Rowing Cruiser

I have always been fascinated with human powered craft of all kinds. Several years ago I became obsessed with the idea of using pedal-power to drive a boat and dove into research and design of a pedal driven propeller drive. About that time Hobie introduced the Mirage Drive for their Adventure kayaks. I abandoned the propeller scheme and set about figuring a way to mount the Mirage Drive, which is designed for a sit-on-top kayak, in my Mill Creek kayak/trimaran. The result was something like a daggerboard trunk that was wide enough to drop the Mirage into. I have used it on quite a few outings and have been delighted with the results.

My Mill Creek 16.5 Kayak Trimaran

Mirage Drive Mounted in the Mill Creek

Lately I find myself thinking more and more about rowing, especially as I'm reading Colin Angus' book Beyond the Horizon and following the development of his and his wife Julie's expedition rowboats. I work out on a Water Rower on the mornings that I don't commute on my bike. It's great exercise. I enjoy rowing on the water too, although I feel like I have a lot to learn about it. I'm not certain, but it seems like I can generate more power rowing than pedaling. The problem is that I have never been entirely comfortable moving forward while facing backward.

One of the things I have found most frustrating in my love affair with small sailboats has been my dependence on the fickle winds of the desert and mountain lakes where I sail. I watch beautiful breezy days come and go and then when I finally get out on the water only to be disappointed by dead air. I have used outboard motors but I consider the noise, exhaust and gasoline fumes antithetical to an otherwise serene experience. And I don't really trust outboards. They're like the prospector's mule in the old westerns, they always seem to falter just when you need them most. Maybe it's time to consider shifting the energy source from wind and gasoline and back to muscle power.

I recently encountered three boats on the internet that have really fueled my imagination. They are all streamlined human powered cruising craft with small sleeping compartments. Two of them, Colin Angus' Rowing Yacht and Wayland Marine's Merry Expedition are sliding seat rowboats. The other is Paul Gartside's pedal-powered Blue Skies, a pedal/propeller craft which has also been adapted for the Mirage Drive. There are several things that I find exciting about these boats. First is that they are muscle powered. Second is that they are designed for extreme conditions, unsinkable and generally self-bailing, at least in the case of the two rowboats. Third is that they provide an ideal cruising feature - the ability to anchor out or drop a parachute anchor and sleep in a secure weatherproof cabin. All in a lightweight , maneuverable package designed to be handled easily by one man.

Angus Rowboats' Rowing Yacht

Scale model of Wayland Marine's Merry Expedition

Paul Gartside's Blue Skies modified for Mirage Drive pedaling

While studying these three boats I had a sort of epiphany. It would be very easy to add a Mirage Drive trunk to either the Angus or Wayland boat, which would allow for sliding seat rowing for powering across open water and forward-looking pedaling for shoreline exploration. In addition, you could add a small, collapsible sailing rig for running and reaching when the conditions are just right. The more I thought about it the more the concept grew on me. This was obviously a direction that would be worth exploring. But there would be a significant time and money investment before I could be certain whether it was the solution I was looking for? Should I build a simpler boat as a test bed? It would have to accommodate sliding seat rowing, pedaling, sleeping and limited sailing.

The obvious answer was right under my nose, sitting there on my boat trailer: the XCR. Since the amas are out of action for the time being anyway, I could add a sliding seat rig and Mirage trunk to the main hull, which was designed to serve as a stand-alone expedition canoe anyway. I already own a Mirage Drive and a beautiful pair of 9-foot carbon fiber hatchet oars. There's plenty of room to stretch out and sleep and I could easily adapt the tiny balanced lug sailing rig from the inflatable trimaran I designed for the Texas 200. The sail would be quickly collapsible and easily stowable. It would be an accessory, as this would be primarily a rowboat with optional sailing as occasional auxiliary power.

Sailing my inflatable Fugu in Texas

My first concern was whether the XCR hull would be stable enough for sliding seat rowing. I needed to have an answer to that question before I rolled up my sleeves and went to work, which meant I needed to know before the weather turned too cold to risk a capsize. I kludged together a rowing rig from bits and pieces laying around the shop and took it out for a test row on Utah Lake. I was surprised and relieved at how stable the hull felt under oar while sitting on a seat that was about 8 inches above the floor. And it moved fast. I wish I knew how fast, but I forgot to bring along my GPS. I would say the XCR hull is ideal for rowing except that it felt like it would benefit from a skeg. I think next time I will try it with a fixed rudder. Or maybe I will add a small skeg.

