At the Duckflat Autumn Boating School Bob Bauze built himself a Eureka Canoe and we used some faster building methods – slideshow
We used a few methods a bit different from the plan to speed things up and make some fitting work a bit easier.
We used fillets on the inside of the boat instead of glass tape.
This method adds a bit more weight and a bit more expense but some people prefer the look of neatly fitted fillets.
We still used some glass tape on the inside in the buoyancy tanks as that is the only way of making the joint strong where the two panels that make the sides of the boat meet up edge to edge at a vanishingly small angle.
The method for the decks was changed too – with the side of the boat being routed down to the same thickness as the deck and the deck edge covered by the gunwale.
This created a join between the edge of the deck and the gunwale that was at a joiner’s level of tightness.
It is also faster – but a bit more risky – and it does mean that the process goes faster but is more fiddly. So have a look at the pics and see what you think.
Because of the tight timeframe we decided that instead of glass taping the seams on the outside of the boat we would use one layer of a very light glass cloth.
This does add some weight – but saves a day or two on the building process – important if the class lasts only 10 days.
The advantage is that you have only one glass edge to fair into the ply and it is much smaller being a cut edge and also because of the lighter glass weight.
The photoset with comments is here
Anyway – most of the class participants – who were building more elaborate boats – were pretty impressed by the Eureka’s good looks and lightness
Also that it could be almost finished in 10 days (sans seats).
The current record for a completely finished Eureka is 2 weeks.
