Rainbow

For quality photos of Steamboats
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cyberbadger
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Re: Rainbow

Post by cyberbadger » Tue Aug 08, 2017 3:10 am

One day I'd like to build a launch suitable for the great lakes or the Inner Passage around Juneau AK. I kayaked many times from Auke Bay to Shelter Island to my cousins's organic farm.

Thats an area that can be dangerous, but if you check your weather and think about your ditching plan, its beautiful. I drove a 16ft skiff with a 40hp ic. We would drop the dogs if the skiff was overloaded and let them swim to shore. ;)

Would love to steam there...

For now Im in calmish Lake Chautauqua.

Rainbow looks great. Unusual Sound. ;)

-CB
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barts
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Re: Rainbow

Post by barts » Tue Aug 08, 2017 4:31 am

RGSP wrote:
Lopez Mike wrote:I grant you that what this videos show would be fairly classed as a light chop in a brisk breeze made bouncy by a bit of adverse tidal current.

That said, there are few populated places on earth with such severe conditions as the N.W. coast of N. America.
That may well be true Mike, but for the record, the part of the NW coast of Scotland known as The Hebrides, has on average over 10 days a year with hurricane force winds, which are not classical hurricanes but just violent winter storms covering a large area, and our news media never report them, but we get saturation coverage of every real and even potential localised hurricane which hits the US.

My own area in eastern England is much calmer, but even so we are about 5 miles from Felixstowe, which under some measurement methods is the worlds busiest container port, and in the winter months it would be unusual for the port not to be closed one or two days in the month due to bad seas. The "usual" ships there are a bit under 200,000 tons, with an increasing number going over the 200,000. Oddly enough, they don't look that big when you see the real thing, and when the weather is bad they have to sit some miles offshore, so we don't really see them under those conditions.

I suppose what I was trying to say was that Rainbow looks like she could cope with fairly rough sea conditions, which is what you said, whereas most pictures I see of US boats in general suggest they would not. The pictures I see, of course, are what gets published in the international press, and probably don't apply to your area, though in my own defence I've visited the Bay area frequently, and have been horrified (possibly mistakenly) by the floating things, call them boats if you must, that apparently go to sea there.
Rainbow is a rather different boat than our Otter. The latter is a lake boat, although I've taken her into some surprising places. Rainbow can handle a surprising amount of rough water, since she lifts nicely even in very short seas. Being round bottomed, taking seas abeam is to be avoided. Here's a US Navy video of this sort of boat, equipped w/ a diesel engine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3iwg0Xe1Vc

The San Juan Islands summer conditions vary from flat calm to awkwardly boisterous, and since the islands are rather complex in shape, you can have rough going one moment, come around some headlands and suddenly it is a pleasant day out the next... or the reverse. We're glad to have a boat that can handle more than we can :). She's planked in 7/8" or 1" Alaskan cedar over black locust frames; I'm told she weighs 4500 lbs or so including steam plant. My job now is to get the steam plant into the same sort of condition as the hull. Next year's projects include replacing the boiler piping w/ schedule 80 pipe, replumbing the safety, adding a float to the hot well and adding a manual feed pump to supplant the injector and engine driven pump. I'm also replacing the HP valve guide, and probably adding a balanced slide valve to reduce wear in the guide. She steams very nicely at 150 psi, with ball bearing mains, rod and eccentrics.

- Bart
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Bart Smaalders http://smaalders.net/barts Lopez Island, WA
RGSP
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Re: Rainbow

Post by RGSP » Tue Aug 08, 2017 8:20 am

Lopez Mike wrote:Even in decent weather I find the ocean tedious. I can remember running out of reading material on passage. The last gothic bodice ripper paperback had been so bad that I ripped each page out as I finished it and thew it to the wind so that no one else would have to suffer. The last day before arrival I was down to deciphering Mexican milk cartons. Sad,
Sad, and even more so because I can believe it.
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TahoeSteam
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Re: Rainbow

Post by TahoeSteam » Tue Aug 15, 2017 4:57 am

Rainbow looks like a beautiful boat Bart! Where did you fid her and what are her details?

Is that a Scotch boiler and Burleigh Compound?

Will she be making it to the Delta Meet at B&W this year?
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barts
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Re: Rainbow

Post by barts » Wed Aug 16, 2017 2:05 am

TahoeSteam wrote:Rainbow looks like a beautiful boat Bart! Where did you fid her and what are her details?

Is that a Scotch boiler and Burleigh Compound?

Will she be making it to the Delta Meet at B&W this year?
I heard about her from my brother; he knew the owner, who was on the next island to the one we were on... It is indeed a Scotch boiler and Burleigh compound - 3 x 5 x 4. The hull is in great shape - 1" Alaskan cedar over black locust frames, plywood + epoxy/fiberglass deck.
Tiller steering, double ender.

She will remain on Lopez Island in Washington in my folks boat barn. We plan on moving there in the next few years as retirement beckons.

I'm now working on beefing up the HP valve gear; after 8 years of hard use the valve guide is worn out. I'm going to fit a newly designed guide, a chromed valve rod and a balanced slide valve, and bush the steam chest. She runs very nicely at 150 psi (safety is at 155). I'm also adding a float valve as the manual pump bypass is tiresome.

- Bart
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Bart Smaalders http://smaalders.net/barts Lopez Island, WA
Mike Cole
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Re: Rainbow

Post by Mike Cole » Wed Aug 16, 2017 8:03 am

nice looking sea boat, over here we have a vast range of boat type to suit very local conditions, as i am sure you have to. Rainbow to me reminds me of the Cobles build in the NE ,often worked off open beaches.
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Lopez Mike
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Re: Rainbow

Post by Lopez Mike » Wed Aug 16, 2017 9:34 pm

Bart is a little shy of working off of a beach. He'll get over it (grin).
If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.
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barts
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Re: Rainbow

Post by barts » Fri Aug 18, 2017 3:18 am

Lopez Mike wrote:Bart is a little shy of working off of a beach. He'll get over it (grin).
I've already run her aground once in Swift's Bay on Lopez Island; the 30+" draft is rather more than I'm used to. On a steep beach, I won't mind a bit as long as we're heading into gravel or sand. Rocks make me nervous for obvious reasons.

- Bart
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Bart Smaalders http://smaalders.net/barts Lopez Island, WA
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