Eastern Canadian/Labrador type kayak

[Yakrider]

an Eastern Canadian/Labrador type kayak. For touring and camping/fishing they are hard to beat. If the Inuit could hunt walrus as well as the giant whales from them most people should be able to land a few Pike, Muskie, or Bass from them. They are long ( though not all ) and very fast, stable beyond compare ( I have slept in mine on the water ), and they are very efficient due to their double wedge hull. I'm not sure but my guess is that the Inuit of the regions around Hudson Bay/Straight, Ladrador and the Baffin Islands were the originators of the double wedge designs so prized for their efficiencey and low "power" requirements and their outstanding sea keeping abilities. These kayaks, too, posess all of these qualities yet they have no modern decendents among current kayak designs, BUT DO NOT LET THAT STATEMENT MAKE YOU DOUBT MY ASSERTIONS.
Another thing I would like to see, though not kayak related, would be a 19' Chaimberlain Gunning Dory in kit form.

[Kayak Jack]

(SNIP) the double wedge designs so prized for their efficiencey and low "power" requirements and their outstanding sea keeping abilities. These kayaks, too, posess all of these qualities yet they have no modern decendents among current kayak designs, (SNIP)

Friend Yakrider. I'm not at all sure what you mean by the "double wedge design". Can you help me out here, please? Are we discussing a cross section of the hull laterally? Or longitudinally? Or, something else?

I'm interested in what you are saying here. Thanks for humoring an Olde Man

[jem]

http://www.civilization.ca/aborig/water ... 05eng.html

Like that?

Some better pictures/descriptions somewhere?

[Kayak Jack]

Matt,

By "double wedge", are we talking about hard chined boats? I still want to know what he was referring to. (Inquiring minds want to know)

[jem]

Not sure.

Yakrider, elaborate?

[Yakrider]

When you look at the hull in plan and profile the hull will present a wedge shape in both. For example, in profile the hulls of most East Canadian types will have a deep forefoot and a long curved run to the stern where it will be of not great depth. In plan view, most, if not all, are Swede form so they will be wider aft of the mid point of the hull. So either way it is viewed it will present a wedge shape. There seems to be a lot of discussion about this new fangled concept over at the Bateau board.
Hard chined soft chine matters not. Jacques has designed a beautiful little lobster boat, for which just had to have the plans, that is a double wedge hull type with a rounded and hard chine cross section depending on which station you are looking at. The praises for this hull are low power requirements (arm power ) and they are extremely sea worthy and efficient.
Try this link here. http://www.kayakers.nf.ca/sea_kayaking/ ... hotos.html
Pay particular attention to the first and last photos in the last 5 photos. They demonstrate the hull shapes pretty well except for a plan view but I'm sure everyone is familiar with swede form.
A few more links. http://www.kayakers.nf.ca/sea_kayaking/ ... hotos.html
http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord ... e1966edcb7
The last one is very informative but the whole site is a goldmine for someone wanting to research Inuit kayak design.
From my personal experience I can tell you that this type of boat is very fast and efficient and the one I currently am paddling is 22' and can turn completly within it's own length. The deep forefoot acting as a skeg combined with the generally flat bottom. It also allows one to make progress into a headwind by holding the bow on course.
Stablity, well, you would almost have to experience it to beleive it. Just don't let it end up on top of you because they are even more stabil upside down.

[Kayak Jack]

OK, I think that now I have an idea what he is talking about. The Pygmy Queen Charlotte is of this design. I built one and paddled it about 3-4 years.

This particular model of boat weather cocks so badly that by the time wind got to 20-25 mph, you could hold it in only one of four courses. It would go straight up or down wind, or straight across the wind either left or right. Any attempt to put the boat into any other directions would result in it going right back to one of those four.

Probably not all boats of the double wedge design behave like this - but the Queen Charlotte sure as hell does. I sold it and built a Pygmy Osprey Standard. Now THERE'S a kayak!

[Yakrider]

to be sure. I built one of these too. I built the 19 and while I felt that it was a fine boat I sold mine as well. There are really too many design variations in Inuit craft, even of the same general region, to attempt to surmise how they each would behave. In general though we can attribute certain characteristics to the shared design traits of these types. Though I only have firsthand experience with three different native hull types and they each handled in different ways, the QC design really doesn't have much in common with even the REAL West Greenland types after which is was designed and even less with the East Canadian/Labrador types.
Please my purist preachings. I am trying to change them but every now and then they surface. I do think that everyone should build a native design just to find out where kayaks come from and there a bunch of designs out there that are just as worthy as they were a thousand or so years ago.

[jem]

I'd be interested in developing such a design. But I'd need access to one of these boats or some really fantastic pictures.

[Yakrider]

I don't think I can help you with seeing one of these boats ( I am some distance away ) but I will try to put you some pics or some addresses to some good ones and some ethnographic papers with good descriptions of the characteristics of the types. Some of them are fairly thorough.