For those of you who missedthe last boat building post, the skin on frame shearwater is on hold because my client is MIA. I’ll continue the build as soon as somebody pays me.
In the meantime, I’m shifting focused to the next project, which is a modified version of the St. Lawrence River Skiff in skin on frame. For those of you who aren’t familiar, St. Lawrence River skiffs were used extensively as guide boats in the Thousand Islands region of the St. Lawrence in the late 1800s and early 1900s. They were also raced and sailed.
Similar in someways to an Adirondack guide boat, but more robust and less complicated, I like the River Skiff because quite honestly it’s the largest boat I can build that is light enough to put on top of a car. There are also certain trips that only allow canoes, which a St. Lawrence Skiff can reliably impersonate.
Generally speaking, a St. Lawrence Skiff is a little bit wider than a canoe with more dead rise, more sheer, and hollow lines toward the ends. About five years ago, I tried to build something similar using our standard canoe building system, but it just wouldn’t produce the correct shaping. So for this build, we’re taking a very different approach with laminated frames and bent ribs in between. The planned size is 40 inches wide 14.5 inches deep and 15‘6“ long (I’ve increased the size by 1.05) and I’m really hoping it comes in at less than 70 pounds.
The first step is to draw several of the stations onto thin plywood and then cut them out to make templates for laminating forms. Next, I did a glue-up with Titebond, and then 24 hours later, I took it off the mold and cut a mortise for the seat riser. So that’s the progress so far, tomorrow we will do some destructive testing on the lamination to check for strength and determine scantlings.
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