the western tip of Santa Rosa Island, if you have a boat or are willing to walk or bicycle in over a road that was destroyed by the recent hurricanes. Eventually the road will be rebuilt, but for now Ft. PIckens provides a unique kind of base camp. There are many other wonderful island base camps to be found, from Lake George in New York, to the Maine Island Trail to the Apostle Islands of Lake Superior.

I really hope folks will help me to start this moving. I believe it would be of interest to microcruisers of all sorts, particularly for those of us who sail small open boats. I can only do a limited number of these articles by myself. But I’m certain that if the small boat cruising community gets behind the idea, it will become a wonderful resource for all of us.

Contact me with your ideas!

Here's Ray's formula applied to Mike Wick's adventure sail to Assateague:

Assateague Island National Seashore

Name: Assateague Island National Seashore.

Location: Ten miles South of Ocean City, Maryland. Nearest small town, Berlin, Maryland.

Weather: See Ocean City, Maryland.

Chart

Fees: $10 entrance fee. Car Camping rates $20 per day. Remote campsites $5 per week. Significant reduction if over 62.

Ramp: Shallow sandy beach at Old Ferry Landing is fine for small boats. Larger boats at either South Point launch ramp, 1 mile west or Verrazano Bridge Ramp, off Route 611 at Sinepuxent Bay.

Routes: Four remote campsites on Assateague Island, 2,5,10,12 miles South of National campground. Two day, 30 mile passage South to Chincoteague Island. Eight mile passage north to Isle of Wight Bay inside Ocean City.

In brief: The Eastern Shore is on the primary flyover for birds migrating up the East Coast. There are extensive shallow water passages on the bayside of Assateague Island with clamming and mussel harvesting opportunities.Can be hot and buggy in the summer. Best seasons are late in the fall and early in the spring. Mosquitoes are worst after multi-day rains.

Many thanks to Mike Wick, who contributed this information, and the story that follows. Looking at the chart, this appears to be a paradise for small shallow draft boats.

There were three of us in three boats, three cars, three trailers. We had decided that we would sail the length of Assateague Island, campcruising along the way.The latest weather report showed that the wind would be mostly out of the North for the next few days, so we decided that we would sail South from Assateague Federal Seashore toward Chincoteague Island. I arrived at Old Ferry Landing and launched my Bolger Gypsy, dropped off my trailer near the Ranger Station and drove South to Chincoteague. I found a quiet parking place and cell phoned Phil, who drove straight to Chincoteague and picked me up. He and I drove north in his pickup truck, launched his melonseed and launched John’s melonseed. We left their cars and trailers at the Ranger Station.Thus, we had two cars at the North end of the Passage and one at the south end.

It was about 11 A.M. when we set sail in convoy from Old Ferry Landing in a light northeasterly breeze. We passed the Tingles and the Pine Tree campsites in smooth water with a lee from Assateague Island keeping down the waves. Seldom is the water much more than knee deep if you are outside the Intracoastal Waterway, so there is no anxiety about swamping or capsizing, you can just walk ashore. We rounded the point of the island in the channel between Green Run and the Pirate Islands.At this point, the wind had picked up enough to warrant a reef, but there was less than a mile of windward work to our destination, so we just luffed along toward our destination. By six we had reached our remote campsite at Green Run, ten miles south of the large campground at the Federal Seashore.

Green Run is a nice shady campground with picnic tables, fireplaces for each group, and a portapotty. but there is no potable water, so we had each brought three gallons with us for drinking and cooking. A quick meal and bed in our tents; we were too tired for a campfire.It is a short walk to the ocean with a beautiful beach, and we had a quick swim before bed.

The next day was sunny and light air, just enough wind to ghost along. That section of the passage is an intricate maze of quite shallow channels inside swampy islands. We beat up a river to the most distant campsite on the Island, Pope Bay wehre wwe stopped for lunch and walked over to the ocean beach. Here we realized that, if we kept sailing, we could finish our passage that night, so we rushed out to Chincoteague Bay and sailed across the Maryland/Virginia border. It was a lovely plain sail beat in a brisk Southeast breeze of maybe 12 miles an hour wind. We passed to the East of Wildcat Marsh, on the northern tip of Chincoteague, tacking in close company to the haulout at Quip Hole Road, just inside Morris Island.

Then came the strenuous part. I walked into Chincoteague to retrieve my car, then I drove the others to Assateague for their cars. It was dark by the time we got our cars and trailers back to the ramp, but we were practiced at packing boats on trailers, so it went smoothly even in the dark. What could have been a problem, we decide to drive straight home. We probably should have stopped at a nearby motel, but we made it safe home about eleven, even though we were tired and bug bit. We had made a nice thirty mile, two day passage in company and had seen parts of the refuge that were new territory for us.

