Aeneas' Birdwatcher

I used to have a Geocities page with this info, but that was a long time ago. I could not find any pictures of Aeneas Precht's Birdwatcher on line anymore, so am putting the info back up on these blog pages. I've inserted the pictures into the text, but all pictures and text are the property of Aneneas Precht. I've lost three pictures (although have low resolution), and found a few more which I've added at the bottom.
Enjoy,
Paul

Aeneas' Birdwatcher

The Birdwatcher is an enigma. It doesn't look like a "real" sailboat should, and yet as I've found over the years, it's sometimes better than a "real" sailboat.

My last boat, "DIDO" (custom Bolger design) burned on me back in the winter of 1991.

DIDO after the fire.

I wrote Phil and told him my tail of woe and asked what he had that was simple to build and smaller than Dido. The Birdwatcher was one of the designs that came back to me. I didn't like it. My girlfriend Lois asked me what was wrong with it?

"Too much window," I replied.

 "Can't you change that?" she asked.... within a month I was building a Birdwatcher.

Simplicity of a Birdwatcher mold.

The Birdwatcher is a simple boat to build. Since I intended building a mold to produce an Airex-cored fibreglass boat, simple is very, very good.

Gravity and small bags of sand used to bond the Airex to the hull.

 If you've ever built a complex boat shape, then you'll know why simplicity has its attractions. And with its unique superstructure it was obvious I wouldn't have to build a second mold to mate to the hull to complete the boat. In fact I built the superstructure out of welded aluminum tubing and afixed the plexi-glass and deck to the framework.

The aluminum framework in progress.

I started the boat April Fool's Day and finished it August 20. I christened it "POCO" as in Italian scoring for music. It means "little" or "a little". It turned out very well indeed. 

At last! Ready to go.

As you can see from the photos, I changed the profile in order to accomplish three things. First I wanted "less" in the way of window so I raised the hull sides  by about 3 inches midway along the boat and tapered that excess to zero at the boat ends. That's a personal preference. I also wanted more room in the cockpit, so I sloped the deck over the cockpit straight back to the rudder post, duplicating the front run of the deck. And third I wanted access through the tarp so as to be able to handle the sails with the tarp in place and be able to reef or stow sails while underway in the rain.

First sail.

The first two ideas worked splendidly. Actually so did the access "through the tarp." Unfortunately, the rain found this out too. I went through three modifications before I learned how to keep the wet out of the boat... but the first overnighter was wet and miserable. My original idea didn't work very well at all.

Florida sailing

The second thing that became self-evident about a Birdwatcher is that they are very tippy and really don't like to be jibed in heavy weather. My last boat Dido was a powerful boat, and if I had to reef, it meant we were in the middle of a hurricaine. Poco is not like that.

Looking forward.

I was off with my girlfriend Jane (yup new boat, new babe... that is another story that won't be told here) who was an inexperienced sailor.  It was something like the third or fourth time I'd sailed Poco and the first time  for Lac la Ronge, a large lake of about 600 square miles with something like 1,000 islands and reefs in it. The day had heavy winds with whitecaps everywhere.  Among the islands the waves were probably restricted to about two to three feet.

Looking aft. Cockpit cushions down for sleeping.

This changed as we came out from a cut between two islands and  headed downwind on a four mile run through open water  with a fetch of about 15 miles. Now the waves were from three to four feet in height.

Dockside watching the weather at Lac la Ronge

I had the tarp in place, full main up. As with most sharpie/ flat bottom boats, there is a lot of weather helm when they're pushed hard. I had asked Jane to take the helm while I went forward for some gear. Halfway to the bow the boat suddenly sheered sideways and went completely over on its starboard side. I scrambled aft across a myriad of loose items and watched mesmerized as the water rose up and down on the clear plexi-glass which is supposed to face up, but was now the new starboard side of the half-inverted hull.

Slowly the boat blew downwind  of the mast and sail. At that point the top three or feet of the mast and sail cleared a  wave top and the boat popped back upright. None of this took longer than 30 seconds from start to finish, but I don't mind telling you... it seemed forever.

It actually took me the rest of the day to (a) quit shaking and (b) piece together in my mind what exactly had happened. My concentration had been  on my search for some gear when the knockdown happened. After puzzling the pieces together I realized  we'd gone through an accidental jibe in heavy winds. The result was the complete knockdown.