This will be an ideal winter project. By spring I will be ready to test the row/pedal/sail/sleep concept in a boat with the general parameters of the boats that I have been ogling online for the past few weeks.

XCR first rowing test on Utah Lake

Cracks!

After the winter of 2009 I noticed that cracks had begun to appear along the edges of the XCR's ama decks. I assumed that it must have been the result of stress from letting the kids ride on the amas at the last Lake Powell Messabout.

I wasn't sure I could access the interiors well enough to repair the cracks, but once I removed the inspection ports I found that I could reach in far enough inside to trace the cracks with my fingers. Since the cracks were limited to the region between the bulkheads, I was able to repair them with fiberglass tape and fillets applied from the inside.

Then, over the winter of 2010 the cracks returned with a vengeance. This time they showed up in various places along all of the ama panel seams, including spots that would only be accessible by completely removing the decks. Over time they continued to get worse until I had ugly gashes running along the decks and chines. I was completely stymied as was Chris who suggested that it might have something to do with expansion and contraction from seasonal hot and cold. I can see how this might cause some cracking but I don't think it explains why the cracks continued to grow. I'm wondering now if it could be some kind of failure of the epoxy.

This looks like a serious repair job made worse by the fact that I don't know what caused the cracks in the first place. Eventually I will repair the amas. But in the meantime I am hatching a new scheme to take the XCR a radical new direction.

A Salty Sojourn, or Terror in the Tufa

I'm almost two years late writing about this trip. I don't know how that happens - it just sometimes does.

It was late Autumn of 2009 and I thought I was finished with sailing for the year but November rolled around with unexpectedly warm weather so I decided to sneak away for a weekend solo cruise on the Great Salt Lake.

Ten years before I had visited tiny Hat Island, about 2o miles across open water nearer the far, uninhabited western side of the lake. It was one of the strangest experiences of my life. I did not camp there, but anchored out somewhere off the northern tip of Stansbury Island. I have longed to return to Hat Island ever since. When I learned that the island is a bird sanctuary I assumed that it may not be wise to try to camp there, but I assumed the quarter-mile long sandbar that extends south of the island should be an acceptable place to pitch a tent for the night.

The loneliest marina on earth

When I arrived at the Antelope Island marina I was amazed to see that the water level had dropped to so low that all of the boats had been taken out. It was a hauntingly lonely site as I launched and set out. Eerie quiet. No wind to speak of, so I cranked up the Honda. I wasn't a half mile out before there was a loud thunk and my temporary motor mount (oops, never got around to the permanent one) split in half. The motor had hopped violently when it hit some unseen underwater obstacle - almost certainly one of the dreaded tufa reefs that wouldn't normally be this near the surface when the water level was higher. The motor was saved by a safety line but I was left with the dilemma of no motor with half a mile behind me and another 19 or so to go. I decided to lash the motor in place and forge ahead.

Kludged motor mount - a wing and a prayer

After an hour or so of jury rigged motoring, tiny Hat Island peeked above the horizon. I remember that place as a bizarre jumble of black basalt, covered with bird skeletons and surmounted at its highest point by a small weather station that looked more than anything like a space probe crashed on some forbidding alien world.

Hat Island looms off the starboard ama

Having never been to Carrington Island, which is just a couple of miles south of Hat, I decided to go there first, take a look around and then head back to the Hat Island sandbar to spend the night.

The XCR beached on lonely Carrington Island

Carrington Island was once an airforce bombing range and its already jagged and foreboding terrain is pockmarked by craters and chunks of shrapnel. I set out to climb to the highest point but after an hour or so I realized I was burning precious daylight and turned around at the second highest peak. From here I had a startling and disappointing view of Hat Island. It was no longer an island. There was a stretch of dry lake bed connecting it to the northern extremity of Carrington Island. So much for my fantasy of sleeping in total isolation surrounded by water.

Bomb shrapnel on Carrington Island

Hat "Island" is the small dark peak at the far side of the flat

Coming into Carrington Island I had been forced to feel my way through unseen tufa reefs which presented nerve jarring obstacles to my poor dangling motor, forcing me to make a wide arc into deeper water. I now followed the same arc back toward Hat Island but as I got closer to the island the tufa became harder and harder to avoid. The last half mile became a maze of reefs that poked up out of the water in turtle back humps and walls. It eventually became shallow enough that I stepped out of the boat and began leading it by the bow line, weaving in and out of pockets of open-ish water.

