Pretty, Lightweight, Plywood, Touring Canoe - simple to build.

• Simple to Build
• Great Paddling Boat
• Half the weight of most fibreglass Canoes
• Comprehensive Plan Pack with step by step instructions and many illustrations

The Eureka Canoe is the result of a collaboration between Duck Flat Wooden Boats in Adelaide and Michael Storer Design. It is built stitch and glue - a simple method where the panels are cut out and stitched together temporarily while the joins are sealed with fibreglass tape.

Generally fibreglass boats come in at about double the weight of this one and don't come anything close to being classic paddling boats. The Eureka has demonstrated that it goes a long way with modest effort and tracks well when the waves and wind are up.

We Jointly Developed the Eureka over several prototypes to produce the best mix of performance, light weight, good looks and most importantly for a kit to be exported to Japan, to be foolproof in assembly.

The EUREKA canoe hullshape is computer generated which allows much greater freedom in shape than traditional manual methods.

This boat is built slightly differently to most stitch and glue boats. The bilge panels are fitted to the bottom panel, the topside panels are then attached to the bilge panels - we use plastic cable ties. The width at the sheer is located then the hull is filleted and/or glass taped together. Gunwales, inwales, end decks and buoyancy tanks, seats, and spreader bars are then fitted.

The Eureka has stability without a too blunt shape, which produces a boat more suitable for long distance travelling or where carrying a load. The boat pictured below came in at 15.5kg (34lbs) finished with a lot of effort made to keep the weight down - 3mm (1/8") ply instead of the 6mm specified, lightweight fibreglass on the bottom, use of selected lightweight timbers for the trim and those really cool lightweight seats. A boat built to the normal specifications tends to come in a bit over the 43lb mark. Half the weight of a 'glass boat.

Reports of the first boat launched show it to be much easier to paddle than the usual plywood canoe, and indeed much better than most production glass hulls - this becomes important where distances are being covered - greatly reducing the effort required from the paddlers.

The other major bit of feedback is on the appearance - the EUREKA is a very handsome boat - quite unusual for the average plywood boatbuilding project.

Basic Materials -
2 sheets plywood for hull
(an extra offcut for enddecks and bulkheads is required if wanting to fit buoyancy tanks)
3 Litres Epoxy
Fibreglass Tape 50mm x 39m - 2" x 128ft

Materials list

Part	Size	Length	Number	Species	Comment
5 or 6mm Ply	2500 x 1220 **See note below	-	2	Gaboon	(hull skin)
5 or 6mm Ply	1250 x 1220	-	1	Gaboon	(seats, tanks)
Fairing batten	15 x 15	5100	1	Oregon
	15 x 15	2000	1	Oregon	(used later for end deck supports)
Gunwales	25 x 12	5100	2	Oregon
Inwales	25 x 12	5100	2	Oregon
Inwale spacers	25 x 12	5100	1	Oregon or WRC
Seat Supports	45 x 19	5000	1	Oregon
Centre Spreader	75 x 19	1000	1	Oregon

**Important Note: the plywood selected requires a minimum sheet width of 1220mm (the old standard of 4 feet width) to fit all the panels as they are drawn in this plan. The sheets will be OK if they are 2440mm long rather than the 2500mm listed in above but the width needs to be the 1220 for easy marking out