Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Cape Cod, Day 4 - What Is It? Plus Extra Credit if you Tell Me Where I Got This Idea!


I'd planned to run through a few more days of Cape Cod fun tonight, but I totally screwed up my day by waking up and deciding that things were enough under control at work that I didn't really have to go vote at 7 am. Ha ha ha. The work expanded during the day, as it is sometimes wont to do, so now I have to get up early to finish what I left unfinished in order to get to my polling place on time tonight. Oh well, at least we don't get Paladino. Ick. So, not so much time to blog tonight as I had hoped for.

However, I was doing a little blog-surfing last night & I ran across a blog that had a lovely sailing photo contest, and in the midst of their entries there a photo of an unusual-looking small sailboat that the blogger had seen in Cape Cod that he or she was curious enough to post & ask if anyone coud say what it was (turned out to be a Friendship Sloop). Well, by pure coincidence I also had a photo of an unusual-looking small sailboat that TQ & I had admired in Cape Cod, during our stormy-day paddle up the quiet, sheltered reaches of the Mashpee River. I thought "What a great idea for a short post!", and here I have a night where the post needs must be short, so - here she is! Isn't she striking? TQ noticed that it's almost like a giant sailing canoe, what with the leeboards & the shape of the bow. Must be gorgeous under sail. Anyways, if anyone knows anything about what kind of boat this is, I'd love to hear about it, just leave the info in the comments & I'll bring it up here to share as soon as I see it.

And seriously, if anyone can tell me what blog I got this idea from, that would be very nice too - I would love to link but I cannot for the life of me remember the blog's name!

Wednesday morning note - Sincere thanks to Tillerman for identifying my mystery blog - it was Boat de Jour, and here was HIS mystery sailboat! BTW it was either really late or I was really blown away by the sailing photo contest because I managed to totally not notice the name of the blogger, Captain Puffy Pants. I would not have had ANY problem remembering THAT name, since Captain Puffy Pants happened to be the author of one of my favorite entries EVER in a Proper Course Writing Challenge - Setting the Record Straight or Capt. Puffy Pants Eats Crow, written for Tillerman's November '09 Love and Sailing challenge. There were a some great entries for that one -- It's A Rock was another particular favorite of mine -- but Capt. Puffy Pants's entry proved to be the all-around, hands-down favorite & I enjoyed it very much.

15 comments:

Tillerman said...

Was it Boat de Jour?

bonnie said...

YES! Thank you so much!!! It was really bothering me that I couldn't remember. Captain Puffy Pants! Of course!

And here was the post in question.

O Docker said...

Still curious about the boat in your photo.

Is it just a yawl with floppy-paddle shifters?

And metal masts on a (presumably) wooden boat? I wonder if she began life as a catboat and was later converted to a yawl.

Anonymous said...

That boat is a skutsjes, a Dutch Frisian sailing boat.a leeboard sailing vessel, used in the canals of Holland, the water is shallow, so the leeboard can be pulled up when needed...sailing canoes copied that idea...I have some skutsjes in this slide show...put up with the first few minutes that are not skutsjes...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxhvYI-JsRs

Anonymous said...

whatever she is . . . she's a beauty!!

Tillerman said...

Hmmm. Apart from having a leeboard, I don't see a lot else in common between the skutsjes and the boat in bonnie's photo. They are not yawls and they have a very different hull shape.

I'm with O Docker. It looks like a conversion of some kind to me.

Anonymous said...

A skutsjes is a conversion...you take a barge, or whatever you can find, stick a mast on it, a leeboard, a bed and whatever, and you got a skutsjes. The Dutch never waste anything...lots of skutsjes start out hauling dredged material from the man made canals..
It is like saying a sailing canoe was never a canoe...
go look up skutsjes in wikipedia, Tillerman.

Tillerman said...

OK Anonymous. I concede. If your definition of a skutsje is "anything you can find with a mast and a leebaoard" then that is a skutsje.

I did look up skutjse on Wikipedia. It says, "A skûtsje (pronounced 'skootshuh') is a Frisian sailing boat of the type tjalk, originally an ordinary cargo boat, but today a prized ship and one of the icons of Frisia. Skûtsjes were built from the 18th century until about 1930 and are 12 to 20 m long and on average 3.5 m wide, with a maximum of 4 m."

Not exactly "anything with a mast and a leeboard."

Anonymous said...

No, I meant take an old Dutch Barge, a heavy dirty old thing, used for hauling either cow manure, dredging material, or other such thing, put a mast on it, a leeboard, a rudder, add a deluxe master bedroom, full bar, a surround sound and high def. plasma TV and you have a skutsjes...I saw a whole bunch of em at Gov's Island last year, the Frisians shipped them over on a cargo boat and sailed them around NYC all week.
to see a Skûtsjesilen (skutsjes regatta) go to:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKD1hWKAezQ

O Docker said...

Gee, a skutsje sounds a lot like my Catalina 30.

Except for the leeboards. I think the original Catalinas had leeboards but they replaced them with an autopilot.

bonnie said...

And a shiny chrome yacht wheel, right?

Sorry I have been pretty quiet here - I was actually thinking that this boat probably wasn't what Anonymous thought it was, (he's a friend from Sebago, btw) but that was because I knew something about the boat that might not be entirely obvious from a glance at this picture. TQ had taken one that I thought might help answer the question, I asked him to send it this morning & it's up now.

bonnie said...

ps - I thoroughly enjoyed the slide show! I'm still so disappointed that I didn't ever get a chance to see the Dutch barge fleet while they were here. Glad I at least got to see the Onrust at the Blessing of the Fleet that year.

Anonymous said...

Here is the book that will answer our questions:
http://www.lifeatanangle.com/Bargeguidepage.html
and check out the entire website, it is how to buy your first barge...
I bet the above book has the answer for what that boat really is...
but honestly, I saw every kind of conversion from little to big into a Dutch Leeboard Sailboat...
(the reason why the 4 meter limit for the beam, so it can fit in the Dutch gates and locks).. till then, check out the smallest skutsje ever;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lV5bgWGclw&feature=player_embedded

bonnie said...

OK, I have emailed them, maybe they will come take a look & weigh in!

I think I'm leaning towards Tillerman's latest suggestion, though, that this is a canoe yawl, which is much more of a purely recreational design.

BTW, "yawl" is also of Dutch origin - originally the word was spelled jol. Seriously!

Capt. Puffy Pants said...

I'm seriously blushing with all the kind things you said about my story. Thanks Bonnie! I've been out of sorts lately, blogging wise, but now am feeling reinvigorated. Glad you had a good time on The Cape.