At last a build thread: CR16 skiff

[cracked_ribs]

Well, personally, I've been extremely lucky, thank you for asking - it has been a little crazy with thousands of people evacuated and every major road from the rest of Canada down to the southwest coast washed out, some needing months to repair. They've instituted gas rationing in this part of the country because the supply chain is so disrupted: you can't buy more than about 8 gallons at a time. It's pretty wild. Vancouver, a city the size of Seattle, is essentially cut off from the whole rest of the country, except by air. The road and rail links to it are gone.

I can't really personally complain, living in what my mom calls "the castle on the hill." That's a wild exaggeration, it's an old house from 1908 but it's not particularly nice or fancy, and I'm in a normal residential neighbourhood, it's just the biggest house in the neighbourhood and on the highest point for a few hundred feet - it's extremely lucky, in a way, because my entire town is built on a pretty steep hillside, and we're on one spot where the ground projects a little bit in a minor foothill, so everything mostly slopes down away from us on all sides, so not prone to flooding on our particular lot. And I work from home, so I don't need to commute, so I can basically be a spectator to the whole thing.

This whole town did not too badly - many flooded basements but no catastrophic flooding. But twenty miles north or south, a different story: massive sinkholes that closed the main highway, properties under several feet of water, roads open only to essential travel, all kinds of strangeness.

It's funny, I casually commented on another thread here right before it started that we were expecting 150-175mm of rain that day, which is 6-7 inches. But although that's what they predicted, I thought we'd probably be on the low end. We got 185mm, a little over 7 inches...but we were on the low end compared to the regions around us. Some areas got a lot more. The range I used to do most of my shooting at is under six feet of water now, and the suburban area closest to it is basically wiped out.

These are main highways:





And those are just single spots, they're like that all over. Major repairs necessary and more storms coming now, so when it all gets fixed...man, no idea. It's fairly spectacular damage.

The sun came out the next day, so I took the boat out and gingerly picked my way through the debris field out there - there were logs everywhere, you could only run on plane in short sections and had to watch the water like a hawk. The ocean was green with mud and silt, although it doesn't look it here:



But you can see logs distributed everywhere on the surface.

Outside the protected bay, conditions were a little sporty for a small boat...lots of wind in the prior 24 hours. But manageable. I didn't get any good pictures of it because I was a bit focused on not hitting any more logs. But it was quite beautiful out there. I didn't come in until sunset.

I also popped over to my cabin on the weekend - first trip there on the new boat. I just went for an afternoon to start putting up some netting to keep the kid safe this summer. Nice to be able to round-trip it on about 3 gallons of gas, instead of whatever it used to take, about 12, I guess. Particularly if we can only buy 8 at a time now.





You know, it's a funny thing...when I bought that cabin, one of the factors in choosing its location was that I always thought that conceivably, Vancouver and the surrounding area would be hit with a natural disaster (I assumed earthquake) that would cut it off from the rest of the province because every route in is over a bunch of bridges.

And then I'd be in the middle of a giant city, with no road or rail to supply it, an airport that's on the oceanfront and relies on dikes to prevent it from flooding on a good day, and a shipping port with no reliable means of distributing whatever goods are sent there, and all that stuff will arrive at ocean-shipping speed.

And I thought you know, I'd like to be able to leave that situation, because that sounds like it would suck. So I bought a place I could get to by boat, and when I lived in Vancouver I kept the boat fueled up and ready to leave, and I had the ability to launch it without power, so if I couldn't get my truck to it, we could still just walk over, crank it out with the tirfor, and go. I tried it to make sure it could be done. It took about an hour to launch without a vehicle but wasn't too hard.

And I stocked the cabin up because I wanted to be able to just check out of the city if it really got crazy. I always wondered how bad things would get if we were relying on the military to distribute water or food...considering they're based out of CFB Shilo (Winnipeg) and would probably be about as likely to get here quickly as Santa Claus. And probably equally well equipped and funded.

