Michael Storer Talk at Clint Chase Boatbuilder

[Clinton B Chase]

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...

At very little cost and only slightly more labour it is possible to improve the performance of our cruising and recreational boats.

• Why is performance important?
• Simple tricks and tips in the areas of rigging, construction, building of sails, spars and centreboards and rudders.
• Most people cannot see the difference when looking at the boat, but anyone sailing it will notice immediately.

Michael gives a this free presentation at Clint Chase Boatbuilder
Come Boating afterwards!

Directions to Clint Chase’s Boat Shop can be found at Google Maps just insert 25 Deblois Street. We are right off Brighton Ave. Heading West out of town you turn right at the “H” sign for the hospital. If you pass Brighton Medical Center you’ve gone to far. We are tan with Purple trim house with lots of boats in the yard.

[Canoez]

Dang. That's just not fair. I'll be building canoes on Saturday morning.

[Clinton B Chase]

Notice time change...now on Sunday. Just for you Canoez!

[Hwyl]

Shouldn't this have a sticky

Edit, thanks Scot

[David G]

Y'all have a great time. His talk at my shop was a big hit.

[rbgarr]

Can't make it Sunday. Have a good time.

[Clinton B Chase]

We'll post pictures and highlights.

--Clint

[Vince Brennan]

Bloody Hell.... too far to drive to, but too good to miss!

WHY did I move to Philly??


Enjoy!

[StevenBauer]

I'll be there. Can I bring anything?


Steven

[Thorne]

Ask him about letting dogs run about in his boats while raising sail...

[Daniel Noyes]

Hi Clint
I was thinking Saturday.

I am very interested and will try to make it up Sunday.

you mention sailing plans, whats the schedule and hopes for sailing session?

[Bill R]

I'll see you Sunday. Need me to bring anything?

[Clinton B Chase]

Looks like we'll have a small crowd. I've gotten to know Michael the last few days and I'll tell you, we're in for a treat tomorrow. (Not a trick, but a treat...you can bring your kids leftover candy...that'd be a trick for them and a treat for us. I digress....)

[Hwyl]

I even remembered to change my clocks

[Clinton B Chase]

Good point!!!!!!!!!

[Canoez]

Sadly, life has intervened in my plans for the day. (Trip to the Dr. this AM with a young 'un - things are OK, fortunately.) Hope you all have a great time today and hope to hear about it!

Bumpitty-Bump.

[rbgarr]

Thanks to Clint and Michael for your well attended event. I was glad I could make it.

Michael is an excellent speaker and highlighted important and valuable tips about small boat construction, handling and rigging (particularly the PD Racer and Goat Island Skiff). The explanation of how Australian small boat construction developed versus US methods was especially intriguing: lightweight plywood advances there, fg production here, both driven by market forces.

[StevenBauer]

Yes, many thanks to Michael and Clint for a fun and informative afternoon. After the talk some of us headed down to the boatlaunch at East End Beach for a little messabout. I brought our Nutshell Pram, there were two of Michaels designs, the PDRacer and a rowing skiff the Compass Project kids built.Clint brought his Faering, Drake. Dan brought his mini-bagger, there was an Echo Bay Dory Skiff and a neat little sailing canoe. I didn't bring my camera (but Gareth brought his) but I did get some cell phone pics.

Puddle Duck Racer:



Drake:




Echo Bay Dory Skiff:




Bagger:




PDR:

[Bill R]

Ditto what rbgarr said.

Few pics from today's event:

Michael Storer Skiff, Hull #1 built by the Compass Project

[Bill R]

Michael & Clint:



some of the group:

[Bill R]

[StevenBauer]

The PDRacer really moved along:









The sailing canoe:

[StevenBauer]

It was an unusually warm day for this time of year, about 60f.

Clint in Dan's Bagger:






Gareth got some great shots, I'm sure he'll be along to share soon.

Thanks again, Clint and Michael.

Steven

[David G]

Thanks all for the fotos. Y'all had a great day for sailing!

[Hwyl]

Here are some of my pictures.

The group in Clint's immaculate shop



The PD racer after Mik had wrapped the sail around the mast and boom.


