Hello, from Alameda, CA and the Northwest

[Jason Rucker]

Hello all,
I'm a lifelong wooden boat person, but have no canoe experience. I was a boatbuilder, curator and captain at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, then sailed around the Pacific with my family on a wooden ketch. At the end of that trip I met Stormy Hamar, of the Haida Canoe Revitalization Group. Since then I've been working with HCRG to research historic Haida dugout canoes and to make 3D models and lines drawings of them in Alaska.

Friday, September 5 at 1:15pm, Stormy and I will be presenting on our work at the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival. If any of you ate attending the festival, I hope to get a chance to meet you there!

(The attached photo is Stormy’s 30' western red cedar Haida canoe, launched May of last year.)

 

[Michael Grace]

Hi Jason and welcome. That's a stunning canoe! We don't see many of these on the forums here so thanks for sharing. Curiosity: What is the value of the ribs (?) added inside the canoe, and why are there sets of three near the bow and near the stern? And what is the purpose of the hole in each of the two thwarts that are mounted up at the sheerline?

Again, thanks for sharing.

 

[Jason Rucker]

Thank you Michael,

A disclaimer to my answers: I'm not a canoe carver. I just talk about canoes a lot with Stormy! My understanding is that the ribs became common in the late 1800s and help to keep the canoe from splitting longitudinally, and keep any splitting that does happen from being catastrophic. I don't know about the spacing of the ribs. The holes in the thwarts are for masts, though this canoe doesn't have a rig yet.

Thanks for your interest.

 

[Worth Gretter]

As I recall, there was a video posted not too long ago, about the building of this canoe or one very similar. It described how the hull was created from a single log, and then steamed to widen. So I would think splitting longitudinally might be a real concern.