Calling for RiversWest Volunteers

We have big plans for the 2009 Portland Boat Show. The best part of the boat show experience is meeting fellow boaters, woodworkers and folks new to the world of boating.

Members, like you, have so much to offer show attendees and, as you will find, they are very interesting too. Not only will you get a chance to enjoy the show for free, but you can wax poetic about your favorite subjects, show off photos of your projects and demonstrate the exhibits in the booth.

Volunteers can pick their duties and times by volunteering early. They will be needed to set up the booth exhibits, man the booth during show times and help teardown the exhibit and return it to the shop. Several members have kindly offered their boats for display and will be responsible for bringing them to the show and collecting them at tear down.

Boat Show/Booth Particulars:
Portland Boat Show
Portland Expo Center (near Marine Drive)
Building “D”, Booth 540
Booth will be draped and lighted at no charge by the show management
Setup will occur Friday January 2nd, 8:00 AM – 8:00 PM
Show times:

Jan. 3, Saturday-11:00 AM – 8:00 PM
First shift: 11:00-3:30
Second shift: 3:30-8:00

Jan. 4, Sunday-11:00 AM – 6:00 PM
First shift: 11:00-2:30
Second shift: 2:30-6:00

Jan. 5 – 9, Monday –Friday- 2:00 PM – 8:00 PM
First shift: 2:00-5:00
Second shift: 5:00-8:00

Jan. 10, Saturday- 11:00 AM – 8:00 PM
First shift: 11:00-3:30
Second shift: 3:30-8:00

Jan. 11, Sunday – 11:00 AM – 5:00 PM
First shift: 11:00-2:00
Second shift: 2:00-6:00 (includes tear down)

Tear down will occur at show’s end, Sunday Jan. 11th, 5:00 PM

If you would like to help, please contact Stu Whitcomb, Stuna2000@yahoo.com or John Bouwsma, john@bouwsma.net

RiversWest joins the 2009 Portland Boat Show with an Exciting New Exhibit

RiversWest will be attending the January 3-11, 2009 Portland Boat Show at the Portland Expo Center near Marine Drive. Held annually at this time of the year, Portlanders flock to the show and temporarily shed the wintry weather blues as they dream of what the new boating season will bring.

The 2008 economic gloomy pall appears to have a silver lining at the RiversWest booth. In their largest booth yet, the theme for 2009 will be “Enjoy Boating in a Tight Economy – Do It Yourself”. The do-it-yourself activities at RiversWest’ Small Craft Center will be highlighted in a 20’ x30’ booth filled with several small craft each exhibiting a different construction method. RiversWest members will be on hand to not only discuss these sustainably built and powered small craft, but will be presenting some of the construction techniques involved in building these hulls, as well as sail making, knot tying and casting bronze marine fittings.

So, think about it. What better way is there to escape the gloom than to slip into the garage and build a little boat…and then launch it! How do you get started? Come to the Portland Boat Show and visit RiversWest at Booth 540 in Hall “D”.

The “Hall Templeton”

A RiversWest Boat With a Noble Name

Written by Bob Young, August 2008

During the building of the RiversWest yawl boat, there was discussion as to a name for the boat. It was decided to name her “Hall Templeton” in memory of a man who loved boats and who helped a small group of boat builders develop the resources that have promoted boat building here in the Portland area for almost twenty years.

Hall Templeton was a boat person and a member of a prominent Portland, Oregon family. Although aged, he still spent much time on the Willamette River rowing his 12-foot Whitehall. In 1989, Hall visited the “Park Avenue Boat Shop”, a two year boat building demonstration set up in the windowed corner of the Oregon Historical Society building, on Park Avenue in Portland. It was there that Bob Young and others witnessed Hall’s interest in boats. When RiversWest was formed in 1989 and set up shop at the Oaks Park, Hall visited the site several times, in those early days. One of those times Bob Young mentioned to Hall that the next big effort was to equip the shop with electricity. A few days later, RiversWest received a check for $500.00 from Hall, which made electrification happen much sooner. Some months later, Hall passed away at the age of 85 or so.

The “Hall Templeton” is a 24-foot yawl boat owned by RiversWest Small Craft Center, Inc. of Portland, Oregon. Club members built the RiversWest boat in 1995 at the old Oaks Park boat shop location in Portland, Oregon. Joseph C. Dobler, N.A, designed it originally for a boat club in Marietta, Ohio. The term “Yawl Boat” is an old name for a simple but useful ship’s boat. Its purpose was to serve the larger vessel by carrying crew, passengers, and limited cargo to and from shore. The RiversWest design emulates the yawl boats used to serve Mississippi River steamboats.