The owner of this boat, built it 25 years ago



Holly let her Dad borrow the dinghy.

Storer skiff in background

Interior of the PD racer

[Hwyl]

Dan Noyes and Ray Frechette set out to conquer the world



Steven was seriously looking out for everyone's welfare in the ultra low tide



Dan built this beauty when he was a mere teenager



The modest designer himself sails the PD racer



Clint checking on proceedings

[Clinton B Chase]

Thanks to all who came. We had 23 in attendance including the host and the speaker. Michael really gave us new perspective in everything he discussed today and I've had wonderful talks with him in addition to today's talk. He is a breathe of fresh air and clear thinking and a great guy whom I've enjoyed getting to know (and my daughter newly from China who loved hearing MIK talk in Chinese to her).

Thanks MIK!

I'll post the key points very soon.

Cheers,
Clint

[Hwyl]

Boats were really flying.
Actually they were checking us out and looked deservedly jealous



Clint tries the cool sailing canoe



Michael (BoatMik) rowing his own skiff. I rowed it, a seriously sweet yet utilitarian boat


Sometimes when the water gets really shallow there are no elegant solutions

[Clinton B Chase]

I saw the bottom of the PDR and though 'oh @#$%^&' this is not a good way to end the great day. Then I saw him standing in the knee high water. We had a drainer today a full moon low/high, about 10' now but an 11' tide in the a few days (lag time).

Clint

[Hwyl]

I thought of not posting the picture, but a great smile and the close up of the Oz rudder changed my mind.

[Clinton B Chase]

Your photos are great, Gareth. Thanks a bunch. Let's get a PDR racing class going.

Clint

[BobW]

Looks like a really GREAT day! Thanks for all the pictures.

Bob

[Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )]

Funny I was out sailing at exactly the same time as you guys. I called Steven to razz him that I was out in Tidbit and Talisman was on the hard. He said Oh but I am out sailing and proceeded to describe all the lovely boats and conditions, which were surprisingly similar to what I was experiencing. Although it does look like you guys had a great time.

And yes clint does have the neatest shop I've ever seen ( Ive been there lol )

[Boatmik]

Ray Frechette and I were musing about how Clint's clamps are not covered with epoxy!

I will eventually put the Portland, OR talk up on the net once I sit down and work out where to put such a large file. I know how to make it streaming, but just need to work out where to host the file and get enough fast internet time to upload it. (also have to change it over to MP3 format rather than the large WAV file it is now).

I am currently sitting on a Greyhound (bus, not dog) heading up to Brooklin - which I wasn't quite expecting to get to, but Carl Cramer is being kind enough to pick me up from Bangor. Will be a bit of a rush to get back to Boston for my flight out on Wednesday but will be OK.

I have been amazed and happy during this whole trip in each place to meet so many smart and interesting people ... wooden boaters very frequently (almost ubiquitously) are just that. It is hard to pick out a particular highlight because almost all of it has been highlights.

Big thanks to the PDRacer community and Duckworks for getting the ticket together for me to come over, also the builders of my boats and just friends I have made on the net who also helped out with contributions of various types.

I did start a blog to describe the places and things but it got too big to handle a week or two ago so i have just been posting heavily commented pics on flickr - Mystic, Conroe Messabout, Lake Timothy Messabout with the Coots in Oregon (you can't have too many Portlands - the two I have experienced have been pretty nice), the Kokepelli Cruise down Lake Powell in Utah, .... the UFO museum in Roswell (my brother made me promise that I would go to at least one crazy museum - but the Roswell one was actually quite interesting with a bit from both sides of the argument)

The Blog covers a fair bit of it ...
http://www.storerboatplans.com/wp

But the pics on Flickr covers everything. I am a bit of a manic picture taker, largely because I've read about all these places and wished there were more pics for ME to look at. So I do try to make a good record for others who might feel the same.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/boatmik/sets/

Oh, and basic resources that come out of the lecture material are here.
http://www.storerboatplans.com/wp/?page_id=168

Best wishes
MIK

[Thorne]

The Flickr pics and commentary are brilliant, Mik -- thanks again for taking all those photos and working out the great writeups.

