Arara looking for adventure

My graceful canoe Arara is looking for a new home - preferably one that could provide action and adventure.

Arara was a great learning platform, and I had lost of fun designing, building and sailing or paddling the boat. She was a pleasure to paddle-sail when the wind was too weak to provide decent forward motion.

 Her canting rig took a short while to get used to, but then it worked beautifully.

He current keeper, Felipe Monsanto, will spend a while abroad, and therefore, Arara will return to me. I am still evaluating what I should do with her. Some ideas have already been discussed. Adri is suggesting to find a place in our apartment, and keep her visible. My preferrence is towards solutions that would keep the canoe in action, and even better if I could see her, or use her eventually. But as long as someone is enjoying her in sight or use, I will be happy. One thought was to leave her on Urca Beach, from where she could be well used. But whether I can keep her there safely, is still a question.  Another possibility is asking my sister, whether she would like to have Arara in her pool area.  

Arara provided me with a lot of sweet sailing and paddling action. It is great to have her moving again. If anyone has suggestions as to what course of action Arara should be following, then let me know.

Arara Roots

Sorry that I don't translate the whole text below. It is interesting information on Araras. Besides their fabulous colour, they have a peculiar behaviour too. Considered intelligent, they live a monogamic life. Which is why they are commonly seen flying in couples through the sky. Hence the name for my double hulled canoe, Arara.

They live up to 70 years. Several of the many species are endangered of extinction, due to the devastation of their habitat, the tropical brazilian rainforests, and hunting for animal traffic. They need lots of room to develop. They take up to 2 years to reach maturity. They are an awsome sight, like a flying rainbow.

They are a symbol for Brazil and tropical South America. Even having polinesian roots, I wanted a typical Brazilian name, and reference for my tacking outrigger.

Aves notáveis por sua coloração e comportamento, as Araras atraem todos com sua simpatia. Juntamente com os Papagaios, são consideradas as aves mais inteligentes do mundo. São bastante longevas, chegando aos 70 anos de idade. Encontram-se espalhadas pelas Américas e, no Brasil, podem ser encontradas no Amazonas, no Nordeste e nas regiões do Planalto Central. Infelizmente o desmatamento e o tráfico ilegal de animais silvestres têm dizimado populações inteiras destas coloridas aves. Inúmeras espécies estão atualmente ameaçadas de extinção, entre elas a Arara-azul ou Araraúna (Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus), e a Ararajuba (Aratinga guarouba). Algumas já são consideradas extintas Como a Arara-azul-pequena (Anodorhynchus glaucus) ou praticamente extintas Como a Ararinha azul (Cyanopsitta spixii) e a Arara-azul-de-Lear (Anodorhynchus leari).

A Arara Canindé possui o corpo predominantemente amarelo, com as asas azuis. Sua cabeça apresenta as cores branca, preta, amarela, azul e Verde. Já a Arara-vermelha possui a cabeça e o corpo vermelhos, com detalhes verdes, amarelos e azuis nas asas, variando com a espécie.

Reprodução: Monogâmicas, isto é, formam um casal Para a vida toda, as Araras vivem em bandos e nidificam em fendas de falésias e troncos ocos. O período reprodutivo ocorre entre OS meses de inverno e primavera. A fêmea coloca de dois a quatro ovos em intervalos de 2 a quatro dias entre um ovo e outro. O período de incubação dura a cerca de 28 dias. O macho é responsável por alimentar a fêmea durante todo este período. Após 12 semanas os filhotes saem do ninho já com aspecto semelhante aos adultos, porém irão depender dos pais por mais alguns meses. As crias podem se tornar muito brincalhonas e carinhosas se forem criadas à mão nas suas últimas etapas juvenis. Aos dois anos já exibem a plumagem de adulto.

Manutenção: Necessitam de bastante espaço onde possam se desenvolver de forma natural.

Fonte: Este texto foi reproduzido da página web do PetPage - uma página de informações sobre animais. Retirei algumas partes.

Arara - In loving memory

The lovely canoe Arara has come to the end of this her life. She has rested for quite a few years on my sisters pool veranda. And there has brought joy to me, every time I saw her. But the exposure to sun, rain, and abuse by the infants have taken a toll. Arara had rotten through on a few spots, and needed to be put to a final rest. 

Without much sentimentality I took the task of chopping up the once fine canoe, so that she could be disposed of. However, following a long hedged plan, I took with me the central section, and the bow. After some TLC, with sander, epoxi and paint, both will serve me to keep the memory of the canoe, and bring it to my appartment. 

Arara was a fine sailing canoe. Its simple sideboard, and tiltable rig made it a joy to balance out. Also paddle sailing was an efficteve way to advance even in very weak winds. 

