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Outfitting Your Canoe’s Thwarts
As a canoeist, I’m always looking for a place to stash a map, water bottle, or my compass. On days with scattered showers, I want a place to store my rain jacket that I can quickly get to it. In the past, I’ve just stored stuff in the bilge of the canoe, which isn’t ideal–items get soaked or roll around. Years ago, I decided to make my canoes more like my kayaks by adding bungee cords. In a kayak, bungee cords crisscross the deck in front of the paddler. It’s easy to stash maps, bottles, and miscellaneous gear under the bungee cords, and it’s easy to get to that gear…
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The View from the Canoe Project
A guest post by Scott Schuldt of canoepost.blogspot.com. Tuesday, September 22, 2009 – You Can Tell I woke up early this morning. It was dark and I was in bed, but I was already in my canoe. Fall is here. It will be unusually warm today, maybe 15 or 20 degrees above normal. The thermometer will say summer. The simplest and easiest measurement will lead one astray, as simple and easy information often does, in all things. It is fall and while at the scientific level there are dozens of measurements that say so, it is the qualitative that tells me so. The light has changed. Gone is the harsh…
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How to Decorate a Canoe Paddle
Since I built a Northwoods canoe paddle in a North House Folk School class, it has decorated the corner of my living room. Serving as decoration, I always thought that it needed a design painted onto it–if I’m only using it for decoration, why not. For awhile now, I’ve been following Murat’s Paddle Making (and other canoe stuff) blog, and I’ve been inspired by both his paddle building skill and his decorating skills. When he posted a picture of Steve Pyne’s Māori decorated paddle, I knew that I’d found a design I wanted to use on my Northwoods paddle. Steve Pyne’s Māori paddle is a carved masterpiece far beyond my…
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Free Canoe Plan – Modern Malecite St. John River Canoe
This cedar canoe drawing is taken from Edwin Adney and Howard Chapelle’s The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America. It appears on page 79. Adney surveyed the original in 1895. He notes that the boat shows moderate sheer and low ends. For this set of free plans, I left the station shape and stem shape alone, and I modified the rocker and sheer. The original drawing shows the canoe with little to no rocker–I prefer a canoe that has some rocker–so I added a similar amount of rocker as seen in Prospector canoes. When I changed the rocker, I changed the sheerline, because I felt the additional rocker…
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Easy Aluminum Fittings For a Sailing Canoe
Canoe sailing enthusiast Charles E. Campbell describes an easy method of making aluminum fittings for a sailing canoe. These specialized fittings are hard to find, but even harder to find is any information on how to make the fittings yourself. Nessmuking is proud to host this informative article.
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Light but Strong – Building Cedar Strip Canoes for Wilderness Tripping
Take care of the ounces and the pounds will take care of themselves, is Jay Morrison's motto. Learn how Jay utilized this moto and developed new techniques to build a Wilderness-Tripping-Tough cedar strip canoe weighing 35 pounds.
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Bryan’s Homebuilt Boats from 2004 and back
Note: The plans included on this page are for historical reference only. Carlson’s Hulls, a windows only program, is required to view them. These are the boats that I’ve built or designed for myself. I’ve helped on other boats, but I am not including them. Please, feel free to contact me to learn more about these. If you have built or build one of these designs, please, let me know, or send me a picture. I would love to hear from you. Freedom 17 The Freedom 17 canoe is the first boat that I built. I lived in an apartment at the time and built this in my living room.…
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Wigeon: A Sailing Canoe
We need more recreational sailing canoes around. They seem to have gotten lost by the wayside when racing took over the scene back in the 19th century. And from what I can see, the current racing classes are too restrictive in their class rules to be of general interest for someone who wants a recreational canoe dedicated to sailing. If we could just open the door a bit...
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How to Solo a Tandem Canoe
One of those perfect morning dawns, the dew is fresh, there is a nip in the air and the mist rising off of the mirrored surface of the water calls you out. After cooking oatmeal over a small fire you wait for your paddling partner to wake up so you can go paddling. Unfortunately, she is a constant over sleeper and a bear to force out of her slumber. The only way onto the water is if you get into your 18-foot tripping canoe and paddle it solo. Solo canoe paddling is a rewarding experience that opens you to more time on the water when you can’t get a paddling…
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How to Choose A Canoe
In the Canoe & Kayak Magazine 2006 Buyer's Guide, over 90 canoe manufacturers were listed, and this doesn't include many of the smaller companies that build only a few canoes a year. Quickly scanning the listings, it easy to conclude that the magazine lists over 900 models of canoes. That's a lot of canoes and that makes choosing a canoe one of the most complicated buying decisions out of any outdoor sport. Combing the number of models with the average canoe cost of around $1000 US, this can make the first-time canoe buyer nervous about their canoe purchase. It doesn't have to be that way though.
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Notus Racing and Cruising Canoe: An exercise in using FREE!ship
Using the Notus Racing and Cruising Canoe as the subject, this tutorial shows you how to import offsets into Free!Ship and create decks and sails. Also, included is a spreadsheet to make offset import easy, and the imported plans for the Notus for free.
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