Finally I finished the plan for the new OzRacer RV. It is a much simpler build of the original OzRacer concept so will be very attractive to people looking for a first boat. Plans are still the old $20 but even more detail than before. Order the plans for the simple and cheap OzRacer RV read more →
The OzRacer Mk3 has been rebranded as the OzRacer RV.
Detailed plan – a boatbuilding course in a book for $20 each.
So now racing sailors can use the OzRacer Mk2 and cruising sailors can use the OzRacer RV plan. The RV is no slouch though – it won the World titles in 2010.
The above photo was taken on the third day of our Canoeing trip on the Loire River in France. The two black canoes didn’t even exist a week ago.
When I wrote the original article on Disposable Canoeing I had no idea at all what it would lead to me and a bunch of adventurers, wine and cheese connoisseurs. Most of us didn’t even know each other! The picture above is the result of this adventurism, but what happened to make it happen?
What technology was involved to make the boats faster to build than most stitch and glue boats and what weather conditions did we have to overcome to make it all happen.
One of the most important things as a designer or sailor is to keep an open mind, but also to be able to analyze things in light of real experience and prior knowledge.
This article, after a bit of a spiel, goes on to give some great resources that “opened my eyes” at different times in my life.
They focus on areas of structural design, sailing, sail aerodynamics and touch on a bit more.
This page compares the two plywood canoes in my range. Both have detailed plans and are simple to build.
The page is to explain the differences and to help potential builders see if one of the boats suits their needs.
Lots of links to pictures, build articles and even videos.
The cla
Cliff and PJ live in Warm Queensland and Wintry Tasmania. However they both like to go the the yearly (June) wooden boat festival in tropical Far North Queensland.
This year they decided to build one of my Quick Canoes. They started on Saturday and finished including putting the canoe on the car roof by the following thursday.
They are experienced woodworkers so added some very nice details.
Melanie in the UK wrote to me. She has just bought an old Mirror dinghy and started sailing for the first time.
Problem is that the boat leaks and she doesn’t want to stop using the boat until the end of the season.
I have a philosophy of keeping older boats on the water and not pulling them off for months on end until you have the time to do the job.
So the article here is useful to see what can be done with an old leaky plywood sailing dinghy to keep it going.
It is perfect sailing weather at the moment in the UK and it is better she is out there learning but with the worst of the leaks gone.
With a disciplined approach she should be able to get all of this done in a week or so. The general leaks fixed permanently and the rotted area reinforced so that the boat won’t break.
The plywood “disposable” canoe (see here) has been renamed the more salubrious “Quick Canoe”. I quite liked the name of “Disposable Canoe” but I agreed with the critique that it hinted at something that was poor quality rather than simple and Easy.
It has been designed to be as easy to build as possible while keeping some of the qualities of a good paddling canoe – in particular the ability to track.
This podcast/mp3 talks about why Australian (and New Zealand) wooden boatbuilding is different from the rest of the world..
Click to listen to the talk. This is the third of three.
This is the second of my talks in the USA. It focuses a bit more on construction and some of the methods that can be used to keep a boat light and simple, but very strong and stiff.
It also discusses how there is a “creep” in boatbuilding and design that increases the weight of boats way over what is really needed for a strong structure.
It is the first boat he has built and Alex is not necessarily taking the quickest way. But he is reporting daily about his building and his ruminations on different subjects. It is a very popular boatbuilding item on the OZ woodwork forum. There have been around 13000 views of his thread already and it read more →
Did you see the slightly modified assembly method we are using now? Just makes the stitching process a bit more controllable. I have some pics of the Eurekas going together in the current Duckflat Autumn school. Which shows how strange the first three panels are when stitched loosely … nothing like a boat … the read more →
It is a bit hard finding information on my forum as the list is not very ordered, so I have attempted to fix this.There is a general building section then each boat is in alphabetical order.To see all the images you may need to become a member, however, they are a good bunch and will read more →
Howdy, Lot of background stuff happening over the last few weeks. Duckflat has been developing up a precut kit for the Goat Island Skiff and the Eureka Canoe. Gosh it has been a steep learning curve. Have been back and forth with the cutting people to get things to work correctly. Computer cutters (the machines) read more → Actually, When Jamie mentioned his goat island skiff building blog I went … oh yeah … another blog … but it is really rather a nice bit of writing. He had a shot at getting one of the Lumber Yard Skiffs from Woodenboat Magazine underway first. His experience was in line with my confustification about read more →
At the Duckflat Autumn Boating School Bob Bauze built himself a Eureka Canoe. We used a few methods a bit different from the plan to speed things up and make some fitting work a bit easier. We used fillets on the inside of the boat instead of glass tape. This method adds a bit more read more →
The first part was up last week. This week we talk about traditional vs modern sailtypes – everyone knows I am a fan of trad rigs because of their low cost – but here I go into the influences on the other side. I love the efficiency of modern rigs so I use all the read more → INDEX FOR THIS MONSTER EUREKA CANOE THREAD – MILESTONESEven more info at Peter Hyndman’s Eureka Pages Marking out the plywood and cutting Joining up the Prefabricated panels and starting stitching Filleting on the inside of the Eureka Canoethe tidy way Marking out the canoe bulkheads Getting ready to put the decks in place – I read more →
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