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Another Marathon Boat

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I have been on Canoe Tripping for about a year now and have been looking around and reading all that I could on building canoes. I have talked with Alan G about his AGX boat and watched Muddyfeet build intensely while he was building it. I have a couple tandem canoes and need a solo canoe. My goal is to attempt the TWS solo in a few years. So I need a boat that I can train in and probably race in. Alan has offered up his design and I am finally ready to build.

It will be cedar strip and fiberglass/epoxy construction. Of course I want it as light as possible. I have done the race as a novice in an aluminum boat. It was a low water year and when we finished the boat looked pretty rough. And I saw a lot of carnage that year. I will be looking to strengthen where needed. I believe the AGX came in around 30#'s. With this being my first build I know it will not be as light but hope to not go too far past that.

So this past weekend I started making my strong back. I-beam construction with 3/4" plywood. It is 5" x 6.5" x 18'. I do not have legs on it yet. Not sure exactly what I want yet. I'll make sure to take lots of pictures. I am also going to try and make a time lapse of the complete build.
 

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Great Start Clint !

One thing I don't like ! Is a Strongback that moves, while I'm working on the hull !

I picked up a used strongback, years ago, that constructed better than mine !

It has slanted, removable legs, when set up , are rock solid. They wedge tight . I believe they are cut at 15 degrees

It also had wheels, just on one end.

I'll see if I have a good pic.

The Strongback is constructed with three layer of 2x4s with a gap, so legs can be inserted at an angle., and the top is a 1x8.

I made an extra set of legs, without wheels, to add more height, when glassing ( my preference)

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This is great. It will be fun to see another one in the world. Let me know if you run into any snags or have any questions. If you ask me something on this thread and I don't respond don't hesitate to reach out. I'm pretty busy right now so I don't get to check in every day.

Alan
 
  • Interesting. I wouldn't go to light on a TWS boat though. It's going to take a beating along the way.
Good luck on your build and your Texas Water Safari!
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Jim I like the idea of the legs being able to detach from the beam. That would make it a like easier to store in between building canoes!



Will do Alan!



Ozark..... Oh no it will not be a light weight build for sure. TWS is one speed bump after another!!



Been trying to map out the way that I want to strip the hull. I believe that Alan had a little trouble with the 3/4" wide strips going around the bilge. I am guessing I could have any range of strip widths? As long as you keep them the same on each side. Laying them out on one of the forms it looks like the 3/4" width works for most of it. Then 1/2" around the bilge and then I can switch back to the 3/4" or go bigger. For the gunwales I was thinking of having a 1/2" cedar inwale cut at angle to help with water egress. Then cap that with an 1/8"x3/4" oak strip. Hopefully the oak will give some rigidity to the gunwale for transporting and impacts on the river. The boat will be transported with a truck that has a ladder rack on it. I remember Alan having a lot of flex with his going down the road. For me the closest training lake will be 25 miles and the farthest river will be roughly 450 miles. Also the oak I hope will provide some protection from riding on the rails.
 

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Narrower strips at the turn would be nice.

I think your gunwale idea sounds good. I've car topped mine without issue since that initial run. The difference has been no howling wind. Without a strong side wind it's been fine. It's easy to work around that for a 10 mile local drive. Not so easy if traveling with it. Also, I believe if there had been a thwart near where the rack bar contacted the hull it wouldn't have been as much of an issue.

Alan
 
  • Interesting. I wouldn't go to light on a TWS boat though. It's going to take a beating along the way.
Good luck on your build and your Texas Water Safari!
Ozarkpaddler. I’m going to guess that you are in Arkansas. If so, why area? My wife and I are hoping to move to Fayetteville in the not so distant future.

Clint, I’ll definitely be following along and look forward to test paddling it once you are finished if you don’t mind
 
Clint, I’ll definitely be following along and look forward to test paddling it once you are finished if you don’t mind
You can paddle any time Jeff.
The day is fast approaching that I will hopefully be in southern Arkansas near Glenwood.
 
This weekend I was able to get all the forms cut out for the AGX. Used carbon paper to trace the lines over to the plywood. Didn't notice when I bought the carbon paper that it was colored. It was nice to have a different color besides black. I used the blue and red to layout the lines. Then used a circular saw to cut all the straights and then a jigsaw for all the curved sections. During the week I will try and get all the forms sanded down to a smooth far curve. I messaged Alan saying that after cutting and laying the forms out on the table that the boat looks skinny! I know that it is not to skinny but at first glance I hope I can keep the bottom facing down.
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I was thinking this weekend that all the canoes that I have paddled so far have had 0" rocker. Wenonah- Whisper, Solo Plus/ Aluminum Beaver and I'm pretty sure the Alumacraft Voyager has no rocker. If I remember the AGX has about 1.5" in the bow and .75" in the stern. As for as a canoe for racing I am just worried about going down stream as efficiently as possible. My thought was to take out the rocker. Does anyone see why not?


Also as a teenager I would make longbows out of cedar trees. I would go out and cut small trees down with as few knots as possible. Bring them back and stash them in my dads barn durning the winter. Then the following year I would strip them and make a bow. I was telling him that I was build a canoe at the house and was using “cedar”. He told me he found one of my cuttings on a shelf in the back of the barn. So it’s been air drying for ~30 years. May have to cut it up into some accent strips somewhere.
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Then of course I always have my helper with me. She always has to check and see where I am at.
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@mmccrea

Overall length? 18.5'

Waterline length?

