Decisions, Decisions, continued...

Well, I'm narrowing things down a bit and am looking at designs that are offered by the folks at Bear Mountain Boats, Ted Moores' business. Most of these are based on older designs by Chestnut, a well known Canadian canoe manufacturer and have been re-drawn by Steve Killing.

I had been looking at the Cheemaun design by Rollin Thurlow up at the Northwoods Canoe Company and the Ami by Alex Comb at Stewart River Boatworks. These two designs are really intended for wood and canvas canoe construction, but they could be built as cedar strip canoes with a little bit of change to the forms. (Alex actually had the design to the outside of the hull, which is what you need for strip built.) However, I think I'll save these for the time when I build in wood and canvas.

The designs that I seem to be coming back to are the Prospector Ranger, the Freedom 15 and the Bob's Special. ALL of these are 15' long canoes that will be about 45 or 50 pounds and have similar prismatic coefficients and wetted area. The Freedom has a very modern appearance, relatively flat bottom and flat sheer line, but has a higher prismatic coefficient and wetted area - which will yield a slower boat. I like the underwater shape of the Prospector Ranger a bit better than the Bob's Special, but think that the bow and stern on the Ranger are a bit high and will likely catch the wind. This, however isn't a death knell - it's not that hard to lower the sheer a bit in the ends.



Could be a toss up, but I think the Ranger will feel more stable.