This FISHER-SMITH design is a modern, hard-chine plywood interpretation of classic fantailed launches of the late 19th/early 20th centuries.  Drawing upon a traditional hull-form known as a “low-chine” deadrise-boat, the ‘entry’ (forward underbody) of this hull is made from a carved block of sugar pine or other even-grained wood, as far too much twist occurs in a short distance to develop the shape by planking.  This makes it fun to build.  Beyond that, the boat is constructed upside-down, frame-and-stringer style, then planked with 3/8″ marine plywood.  Decks are lightly planked–1/4″ ply, and coaming is the same.

These boats are well-suited to very low power, since no amount of raw energy will get them up out of the water on a plane; they are true ‘displacement’ types, moving through the water at a calm, peaceful and reflective pace.  (Photo: N. of Vancouver, BC, Canada)

This FISHER-SMITH design for a fast and seaworthy open-water pulling-boat was commissioned to compete among the VIKING-class boats, but at a far more modest cost.  The form of its battened, glued-lap plywood hull is developed with only four strakes (planks) to reduce build time while still giving the impression of a round-bottomed boat.  With this type of construction, frame parts are sawn and assembled, then mounted upside-down on a building jig and notched to receive the keel-strip and stringers that define plank-lines.  When stems, frames and stringers are complete, the assembly is faired and planked from keel-to-sheer with plywood and flipped over onto ‘V’-shaped saw-horses for finishing.  These hulls are ‘monocoque’ structures–totally watertight and lasting for decades with only minimal upkeep.

The design utilizes easily-built aluminum bent-plate ‘outriggers’ to spread the oarlock spacing for standard scull-oars, with sliding-seats and foot-stretchers on light wooden assemblies.

(Length: 22′;  Beam: 42″;  ’Double-Scull’)

Also known as the “Cable Car Gig”, this classic boat was said to have been built by two workers in San Francisco’s cable car barn in the last years of the 19th century.  The boat was used for recreation on the Russian River in Northern California until one of the men passed away, when it was donated to the Dolphin Swimming and Boating Club on San Francisco’s north shore.  After years of service and many hands involved in its care and repair, in 1984 it  received an extensive FISHER-SMITH restoration.  Now in its 115th year, it continues to please as one of the Club’s prized and oft-rowed ‘doubles’.

The boat is interesting for its style of construction: not a true ‘Whitehall’ of eastern US design origins, it appears to share more likenesses with the ‘Gigs’ of coastal Great Britain.  With its graceful planked-up deadwood, inner keelson-strip and somewhat radical ’6-beam-plus’ proportions, one could wonder where those cable car builders were from…

There have been three wooden replicas of this lovely boat commissioned to date, all FISHER-SMITH-built; together with the original, a small one-design fleet now lines up at Club regattas for spirited racing among San Francisco Bay’s great landmarks–Golden Gate and Bay Bridge towers, Alcatraz, Angel and Treasure Islands.

(Length: 18′; Beam 36″; ‘Single-Scull’)

A smaller, FISHER-SMITH-designed single-seat adaptation of the VIKING Gig, inspired by one Bill “The Animal” Paine, a colorful rower at the South End Rowing Club (SERC), rival to the neighboring Dolphin Club which owns VIKING.  Named THOR by The Animal in continuance of the Norse theme, the first of these new FISHER-SMITH ‘singles’ was christened in 1983 and has become a favored boat at the SERC.  Paine’s vision was to develop a small fleet of the Norse-named one-design boats for competition; with bay rowing was evolving rapidly though, enthusiasm for his idea waned as competitive rowers took to new and efficient fiberglass “open-water shells”.  But not all enthusiasm.

Sometime after the turn of the millenium, a Dolphin Club rower, Todd Oppenheimer, became enamored with the design and embarked on a gradual and patient effort to convince his Club to order their own VIKING’S DAUGHTER.  Finally, with support from the family of a well-loved, recently-deceased rower, the boat was commissioned. Launched in 2010 and christened KOHLENBERG in his honor she is the second to be built to this design (see WoodenBoat Magazine article, May/june 2011, no. 220).  Finally, after 23 years, the two clubs’ crack-rowers can now line up for match-races, one-on-one:  may the best rower win!

Our most recent restoration was produced by OLD TOWN in 1946 for a customer on the east coast, but damaged in shipment and sent back to the factory for replacement.  Coincidentally, a potential west coast customer had lodged a standing request for just such a damaged boat–and its discounted purchase price–for summer use by his family on a high altitude lake in the  Sierra Nevada mountains of California.  The boat was put on a westbound train, patched with a thin metal plate over the hole when it arrived and did excellent duty for the next  60-odd years.  The same family, now training their fifth generation of canoe-paddlers, decided the time had come to reconstitute it for the benefit of young ones now developing an active interest in boats and the water.  We stripped the old canvas and varnish, replaced and repaired all damaged woodwork, re-canvassed the hull, installed new rails, restored original seats and refinished the boat inside and out.  This canoe is now engaged her next 60 years of service on the same High Sierra lake.

The International 110 one-design sloop is an early 24-foot long by 4-foot wide design for plywood construction which gained popularity in the mid-1940′s for its great sailing qualities, speed, affordability and ease of construction.  During postwar years, boatyards working to restart the yachting industry made production runs of these inexpensive fixed-keel sloops, homebuilders added many more, and the class spread from the US east coast to other regions.   Many hundreds were built and raced over the next five decades, including more than one fiberglass-hulled production series which race along with the woodies.  As true planing-hulled designs redefined speed for a new generation of racers, the ’110′ lost favor, but a renewed interest at the Inverness Yacht Club on Tomales Bay, California is growing–so much so that Fleet 56 now numbers fifteen boats, making it a ’110′ “hot-spot” nationally.

One of our customers desired to race a ’110′, and was fortunate to find the tired hull of a storied champion, #331 built in Massacheusetts in 1946, which had been driven east by its owners Gordon and Jocelyn Nash in 1964 to Annapolis for that year’s Nationals regatta and came away the national champ.  The boat had languished in a backyard in nearby Sacramento, CA for nearly 40 years, and underwent a complete restoration here.  Rigging was very nicely done by EASOM RIGGING of Richmond, CA.

Jan Adkins– author, artist, WoodenBoat contributor.

(In reference to KOHLENBERG, the newest of the FISHER-SMITH-designed, 18-foot single-seat ‘VIKING’S DAUGHTER’ model, inspired by the ‘VIKING’ One-Design-Class of 22-foot doubles owned by the South End and Dolphin Clubs of San Francisco, CA.  The KOHLENBERG (image, at right) was commissioned by the Dolphin Swimming and Boating Club of San Francisco and delivered in 2010.)

To read about the new gig KOHLENBERG, the ‘VIKING’ and ‘VIKING’S DAUGHTER’ designs, see the May/June, 2011 WoodenBoat Magazine cover article by author and maritime photographer Abner Kingman.