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Average Canoe Paddling Speed
If you’re planning a canoe trip, you might want to know what an average canoe paddling speed is. Knowing this will help you potentially plan daily paddling distances or calculate the total number of days needed for a distance. There may be other factors that slow you down such as wind, current, and portages. Here are a few general rules of thumb for estimating paddling speed. Average Canoe Paddling Speed Rule of Thumb If you’re looking for an easy rule of thumb, then I’d suggest that on a loaded trip when making distance from point to point that you’ll likely be paddling a tandem tripping canoe at about 3mph (5km…
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Edscanoe Yoke Center Seat
On day two of a recent solo trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, a south wind was funneling down Wanihigan Lake, a narrow north-south. The tops of the pines whipped back and forth in the wind. The low water from months without rain made entering my canoe at the normal put-in spot after the portage impossible. I balanced my Northstar Magic on the shoulders and stepped over a blowdown that reached up to my crouch. The wind caught the canoe and twisted it, but I managed to return it into the wind. The only way to launch was to set my canoe next to a floating log that…
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Stabilize a Tippy Solo Canoe
It’s spring in the northern hemisphere and paddlers are itching to get out on the water. Recently, I heard a comment that someone found their solo canoe a bit tippy this spring. While that’s likely normal, there are a few steps that you can take to make your tippy solo canoe feel more stable. First of all, if the boat felt good at the end of the season last year, it’s likely going to feel fine again. You just need a little seat time. Go out and paddle it. Lower and Upper Body Separation If that doesn’t work to solve your tippy solo canoe problems, the main tip is to…
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Skin-on-frame Têtes de Boule Hunter’s Canoe Built
Several years ago Alan Sinclair downloaded the free canoe drawings for the Têtes de Boule Hunter’s Canoe, a 9-foot, 8-inch pack canoe. A year or so later he sent in a contribution of $50 to help cover the costs of the time spent producing the drawings. Then he began construction with no clue how to do anything. He made it as skin-on-frame, regretting the departure from tradition, because he thought that would be simplest and would make a very light boat. It’s taken a very long time but he finally got it finished. Alan sent several pictures and a thank you upon completion of the canoe: Thank you so very much for letting me get the plans…
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Free Kayak Plans and Free Canoe Plans
For years, PaddlingLight has been giving away the free drawings of historic and recent canoe and kayak, but I didn’t know how many plans people were downloading. In the last year I decided to start tracking just a few of the downloads to get a grasp on how many were actually being downloaded. I picked 5 of the 35 free drawings that I offer: a popular historic kayak design that has been built many times, a history canoe that has been built many times (most often in Italy), a canoe that looks interesting but hasn’t been built often (if at all), an original yost-style, skin-on-frame kayak and another historic kayak…
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Touring Sanborn Canoe Company’s Wood Shop
When I think of Sanborn Canoe Company, I think of handcrafted paddles steeped in the heritage of Minnesota’s canoe country. Their paddles take the names of some of the most scenic lakes in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, America’s most used and loved wilderness area. And the owners are the same guys breaking their backs making the paddles. They’re the real deal that love paddling so much that they were willing to sacrifice steady 9-5 jobs to build paddles that can be trusted on long canoe trips. As far as the paddles that they make, they do both bent shaft paddles with modern shapes and traditional paddles. They also offer…
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Winter Canoe Paintings
Each winter photographers and painters from around the Midwest gather at the YMCA canoe camp Menogyn for the Grand Marais Art Colony’s Winter Arts Festival. This year, the art’s festival ran from January 25th to February 1st. During the week, plein air painters, Neil Sherman, Matt Kania and Tom McGregor painted canoes racked for the winter at the camp. The contrast between the white snow and blues, reds and greens of the canoes popped off the wall during the show that runs all of February at the Grand Marais art colony. (Featured painting by Tom McGregor.) I caught up with each of the painters and asked them a few questions: PaddlingLight: Canoes,…
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Launching: New Tandem Canoe — the PaddlingLight Ursa Canoe
Over the last few months, we built a new tandem canoe under a tarp in the backyard. It has been an interesting process plagued with problems, such as humidity and bugs, that we wouldn’t experience in a controlled environment. But, despite all the problems, we managed to get to the point where we could test it out. Yesterday, we launched the PaddlingLight Ursa Canoe — the name Ursa is tentative. The canoe is a prototype that takes its inspiration from the popular Modern Malecite St. John River Canoe plans. I like the Modern Malecite, but I wanted something with more volume and efficiency for tripping. The canoe needed to turn…
