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Description:
This boat was built in Port Townsend by Walter Ingle who was an aeronautical engineer. He did so well that he retired at 35 at moved
to Port Townsend and spent the next 7 years building Jeannette. He sailed it for 7 years after building it and had intended on taking it
to the South Pacific but passed away before he got a chance. It has been at the wooden boat festival in Port Townsend most of the
previous 7 years. That's where I first saw it , then several months later I saw it advertised for sale in Wooden Boat magazine. It had
one previous owner (Lyman Burke) besides the builder, who owned it for 8 years. Walter modified it from the original design slightly.
The mast is stepped on the keel instead of the deck. The plans called for an aluminum mast and he designed a hollow wooden one. He also
modified the rudder to suit a prop because he wanted an engine in it. The original plans called for a head on the port side just behind the
forward bulkhead. He moved it to the middle of the V-berth which gives more room in the galley and made room for a diesel heater and
more counter space beside the stove.
The original engine was a fixed speed air cooled 4HP Swan diesel with a variable pitch propeller system. The vp system gave me some trouble
so I took it out right away, and therefore had to replace the engine with one that was variable speed and had a gearbox (a 6.5HP water
cooled Farymann 18W).
The boat has 2700lbs lead ballast and displaces 5700 lbs. There are 2 quarterberths about 6'2 long, and a large V-berth which gives it
quite a bit of room for a 24' boat.
The hull is cold molded with 3 layers of 1/4" Western Red Cedar. The mast and boom are spruce, the cockpit seats and grate are purple
heart, as are the floorboards down below. The seats, caprail, companionway, etc are all teak, with some mahogany in various places.
The foredeak is also teak. The deck is made of Occume marine plywood, the rest is fir. There is also oak used down below in various places
like the seat backs which are similar to the cockpit seat backs. I think the backbone might also be Oak but I'm not sure.
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Description: I completed this boat,
a Simmons Sea Skiff 18, in 1996. In fact I launched it on my dad's
90th birthday. It is 17'1" in length, and has a beam of 5' '7''.
It is constructed of scarphed MDO plywood planking, glued and ring
nailed together. She has sawn mahogany frames, oak gunwales and
risers, mahogany seats and a motor well, with hydraulic steering,
electric start and speed controls clustered in the forward command center.
A small fore deck also provides a little dry storage at the bow. The
hull has a couple of layers of epoxied fiberglass to ensure its integrity
along the bottom and up over the first plank only. Powered
with a Mariner 25hp motor, she goes like stink on a calm ocean (particularly
with a minimal load) but can certainly handle much rougher waters loaded
down with three or four people (kids are better). The Simmon's Sea
Skiff was originally the design of a North Carolina boat builder, named T.N.
Simmons who apparently built 100's of them through the 1940's and
1950's The design was resurrected by David Carnell, a Wilmington,
N.C. marine historian, who found a good example of an original boat,
took off the lines and published his findings in the October 1986
edition of Small Boat Journal. That's where I saw it. Ten Years
later, MISS MILLIE was launched. It took three of
years (of evenings and weekends) to build, but seven years to psych
myself up for the project. (Little kids take up a lot of ones time.) It
was named after my Aunt Millie, who helped finance the
construction through a small legacy she left to me when she died years ago. MISS
MILLIE spends the summer months floating at the Bowen Island Marina in
Snug Cove and is an ideal boat for bombing around Howe Sound
However, she in an open boat, so when the wind is up and the spray is
flying, one must hold on tight and expect to get a little wet
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