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Showing posts with label Canoes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canoes. Show all posts

Monday, 18 July 2016

Gumming the Canoes Hull


The last step before she's water-ready...gumming the hull! The whole experience of gumming the inside made for a really messy interior that was ultimately covered with sheathing. To make sure the exterior was neat and tidy looking, the gores and lap seams were first bordered with some conventional masking tape.


Masking tape on hull

There was some gum left over in the can from when I originally tempered the mixture a while back. It had hardened considerably (left outdoors) but with a quick re-heating the gum was syrupy again. To seal each gore, a large gob of gum was placed at the bottom end of the gore (positioned on top in the flipped over hull). Rather than smear it all over with a thin cedar stick (like in the interior), I wet my thumb and gently pressed it into the seam and stitching holes while dragging it down the side of hull. This left the majority of the gum below the waterline while leaving a thinner coat well above the waterline were the gum doesn't need to be as thick.

I had to work quickly as the gum would set and begin hardening after a few minutes. This meant only sealing about 3 or 4 gores before the gum would need to be reheated. To hasten the process, I left a candle burning out on the balcony and would simply reheat the can of gum by carefully suspending it over the flame and then run back inside to do the sealing. Going back and forth like this and sealing with my hands created quite sticky fingertips, so I didn't stop to take pictures along the way, but only after the job was finished.


Finished seams

Should mention that the ends received the most amount of gum which resulted in a very dark amber. In these areas, the gum was pressed into the cracks and sealed any other minor openings. Unfortunately, I noticed some new tiny hairline cracks in the bow where some eyes had opened up, probably after the hull dried after placing the ribs under tension. This meant a rather sloppy appearance at the bow end, but it was necessary to prevent any water seepage. After that was done, I let the gum sit for about an hour and then proceeded to take off the tape revealing some clean looking seams.


Removing the tape

With the hull still inverted, I gummed any remaining spots, including a tiny blemish on the bottom and the huge knothole on the port side. With the inside gumming and extra bark pressured with sheathing and ribs, some of the interior gum oozed out so I didn't need much to perfectly seal this area.


The gummed hull including knothole on the side

It was then time for the leakage test in the tub to see if I did a good job. After letting it sit empty, no leakage was seen, but when I pressed into the center of the boat (mimicking the weight of a paddler) small droplets were seen at the bow end. I also pressed down the stern but no problems there and even heeled the boat over onto each side to spot any gore leaks and there were none. The bow was sealed with another layer of gum over any suspicious spots and after a second test, she sealed up completely even when weighted down almost to the gunwales.


Testing for leaks in the tub


Even though the main project is done, I still have ideas for this model. I'll be carving some minature paddles to go with the design as well as making a background frame & wallmount to display the work at the cottage and inspire work on the "real one".


Gummed up and ready to rock!

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Tuesday, 14 January 2014

Canoes they have


Canoes they have, but these are not my people.  I find a huge party of canoeists at the put-in.  There must be a dozen whitewater canoes, round and bulbous, perfect playthings for whitewater - specialty boats that aren't much good for anything else.  It's too many people for me and I load my canoe quickly and make a get-away to the north.

Red wing blackbird


Two geese are on the rockpile.  I drift on the wind for a closer look and when I look up from fetching my camera, they are in the water.  There is no nest yet and I wasn't close enough to scare a mother goose off of her eggs.  Next, I paddle the few yards north and ease my canoe into the break of Broken Island.  This is a favorite nest site and I want to be careful not to scare a goose off of a nest.  I find one sitting on a nest eying me from behind a tree.  I back away.  The mate is not anywhere in site and it occurs to me what has been going on.  Before the eggs are laid, the pair will be aggressively defensive about their nest sight with anything or anyone that comes near.  Once there are eggs, the mate keeps a distance from the nest.  His presence would signal the existence of a nest to any predator with the female pretty much forced to stay put atop of the eggs.

There are quite a few great blue herons around today.  I see a half dozen just in the short channel by the West Islands.

There is a new goose nest on the West beaver lodge.  No eggs, yet, and the pair are together on the lodge, but she will lay soon, I bet.

I see a woman and a boy out bird watching by the north point.  I pull in for a chat since they are standing about 10 feet from a beaver scent mound and almost no one ever knows what those dirt piles are.  We have a nice talk.

