Time for another pirogue

[jdupre']

The bottom is on, decks are on, gunnels are scarfed and glued. I weighed her this morning, including the gunnels........ 42 lbs before paint. Quite a bit under 50 lbs finished.



She was coming out so good I contemplated going with a bright finish inside. Well, that got shot all to hell. :x I had 4 or 5 nails that missed the center of the chines and poked out on the interior. No problem. Ground them below the surface and dabbed a little thickened epoxy on them. Well, the debris from the nails reacted with the wood and stained it black wherever it landed. No real harm done, so the interior will be painted as per original plans.

Joey

 

[tx river rat]

2 inches of rocker should make a good handling boat.
Looks good.
Ron

 

[oldsparkey]

Yep , if you would of finished it naturally the grain in the wood would of made an interesting ( beautiful ) looking boat.

Chuck..........

 

[catfish]

joey them fish and animals they want know about nails and the finish. :lol:

 

[jdupre']

Catfish, I'll paint a moon on a black bottom and the fish will think it's night time and start biting. :lol:

Chuck, that plain old pine sure would have looked impressive finished bright. Since it's mostly the surfaces and edges of the chines, I thought about maybe painting them the outside color and finishing the rest bright. We'll see , when the time comes.

Yeah, Ron, I think 2" of rocker will do fine. It's not going to be tourer. I'll be mostly paddling less than 2 miles to get to the fishing spots. She'll make a dandy pond hopper too.

Joey

 

[jdupre']

I installed the gunnels this evening. Everything went according to plan............for a change. :roll: Stiffened it up considerably. Still, I think it might need a thwart or one or two side ribs.

The douglas fir I used on the gunnels of my first two pirogues was heavy as heck but had the strength and stiffness to match. This western red cedar is really some light and weak stuff. I probably could have gone thicker and wider for the gunnels and still saved 5 lbs over the douglas fir. A thwart wouldn't bother me behind my seating position. I detest a thwart in the front of a boat, though.

Cutwaters are next and then sanding and epoxy saturation of all edges, joints, the inside and outside bottom. I can pick up most of the 6 thousand tools I have laying around. :roll:

 

[beekeeper]

Did you use inside and out gunnels? Laddered the inside one?
If you have not put an edge cap over the sides' plywood edges, that will also add stiffnes. If glued it will protect the edges from water.

beekeeper

 

[jdupre']

Bee, I just have an outside gunnel so far. I thought about a laddered inner gunnel but, between glueing it up and painting it, I figure it would take almost as long as building the boat. I'm after simple on this one. I'll probably go with a thwart back of center and see how that works.

 

[tx river rat]

JD
Rig your seat with an adjustable thwart mounted behind it attached to the seat,it will hold your seat in and stiffen the sides plus you can move it for different loads .
Ron

 

[jdupre']

Ron, good idea but that doesn't scream simple to me.

Bee, a thwart didn't bother me on the alum. pirogue. I find I don't walk to the back of the boat much. I'd much rather have he bow section clear of obstacles. I like some kind of foot brace when using the double paddle so I might eventually put a side/floor rib at that point. Side stiffener, floor stiffener and foot brace ....... 3 birds with one stone. 8)

I did a thinned epoxy saturation coat on the inside up past the chines, a saturation coat and a full strength coat on the bottom up to the water line and attached the cutwaters. I'm trying to use the epoxy I have left where it'll do the most good. It's a few years old. Might not be affected by age, but I'll use it up and get a fresh batch for the next build. ........Yeah...there's always another build. :mrgreen:

 

[Kayak Jack]

Joey, if you haven't already painted the interior that you wanted to be finished bright, could you put a "decorative" splotch of paint over just those blackened nail areas? Say, something geometric or Cajun?

 

[jdupre']

Jack, from the looks of it, I would have more "decorative" paint splothches than wood showing. :roll: A solid paint color will be fine......... more durable and easier to clean.

I'll have to admit that I am leaning more and more to the "dark side" of boat building......... epoxy and glass. While I do like to build in the traditional way from time to time, the stitch and glue method is becoming more appealing to me. Using chines, stems and cutwaters and their associated fasteners is enjoyable, but add more chances for things to go wrong.....especially for me. :roll:

Ease of maintenance is a big plus, too. I've been using the kayak for my fishing platform lately. It's much easier to clean, more protection against damage and less worry about water intrusion.

