Garvey Pond Box

CaptBobKeeney said:
Started the new garvey pond box build today have the sides and transom cut she will be 7ft long by 32 inches wide. I am using 1x12x7 white cedar. She will be a traditional pond box that you can tow and or row.
Click to expand...
Bob~
It's exciting to see a Pond Box a-building! I presume it'll be ready for Tuckerton?

I do have one question/concern: The beam seems a bit narrow. 32-inches is what I use on my gunning coffins - but those are sitting on mud, sand or bog when I hunt them. My concern is stability when shooting. I vividly recall one time I fired my Model 12 broadside at some Mallards - from my 13-foot Sweet Gherkin - which has a 36-inch beam. Of course, being based on the 13-foot Grumman canoe she has rounded chines. The resulting motion of the vessel got my attention, to say the least.

Zack Taylor's Pond Box (in Successful Waterfowling) is also narrow - at just 36 inches over 8 feet LOA.
sm Pond Box plans - Zack Taylor.jpg
sm Pond Box - Zack Taylor towing.jpg

I have been designing one in my head since the early 1990s.....to tow across the bay behind my sneakbox - then drag or pole or row in to waters that are too skinny for my powered vessel. I envisioned an enlarged coffin - wider and longer with the gunning position moved after so she would trim properly. Along garvey lines with transoms at both ends, she would be about 10' LOA with a beam of 42 inches. My Dad had such a vessel long ago and I shot my first ducks from it. Sadly, we have no pictures of it. He sold it 30+ years ago after I expressed no interest in it.

All the best,

SJS
 
Steve Sanford said:
Bob~
It's exciting to see a Pond Box a-building! I presume it'll be ready for Tuckerton?

I do have one question/concern: The beam seems a bit narrow. 32-inches is what I use on my gunning coffins - but those are sitting on mud, sand or bog when I hunt them. My concern is stability when shooting. I vividly recall one time I fired my Model 12 broadside at some Mallards - from my 13-foot Sweet Gherkin - which has a 36-inch beam. Of course, being based on the 13-foot Grumman canoe she has rounded chines. The resulting motion of the vessel got my attention, to say the least.

Zack Taylor's Pond Box (in Successful Waterfowling) is also narrow - at just 36 inches over 8 feet LOA.
View attachment 79087
View attachment 79088

I have been designing one in my head since the early 1990s.....to tow across the bay behind my sneakbox - then drag or pole or row in to waters that are too skinny for my powered vessel. I envisioned an enlarged coffin - wider and longer with the gunning position moved after so she would trim properly. Along garvey lines with transoms at both ends, she would be about 10' LOA with a beam of 42 inches. My Dad had such a vessel long ago and I shot my first ducks from it. Sadly, we have no pictures of it. He sold it 30+ years ago after I expressed no interest in it.

All the best,

SJS
Click to expand...
Steve, All great questions first she’ll be ready for the show! Second i wouldn’t recommend floating and shooting out of it i would keep it up on marsh or in a mosquito ditch to shoot out of it. So its like your coffin boxs you make. My grandfather used to build these so the labs had a spot to sit in. I like the size because its hold a good deal of decoys and tows well behind the sneakbox plus if your gunning a deeper tide pond you can row it.

With your boat your father had reminds me of my 10ft gunning garvey which is 10ft 44inches wide.
 

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CaptBobKeeney said:
Steve, All great questions first she’ll be ready for the show! Second i wouldn’t recommend floating and shooting out of it i would keep it up on marsh or in a mosquito ditch to shoot out of it. So its like your coffin boxs you make. My grandfather used to build these so the labs had a spot to sit in. I like the size because its hold a good deal of decoys and tows well behind the sneakbox plus if your gunning a deeper tide pond you can row it.

With your boat your father had reminds me of my 10ft gunning garvey which is 10ft 44inches wide.
Click to expand...
Bob~

That photo inspired me to recall (from about 60 years ago) as much as I could about my Dad's little vessel:

Captrre Gunning Garvey TEXT.jpg

I do not know the provenance of this vessel - who built it - when - where, et cetera. However, I do remember picking it up one evening at the Captree State Park Boat Basin. My Dad was a policeman for State Parks back then (Long Island State Park Commission). The boat could have been abandoned, confiscated, who knows? I was 12 years old then - my first season carrying a gun.

