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| The Quick Canoe |
Well, my health has picked up and while I'm always gonna have issues the in-the-body experience is beginning to turn in my favour.
Hallelujah brother! Praised be my physiology...
I also suspect that no matter how much I tweak my Flying Crutchman project I'm still gonna be left with a temperamental slow sailer.
So I've turned back on myself and will proceed with building a Michael Storer Quick Canoe .
That I have no carpentry skills is, I grant you , a handicap. But I figure that if I can get my retired aeronautic engineer neighbour to cut the wood for me -- on his electric tool set thingy -- all I have to do is put the pieces together and give it a slap of paint.
Easy? Perhaps.
But then why not give it a try, says I?
The properties of import are that a canoe made from plywood is lighter than one made from fiberglass, will avail itself of easy rigging and adaption by dint of drilling holes in wood, the design tracks better than many plastic canoes and I get to link up with a community of Quick Canoe enthusiasts.
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| Flat bottom outrigger canoe:Cook Is |
The drawbacks supposedly are that the design is a flat bottom and I want to sail on the sea. However, the doyen of outrigger sailing canoes, the New Zealander, Gary Dierking, has designed a fast outrigger build that has a flat bottom so I reckon that if push comes to capsize, I'll just add an outrigger like these cute numbers from the Cook Islands, Gary talks about here.
Another drawback -- supposedly -- is that the hull is open. Well a lot of sailing in canoes is done in open hulls. If the hull is often swamped then all I need do is add buoyancy forward and aft. I could even include chambers in the original build.
Michael Storer is an interesting guy -- not that we've met. He is a South Australian but his boat design following is big time in the United States. His philosophy of living permeates the concept of the Quick Canoe as here is someone who likes to keep his footprint small.
