modifying a canoe design

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ricklam
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modifying a canoe design

Post by ricklam »

:shocked

i am looking for some advice on something that may or may not be possible to do....i am thinking of ordering a canoe plan (freedom 17 9) and altering the back fo a square back design....just wondering if it is possible

thanks much



rick lamoureux
Blainville Quebec
an algonquin park fanatic
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Glen Smith
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Post by Glen Smith »

Bonjour Rick,

The problem with that concept is that you will probably add a motor to the stern and as the motorman you will have to sit near the stern to control the motor. This puts a lot of weight in the stern of the boat but by modifying the design it won't have enough volume to float the boat level, the stern will sink down quite a bit unless you have a lot of weight up front to compensate. This weight could put the displacement over the safe design limit.

I suggest you contact Jean-Pierre Auger, who lives in your area, for comments about the square-stern modification he did on a Bob's Special. This is J-P's website: http://pages.infinit.net/canotjpa/index.htm

Maybe he is perfectly happy with the modifications. In his pictures the boat seems to handle well but we never see it with the motor in operation. :thinking
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jpauger
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Reply to Glen

Post by jpauger »

Hi Glen,

In this post, you were asking yourself why there was not a photo of me alone in my canoe using my motor on my website. Well, I don't have a sided view but I can tell you that the canoe is effectively pointing upward a little bit when I'm alone with the motor but most of the time, my wife is always sitting in front.

ImageImage
Jean-Pierre
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Glen Smith
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Post by Glen Smith »

Salut J-P. Welcome back!

It is normal that your canoe rides a bit bow high with the majority of the weight concentrated in the stern area that is why I believe it is best to have a bit more volume in the stern. The important thing is that you are happy with your boat and you put it to good use.

Are you getting back into the boat-building mood?
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patrickdoty
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Observation

Post by patrickdoty »

I have a freedom 17'9 and have padddled it for 3 summers as a guide in the BWCA and i would say that it would be a good canidate for a sqaure stern. It is a asymetrical design so having more weight in the back is better in this design than others. On my trip last summer for 20 days in the quetico i had a pack in the front and a duffer in the back compartment and the boat tracks very well with weight in the back. One thing you might notice byu having the bow out of the water is that the design relies on the streamline entry to help it track straight, as the boat doen not have a keel. hope that helps
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jpauger
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I found a picture!

Post by jpauger »

Hi Glen,

After looking through some CD's at home, I found a side picture of me using my little motor:

Image

Like you and patrickdoty said, a longer boat or a larger stern end would be better but ... it would mean a bigger boat too!

I love my boat the way it is. It fits my garage correctly and is very easy to carry to and from the top of my car. I found it very solid too and it weighs only 64 pounds even with 2 sheet of fibreglass cloth on the football area and ash as wood trims. My wife loves it too because she feel secure in it and that’s very important to me because she's afraid of water. She don't like to paddle for long period of time so being able to use a little motor for me is a must, specially on big lakes at the end of the day!

On the other hand, my canoe is not tracking very well when I'm paddling. I'm planning on thickening my keel a little bit more to improve tracking. Because of the square stern and not being very long, my canoe is not a very fast boat too but what can I say, a boat design is always a compromise of several things to achieve what you want isn't it?

About me coming back on this forum, if you look at a recent post, I thought some of you could help me with my rawhide seats. I will try to come here more often in the future.

Long life to this forum!

J-P
Jean-Pierre
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Glen Smith
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Post by Glen Smith »

J-P, like you say, a boat design is always a compromise.

Now about the rawhide. I don't know what you can do and I haven't been able to find any info yet either. I used to have a set of bongo drums with rawhide skin and when they were stretched I would wet the skin with a warm damp cloth then place a warm light bulb over it to dry and shrink it.

Have you tried the WCHA website?

Edit: I just noticed that the "Cariboucry" website is no longer active, actually it is for sale. You might want to delete it from your links on your website after verification.
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jpauger
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Post by jpauger »

I don’t think putting my seats under a warm light will work because putting my canoe under the sun for several hours should have done the same thing right? Maybe not, I will try it anyway just in case …

I could remove Cariboucry from my list but a lot of people will then restart to ask me where I’ve bought my rawhide. I prefer to let people learn that by themselves. Their website is very clear about that. You have no idea of how many people is asking me this question by Email!

I will try WCHA website right away.

Thanks again!

J-P
Jean-Pierre
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