Little fishing floaty thing

I’m hoping that I’m n the right place to get a little advice.
I will apologize in advance for being on a forum with true boat builders and sailors. These things I am not. I’m actually a guitar maker and luthier. I am 61 and a few years ago had an incident which left me with a balance problem. My goal here is an electric powered fishing platform for tidal creeks near me for my son and I. If I were not dangerous a canoe would be perfect.

I have a 16’ Old Town canoe that was originally built as a sailing canoe. I purchased it about a month ago for not a lot of money. Despite being in good shape, I have none of the original sailing hardware or fittings - it is just a canoe. I’ve taken it out on a calm lake with my 27 year-old son and it is not stable enough so I’m building outriggers.

The canoe is built from a type of epoxy. White, it’s in good enough condition to actually be respectable looking with a single days effort. It has no damage. It’s light enough for me to load up on top of my vehicle myself.

The current plan is to take a windsurfing board and cut it down the middle to yield a pair of stabilizers. I have acquired two windsurfing boards for cheap. (I have the 2nd board if I mess up the first). Both boards are generally flat bottomed except the forward 1/3rd. They both displace 85 kg/liters. I’m probably going to loose about 15 kg of displacement as I reshape the deck of the board to flat. I’ll end up with a pair of 6’ long streamlined stabilizers with a displacement of 30 to 35kg each. I’m up for the task of reshaping the board, cutting it down the center and doing the glass/epoxy work.

There’s no intent to be able to stand up in this thing. I just want more freedom of movement and stability if I encounter the wake of a jet ski. I do have woodworking skills so I intend to make the crossbars from mahogany and basswood. I’d like the end result to be better than something that looks like a canoe with training wheels and this is why I’m going through the effort when I could buy a set of purpose built stabilizers for under $400. I may even look into a sail if things go well.

The assistance I need is advice on the distance from center to the stabilizers and depth of the stabilizers. I want the whole thing to be able to break down for transport.

 

Welcome to the club

I would not slice the windsurfer in half. Sealing up the exposed foam is not fun.

Instead. Use the center line mast step and skeg bracket as attachment points.

One board on one side is all you need. Look as Hawaiian outrigger canoes. If the canoe tips towards the outrigger it acts as a float to prevent capsize. If the canoe tips away from it, it acts like a counter weight to prevent capsize.

 

Thank you for the reply. I had considered using the two boards but Oops too late about the surfboard lol. The job went okay and I was worried about accuracy. The cut is clean. I used a dremel wheel very slowly on a pencil line and then a wound guitar string for the foam - tidy. The now exposed foam of the center is going to be topped with a one-piece basswood cap shaped to the profile of the board. Under it will be a pair of mahogany blocks with threaded inserts for the cross beams. I’ll be epoxying the basswood to the foam and covering the entire float with 2/layers of glass reinforced epoxy. I got lucky as there was no delamination when I cut the board. I already had exposed foam from cutting out reshaping and removing the rocker so the reglassing was necessary. The tops are cut very slightly oversize and I’ll glue them in place tomorrow.

 

Have a look at this;
Kayak & Canoe Sailing Rig: Ultra-Light, Easy to Assemble and Launch! https://www.clcboats.com/shop/boats/wooden-sailboat-kits/clc-sailrig-kayak-canoe-sailing-rig.html

 

This is an exciting project for me despite its comparatively entry level venture into the world of things that float and take you places. A sail for this is within my means and certainly would add adventure, action, a new learning curve, and be advantageous to the original intent of getting to places to fish.

 

PROJECT WINDRIGGER http://fionamsinclair.co.uk/yachts/smith/page25.htm

PROJECT WINDRIGGER http://fionamsinclair.co.uk/yachts/smith/page23.htm

 

Exactly. Only littler.

 

I have the basswood decks epoxied to the floats. I used a router to evacuate a space for the internal mahogany blocks 2 -1/2 x 2 x 30” that will hold the brass threaded inserts. The blocks are fairly well epoxied into the foam and also to the underside of the top deck. The ideas are falling into place. I would have really liked to carve and shape my floats myself from foam but I ran into too many conflicting sources about foam blanks and costs. The basswood decks were rough cut using a sabersaw with the intent of trimming them after the epoxy has cured - right now it looks like a high school project gone wrong but I have faith that it will work out. Gotta trim them in a few minutes.