One of the big flat backed turtles from the north marsh (18-20 inches long)

I pass two guys fishing from $15000 of boat with a 7000 hp outboard motor as I paddle into the NE lagoon.  I flush a ringneck duck.  This year, there won't be a goose nest in the lagoon because the little island has gone awash in the high water.  But, there are about 3 dozen turtles sunning themselves on drift logs.  As I leave I spot a cinnamon teal.

There is a new goose nest on the NE corner of the #1 railroad island.  I've never seen a nest here before.


I cross the bay to check for a nest on the Big Lodge.  It was the first nest of the year last spring, but there is no nest, yet.

In the east marsh, I head down into the big dead end just to listen to redwing blackbirds, marsh wrens, and from an unknown distance, the whooping howl of the tiny pied billed grebe.  The grebes are making quite a racket today.  Few will know what that sound is.

The workbench lodge goose nest is abandoned.  The pair is not too far off.  There are no eggs in the nest.

I pass by the canoe club - it is a class - a kind of paint-by-number canoe paddling thing that I've never believed in, but then again, I'm not in the class.  It does not look like fun.

I head to Portage Bay.
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Tuesday, 2 April 2013

Hawaiian Double Canoes


Two types of boats were prevalent in pre-European-contact Hawaii: the single-outrigger canoe and the twin-hull, or double, canoe. Outrigger canoes were far more numerous, performing most everyday functions such as fishing, personal transportation, and local trade. The larger, more expensive double canoes were owned by the social elite and were used for war, ceremony, deep-sea voyaging for larger-scale missions of trade or exploration, and to display the owner's prestige. 
Three double canoes visiting Capt. James Cook on his third Pacific expedition. The sailing canoe holds several dozen crew and passengers, including "Tereboo, King of Owyhee, bringing presents to Captain Cook." (Click any image to enlarge.)
An average-size double canoe of the mid-19th century was about 48 feet (14 m) long and 6'7" (2 m) in beam, with each hull being about 1'7" (0.5 m) wide. Far larger ones existed, though: Capt. James Cook's third voyage to Hawaii (1776-80) reported the largest as being 70' LOA with a 12' beam. The longest ever recorded was 108' LOA: since all double-canoe hulls were carved, dugout-style, from single trunks, this would have required a pair of extraordinary trees. Complements of several dozen were probably typical, although crews as large as 120-140 men were reported. 
King Kamehameha's canoe, from a drawing by Admiral Paris. Note six full cross-booms, a partial boom at the forward end of the platform, the mast step (which does not sit atop a cross-boom), and the bowsprit.
Compared to modern twin-hull vessels, Hawaiian double canoes were quite narrow, with a typical length:width ratio of 7.2:1 or 7.3:1. By keeping the hulls close and the cross-booms between them short, wracking forces that would tend to break the structure apart were minimized. A cargo platform, which was fastened to the cross-booms between the hulls, was necessarily narrow, restricting the canoe's carrying capacity. In the average-size canoe mentioned above, the platform was a bit over 32' (10.4 m) long and averaged only about 1'7" (0.5 m) wide. Although the distance between the hulls was about 3' (0.9 m), the platform could not span that entire width: space had to be left between each hull and the platform so that the crew could paddle on the inboard sides of the hulls. 
A cross-section of an almond-shaped hull. The cross-brace (3) is held in sockets on the inside of the hull, and provides an anchor for the heavy lashings that secure the cross-boom (4). (The lashings are poorly drawn: it's impossible to tell how they terminate or where their lower ends lead.) This boat is unusual in having two washstrakes.
The hulls were most often carved from native koa, a.k.a. Hawaiian mahogany (Acacia koa), although Oregon pine, which occasionally showed up as driftwood, was used to make the largest boats. The hulls were symmetrical and as close in size and shape to one another as possible. On most hulls, the sides were usually fairly straight, transitioning rather quickly at the bilge to a rounded bottom, although some hulls had a somewhat almond-shaped cross section. During carving, cleats were left standing proud some inches below the top edge of the dugout hull to serve as fastening points for spreaders, which served mainly to anchor the lashings for the cross-booms. 
The fairly rough model shows the double-curved cross-booms that were typical of later canoes. Compare to the straight cross-booms in the line drawing above.
The booms, which ranged in number from as few as 3 to probably more than 6 for the largest boats, rested atop the upper edge of the dugout hull and passed through the bottom edge of washstrakes, which raised freeboard by several inches. Older canoe examples mostly show straight cross-booms, with later ones having booms that curve upward amidships, raising the cargo platform higher above the water. These double-curved timbers were gotten from branches of the hau tree (Hibiscus tiliaceus). 
A double-rabbeted joint between the hull (b) and the washstrake (a:). The exterior of the hull is at the bottom of the illustration. The sennit lashing (c) is almost entirely protected on the exterior.
The lower edge of the washstrake was rabbeted to fit over the upper edge of the base (i.e., the gunwale surface of the dugout hull), with the outer edge of the washstrake extending a bit wide of the base. Sometimes the upper edge of the base was also rabbeted. Lashings of sennit held the washstrakes to the base, with holes bored so that very little of the lashing was exposed on the exterior. 
Elaborately carved end-pieces extended the washstrakes on each side and curved into the horizontal to form end-decks. The smaller spatulate terminal in (a) was typical of most double canoes; the larger device in (b) was more prestigious. 
The washstrakes were cut off square at the ends. They were continued into the ends of the hulls by carefully-carved pieces that transitioned from the vertical into the horizontal plane to serve as end-decks and ended in vertical, spatulate terminals. The two mirror-image pieces which closed in each end were lashed together along the hull's centerline. 
This model was made under Admiral Paris's supervision, but according to Haddon and Hornell, it contains several mistakes. Note the straight cross-booms, "ram" ends that extend beyond the washstrakes (unlike the line drawing); rigging details of forestay, shrouds, mainsheet, and a line bending the upper end of the sprit toward the masthead.
A single, fixed mast was stepped on the center platform, and while it would have been stronger to place it directly above a cross-boom, this was not always done. (Some early reports stated that the mast was stepped in one of the hulls, but this was apparently not the norm. It may have been an expedient when two single-hull canoes where fastened together to form a temporary double canoe.) The boom – really a sprit – was fastened at a sharp upward angle near the base of the mast, and a cord was used to bend its upper end in toward the masthead. Masts were supported by backstays, shrouds and, in at least some cases, by a forestay to a short bowsprit. A single sheet was fastened about mid-way up the sprit. The sail had a crab-claw shape and was made of woven matting. Lengths of matting were also used to cover the hulls in rough weather, with holes left for the paddlers, who sat on thwarts. 
Propulsion paddle (a) and steering paddle (b)
Paddling was the preferred form of propulsion in almost all circumstances: indeed, with the mast stepped so far forward, sailing would have been problematic in any but a downwind direction. Propulsion paddles, carved from single pieces of koa, were about 5' (1.5 m) long, with large blades and no grip. Steering paddles were substantially bigger in all dimensions and had a T-grip. All paddlers in each hull paddled on the same side. A rapid pace was maintained, and on a signal from a "stroke" paddler in the bow (three raps with his paddle against the hull), all paddlers would switch sides.

