i was reading about taking measurements using ‘story sticks’ recently - you don’t need measuring tapes, just slide 2 straight sticks together and spread them out to what you want ‘measured’ and mark them with a pencil to be able to duplicate the distance.

and a related way of using them was to take just one stick, and tiny nick one of its sides then an angle cut at one end so there is a point (related to one edge of the stick). set up a fixed vertical drawing pad or surface next to the object being measured – say from a canoe or yak where you want to take off a station form.

put the stick anywhere, any angle, anywhere across the dwg surface and slide it until the angled point just touches the yak (or whatever) surface. take your pencil and draw against the stick right across the drawing pad making sure the pencil bumps in the nick on the stick.

repeat over and over again for however many points you want. a s&g or sof, just 4-6 lines. fill up the paper if you want for a rounded shape. only takes a sec for ea line.

only need half forms if you can takeoff exactly where bow/hull ctrlines are. otherwise go past and take width measurement, or maybe a stringline below as well as above.

for diff form locations just mark the drawn lines w/ numbers, or use diff pcs of paper for ea form, or diff colour of pencils, or different dash/dot line combos. run a string line from bow peak to stern peak or slightly above and mark that location so the form orientation is locked.

to redraw the form, lay this dwg surface down next to your paper or ply. staple/fix in place, take out the stick and mark where the point goes when you lay it back down on the original dwg surface. it HAS to end up at the same angle and distance as you have recorded both with the nick and the angle. if you used a known distance to the nick and you recorded/remembered it, you can lose the stick and remake another.

for some humour:
at its most simplistic, if you are out in the field, you could pick up a crooked,crooked branch, nick it at say 4 or 5 RANDOM locations along its length and fix down just a tiny tiny dwg pad. just draw the lines across the whole pad making sure you hit at least 2 bumps and the correct angles and bumps of THAT STICK ONLY in that orientation only is now recorded on that very very small pc of paper. if the stick is crooked at one end, it can reach around the hull and deck and even do depression takeoffs. the stick orientation is recorded either up or down as it is crooked and the distance is recorded because the random nicks can only be recorded at one distance. you have to keep the stick (and hope it doesn’t dry out and warp, hehe) ((or if you have space, also draw the stick outline from the point to the 1st 2 nicks.))

had to laugh at the simplicity and yet potential dead accuracy.

-mick