Yawl should know the conundrum of getting a tiller 'round the mizzen mast

The details of how to design a yawl so that the tiller gets around the mizzen is an interesting topic. There are a number of tricks:Using a line steering system: Here you can see Michael Storer's Beth Sailing Canoe with the tiller forward of the mizzen and the lines connecting to the rudder, which is out of the picture.I'll add that there are a number...

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Great Boatbuilding Article

NY Times has a great article in its Preoccupations editorial about a writer who builds boats for fun and "describes his work on boats as a 'postgrad seminar in character-building". Please visit my links page to see this wonderful article as well as other good links."Building a boat offers no paycheck, but teaches much about the values of work"quoted...

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How do you determine the number and dimensions of staves in a Bird's Mouth Mast or Spar?

Birdsmouth is the word in the shop, lately. We have several orders for birdsmouth masts and spars that are in progress. I have been working hard at nailing down the process to be able to make them efficiently and to a very high standard and feel very excited about how it is all going. The Landing School of Boatbuilding has asked me to to give a talk/demo...

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Why the Yawl Rig for the Goat Island Skiff or for any boat?

I am asked this a lot and wanted to put something together to answer this and other questions. I added the mizzen to the GIS because I wanted a boat for myself that would be easier to singlehand on longer excursions and for use in sail-and-oar events such as the Small Reach Regatta, the Texas 200, and other RAID events like the Shipyard School Raid...

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