Jim's Canoe Update 2

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Jim's Canoe Update 2
Update 1

Chuck:

Here are a shed-load of pictures taken yesterday evening of my friend's Jim's new canoe 'Little Monkey'. You've heard on and off about my design for him - well this is the boat in the flesh, and I must say it seems to me to work pretty well.

Basically it was built by the Thomas Hill method outlined in his famous book 'Ultralight Boatbuilding', but with one cheat: the garboards are taped to the strake above them in the central area rather than lapped. The benefit of this is that it allows the garboards to be wider and flatter, making the boat more stable but retaining the lapstrake look above the waterline. My thanks to those on the yahoo group boatdesign for suggesting I look closely at the Wee Lassie and its variants before finalising my design for Jim, for they were very right to point me in that direction: the absence of rocker and the sharp underwater profiles of the bows and stern make the boat track very well, and they came straight from the Wee Lassie.

Naturally, I'm using Jim's moulds to build a second Jim's canoe, and at some point I will make the mould dimensions etc. available. Now, I can't help thinking that a larger, sailing version would be very cool indeed...

Here's his email to me about the launching last night:

Gav,

What stability! We're all superlatively impressed with how stable it is. Eileen - a great bell weather with regards rocking boats - just got in and paddled away. And it handled us both no problem. Superb design..Well Done..And Thanks Very Much.

Paddling is definitely better higher up in the kneeling position..but ohh, my feet go to sleep. So I think it will definitely need a seat. My initial thoughts are two flanges of 6mm ply glued to the sides, supported by "legs " glued down the sides, going down to the deck beams to help carry the weight. Seat would be a removable 6mm cross plank. Could do two: one just aft of the middle for solo voyages and one at the rear for pairs. What d'you think?

Still seems very heavy compared to Thomas Hill's ...I beginning to think that cover picture is a fake!

The pics start to suffer from the failing light, but how wacky digital camera can get when you have lakes, lillypads and fading light reflections!

Starting to digest your canoe book. ...so to the Great North Woods!

cheers
Jim

As you will gather, we're all very pleased including Jim's wife and sons, and I bought him a book on the history of canoes as a thank you present for making a nice job of the prototype!

Gavin