Oarlock & Sail Wooden Boat Club

The Vancouver Maritime Museum has produced a great video of interviews and information about Heritage Harbour, with the goal of raising funds to renew the harbour, starting with replacing the decking and pilings. Please watch the video, and consider donating to this important cause.

If you want some fireworks with your fundraiser, get tickets to the Museum Gala in July – take a look at their upcoming Events page. You’ll also find the book launch event for our wharfinger Bruce’s new book – you can attend in person or virtually.

Our boats Ragna and Button Swan are looking good with fresh paint! Ragna’s interior is finished, and her exterior hull is getting a nice bright blue. We just might be getting her in the water this weekend, though there is still varnish work to be done on spars and oars before she’s ready to set sail.

Button Swan has a coat of primer on her (slightly deeper) topsides, ready for re-coating with fresh turquoise paint. Then once Ragna’s work is completed, Button Swan will move into the shop for the rest of the varnish and interior paint.

The planes that some of our members were working on have turned out great! We are planning on doing a plane-making workshop sometime – if you’re interested in this very satisfying and surprisingly approachable process, keep an eye on this space or your email.

At our AGM on Tuesday, the reality of the painful increase in our insurance premiums resulted in an increase in our membership fees. Our new price for OLAS membership is $75, and if you want to use the boats as part of OSBUG, it’s an additional $75. If you’re on the automatic renewal plan, please be sure to login to that and update the fees (and include the $5 admin fee). We hope we can still make you feel that this wonderful club is worth the price!

We’ve been busy getting our fleet refreshed – our rowboat Vogler is back in the water, and thanks to Rob persevering through our insurance renewal troubles, Vogler is ready for our OSBUG members to enjoy! By the looks of our calendar, she’s already been out on the water a bunch of times this week.

Leapfrogging over the Button Swan, Ragna is now in the shop getting a new paint job. Because of the rather beat-up varnish, and since this is the most-used boat in the fleet, we decided to paint the entire interior of the boat. Here she’s got a coat of primer, but we’re planning on a nice off-white for all the parts that used to be varnish – should go nicely with the white hull interior, and will be much more durable.

Extracting Ragna’s mast was quite a struggle!! When we built a new mast a few years ago, we didn’t leave quite enough expansion room, and now it was very tight in its sleeve. After a few attempts with ropes and levers, Arnt stepped in and fabricated a clamp and base, and used a couple of hydraulic jacks to pull it out. Still wasn’t exactly easy, but it did the job! We’ve sanded it down a little, and we’ll add a bit of a collar at the top of the sleeve to prevent water getting in again. The mast, spars, oars and rudder will remain varnished.

Last Saturday Bruce gave an intro to celestial navigation, using a sextant. That’s a skill that comes up regularly in conversation at the shop, so it was great to get a taste of it, for those who took part.

If those new-found skills are not enough to keep you safe, Bruce has a new book out – pick up a copy, and learn how to avoid bad luck on the water! It’s available in the Vancouver Maritime Museum shop, and other book stores.

Planning ahead for our next new build, we tried out the process of making a plane, with an eye toward making a backing out plane. That will be needed if we decide to build the carvel planked handliner we’ve been thinking about. A backing out plane will help us shape the curved inner face of the planks.

On the topic of Renewal, we’ve got a few board members moving along to other things, so if you want to get involved, let us know – our AGM is coming up soon, where we’ll hold our elections.

There’s always something interesting going on at the dock! Come on down for a look, or to take part!