18 Mar 24:
The Boat Yard, Park and Sunfish Shack are ready for the 2024 season. It's taken a few projects to get to this point!
18 Mar 24:
The Boat Yard, Park and Sunfish Shack are ready for the 2024 season. It's taken a few projects to get to this point!
05 Mar 24:
Shop stool paper patterns are for sale, taken directly from our time tested templates. $30 USD gets a set of full size paper patterns with assembly instructions to your door.
To order a set, send us an email at lewis dot kent at gmail. Paypal or check.
05 Mar 24:
Found some gently used Shaw & Tenney flat blade oars, 7 1/2 footers with nice leathers. Will they fit on the Abaco Dinghy HENNING. We'll find out and report back.
05 Mar 24:
We get our silicon bronze from Fair Wind Fasteners, they ship small quantities and they ship fast. real fast. Great customer service, real people who answer emails and phone calls and have actually used their products. Here's part of what they have to say about the customer oriented business:
"We're not the cheapest, but we do provide the best. I've travelled around the globe and received numerous fastener samples from manufacturers and have chosen only the best to be carried here at Fair Wind. At this point in time the marine industry has welcomed us with open arms, and we now supply not only high quality silicon bronze fasteners, but have expanded in to copper and 316 Stainless Steel fasteners in order to serve a larger portion of the marine market. We're regularly supplying boatbuilding companies, boatbuilding colleges, and factory OEMs with quality marine fasteners, but will always give the same attention and service to a DIYer, because that's how we started!"
We're one of those DIYers they mention, and our little Nutshell Pram Excuse me is Fair Wind Fastener-ed.
FMI: Fair Wind Fasteners
28 Feb 24:
Here's a close up of some of the creeks, nooks and crannies that we'll be exploring, just off the southern end of the James River. The "Pagan River" is an impostor, its European name from the early 17th Century John Smith map was Warraskoyack, for the local indigenous Algonquin tribe of the Powhatan Confederacy. Later the name was changed to Pagan, reportedly the native word for pecan and it was a creek. Later again local officials decided that Pagan Creek didn't sound important enough to attract dredging money for steamboats, so now it's called Pagan River.
22 Feb 24:
We took ST. JACQUES out to be the photo ship for a Small Boats Nation article on a push pole duck bill attachment, she had a good time mucking about in the reeds. Skipper took the photos and I rowed for a little bit.
29 Feb 24:
Wandering through fb Marketplace we found a nice set of gently used Shaw & Tenney oars, 7 1/2 feet flat blade style. Picked them up for a very fair price, and we'll see whether they'll fit on the little Abaco dinghy HENNING.
28 Feb 24: Warraskoyack Chapter March/April/May/June 2024 Newsletter
Membership is free to any member of TSCA.
Chapter POC: Kent Lewis, (850) 449-4841, lewis.kent@gmail.com
For more information on our local waters, please visit our Smithfield Trading Town blog at https://smithfieldseaport.blogspot.com/
The Warraskoyak were an Algonquian-speaking tribe in Tsenacommacah. The Warraskoyak werowance, Tackonekintaco, paid tribute to paramount chief Powhatan. The homeland of the Warraskoyak provided easy access to oysters and fish from the river. It had been occupied for at least 5,500 years. Sea level rise at the end of the last Ice Age drowned the mouth of the Pagan River, and the resulting wetlands were valued food sources for Native Americans long before the evolution of the Warraskoyak tribe.
Inland, across the watershed divide separating the James and Blackwater rivers, hunting and gathering opportunities were rich in what today are labeled Pettit and Belle Meadow pocosins and Pouches, Passenger, and Rattlesnake swamps. In those swamps and woods, the Warraskoyak must have encountered Iroquoian-speaking Nottaway hunters coming up the Blackwater River.
