Building Phil Bolgers Harbinger

Back in 2002, I received a request from a customer for a pretty Catboat. I cant remember the initial wish-list, but when I showed him Phil Bolgers Harbinger design, he was hooked. Harbinger is a Catboat of the New York model, rather than the better known Cape Cod model, and she has exceptionally fine and easy lines.

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Fine lines

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Easy bilges

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Harbinger was designed with rowing as the primary source of auxilliary propulsion, and the New York model was much better suited to this than the more buxom Cape Cod hull-form. Phil had designed the boat to be built plank-on-frame carvel, but as the customer intended to leave the boat out of the water on a trailer, we had to come up with a different method of construction - carvel would open up when dry. The most obvious options were, glued strip-plank, glued lapstrake, and cold molded. I decided to go for strip-diagonal cold-molding, and wrote to Phil to get his permission. He was very happy with my construction plan, but indicated that he was frightened by the labour-intensive nature of the method.

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The boat turned out to be very successful in construction and use, and Id love to build one for my own use. Very briefly, here are the primary stages in construction: -?????????

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MDF Molds set-up.

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7mm WRC strip Planking.

First of two layers of 3mm Hoop Pine diagonal planking.

Lots of staples needed in hollow sections - used a total of 18 thousand, put in individually and pulled out by hand.

Diagonal planking finished. Hull thickness 13mm (just over 1/2").

Shapely and massively strong hull.

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Launching day.

First sail.

Phil Bolgers Harbinger

When I can get around to it, Ill put up a photo gallery showing the construction in more detail.

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Harbinger and the High Peaked Gaff

It is with direct relevance to two of my recent postings (High-peaked Gaffs and Building Phil Bolgers Harbinger) that I show the picture below.

This shot is of Harbinger just moments after pushing-off from the launching.? It may appear that the motor is dragging, but in fact it is just ticking over (Honda 2hp Air-cooled 4-stroke) so as to be ready for emergency use in getting out of the marina. That is me you can see standing at the tiller, concentrating intensely - both of the owners were on-board and I was unfamiliar with the boats handling characteristics.

The point is that the photo shows two things - Harbinger is a beautiful design, and more importantly, you can see how the combination of a short hoist (luff) and a long, high-peaked head gives one a really versatile rig. Even in the light conditions, it is apparent that the gaff is bending nicely under the tension of the peak halyard. I guess that it could have been released a little to get more draft into the sail, but we didnt know what conditions would be like outside, and the sail and lacing were all brand-new and unstretched. For the record, we didnt need the engine, and the boat sailed superbly - just look at the curl of water coming off the forefoot!

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