I don't live there anymore, I live in a little town of around 8000 people, which is used as the set for Resident Alien, as it happens: a show set in an absurdly picturesque, friendly little caricature of a town. That's where I actually live. I don't worry too much about dealing with panicked crowds - around here the most severe social unrest I have seen was when they announced that due to covid, the annual Christmas lights festival would be cancelled: in a fit of rage, a man threw his hat on the ground, and I could see dozens of other people nodding. It was touch and go for a minute there but cooler heads prevailed. I thought we might have an incident of yelling, but no, thankfully, everyone calmed down and the chaos was reduced to angry murmurs. Here, I really don't worry much about having to cut and run.

But it's very interesting to me that I am getting a little preview of the exact situation I had thought about, only it isn't from some apocalyptic earthquake, but from...lots of rain. I would never have guessed that in a million years. It's really fascinating to me, in fact, because Recoil magazine had actually asked me to do a piece on why and how to set up a property to be a dual-purpose family vacation spot and survival shelter, in a manner that makes your family actually want to be there. But then I was busy moving and everything and I just never got around to it.

But now it seems extremely relevant again, so maybe I'll give them a call and see if they want it still, with an angle related to the flooding and the proof of concept that provided.

[Jeff]

Wow CR, glad you did ok!!!! Jeff

[cracked_ribs]

Thanks very much - I can't remember if I've said this before but I used to get annoyed whenever people said to me "you're so lucky you have X" because generally speaking, they have no idea what I went through to get it, and so often, the thing they were commenting on was some material item that I only had because I took huge risks and worked eighty hour weeks to pay for it.

But ever since my son was born, it's struck me that everything I value, really does have a huge luck component.

My kid was born healthy. He's a happy, good-natured little boy. I didn't get that through hard work, it just happened to me. I can't take any credit at all. That was a real tipping point for me in terms of how I perceive the role of luck in my life.

The flood situation is exactly the same: we have so far been unscathed, but not because I work hard or do this or that, but because I happened to like a particular town and I thought this one house would be a good choice and okay, technically yes, I did think about drainage because my dad is a retired geological engineer who is totally obsessed with adequate drainage and as a kid I spent countless hours digging trenches and placing sand and gravel and perforated pipe...but even that is pure luck, I didn't choose to have a geological engineer for a father. And I treated the drainage here the way I treated the boat design process: I eyeballed it, did a thumbnail on the back of a napkin, and said yeah, should be fine.

So we fared well, but I can't take any credit. We were just lucky.

I was talking to my mom this morning and I remembered something related: their house used to flood, when they first bought it. My dad started digging test holes in the back yard, working out percolation rates and stuff, sampling the dirt, and then he drew up a site plan and assigned me to trench digging detail. I dug down until I hit glacial till, which is this super densely packed, almost rocklike clay, and I cut a couple of feet down into it and cut a trench in it through the back yard, wrapping around the house, on the slope he spec'd and backfilled the cut with rock, then gravel, then sand, and then filled the trench back in with the dirt I'd dug out initially.

Man, their basement is like the freaking Atacama now. And I remember when I was doing the digging, I thought my dad was completely nuts and what he'd designed was absurd overkill and just his own bizarre fixation. Is the backbreaking work down in this trench really worth it to avoid the occasional wet floor in heavy rain?

But I bet he's having the last laugh now, because I guarantee that is the only house on the block with a dry basement. Lots of people all around him with a foot of water to deal with. He's probably downstairs now with a moisture meter reading zero, and writing down the names of everyone who thought he was being crazy so he doesn't forget anyone when he emails pictures.

[Dan_Smullen]

Not much to comment on, You have about said it all. I will add though, our parents somehow instill luck upon us, by teaching us how to impart our own "luck". Instructing you on how to dig a proper ditch was likely a part of this.

Its' our job to do the same for our kids. It sounds like you're exactly where you need to be in that great cycle.

Take care, dry out, and enjoy your family and your boat.

[jonnymac]

wow, I’ve been detoxing from the news and missed this disaster. Glad you are doing ok.

