18' Ralph

Ralph has been designed as an open trekking canoe. The client who asked us to draw her up wanted a large open canoe that could take a family safely exploring Scottish sea lochs. She therefore had to handle the short chop and winds that often cut across open sea lochs. We have come up with an 18’ canoe with a generous 36’’ beam which has a mid section with some tumblehome in it. The tumblehome moves the point of widest beam down towards the waterline so increasing form stability and also makes it easier to paddle the canoe without scrapping the paddle on the gunwale. In the Ralph design, the tumblehome is combined with a shallow ‘V’ to the bottom to keep the wetted surface area and therefore the resistance, down and we have used a fairly fine forward section so that she does not slam in waves. Construction is based upon simple stitch and tape methods using 4 ply planks per side (shapes are given on the drawings) and she uses 4 sheets of 4,5 or 6mm ply.