I took Arara out many times. However, id did take 45 minutes to set her all up. And she was not the safest for two. I took my girl out on her, but only in very controlled conditions. That was ultimately the reason to build a larger boat, Arpex. But for sailing alone she was a blast. I took her out of the bay to Praia Vermelha, which was very nice. And when the wind picked up, she would fly like the wind.

Canoa Arara na praia da Urca

Canoa Arara na praia da Urca


Ainda estou aprendendo a postar imagens. Depois chego aos vídeos.

Esta é a minha Canoa Arara. Ela é uma canoa polinésia a vela. Eu a desenhei e construi em 2005, no Rio de Janeiro. Na garagem com oficina da minha madrinha T. Margot. Aliás, muito obrigado, de novo. Levei 5 dias de carnaval para montar a estrutura em madeira. O trabalho de fibragem foi assumida pelo Sr. Jorge, do Clube Guanabara, onde virei sócio para poder deixar a canoa. Ela fica guardada na casa de remo. No momento ela passa por uma pequena reforma. Estou fazendo alguns ajustes e melhoramentos.

A função do leme é assumida pelo remo. E pela vela, que pode ser cambada para todas as direções, como uma prancha de windsurf.

Imagem: Canoa Arara na praia da Urca

Good times on Arara

I include the construction of my canoe Arara into the steps of the journey towards the construction of Arpex. The development and construction of Arara was also not easy, but has given me lots of fun and satisfaction.

I post these images to remember the good times.

Paddles

This is my paddel collection.

From right to left:

My amazonian paddel
It is carved out of one pice of amazonian hardwood. It was given to me as a gift by the man who borrowed me his canoe during the Rio Negro voyage. He had other one for his own use. The canoes are used for transport, fishing and chasing. An essential part of life.

I initially used the paddle on my canoe, Arara. But I almost lost it during one capsize. But I was lucky. My friend Zé, was close by, watching, sailing on his J24. My paddel floated away. He screened the waters downwind until he found it. Valeu por essa, Zé!

My Rapa Nui paddle (from Easter Island)
I bought it on the last day on the island. It works nicely. It was my main steering paddle on Arara.

Parati style paddle
This is the type of paddel used in the Paraty region, in the bay of Ilha Grande. It is a reminiscent of inidian traditions. The fishing communities, called Caiçaras, use it. Caiçaras are a mingle of negroes ascaped form farms in the colonial times and indian tribes. The live a subsistence life in isolated beaches.

Early kayac paddle
I got this as a gift paddle form my second grade cousin. It is from family stock. Probabely used on a paddle boat in the Ninteen-50'ies or 60'ies. I've never used it. But I like the looks. It needs some repair work.

Arara sailing

Remembering the good times on my canoe Arara... It was good a fun sailing. And it cost me much less effort to build it. But, well, it was too small for two, to sail on. Good reason to skale up ... from 14 to 30 feet!

My brother Andreas took these pictures with his cellphone. It was a windy day, and I had a good sail.

I also lost the hatch cover on the ama. Due to that mishap, the ama flooded. But as you see above, I could still sail safely home. Some 5 liters reserve buoyancy made of PET bottles made the trick.

My brother Stefano's canoe in Parati Mirim

Stefano has posted some nice pictures of his canoe adventures on his Castelinho 38 blog. He uses his traditional Paraty style canoe to explore the so called "tropical fjord" - "Saco the Mamanguá", and the surrounding mangroves.

Stefano has also suggested to bring my canoe, Arara, the 14ft. tacking outrigger, to the same place. A new home for Arara. Of course I love the idea. We will bring the canoe there on the next opportunity.

Models

The construction of models is an excellent way to learn boatbuilding techniques, and the challenges involved in such a project. I've had great fun in building models from early on. And before I started my first boat, the Arara canoe, I've produced a small model.

As a result from my learnings with the model, Arara came out in a totally different configuration. The model was thought as a proa, while my canoe, despite being a double ender and having a palindrome as a name, was rigged as a tacking outrigger.

Arara

My canoe Arara again. Taken form my brothers boat. Beeing a well balanced canoe, I can let her run without paddle action. I just need to trim the rig right. The rig can be canted to any direction using the lateral and front stay system. I have recently upgraded the canoe with some cam cleats on the stays to make trimming easiyer.

Felipe's Wa'apa

Yesterday I was a bit too weary from the tiresome travel and jetlag. So, after a short visit to Arpex, the burning heat in the boatshed soon drove me out. Lunch with my girl and her friends from Sao Paulo seemed a more alluring prospect. 