 

In this adventure and as things move forward, is it better to remain on this thread or open new ones for each new challenge? Right now I’m dealing with the general configuration of the three pieces, their assembly, and will soon be taking the floaty bits out on the water to see how stable the craft is for its main purpose which is fishing. Eventually I’ll be addressing a rudder, sails and rigging, fit and finish... should I open a new thread each time or should I stay on this one eventually ending up with a complete narrative of my success or failure?

I’m still working on the amas or outriggers. I’m using West Systems 105 epoxy and glass cloth. A little hiccup is that New Jersey has had it very short and delightful part of fall weather and now it’s beginning to get a little chilly for epoxy. I could get a faster hardener and I just might.

The amas are an epoxy/foam constructed wind surfing board cut down the middle, rotated 90 degrees and capped with a basswood deck. Epoxied internally into the foam and under the deck is a single significantly sized block of mahogany which will have brass threaded inserts installed. The front end of the surfboard has been cut off to remove the upturned nose resulting in a pair of amas that very much resemble the two asymmetrical hulls of a Hobie. There is a very very slight artifact of a concave line to the inside face of the two amas but it’s less than 1/4” total. It isn’t exactly what I want but the trade off is that I’ve got minimal displacement and hull shapes that might negate the need for leeboards. If these prove inappropriate, I have another wind surfing board that could become a second victim. The concave offset may actually yield an advantage when I fine tune the alignment of the amas. But then, they might just end up as inappropriate. I laid down a layer of epoxy/glass down the full length of what used to be to the top surface of the surfboard to cover the open wound where I removed the upturned nose. This overlaps the wooden deck by about an inch and then just today I put down a layer of epoxy/glass over the top deck that overlaps the sides of the surfboard by about 6” on both sides. I plan to fair the glassed areas smooth with an epoxy and 405 filler. The idea is to add strength to the wooden deck and it’s bond to surfboard.

Do you think this is enough strength? The deck is epoxied internally to the foam but it’s not the cleanest of joints despite a good effort. Don’t know if I should put another layer of glass down - don’t want to add weight. I know this is kinda like asking how big the sky is but if all things are as they seem, would you assume that it should have two layers of glass?

I think it’ll be two days of smoothing and addressing little glitches in the termination points of the glass with quicker setting epoxy. Before I do any paint, I’m going to take it for a paddle to see what I have for stability in the water. I’m quite confident that I can have it water tight.

 

Almost ready to test in the water

 

Why not use a proa configuration. you don't need two outriggers. I have tested one small outrigger on my wife's canoe and it works great !

 

I had seriously considered a single outrigger and I made one from 8” of sched20 pvc drainage pipe. It probably would have worked but it looked totally ghetto. Having grown up on a farm where baling wire was repurposed for everything I have great respect for those who get the job done in an unconventional manner.
My son and I put the canoe into the water today. It just turned cold here today and it was 37 F with a stiff breeze on my little local lake. I was more than very pleased with how this thing feels in the water. It’s rock solid stable with complete ability to stand up at will. With two people, one can do any movement in the boat without the other hardly taking notice. Draft on the outriggers is about 5”. They actually are taking on a bit of the overall weight of the craft and at this point I wouldn’t want to change a thing — I’m totally surprised at how correct it feels having been completely prepared to put the outriggers on the curb with next week’s garbage. We put a 55lb thrust trolling motor on the back and my son’s nav app clocked us at nearly 5 knots and a steady 3 at a lower power setting. This is almost twice as fast as it’ll push our little jon boat. The less than optimal shape of the modified surfboard had no ill effect and I could not perceive any problem with the alignment of the outriggers. For reference, this was an 85 liter wind surfing board with probably about 2 liters of buoyancy removed when I cut off the upturned nose. That leaves about 42 liters per outrigger and I probably added around 4 lbs to each of them in mahogany, basswood and exposure/glass. I can see a kayak or canoe purist cringe at the thought of this but I seriously require the stability for piece of mind. My son had been a gentle nay-sayer throughout this endeavor but helped me out because this thing has taken me off the couch. Even he was amazed on how well this thing goes through the water and I know he is also very concerned for my safety ...bless. I am happy as hell. Now it’s time to invest in the time for cosmetic refinement and research for a sail.