You can't get there from here

Eventually I found myself standing there, looking at the island only a quarter of a mile or so away and finally accepting that there was just no way I would be able to reach shore. I might be able to carry my camping gear the rest of the way but I could imagine what would happen to the boat if I left it here on these reefs and surf started rolling in.

Stranded amid the tufa

When you're alone in a strange place there is a certain gravity that comes with the lowering of the sun. Things get strange and foreboding. Standing there in the tufa maze I remembered a story that my surveyor brother-in-law Jim had told me. He had been doing survey work on the causeway that bisects the Great Salt Lake. His team had been using a row of railroad boxcars as a landmark. One night a storm had rolled through. The next morning was clear but when they returned and looked for the boxcars they were nowhere in sight. The waves had taken them. These were full sized steel railroad boxcars filled with rock and the dense salt-laden waves of the Great Salt Lake had just swept them away overnight. Imagine what those waves would do to my little dragonfly of a boat. These thoughts and the vanishing sun made my neck hairs stand on end a bit. It is easy to see how trepidation could turn to terror if something did go seriously wrong out here in the weirdness. After some further head scratching and watching the sun creep ever closer to the horizon I finally realized I was out of options to reach the island and decided to pack it in and head back to Carrington for the night. No wind and not enough water for the motor. I was able walk the boat back out through the maze to open water, gave a shove and hopped aboard. I reached for the paddle but couldn't find it. Now what? I finally spotted the paddle floating about a hundred feet away. I'm trying to remember how I recovered it but to be honest I don't have the slightest idea. One way or another I did recover it and began the trek back to Carrington Island. The light was quickly growing magical and the western slope of Antelope Island off to the east seemed mystical and unreal. The sun set with a deeper crimson than I remember ever seeing. Red sky at night.

Antelope Island in the last gleam of the gloaming

Hellfire and primordial soup

I spent a surprisingly warm night on Carrington Island. This was November in Utah, after all. I started packing up just before dawn. A fresh wind began to blow. Soon the wind was strong and the sails were whipping on the beached XCR. Strange how it came up so fast out of nowhere. I thought about the boxcars again. The water was still flat but covered with a fury of tiny ripples. I tied in a deep reef before I cast off. Once on the water the waves began to build. I was double reefed and doing 8.5 mph by the GPS, but very comfortable. The sun rose on another beautiful day, even more so than yesterday because this sunrise brought the wind with it.

Wind begins to whip the sails

The sudden wind manifests itself in fierce ripples

The ride home was the best sailing ever and the breeze carried me almost to the marina before it faded and died. Most of the way I was double-reefed and doing 8 plus MPH. Back home I was amazed at how pruned my hands still were after two days in the uber-salty water.

Islands, mountains and dawn chop

The lake is rising again now. I don't know when, but I still plan to spend that magical night on the lone sandy beach of Hat Island.

Osmosis in action

Red Rock Rendezvous - Lake Powell 2009

Every year around the end of September or beginning of October, depending on the phase of the moon, we join a gang of fellow boating misfits on the shores of spectacular Lake Powell on the Utah/Arizona border for the annual Lake Powell Messabout. Those who can wrangle enough time away from work and commitments set sail at the end of the messabout for a week or so of cruising, an event known as the Kokopelli Cruise. They are commonly known as the Kokonauts. This year the messabout was held for the first time near the Hite ramp, at the far north on the lake, rather than the usual spot at Stanton Creek on Bullfrog Basin. We weren't able to join the cruise, but we did enjoy a pleasant Friday to Sunday stay at the messabout.

Friends came from all corners of Utah as well as Arizona, California, Texas (including our dear friends Chuck and Sandra Leinweber of Duckworks, along with their son Joe) and even Australia, with boat designer Michael Storer including us in his US tour. Chris Ostlind and his wife Lorrie attended the messabout this year. My regret was that we didn't have a few hours of fresh breeze so they could join me for a sail.

The Hatches in the XCR and friend Michael with his Adventure Island spent Saturday on a day cruise to the canyons to the south of Hite. We started and ended with light breezes, but spent most of the day motoring on glass-smooth water.

