The scow sailing
The scow rigged
The bare hull
The scow perched on top of my tiny Daewoo Matiz, just to prove it can be done
THE SCOW
The scow was designed and built to suit a holiday home that our family visit each year in Poole Harbour in southern England. My niece and nephew are 7 and 5 years old and it seemed a shame to be in such a 'Swallows and Amazons' environment without a sailing dinghy, so the scow's full name is 'The Rosie and Thomas Goathorn Scow'! On the left is Rosie's drawing of the scow.
The scow was designed both to be easy to build and to suit the extensive shallow water and mud flats of Poole Harbour. It also was designed to enable it to be rowed, motored or sailed. So it has a flat (transversely) bottom with several rubbing strakes, leeboards (which allow it to 'bottom bump') and a simple balanced lug rig.
The sister company of the one I work for produces an Olympic racing dinghy, the 49er, and they had some damaged carbon fibre mast tips - with the damaged ends cut off, they made excellent spars for the scow!
I will progressively add some more about this boat, but in the meantime here are some photos and drawings (each photo links to a bigger copy):
|
The scow sailing |
The scow rigged |
The bare hull |
The scow perched on top of my tiny Daewoo Matiz, just to prove it can be done |
| Sail Plan | Profile and Plan Drawing | ||
Design and Construction
If you are interested in the scow, either to obtain its design or to see how it is constructed, go here for more drawings, photos and description.
User's Manual
As so many people will use the scow, I wrote a User's Manual which might be of interest to some people and can be downloaded here.
|
Camping Scow |
Someone is interested in using the scow as a camping boat and an outline design is shown here. |
|
Punt Scow |
Someone is interested in using the scow as just a rowing or punting boat and an outline design is shown here. |
|
Fishing Scow |
Someone is interested in using the scow as a lake fishing boat (with his dog, who needs a sunshade) and an outline design drawing is shown here. |
|
Long Scow |
Someone is interested in a longer scow with some coastal capability, so here is a lengthened scow - now with a pointed bow, so not really a scow anymore. |
|
Big Scow |
Someone is interested in a bigger scow, so here is a 16ft version with a gunter rig. |
LINKS
If you are interested in boat plans on the Internet, and particularly free ones, here are some links:
| http://home.clara.net/gmatkin/design.htm |
A comprehensive set of links to free boat design resources on the Internet, including this one! UK-based site, though this is not obvious. |
| http://www.friend.ly.net/~dadadata/ |
Craig O'Donnell's cheap boat pages contain several other scows, some distinctly historical! Craig shares my fascination for junk rigs and cheaply-made sails (even if this isn't obvious from the scow's professionally made lug sail!). |
| http://hometown.aol.com/henryclann/Boats/amatureboats.index.htm |
Henry has put together a massive set of links to small wooden boats of all sorts. Hours of fascinating surfing here to stop you from ever getting round to starting your own boat! |
| http://www.selway-fisher.com |
The Selway Fisher site. This is a UK-based supplier of stock designs which I can recommend. In fairness, I should admit that I stole the proportions of my lug sail from their catalogue! I would strongly recommend Paul Fisher's inexpensive book 'A Manual of Small Plywood Boat Construction Techniques', which describes most of the techniques that can be used for home-build projects in very realistic terms. |
| http://www.bateau.com/index.htm |
Mertens-Goosens site, which contains free plans for a 8ft dinghy. |
| http://www.boatbuilding.com/Design/Stock_Plans/ |
The plans page of 'boatbuilding.community' which is a comprehensive, US-based site. |
| http://www.boatbuilding.com/Free_Stuff/Free_Plans/ |
The free plans links page of the above site. |
