Hi again,
In trying to decide what boat to build I've gone through the material from Bear Mtn, and spent a fair bit of time reading posts in this forum and decided that I wanted to build one of two canoes - the Bob's special or the Redbird. Now, before anyone starts pointing out the differences in them, let me explain: The Bob's Special is really the boat I decided to build based on what I'm expecting for use and since it seems like a good choice for a 1st time builder, but I'm having difficulty getting the pictures of the Redbird out of my head - strictly aesthetics - I just like the looks of it. So what I'm figuring is that I'll go ahead with the Bob's and the Redbird will be number two, next year hopefully....
Now, the Bob's at 15' is about as short a canoe as I believe I will ever want. I don't plan on doing much solo paddling, mostly it will be with my wife or one of my kids in the other seat, sometimes fishing on small lakes and a big slow river. I'm seriously thinking about extending the Bob's Specail out to 16' as the plans explain can be done. I've seen another couple of posts here from people thinking of doing the same thing, but as near as I could see the question as to whether any characteristics will be appreciably changed went un-answered. So I thought I'd ask again - has anyone here built a Bob's Special in a 16' version and if so, what do you think of it?
Cheers,
Kerry