For more on Hawaiian double canoes, see our previous post on the reproduction voyaging canoe Hokule'a.

(All images and the majority of content for this post are from Canoes of Oceania, A.C. Haddon and James Hornell.)


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Wednesday, 3 October 2012

Sabanis Canoes or Boats


My last entry was a guest blog from Douglas Brooks, who is working on a sabani in Okinawa. He is maintaining his own blog of the project which makes good reading. Consider this post a complement to Douglas's blog.

The day after Douglas's guest post here, I discovered in my possession a booklet on sabanis which had been loaned to me by my colleague Ben Fuller, curator at Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, Maine. SABANI Canoes of Okinawa, by Katsuhiko Shiraishi, appears to have been self-published (in 1985, I believe, but I can't find the data now). The text is in both Japanese and English, and although the English translation is, unfortunately, awful, the illustrations are very nice indeed. (The cover is shown below; all images in this post are from the same source.)

Whether the sabani is a "canoe" or not is debatable. On the pro side of the argument, it clearly evolved from a dugout canoe. The bottom is a massive cedar dugout, to which one side strake is added on each side (plus small partial strakes to raise the freeboard at the bow and stern. As Douglas Brooks noted, the strakes, too, bear a relationship to dugout practice, as they are not milled lumber, but hewed to shape.

On the other hand, it seems wrong to call anything a canoe that features such massive construction overall, and its shape is hardly canoe-like -- more banks-dory-like in its half-breadths, while the fish-form plan view is unique.
There is a very narrow triangular bow transom that might be considered a stem instead. The stern transom is very close to an equilateral triangle. All pieces are fastened together with dovetail keys, alternating on the inside and outside of the hull. Between each dovetail key is a bamboo nail driven at a very steep angle through one of the exposed plank surfaces so that it edge-nails the bottom to the strakes. (I can't tell if bamboo nails are used similarly at all other joints, or just the bottom-to-side joint.)