Chuck Lienweber performs last minute repairs to a Toto in
preparation for the Kokopelli Cruise

Michael Storer stows his gear with the brutal
finesse of a seasoned cruiser

Martin Adams (left) preps his RebelCat with a hand from
Randy Swedlund

We set sail around 10am with just enough breeze to get our hopes up but we were motoring within an hour. The scenery was magnificent and we were pretty much alone, apart from the occasional motorboat whizzing by in search of bass fishing spots. We started the day with everyone in the cockpit, but the boys soon became bored and ventured out onto the akas and amas.

Michael pedals past soaring sandstone cliffs

Evan and Elliot alternatively sat, dangled and lay on the outriggers. Lily brought up the topic of trampolines and we started brainstorming possible solutions.

This little cove turned out to be an ideal spot...

...for skipping stones...

...swimming...

...and lunch.

Eventually we reached a small bay where the lake splits into four channels: the main channel heading south, Farley and White Canyons to the west and Trachyte Canyon to the east. Trachyte seemed like the most interesting and most likely to be navigated in time to get us back before dark.

Michael enjoys a well-earned tow into Trachyte Canyon

On the way out of Trachyte Canyon (I just looked up Trachyte. I was imagining some kind of fossilized Cambrian monstrosity but t's actually a volcanic rock composed primarily of feldspar), we found another idyllic spot for some shore leave.

On the trip back to Hite we moved close to the western cliff to take advantage of the late-day shade. In places, the massive wall seemed to be composed of the cyclopian stone blocks and pillars of some unremembered ancient civilization. My imagination took me back the the Sinbad movies that were my childhood mainstay. The hair on my neck stood up as I imagined the grimacing face of Harryhausen's Cyclops suddenly appearing over the cliff rim. If such a thing could really be found, this would be the place.
We finished packing up Sunday just as the last of the Kokonauts were launching. The Gales were barely able to get their boat in the water between engine stalls and backfires. One last view as we drove out showed Martin's catamaran catching the beginnings of the afternoon breeze. Little would anyone have guessed that 36 hours from now the cruisers would be battling hurricane winds and dust storms.

Martin sails off in the calm before the storm

Where the Mountains Meet the Sky – Jackson Lake 2009

Thanks to Michael Jackson for XCR sailing photos

Setting sail

Jackson Lake is large; about 18 miles end-to-end, and it is amazingly clean and untouched by the world, especially considering that half the world has rolled right past it on their way to Yellowstone National Park. It sits at the base of the spectacular Teton mountain range about midway between Jackson Hole Wyoming and Yellowstone. Apart from the three developed campgrounds on the eastern shore, camping is restricted to a handful of primitive permit-only campsites. It’s the ultimate leave-no-trace environment. You’re even required to pack out human waste. Our goal was to cover as much of the lake as possible in three days, so we had planned a big loop that would start and end at the Colter Bay marina, tour some of the islands, plunge deep into the farthest reaches of Moran Bay, and explore the entire remote western shore. Friend and colleague Michael Jackson and I had been planning this trip even before he was a boat owner. Lily decided to join us since the boys were out of the picture for three days of pulling handcarts along the pioneer trail.

Dwarfed by majestic Moran

Michael under pedal power

We had phoned for camping permits months in advance of our three day August sojourn, only to discover that all of the primitive camping permits for the year had been snatched up before the end of February. Undaunted, Michael decided to head out a day early to be on hand when the permit office opened Monday morning, in hopes of jumping a claim. It turned out that he was able to poach reservations for the two campsites that we were most hoping to visit: Elk Island, roughly in the middle of the lake, and Warm Springs in the far north.

Lily and I began the five-hour drive at 5:00am Monday morning, to ensure a full day on the lake. Michael had spent the night in the Colter Bay campground and had already snagged our permits by the time we arrived. We hit the water with ideal weather, which is always a relief, since the season is so short at this altitude. It starts in June and ends in August, with a merciless mosquito feeding frenzy right in the middle. We knew all too well how quickly the weather could turn on us. The forecast showed a chance of overnight snow. Lily and I loaded all of our gear and a few of Michael’s things into the XCR. I’m always amazed that a few days of camping requires as much stuff as a few weeks. Michael’s boat is a bright red Hobie Adventure Island. It’s a terrific little boat but a bit short on stowage space, so he makes good use homemade trampolines loaded with drybags.

