Michael Storer Boat Design

Eureka 155 - Pretty, Lightweight, Plywood, Touring Canoe - simple to build.

Stitch and Glue Boat plan

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Other links: Videos of a Eureka launch - PhilW's boat.  The only thing wrong was the paddles were too short!) Photos and review from experienced canoeists (ie much more experienced than the designer!) Launch of another Eureka 155 - Peter McKenzie - NEW May 20 Building a EUREKA webdiary - Peter Hyndman (nickname bitingmidge) is building a Eureka 155 and is recording progress and posting pics on the internet.  This is a link to the first of 4 pages so far (and rising!). Two boys building a Eureka - (it's part of the thread above but this helps you find it easily) Outriggers and sailing rig for a Eureka will soon be available - similar to this but with integrated rig. BETH Sailing Canoe - fast sailor and easy to build The Eureka Plywood Canoes were the result of a collaboration between Duck Flat Wooden Boats in Adelaide and Michael Storer Design.   Both boats are built stitch and glue.  A simple method where the panels are cut out and stitched together temporarily while the joins are sealed with fibreglass tape. It was found that the smaller boat was not sufficiently stable with adults aboard so the plan was discontinued.  The larger boat is well considered by experienced canoeists - review Generally fibreglass boats come in at about double the weight of these two wooden canoes and don't come anything close to being classic paddling boats.  The 155 has demonstrated that it goes a long way with modest effort and tracks well when the waves and wind are up.  It shares the same building method with the smaller 130.    We Jointly Developed the smaller Eureka 130 (pic right) over several prototypes to produce the best mix of performance, light weight, good looks and most importantly for a kit to be exported to Japan, to be foolproof in assembly. The EUREKA plywood canoe hullshapes are computer generated which allows much greater freedom in shape than traditional manual methods. The boats are built slightly differently to most stitch and glue plans. The bilge panels are fitted to the bottom panel, the topside panels are then attached to the bilge panels - we use plastic cable ties in the low stress areas but change over to the traditional copper wire ties in the ends of the boat where the stresses are greater. The width at the sheer is located then the hull is filleted and/or glass taped together. Gunwales, inwales, end decks and buoyancy tanks, seats, and spreader bars are then fitted. The Eureka 155 (below) was developed from the of the smaller boat. This allows stability to be improved without creating a too blunt shape, which produces a boat more suitable for long distance travelling or where carrying a load.   The boat pictured below came in at 15.5kg (34lbs) finished with a lot of effort made to keep the weight down - 3mm (1/8") ply instead of the 6mm specified, lightweight fibreglass on the bottom, use of selected lightweight timbers for the trim and those really cool lightweight seats.  A boat built to the normal specifications tends to come in a bit over the 43lb mark.  Half the weight of a 'glass boat. Reports of the first Eureka wooden canoe launched show it to be much easier to paddle than the usual plywood canoe, and indeed much better than most production glass hulls - this becomes important where distances are being covered - greatly reducing the effort required from the paddlers. The other major bit of feedback is on the appearance - the EUREKA 155 is a very handsome boat - quite unusual for the average plywood boatbuilding project. (Note that the 130 has been discontinued as a stock plan) Basic Materials - Eureka 155 stitch and glue plan 2 sheets plywood for hull (an extra offcut for enddecks and bulkheads is required if wanting to fit buoyancy tanks) 3 Litres Epoxy Fibreglass Tape 50mm x 39m - 2" x  128ft LINKS: Photos and review from experienced canoeists Timber List (metric) - PDF format The Boat that (almost) made us our fortunes - PDF format

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