John Day River Trip, Day 6 on the river.
People have probably been catamaraning canoes together since canoes existed but it’s not something you see much these days because modern composite construction isn’t compatible with the immense forces the outriggers place on the structure.
How I got interested in this was literally an afterthought. 3 years ago were getting ready to head down the John Day in my original prototype pack canoes, when I got the idea it might be interesting to experiment with connecting the canoes side-by-side. So I spent 5 minutes making a couple of boards with notches and off we went.
After our near disaster at Clarno, (see post 7), the next morning I hooked the canoes together with the makeshift outriggers and a handful of ball bungees. Because these tiny canoes had almost no free board we immediately swamped in the next rapid but this time we were connected together, we were floating, and we could still maneuver the boat. At shore it took all of eight seconds to lift the bows and dump the water out the back and we were back on the river.
From then on that trip was a blast. The catamaran was stable, maneuverable, and the combination of the strength of the way that I build my canoes combined with the inherent flexibility of the bungee system allowed the whole thing to articulate through the rapids without damaging the boats.
Other benefits included a much more social experience sitting beside someone as opposed to behind them or in front of them, and the ability to stand up to scout rapids, which lets me see and plan for obstacles hundreds of feet before I would’ve seen them in a sitting position. The boards also provided an alternate higher sitting position when we wanted to stretch our legs.
The downsides are pretty obvious: two people sitting in two canoes is always going to have more drag then the same load in a single, and you have almost double the wind resistance in headwinds. You may also suffer sideways looks from purist canoeists who are doing it “the right way.”
I’ve got lots more to say about this topic but I’m out of space so I’ll continue on the next post.
___
This post was originally featured on our Instagram feed.
See the original post and discussion here.