In the image below, the bow is on the left. The stern is considerably higher, to help the stern lift with following waves, according to Shiraishi.
Construction begins by fastening the ends of the strakes together, then forcing the strakes apart amidships, which produces a nice curved sheerline. Then the dugout bottom is carved to shape to sit on the bottom edges of the strakes -- as Douglas Brooks noted, this is opposite to the common procedure for producing an extended dugout, in which the dugout is produced first, as a base, and then strakes are added to build up the sides.
On the "it's a canoe" side of the argument, sabanis are paddled, not rowed, as shown below in the picture of a racing version of the boat, used at an annual festival in Okinawa. Note the unusual hand position on the gripless paddle: with the thumbs facing each other. Note also how the flat face of the paddle blade is not the power face.

Shiraishi repeatedly stresses that, due to its narrow beam, the sabani is a fairly unstable boat, prone to capsize especially under sail. (But very pretty under sail, as the image below shows.) It is, however, fairly easy to recover from a capsize. Due to their voluminous wood construction, the raised ends have considerable buoyancy, making the canoe unstable in an inverted position as well. The boatmen turn the boat broadside to a wave and then can easily flip the boat upright. Then they turn it again to face the waves and wait for the bow to lift on a wave while then apply downward pressure on the stern, thus allowing the water to sluice out over the transom. Climb in again, and off they go.

As an aid to turning the capsized boat upright, the mast is easily removed. Note how a pair of easily-removed wedges secures the mast through a square hole in the thwart. Note also the multi-position mast step, which allows the mast to be angled forward or back, depending on the point of sail.


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Friday, 27 April 2012

Bark Canoes of Australias Murray River


The bark canoes of the Australian Aborigines of the Murray River were among the simplest true boats ever built. Even so, they played an important role in the peoples' subsistence economy, and they had a kind of natural grace.
The Murray River forms much of the border between New South Wales and Victoria before entering South Australia, entering the Indian Ocean through Lake Alexandrina, south of Adelaide. (Map from Wikipedia. Click any image to enlarge.)
The Murray, with its major tributary the Darling, is the largest river system in Australia, running over 2,300 miles through a variety of terrain and ecosystems. It's not surprising that such a dominant geographical feature should have played a role in the material culture of a people. The Aborigines built bark canoes for hunting and fishing, and for transportation across the rivers in the system.
A tree from which a section of bark was cut for a canoe. Even though no bark canoes of the type described here have been built for over 100 years, several of these slow-growing "canoe trees" still remain, showing the boat-shaped scar.
The canoes were formed from a single piece of bark of the river red gum tree (Eucalyptus camaldulensis). A man would climb a tree and cut a lozenge-shaped section of bark, using either a stone axe or sharpened sticks. On occasion -- especially where the bark being taken was high on the tree -- the builder would cut hand- and toe-holds into the bark as an aid to climbing. Flat, flexible sticks were pressed between the bark and the wood all around the cut, being forced in bit by bit. Before the bark came away from the trunk, a line was passed around it to prevent it from falling to the ground. (The wood of the river red gum, by the way, is too dense to serve as a good dugout canoe, and even the bark is somewhat difficult to work.)


Murray River bark canoe under construction. Note the prop sticks around the edges.
Once flat on the ground, small sticks were placed under the bark to support its perimeter edges and small fires were built on top to evaporate much of the sap. This also caused the center to sag down, increasing the curvature of the hull and the height of the sides. A few sticks were placed across the hull from sheer to sheer to prevent the bark from curling inward too far, and sometimes these were left in place, in the nature of thwarts, when construction was complete. 


The end of the bark that was lower on the tree was always at the stern. This was much thicker than the bark at the other end, and often it could not be bent up sufficiently. In such cases, the stern would be closed in with a transom made from clay mixed with grass or other vegetable matter. 


The canoes were propelled with a pole about 14' long. In deeper water, this was used in the manner of a double-bladed paddle. In shallow water, the canoe was poled, always using the thicker end of the pole against the bottom. The narrower end was sharpened and served as a fish spear. The paddler always stood, except when hunting, when he crouched. Passengers would crouch or sit.


