: I am looking at building a strip canoe for someone else. They would like a
: model that is stable for 1 adult and two kids that can be used for
: fishing. They would also like to mount a troll motor on the back.

When I was in that condition I built a "Puddleduck" from the plans in Gil Gilpatrick's book. It is about 14 1/2 feet long and about 34 to 35 inches wide.

It worked out very well, which continues to surprise me. "Conventional wisdom" would suggest that this is too short a boat for three people. In practice that has not been an issue. In fact, the shorter size has proved to be a distinct advantage. The kids are now teenagers, and they take the boat out with their friends. The light weight of the boat makes it easy for them to get it down to the river. (The wheels I made for it help there, too.).

As a solo boat it is just the right size. I did do a week of traveling in the boundary waters with it - filling it with two heavy adults, food and gear -- and worried a lot when crossing one particularly large wnd windy lake, but the crossing was uneventful. If I did a lot of that kind of traveling I'd use a bigger boat next time.

Any boat with gunwales can be adapted to take a motor mount. Making one amounts to little more than bolting a square of plywood to a short length of 2x4, and then clamping that 2x4 to the gunwales behind the stern seat. I made a simple setup to clamp a 2x4 across the gunwales on my Puddleduck, and then mounted wheels on this so I could roll the boat to the launch.

In a short boat the front end comes rather close to the bow seat. I expected I would be in the stern, so I pushed the bow seat a bit further forward than usual to assist in maintaining trim. When I solo paddle I reverse the boat and sit in the "bow" seat, facing the stern. This brings my weight closer to the center of the boat.

My plans are to rip out the bow seat next year. Now that the kids are bigger they need more legroom. I'll remount it on a sliding shelf, so larger paddlers can push the seat back. If I was building a new boat now, regardless of size or design, with kids in mind, I would build it with a sliding, or adjustable, bow seat.

If I was planning to go solo and fish, I'd mount a removable seat close to the center of the boat. Since that would put me quite some distance from the motor controls, if I used a motor I'd rig some kind of cables so I could control it without having to be right next to it. A steering wheel and an extension cable for the throttle could be mounted to a board that is clamped between the gunwales (kinda like how the motor is mounted). Make that board wide enough and you'll be able to sort out your tackle on it.

Make something a bit more elaborate and you can have a removable cooler in the center of the boat (or a livewell) which you can clamp in so it doesn't slide around. Mount your controls on top of that. If you just use a tiller extension (duct tape a long stick onto the tiller?) you'll just need a cable for the throttle. There are some electric trolling motors with remote controls like a TV set. No wires needed!

One of the joys of strip-built designs is that you can make round-bottom hulls. While such hulls are stable, they rotate easily and that motion can be worrisome to new canoeists, who fear that the boat will start rolling and not stop -- thus dumping them in the water. Once they get used to the hull they learn to trust it, but until trust develops a round bottom boat is often considered "tipsy". You can avoid this by building a boat with a flatter bottom.
Gilpatrick's book has several other plans which have a slightly flatter bottom, and are longer.

If you want a flatter bottom, whether for exploring shallow waters or for ease of construction, consider building a plywood canoe, or even a pirogue. Either would be much faster to construct than a strip build boat. Glen-L and Clarkcraft both have plans for plywood canoes. www.glenl.com and www.clarkcraft.com

I bought Gilpatricks book and also a book by David Hazen at the same time. If I built another boat from Gilpatrick's designs I would strip it in a different manner, suing the techniques described by Hazen. Gilpatrick suggests starting at the sheerline, or gunwale with a strip that follows the upper edge of the side of the canoe. If the bow or stern have a high rise, this strip has to bent sideways to follow the lines of the boat. It is the first strip, and all other strips have to follow it -- and it is a bear to get this thing to stay on the forms. From here you add strips, working toward the keel line, and fitting each strip as you go. Hazen's stripping method calles for the first strips to be laid along the keel and then equally on right and left sides to cover the bottom of the boat. Excess wood strips can overhang. when the bottom of the boat is covered, a "football" shaped, (double-pointed oval) is drawn on the strips, and the entire bottom is trimmed to this shape. This trims all the ends at one time, really speeding up fitting the strips on the bottom. the sides of the hull are applied st the waterline and up, staying relatively straight. any rise at the bowq or stern is accomplished by adding short pieces of wood strips and then trimming off the excess when the glue is hard. Individual fitting is limitied to a relatively few strips that occur between the waterline and the bottom "football" This would make stripping the boat much easier and faster. Since more of the strips are used at their full width it would be more realistic to use bead and cove strips with Hazen's stripping method than with Gilpatrick's. I suggest you look at both books.

Hazen's book has full sized patterns you can trace onto your plywood for cutting your forms. Gilpatrick's book has 1/2 and 1/3rd size patterns you need to enlarge.

Another good book is Canoecraft by Moores.

Hope this helps.

PGJ