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Builders Photos of the 1910 St. Francis Canoe
The 1910 St. Francis Canoe in Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America is one of the Free Canoe Plans that I offer. It’s also one of the most graceful canoes in Bark and Skin. It’s high ends and sweeping sheerlines lead the eyes from tip to tail without interruption. The canoe measures just over 15 feet and its 36 inch width makes for a stable ride. It’s appearance is more modern than many of the other canoes in Bark and Skin, and it’s easy to imagine that this could be commercially manufactured today. It’s not surprising that builder’s flock to this design. 1910 St. Francis Skin-on-Frame Canoe Builder:…
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Printed Canoe Plans and Kayak Plans Plus Electronic Nestings
PaddlingLight offers a significant number of historic canoe and kayak plans and several original designs. In the past, those free kayak plans and free canoe plans came as a drawing on one sheet of paper. The plans showed the stations at 1-foot intervals with the stems drawn over the station. Only my commercial plans and a few were available with nestings. I’ve decided to start offering nestings for all the plans. I’m also offering a new service. I’m printing the nesting and stem and station plans on 24- by 36-inch paper. These two new services come with a fee. While I’ve made these plans available without expecting to make any…
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Solo Canoe Yoke Plans for Portaging
Because the seat in a solo canoe is centered in the boat, you can’t permanently mount a yoke there. I’ve seen all sorts of solutions to the problem, such as removable clamp-on yokes, magnet holding yokes, yokes held on with bungee cords, special clamping systems for yokes and many more. It seems like everyone’s inner engineer emerges to fix this problem. In the past, I’ve used an ash clamp-on solo yoke made by Bell with Chosen Valley Canoe pads. It works very well, but it does scratch up my aluminum gunwales, and it’s a pain to clamp down. I decides to make a solo yoke that attaches to the seat…
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How to Calculate Canoe Seat Positions
After you build a canoe hull, possibly from PaddlingLight’s free canoe plans, and trim it out with thwarts, gunwales and a yoke, you need to add seats. Historically, few canoes had seats built into them — the paddlers either knelt or sat on gear. While that’s still practical, it’s much more comfortable to sit on an actual canoe seat. If the canoe plan didn’t include seat positions, then you need to calculate that position yourself. Luckily, with a little high-school level algebra — and you thought it would never come in handy — calculating a canoe seat position is painless. Canoe Seat Position Calculations Part of canoeing and seamanship is…
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Free Canoe Plan: 1898 Passamaquoddy Ocean Canoe
The 1898 Passamaquoody Decorated Ocean Canoe comes from page 82, Figure 74 of Edwin Adney and Howard Chapelle’s The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America. The text notes that this is the last known canoe of this style built. Tomah Joseph of Princeton, Maine built the canoe based on a cedar and canvas porpoise-hunting canoe. It has similar pinched ends and rounded tumblehome as the Modern Malecite St. John River Canoe. Length over all: 17ft 4inDesign beam: 36inDesign draft: 0.436inDisplacement: 510lbLength of waterline: 15.8ftWetted surface area: 29.5ft^2Optimum capacity: 300-800lbPounds to immerse an inch: 145lb The linesplans show the profile, plans and station view of this canoe. Free Canoe…
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New 2011 Wenonah Canoes
At the summer Outdoor Retailer show, Wenonah introduced two new canoes. The first is called the 17 Wenonah. The company founder, Mike Cichanowski, originally built this model in his parent’s garage when he was 16. The boat sat on display at the company headquarters until they decided to dust it off and build a mold. It’s now available in all Wenonah’s layups. The second boat is a canoe/kayak hybrid called the Canak. The boat is a decked Prism solo canoe with a kayak seat and a built-in holder for a portage yoke. The large hatches are covered by fabric hatch covers. It’s definately geared towards canoe destinations like the Boundary…
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New 2011 Mad River Canoe Models
At the 2010 Summer Outdoor Retailer show, the yearly pilgrimage for gear obsessed outdoor store owners and buyers, Mad River announced the release of five new canoes. The first two ultralites weigh in at 45 lbs and 43lbs for the Explorer 16 KX Ultralite and the Malecite KX Ultralite, respectively. They range in price from $2,749 to $3,089 depending on the options, like wood gunwales. Both feature resin-infusion w/ something called custom MRC core system. If the MRC core system features a molded-in bunny, like shown in the picture, we hope it doesn’t make it into production boats. Resin-infusion results in a layup with a high fiber/resin ration, which means…
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