Re: To Build a Boat (any boat)
This morning was the ideal time to splash the dug, sunny with a breeze from the South. I decided it would be a good idea to try it out in one of the canals rather than the open bay considering a South wind would blow me away from shore on the bay if the dug couldn't be effectively handled. Good call. The dug was extremely tippy and had no tracking ability whatsoever. I'm a bit heavyhanded with a paddle as I'm used to pushing an 18.5 footer with a couple hundred pounds of gear and food. I had to change my approach with the dug as my first stroke very nearly capsized me and spun the canoe around backwards. There was no leaning over the sides and no healing over without the feeling the dug would slide right under the water. There are only a few inches freeboard and the gunwales touched the water with every stroke. Once I got the hang of getting the conoe to move with some foreward momentum it was kind of fun! I think it would make a neat beach toy where it wouldn't matter if I got wet or not but the water is under 50 degrees right now and I didn't feel like swimming. So I kept it short and called it a success.
<br /><br />The design itself is a joke really and my building it was the punchline. It was a fun, easy project that I have around twenty bucks into thanks to some innovations (or shortcuts if you like). It is a boat or a canoe only by the most general definitions. It is very narrow and flat bottomed for maximum instability. It has too little freeboard thanks to its width and the fact that only ten feet of it's length are contributing to displacement. The long points were good at getting in the way. Since the canoe 'felt' like a ten footer I was pretty unaware of the extra eight feet, mostly in the stern, and caught it on shore a few times while turning, which was almost always since it would hardly go straight. The points also made launching lengthwise impractical because the bow would just go underwater, so I had to set it in parallel to shore. On the upside, with such low freeboard and the downturned ends the wind had nothing to catch other than me, so windage is good!<br /><br />As for my choice in materials I think I did fine. There is no need for strength here as the boat as a whole is not capable of hauling gear, taking waves, rapids, or heavy handed paddling. I see no reason to build it any stronger.