Sailing at Lake-of-the-Woods.

I learned several things from that incident. First and foremost, the boat can take a complete knockdown and recover. This is a 'nice to know' fact  but I don't suggest anyone try it in heavy weather unless their nerves are far better than mine. Second, the boat is very tender to an accidental jibe. Third, never sail a new boat  the same way you sailed an older boat. Fourth, never give responsibility of the helm to someone inexperienced in sailing in heavy weather, it's not fair to them and could cost you dearly.

That incident shouldn't have happened. That was damned poor "skippering" on my part, and had the boat capsized ... I wouldn't have been writing this because the water that day was less than a month out of the winter thaw.

The lesson learned became the lesson applied. After that event I glassed in a significant amount of extra flotation. And I now have a rule... if the winds are such that I have to down the main and sail under the jib, I run a big fender up the sail track to the top of the mast. In theory at least, that should prevent the boat from turning turtle. I've been in some nasty weather in different sailboats in  a number of oceans... That was the third most scared I've ever been while sailing.

Ashore at Lac la Ronge.

You really have to be careful jibing a Birdwatcher. Myself, I will now double tack if the winds are over 12 m.p.h. rather than jibe. I built Poco with the big rig, and quite frankly I think you'd be silly to do otherwise. You can always reef if the wind gets up, but you can't add extra sail when you don't have it. It's amazing how little wind it takes to make Poco move with her maximum amount of sail. And that small jib gives an amazing extra bit of speed to the boat. Often when I'm forced to reef, I'll reef the main and leave the jib up as it gives me more speed -- even if tacking is then more difficult because of the sprit being more forward.

And on the subject of reefing. First whitecap -- first reef. Succeeding whitecaps -- second reef. I've had the boat knocked over to 60 degrees and beyond many times when fighting heavy seas,  but never felt endangered. I really think you need two reefs in the main  for safety sake if you're out on big water. That second reef in particular gives you the ability  to go up wind in the heaviest stuff the birdwatcher can handle.

Poco is best in light to medium winds and goes like a thoroughbred in such conditions, even to weather. In heavy airs, you can't point as high, and her light weight slows her down. You've also got to bear off more. In light to medium winds she'll tack at least 45 degrees by the compass (or 90 degrees double tack). In heavy wind you may have to bear off as much as 60 degrees (or 120 degrees double tack) to keep any speed going (I'm not sure how much leeway you'd make in either of these conditions. Her tacking ability I'm reporting is strictly one of compass bearing) In critical conditions I drop the main and run downwind with just the jib. Doing that you can take an awful lot of bad weather and it gives you probably 150 degrees of steerability before you start overpowering her ability to move in the desired direction.

I've sailed Poco every year since I've built her. I've sailed her a lot. We've been to Florida, Lake of the Woods, Lac la Ronge and a number of smaller lakes around me. I probably average three to four weeks of liveaboard every year.... albeit never more than 2 weeks at a time. I find one week to 10 days to be maximum... after that I want ashore and room!

Poco is a tender boat but that does have it's advantages. I've learned to sit on the lee side when pounding to weather to present more of a "V" to the waves. This works well but is more than a trifle disconcerting the first few times you perch your butt to leeward. You always have the feeling she's going to go over, but as long as you're carrying the appropriate amount of sail, she never does even if you get caught in a bad gust.  And if you can find a number of people to sail with you then you can put everyone on the windward side of the hull and carry as much sail as you think your mast can take.  She's powerful then and will give everyone a really thrilling ride with lots of spray and green water flying everywhere.

The boat rows easily. I've gotten lazy in the last couple of years (rotator cuff problems to port) and added a small electric trolling motor. Two deep cycle batteries run Poco at rowing speed for a very long time. I've never run them down. I'm guessing I cruise at about 10-15 pounds thrust.

Eureka! Now I know where the mosquitoes come from.