In any event, it had been painted Battleship Grey for open water gunning and had the following features:

- LOA 10' (approx) 44-inch beam (educated guess)
- shallow deadrise
- 'glass over plywood - with at least some plywood framing
- skeg (?)
- pipe oarlock stanchions (the 12-inch galvanized pipes were removable)
- deck rings on bow and stern transoms
- rectangular cockpit about 6-feet long
- thatching slots (3/8" x 8 inches) all around the cockpit coaming.
- 4-inch cleats on foredeck and stern deck
- rubrails (?)

I have no idea of the weight - but we brought it home in my Dad's 1960 VW Transporter (pickup). Nowadays I would guess 125-150 pounds.

The first season we thatched up the slots - which were vertical - with Salt Hay and probably some Little Bluestem to get some more height. Amazingly, we both sat upright in the cockpit to hide and shoot. With little cash for duckboat paint, my Dad mixed some yellow into a quart of flat black and produced a dark olive drab. Subsequently, I helped my Dad make a nice set of Red Cedar floorboards and plywood panels (to be thatched) that set into the original thatch rails.

As I mentioned, I shot my first Black Duck from this vessel - inside a saltmarsh near the mouth of the Connetquot River. A couple of seasons later - in the open bay of Nicolls Cove - I made what I consider my first "mature" shot: on a hen Broadbill, flying high and full-bore at 35 or so yards on her third - and last - big circle around the rig. Some memories never diminish.

My Dad and I also hunted it at Montezuma NWR in the 1980s when my Dad managed a park in the Finger Lakes.

I sure wish I had taken a few photos when it was up for sale....

All the best,

SJS
 
Steve Sanford said:
Bob~

That photo inspired me to recall (from about 60 years ago) as much as I could about my Dad's little vessel:

View attachment 79134

I do not know the provenance of this vessel - who built it - when - where, et cetera. However, I do remember picking it up one evening at the Captree State Park Boat Basin. My Dad was a policeman for State Parks back then (Long Island State Park Commission). The boat could have been abandoned, confiscated, who knows? I was 12 years old then - my first season carrying a gun.

In any event, it had been painted Battleship Grey for open water gunning and had the following features:

- LOA 10' (approx) 44-inch beam (educated guess)
- shallow deadrise
- 'glass over plywood - with at least some plywood framing
- skeg (?)
- pipe oarlock stanchions (the 12-inch galvanized pipes were removable)
- deck rings on bow and stern transoms
- rectangular cockpit about 6-feet long
- thatching slots (3/8" x 8 inches) all around the cockpit coaming.
- 4-inch cleats on foredeck and stern deck
- rubrails (?)

I have no idea of the weight - but we brought it home in my Dad's 1960 VW Transporter (pickup). Nowadays I would guess 125-150 pounds.

The first season we thatched up the slots - which were vertical - with Salt Hay and probably some Little Bluestem to get some more height. Amazingly, we both sat upright in the cockpit to hide and shoot. With little cash for duckboat paint, my Dad mixed some yellow into a quart of flat black and produced a dark olive drab. Subsequently, I helped my Dad make a nice set of Red Cedar floorboards and plywood panels (to be thatched) that set into the original thatch rails.

As I mentioned, I shot my first Black Duck from this vessel - inside a saltmarsh near the mouth of the Connetquot River. A couple of seasons later - in the open bay of Nicolls Cove - I made what I consider my first "mature" shot: on a hen Broadbill, flying high and full-bore at 35 or so yards on her third - and last - big circle around the rig. Some memories never diminish.

My Dad and I also hunted it at Montezuma NWR in the 1980s when my Dad managed a park in the Finger Lakes.

I sure wish I had taken a few photos when it was up for sale....

All the best,

SJS
Click to expand...
I forgot to mention that I recall a straight (flat) sheer - something I liked as a kid but now prefer some trsaditional sweep to this all-important visual trait.

SJS
 
Steve Sanford said:
I forgot to mention that I recall a straight (flat) sheer - something I liked as a kid but now prefer some trsaditional sweep to this all-important visual trait.

SJS
Click to expand...
Steve, i agree with you on the sheer. During the Tuckerton show i would love to hear your thoughts of the one im building now in person
 
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