Coquille a Joel White Shellback Dinghy

Article By Bernard Boulanger

It was mid covid and I hadn’t sailed for a couple years having sold my Danica 16 a while back due to lack of a proper tow vehicle. I now owned a diesel Smart car) Sailing a small boat away from the maddening crowd seemed like an ideal Covid activity, also I needed a project. I wanted something light , yet capable. something around the 10- 12’ range that my Smart Car could tow…Hopefully something wooden or with a traditional feel. I saw an ad for a Shellback dinghy on the Sunshine coast, a ferry ride and a couple of hours of driving away.

Shellbacks are a Joel White designed 11’ glued lapstrake dinghy. Designed as a tender they tow well, sail well (lug main) and row well. I talked them down a little on price via email as another buyer fell through and as it even had an old trailer they would throw in I decided to go check it out . I borrowed my brothers CRV and bordered the ferry from Vancouver(Horsehoe Bay) to Langdale on the Sunshine Coast, Then up the Sunshine Coast Highway past Sechelt and up the east side of the Sechelt Inlet.

The boat looked quite nice, home built, but solidly made and the interior shape and brightwork sold me. We turned it over(they weigh about 100lbs) and when I saw the interior with it’s pretty wood brightwork. I thought "I’m going to buy this boat.”

I’d never had a small open boat before, nor one that had oars as an auxillary. All my glass boats had motors of some sort and a couple of paddles and all were pretty horrible to paddle if the motor went kaput. The other thing about glass boats is that they can be all sorts of shapely and capable but most of their cockpits have the aesthetic appeal of hot tubs, but without the hot water and massaging jets.

This was a glued plywood lapstrake boat so kind of a hybrid wooden boat but it had nice open gunwales, wooden benches, mast partners etc. In general enough brightwork to give it a warm wooden boat look. Also glued plywood lapstrake is almost as no fuss as fibreglass and very durable. The mast looked great as did the oars (quality oars not garbage hardware store oars) but sadly it had a poly-tarp sail. These can work well but the sailor in me rebelled against this and I knew I had to eventually make or acquire a ‘real’ sail.

It seemed like something my Smart car could tow…size and weight-wise. The trailer was decent though the tires were ancient. Some further haggling ensued and I drove away with the little boat perched jauntily on it’s trailer. The trip back was mostly uneventful, except after I reached the mainland and was heading home on the freeway I noticed on one of my many trailer check stops that one of the wheels was getting quite warm. I switched to the side roads and nursed it home carefully.

Back home I bought some new wheels and redid the trailer bearings. I was pleased to see the trailer was a hinged trailer which made it easy to take the boat off the trailer so I could paint it. The paint needed some work and I didn’t like the idea of a blue hull upside down in the water. Also there was a bit of a split in the false keel/skeg. The bottom of the boat was glassed and the hull was painted blue. The plan was to fix the keel, fair the hull, re-glass the bottom and add some bilge runners and paint. After much sanding, I glued sacrificial oak bilge runners, added some glass, faired the lot and repainted most of the hull white leaving the sheer strake blue. The end result looked a little 'Greek restaurant' but it also looked jaunty and shipshape. I added a pair of eyes to the bow so she could see, adding to the Mediterranean/oriental look. The interior for the most part looked good so I decided enough is enough I’ll go sailing!

The shellback dingy is a decent size at 11’ long and with a 4.5’ beam. There’s a thwart across the stern, and amidships and then the mast partners forward as well as the daggerboard trunk. Its the sort of boat that you sail sprawled in the bottom of the hull or sitting on the centre thwart. There’s no floorboards so if you get water in the boat you will likely have a wet bum unless you bring something to sit on. It’s pretty stable but I don’t think you would want to stand on the gunwale and standing in general requires a good sense of balance.

This was my first experience with a lug rig and I was entranced. The wooden spars and 4 sided peaked sail had a traditional gaff sail look and interesting new terminology and techniques to learn. The whole rig including the freestanding mast could be brought down easily and carried in the boat. Oars as an auxillary also appealed as I used to really enjoy rowing as a child. Paddles are all very well for a canoe but for a dinghy one wants oars. You can go places with oars.

I took her out on a local lake and really enjoyed the experience. She sailed great. I enjoyed learning the techniques and tricks of the new rig. I loved the look of the rig as I sailed, I loved figuring it all out and I really loved how nicely she rowed. I decided to name her Coquille (kok-kee -ye) which is French for shell. Coquille, tiny terror of the seas

I was now a complete convert to an open boat with free standing rig that can be taken down and kept in the boat. So easy to handle and fun to sail. Also the Shellback rows very easily and well. It makes the whole experience very self reliant, straightforward and simple. There is very little to go wrong. I did break a brass oarlock once but I was able to rig a makeshift unit with some rope, which worked for a good hour and a half of rowing home. No smelly gas, no frustrating outboards. It was really quite freeing. Also if it’s cold out (and I sail year round) rowing keeps you quite warm.

I found that because the boat was so light and because the trailer was a tilting trailer I could easily get it on to a kayak style dolly and launch places that didn’t have ramps. Where I live ramps are few and far between and almost always expensive, so being able to dolly launch the boat really opens up the areas you can explore. Sometimes I went to rather ridiculous lengths.

Consumed As I was by the desire for a ‘real’ sail I ordered a mainsail kit from Sailrite. My friend had a sailrite machine I could borrow and soon I had a good quality ‘real’ sail I could be proud of , and reef in need. Of course with a proper lug saul one needs proper belaying pins, so I had my brother turn some nice black locust ones and I mounted them appropriately. Belaying pins are very handy, especially if you have to kosh recalcitrant crew members.

All these fine traditional looking additions soon had me contemplating the idea of flying a jib on a removable sprit. I had been given the sails for a boat my friend made but then ended up giving a viking funeral. I cut down the jib and made a bowsprit that fit to the mast with a jaw and a lashing. It worked well and I gained almost a knot. Also, as lug rigs with keels(or false keels like mine) can sometimes need help tacking, a jib helps the boat tack like a racing dinghy when the jib backwinds. I had some tiny cam cleats with fairleads that I mounted on small cars that toggled into the slots on the gunwales. Helm balance was still good retaining enough weather helm for safety.

I also made and added lashed on foam floatation units under each of the thwarts, 4” thick foam covered on the sides and bottom with glass for durability and painted with white marine paint. Open boats can hold a LOT of water if capsized. A new daggerboard was made as well as the original was somewhat warped and had the nasty habit of jamming which made for some tense moments.

My next plan was to do some camping. I loaded the boat pretty well to the gunwales with gear, leaving a small area to sprawl in the cockpit, and my girlfriend and I made the 20km sail up to the top of Indian arm to camp for a couple nights. Sailing up was easy as in the summer it’s almost always a southerly inflow blowing you up to the top of the arm but coming back is often a long long beat, often in the face of chop and waves.

I did some solo trips some of which were quite challenging. Still the Shellback stood the test and never let me down. Sails great, rows great, easy to haul up a beach if needed(though I often used found log ‘rollers’) I think it’s a great all around boat combining the sturdiness of a glued lapstrake boat, the lightness and handiness of a small boat, the versatility of the lug rig and oars and on top of it all lots of traditional salty character.