From: "Craig O'Donnell"
David wrote:
I downloaded all the canoe sail plans and text so I can educate myself and decide what to build for my proposed 20' x 4' open canoe. I want a beachable boat, made in woodstrip/epoxy, that has plenty of displacement for the protected ocean waterways between Puget Sound and Vancouver Island. I'm thinking two daggerboards, one on each side, would be strong and help keep the center of the boat clear. I don't remember, as I quickly scanned your pages, if there was anything about the size, the dimensions, of leeboards and daggerboards---is it there?
Craig responded:
Not much about dimensions per se, but 15 inches wide seems to be a common measurement for Bolger, for example. On small canoes -- 10 to 13 ft -- and kayaks I've seen them as small as 6-8 inches but I thnk that's pushing it for a 20 footer.
Jim Michalak designs various small boats and generally uses a single outside mounted leeboard on a pivot. I'd be inclined to follow his lead unless you really want 2 boards for some reason. Thickness is typically 1/2 to 3/4 inches, double or triple 1/4-inch plies, and width about 15 inches: I have a couple of his plans and could check specifically if you want.
On my sailing canoe/proa I used a large oval, about 24 inches wide by 3 feet tall, which I scrounged from a construction site, it was a piece of mahogany veneer which apparently had been cut for a fancy window next to a door. There was a bight of rope at the top which was long enough so I just flopped the board over to the new leeward side after tacking. Pressure held it against the side of the boat pretty well. I had added a large galvanized dock cleat to the bottom to act as a weight (very hydrodynamic, eh?) and to take a tweak-line for pulling the board up adn back some when desired but later took it off as it seemed to make no difference.
If you go with bilgeboards, you could certainly have on either side a long, thin and very strong girder to house the boards. In my opinion just about anything beats a centerboard unless you're talking about a very large (35+ feet) traditional sharpie.
Lately I've been wondering about making a scow hull's sides and bow-stern transoms from 1/4-inch ply, with large holes cut out of it to form a tall thin box-girder, and then covering that with cloth of some sort. No particular reason except it might be nice and light. With the small amount of twist to the sides of the scow I have in mind (it's the St Michaels Scow on the Cheap Pages) the girders would be extremely rigid, I'm, sure, even if made of 3mm ply. Food for thought.
Cheers -- Craig O'Donnell
The Cheap Pages (http://www.friend.ly.net/~dadadata/)
-- Professor of Boatology
-- Junkomologist
-- Macintosh kinda guy
I sure miss my cat, Wanda.
Note: I now have additional sailing resources from the internet and my completed 20' sailing canoe to look at.
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If you have a question about woodstrip canoes, send me an e-mail (details at the bottom of this page), and I'll try my best to answer. If you don't get a reply right away, it means I'm on vacation and will write as soon as I return.
The Stripper's Guide to Canoe-building by David Hazen is available from:
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