The Algonquian-speaking Quiyoughcohannock lived to their west, upstream on the James River beyond Hog Island. The powerful Algonquian-speaking Nansemond tribe, with 200 warriors according to John Smith, lived downstream on the Nansemond River with a "kings house" on Dumplin Island. The size of the Nansemond tribe would have deterred the Warraskoyak from conflict, if those neighbors chose to hunt near Mokete, Mathomauk, or the king's house of the Warraskoyak. From those three towns, the Warraskoyack found it easy to canoe out into the James (Powhatan Flu) River to trade with the English. They welcomed visitors from Jamestown, bypassing Powhatan with direct trade of food for metal tools and prestige goods. At John Smith's request, they hosted Samuel Collier, an English boy so he could learn the Algonquian language and facilitate trade and diplomacy.
In early 1608, the Warraskoyack allowed a Paspahegh guide to lead two Jamestown colonists into their territory to search for survivors of the "lost colony" on Roanoke Island. Later that year, they assisted another searcher, Michael Sicklemore, to journey towards the Chowan River on another futile expedition."
The Warraskoyack Chapter will explore our local rivers and creeks, retracing the water trails of the indigenous First People. We'll also venture out to other spots on the Chesapeake watershed, the upper Outer Banks and our many inland rivers.
Membership is free to any member of TSCA, and if we'll put out a quarterly newsletter.
For more information on our local waters, please visit our Smithfield Trading Town blog at https://smithfieldseaport.blogspot.com/
27 Feb 24:
The little wooden Sunfish named CHIP that we sent out to Pt Townsend had fun at the Shipwright's Regatta last weekend. Her new name is LEAF, Mastered and Commandered by Emiliano now, he gave her a repaint, fixed a few small leaks and made her beautiful sail. Emiliano reports that LEAF nad her crew won the coveted "Wet Pants" award. And her innards were dry and dusty afterwards. Go LEAF!
26 Feb 24:
Capn jack always said "Take 2 hats." Skipper has plenty from WoodenBoat Launchings and Relaunchings, she's in the latest issue with our Nutshell Pram EXCUSE ME.
And we got stickers too!
26 Feb 24:
The little Nutshell Pram EXCUSE ME was one of the boats featured in the Launchings section of WoodenBoat Magazine No. 297, and as reward the folks in Brooklin, Maine sent us 2 nice hats, a nice letter, a copy of the article and 2 stickers. That was very kind and we appreciate the though put behind the custom stitching of the hats.
The hats are my favorite, made of a very soft prewashed cotton. The hat also has a low crown and comfortable leather adjustment strap on the back, so they'll stay secure in a blow.
And if you're not currently building a wooden boat, they can be purchased from the WoodenBoat Store.
22 Feb 24:
The previous attachment on this pole had a smaller diameter, so one choice was to cut the pole end off and reshape the end. Instead we filled the 1/8th inch gap with THIXO Pro. It dried very secure, no need for the little screw.
22 Feb 24:
It's Winter, so we buy tools. These will be used to build up a kit for outboard maintenance.
19 Feb 24:
Green Dolphin was a 47ft German built yacht, deep keel, low freeboard, beautiful graceful lines, Oak on steel frames with a heavy lead keel.Doug (Cap' Bilge Rat)
19 Feb 24:
20 years in the Marines, 24 at Delta Air Lines, on my Victory Lap. What's up next? Moveable ballast for one, Skipper's crew.
19 Feb 24:
The pinnace VIRGINIA was the first ocean-going English ship built in the Americas at the Popham Colony, and she started a 400-year legacy of shipbuilding in the lower Kennebec River near modern day Bath Maine. Drawing by Sam Manning.
She's a good looking ship, and we hope to find more information on boats like her tender and the native canoes, most likely bark canoes.
24 Feb 24:
Skipper and I are digging in to the American Revolution timeline, seeing as the 250th anniversary of July 4, 1776 is right around the corner. One of her ancestors was with Daniel Morgan's Riflemen at Sunny Point and Monmouth during his one year enlistment, and then participated as a Partisan for the duration. When it we get closer, maybe I can bribe Skipper into making me some replica clothing, especially the hunting frock. We're also digging into the small boating of the time period, with all the creek and river crossings this was a small boat war as well as a land battle and maritime affair.
The riflemen were incredibly more accurate and shot longer ranges than the musketeers, they were usually long hunters recruited from the far edges of Virginia and the Carolinas. Once they gained notoriety for their long range sniping, George Washington started dressing non riflemen in the frocks to scare the British.