Eastport Pinky

[Roger Stouff]

I have the formerly free plans for the 27' Eastport Pinky by Long. In his notes, he says he designed it for a client but the job fell through. As far as Long knew, the boat was never built. Does anyone know if this is still true? Was it ever built?

Regards from the Rez,
R

[Dave Fleming]

Roger, do a search on his name in Google and see if you can find his current whereabouts and go from there.
Still got you clarification of the offsets... ;)

[Roger Stouff]

I did a search with several variations for "roger long eastport pinky" and got no relevant hits. I think it's a way cool boat, though it's often mistakenly called a catboat, because of the rig, I guess.

This is what Long's notes say: "This is one of the first boats I designed for someone, as opposed to just drawing for the fun of it. I was so anxious to see something of my design get built, I did it for nothing. We then went out to a field with the owner and, with much ceremony, dug a hole and planted a pole to bring in the electric lines. That was the last work ever done on the project. Ten years later, that pole was still out in the field, mocking me every time I went past."

It's up there in my top favorite designs, and if it had never been built...boy, I'd be tempted to give it a shot, both to honor Mr. Long and for the uniqueness. Though the idea of having no experienced builders on that design frightens me a bit!

Dave: I guess I've still got the flu and a DayQuil haze going on, but I'm missing what you meant about the offsets...? :rolleyes:

[ 03-28-2002, 12:06 PM: Message edited by: Roger Stouff ]

[Dave Fleming]

Roger, hope you feel better soon....
Sometime back I postedr to the defunct Photostation and made mention of it in the Forums, a copy of Roger Longs drawings including the offsets albiet in a text file and some kind person took the text file and recomposed it to a more conventional set of offsets.
I just thought it might have been you but, no matter. I still have all the drawings and offsets that were on the net saved to a ZIP disk.
If others wish to see them I will be happy to put up 'another' album on my Imagestation site. And eventually to my web pages so that way if 'God forbid' Imagestation goes the way of Photostation they will be available on the net.
;)

[Roger Stouff]

I found Mr. Long with the Google search, after all, and he responded to my email. It was a longshot, but I sent a message inquiring if it was him, and it was! Asked him if he knew if it had ever been built, waiting for him to get back to me.

Love the 'Net.

No, it wasn't me, I don't think. I found the plans off the web back when they were available for free, lost them, and go them again from a guy on the rec.boats.building group. It's a lovely boat, I always liked it a lot, and it's in my top favorites for a big cruising boat one day. I told Mr. Long that I was also intrigued by the notion that nobody else may have built it, and it would be an honor to be the first!

Thanks, Dave,
R

[ 03-28-2002, 01:16 PM: Message edited by: Roger Stouff ]

[Dave Fleming]

Ha Ha, that could'a been me in the rec.boats.building news group. smile.gif
I post there from time to time also. These Forums are ever so much nicer and informative that that group. Lotsa hair brained ideas go floating downstream over there, that's for sure. :rolleyes:

Oh what the hell I am putting up an new album on Imagestation with the Pinky stuff in it right now!

My Imagestation address is:
http://www.imagestation.com/members/DaveFleming

[ 03-28-2002, 01:35 PM: Message edited by: Dave Fleming ]

[Roger Stouff]

Thanks for doing that, Dave. I still think she's a sweet craft.

I heard back from Mr. Long, and he said as far as he knows, it's never been built. He said he'd be "glad to help out" if I ever got around to building it but that "I haven't paid much attention to wooden boats for about 20 years."

Somehow, that just makes me want to do it, when I get good enough, all the more.

Best,
R

[Dave Fleming]

Roger, that Pinky stuff look OK to you on Imagestation?
I gotta re-arrange the order of the images so that Longs comments preface everything else but seems to me that for some reason the images are not clear enough.
Looked fine when I looked at them on the ZIP disk using ACDSee. :(

[ken mcclure]

They look good to me!

The strong sheer must be an Eastport thing, or else Long learned from, with or from the same people as the MacNaughtons.

The plans look alot like some of the MacNaughton designs, which are some pretty neat boats.

[Roger Stouff]

The images look okay to me, Dave. I took the original files, which I think were .jpgs and turned them into Adobe .pdf files. I printed them on the office printer, which is maximum size of 22 x13.5, but the tribal offices here have a plotter, and they said whenever I wanted they'd print them out to original size, 50x25!

Ken, it is a strong sheer, and I like it, but it's almost too much. I think if I ever built it, I'd make it a bit more subtle with an optical illusion kinda thing, by running a rail around it to lessen the steepness of the curve.