Disadvantages? Of course there are. I've mentioned my observations about her sailing peccadilloes. For a long while I always had mosquitoes bother me at night. It took a season and a half before I found out where the damn blood suckers were coming in from. I am not kidding when I say I once caught myself staring down into the centreboard slot to see if the little buggers had scuba gear. The answer manifested itself one very early morning I as I was sitting on the pottee. I happened to look up at the mast only to see a sliver of daylight peeking through the tarp tie-off. A mosquito was walking John Travolta fashion down into the boat. I now spray a little repellent on a sock (I still use the same sock) and wrap it around the mast before tying the tarp up... no more mosquitos. As I said, I went through three designs to keep the rain out. Solved that one too! The centreboard is both noisy and wet. At first I hated the sound of the water sloshing around the centreboard trunk.

Now I think it's quite fun and gives a big ship, big adventure sound to a little boat. The wet I've taken care of with a hindged aluminum flap that closes over the centreboard slot when the board is down. The rudder/tiller is a complicated thing and has a small amount of play which translates into a certain amount of clicking and clacking. With two people on board you're forced to sleep with your feet slightly higher than your head because you'll have to sleep with your bodies facing forward to have any room for your torso. Single handing I sleep facing aft. If you spend any time in a marina aboard your boat at night, you'll have to make up privacy curtains otherwise you're going to find yourself live and in color on some porn site. In super heavy rain you'll tend to get a tiny bit of wet coming in from the mast, the seams on your tarp, and sometimes I swear, through the fibreglass itself. Most of this can be creatively cured even in deluges of biblical proportions. And finally, sometimes those damn windows will let in too much light when you're trying to sleep.

Advantages... you bet. Those damn windows are wonderful things in the rain or the evening. If there's enough light to read outside, you can read inside. You can see all around you all the time. Try doing that on any other sailboat! With maximum sail this is a fast little boat. It points really well for a simple design, and except for being hardmouthed from weatherhelm in the puffy stuff and testy when jibing, is otherwise well mannered. I've rigged up a reefing system that allows me to go from ahead  to reefed to ahead in 60 seconds.

The tarp in place showing the forward zippered hatch.

By utilizing zippered hatches in both ends of the tarp, I can reef with the tarp in place. Being able to sail or row with the tarp in place means you never have to wear rain gear again. It's nice to be able to sail past someone who looks like a drowned rat while you're sipping on a cup of coffee, lounging in your shorts and leaning back against the hull...

You have to remember to give them a nice wave as they aren't having a good day. There are the advantages of shallow draft. Because you use the cockpit for your sleeping berth you can use the rest of the boat for stowage. I defy anyone to put more stuff into a boat this small. And strangely enough, even overloaded you still have lots of of people room. It defies believability.

I've added shelving back in the cockpit and small hammocks anywhere there's room. With the tarp off you have running headroom virtually the entire length of the boat. As I mentioned above, the back -- top of the deck extends aft  in a line identical to the way the front -- top deck slopes forward This means  you can sit on the cockpit side-decks or back end of the hatch and sail the birdwatcher like a dingy... terrific fun.

Sailing topside -- dinghy style.

    And I guarantee you'll have interesting adventures. One of the funniest stories I have to tell about Poco and I occured on La la Ronge. Being almost a wilderness lake you don't see that many people. One hot lazy day as I was running down the outside Robertson Island I decided that, "Hey... time for a little nude sailing." Ahh the pleasures of hedonism. I rounded  the south end of the island only to suddenly notice a vicious thunderhead that had been hidden in the heights of the Precambrian rock on Robertson. There was a flash of lightning. There were raindrops. There was wind. Well I know I can survive wind and I won't disolve in water, but I don't know if I can survive a lightning strike. So there I was, naked on the deck trying to clamp my secondary lightning arrestor to the nipple that anchors the sprit on a wildly shaking mast and sail. As if from a script, a houseboat came into sight from the other side of the island. There were people on the boat... lots of people. And  to compound  the felony, my depth sounder alarm started beeping. Cameras, I noted, were in evidence. Having attached the lightning arrestor cable I dropped down into the boat and started putting in a reef. The houseboat rounded a corner. The depthsounder quit beeping and the cloud, wind and rain hung a left ... and left. And they say there are no such things as gremlins! Small boat -- large adventures.

Where did that houseboat come from?

The Birdwatcher is a small boat with big potential even if she doesn't look like a "real" boat.. but like I said, she's an enigma.

I'll respond a certain amount to questions, if it becomes onerous, we'll have to start talking "consulting fees."



Found a few pics that Aeneas had sent me:

And the three "lost" pics, I have just the low resolution:

building superstructure

close hauled

hull done