Motoring away from Elk Island

En route to Moran Bay

With Lily on Moran Bay

The five-mile sail to Elk Island was delightful. We arrived to find a powerboat in our spot, with a half dozen twenty-somethings hoola-hooping (that's right, hoola-hooping) on the beach. Michael said, “You wouldn't happen to know if you have a permit for this campsite, because I’m pretty sure I do.” They graciously surrendered the campsite and eventually moved on. We set up camp and stowed our food in the bear boxes that are provided at all of the primitive campsites. We had decided to spend at least one night on an island so we could be certain of a night’s sleep without being gnawed on by bears. Of course it turned out that Elk Island was where we had our only bear sighting. Lily and I missed it but Michael came back from a hike just in time to catch a black bear rummaging around camp. It sauntered off, leaving no trace except for Michael’s mysteriously vanished bag of snacks.

Dawn brought bright blue skies and a glass-smooth lake. We broke camp and cast off for Moran Bay under motor and pedal. Once we had rounded the island and gained open water the wind picked up and we cruised leisurely into Moran Bay, gliding silently past Little Grassy Island. Looking up at Mount Moran from this vantage point was an almost overwhelming task. The sheer grandeur of it evoked an emotion that I have no name for. Not just awe, or insignificance, although there were large helpings of those, but something akin to terror. A sort of wonderful terror.

We explored the mouth of the river at the deepest point of the bay and then set sail again on the first leg of the long sail north to Warm Springs. After an hour or so of beating out of the bay we pulled up onto a rocky spit and stopped for lunch. Lily sliced tomatoes for sandwiches and Michael heated water for a backpack meal while a couple of deer nudged close, unalarmed and curious. We saw deer everywhere we stopped and they were always more curious than afraid. Each campsite seemed to have a friendly deer assigned to it by the Parks Service. As we ate we surveyed the wilderness shorelines and thanked whoever had been wise enough to make this place a national park, imagining what it might have looked like crowded with condos and casinos.

A change in the weather

Under reefed canvas

The wild West Shore

As we packed up lunch the wind shifted and strengthened. I walked the boat around the spit to take advantage of the new wind direction. Whitecaps were forming, so we set out under reefed sails and hugged the shore for a while. Reefed against gusts, with the waves starting to build around us, we were dry and comfortable. Lily, who is usually not very comfortable on the water and is especially uneasy aboard a heeled monohull, sat in the forward seat of the cockpit, dry and comfortable, reading a book. The wind shifted, gusted, settled and then gusted some more. Clouds came and went. We stayed about a half mile offshore averaging five to eight miles per hour. Michael, our wingman, pulled alongside close enough for conversation. “Does it get any better than this?” he asked. Here we were skimming across the crystal water in the most beautiful place on earth with everything we needed for the good life stowed on our little ships. The XCR was finally doing what it had been designed for. Hugh Horton once compared canoe sailing to a magic carpet ride and that was exactly what we were experiencing.

Here's a couple of minutes of video that Michael shot along the way:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKuN50V5iRg

As we glided along the western shore, with the incomprehensibly gargantuan peaks towering over us, it was almost impossible to stay in the real world. I found myself keeping a subconscious eye out for Bolrogs and Nasgul. Later, as we huddled around the campfire at Warm Springs, the smoldering glow of the long-gone sun added a volcanic menace to the silhouetted mountains. Michael commented about feeling uncomfortable so close to Mordor.

A home at Warm Springs

Warm Springs beach

Packing up for the final leg


A cozy beach

Lily and Michael - and food

The Warm Springs campsite was in a grassy meadow atop a bluff, with a steep hike up from the rocky beach. We arrived under clear skies and calm air, but an abrupt weather change loomed just behind the hills. We never actually found the springs that gave the place it its name so Lily and I found a secluded spot for a shivering bath in the icy water. As the sun set we huddled around the fire, watching lighting flash in the south. It crawled slowly closer until a sudden blast of cold air and rain brought a quick end to dinner and sent us scattering for our tents.

The next morning we bundled up for the long beat back toward Colter Bay. The rain was gone but it was cloudy and cool. The wind was coming from the wrong direction, but it was steady and we had a glorious sail across open water under threatening skies. We made several long tacks across the lake, coming within a stone’s throw of the eastern shore and then falling back into open water. We finally ducked behind a small island for lunch on an idyllic gravel beach. The wind died as we polished off the last of the lunch meat. The last few miles were made under motor and pedal with some ghosting on occasional zephyrs.

It was all smiles as pulled up to the Colter Bay ramp. I said to Michael, “you know what George W. would be saying right now don’t you?”

He nodded, “Mission accomplished!”

Making for home under threatening skies (can you spot the boat? Click to enlarge)