A nice post by Brian Anderson who has built some outriggers for his Quick Canoe gives a good idea of how much performance can be expected from 2hp and a neat installation for sailing, fishing or as a diving platform.
The Quick canoe is about the simplest Canoe yet has good handling. Brian based the outrigger design on our outrigger plan. Video on Quick Canoe Asssembly here – 2 weekends is common.
How does the outrigger canoe go with a small outboard?
After a post on another page about quick canoe performance under motor, I thought I’d make a quick post about mine. The outboard on the trimaran rig is a 3.5 hp. It’s mounted a little over 1/3 of the way forward, about 160 cm from the stern if I remember correctly.
I didn’t have my GPS with me, and in any case it wouldn’t have been very accurate in terms of speed because of the current, even to some unknowable extent in the pools, in the river I was on. Another element is I was mostly just testing the motor, as there was a fair amount of wind. So I didn’t bother unstepping the mast. But unstepping the mast and sail would have reduced windage by a fair amount, if one were going to motor for a significant amount of time.
But the quick canoe and the outriggers performed pretty well under power I thought. The boat was very steady and obviously would be practically impossible to capsize at any speed. The increase in speed as I increased throttle noticeably dropped off above about 3/4 power and the wake started increasing in height and turbulence at that point too.
To make a moderately educated guess at the speed I’d say 5-6 knots. I’ll have to have a try with my gps on the Cher river with near my place which has still water because of a series of dam/locks and pools one day soon.
Capacity of the Quick Canoe with outriggers
The other thing is that with me and my daughter, camping gear, food and water, we were probably around 135-140 kilos, plus the motor is about 16 kg.
No point in too much outboard power for an easily driven Outrigger Canoe
So say the useful power maxed out between 2.5-3 hp, but the 3.5 hp is not at all too much power for the boat, rig and weight. One advantage of the aka mount is that the boat stays quite flat, no or little noticeable change in trim foreward-aft like you’d see with a transom mount. Also you don’t need a tiller extension, because you end up pretty close to the middle of the boat.