A funeral procession on the lower Murray, 1864. The corpse is in the foreground boat, covered with leaves. Note the small size and minimal freeboard of some of the canoes.
Canoes varied in size from one-man boats as short as 8' to boats over 20' capable of carrying as many as eight people. A big boat might have freeboard of 8", and beam was usually around 30", rarely more than 36". Stability apparently varied, with many European descriptions emphasizing the canoes' tenderness, while at least one claimed that one could climb into a large canoe from the water, over the side, without upsetting it. There are numerous recorded instances of both Aborigines and Europeans upsetting or swamping the canoes. Most Aborigines were apparently good swimmers, and this was rarely a disaster for them. 


Aborigines would fish and hunt from the canoes. One fishing technique was to stir up the bottom of the muddy river with the pole in an area suspected of harboring fish. When fish then fled into areas of vegetation, the paddler would follow their progress and deduce their location by the movement of the plants, and then thrust his spear "blind," so to speak, but often successfully.


For night-fishing, a small fire would be built near the bow on a platform of mud, bark and sticks. The fire would attract fish, which could then be speared by sight. One man would tend the fire, while another would handle the boat and wield the spear.


Early European explorers and settlers used the canoes, sometimes stealing them from Aborigines; sometimes acquiring them through barter or commissioning their construction, and occasionally building them for themselves after having observed the native techniques. One European recorded using a bark canoe to ferry as many as six sheep at a time across a river. Another told of carrying 400-pound bales of wool. 
On the Darling River, 1904. The canoe is in the South Australia Museum.
Of course, as European settlement progressed, European-style boats soon came into use, and Europeans generally ceased using bark canoes. Then, as Europeans came to dominate the riverfront land, they prohibited Aborigines from taking bark from their trees, and the use of the bark canoe died out entirely.


(Most content and all photos from: Aboriginal Bark Canoes of the Murray Valleyby Robert Edwards.)

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Sunday, 1 May 2011

National Canoe Day G20 Canoes


Yesterday was National Canoe Day, an event run by the Canadian Canoe Museum to celebrate our national icon. Events were held all over the country. In a bid to escape the G8/G20 Chaos in Huntsville and Toronto, the family decided to head over to the event in Peterborough.

Unfortunately, heavy rain, slow traffic and a wailing child made the 1.5 hour drive seem like an endless oceanic flight. The Mrs. also seemed to have lost our camera when we visited the Toronto Zoo with our little man the day before...so no pics. Thankfully, Andre Cloutier and Alex Guthro posted some photos of the event on this thread on the WCHA forums.

When we finally arrived, the event was nearly ending but I got to catch up again with a few local members of the WCHA including Mike Ornsby who runs Reflections On The Outdoors Naturally blog. Got to see his new cedar canvas canoe built by Bruce Smith, a gorgeous solo boat with cherry gunwales and some walnut trim.

Also on hand were some vintage boats including a recently acquired 1919 Rice Lake Canoe with its quirky Aluminum Deck Plates. There's a thread about it on the WCHA forums here. Pulled a shot from the thread below:


1919 Rice Lake Canoe with Aluminum Decks

I was quickly introduced to Dick Persson of Headerwater Canoe fame who was caning some seats. Got to meet finally meet Terry McCaul, a volunteer with the CCM who was doing some paddle carving. Terry's paddles are also functional works of art, complete with gorgeous spined blades, cord whipped shafts, and laser engraved artwork. A shame that our lost camera was not on hand to take pics.

After returning back to the city, ended up reading that the wives of some G20 delegates were also introduced to some canoe culture as part of their Canadian experience. From this article in The Toronto Star:
"Eight of the first ladies spent the morning tucked away in a small, sparsely decorated hotel boardroom where they dined on chocolate canoe paddles and learned how to make nonedible canoe seats from a master craftsman."


(From L to R) Callista Mutharika (Malawi), Svetlana Medvedeva (Russia), Ban Soon-taek (UN), Laureen Harper (Canada), Nabuko Kan (Japan), Geertrui Van Rompuy (European Council) and Patience Goodluck Jonathan (Nigeria) sign on a canoe in Toronto on June 25, 2010.


Chocolate Paddle and pastry "canoe" served to the G8 wives.

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Wednesday, 20 April 2011

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Sunday, 26 December 2010

Northern Sound Ply Canoes


Came across the site of another builder of beautiful birchbark alternative (plywood) canoes. Check out Northern Sound for some more pics and video like the ones below.








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Tuesday, 18 May 2010

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