We chose to take them to our Urca neighborhood. Always a lovely place to be. And what a surprise I had, when I saw a familiar sail bobbing about in the flat calm, just in front of Urca Beach. It was clearly Arara's rig, which now is doing noble work on Felipe's Wa'apa. How happy was I to see that the bamboo spars and sail are doing what they were built for, and not gathering dust in some boathouse! I hailed Felipe, who came paddling by for a chat. Of course I couldn't resist to board the canoe, for a short "floating" around, during which we chatted away. Felipe's canoe looks very fine on the water, with its hobie ama. And the deck is well sorted too. The canoe, which is built in three segments, can carry crew weight too. Much different than my Arara, which was quite on the light side. 

Since my girl and friends were waiting in the restaurant, the intermezzo was very brief. But it made my day. 

Arara sailing in Rio

Good times sailing Arara. Sailing out of the bay, like on this day, when I sailed to Praia Vermelha, requires having an eye on the tides. If you're cought outside when the tide goes out, there is no way you're manage paddling in again. There is no way other than waiting for the tide to swich, landing of Praia Vermelha, or accept a tow...

On these days like on the picture, with just a little breeze, I would confortabely lay down in the cockpit and enjoy the ride. In the afternoon sun, on a bight day, it is a guarantee of great views of the bay.

How did Arpex come together?

I recently got a very friendly message from Helmut, living in Greece. He made some questions about the origins of the design and plans of the Arpex boatbuilding project. To illustrate, I'll give a short summary:

All different boat-types from polinesia facinate me. They combine speed with elegance and effective use of material. And they achieve that with low tech. Which means low cost.

From early childhood I had the dream to design and build a boat. As I got more familiar with the polnesian boattypes, I thought that this would be an easy way to build something I could sail on. So I began digging deeper. My aim was to build a boat I could do small exploratory sailing trips with.

But I thought it would be too daring to start with a big boat. So, to get started and accquainted to boatbuilding, I sketched and finally built my canoe Arara - which you can see on the picture above - during carnival 2005.

It was thought to be a shunting proa at first. But complications with the development of rig and steering made me go the tacking outrigger route. And results were encouraging. The canoe was simple, cheap, fast and fun.

So, in 2005, I did the next step, and began drawing my first visions of a bigger boat, following the same principle. A tacking outrigger of about 30ft. all basic ideas were there. But I needed construction plans. I would need to hire a naval engineer to get them.

To tell the engineer exactly what I expected, I began detailing my first sketches in a Power Point presentation.

The engineer was hired. But still he didn't seem to get a grip on the idea. So, I sat and built a detailed scale model. I wanted to build a model anyway. But the idea was to build the model according to the plans that he would supply me with... That would have been much easyer.

Anyway,... I had fun building it, and it was very instructive. And the tests have encouraged me to actually start building.

The engineer finally managed to get something together which ressembled what I wanted. Even if a great many details were wrong or missing.

Which is why I have to adapt and develop many parts of the boat. This slows down the construction. But what can I do? There was no alternative.

ARPEX

Já faz um tempo que não postei nenhuma mensagem.
Andei ocupado com Natal, ano novo, além de uma velejada para Búzios no barco do meu irmão.
Progredí batante no projeto do barco. Decidi quanto ao local de construção e construtor do barco.
Se tudo der certo a construção vai acontecer no início de 2008, em Itaipú, Niterói, Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
Já elaborei o contrato de construção, o plano de atividade e o cronograma.
Não consigo falar com o Luiz Fernando. Construtor que escolhi pelas suas competências de construção e simpatia. O fato de ele poder construir em sua garagem, em Itaipú, também ajudou.
Mas, insistentemente ainda falta o nome apropriado para o barco. O "Carioca" é o nome de projeto. Gostei do nome "ARPEX". Apelido da praia do Arpoador, Ipanema, o carinhoso Arpex simboliza diversos elementos que me agradam. Uma certa aura anos 70, ano do meu nascimento, década das minhas primeiras impressões. A visita às praias, do Rio, como Copacabana no Posto 6 e Arpoador quando o mar está calmo, é um dos objetivos do projeto Carioca. A repetição das letras A e R, de ARARA, letras fortes, também é legal. E o X também é uma letra forte. O suffixo "EX" lembra uma giria usada na época. Bom, para testar o nome decidí renomear o Blog para ARPEX.

