Slack Water Alice |
Asymmetric Canoe
Length Overall 11ft 6ins 3.6 m Beam 2ft 4ins 0.73m Optional Layout;
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Slack Water Alice.
The Canoe that thinks it’s a Kayak (or is it the other way round?)
The old cliché says there is nothing new under the sun, and there really isn’t anything new about this canoe. There aren’t many steps between standing on a log, then sitting in a dug-out before you get to a one man canoe, and once you’ve ironed out the snags that’s pretty much it.
What’s in a name? Lets be clear at the outset, Alice has no intentions of getting over excited and doing anything silly like getting into white water. As the name suggests she is intended for slack water. Gliding effortlessly across the mirror surface of a lake or loch anywhere between The Trossachs and the pine fringed shores of British Columba. Some small rapids maybe, but remember when the going gets tough, the smart guys get out and walk.
Speaking of walking Alice is designed to be light enough to lift onto a car roof single handed and to portage round obstacles easily.
Mind you if you have a predilection for Beer, which shows in your waist- line and a tendency to carry everything including Beer Cooler, Cast Iron, Pot, Griddle and Stove, you know who you are and Alice isn’t for you.
Her waterline is drawn at 222lbs all up weight including crew, kit and canoe She’s more the light-weight minimalist sort of a girl.
The original idea behind Alice was to try to take all the best aspects of small canoes and distil them down to essence of canoe.
Strictly speaking this is a kayak not a canoe, well at least by my definition; a kayak is propelled with a double paddle, like those used by the Inuits, whereas a canoe is propelled by a single paddle like those of the Native Americans.
Having previously built Katie Beardie, my sailing canoe, I got the lightweight bug. Katie is great and will carry everything including the kitchen sink in her vast holds but at a tad under 16ft she’s not exactly lightweight and getting her off and on the car demands a bit of effort. So I wanted something I could literally throw onto the roof rack and carry to the water. I’d seen other peoples’ open canoes like Rushton’s Little Kate and Oughtred’s Wee Rob and wanted something as easy to use as they were, but could I go even simpler?
Now I like a clinker (lapstrake) hull as well as the next man, and I do agree with those people who reckon the clinker ply or glued lapstrake as the Americans call it is in fact the easiest build method, but this time I’ve gone for stitch and glue. (the tape may be optional).
Plywood comes in nice broad widths so there’s no material restriction forcing the need for narrow planks, we’ll leave any aesthetic arguments for when we’ve got the time and patience to go the clinker route. For now it’s two sheets of ply and away we go. But that doesn’t mean she has to be ugly. There are enough ugly boats in the world already without us making any more, and the only thing between an ugly design and a beautiful one is a little time, patience and the eye of the draughtsman.
The first and last thing you’ll notice about Alice is her tumblehome, the way the sides of the hull slope inward towards the gunwales. This of course is an ancient idea stolen from the canoe, it means that maximum beam is low down on the waterline where it will do the most good, keeping the boat stable, and the narrower gunwales are less likely to graze the knuckles.
Alice is asymmetric, she isn’t the same shape fore and aft like some canoes, her widest beam is a good bit aft of mid-ships. This moves the centre of buoyancy aft and means that the maximum load i.e. your bum, can settle in a sensible place. It also means that the bow can be sleek with a fine entry and the aft portions are more able to carry the load.
Someone once said that the enjoyment to be had from a boat is inversely proportionate to its size, and probably its cost so Alice is bound to provide many many hours of enjoyment for the builder and voyageur.
Sample Plan below.
The Canoe that thinks it’s a Kayak (or is it the other way round?)
The old cliché says there is nothing new under the sun, and there really isn’t anything new about this canoe. There aren’t many steps between standing on a log, then sitting in a dug-out before you get to a one man canoe, and once you’ve ironed out the snags that’s pretty much it.
What’s in a name? Lets be clear at the outset, Alice has no intentions of getting over excited and doing anything silly like getting into white water. As the name suggests she is intended for slack water. Gliding effortlessly across the mirror surface of a lake or loch anywhere between The Trossachs and the pine fringed shores of British Columba. Some small rapids maybe, but remember when the going gets tough, the smart guys get out and walk.
Speaking of walking Alice is designed to be light enough to lift onto a car roof single handed and to portage round obstacles easily.
Mind you if you have a predilection for Beer, which shows in your waist- line and a tendency to carry everything including Beer Cooler, Cast Iron, Pot, Griddle and Stove, you know who you are and Alice isn’t for you.
Her waterline is drawn at 222lbs all up weight including crew, kit and canoe She’s more the light-weight minimalist sort of a girl.
The original idea behind Alice was to try to take all the best aspects of small canoes and distil them down to essence of canoe.
Strictly speaking this is a kayak not a canoe, well at least by my definition; a kayak is propelled with a double paddle, like those used by the Inuits, whereas a canoe is propelled by a single paddle like those of the Native Americans.
Having previously built Katie Beardie, my sailing canoe, I got the lightweight bug. Katie is great and will carry everything including the kitchen sink in her vast holds but at a tad under 16ft she’s not exactly lightweight and getting her off and on the car demands a bit of effort. So I wanted something I could literally throw onto the roof rack and carry to the water. I’d seen other peoples’ open canoes like Rushton’s Little Kate and Oughtred’s Wee Rob and wanted something as easy to use as they were, but could I go even simpler?
Now I like a clinker (lapstrake) hull as well as the next man, and I do agree with those people who reckon the clinker ply or glued lapstrake as the Americans call it is in fact the easiest build method, but this time I’ve gone for stitch and glue. (the tape may be optional).
Plywood comes in nice broad widths so there’s no material restriction forcing the need for narrow planks, we’ll leave any aesthetic arguments for when we’ve got the time and patience to go the clinker route. For now it’s two sheets of ply and away we go. But that doesn’t mean she has to be ugly. There are enough ugly boats in the world already without us making any more, and the only thing between an ugly design and a beautiful one is a little time, patience and the eye of the draughtsman.
The first and last thing you’ll notice about Alice is her tumblehome, the way the sides of the hull slope inward towards the gunwales. This of course is an ancient idea stolen from the canoe, it means that maximum beam is low down on the waterline where it will do the most good, keeping the boat stable, and the narrower gunwales are less likely to graze the knuckles.
Alice is asymmetric, she isn’t the same shape fore and aft like some canoes, her widest beam is a good bit aft of mid-ships. This moves the centre of buoyancy aft and means that the maximum load i.e. your bum, can settle in a sensible place. It also means that the bow can be sleek with a fine entry and the aft portions are more able to carry the load.
Someone once said that the enjoyment to be had from a boat is inversely proportionate to its size, and probably its cost so Alice is bound to provide many many hours of enjoyment for the builder and voyageur.
Sample Plan below.