The 1865 St. Francis 2-Fathom Canoe appears as Figure 80 in The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America. It represents the typical form of a late-19th century St. Francis canoe, which, as described by Howard I. Chapelle, has high-peaked ends, a quick upsweep to the top of the stems, a vertical end profile [...]
When I visited the Fram Museum in Olso, Norway, I fell in love with a West Greenland kayak displayed as part of the Fram collection. The kayak is Fram number 176. Native Greenlanders built the kayak in 1888 for one of arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen’s colleagues after Nansen’s successful crossing of the Greenland icecap (Sea [...]
This cedar canoe drawing is taken from Edwin Adney and Howard Chapelle’s The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America–it appears on page 79. Adney surveyed the original in 1895. He notes that the boat shows moderate sheer and low ends. For this set of free plans, I left the station shape and stem [...]
![hansel_bryan_070416-072[1]](http://www.paddlinglight.com/pl/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/hansel_bryan_070416-0721-150x150.jpg "Permalink to Canoe and Kayak Building Resources")
Paddlinglight.com began as a place to distribute my wilderness philosophy, show off my kayak and canoe building logs, provide boat information, and get my free canoe and kayak plans online. Since it’s inception, Paddlinglight.com grew far bigger than I expected, and the most popular articles on the site have consistently been about boat building. For [...]
Description: The Siskiwit Bay MC is all-around fast mid-sized British-style touring kayak designed for plywood building. This kayak suits a medium to heavy paddler looking for good initial stability and with increased flare above the waterline lots of secondary stability. As the water gets rougher, this kayak feels more stable. It’s a fast design slightly [...]
Free Canoe Plans and Free Kayak Plans Project Summary
In September 2010, I decided to draw and release a free canoe plan or a free kayak plan each week for the entire winter. I planned the project to end on April 1st, 2011. My goal was to produce between 24 and 26 total plans based on historic designs found in Bark Canoes and Skin [...]