Flicka Friends · Volume 21, Issue 1

Summer 2020

20 pages · edited by Tom Davison

Download the original PDF — scanned exactly as published

In this issue

Scrollwork - BPBingham Flicka 20 (p2)
Scrollwork - PCS Flicka 20’s (p3)
Turning Left Into The Pacific (p1)
Owning A Flicka or Two (p12)
Filling in the Gaps (p14)
Flicka Names - Alphabetical
FRON T Aft-quarter scrollwork on a Bruce P. Bingham Flicka 20
Photo: Tom Davison © 2020 (p3)

Flicka Articles

Turning Left Into The Pacific

Flicka Friends · page 1 · Summer 2020

ABOUT FLICKA FRIENDS Flicka Friends is a newsletter that is written specifically for the people who own, crew aboard, or are interested in the Flicka, a twentyfoot sailing vessel designed by Bruce P. Bingham. Based on the Newport Boats of Block Island Sound, this fine little yacht has been built from various materials from the 1970‘s. This includes Flickas constructed from plans obtained directly from Bruce’s California office. About 400 sets of plans were sold. According to Bruce Bingham, many Flickas can be found in New Zealand, Australia, and Sweden.

Debbie Custer

Owning A Flicka or Two

Flicka Friends · page 12 · Summer 2020

(sailing) since we were just tadpoles. I grew up on the Chesapeake Bay, that’s what we did.

I’m lying at anchor in Chuckanut Bay near Bellingham, Washington trying to think of the first time I had seen a Flicka. I can’t place the date, or even the year, but I’m certain it must have immediately tugged at my heartstrings. Everything about them just looks, well… right. From that, several stories concerning the Flicka have unfolded in my life.

My first sailboat was a Sears “Super Scamper” at around 8 or 9 years old. I digress. Anyway, fast forward to the end of my tour and getting ready to retire and transfer back to my home in Washington State.

She is one of very few PS hulls with the grapes in the scrollwork on the bow. I guess it wasn’t cost effective at some point (hull 6 or 7 I believe) and they were ground off of the mold.

Most of the interior bore the signs of being fashioned by someone… let’s just say that I pulled a lot of exterior drywall screws in order to rid her of, in my view, the unacceptable Jim and I were walking docks looking at boats, joinery. I had big plans for DAPHNE. I have our usual past time, in a place where there built furniture since high school (VoTec) as were several Flickas docked. I had made the well as for a living before the Coast Guard. I was serving the last of my 24 years in the statement “If you happen to find a killer deal Coast Guard (Quartermaster) in Alameda, CA on a Flicka please let me know. I’ve got to have I’ve been to the Center for Furniture and living aboard an Islander Bahama 30 in one”. I’m pretty sure this is close to being Craftsmanship in Maine to hone my skills and have a degree in boat building/marine Grand Marina when I met Jim. Funny story verbatim. construction. DAPHNE was going to be my how that happened, but that’s for another Several months later, I received the message. floating calling card. Then life got in the way. time. He found one. DAPHNE is PCS hull #1 and We immediately became good friends. A the story goes that she was in the mold when As DAPHNE sat on her trailer I still kept the friendship that revolved around boats and Pacific Seacraft acquired it from Nor’Star in project embers glowing. I have had several being on the water. We both had served in the 1978. Oddly enough, the hull does have a PCS sloop/cutter-rigged boats in my life but I “floating” militaries and had been on the water HIN and was apparently sold as a kit. always thought the Flicka would be a great 12

hull for a gaff rig. While in Port Townsend one day I saw the boat of my dreams; an emerald green, gaff rigged Flicka on the hard. I wanted DAPHNE to be exactly like this one. I asked the yard people if they would contact the owners, who lived in the Midwest, and ask permission for me to get aboard and under the full cover in order to take some photographs, notes, measurements, etc. A few days later I got the call that the owners had cleared me to come aboard any time I wanted in order to get what I needed. Wow! I have to admit that I sat under that cover on a brisk fall day and dreamed about having a boat “just like this one.” In the spring the owners contacted me and asked if I would like to go sailing with them. Uh, Yeah! We went out a couple of times and I was really surprised in how well she sailed. She pointed higher than I had read about (gaffers) and also so quick in a light wind. I had a blast and couldn’t stop talking about it. Again, life got in the way of DAPHNE’s transformation from a moth into a butterfly. Galley, v-berth, and starboard seatee. Photo: Darren Davis © 2020

Fast forward a few years. The emerald green gaffer hadn’t left my mind. My wife says that I woo boats (and guitars) for a while before making any moves. Each time I was in PT I would seek out this boat and dream about some day having one just like it. Well, one day on a whim I emailed the owners and told them that I never had time to get to work on my Flicka and that if they ever considered selling theirs that I would be very interested in taking it off their hands. A slim chance but you never know until you ask, right? I got a response the very next day! It went something like this… “Funny you should ask. We just put it on the market and we’d love for you to have it. Let’s negotiate a deal” Wow! I guess they could tell how much I loved that boat.