Primeira postagem

A primeira postagem no primeiro blog, imagino, deve ser a mais difícil.
Mas são as dificuldades que nos fazem crescer.
E o crescimento é renovação, reinvenção.
Inventei este blog para falar sobre meu universo.
Especialmente as partes mais conhecidas deste universo.
Quero discutir e apresentar o projeto de construção de barco, incluindo:
"Arara" e "Carioca" e, novidade do dia, "Garda" (afinal esta é a estréia do blog!)
Mas também sobre o universo marítimo em geral.
Mas também falarei sobre minha própria produção de arte, e arte e creatividade em geral:
Principalmente Telas e Mobiles.
Bom, e mais curiosidades e afins.

Apesar de escrever de forma aberta para um público imaginário, uso as postagens também para discutir meus projetos "em voz alta". Um artifício para dar um passo para trás, e observar meus projetos com outros olhos. De um observador. Por isto, para aumentar o efeito, resolví escrever este blog usando o nickname "Enter Miles". Um outro dia falo porque escolhi este nickname.

Carioca sailing

Some have noticed the pictures of the battered Carioca Class sailboat which I have posted earlier. One of them was Gustavo Pacheco, who is also fond of this fine little classic sailboat. And he has contributed (again) by sending a nice picture of a Carioca sailing in the Bay of Botafogo. Thanks!

As some might know, the initial project name of my boat was “Carioca”. I chose the project name for various reasons. One of them was to create a reference and memory of this simple and quick little boat. The rig I had first deigned looked very much like this, fully battened Carioca rig. They once had a fairly strong fleet in Rio de Janeiro, and an active racing class association.

Until now I have found it very difficult to find Carioca pictures. One of the reasons is that “Carioca” is the name we give to persons which are native from Rio de Janeiro. Therefore a search in the internet gives thousands of hits for “Carioca”. But finding boats among the hits is a challenge.

Cariocas are a rarity these days. We had one in my Guanabara Club, where I leave my Arara canoe. It was in desperate condition and has been cut up to pieces… Very few have survived, partly due to their very light construction. Their hulls were constructed by riveting planks against steam bent frames. These rivets corroded away in time. Many Cariocas have therefore been glassed over.

Lower image from: www.revistamaremar.com.br

Parrots Shining Brightly

Getting a perfect finish is a very high ambition for an amateur boatbuilder. A decent finish takes time, dedication and technique. And it is too easy to get lost and loose momentum. Well, at least that is what I think.

Which is why I have never gone down that route. My approach, from the beginning, has been "pragmatic". And that is exactly what I'm getting - a pragmatic finish. It all looks fine, even nice on pictures. But one can see the shortcuts when looking from close. But I don't mind. I see the big picture.

However, despite this general approach, I do take some pride in achieving a more than pragmatic finish in some key elements. I have pleasure working slowly on them. One is the navigation table, in the forward part of the cabin. The other is the window, in the rear. And here mainly the wedges, that will be used to block the window in position.

One neat thing about it, is that the wedges came out looking like two little parrots! Which fits nicely, considering that my first boat, or canoe rather, was named Arara. The two parrots will sit in their window nests watching over Arpex.


All these wooden parts are beeing protected with 3 coats of epoxi and then covered with marine varnish from International - Solgard. It contains double UV protection. A key detail, since epoxi is sensible to UV rays.

Sailing Outrigger Canoes

I feel honoured to have the visit from Gary Dierking on this blog. Gary builds fine outrigger canoes in New Zealand. Tacking outriggers and shunting proas. His canoes are of a simplicity that transcends tradition and modern thinking. Beautiful and practical boats, that can be assembled quickly, by any amateur.

He has also written and edited a fine book about "Building Sailing Outrigger Canoes". He offers 3 complete set of plans in the book, which makes it of great value if you're thinking about building a canoe. I whish I had one of those when I built my canoe, Arara. To all others it is still nice reference. It's nice images are worth it.

The book can be easily found on Amazon, which is how I got it.

Please also find Gary Dierking's blog, "Sailing Outrigger Canoes" in my link list.

Saturday Status

Saturday was used well. The boat now has its port of call declared on the stern. Also the name has been applied on the ama. I made good use of an old paddle stock, which long ago had been produced for my canoe Arara. The blade was rotten and gone. So I produced a new one, with 6mm plywood. Since this is not very strong, I backed it up with glass and epoxi.

I also started producing the attachment for attaching the main sheet on the boom. Also for the downhaul.

Buying the anchor chain and rode felt like a milestone. This is 10 meter of 8 mm chain, and a 40 meter 12 mm anchor rode. They are spliced together ... All that sort of stuff you need on a boat.

 The paddle seem to be well sized and strong enough.

In preparation of the boat launch, I invited the boatramp guys to see the assembled boat. The idea was to have them see the boat how it should be after we put things together. They will be able to work more focussed, once they understand the complete picture.