Perfect for fishing and camping around Aruban waters
The Seagull is a 15'3" boat designed by John Welsford.
Her beam is 4'1" and her weight is about 90 pounds.
The sales revenues will be donated to the SYWA on Saturday 16th of September 2017 15:30hrs at the sailing school at bucuti.
From the John Welsford catalogue (jwboatdesigns.co.nz):
Simple recreational rowing
I am very keen on recreational rowing boats, my Wife Jan prefers to see where She is going in Her sea kayak but I like the feel of the bigger boat
and the way the rowing motion uses all of the bodies muscles as well as assisting the breathing as the torso rocks back and forth.
To row a nice moving boat such as "Silver Gull" or the three other designs later in the book is easier than walking,
and is surprisingly fast. To carry a load such as camping gear or a friend or two makes little difference to the effort
needed to move along at an easy pace and it is a wonderfully peaceful way to explore an estuary or coastline.
For those who, like Jan, wish to see where they are going, a motorcycle wing mirror fitted to the gunwale makes a dandy "front view mirror"!
For those who wish to use an outboard motor why not,
Seagull has a transom braced for a small motor and will get more performance out of 2 horsepower than anything else I've seen.
Recreational or sports rowing boats are often pretty easily upset, the narrow waterline beam making them very tender.
In this boat though the bottom is wide enough to allow one to stand up within the boat (carefully), stability which although it does
knock a little off her performance, makes her a much more versatile craft and only about three minutes in the hour slower than her more
sophisticated sister Joansa featured later in the catalogue.
Seagull builds in the same way as "Fish Hook" and her other sisters, and in fact the long gentle curves of the proportionately slimmer
rowing boat makes her easier to build in spite of the larger overall size. If you use Gaboon or Occume plywood and take care in the building
it should be possible to keep her weight down to about 40kg.
Rowing a boat like this is nothing like most boaties have ever experienced, they move incredibly easily using very little energy,
and once the technique of wing the oars has been mastered can be rowed for hours on end at a speed that would surprise many sailors.
A good recreational rowing boat, unlike the delicate "toothpick" that the competitive rowers use, can cope with even quite extreme weather conditions,
and with an experienced rower in charge will ride over seas that would put much larger boats at risk.
Gently stroking Seagull along on a quiet evening tide, up an estuary somewhere not far from here, is my idea of heaven.
Imagine yourself on the water away from all the busy-ness...
The boat was sold for AWG 2.600,- to a local fisherman. All revenues will be donated to the SYWA sailing school for Aruban Youths.
If you are interested in having a small boat built for you, send me an email at rik@studio-advisory.com.
More than just a boat build project...
Building the Seagull
contact us about this project...