Anyway, without much of the offer/counter offer stuff that usually goes on we struck a deal that we could both be happy with. Done. I soon became the owner of Island Maiden. She had been impeccably maintained by the yard. Wooden spars, tanbark sails, beautiful bright work, new wiring, electronics, etc. The icing on the cake, which I hadn’t known about, she came with an 8’ Fatty Knees dinghy (one of the originals from the Hess MFG company) with the sail rig which had been dry stored and used very little by the looks of it. Score! I currently sail out of Bellingham and try to get to the San Juan Islands as much as possible. Chuckanut Bay is my usual overnight destination when I just need to get away for a night but strapped for time. I’m contemplating putting her in Everett in the fall so I can start exploring the South Sound. Since it will be so close to my home I’ll be able to get out much more often, daily perhaps. As for DAPHNE, She sits on her trailer patiently awaiting her transformation. She came with the wrong rig, read: a sawed off mast from a much larger boat, and was in no way ready for adventuring. My thought is to one day make her into a respectable sloop and put her somewhere in the Sea of Cortez for long-term vacationing purposes. Maybe that will be another article somewhere down the pike. For now, the sun just peeked out between the clouds. I’m going sailing! 13 F

I was laying on the berth in s/y ARIELLE and wondered why the sliding hatch on my Flicka 20 ( and all my other boats) had a gap that allowed rain to enter.

Darren Davis

Filling in the Gaps

Flicka Friends · page 14 · Summer 2020

Well, I decided today was the day to do something about it so I made a template to filled in the gaps! First was precisely drilling two 1/4” holes and using two SS carriage bolts 1/4” x 2” through teak and companionway slide. I cut from an oak 1” x 3” board to fit the pattern then cut a slot in oak to slide over the bolts. Placing two nylon fender washers on both the inside and the outside of the board to allow it to slip back and forth freely. Then I screwed an end piece to close the end and allow for a finger hold. Later I discovered those inside nylon washers needed to be 1/8” thick instead of 1/16” to prevent jamming against the fiberglass. Outside washers worked fine. Did the same to the other side. With the hatch fully open, the end "finger" boards work as a nice stop against the fiberglass. I have two holes up there from the old hasp and staple arrangement.

When the gap boards are slid shut (outward) they lock the hatch from opening. I was not going to put any type lock on it but then decided the appearance of a lock may discourage someone from trying to figure out the "secret" opening technique. I put on a tubular lock, just 'cause it looked invincible, and I discovered that it will actually lock the hatch by keeping the hatch from sliding back when the metal tab is in the down position. It's not quite long enough and the hatch can be lifted up and over but that will just take building a longer plate tab. I doubt I will ever lock it anyway since there is a trick to opening my hatch now. And this is in the vent mode. The secret latch works because the slider hatch actually moves back a couple inches past the batter boards. This allows you to pull the slider back, reach up under and place your fingers on the finger boards, then slide the gap boards to the lock or unlock positions. Now that you know my secret, I'll be coming after you if anything goes missing! 14

from the North Sea in 1971). The prevailing winds are west, the waters can be choppy if winds are stronger than Beaufort Force Four, T h e D u t c h a r e r e a l b o a t i n g / s a i l i n g which happens regularly also in the summer enthusiasts, in the ancient history and months. nowadays. The area here in the South is exceptional attractive. The Delta of three large Some small-uninhabited islands prevent rivers, The Rhine, The Maas, and The Schelde shelter or just a relaxed day for swimming or BBQ. My favorite is The Archipel, a former are modeling the landscape for centuries. transformed sandbank. Nearby you can spot a A lot of islands are today connected with dams population of seals, even swimming with them and locks to protect the land from the water. is great fun. Agriculture, fishing and tourism are the main Bruinisse is a modern large marina with lot of business. A paradise for sailers. facilities, even a pizza service. In the old I often make solo day sailing trips from fishing port are excellent fish restaurants with Brouwershaven on the Grevelingen (largest reasonable prices due to the local fishing fleet. salt water lake in Europe since the separation Speciality are the local mussels and lobsters s/y KAVENGA

