My son and 3 of his friends, all students at North Carolina State University have decided to find a couple of older used canoes and modify them for sailing and paddling as a team in the 2007 WaterTribe Everglades Challenge. See this posting on the forum where he discusses thier lastest plan for the race http://www.watertribe.com/Default.aspx?ucPtr=Discussion/DiscReadMsg.ascx&strThread=3001&strNumReplies=9.
Thier biggest problem is they don’t have the 2 canoes, or much money. As engeneering students they think they will be up to the challenge of the modifications, and actually think it’ll be fun.
Any suggestions on what kind of canoe they should consider for sailing and catamaraning? Where should they even look? How much do you think it’ll cost them?
All suggestions welcome, thanks,
Dawn
Do they realize that there is a 40 mile
road portion to that challenge?
Having one of my kids with a degree from NCSU and another with a degree from Carolina, I thought the state students had more sense than to get tar on their heels!
cheers,
JackL
sailing canoe articles
http://www.epoxyworks.com/16/index16.html
For pure speed, I’d think a couple of ex-racing canoes (Jensens?) would be good, but you’d be trading off capacity and stability. Any good flatwater cruiser should work. The Wenonah catalog is probably a good place to get names to look for.
Look for loaners
As they don’t have any money to buy the ideal canoes that will be suggested and debated here, I recommend that they see if they can borrow two canoes from someone. Maybe they should see if they can rent them. The rigging can be made from old windsurfer stuff for a song if they are willing to do a lot of labor and engineering. I like havinf a spray cover and float bags tied into the boat instead of building a deck for the boats. This method is more flexible and may weigh less than builing decks.
I have a spray cover someplace they can borrow if they want to try it. They can also borrow my canoe but it is a big 40 wide canoe that is really more of a pointy jon boat than a canoe. If they are catamaraning them they won’t want them that wide.
Build them
It is easy to build a canoe if you have a strong back, So for a realitivly small cost (4-500 an 18 footer) they have their own boats. Plans are Ubitquitous on the Internet. Since they are Engineering students they need something to keep tehm busy, since engineers have no lives…
My son goes to UNC-Greensboro, He built his boat back when he was a scout, and helped me build mine several years later so he is a resource for them. As am I if they are near Charlotte.
Too bad you missed the 40 miler this year Dawn. Best river I have ever seen…
Thanks
I actually was planning on the Lumber 40 this year, was going to do it in my Kruger, but somehow missed the fact that the date changed, I still have it on my calendar for Oct. How was the turnout this year.
Dawn
average turn out
but the river was fast! All the racers came in ahead of previous years time…
Randy and i were out of shape, and out of training and stille came in 45 minutes ahead of our fastest time.
the Lumber lent itself to our touring boat as we came in only 5 minutes behind th elast place Comp Cruiser…