I’m with your dad on house issues, solve them once move on with life. All those people laughing probably spend more time dealing with their wet basements AND complaining about the wetness than you ever did making your family’s not wet ever again.

[Fuzz]

I am just amazed how little our media, all of them, has given to this disaster. Our closest neighbours third largest city is almost totally cut off and it is not news I guess pushing some political agenda is more important than the welfare of millions. Sad to say that.

[cape man]

The skiff looks awesome!

[cracked_ribs]

Thanks guys - I have definitely tried to apply the various things I've learned, I'll say that.

I am really happy with how the skiff turned out - the thing I find really shocking about it is that I can keep it on plane in conditions I probably wouldn't run my big deep V glass tank into. I guess this shouldn't surprise me exactly because the whole point was low power, low weight, low speed planing, so I could stay in contact with the water and not get airborne and slam back into the surface.

But I can plane and stay in contact at much higher speeds that I predicted: we had a solid 2' washing machine of steep chop the other day and I thought okay, this is the stuff I figured "at least I'll be able to do 10-12 knots not burning much fuel, instead of either 6 knots at idle, or 12 knots at full plow burning fuel like crazy."

But I could run at 15-18 knots in it with no problem at all, it didn't feel like anything. The hull stays glued to the surface, and it just feels like you're on a big surfboard, cruising along over waves and not really interacting with them, whereas the two tons of glass would slug through waves @20kt, but it was like it wanted to physically crush everything, and it was intense to run like that. I would do it by myself, but not with the family on board.

This just feels like...drama-free zip. Very satisfying.

I am just amazed how little our media, all of them, has given to this disaster. Our closest neighbours third largest city is almost totally cut off and it is not news I guess pushing some political agenda is more important than the welfare of millions. Sad to say that.

Man, the news media is so messed up these days, it's surreal. Ordinarily, I don't expect people in the US to be very aware of Canadian issues. Some Canadians are really huffy about this but I don't find it realistic. What I'll often say to them is, "yeah imagine being right next to a country that, okay, it's a tenth the population, and proportionally speaking in terms of world influence much smaller than that...but come on, it's physically huge, right on your border, and you don't even know the basics, like who the leaders are?"

And when they excitedly agree, I say, "okay, so tell me what you know about Greenland...do they have a prime minister? Are they ruled by a council in Denmark? Just give me the basics. You're an informed citizen of the world, who's in charge there?"

And of course no Canadian has a freaking clue what happens in Greenland.

So I don't expect Americans to pay attention to what happens here, but at the same time I think you are bang on in your assessment of what the news media covers or doesn't. Flooding and chaos just over the border? Well, sure...but how does this spin up our most argumentative, irate consumers of outrage culture? Is the flood orange? Could we blame it on a kid from Covington or Kenosha? No? Okay, page 27, here's three column inches, knock yourself out.

I mean I think all media does this, not just the media I personally find least relatable. Presumably there's someone at a different news agency going "okay but does this look like purple-haired, clearly couch-bound ivy league students losing their marbles because they discovered a placque dedicating a park bench to a white guy? No? okay, page 27."

But man - and this is dangerous because the coffee is really starting to hit this morning and I'm on the verge of a 2500 word rant that shouldn't be here - something broke, so badly, in the news system, when big tech made it possible to do targeted ads on a really granular basis. All of a sudden, you can track with extreme precision exactly who is watching or reading, and for how long, and what links they click, and all you have to do to ensure maximum eyeballs on ads is to tune your product to captivate people...and the science to make it work is all right there for you, provided for a fee by the richest and most powerful companies on the planet, who, in their spare time, do nothing but use their absolutely terrifying amount of machine-learning power to figure out ways to do this even more efficiently. And it turns out that the most efficient attention-holder is outrage, so...does the flood outrage you? No? Then bury it. Here's a clip of some idiot you already hate, stumbling over a random word mid-sentence. That'll get you going. Revenue!

Anyway I think it's pretty sad that news agencies have completely walked away from actually being respectable providers of information and decided to become outrage-driven click farms and I think that's a big part of what's destroying western civilization.

But the floods are helping too, around here anyway.