really delicious. The only lock to leave the Grevelingen is in Bruinisse. You can sail south west to sail in the tidal waters of the Oosterschelde or sail north east to reach the Krammer-Volkerak (fresh waters). Benedensas is my favorite place to stay overnight for free in nature. It is a very small place with a fantastic nature preserve for hiking and bird watching. The highlight is the diner in the local restaurant where you feel like being back in times. Hundreds of miles inland waterways make it possible to visit a lot of medieval towns, often with harbors located in the centers of the cities. So it is never boring - same same but different any time. Flicka Friends F

CONT ENT S

Photo: Tom Davison © 2020

Flicka Friends · page 3 · Summer 2020

Nor’Star built approximately twenty hulls, and Westerly Marine completed some of them. The manufacturer of the bulk of the class is Pacific Seacraft who built 434 hulls in California. Oceancraft Sailboats purchased the Flicka molds from Pacific Seacraft and they will be building the Flicka in North Carolina. Flicka Friends is published on a quarterly basis with issues being posted to the Internet in March, June, September and December. Articles and photographs are welcome and encouraged. You can download the current issue as well as the back issues of Flicka Friends from the Flicka Home Page: www.flicka20.com

The Flicka 20 bulletin board can be found at:

The Flicka 20 Facebook Group can be found at: Flicka 20 Facebook Page

Flicka Friends is always in need of articles and photographs for publication. Please consider sending something to me for the next issue of the newsletter. Articles of any length can be published. A cell phone image from your last outing in the bay, or ocean passage would be of interest to the Flicka 20 community. Editor:

Tom Davison Editor / Publisher s/y BLUE SKIES PSC Flicka 20 # 314 editor@flickafriends.com

Turning Left Into The Pacific s/y HRAI ROO

The small group of men were sipping on beer and chatting the afternoon away. Sailboats swung on their hooks, trade wind clouds building in the late afternoon sun and life were, as usual, good. Very good. Jim smiled and mostly listened the way quiet men do in the company of other men. These gatherings always took place on other sailboats, mostly in the forty-foot range. One of the talkers turned to Jim and asked, ‘So how did you talk Deb into it? I had to install a watermaker and a freezer unit.’ Another added, ‘Washing machine.’ Jim paused. ‘Well it took a lot of arm twisting over the course of a year, but eventually I had to tap out and cry ‘uncle’ so she’d stop badgering me about it.’ Chirp, chirp. I can’t say for sure now, it's been almost twenty years, which anchorage this took place but it wasn’t the first time nor probably the last time the inevitable question came up. They always thought he was joking and he didn’t disabuse them of the notion. 4

Two women were enjoying a respite from a very cold blow from the north aboard a fifty-foot powerboat. One of the women, the sailor, looked at the entrance and said, ‘Oh they made it!’. The other woman glanced at a tiny sailboat. She could see two yellow foulies working to bring down the sails and get the small outboard started. ‘Oh do you know them?’ she asked. ‘Yes, we met them last week in Ensenada, they’re a couple from Seattle.’ Sitting from the perspective of possessing a well appointed, half-million dollar boat, the woman opined, ‘I think it’s wonderful when young couples with no money just go with a simple boat and explore life.’ A slight pause as the sailor corrected her assumption, ‘Oh no, they are at least in their fifties.’ Chirp, chirp. ‘What the hell is wrong with that woman?!’ I do know that anchorage. Bahia de Tortugas, or ‘Turtle Bay’ to the Baja Haha crowd. I even know the date December 23rd, 2002. Like most chapters in a life where you get to the end of the chapter and wonder, how did we get here, our tale is made up of lots of serendipitous moments. I’ve been writing a book about our journey for, well, the last six years, so you’ll need to wait until I finish it to get all Flicka Friends F

the juicy details. For now let's just say cascading events and encounters led to a moment where I asked Jim, ‘Why couldn’t we sail away?’. It involves previously unshared genetic disease and a rich couple at the symphony. And Charlie Dewell. More on that later. Have you ever read Ann Davison’s book ‘My Ship is So Small’? Seriously, if you haven’t you are missing out on brilliant wit and the first woman to solo-cross the Atlantic. In hindsight there are reasons certain books are banned, or maybe in my case should have been. Tania Abei’s ‘Maiden Voyage’? Beryl Markam’s ‘West with the Night’? Beryl Smeeton’s, well any of her books?

