We’re back on the water! Every year, the Village Community Boathouse mobilizes its fleet of traditional wooden rowing craft for a circumnavigation of the most famous island in the world.
The Row Around Manhattan (RAM) is a challenging and incredibly scenic 30-mile voyage that begins at our boathouse on the south side of Pier 40, circles Manhattan on the Hudson, East, and Harlem Rivers in a counter-clockwise direction, and ends with a spectacular party back at the boathouse. The RAM is also our biggest fundraiser of the year; we ask each rower to raise or contribute a minimum of $100.
This year’s RAM will take place on Sunday, August 22 (rain date September 11) with a start time of 6:00am (Crews need to be on hand at 5:30 at the latest).
Non-members are welcome to join us provided they have sufficient rowing experience or join us for at least three practice rows between now and the event. Non-rowing friends, family, and colleagues are encouraged to support the effort by volunteering at the event.
You must register in advance! Sign-up is easy: Go here.
On Saturday, a short crew of VCB rowers delivered Whitehall Gig JML to Sebago Canoe Club in Jamaica Bay, a 25 mile voyage. The combination of the Northwind and the ebb tide made for a great sail. At several points, our speed was clocked at 8+ knots. After passing Coney Island beach, we turned north into the wind, which was blowing at 15 mph, Ingo appeared with the chase boat and towed us the rest of the way north through Jamaica Bay to Sebago. Thanks to our intrepid crew, Dave Clayton, Marcel Dejean, Rob Buchanan, Sally Curtis. Special thanks to Ingo Gunther for saving the day!
Set to sail from Pier 40Leaving ManhattanGig Sailing under the Mill Basin Bridge
The VCB board has voted to suspend all boathouse programs and activities until further notice. Leaders in the scientific and political communities advise that social distancing is the best way to slow the advance of the virus. The VCB board will not meet next week, but will conduct business by email.
All winter, volunteer boatbuilders have been gathering three days a week to build and repair the VCB fleet. Sessions had been held twice a week until recently when an enthusiastic group of VCB’s highschool rowers requested an additional session for them on Fridays. VCB members, high school students, and assorted volunteers and friends are working together on four projects.
Norwegian Pram:
Volunteers, working on Wednesdays and Sundays from noon until 4 PM, have almost completed work on a traditional Norwegian pram built from a Simon Watts design. Special care has gone into the fitting of frames and thwarts and gunwales because parts of the boat will be finished clear. Since it will be equipped for both rowing and sailing, we have fabricated a dagger board from mahogany and a tidy dagger board case. Mast construction is under way as is painting and varnishing.
The Pete Seeger is a big favorite of our rowers. It is a 27 ft Whitehall gig named after the celebrated folk singer and clean-water activist that we built three years ago. Pete came into the “boat hospital” for some work this winter. Volunteers, under Dave’s direction, repaired some dings and added a new layer of fiberglass to the stem and keel. The whole gig is now getting fresh paint and varnish from stem to stern, inside and out.
The planking the new canoe is now almost complete. The “planks” are in fact thin strips of white cedar (1/4″ x 3/4″) with a nose on one edge and a cove on the other. When pushed close together with a bit of glue and a staple to hold them in place (until the glue dries) they will make a sinuous, wafer-thin hull. Since a wrist accident put Lorne on the sidelines for a while, this work has been carried on by a determined, and increasingly talented, team of volunteers. The final strips are going in clean and tight. Once this stage is complete, we will pull the staples, sand the outside smooth and apply a strong fiberglass covering.
The winter weather is keeping our gigs under cover and most of our rowers at their work or studies. But a gang of young people from VCB’s high school rowing club are trekking to the boathouse every Friday afternoon to build a little Optimist sailboat. This is a very popular design in the U.S. and Europe often used for teaching kids to sail. It is also a great starter project for young boatbuilders, with a square stern and stem and a single plank on each side. Six students showed up for the first session and they have been back, bringing assorted classmates with them, every week. We started by building a stout strong-back and have moved on to the frame parts. In the process the students have mastered the mysteries of drills, screws (with different kinds of heads!), saws (jig, pull and band), files, planes (smooth and block) and sanders (pad and stationary). It has been a very social, chatty, couple of hours as some very serious young scholars unwind after a tough week of study by building their own wooden sail boat.
Volunteer boatbuilders have been very busy this autumn at the VCB boat shop on Pier 40. Even as outside temperatures have dropped and our rowing gigs have gone into winter quarters, the shop has hummed with activity. It has also hummed with a very loud, but very efficient, gas heater! Every Wednesday and Sunday afternoon VCB members and assorted volunteers have gathered to work on three big projects. One of these, which is just about finished now, was repairing and repainting Silversides, a rowing skiff from the Prospect Park collection. A second project is building a traditional Norwegian pram from a Simon Watts design. The pram is about half-finished. And a third project is a new cedar strip canoe being built over the same molds we used for the Figure 8 last year. Preliminary work on the canoe is just about finished and the planking is about to begin.
The photos attached here can give you a good idea of how each of these projects is proceeding. They can also suggest how many people are getting involved in the work. What they can only hint at is how much fun we are having. We look forward every Wednesday and Sunday to our regulars and we welcome any and all newcomers to join us.
