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So far I've built 4 strippers and my favorites at this point are the John Winters designed Raven and the Alan Gage designed Bloodvein. Both are high volume, wilderness capable trippers that are a pleasure to paddle, handle moving water very well and both of those builds came in reasonably light for the volume (the Tamarack Raven is 51# and the Tulip Poplar Bloodvein is 41#).
Those of you who've been watching these builds may recall that my architect friend had originally printed the Bloodvein plans a bit small and that got me to wondering... I really DO like the seaworthiness and handling capabilities of the Raven but I don't really need that kind of volume (I think it would be very happy with 350-400 lbs aboard while I can't imagine me + all gear ever exceeding 275). In addition, although the Tamarack makes a truly beautiful hull, it is significantly heavier than any of the other woods I've used.
In reality, my favorite color combination is probably the Aspen & Cherry that I used on my 1st build. I think I've still got a ton of those strips leftover (I might have to make some Cherry strips), I've got plenty of cloth, epoxy, etc and I'm thinking I can build another boat for the price of some paracord with which to lace the seats...
All of this has led to the decision to build a scaled-down version of the Raven for this winter's build. When I bought the last set of plans from Martin Step at Green Valley Boatworks, he sent them pre-printed but he's since sold the rights to the Winters' designs to Noah's Marine. This works out OK for this build because Noah's sells them as a PDF and I can have them printed at whatever scale I wish.
Now, if you've suffered through all of the above, I'd value your opinions: What scale should I use? I'm thinking of having them printed 15% smaller which should make the "Baby Raven" around 13 ft long & 27 inches wide (24 1/2 at waterline). The issue is that (I think) decreasing the wetted hull area will exponentially decrease the total carrying capacity and I'm wondering if a 15% reduction is size might reduce the tripping ability too much to be anything more than a day paddler.
Should I go conservative and reduce by only 10% or does 15% seem reasonable? Do you suppose the smaller hull will still handle the wind & waves well enough to maintain seaworthiness or do I give up too much freeboard?
Another wild card to throw into the mix: What happens if I do not reduce the distance between stations by 15% and leave it stretched out to 15 feet 4 inches with the narrower waterline and less freeboard? (I'm leaning toward reducing station spacing to 10 1/4 inches at this point but nothing is carved in stone)
I'll probably order plans tonight but I'm unlikely to get them printed for a couple of weeks. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
Those of you who've been watching these builds may recall that my architect friend had originally printed the Bloodvein plans a bit small and that got me to wondering... I really DO like the seaworthiness and handling capabilities of the Raven but I don't really need that kind of volume (I think it would be very happy with 350-400 lbs aboard while I can't imagine me + all gear ever exceeding 275). In addition, although the Tamarack makes a truly beautiful hull, it is significantly heavier than any of the other woods I've used.
In reality, my favorite color combination is probably the Aspen & Cherry that I used on my 1st build. I think I've still got a ton of those strips leftover (I might have to make some Cherry strips), I've got plenty of cloth, epoxy, etc and I'm thinking I can build another boat for the price of some paracord with which to lace the seats...
All of this has led to the decision to build a scaled-down version of the Raven for this winter's build. When I bought the last set of plans from Martin Step at Green Valley Boatworks, he sent them pre-printed but he's since sold the rights to the Winters' designs to Noah's Marine. This works out OK for this build because Noah's sells them as a PDF and I can have them printed at whatever scale I wish.
Now, if you've suffered through all of the above, I'd value your opinions: What scale should I use? I'm thinking of having them printed 15% smaller which should make the "Baby Raven" around 13 ft long & 27 inches wide (24 1/2 at waterline). The issue is that (I think) decreasing the wetted hull area will exponentially decrease the total carrying capacity and I'm wondering if a 15% reduction is size might reduce the tripping ability too much to be anything more than a day paddler.
Should I go conservative and reduce by only 10% or does 15% seem reasonable? Do you suppose the smaller hull will still handle the wind & waves well enough to maintain seaworthiness or do I give up too much freeboard?
Another wild card to throw into the mix: What happens if I do not reduce the distance between stations by 15% and leave it stretched out to 15 feet 4 inches with the narrower waterline and less freeboard? (I'm leaning toward reducing station spacing to 10 1/4 inches at this point but nothing is carved in stone)
I'll probably order plans tonight but I'm unlikely to get them printed for a couple of weeks. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
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