Adventures on a DIY canoe

This post is catching up from an earlier paddle. The Washington Grist Mill and Distillery along Mt Vernon Memorial Highway used to have street parking and a put-in on either side of the road.  Since the bridge was rebuilt, this has all changed.  I parked at the Grist Mill itself and walked the canoe down a short ways down the path to the bridge. This worked fine.  The put-in is a nice grassy area and stepping over the edge of a short embankment that is popular with fishermen. The creek starts as dirty water, but starts directly in forested area and a low bridge.  The paddle develops along a wider marsh area and winds past the Ft Belvoir Marina ($10 for a car-top put-in).  Paddling father east enters Dogue Creek that widens quickly into the Potomac River.  It was very windy this day, so pushing out toward the open Potomac was a gamble, before turning around at roughly Ferry Point.       This was the first time taking the Snowshoe 12 into ...

The weather has turned hot, humid, and sunny.  This is not what I consider excellent.   I departing the house at 06:40 on a Sunday morning for Belle Haven picnic area, only to find its gate was closed and locked (similar to the previous weekend).  My hope had been to paddle up Cameron run, but that was not to be.  Instead, Daingerfield Island has a small put-in before you get to the sailing area.  Free is always better.   The parking lot fits maybe 15 cars, but was mostly empty on an early morning.  The put-in is a paved landing down to a (gross) sandy walk-in.  This worked out just fine.  This is what the walk-in looks like:   It was neat to see many sailboats at the docks (why do people pay dock fees just to float their junky boats that they never use?).  There are a handful of 30-footers at the very end.  This picture is when returning to the marina. After the marina, it was an exposed paddle to the entrance of F...

It was 70's, overcast, and occasionally drizzling -- this brooding weather is my perfect. Today's trip was meant to be parking at Riverside Park, but instead being parking 0.9mi due east along the George Washington Trail.  I'm not sure why the Riverside Park gate was locked until well after 08:00.  The put-in was on the shoreline, stepping into the water at some large rocks.  It was slightly slippery, but this was otherwise an excellent put-in and take-out for my needs. The paddle took about 3 hours for 6.4mi round-trip (3.2mi out-and-back) and went from the parking pull-off, around Riverside Park, into the Little Hunting Creek area, and pushed through the marsh into the forest until the trees literally closed in.   This was an excellent paddle to see wildlife and the local flora.  I saw multiple ospreys, red-winged blackbirds in the marsh, several ducks, and other birds.  Up the creek, I watched a large beaver slide into the water about 30 feet from m...

This project is from several years ago, but was worth putting into the same blog as the DIY canoe build.   My father is an avid canoer and tried making a Greenland paddle from a 2x4.  It worked, but left a lot to be desired in both structure and finish.  I once built a CNC router in the garage, so figured it could produce a wooden paddle. Experimentation started with a foam blank. I clamped it to the spoil board and cut out the first side with a roughing pass and then a horizontal finishing pass. Since my CNC can only cut 48in length, the paddle would be made using three flips and four identical operations.   The handle in the middle would be the trickiest for alignment.  In this foam test piece, I incorrectly trimmed "off" at the end. The tip end keeps a tab to maintain some structure on the last cut. This picture shows the flip, how the now lower half stands proud of the table and uses the same clamps. Onward to wood!  Specifically, starting wit...

It floats! This canoe more like a kayak in the water, with your hips having to keep the boat stable.  It is imperative to sit against the floor. The relatively short (12ft) length of the Showshoe 12 means it does not track super straight like a longer kayak, but it does take paddle work to get it to turn quickly.  I'm still getting used to it. My paddle was a gift, and is a hollow carbon fiber model from Bending Branches.  Its light-weight nature matches the minimalism of the canoe.  A greenland paddle might also be a good fit for the boat. On to the next adventure! 

 Welcome to a skin on frame canoe. I've had these plans since May 2018, and it was finally time.  It was relatively quick and was a quite relaxing process to build with wood.  The techniques are similar to building a wooden airplane. The canoe is a Snowshoe 12 from Geodesic Airolite Boats ( https://gaboats.com/ ).  It is built from plans and a small amount of kiln-dried premium hardwood lumber from Home Depot. The build process starts with creating a strongback, which is just a box-beam with legs..  Bulkhead formers were cut from 1/8" MDF and screwed to the strongback next.  This is essentially all the tooling required. Next is the milling of all the sticks.  I bought a new thin-kerf blade and built a new zero-clearance insert for the table saw for this milling operation.  The plans have a good cut-list.  It was surprisingly straightforward to turn a piece of oak and popular into several smaller pieces.  The sticks are then b...