My Sailing Canoe Design
I have been refining my sailing canoe design and this is my latest revision. I began by doing some concept sketches. This gave me an idea of the approximate size and proportions of the hull. I then used Carlson Design’s free Hulls software to optimize the hull shape. I went through probably two dozen hulls, each with minor variations in length, beam, rocker, and other variables.
I don’t have much boat design experience so I found the book ‘How to Design a Boat’ by John Teale to be very helpful. Between the book, Google, Wikipedia, and a few other resources I was able to figure out what the prismatic coefficient is, where to place the sail center of effort, and, most important, if the boat would float.
The next step was to import the hull drawing into AutoCAD and start adding stuff – the pilothouse, a seat, my bike – to see if it would fit. I actually started with a hull 14′ long with a 39″ beam, and ended up with 12′ length and 32″ beam. I wanted the smallest, lightest boat that would accommodate my must have features.
As I learned more about sailing canoes, thought about how I would use mine, and did more sketches and hull designs, everything changed more than once. I eliminated space for my bike, then put it back. The paddling position moved from inside the pilot house to behind it. I eliminated the centerboard, planning to use the sharp chines with an end plate to prevent side slip, then added a bow board to help the chines when close hauled. For now, I have settled on the sketch above - at least until I think about it some more.
In my next post I’ll explain the features of this design.