PSB - Das Boot

This is the frame for the skin over frame kayak. It's in need of a little attention.:o

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If you want a good read about what a traditional frame/skin boat can do, I just finished "The Brendan Voyage" by Tim Severin, McGraw-Hill Book compay. The author builds and sails a Leather/oxhide over ash frame boat from Ireland to North America to prove that St. Brendaons voyage was really possable and that Irish monks could have been the first to the new world.
 
Just got back home from looking at a Swifty, $369 at dick's, anyone know of a mail order place with better prices? I think I am going to sell a couple of knives and a contender barrel to finance my kayak jones. Chris
 
St Bendaons voyage ? He was just running from the Vikings !! A couple of years ago my friend asked me if I remembered the large canoes they had when we were kids called war canoes .I said sure I remember .He said they still make them but now call them peace canoes !!! My most memorable canoe trip was as a teenager canoeing the Fulton Chain of Lakes in the Adirondacks .We crossed the biggest lake one night and stopped to watch an incredible display of aurora [northern lights], continuous ribbons of colors !! I've hunted geese from a canoe in the river , quite successfully though it's really a two man job. Met someone who hunted deer from a canoe ,don't know his skills but he fired a 7mmMag off the side of the canoe - he and the canoe went over !!!
 
A bit of info for those that get to Canada or are close by.

(this is from an old thread I posted on another forum years ago)

While researching prices and styles I found that there are some items you can purchase in Canada and not have to pay a duty on. One of those is a canoe or kayak. Doesn't matter what make, model, or size. As long as it was made in Canada. You can, in fact, buy a canoe TAX AND DUTY FREE. The only thing you need to get it back stateside is the receipt and proof of where it was produced. This should be on the boat and /or paperwork.

From what I have found, it works like this:
You purchase the canoe. You will pay the higher Canadian sales tax but you will get the exchange rate. A form is available that will allow you to have the sales tax reimbursed through the mail because you are not a Canadian citizen.
I found a 16.5 ft. hand laid fiberglass canoe with a sticker price of $599 Canadian. With the exchange and no taxes incurred, my price will be around $375 US dollars.
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(note - Exchange rate was higher at the time of posting. price will vary)

One of thefew good things to come from the NAFTA agreement.

Chris
 
Codger_64 said:
Dang. I almost posted the history of canoe design here. I'll let someone less wordy explain it. Mewolf? Where are you dude? I seem to recall you knowing a thing or two about canoes?

Codger
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History of, and less wordy don't go together, IMO the canoe or any boat for that matter has been an on going development. To me it is obvious that the canoe has been developed to make life and travel much easier. To stay within the topic of this forum, the ability to make a lake or river crosser might never be needed, but by golly if you were to need to it'd be nice to know. All you really need is a knife.
One of the most simple boats to make is the "Elm bark" canoe. I borrowed this:

"BARK CANOE"



The term "bark canoe" always seems to conjure up the picture of the picturesque birch bark canoe, but the Shawnee rarely, if ever, used birch, which was not indigenous to the Ohio country. Several different types of trees were used for the making of the standard bark canoe, but the most favored was elm, since it was very flexible and easy to work with.

Two experienced Shawnee men could make a bark canoe suitable for crossing the Ohio River in about two hours. An elm with a good straight trunk would be chosen that was a foot and a half to two feet in diameter. Using tomahawk's, a line would be cut through the bark all the way around the tree just above ground level. Another line would be cut straight up the trunk for ten to twelve feet, one of the Shawnees standing on the shoulders of the other when it became too high to work otherwise. Then the man on top would cut a line around the tree similar to the one at the base. Elm bark separates from the tree quite easily and they would pry it back, using the tomahawks as levers, until the bark came off in a single tube.

One end of the tube would be flattened together so the cut lines met exactly and then, using sharpened pegs, holes would be punched two or three inches apart about an inch or so inward from the ends of the tubulat bark. The same thing would be done to the other end. Then long strands of tough wild grapevine would be used to lace each end very tightly. Finally sections of sturdy branches would be cut just long enough to act as crossbars to prop the long cut apart to its fullest extent. Sometimes (not always) these crossbars would be snugged in place with pieces of grapevine through peg-holes. The result was a square-ended canoe that was not much for looks and could not make much speed, but which could very nicely carry a couple of men and their gear across the broad river.

Paddles were made from tough stiff sections of oak bark. Such bark canoes always leaked at both ends, but not as much as might be expected, and if the load weight, including the paddlers, was positioned close enough to the center, the canoe would bow downward in the middle, lifting the ends high enough that they would barely come in contact with the water.

When finished using such a canoe, the Shawnee usually found a secluded backwater up a creek, filled the canoe with water and then put large rocks in it to sink it for possible use another time. The elm bark resisted rotting for a considerable time and a canoe sunk in this manner in spring could be raised and used as late as the following fall, though they almost never survived undamaged through a winter.



"Bits and Pieces"

"Shawnee's Reservation"

"Homepage"


© 1997 shawnee_1@yahoo.co

The water crosser does not need to be fancy or pretty, just functional, but if you're really interested dig in:thumbup: Couple more links to some much better writers than I.

http://www.wcha.org/aboutwood.htm
http://www.civilization.ca/aborig/watercraft/wab02eng.html
 
Spen many Years in a canoe. Born in North Minn at the entrance to the BWCA I was in a canoe while in the womb and then again in the spring as an infant... As I grew older, I wasn't allowed to use the motor boat (16' alumcraft with a 25 horse) so It was always the canoe for fishing. It was a 17' grumman and when the wind blew I would end up on the other side of the as I never weighed more than 130 until after highschool. Sometimes put rocks in the front to keep me on the lake. It was a great boat for duck hunting as well.
Last fall I took a trip around isle royal in a Kayak with my Dad and was amazed at how much more water you could cover in a day with the sea kayak. You can fit as much stuff in one although you have to pack a bit differently. we caught some good sized fish and always felt secure, but bringing a northern pike up to the side of a kayak is kind of like trying to land a bobcat. got it done but always got wet in the process.
I thought about Duck hunting out of one but I'm a bit afraid of shooting a shotgun and having to do the eskimo roll with an 870... Any one shoot out of a kayak and stay dry?
 
My first small boat was an 18' Old Town, wood 'n' canvas flat water Charles River canoe. Only tipped it a couple of times, mainly because I had my butt too high on the stern. Finally sold it, so sorry I did that.

My second boat is a 12' Teal, a double ender designed by Harold "Dynamite" Payson of Maine. I built it out of 1/4 luan plywood, epoxied and fiberglassed all over. It's a rowboat and sailboat. Only sailed it once, had the sail in my face, packed into a bed of reeds, had to row like hell to get it out. I've only put it upside down once, myself upside down, ten feet down. It's a really good one-man rowboat, without the sail. It will go anywhere. ;)
 
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