: Hi Rehd,

Got some room there on the bench? Ah, good.

Ya see that s'erif in his fancy new car. THAT thing cost us a pretty penny...

Hey I heard what you said about freeboard and all as I was walking up. Are you *ever* going to really start that boat you keep talkin 'bout?

Yeah, I heard you talkin 'bout and trashin anthro sizing... Well, not trashin, but a li'l skep'cle. Well, I think ya got it wrong, bud, and with your brains y'll be able to get it straight.

You seem to mainly be hung up on freeboard. OK. If it's freeboard you want to play with, this kind'O buildin lets ya work that aspec' all 'lone.

I've not built by the Starr book, so I got n'utin to say 'bout it. But Morris and I go back a ways. He's a good guy in what he says. His book put it together for me - even if I have a beef or two with it.

One thin' to 'member 'bout the Morris book is that it is directions for a bunch of boats. The first one is the "West Greenlander", but it is more of a primmer than a thesis. Morris says that it is meant to teach technique, and the result is usable, but should be seen as a first approximation to what is best for a dude.

I followed the directions pretty well and learned a lot. I also made a bunch of mistakes which I straightened out in the canoe I built. My 'Greenlander ended up giving me about an inch of freeboard at mid ships and rises to about 5 inches of freeboard at the bow. One of the problems I have had with the boat is the low freeboard on the stern, where small waves wash across the deck running downwind and give sudden and unexpected loss of stability.

I did make the boat about a 2 feet short of the anthro' measurement because of the lumber I used. So maybe my boat sits a bit deeper in the water than most. I have a fathom (arm span) of 6' and built the boat with 15' gunwales, 17 feet overall.

Since I built the boat, I have looked a lot at the Greenlander's boats too. Even a yank like Harvey Golden makes boats that look like the Greenlander's boats... I think it is because they are not using the same anthro measurements that Morris uses in his directions. This has been mentioned in several posts here and there.

Morris says ya should use your hips plus 2 fists of width. This keeps a boat pretty stable. But Greenlanders, expecially when working toward high speed boats, use measurements more like hips plus two fingers of width! That's 4-6 inches narrower, m' boy, and thats pretty skinny. For a little fella like Golden that's little more than a foot wide.

To be fair, Morris has another boat in his book with a very narrow profile just like this... his baidarka. It is also designed to have pretty low freeboard all around... It does not rise in the bow like the Greenlander. You may be interested in blending the techniques on some boat in the future.

But 'member Morris always said that the first boat in the book has all the directions and the rest of the boats only are sketches of what they should be. So, he says ya should build a Greenlander first, then start playin' with everything.

Well, I've had fun sittin' wid ya here on this porch. You know none of this was meant as a sermon, 'cause I know you know every bit as much 'bout boat buildin' as I do - fact is - much more. But I thought hearin' my 'pinions might be some use in thin'in' though the problem.

Now you have fun sittin here lookin at all the young uns walkin' pretty by. I'm gonna go put on my fancy new dry suit and paddle. See ya soon.

F2