The Quick Canoe Electric is an easy to build cargo canoe that uses an electric trolling motor and has large capacity but be light enough for car topping or portage.
Trolling Motors are cheap. Two Batteries gives you most of the day on the water and 5 to 6mph.
15ft 8″ (4.6m) x 39″ (1.03m) x 34lb thrust motor
Plans for this electric canoe are available from my agents – top left of this page.
Once you have read this article on the plans
Click to read all our articles on the Electric Quick Canoe to see if it will work for you!
For a very easy to build plywood paddling canoe see the Quick Canoe here.
It is also suitable as a main hull for a sailing outrigger canoe.
A customer’s idea to modify a paddling canoe to make a cargo canoe to take a trolling motor
It is amazing how things fit together sometimes. Mixing one of my Quick Canoes with an electric trolling motor.
- Easy to build and cheap materials cost
- Light Weight in plywood (65lbs – 28kg)
- Cheap trolling motors are available
- Many people already have trolling motors
- Clever builder who adapted the plan
- Low running cost
Lightweight plywood electric canoe for car top transport
The Quick Canoe Electric is not just a cargo canoe with a transom. It is a purpose designed electric boat with plywood canoe simplicity. It is easily roofrackable – once you take the one or two batteries out! Hull weight of around 65lbs.
And it is not my idea! Dana Stovall contacted me saying he was using my standard Quick Canoe plan but adapting it to use an electric trolling motor he had. Prices of a similar motor are down around the $200 to $300 mark now. Much cheaper than a petrol outboard even taking one or two deep cycle batteries into account.
Several Canoes? Then you need a triple storage rack to build yourself
Fast building cargo canoe for an electric trolling motor
The Quick Canoes build quickly ;) This clip shows the full process in 6 minutes
Video image can take a moment to load.
He was using the electric trolling motor on a dinghy and getting about 1.5knots and a mile or so out of it – so not effective. On this boat he gets about 5 to 7mph using the same 34lb Minn Kota trolling motor. Electric Canoes are faster than a paddled canoe. Also he is getting quite good range, because the boat is going faster. When I saw the video I wanted to add the idea to my plan range.
Video of Dana’s Prototype Quick Canoe Electric with 34lb electric trolling motor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFT28TnDQ5g
What a great boat!
This cargo canoe has the existing Quick Canoe attributes of being very cheap in materials and very simple to build.
Dana and I talked about using the concept to make a new plan. The Quick Canoe Electric – the plans are ready and are $40 and very detailed. The boat comes out of three sheets of plywood*.
(* three sheets is without any built in buoyancy. It can be blocks of foam or built in tanks. Tanks would cost an extra sheet of ply and there is a basic drawing in the plan for a possible layout. The boat is OK in small rivers and lakes as in the video, but without buoyancy the weight of the batteries might sink the boat if it capsizes.)
I ended up following his main ideas but tweaking it a bit to get a little more stability and hit the right numbers for the expected cruising speed.
This plywood electric canoe is specifically designed for very low power – the shapes required to go at higher speeds safely are very different from this.
Only small power – even 2hp outboards will make it too fast to handle! :)
If someone decides to put a 5hp on the back of the electric canoe will move along at medium speed with its nose high in the air without ever going fast. Crew moving forward will mean crazy fast. the transom might rip off and there is a strong likelihood it will flip if it is cornered sharply.
See the speed with 2hp and the crew in the right place – video – you definitely don’t want to hit waves at 10 to 12 knots!
But with a single horsepower and it bit or an electric motor – it works really well an efficient electric canoe
On his paddling version of the quick canoe, Paul Helbert takes a swimming pool bean bag along so he can maximise the comfort and the stability for hauling fish (or is he just sleeping).
Is an electric canoe good for the environment? Yes – but not in the way that many think.
Environmentally sound?
The best thing you can do for the environment is to travel at slower speeds. With a runabout, this would drive you mad. But with a boat that looks like a canoe or rowboat you kinda expect travelling speeds of 3 to 4 knots. The Electric Quick Canoe will be up around the 5 or maybe 6 range. So it will feel fast.
Also its affect on river banks and other paddlers and canoeists will be minimal as it produces so little wake.
Here is Dan’ s rundown of the video voyage above.
Building Process
Well I finally finished and took the quick canoe electric on her maiden voyage last weekend. The build took longer than I wanted, but could’nt be helped due to my crazy work schedule.
I made a vew errors like making the outwhales from two pieces instead of one and having the joint on the curve, it wants to seperate. I will have to find way to strengthen that.
Stability – we added more to the boat in the plan
The other mistake of note was mounting the rear seat too high (corrected in the plan). My wife and I talked about it. We decided to raise the rear seat that because of the obstacles in the creek (downed trees, submerged logs, etc). Turns out she could see them just as well as I could, and my seat height caused stability issues. Nothing major mind you, but everytime I shifted my wait the canoe would lean in that direction.
(Note from the designer – we increased the beam of the canoe for the plan so that the stability is nice now)
It didn’t help that our little 15 pound dog climbed on top of the ice chest and ran from side to side to look over the edge.
As soon as we got back from the creek I got to work righting the issue by lowering the seat to the same height as hers.
I made her seat from a weaved webbing with a removable back support. She tells me it is very comfortable. I made mine all together differently. I wanted to have the ability to pivot so that that I could turn and operate the trolling motor. (something else I am working on is making a stick steer for the trolling motor so I wont have to turn sideways to operate.) All complete without trolling motor installed I guessed the weight to be around 60 to 70 pounds.
Performance of the plywood cargo canoe with the electric trolling motor – 5 to 7 knots in still water
I was very pleased with the way she sliced through the water. I have a 34 pound thrust Minn Kota trolling motor. A large deep cycle marine battery that weighs about 50lbs. I weigh about 165 my wife about 105, and my dog about 15 and an ice chest with two bags of ice. I estimate we were moving along at 5 to 7 knots on full power. A big difference from our other boat that crawled around 1.5 to 2.
We cruised about 3.5 miles down stream and back up with plenty of battery power left over. Mind you going down stream we didnt need power all the time, just for manuvering around obstacles and setting our course, then we used it for taking side trips up offshoots of the main stream. Heading back up stream we used full power all the way against the current and still managed 4 to 5 knots. We were trying to out run a storm that was brewing.
We gave our electric canoe a name. The Dirty Banana.
Electric canoe range in practice
As for range, I will tell you that with two batteries on my old boat, which was basically a box in the water we put 7.2 miles with the trolling motor. There was still power left in the battery.
Bear in mind when I say 5 to 7, these are just my estimates but I made those estimates by looking at the bank and judging it by a person moving along. I guessed we were moving at about the speed of someone jogging along the edge. This of course was the down stream speed with the flow of water. Heading against the current it was more that of a person walking at a moderate pace. Not slow like someone shopping but not fast like someone late for a meeting either.
lol
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