A Study In Hulls

For the general hull design, there are three profiles that need to be optimized.

The first is the general shape of the boat when you look from the top. How long it will be, how wide will it be at different points along, and will it be symmetrical. A longer length compared to the width will allow the boat to be lighter, and to be better at going straight. Having a shorter length compared to the width will allow the boat to be more stable, and carry more weight. It is also important to keep in mind that the canoe will need to be long enough to fit minimum two people in it comfortably, with some gear in the middle of course. It also cant be too wide, or you would have to lean over to actually use your paddle! A boat that is narrower in the front half than the back half gives less drag, so it makes the boat a bit faster. It is, however, an issue if the boat will ever be canoed by a single person. Usually, when using a two person canoe on your own, the canoeist will sit backwards in the front seat, so that they are closer to the centre of gravity. This means when the single person is using the asymmetrical canoe, the front will be wider than the back, making the canoe even slower!

For this profile, I will be sticking with general canoe sizes, as this will ensure it is the appropriate size, and also allow me to buy a pre-made yoke for my canoe. I will also create a symmetrical canoe, so that I can use my canoe on my own, and also to make the design easier.

The second has to do with the rocker. Rocker is how much of a curve upwards the ends of your boat have compared to the middle. A typical canoe has a 2" rocker. Having a

The Adventure Begins

I have decided to go on a design adventure.



I am a bit of an outdoor enthusiast, I really enjoy going back country camping. I am slowly but surely gathering all the equipment I need to make longer trips more possible,  and affordable. One large cost in my adventures is renting a canoe. I decided I should maybe look at buying one in the future, but even used canoes were all well over 500$ for anything in decent condition. I did however, find a great website that could solve my problem.



http://www.southernfriedscience.com/?p=4774



This website details a grad students efforts to create a canoe (in less than a weekend, no less) from scratch. There are two main methods to making a boat. The one he used, and that I will use as well, is stitch and glue. It requires carefully planned strips of plywood that are stitched (zip tied) together, then glued. The other method involves making a canoe mold, and bending a material (epoxy, cedar, aluminium, etc.) over the mold. Being a mechanical engineering student, I decided the former method would be more fun to design, and require a lot less woodworking skill.



I decided not to go with the free pattern that the above blog led to, because it had a completely flat bottom. Though this makes the boat more stable, it also means there is a lot more drag on the hull, making it harder to move through the water. So I will design my own boat instead. I plan on using SolidWorks to optimize the general profile, and cutting and gluing little paper pieces to finalize the plywood shape (unless I think of a smart way to get SolidWorks to go from flat to bent material, instead of the other way around).



In the end, as long as I come up with something useful, I will post my design for free, so anyone can use it.

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