Robert Hoffman has been busy using his BETH sailing canoe that he built over a cold Polish winter.

There are now videos. I have also linked to all my videos on youtube – so you can see many storerboats sailing.

John Goodman who recently spent 5 days semi racing a Goat Island Skiff in the Texas200 event got back to me with some observations and even some pictures of aspects of the boat and the sailing.

I have responded with suggestions to make some further improvements. Between John and me there are some useful tips about setting up a boat for more speed.

However the standard setup of the Goat is fine for most – it is still pretty quick in standard form.

There is advice for both lug and sprit traditional rigs here.

This talk is the first hour of my exposition on boat building and design. There are two more parts to come. This covers some of the background and design issues. The second is more on the building side and the last is a bit more about why the Australian (and New Zealand) wooden boat tradition is different from the Northern Hemisphere.

You can stream the talks over your internet connection or download them as a podcast.

From Clinton Chase’s blog clintchaseboatbuilder.blogspot.com

On November 1st I was pleased and honored to introduce Michael Storer, an Australian Boat Designer reputed for his simple, elegant, and approachable boats, to a group of 21 members from the wooden boat community in Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Some knew of Storer’s work, others have built his boats, and many knew him as an important name and wanted to learn more about the man and his message.

Invitation to a Talk by Boat Designer Michael Storer

At Clint Chase Boatbuilder, 25 Deblois Street, Portland, Maine
Sunday Nov 1st @ 11am-1pm, Bring Boats and Questions
After some food and chat, Michael will talk to us about making our boats better…

Ok … lug vs sprit We finally had two PDRacers with either rig option on the same stretch of water. The event was the Goolwa Wooden Boat Festival. The Sprit sail design and making method is in the plan for the PDRacer (a whole $20 for 90 pages – really a course on modern boatbuilding) [...]

Howdy, Jan in Denmark found something interesting. Hi everyone After reading this forum for a couple of days, I realised I needed to register, fast. Lots of fantastic advice here, both from Boatmik and the rest of you. I am impressed. A few words about me:I have dubbed myself “the world’s slowest boatbuilder”. I have [...]

Norm is putting together a BETH Sailing Canoe and documenting it on the WoodenBoat forum. He is going like a rocket, it is possible to drop in every day and see some big changes. He has departed a bit from the plan in both building method and detail. I’d suggest that most people who build [...]

There has been a fantastic discussion about some of the racing possibilities of balance lug rigs on my forum I have learned a huge amount from sailing my BETH sailing canoe and the Goat Island Skiffs over the years, but recently ran into Brian who uses a lug rig for racing traditional British boats. So [...]

From Chad, Launched my GIS, Sailormade, tonight after work. Just had enough daylight left as you can see! Boat was very light and responsive. I rowed out away from the jetty but drifted back towards it as I set the sail due to the current. I had not lowered the rudder and by the time [...]

Just got an email from Dan Taylor in Washington State, USA. He is the first to provide pics of the OZ PDR with the lug rig option. The sail looks very nice indeed and the light wind and a perfect sunny day were the other necessary ingredients. Here are his email and the pictures – [...]

The OZ hollow mast is the bee’s knees – the nicest mast we can come up with at this stage. A simple long box with the faces made of 4 planks 12mm (1/2″) thick with a taper. Easy enough to build about 35% to 40% lighter than a solid mast. Making the mast out of [...]

The first part was up last week. This week we talk about traditional vs modern sailtypes – everyone knows I am a fan of trad rigs because of their low cost – but here I go into the influences on the other side. I love the efficiency of modern rigs so I use all the [...]

Furled Sails – They call themselves the “World’s First Sailing Podcast” based in North America. Anyway, last week Christy and Noel called me up chatted to me for a couple of hours. So they have an interview with me on their site followed by a part 2 next week. This looks like the permanent linkhttp://www.furledsails.com/article.php3?article=760 [...]

We have been learning how to edit videos. So here are some shots of Peter Hyndman’s GIS “Gruff” at speed with me at the helm. They were taken last year at Mooloolaba, Queensland. The wind was a little strong for one person, but it did allow for good speed on a reach. If I had [...]

I have just finished additional drawings for a lug rig version of the OZ PDRacer. Properly designed and engineered spars and sail. I would like to think I am something of an expert on lug rigs ritted to small boats. I have sailed countless hours with such rigs including weekly club races against conventional boats [...]

Some months ago I was contacted by Pete Greenfield who is editor for Watercraft magazine in the UK. He wanted an article from me about my favourite boat. At the time I had just returned from a stay at Mooloolaba with my friends Peter and Jo Hyndman who have the Goat Island Skiff that was [...]

Any reasonable sailor can look at the pics to the right and see that this rig is doing all the right things. The twist is controlled, the sheeting angles are relatively narrow and the boat is moving along nicely in a light wind and a leftover chop. This is what I mean when I say [...]