Building a Canadian Canoe part 1

July 20, 2017

When it's hot you want to be in or near water as it cools you. So the idea came up to build a canoe. This is part 1 of the project.

How it all started

Summer on Mallorca is hot. The daily average max temperature is most of the time higher than 30 degrees Celcius in the month of July and August. For me personally 30 degrees is somehow the limit for working outside in full sun. So I reduce the work and try to do a bit more earlier on the day, although this does not really fit in my schedule as I need to work in the morning because of the time difference with India (plus 3.5 hours) as we have employees working there for us. Although we also have someone working for us right now from Canada, which has a time difference of minus 7 hours I believe, so it's getting a bit complicated to find times to communicate with everybody.
Friends of us have an inflatable canoe and we talked about this. It's not ideal as it's not really rigid, which means that a of energy while peddling along will be lost to friction. During this talk the idea came up to build a canoe. My friend Piet said there were a lot of plans and videos available on the internet telling you how it's done. So I started to browse a bit later that day and came across the same book many times: Canoecraft by Ted Moores. I almost forgot about it till I received the book. I watched more videos about building canoes based upon the plans in the book and I thought it should be all doable with a relative short period - although it took the builders of the videos more than 6 months. I would like to do it in a shorter period, max 3 months, as I know my spirit bow will decline after 3 month and it should be fun and joy, not a punishment job.

Comments