How sailing and paddling canoe shapes differ.
How traditional canoe designs work really well and a lot of modern ones don’t.
Building a canoe – is ply or cedar strip better?
How to build a lightweight canoe – selection of materials – ply vs strip plank and timber species
Books for canoebuilding.
IMPACT! How hard is your boat going to hit something. For most of us it won’t be very hard at all. So it is better to save weight. For expeditioners they may require a lot more from their boats. What are the strategies one can think about?
Dories are a part of the great American Maritime Tradition. From the book and film of Captain’s Courageous to all the folklore about fishermen surviving awful conditions at sea in a Dory.
But Do they really stack up to their press? It seems that every few weeks I see a new design for a rowing dory or a sailing dory.
A birdsmouth mast is a nice way to make a simple tapered hollow round mast. But what is the best way to join the wood. We show you how and why.
If you understand the plans business as a consumer then you can make best use of the system. A good plans agent will have experience with the types of boat and a large background in helping to solve problems. They may also be able to either supply materials or head you to the best places to get them.
Building boats from older plans often adds a lot of labour and materials cost. Some old plans are great. But many are utter rubbish. Having a living designer or other people building the same boat is really useful for most builders.
We first started to see Paulownia becoming available from Plantations in Australia around 2004. Well before the current boom in its use for framing and hulls of dinghies, yachts and other boats. Paulownia is a very lightweight timber from China that provides one way of building lightweight boards and boats. How to overcome its weaknesses and make use of its strengths.
Never join boat decks the way you join up panels in a house. Cracks and big failures will result.
Torture boards are used for the highest grade of smoothing for visual smoothness of the whole structure. Fairing a strip planked hull.
Fairing a join between adjacent plywood sheets in a hull or deck.
Fairing a composite structure
Fairing deck substructure. Deckframes and deck stringers ready to take plywood.
Ultralight strip planked boats using Paulownia, Balsa and Western Red Cedar. Superlight Eureka Canoe and Goat Island Skiff and the amazing 12lb balsa canoe
The dominant source of timber sizings or scantlings for traditionally built workboats in Australia is the USL Code. It would probably be OK for traditionally built workboats in other parts of the world. It has information for both traditionally planked or semi traditional plywood boats of larger sizes
pointless, timewasting activities in boat repair and maintenance
Oil or diesel fuel have soaked into some of the areas you want to work on. There are no easy solutions. But this one might work.
OK … I decided to keep the old racing dinghy and fix it up. How do I put my effort in the right places to get the maximum results? A grab bag of methods for joining plywood, working out sizes, making centreboards and rudders and more.
When is it worth fixing an old racing dinghy and when is it best to ditch it?
All the best material on boat repairs. From restoring old sailing dinghies for racing, fixing holes in canoe, replacing whole hull panels or the neatest and easiest way of doing a really nice texture of nonskid using sugar. And the non skid can be done in paint or varnish
Most epoxy mixes are 2 to one resin and hardener. Or 4 or 5 or 6 to 1. Some companies offer 1:1 and push ease of mixing. But are they a good choice?
Racing Cancelled. Videos of some high wind and high speed thrills with the simple and cheap to build Oz Goose sail boats. They might look like a box but they they are quick.
In the Philippines imported boat parts look extremely expensive compared to local incomes. So we have worked hard to eliminate them as much as possible or replace them. What is easy, cheap and good for racing performance? The result is a big way to save money.
Canoe Video resource. Paddling canoes, Electric canoes, Sailing Canoes. Drop in rigs to make any canoe work as a sailboat. Videos on building, Paddling and sailing canoes