Island Escape: Entry #3: Skip Johnson
Another Island Escape Contest Entry
It’s fortuitous that our gracious editor specified individuals could submit two entries because my submission #1 hinted at a better solution hence this Submission B.
Submission #1 was based on making a craft with bamboo as its primary structural element kitted up as a nicely shaped raft based proa. When I drew in the fore and aft shrouds to both help hold the short A frame mast in place and more importantly to hold the ends of the hull up and prevent hogging a thought crossed my mind. Gee, that’s a lot like how the Egyptians did their boats in the olden days when all they had was reeds to work with.
So here we go, still a proa but the hull is made from a number of bundles of either smaller bamboo cuttings or elephant grass (or both). Bundles are about 24’ long, about 4” in diameter, tapered at the ends. About 24 will be required. Bundles will be fairly flexible but will stiffen up some when bundled together, particularly when a keel piece and 2 sheerstrakes are added.
I’m not sure of the density of Elephant grass, Wikipedia and the like have a lot of data that’s of interest to agricultural interest but semidry density isn’t among them but I suspect the bundles would be a combination of smaller bamboo and elephant grass. Bundles would be held together with local vines and the separated strands of polypro rope used to tie all the bundles together.
Most of the rest of reasoning was in the verbiage for scheme A (design #1) so I’ll just on some high points.
Area between beams to be used for coconut storage .
Obviously our craft isn’t actually “watertight” in the conventional sense so sailing performance will be for a somewhat heavier craft than would be first supposed. None the less, a similar sail from half a sheet of 8 x 12’ polytarp propelled my P52 proa regularly at 10 - 12 mph.
Hopefully one of the pieces of driftwood or some of the other errata would suffice for the blade of the AD scull shown. My experience with two of these sculls has been very positive and I believe our intrepid adventurer could easily manage 2 mph on windless evenings after the sun’s gone down.
One resource that’s really stretched in this scheme is the 100’ of polypro rope. Normally down and dirty rigging by yours truly uses a lot of trucker hitches. This project can’t afford such extravagances so I would use the eyelets and shoelaces from the shoes to tighten up shrouds and the like.
Netting should be used over top of hull to keep coconuts from be washed overboard.
Shelter from the sun is paramount, as our craft is travelling South the sail should provide shade in the morning and some shade would be provided in the afternoon by a screen made from scrap clothing fastened to the A frame mast and outrigger beams. The remainder of tarp left over from sailmaking would be used for cover if any rain was chilling. If not it would be handy to collect rainwater for drinking.
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