Tripping design for lightweights

[cshearly]

Hi all,
Being new to this forum I hope I am not repeating a post. My wife and I have a combined weight of 185lbs. We currently are using a Freedom 16/6 (kevlar) on our visits to Algonquin park and, even when loaded down with gear we find that we don't have enough weight to cause it to track well and the wind tends to throw us around due to the high level of exposed freeboard.
I have some experience building kayaks and was thinking of building a scaled down version of the Freedom design that would ride better for our weight but need some help in detemining the ratio to scale down the boat for the reduced weight. I have the "Canoecraft" book with the Freedom 17 design and was thinking of scaling it down to something around a 15. However, the Freedom 15 on this site looks like it has very similar loading requirements to the 16/6 that we already use.
Does anyone have any suggestions for a boat that is optimally loaded at around 300lbs rather than the 400lbs for which most seem to be designed? This would presumably also make it into a lighter canoe for portaging. Although I like the design of the Freedom, I'd be interested in hearing from people who have had success in this area with other designs.
Thanks!

[Glen Smith]

Perhaps this info: http://www.bearmountainboats.com/CanoeTechnical.htm will help you select a design that has an "optimum capacity" in your range.

Welcome to the Forum. I am also a lightweight paddler as well as my usual partners. This often forces me to design my own canoes and kayaks which can be quite a pleasant adventure of its own.

[frugal]

Given your weight I'd consider the Freedon Solo and converting it to a tandem. It had displacement weights where you are looking, low bow height, etc. It has a lower stability factor so you would have to consider that.

Some of the others here might be able to comment on how this would perform as a tandem.

I don't think it would be hard to make the conversion to tandem. Canoecraft has some good information on seat placement.

[cshearly]

Thanks for the input. The Freedom solo is certainly one option I'll consider. Anyone have any suggestions on how best to "scale down" a design? For example, if I want 3/4 the \weight capacity what scaling factor should be applied to any design? I suspect that scaling down by 25% would be too much to achieve this.

[cshearly]

Thanks Glen. I did reveiw the technical info on this site for what I was looking for and was not able to come up with what I wanted... thus the post. BTW, thanks for the help in registering.

[Rick]

The Huron Cruiser is a smaller canoe that might suit your needs. From the tech specs page, your target loading of 300 pounds is close to the midpoint of the loading range (315 pounds) and the designed displacement weight (335 pounds) given in the specs.

Canoe........ 55
Paddlers....185
Packs..........80

Total...........320 pounds

Having used the Huron on canoe trips, it's too small for two large guys and gear, so for lighter paddlers, probably OK. It's more suitable as a solo for me, with heavy gear loading, that weight comes to about the values given above and performance is fine.

I haven't tried the Freedom Solo, the stretched 16'2" version should also provide loading capacity close to your target... 180-330 lbs. It's a narrower hull design so it might feel less comfortable than the Huron due to less stability.

The Freedom 17 could be reduced in all dimensions by multiplying the offset values given in Canoecraft by some factor, after converting them to metric... eg. reducing it to 88% of it's original size (x 0.88) will bring it down to about 15 feet. The optimum loading capacity would probably be reduced by the cube of the reduction, but I am not absolutely sure of this.

Displacement of 420 pounds x 0.88 x 0.88 x 0.88 = 286 pounds.

This was what I was going to do with the Freedom originally, but now that the solo plans are out, I'll simply buy those and build my even-smaller solo that way (ie. smaller than the Huron).

Good luck!