I am absolutely thrilled to share this 17’4” x 34” tandem canoe built from our plans by Steve and his wife in Yellowknife, Canada. This was designed as a fast day tripper / light camper rather than a heavy cargo hauler. Here’s what Steve has to say about it: “Finished up yesterday , and...
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Video: Comparing three different “flipper” drives
Yesterday we tested three different “flipper” drives in the Prototype Pedal Drive Canoe. The first one is a generic copy of the older Hobie design that is no longer under patent protection. At less than half the price of a newer Hobie Mirage drive it’s definitely tempting, but there is a massive difference in...
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Video: A few more clips from our kayak-catamaran sail test
Here’s a few more clips from our kayak-catamaran sail tests last week. There are two versions of this setup: the flat deck version where the front attachment mirrors the rear catamaran attachment, and the standard version, which has a pair of single attachments on the front deck. Of the two, the flat deck is...
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Doing some surgery on the pedal drive box for the next round of testing
The next step for the Pedal Drive Canoe is to test it with all of the available “flipper” drives and a few different fin sizes. I already bought the standard Hobie Drive and also a cheap knock off of their older design, so this week I pulled the trigger ($1080 ouch) on the Hobie...
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Photos: Just a cool shadow from the canoe frame
Just a cool shadow I managed to capture after I finish framing the last canoe. ...
More photos of Bart’s canoe
Here’s a few more photos from Bart, who built one our smaller solo canoes a few years ago to fly fish near Jacksonville Florida. “Hey Brian, The boat is two years old this month and I fish out out it exclusively now. It is 13″8′ long, 28″ wide and 10.5″ deep. I have taken...
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Charles’s tandem canoe
Check out this lovely little tandem built by Charles using our online building course and plans. Without any pigment in the coating the finished result looks elegant, and delicate, (even though it isn’t). It’s too bad that clear boats slowly turn yellow because I really like the white! Anyway, Thanks for sharing Charles! This is probably...
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Next steps for the pedal-drive canoe
Let’s talk about the next steps for the drive canoe: Right now the plan is to spend the next two weeks testing and upgrading the prototype with and without the drive installed. I need to purchase the Hobie reversible drive with turbo fins to try both of those features and modify the drive box...
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Video: More from the first test of the pedal-drive canoe
Before I share the specs on the pedal drive canoe prototype I just want to make it clear that this is not the size I would normally build for myself. (our building system will let you build any size canoe) I deliberately undersized this canoe to try to find the lower limit of canoe...
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Video: First look at the pedal drive canoe
Here’s a first look at the pedal drive canoe system in action. As always, there are many things I’m planning to change for the final version, but overall the launch went surprisingly well. The canoe is fast, maneuverable, sufficiently stable, and most importantly can be transformed back into a normal canoe in about 90...
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Timelapse: Rigging the pedal-powered canoe
A quick word about the music on these videos: regardless of what type of music I use, someone is always upset about it, so if that’s you today, please send me your suggestions for appropriate, licensable music that you would like to hear on a time-lapse video. Thanks! Moving on, yesterday I installed the...
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Timelapse: Building the seat for the pedal powered canoe
Sound on! Here I’m finishing up the seat for the pedal powered Canoe. Normally I just purchase canoe seats because it’s far more cost-effective than building, but the pedal canoe requires a longer see a higher back so I have to build it. Plenty of small changes to be made on the next version...
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Timelapse: Adding an extra coat of polyurethane to the bottom of the canoe
Normally, I keep all the doors and windows open for ventilation while applying the 2-part polyurethane, but yesterday that backfired on me because the same wind that was pushing us up the river was blowing sawdust into the workshop, and I came home to a slightly rough skin. Oops. So anyway here I am...
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Video: First test of the peaked-deck kayak catamaran
Yesterday we were finally able to do the first test of the kayak catamaran system on the raised front deck version of our F1 kayak design, this time with a pair of 1 square meter Falcon Sails (no relation to us). For anyone who is new here I designed this catamaran system for our...
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Timelapse: Skinning the pedal drive canoe prototype
Sound on! I put the skin on the pedal drive canoe yesterday, and shot a few updates for our online skin-on-frame canoe building course. This time I ended up using my buddies Grex pneumatic stapler, which was much easier on the hands than the good old Stanley T50. Skinning canoes is always nice because...
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