When some RiversWest members found the Dobler design, it was judged to be a very good boat for the club’s use. It also held promise as a candidate for a high school rowing program that was felt to be needed in the Portland area (and it is still a hope). It was decided that such a boat would be constructed in the Oaks Park shop as an instructional project as well. (It should be pointed out that the decision was not unanimous, but time has proven the worth of the project.)

On a vacation trip, Joe Dobler stopped by the Oaks Park shop and reviewed his use of taped-seam construction methods in his designs (he was one of the very first naval architects in the U.S. to do so). This was the method used when a group of RiversWest members, including Gary Pimm, Barry Freeman, Bent Thygesen, Bob Young and others, as they undertook the building of the yawl boat. For example, Dobler specified that the side planks (made from 4 x 8, ¼ inch plywood) be spliced using fiberglass cloth, rather than the traditional wood patch. Further, the design did not specify a wood stem. Rather, fiberglass cloth rolls were applied to the stem area to make a strong but simple stem piece. Dobler also designed a “No Pin Centerboard” system for the Hall Templeton. It proved to be a very clever design that eliminated the weaknesses of a standard centerboard pin below the water line.

The “Hall Templeton” has had some interesting experiences. One of these was in 1996 when Bob Young, Irv Jones, and Tom Carter trailered the boat to Port Townsend for the Wooden Boat Festival. For three weeks prior to the show, these three sailors, along with some club members, salvaged a trailer and added a cat-ketch sail rig to the yawl boat for the occasion. (In the RiversWest archives, is a picture that Tom Carter took from his Pelican, of Irv Jones and Bob Young sailing – very well by the way -- at Port Townsend.) One sail was from a borrowed Phil Bolger catboat rig, while the other sail was one that was lying around the boat shop. The trailer for the Hall Templeton was salvaged from the back yard of Terry Cornelius’s home in Ridgefield, Washington. It was pretty rusty, but again, club members pitched in, sand blasted it and then spray-painted it as well. Donated tires completed the project. The trailer still transports the “Hall Templeton” today.

Bob Young Reminisces about the Hall Templeton

Four-Sweep Yawl Boat Ready for Sea
By Bob Young and reprinted from The Ash Breeze- Fall 1995

RiversWest Small Craft Center has completed its 24’ yawl boat designed by Joseph C. Dobler, N.A., of Manhattan Beach, California. This skiff is constructed of marine-grade fir plywood with taped-seams. Using the fiberglass-cloth “patch” method, 8’panels, ¼” and ½”, were easily scarfed together.

RiversWest is a nonprofit, membership-supported boatbuilding and small craft cruising club with a 2,500 square-foot boat shop located on the grounds of Portland Oregon’s public Oaks Park (*), one of the of the oldest continually operating amusement parks in the United States. Oakes Park is on the east bank of the Willamette River just three miles upstream from downtown Portland. Its waterfront includes five hundred feet of sandy beach where RiversWest holds an annual wooden boat show each September. In 1994 forty-nine boats were exhibited.

Joe Dobler has carefully designed the yawl boat to be very inexpensive to build. The original of this yawl-boat design was constructed in Marietta, Ohio, approximately three years ago. RiversWest took over a years to build theirs because it was used for a series of classes in taped-seam construction. Like the group in Ohio, RiversWest intends to encourage other groups to build this design so that boatbuilding and rowing will be encouraged. For RiversWest, Dobler designed a centerboard version that will carry a cat/ketch rig.

This year RiversWest plans to take its yawl boat to several rowing events including the annual Astoria Row-in in August. Some of the more ambitious members are planning to row the boat one hundred miles down the Columbia River from Portland to Astoria. Crews will change at overnight camping spots during the four-day trip. Last year the Astoria Row-In’s sponsor, the Columbia Maritime Museum, hosted thirty or so craft ranging from small kayaks to two recent reproductions of historic, multi-oared ships’ boats built much as they were two hundred years ago.

Should you wish more information about RiversWest Small Craft Center, Inc. or opportunities for cruising the waterways of the Pacific Northwest, contact TSCA member Bob Young…

Bob Young has been a long time member of both RiversWest and the Traditional Small Craft Association; The Ash Breeze is TSCA’s publication, a quarterly journal, which is distributed to members all over the world.

There was a TSCA Chapter in Oregon (Sam Johnson was the President until recently) but now is inactive though thirteen members of the Oregon Chapter are currently listed with TSCA.

Some TSCA chapters around the USA have affiliated with other boat clubs. For example the Center for Wooden Boats in Seattle has a loose cooperative arrangement with the Puget Sound Chapter of TSCA. Bob suggests that some sort of affiliation with the RiversWest Small Craft Center would benefit both RiversWest and TSCA. The Ash Breeze journal alone would be worthwhile.

*The RiversWest boat shop has moved to Pier 99 in Portland’s North Harbor on the Columbia River Slough. For additional information see www.riverswest.org.