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| The Quick Canoe |
Since I've decided to saw some wood -- plywood -- in order to attain the steering oar of my imagination -- one that works as it should -- I've been thinking: wooden boat. (My penchant has been to stick with plastic make doing).
I can hardly drive a nail in or saw a straight line but ... Australian boat designer Michael Storer has a brilliant knack for designing easy-DIY-build small craft. Among these, and the easiest of all, is the Quick Canoe (my collection of QC links and videos).
Among the legions of Quick Canoe builders world wide is the challenge to build the canoe in double quick time -- like four and a half hours (including waiting for the paint to dry!).
I mean how can you stuff it up in 4.5 hours for a material cost of maybe around $AUD200? The end product seems to track beautifully.
Storer's original name for the design was the 'Disposable Canoe'.
Being made from wood -- plywood in the main -- messing about adding a rig should be experimental easy. I'd get a potential sailing canoe that can carry two and hold enough gear for overnighters --such as in and out the inlets along the Pumicestone Passage.
Originally I feared open canoeing in sea and wave conditions -- as kayaks tend to rule the salty waves -- but the ready maritime habits and sailing adventures of the UK Open Canoe Sailing Group have, from afar, convinced me that opening up the hull to the elements is way to go sailing. As I had written previously, My next canoe won't be a kayak.
William Mantis' essay -- from which I drew inspiration for my current sailing rig --has also challenged my initial bias.
Captain William Bligh after all -- after being dumped by his Fletcher Christian mutineers -- sailed an open boat from the middle Pacific to Java.
Today too you can standardly add buoyancy bags to an open canoe so that no matter how swamped you are amidships you can keep your head above water.
