Double end power boats?

The boat is called the TimberCoast Troller, and it's marketed by Bartender Boats as such. An interpretation of a traditional double-ended West Coast troller, adapted for construction in sheet material, aluminum or plywood. Her hull is of full displacement form, with a single chine and deep-vee bottom, terminating in an obvious stern post. She is double-ended and does not have a round stern. Note that there is almost no wake at cruising speed, another distinguishing feature of the double-ended form.

 

Please define?

This is a double-ender


This is not a double-ender


This is a double-ender


These are double-enders


This is a double-ender

 

Easy,

Whose definition of double ender are you using?

Overlook Illustrated Dictionary of Nautical Terms: "A vessel with a pointed end at both front and back. The term is also used, however, in a broader sense to describe any vessal with a similar front and back whether pointed or not."

www.seatalk.info: "Describing a vessel with a pointed shape to the hull both bow and stern"

Miriam Webster: Main Entry: dou·ble–end·er
Pronunciation: \-dər\
Function: noun
Date: 1864
: a ship or boat with bow and stern of similar shape

If you wish to change the definition as you see it to suit your own concepts who's to argue? But I think most people are happy with the accepted definition. That's my opinion.

 

hey now...

let's talk canoe sterns!

 

I vote with Tad on this double ended topic.

I vote with Dreamer on canoe sterns! My favorite!

 

TAD,
I thought your TimberCoast Troller was like a Bartender in the stern. Now I even like it more myself but my friend wouldn't want a disp boat ..sorry. I accept everything in your subsequent posts except the sternpost has nothing to do w "double end" but your saying a Bartender is a double ender and a dory is not is not right. I agree w Joe Petrich and his Overlook Dictionary "similar front and back". Well I guess I was right in the first place ..my Willard is extremely bulbous in the stern and actually a bit hollow in the bow... not a double ender. The Willard stern is not pointed. Bow and stern too different. Even the Bartender is more pointed than the Willard. And a tugboat w a bulbous bow and stern is a double ender. And if my Willard's bow looked like the stern it would be a double ender. TAD, your TimberCoast Troller is a double ender to be sure (after seeing her stern). It was rude of me to say you were using the expression double ender to sell your boat. I'm sorry about that. I really like your boats and your web site and almost everything you say as well. Oh and thanks for the great pics too.

Easy

 

The canoe style power boat is a classic; precious few new ones. Not quite gone with the wind, there are lots of them still around, lovingly preserved from antiquity. It seems to me they are all on loan to the local boat museum, taking advantage of the free mooring no doubt, and only get taken out for the annual regatta when their owners show up in a plastic monstrosity with a great chunk of noisy metal hanging over the stern. Sigh.

Personally, if I wanted anything that old in style, I’d want to go all the way and use steam power and maybe paddlewheels. Hmm; my canoes and kayaks are double-enders ...

 

Describing and defining a canoe stern is even more difficult than the double-ender. A boat with a canoe stern might be a double-ender, or not. And a double-ender might have a canoe stern....but it may not!

I think of canoe sterns as finer and more graceful than the typical Colin Archer double-ender. Canoe sterns always have inboard rudders. The odd part is that canoe stern shapes have nothing in common with the indigenous canoes of North America. They do seem to be descended from the canoe yawl shapes popularized in the UK in the early 1900's. These small cruising sailboats were somewhat descended from the double-ended cruising canoe Rob Roy used by John MacGregor in the mid 1800's.

Amateur designers Albert Strange (1855-1917) and George Holmes (1861-1940) did a great deal to popularize the canoe yawl type by creating and sailing these small but capable vessels on some challenging cruises.

This is a MacGregor type canoe from which canoe yawls descended....which does not (to my mind) have a canoe stern but she is double-ended.


A canoe yawl by Albert Strange


Sterns defined by Ted Brewer......His "Short Canoe Stern" I would term a Cruiser Stern, which is that of the Willard powerboats.


The spectacular 62' N-Class Nick Potter design, Serenade, (1938).


Another Albert Strange design with canoe stern, Charm.

 

I guess in my mind, I picture a canoe stern as having tumblhome from about sta 6 or 7 back and around. Like the 'canoe' we mostly think of.

But, this whole thread has shed light on the nuances of 'canoe' versus 'double-ender'. While there may be cases where it is not clear when something is either/or, it is probably easy to figure when it's NOT one or the other. As impressive as Serenade is, I would not consider that a canoe stern and I would guess that in the popular vernacular, most others would not consider that a canoe stern.

 

Maybe in these days of high fuel prices and the coming years - perhaps not too far off - we may see a resurgence of efficient power watercraft including double-enders, for recreational purposes, but I doubt it. If the masses can't afford to run their honking great highspeed boats they will either go smaller or go away.

The term "canoe stern" is confusing as the canoe design we tend to think of as "classic" is merely one of many aboriginal types, the stern pattern varying wildly from coast to coast with purpose, conditions and available materials. Ignoring modern canoe stern variations, aboriginal builders were incredibly innovative and used many stern types.

The Algonquin used tumblehome in their birchbark canoes leading to moderate reverse rake.
The Mi’kmaq built birchbark canoes with rounded ends.
Typically NW American seagoing birchbark canoes had tapering stems like modern sea kayaks, no surprise there.
Dugouts of the same region often had small transoms or wildly raised sterns clearly intended to fend off - or surf down - a following sea.
A racing canoe was an entirely different design, extremely long 50+ ft with longest practical waterline as you might expect.
The Kutenai built a bark canoe with stems like extreme wave-piercing designs - I have never been able to figure out the reason.

- and the Innu famed for their skin kayaks also built “crooked canoes” of birchbark with so much rocker that the stern remains a foot or so above the surface rendering discussion of stern design moot.

Virtually all of the sterns in Ted Brewer’s figure can be found and a few more besides. I haven’t seen any flat planing sterns or tunnel sterns on an aboriginal canoe though, but they tried everything else.

 

I know it doesn’t matter at this late point in the thread, but when I started it I was thinking of boats very much like the Timbercoast 22. Whatever you want to call it, it is my idea of the boat for me.
Gary
Unless I win the powerball then I'll looking up Steve.