Gunwale width? 21.5"

Max or waterline width? 23.5"

Depth at stems and midship? BOW 14"/STERN 12"/MID 12"


These are all pretty close. From the AGX build thread and from the pdf of the forms I have.
 
As for as a canoe for racing I am just worried about going down stream as efficiently as possible. My thought was to take out the rocker.
Most of my racing and paddling involved upstream travel and I wanted something that was at least a little easier to maneuver around corners and less affected by crossing eddy lines. Personally I'm happy with the feel but I don't think it's dramatically different than a zero rockered hull of the same length. I don't think you'd gain any hull speed but rather another stroke or two per side before switching. I think when I built it I envisioned adding a rudder but that never happened for three reasons: got out of racing, didn't find it necessary, moved onto other projects/boats.

Alan
 
I'll chime in here and hopefully add a couple of pictures successfully (haven't tried that yet). You are familiar with my Lonestar Canoe Clint but I'll add some thoughts. The overall length of the boat is 19'. The width of the gunwales at the seating area is 18.5" and the max width of the boat is around 22-23". The seating position in the picture is as low as I could get it and still have it as a slider. It's definitely a tippy boat so for the Texas Water Safari I pulled the seat and used a Bumfortable kayak seat that was sitting on top of a spacer piece of foam. This was very comfortable and increased the stability of the boat tremendously.

I did learn during the race that the lack of being a very stable boat started taking its toll on my core. I started really feeling it at mile 150 and it got much more pronounced by mile 200. I had to use back support or I couldn't sit up straight anymore. The reason I mention this is that you should plan to have an adjustable on the fly seat so that you can drop your seat if needed to increase stability and comfort as the miles go on. It also will help tremendously crossing the bay if conditions are rough. See the picture of the Landick2 seat. It could be adjusted to 2 different heights. It was held in place by a strong bungee in the back of the seat so you could just pull the seat assembly forward, place it in the preferred position and the bungee would pull it back once adjusted.

My Lonestar Canoe has around 2" of rocker which does help the boat turn. If you use a rudder on your boat I don't think that you'll notice a great deal of difference with or without the rocker over the course of the long haul. It's my opinion that comfort will come in to play more than anything. Looking forward to this build.

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TRR, wow, I like that. I like canoes with decks, or at least spray covers, and for that oddball challenge, like the idea of hard decks with bulkheads even more.

I can see some of the Water Safari outfitting touches; the cylindrically cored minicel stuff is near to my heart, although I use mine differently. Canteen, canteen (or something with the word can), camera.

20191123_110441 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Or, depending on the trip

PC280250 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

The two larger minicel basins in the stern? Are those for something 2L soda bottles filled with frozen water?

I am really curious about outfitting touches for the Water Safari, and about whatever non-installed equipment or gear you bring along, whether to meet the race requirements or stuff beyond.
 
The two larger holes in the foam behind the seat in both pictures hold two low profile 1/2 gallon jugs that have drink tubes coming out of them that I velcro to the side of the boat in front of me for easy access. If I don't need to jump out of the boat for lengths of time, I have a breakaway lanyard around my neck that the drink tube hangs from. Quick and easy to get to my mouth and when done all I have to do is open my mouth and it drops down until needed again. I'll see if I have more pictures showing the boat when I raced the Safari. I can show more details.
 
I know stability is very subjective but I find the AGX to be quite stable, at least compared to racing C1 canoes which I have some experience with. I never was able to get comfortable in them, or maybe it would be more accurate to say I'd find myself swimming about the time I started to feel comfortable in them. I think the big difference between the AGX and those winged C1 racing hulls is that the AGX retains some secondary stability which gives you a little more leeway to rock sideways and recover.

Of course everything changes after racing all day so what feels comfortable and stable after 3 hours might not be after 20. I believe my seat is 6" off the floor. And I paddle it with a dog. I'll have to get the hull out for a spin one of these evenings and reacquaint myself with it.

For long distance races I think a rudder would be great. I used to have racing kayaks as well and often paddled them with a short single blade. The rudder was much appreciated by letting me take an unlimited number of strokes on either side without having to switch until I wanted to. This was especially true with a beam wind where you'd be stuck paddling on one side to keep the boat tracking straight until you thought your arm was going to fall off. A rudder lets you paddle on the other side but still go straight.

A link to my build thread: https://www.canoetripping.net/threads/x-canoe-build.19929/

Alan
 
@mmccrea I have only race once so far in the TWS. Generally it is customary to do it in the "novice" division which would include an aluminum standard canoe. You strip everything out of it not need and make it as comfortable as possible. Pull the bulkheads out and floatation. Add sliding bucket seats and add back the minicell foam for floatation and to hold the water jugs in the boat. Attached zipper bags to the side of the boat to hold supplies and food goodies. You can see our blue spray skirt rolled up in the bottom. Our jugs with the drink tubes coming out. The follow photo was about mile 225 out of 260. We had broke 2 paddles and fixed one of the with the foot brace and duct tape and was replacing the last of the batteries for the water pump. It was a hot low water year.
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