Best regards from the Rez,

RS

[johnw]

It's a sweet boat, all right, but instead of simulating a pink stern with the sheer aft, why not have a real pink stern? I've sailed on a pinky, and it struck me that working at the end of the boom would be a lot scarier without the swept-up bullwarks going past the rudder.

[Roger Stouff]

Hmm, not sure I can visualize. Can you point me to a pic?

[johnw]

Roger,

Here are several links. Pinks were a european type, distinguished by the pink stern and fine lines, not by their rig, but in America they were always schooners. They became popular with fishermen when the mackerel jig was invented in about 1815. Pinks were safe to take off shore, and sailed to windward well enough to keep up with the schools of fish, which tended to swim to windward near the surface. They remained popular as long as fishermen owned their own boats, because they had the reputation of bringing back their crews no matter what the weather.

http://www.schoonersummertime.com/smrsailing.html

http://www.anchoryachts.com/cus050s001.htm

http://www.tedbrewer.com/sail_wood/timeofwonder.htm

[ 03-28-2002, 09:57 PM: Message edited by: johnw ]

[Roger Stouff]

John, I see what you mean, vaguely. Being a novice at sailing, I don't quite know what it means to work one to the other, but I think I see what you were getting at about working at the end of the boom.

Dave, in you album, the photos of Wanderbird...is that the one Sterling Hayden owned?

[johnw]

The one in the picture is the one Warwick Thompkins took around Cape Horn. Didn't know Serling Hayden owned it. I was on it last weekend. It's sitting at the dock at the Center For Wooden Boats, and will remain there until after the Seattle Wooden Boat Festival. Haven't had an opportunity to go sailing on it. The owner is willing to sell, if you want something larger than a Marsh Cat...

[Roger Stouff]

Not yet, my friend! Not yet! :D

[Ed Nye]

That is one beautiful boat. I love the rig. Especially, the bowsprit fittings. Ed

[Dave Fleming]

Roger, if memory serves and the 'Cleekster' can back me up....
Warwick Tompkinks bought the 'bird' in Germany and sailed her around the horn to San Francisco, he wrote a book about it but the name escapes me at the moment.
Something like " 50 south to 50 south". The vessel passed on to at least two other sets of owners the last of which cut down the masts and put on an absolutely horrible house over portions of the deck and ***no maintainance***. Harold and Anna Lisa Sommers, he a tug captain for Crowley, bought her and gradually started a restoration.
Harold with his connections to the real salty side of the San Francisco waterfront community was able to 'enlist'/ 'cajole'/ 'bribe' a number of fine craftspeople to help with the resoration and donate materials. Sterling Hayden did not own her but did sail on her in the early years. He had a place on the Sausalito waterfront near the 'bird'.
An old tug converted to a houseboat, I think. He was helpful to the Sommers in the restoration besides being a close friend of Harolds. Whenever he was in the states at Sausalito he would be around the 'bird' and usually he and Harold would hit one of the water holes in the town of Sausalito for a good gam, if ya folla? The writer Ernest Gann donated the sticks for new masts in memory of his son, a merchant marine officer washed overboard from an oil tanker in the Gulf of Alaska. Capt Linderman and some others worked on the rigging and I wouldn't be surprised if Karl Kortum and Harry Dring did not help out with various items, ahem. The photos are mostly of her after her restoration and the below waterline shots are courtesy of our own RGM who was in charge of some work on her after she had been sold and moved to Puget Sound.
The 'bird' is a big vessel over 90 feet and very heavily built. The upkeep must be tremendous in both materials and labour. And that is the crux.....skilled labour to handle large wooden vessels. Good craftsman are scarce on the ground. Oh, I know that there are folks that have worked on big timbers in restoration projects but, out of 50 bodies there might be 2 who really know their stuff. And as I said a vessel like that needs access to that level of skill or she will slowly begin to decline all over again.
Too bad, or so says I. ;)

[Roger Stouff]

Great history, thanks!

[Wild Dingo]

Hey Dave
I got the stuff about the pinky you sent ages ago but what with not having excell on this machine of mine I just printed them out... figured I would hang on and wait to see if someone posted them in the more traditional format than word...
Thanks for even more info mate!
She is among the nicest isnt she?
Thanks for bringin this one up Roger... mind you 90ft is a bit of a worry. tad larger than a catboat eh wot?? stick to the 27 and mybe it would work... would imagine them bridges you spoke of would be a bit of an obsticle wouldnt they? how tall is the mast on this thing? Well now Ive got some reading to do as I hadnt seen that first page before... thanks again Dave.
Take it easy
Shane

[Roger Stouff]

Hey, Untamed Indigenous Canine! smile.gif

You got them plans too, eh? I think it's a cool boat. One day, one of us needs to build it!

