NEWS FLASH We did it in 2011!
Part 1 of our Quick Canoe building and Loire River Touring and Camping trip in France.
The Planning of the Loire Canoe Tour – Build boats on site.
The Duckworks forum is discussing a trip where people meet up in France, build a bunch of Quick Canoes (maybe other boats) and head off down the river for 14 days.
People who have boats locally can join the event as well but will have to take care of their own logistics and accommodation.
We have set up the Wooden Boat Trek website to act to keep people informed about this and other build & travel events/projects. Just click the link to go there.
Possibly sometime August or September (2011). I originally thought this was in 2010. 2011 will be great because I may be able to get along.
There is no commercial aspect to this trip, except for working together to limit costs. Boats will be built near the Loire and given away at the end. Much like my original idea for the Quick Canoe/Disposable Canoe.
If you are interested you can contact the group for information or suggestionss.
loireriverraid@gmail.com in the first instance.
You will probably receive a reply from Brian Anderson.
The prices are an approximate budget for each person’s costs for the 14 days flying from the USA. It could vary depending on how careful you are with money.
Brian lives near the Loire and is helping with logisitics. This info and suggestions are from him.
Here are my thoughts on how it might work.
I think we should plan on 14 days. A good working budget would be about $2,000 per head including airfare from the States. Hopefully we will get some European
DWers too in cars with tools, which would help out with logistics enormously.We choose a money person. He takes deposits ($200) from everybody who wants to come. He and hopefully one or two others turn up a couple of days early, and stay with me and my family.
We get my van and trailer and go buy the wood and supplies and maybe some cheap 2-battery cordless drills ($35 a pop) and a hand circular saw (about $35 too). I
have a table saw, a good hand circular saw, two cord drills clamps etc and we can get some pvc pipe to make clamps. The extra tools will also depend on how many people are going to turn up.The early birds and I cut and build frames, stem/stern posts, and scarf or buttblock the ply.
I would favor the Tightbond III/sikaflex/screw/chine log construction on quick canoe or 6-hour canoe plans, because I know it very well and am sure it can be done. The caulk-glue I have used will set up enough to be sanded and painted overnight. But I can no problem also get glass and whatever kind of polyester resin or epoxy if people prefer that route. We need to decide and make all the boats the same way though, I would think.
People fly to Paris and take the train down to Tours. I was thinking May 2011 because there is good water in the river then, but for canoes September would also work fine, and the weather might be better. High summer is not good because the price of plane tickets goes up very significantly — an extra $400-$500
normally.I think it might be a good idea to rent a van for the time to pickup and ferry people/gear, and to go visit places during the trip. Somebody-ies would have to drive the van along the river (this would also be a nice trip in itself). This would depend on how many turn up. I have a van that we could use, but it seats only 5 people.
We plan on one or two days to get to the site and get organized, three-four days for building, that leaves abut a week on the river, and then another two days to do whatever, entertain Mr Murphy, and get back to Paris for the flight home.
The Loire is not reliably navigable along its length for boats with engines because of rocks/shallows/medieval bridges.
Camping gear, tents, etc cost about what they do in the states (maybe $100-150 for a tent/sleeping bag and gear for a week). These things could be bought here or brought with.
I have a two burner stove in a Dutch kitchen but if a lot show up, we might have to look into tracking another stove down, and/or buy some cheap grills.
If there are some really ambitious earlybirds, we might also look at building a quickanddirty shanty boat (michalak shanteuse) or a futreau.
A bigger boat like these might be cool for those who aren’t up to canoing, but might be a little too ambitious.
Food for though, got to get to work.
Cheers, Brian
