Soundings

one of a kind

I’ve owned only production boats. Not one has been the most interesting design in any anchorage, but each has firmly met the needs of my family. Even so, there are days when we catch sight of a really special custom boat from our cockpit. Our crew will rise from our seats to get the best view of a beautiful boat. I still remember how Aphrodite (shown above) looked when we saw her in Rhode Island’s Watch Hill Harbor a few years ago. The 74-foot commuter yacht that was built by The Purdy Company in 1937 and restored at Brooklin Boat Yard in 2003 turned every head that day. It was a treat for me to interview the president of Brooklin Boat Yard in Maine for this issue (page 54). Steve White…

mailboat

WOMEN ON THE WATER I’ve been a boater and regular reader of Soundings for years. Caps off to Pim Van Hemmen for successfully running common threads through several great articles over a few recent issues. Take, for instance, “The River That Flows Both Ways” (October 2020) and “Salt Runs in Their Veins (November 2020). Both features are true to the storytelling legacy of Soundings, and they succeed in combining references to great boats, scenic destinations and women on the water. Van Hemmen’s stories are particularly good as they focus on young professional women mariners who own and operate their vessels. It’s well knit up and I can’t wait for the next segment. JACK VAYDAVIA EMAIL PERFECT POCKET CRUISER I had to write to let you know how much I enjoyed your story on the…

a tug that works it

Many boat owners have a healthy obsession with commercial craft and fantasize about the possibility of owning one at some point. Sam Devlin, on the other hand, designed and built his own personal working tug. Devlin is principal at Devlin Designing Boatbuilders in Olympia, Washington, a leader in the stitch-and-glue method of boat fabrication. He had dreamed of owning a boat like this one for decades. His fascination with commercial craft flourished when he was an undergraduate working on tugs in Alaska during the summers. That exposure, he says, triggered “a wellspring of design inspiration.” Devlin put inspiration to paper back in 2010, when he drew plans for a real harbor tug, the TugZilla 26. It could be built to proper workboat specifications, but at a compact 26 feet, the boat would…

attention fuel shoppers

As newly elected officials descend on Washington, D.C., marine-industry lobbyists armed with a new set of data are hoping—after years of trying with the Environmental Protection Agency—to get better consumer warning labels about the dangers of ethanol-blended fuels that can wreck marine engines. “It’s been a long time coming,” says Callie Hoyt, director of federal government relations for the National Marine Manufacturers Association. “We knew that the E15 label was pretty inadequate, and we’ve been engaged with the EPA over the years, and for a long time now have been urging them to take steps to do more about this misfueling crisis.” The new data that the NMMA has in hand is from a survey released in early December, done in conjunction with the American Motorcyclist Association and the Outdoor Power Equipment…

tie one on

I learned my knots the hard way as a young crew member on a two-person delivery. The captain asked for a rolling hitch. When he received rolling eyes instead, he reacted by drilling me practically to tears. I was sure he was a sadist, demanding bowlines behind my back and clove hitches on everything in sight. He had me tensioning and loosening lashings with rolling hitches repeatedly for a week. But by the end of the trip, I could reach around the back of a piling and throw in that bowline as easily as tying my shoes. I learned it takes repetition for knot tying to become second nature. This is not a how-to-tie-knots column. Instead, it’s about the value of using the proper knots. Experienced mariners know how important this…

quiz

1. DECK GENERAL: A “sheepshank” is used to: A. Keep a line from fraying B. Join lines of unequal sizes C. Stop off a line D. Shorten a line 2. DECK GENERAL: A long splice in a line: A. Is used in running rigging B. Doubles the size of the line C. Is only used on fiber rope D. Is very weak 3. DECK GENERAL: A monkey fist is found on a: A. Heaving line B. Lead line C. Manrope D. Mooring line 4. DECK GENERAL: Instead of whipping an end of a line, a temporary means of preventing the line from unraveling is to tie a: A. Becket bend B. Blackwall hitch C. Figure-eight knot D. Square knot 5. DECK GENERAL: On a small boat, which knot is best suited for attaching a line to the ring of an anchor: A. Clove hitch B. Figure-eight knot C. Fisherman’s bend D. Overhand knot ANSWERS: 1.…