[Clinton B Chase]

Originally Posted by Boatmik

Ray Frechette and I were musing about how Clint's clamps are not covered with epoxy!


MIK

"Cleanliness is next to Godliness"

And those clamps went through boat school, too! My Carhart pants do not reflect this cleanliness, however. They pretty well stand up on their own!!!

[Daniel Noyes]

Clint, Michael
thanks so much for a great event!

is there a copy of the talk available I would like to catch the section I missed

lots of fun racing around the launch ramp at the promenade... it was good we had shoal draft craft.
Thanks
Dan

[Clinton B Chase]

Dan, MIK did say he'd be getting the talk up on his Oz forum.

Clint

[Hwyl]

Dan, I didn't realise you were Dan Noyes, we could have chatted more. Your Bagger was awesome.

[Geoff C]

Clint-

Thanks for hosting, I had a great time, never thought I'd be out sailing in November in Maine, but hey, it was perfect.

Here are my photos, most of them have been described already:








Beautiful faering, Clint

[Geoff C]

Eric Risch's Echo Bay Dory Skiff, still looks like new after a quarter century:

[Geoff C]

Dan and Ray on the Bagger:



The PDR shows its stuff:



Clint goes wing-and-wing in my Yakaboo2:



The BoatMik himself gives the push-pull rudder system a try:



Thanks again for the very interesting and informative talk, Michael, and we hope you won't wait another two years to come back.

[Clinton B Chase]

Eric Risch's Echo Bay Dory Skiff is a great boat. Sails very sweetly. Needs some fast foils and a lug sail, however.

Thanks for photos, Geoff. Geoff's sailing canoe was self-designed and delightful to sail.

---Clint

[Boatmik]

I will put the talk I did in Portland up - it was a bit more comprehensive. But I will have to work out how to do a few things ... the conversion to MP3 will be easy I think, but I have to find a place to host such large files.

I've worked out how to make them streaming.

But it will probably have to wait till i am back in OZ

MIK

[Boatmik]

Hi Geoff,

I didn't realise ... how close is your boat to the original Yakaboo?

I know the sliding centreboard is not there and the rudder is a nice addition (!) but is the hull pretty similar?

MIK

[Boatmik]

Clint, Did you want to paste up the summary you wrote of the talk and posted on my forum here as well?

MIK

[Ray Frechette Jr]

Originally Posted by Clinton B Chase

"Cleanliness is next to Godliness"

And those clamps went through boat school, too! My Carhart pants do not reflect this cleanliness, however. They pretty well stand up on their own!!!

There is something about a pristine shop I have a hard time trusting...

First thing I noticed was the absolute absence of any dust!

In fact one fo the first things I said, was
I didn't get home 'till 'bout 11:00pm"Wow!""Whers all the dust?"

Clint had a Jet Dust collector hanging form the ceiling which had less dust on it than my Delta did when I first hung it from the shop.

I was impressed, and a bit envious, But I am not likely going to take up the same ways myself.

[rbgarr]

One of the things I'd look for were I to have someone build/repair/refinish a boat is a clean shop. It takes less time to keep things in their place and clean as you work than it does to search (and not find, thus use the wrong tool), struggle with a dirty tool or workspace than not. It's a good management habit and often interpreted as a sign of respect for the customer. I've seen potential customers walk out when they see that the paint shop is a mess, for example. The best shops I've seen have regular daily cleanup and weekly (rotating) assigned responsibilities for machinery, blades etc.

[Boatmik]

Assigned responsibilities

Monday - Me
Tuesday - Me
Wednesday - Me
Thursday ...

I have seen beautiful work come out of less than pristine shops too ... and a lot of nothing come out of compulsively tidy ones.

I guess ... by their works you will know them!

MIK

[Clinton B Chase]

My shop is just over a 2-years old. Glad you were able to see the shop and I'd be happy to share tips and tricks to keeping a shop clean. For us, it is essential that dust and fumes do not get into the house which is attached to the shop. I have two small kids and a wife who are more important to me than anything I do in the shop. This talk was a great chance for me to make the place look pristine. Nothing like the pressure of having guests to get a place looking sharp. Glad it was a nice place to spend a few hours. I sure enjoyed sitting back and relaxing!

Clint