R.

[Wild Dingo]

:D Well Rez mate... our old mate Dave there, offered them on here awhile back and when the offers made its worthy of at least giving time for perusal... and this definantly is worth looking over!

Dont know that Im gonna build her... nice as she be... not really what Im after Im afraid... And geeeeez mate I've already got designs up the flamin kazoo here!... Well not really but you know what I mean Ive had enough confusion for one lifetime!~

Taking something of a sabatical from designs or even considering which to build for a tad of time... gotta get on me feet again and then I'll do what people keep telling me to do... cut wood!

Take it easy
Shane

[ 03-31-2002, 07:15 AM: Message edited by: Wild Dingo ]

[Dave Fleming]

The Wanderbird aka 'the bird', her masts must be over 100 feet in total.
When they were delivered to Sausalito, California to the pier where the 'bird' was berthed they were finessed bye some of those old San Francisco salts including Capt, Lindermann who was acting as head rigger. There were several 'gangs' of people working in each mast dividing the masts into sections with a meeting at the boundry of another gangs section. Literally a mountain of shavings and sanding dust came off those sticks.
Some statistics of the 'bird'....
Launched approx June 1879
Length O/A 85 feet 3 inches
Length Load Waterline 76 feet 1 inch
Beam 18 feet 9 inches ( but somehow that does not seem correct in my memory )
Perhaps RGM can clarify these dimensions especially that beam? :confused:
Ballast 35 Tons
Planking 3 1/2 inch
Frames Sawn 5 inch by 6 inch
Ceiling 2 inch

[ 03-31-2002, 12:41 PM: Message edited by: Dave Fleming ]

[johnw]

Wander Bird also displaces 137 tons. She's about the length of a New York pilot boat of the same era, but twice as heavy.

[Dave Fleming]

Actually JohnW, my info shows the displacement at load waterline to be 138.26 tons.
;)

[Alan D. Hyde]

Didn't Irving and Electa Johnson meet on Wanderbird?

Is Exy still alive and well in South Hadley?

Alan

[johnw]

138.26 tons? Just to look at her, I wouldn't have guessed an ounce over 138.25.

[Dave Fleming]

JohnW.

:D :D :D

[gary porter]

For those of you that are fortunate enough to have the plans book from the Smithsonian, check out the back cover smile.gif

[johnw]

I think that's Glad Tidings, Chappelle's own boat. There's a replica of it that lives in Pt. Townsend. Nice, slippery lines, too, but not as much sail carrying power as one usually associates with pinkies. I sometimes sail on the pinkie Tiger, which lives here in Seattle at Fisherman's Terminal. It sails very well to windward in a blow.

[gary porter]

johnw, whats the name of the replica? will be there in sept for the show and would like to check it out. My wife and I talk every other day about moving to Port Townsend. Gary smile.gif

[johnw]

The boat's name is Pleiades, if memory serves. Don't know whether they intend to enter the show. They did so a few years ago and I got to go aboard. They did a nice job on that boat.

[Frank E. Price]

Love those Pinkys! I was passing through Port Townsend in August, and Pleiades is still there. Very nice boat. How do people get away with keeping galvanized anchors on bronze rollers? I have to take mine off when fast to a float, or watch the zinc disappear.

As I understand it Chapelle designed Glad Tidings for himself after discovering how much an earlier design, Pinky No. 1, would cost with its massive double sawn frames (read that somewhere; maybe in WB, or in the original 1937 Yachting article). The Glad Tidings design was originally designated Pinky No. 2 (and still is in the Smithsonian catalog I think). No. 2 was designed for steam bent frames and lighter overal scantlings. Came out at about 14 tons (long) and No. 1 comes out, as close as I can figure, around 20 tons.

Does anyone know if Pinky No. 1 has ever been built?

Frank

[ 10-11-2003, 03:39 PM: Message edited by: Frank E. Price ]

[Dave Fleming]

Profile of that Eastport Pinky. Some rigging details on sheet too.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid13/p8f06444dd614ae4dc11ebd650d58e71f/fdd7ca1e.jpg

[ 10-05-2003, 01:06 AM: Message edited by: Dave Fleming ]