Posted in: Base Camps for Beachcruisers, Cruising, Sailing.
Tagged: Base Camps · beachcruising · Cruising · Maryland · national seashore · Virginia

Man on the River, by fair means

Giacomo and the Ness Yawl somewhere along the Po.

Roland Poltock in the Art Waiting Room at Lago

Roland at his work table

Shaping planks

The molds set up in the Art Waiting Room

Silvio wields a Japanese saw



all photos courtesy Giacomo Stefano

Giacomo De Stefano was introduced to me by Michael Bogoger of DoryMan. Michael asked if I'd be interested in writing about Giacomo (as he has) and helping him along in his mission. My answer was an enthusiastic yes, but then other things...so, finally, here it is. My apologies to Giacomo for the delay.
Giacomo is planning a voyage from London to Istanbul via an Oughtred Ness yawl, sailing and rowing. His goal is to raise awareness on several fronts, but most notably clean water, low impact transportation and the destructive effects of global tourism. He made a similiar voyage last year, also in a Ness yawl, down the river Po. I've had a little correspondence w/Giacomo and I do believe he possesses the passion, intensity and poetry of a true visionary. In his own words:

"According to WTO data published in the report, Changes in Leisure Time: The Impact of Tourism*, since 1998 tourism has become the largest industry on the planet. Nothing produces more, consumes more, ejects more and wastes more. Mass tourism, the real monster, develops at a very fast rate. Is there a way ot traveling, experiencing, and eating without eroding environments and cultures? Is there a way to bring a sustainable, local economy to the river sides society? My name is Giacomo De Stefano, and I am a traveler, a man who is looking for
new ways of dealing with our complex reality. I live on a boat in Venice. I row and sail, with little or no money. With less I try do more. I want to row and sail, on a little boat from London to Istanbul. I am not alone. My colleagues and I are a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual group, and I believe we and you can be of service to each other. You can learn more about us on our web site
unaltropo.com. I am, with the help of some good friends, organizing this journey called By Fair
Means, North sea to Black Sea, to help us save two great rivers and demonstrate a way of intelligent tourism."

The photos above represent the current progress toward Giacomo's goal. Shipwright Roland Poltock and his friend Silvio have set up shop in the lobby of Lago, a Venetian design firm. The lobby is synonymous with an art gallery aptly named The Art Waiting Room where the firm brings in artists to show pieces related to waiting. "Art Waiting Room is a container of stimuli to change the experience of waiting in Lago.Inside the waiting room, young artists reinterpret in ever different content to wait. This a project in collaboration with the Foundation March." Or as Nicolo Zago explains on DoryMan's blog: "Of course as you know, our reception area has now become the famous "Art Waiting Room" where we host live installations and performances, but until now we have never seen anything like this." Thus the building of the new Ness yawl becomes a sort of performance piece. In point of fact I would label the whole of Giacomo's oeuvre as performance art, a very broad work of art encompassing not only the aesthetic but also the social, the political, the environmental and the spiritual realms. Indeed, I believe it is a gesamtkunstwerk. (Please, if you don't know what this means, link to the definition!)

Giacomo seems very open, gracious and generous, he's invited Michael and I , and I'm sure many others, to participate in his voyage, and contribute by whatever means available, be it physical, logistical, media related or financial. Find out more at his website Un altro Po.

I asked Giacomo why an Iain Oughtred boat as opposed to a more local craft from his home area. His response is enlightening:

"I decided to use a Ness Yawl because is a very versatile boat. I was so lucky that Roland Poltock lent me the boat last year and I felt in love so much with it. Maybe I am a little bit close to my Norwegian origin, dating 1079, in Sicily or maybe I love too much Iain Oughtred..I miss the Venetian boats but they would not be good to sail along the Black Sea coast, and they are too heavy. Only the MAscareta could be good , and light but not seaworthy enough.
The other Italian boat are too heavy, like all the gozzi, to be rowed upstream decently, or hauled by myself in case of danger.

After all the planet is small and I am a citizen of this small planet. We decided to use names. So Norway is here too, in my crazy mind, and Scotland too.

This is part of a circle. About rivers and seas.

DON’T LEAVE THIS PLANET TO THE STUPID. PLEASE"

I dare not add anything more.

Except this: Man on the River's website is now active,

And you can watch the daily progress of the build here.