These were women who dared. I, a woman, while described by a long-term voyager friend to others as ‘a force of nature’ had not dared. Not in an all out way. The time seemed right. Health was for now good. Four kids out of high school and in good health. Both mom’s in good health. Cocktail talk over a year played with every scenario from finances (sell the house), to boat (it floats) to a million other ‘what if’s’. Then it happened, and I’m not sure who said it first, like which new couple is going to say the ‘L’ word first, but one of us did. ‘So when we go’… Not ‘If we go.’ or ‘Should we go?’. And the other one didn’t say no, so we went. We’d found ‘HRAI ROO’ in the want ads of 48 North sailing magazine. No photo. ‘Modestly equipped. 14’ sweeps. Sand Point, Idaho. $11,000.’ A Nor’Star Flicka, Hull #11, 1976, owner built from the hull up, cutter rigged, sitting for fourteen years in a pole barn in the mountains. Lots of different shades of day-glo yellow inside and out. I persuaded that decision. On her, we learned to sail with rag tag sails. We’d been sailing for, oh a lifetime of three or four summers when we left. The amount of work to get her ‘seaworthy’ took up literally every waking moment when we weren't both working middle management, high stress, business trip kind of jobs. Now she not only had a pulpit and a pushpit, heck she had stanchions! And an outboard, yes sweeps and thole pins were just a bit past our hardiness. We even added winches and running lights and a battery to boot. And a one-burner alcohol stove, a porta-potty, new Lee sails, a

water bladder and a sink. She already had oil lamps. Honestly, the list of all that was done on her would fill up the entire article with no explanations included. She at least came with a rudder, oh yeah I had to rebuild it. But then with lots of projects undone, we left anyways. Okay we should have put the anchor on before San Diego. And when the homemade windvane was botched by the welder the week before we left, yeah we should have bought one before San Diego too. We prepared ourselves for the two-year adventure too. We bought every technical book ever printed, we watched every Lyn and Larry Pardey VHS tape. We watched ‘Captain Ron’ too many times, co-opting lines, ‘If it's going to happen, it’s gonna happen out there!’ But ‘two books, in the end, influenced us most. ‘KAWABUNGA’, Charlie Dewell’s well written voyage on a Flicka convinced us we already had a boat that could carry our dream. Maiden Voyage’, Tania Abei’s circumnavigation as a 100% totally unprepared 18year-old left us confident if she could survive so could we.

The house sold, the dog re-homed, it was time. The last year we were often introduced as, ‘Have you met Deb and Jim? They are retiring and sailing around the world!’ ‘Really?!!’ To which one of us would explain, ‘No, we sold our house, are quitting our jobs, will have no income and our only plan at this point is to sail out the Strait of Juan de Fuca, turn left and see where we end up.’ If you find yourself at a party and want people to nervously pull away from you, that line works well. But that was the plan. It seemed so many people announced circumnavigations ahead of time only to discover that Hawaii seemed a good spot to call it quits. Too much pressure from expectations. Okay secretly I kinda hoped that would happen, but I expressed it resolutely as, ‘As long as we’re having fun we’ll keep going.’ An employee of mine looked at me and said, ‘I’ve known you for three years now. Trust me, you don’t know when you’re not having fun. Is Jim sure he wants to go with you?’ Apparently he did. And so we did, we turned left. And we still were having fun, but we came back. And I couldn’t write about the voyage for years because no one, not one article, not one book, ever told me that for some of us the hardest part wasn’t untying the dock lines, it was tying them back up. But that’s a story for another time. 8

HRAI ROO on the hard for refitting and rigging.

Also in this issue

These pieces are in the archive but not yet transcribed — they're in the PDF.

Scrollwork - BPBingham Flicka 20 (p2)
Scrollwork - PCS Flicka 20’s (p3)
Flicka Names - Alphabetical
FRON T Aft-quarter scrollwork on a Bruce P. Bingham Flicka 20

Flickas photographed in this issue

4 boats appear in this issue's photo pages. Page numbers refer to the PDF.

HRAI ROO — p4
ISLAND MAIDEN — p12
ARIELLE — p14
KAVENGA — p18

Look any of these up in the Flicka 20 registry.

Every surviving issue is in the Flicka Friends archive. For the boats named here, see the Flicka 20 registry, or the Flicka 20 specs.