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Review
By Gavin Atkin
[email protected]
If you're relatively new to
the idea of building your own boat, you've probably wondered about all the
fuss surrounding Philip C Bolger. Why is this particular boat designer a
living cult?
Partly, it's because he has designed an astonishingly wide and innovative
range of boats, a significant number of which are intended to appeal to
home builders anxious about their lack of ability.
Partly, it's because Bolger is canny: he doesn't just design boats, he
also writes books of cartoons and descriptions of his designs that reveal
some of his thinking while designing. These tantalise the reader with
fascinating little items of boat design understanding. The information
isn't organised - it comes at you a morsel here, a morsel there - but boat
nuts with a particular kind of enquiring mind are literally forced to race
from chapter to chapter to find out what they can glean next. More than
once I have been known to read a rare and precious copy of one of Bolger's
books far into the night when I should have been sleeping, and paid dearly
for my enthusiasm the following day. I know I'm not alone.
Partly, also, it's because of Bolger's endearing habit of including his
often interesting failures as well as his successes. There's no doubt he
does have failures - no designer as prolific as Bolger could get by
without them - but few would be as unstintingly honest as the Sage of
Gloucester, and most would at least sweep the offending item under the
carpet.
BWAOM, which covers 75 designs, all told, is typical of Bolger's books of
design cartoons - but because it's the only one still in print, it
attracts the lion's share of the discussion these days.
Perhaps more than any other book of Bolger's it's the one that introduced
the 'square boats' - it includes the AS29 advanced sharpie, the Loose
Moose II, the Martha Jane water-ballasted sharpie and the Micro ballast
keeled sharpie. It's sometimes said that when designing boats a mass of
conflicting requirements besets the designer and that the most functional
solution may be aesthetically shocking, and that's how many people would
describe the rather plain square boats. But it would not be fair to focus
too much on their plainness: these boats are an example of designing for a
particular end, and though some are quite large they are all simple enough
to appeal to almost any builder, cack-handed or otherwise. In general they
seem to work pretty well and the Micro in particular has a great
reputation as a practical little boat, even though some have complained
about it's performance to windward. The Micro even manages to be cute if
not conventionally beautiful, at least to my eye.
As I've implied, there's more to BWAOM than boats that often resemble
floating concrete machine gun emplacements. There are also quite a few
more conventional craft, among which the Bobcat (12ft plywood catboat),
the Presto Cruiser (a kind of round-bilged relative of the sharpie
designed for somewhat sheltered waters) and the Chebacco series of open
cruising boats are probably the best known. To that list I should add that
there's also the very attractive Blueberry pocket cruiser, the Plywood 12
1/2 (a soft-chine development of the Herreshoff 12 1/2) and an updated
Seabird. Entertainingly, there are also a Viking Longship, a pocket
cruiser dressed up as a pirate ship and a Dutch schuyt. And I haven't even
mentioned the power craft, including the Sneakeasy 26ft outboard sharpie,
and various plywood and steel tugs and trawlers.
There's a hidden bonus in all this. Some of the small craft here could
probably be built straight off the page with the help of a magnifying
glass or an enlarging photocopier. This is clearly the hard way to build
these boats, and it's probably not the way to do it if you're a tyro.
Still, I reckon that there's enough detail here to build a Cartopper (11ft
6in ) sailing and rowing skiff, the distinctive and useful 9ft 9in Auray
punt (which has a form that I think merits further development by
somebody), and a couple of little tenders.
There's also enough readable information to build the famous Brick, a real
square boat dinghy, if ever there was one. You know by now, that I'm a
Bolger fan. I have good reason to thank him for providing me with reasons
and inspiration in my life as a boat nut. In many ways, BWAOM has helped
to change my life, or at least introduced me to a wonderful new obsession,
but even I have my limits – and nothing on earth could persuade me to
contemplate building the Brick. For me, it's pig-ugly, not least in the
way if makes no concession to the way water likes to flow around a moving
object in its midst. Eeeeuuugghgh... I wonder if he designed it for a bet
– or a joke?
Reading this book may help to identify your limits too! But don't let that
stop you from buying this book. If you’re thinking even slightly of
building your own small craft, it’s a must.
Useful Web references
Bolger boat projects and commentary
https://www.ace.net.au/schooner/
Bolger designs
https://www.instantboats.com/
Bolger discussion groups, links, where to buy Bolger designs etc
https://groups.yahoo.com/group/bolger/ |
