We’ve been sending plans for the Expedition Rowboat to countries around the world including Australia, France, Germany, England and Norway, so we were intrigued to hear that a builder here on Vancouver Island had completed his boat and was ready to launch. We snapped some photos as Simon Gabbott of Parksville launched his shiny new Expedition for its maiden voyage. Well done Simon. Simon painted his hull and varnished the decks for a nice eye-catching combination. The hatches have been slightly customized so suit his needs. You can see more pics of his boat on our online gallery
Simon rowing his new Expedition Boat
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We’ve designed and built our newest rowboat, the Cambridge Racer. As you may have guessed from its name, this boat follows the lines of traditional rowing sculls, and is designed for speed. The 39 lb (17.5 kg) vessel is constructed from marine Okoume plywood, epoxy and fibreglass. Attributes incorporated to ensure a fast ride include a long waterline length (24’), narrow beam, and minimal wetted area.
Fingers were crossed as we launched the boat at our local marina on Vancouver Island. A few spectators gathered nearby as I climbed into the tender vessel. Fortunately, the rowboat handled exactly as we’d hoped and slipped easily through the water as I pulled on the oars. After a few full strokes the GPS registered 13.3 km/hr (7.2 knots). The stippled bottom hasn’t yet been sanded and painted, and foot straps are still to be added, so we’re hoping the boat will be able to move at 15-16 km/hr when complete.
The ergonomics for the lightweight (13 lb) sliding rowing system felt good. All the dimensions, angles, etc are identical to that developed for competitive racing shells. One thing that needs to be finessed is the adjustable footplate. We’ve created a unique design for adjusting the footplate, but felt there was a little bit too much play from side to side. This will need to be modified.
The boat isn’t quite complete. Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be tweaking the footplate, adding the round hatches, fairing and painting the vessel, and experimenting with the skeg (reducing the skeg size to the minimum required). For those interested in building a rowing scull, we will have full-sized plans and manuals available after completing several weeks of thorough testing. Full kits will be available at a later date (expected to be $800-900).
We’re creating the Cambridge Racer to try breaking the 24-hour flat water human powered distance record. The attempt will take place in the spring/summer of 2011.
Colin rowing Cambridge Racer in Comox marina (click on image to view more pictures of the rowboat)
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Full-sized hull plans are now available for the Expedition model. The 19′-long plans make the process of transferring the hull-panel shapes onto plywood a simple and quick process. We recently built a hull from the full-sized panels to check for accuracy and to familiarize ourselves with the process. It took five hours to scribe and cut the panels. For a beginner, or someone working slowly to ensure accuracy, we expect the process would take 7-12 hours.
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We’re pleased to finally open our online store. We currently have plans, parts, oars, rowing hardware and other gear to get you out on the water. Unfortunately, the CNC-cut wood components we had hoped to have available now are still on hold. We want to ensure the wood pieces are of the highest quality before passing them on to our customers, and there are still some aspects to work out. We will keep you posted.
In the meantime, we do have plans and and parts kits (excluding wood components) available, so for those of you keen to start building, get ready to rock and roll.
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Things are moving along well with the development of the kits and plans, and we anticipate the Expedition Model will be ready for shipping by Feb 1. Our director of production, Malcolm Chaddock, is also working hard on a CNC project for the Winter Olympics – making the rings displayed below the ski jump.
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