 

[Kayak Jack]

Being able to "clean" a boat with the garden hose is a very handy plus.

I like stitch and glue as a workable compromise between "standard" construction with relatively flatter sides and bottoms, and strippers with relatively curvy lines. Standard methods tend to be quicker to build, and have more drag. Strippers tend to be slower to build and be more hydrodynamically clean.

Stitch and glue is kinda in between. Works for me.

 

[jdupre']

Put the pirogue in the bayou yesterday for a test drive. Pretty stable to get in and get situated. Turned very well. Speed, as expected, is lower than a longer boat, but she moved right along. I paddled alongside a dock for support and leaned way over until water came up over the gunnel. Still solid and predictable. That position is so awkward to get into, things would have to go REALLY bad to find myself in it.

I might as well put in my 2 cents on the subject of primary and secondary stability. In my experience, secondary stability is almost entirely dependent on the shape of the boat above the water line....... whether round or square cross section. If you have the shape ( and therefore volume) to support the boat in that position, it matters little what shape the cross section of the boat is. The only qualifier I might add, is that a wider flat bottom, hard chined boat will get to point where the opposite chine comes out of the water. At that point, stability will probably go to hell. There again, to get into that position is very awkward and stability is fairly constant up to that point. Your mileage may vary.

 

[oldsparkey]

Lean any boat to far and you will go swimming. The key is knowing when to stop leaning it. :roll:

 

[Kayak Jack]

Joey, I agree with you that 2ndary stability is almost all due to shape of a boat. Cross-section of a hull is part of that shape, as is outward slope of the sides.
Our experience bases differ, and we draw different conclusions from what we've experienced. A flat bottom boat tends to go to the edge - and then break sharply like a piece of glass breaking - very quickly. A semi-rounded cross-section tends to approach final instability more slowly and more predictably.
It does no good to include other variables like skill of the paddler, length of a boat, symmetrical or asymmetrical, etc. etc. We're talking a specific boat.
I'm able to successfully get my ar$e wet in either cross-section.

 

[jdupre']

"tends to go to the edge" .... I agree. But on a reasonably sized boat with a a 22" to 25" bottom, that going "to the edge" is way beyond normal usage. To get my 22" bottomed boat to get even close to that, I had to sit to one edge of the seat, to the point that the seat wanted to tilt over. Of course , this all assumes the paddler at least tries to keep his center of gravity in check. Get your center of gravity over too far and almost any small boat will dump you.

I don't see how you could not include the paddler in the equation. An empty boat won't tip and is completely stable. The paddler is an integral part of the unit. Stability is almost always talked about as a perception of the paddler.

As a comparison, bicycles are COMPLETELY unstable ...........without a rider. :mrgreen:

 

[Kayak Jack]

When testing the rolling moment of a boat (pounds of force required to roll the boat to some point), reliable labs will use dead weight to simulate a paddler. It's the characteristics of a boat that are being tested, not a boat and paddler.

 

[oldsparkey]

" Get your center of gravity over too far and almost any small boat will dump you.

I don't see how you could not include the paddler in the equation. An empty boat won't tip and is completely stable. The paddler is an integral part of the unit. Stability is almost always talked about as a perception of the paddler.

As a comparison, bicycles are COMPLETELY unstable ...........without a rider. :mrgreen:

Thea's an old saying that states ......It is the paddler who capsized the boat , it's not the boat which capsized the paddler.
A empty boat left drifting in open water will stay afloat forever , it will not capsize itself.

Chuck.

 

[jdupre']

Thing is, dead weight does NOT simulate a paddler. Someone that has never been in a boat in their life would intinctively correct for heeling movements. Dead weight might be more realistic if it was placed lower in the boat to help simulate the paddler moving in reaction to the boat's movement.

The way stability is tested now might give a little help to a novice buying a boat. Might even give an experienced boater a little information to compare different boats. I just don't think it's a very accurate representation of the way a boat is used.

Joey