After enough poking and prodding by friends and a successful cardboard modeling exercise, I decided to start building my first canoe. I am a carpenter and am lucky to have a large cache of tools at my disposal, but this boat could be built with much simpler equipment by anyone. Start to finish took two and a half months working on [most] weekends and occasional evenings.

The design that I would build is based off of the ever-popular "quick canoe" that can be found all over the internet. The goal was a <12' solo paddling canoe for protected lakes and shallow river cruising. What I ended up with is a phenomenally light 11.5' OAL boat with a 28.5" beam that is just under a foot deep at center. Construction is hardware store grade 1/4" plywood, poplar thwarts, decks and breasthooks - and pine gunwale/inwales.





More build detail and pictures to come. Thanks for looking!



