Building a smaller touring-canoe?

[Guest]

Hi,
I'd like to try to build a canoe of my own and found the plans for your free Touring canoe. It looked like a nice design to start up with, but it's a bit too long for my use. My question is that is it possible to scale these plans down to get a smaller canoe? Of course I could just scale all the measurements down the same amount, but I wouldn't like to lose that much on its height or width; just the length is too much.. So could there be a way to shorten the canoe without losing that much on its other measurements and still be able to build an ok-functioning canoe?

I'm still a novice in boat-building, so I don't really know about the critical aspects in boat designing..

Best Regards,
--Patrik

[jem]

Anything is possible!

Before we discuss particulars, answer these:

Are you new to paddling? If no, what sort of boats and waters have you paddled in before?

What type of waters do you intend to take this in?

Solo? Tandem?

How much weight on board will you normally paddle with?

Knowing these answers will help get you pointed in the right direction.

[Guest]

Hi,
And thanks for such a quick reply!

I've paddled before, but not too much.. I've paddled on a few overnight trips with some of my friends' indian-type canoes (tandem ones) here in Finland, both lakes and rivers. Currently I own a 2-person plastic Pioner-canoe, which is quite old and not a quality one, but works..

I won't go canoeing down big rapids or anything like that (we don't have them in Southern Finland where I live!). Mostly I'll use a canoe instead of a rowboat to go down some little streams, rivers and lakes with one friend and some fishing gear. So weight wouldn't be that much, maybe max. 170kg (~400lbs?).

Hope these were the anwers you were looking for.. And it's good to hear that anything is possible!

Greetings,
--patrik

P.S. What are these displacement-measurements you have on the Touring canoe -site:
2" ( 5.0 cm) - 381 lbs (173 k)
3" ( 7.6 cm) - 481 lbs (218 k)
4" (10.1 cm) - 588 lbs. (267 k)
5" (12.7 cm) - 700 lbs. (318 k)
Or rather, what are the first numbers for..?

[jem]

Hi,
And thanks for such a quick reply!

I've paddled before, but not too much.. I've paddled on a few overnight trips with some of my friends' indian-type canoes (tandem ones) here in Finland, both lakes and rivers. Currently I own a 2-person plastic Pioner-canoe, which is quite old and not a quality one, but works..

I won't go canoeing down big rapids or anything like that (we don't have them in Southern Finland where I live!). Mostly I'll use a canoe instead of a rowboat to go down some little streams, rivers and lakes with one friend and some fishing gear. So weight wouldn't be that much, maybe max. 170kg (~400lbs?).

Hope these were the anwers you were looking for.. And it's good to hear that anything is possible!

Greetings,
--patrik

P.S. What are these displacement-measurements you have on the Touring canoe -site:
2" ( 5.0 cm) - 381 lbs (173 k)
3" ( 7.6 cm) - 481 lbs (218 k)
4" (10.1 cm) - 588 lbs. (267 k)
5" (12.7 cm) - 700 lbs. (318 k)
Or rather, what are the first numbers for..?

As far as free plans, I don't have anything I could offer.

the dispacement measurements, specifically, 2", 3", 4" , etc... is how much the boat would sink in the water with that weight on board.

example: with 173k on board (that inlcudes hull weight, gear and people) the canoe would sit 5 cm in the water.

[Guest]

Well, actually my original question was that is it possible to scale down existing plans. So I'm still planning to build the Touring Canoe.. I just wanted to know if I could multiply the measurements down by e.g. 0.8 and still get a functional canoe..? And the follow-up question was that could it be possible to scale down the length a bit more (e.g. by 0.7) than the sides (e.g. by 0.85) and _still_ get a functional canoe?

Regards,
--Patrik

[jem]

If you scaled the length, you'd get an ok day trip canoe. Careful about your seat height placement: a scaled shorter length will mean less stability.

Multiplying the length dimensions by one factor and the height dimension by another is possible in theory. It will be tricky and I can't promise the results, but if you're very careful it could be done.

Now if it were me and I really wanted to do what you're intending to do, I wouldn't be using expensive plywood. That's a lot of risk. I'm not trying to talk you out of the free plans. I just don't want to see your enthusiasm end in frustration.

Send me an e-mail if you get the time.

[Tweedie]

I am pretty new to this as well and wanted to try my own design when I fisrt got going. I thought about altering the DK plans to suit what I wanted but in the end I had Matt do a full design of my very own ideas and I almost have a boat that is exactly what I want (I'm building the Gander River Canoe). In the end I paid more in tax on my epoxy and plywood than Matt charged me for the plans. The Gander River Canoe Matt designed for me is made for exactly what you described above except it can also take a trolling motor on the transom, for when you are too lazy to paddle.

If you still want to do your own plans try making a scaled down model of your boat out of cardboard. So multiply your height dim by one number (0.8) and you length by another (0.7) and then both by half. Then make that out of cardboad. Then you can see where your design may or may not have problems.

Good luck with what ever you build

[jem]

In the end I paid more in tax on my epoxy and plywood than Matt charged me for the plans.

Just a note on that: It's not always that inexpensive. There were some special circumstances.

Excellent recommendation on developing the scaled model first. I didn't even think of that.

[Guest]

Ok, thanks for your encouraging posts! Actually I'm quite a bit a try-and-learn-type of person, so I might just end up in making my own model.. Or maybe I'll build first the Touring canoe and then see what I want to be changed.. We'll see! Anyway, thanks for your advice and I'll come back to this topic once I've got something started.

--Patrik