: I am looking for some plans for a SOF canoe to build with my son.

Why not a kayak?
Never mind, it was a rhetorical question.

Check out the plans for the 16' Teal from Clark-Craft. (www.clarkcraft.com) it has a 31" beam and according to the blurb at Clark-Craft's website it has a 1000 pound capacity. For that length and beam I think 750 pounds would be stretching the
limits.

The Teal has some plywood and also sopm$e bent ribs. Not sure if those need to be steam-bent, or if the curves are gentle enough that you just spring them into place.

If steam bending sounds like a skill you don't want to play with, you can always make ribs from thinner stock -- which bends easily-- and glue several of these together to create laminated ribs. 4 strips that are each 1/8" thick will form a 1/2" rib. You can use this technique with inexpensive kiln-dried pine, fir, or spruce--woods which are not easy to steam bend. For a dramatic look you can mix up the colors of the woods. In your stack of laminated strips. A rib with 2 layers of pine covered with a layer of dark cedar and then topped with another strip of pine gives a pinstripe look and drops the weight a teensy bit. Replace the cedar with walnut, mahogany, or some other hardwood and you can increase the strength of the ribs.

On another thread I was suggesting using the lines of Gil Gilpatrick's Puddle Duck for an aluminum-framed, take-apart, skin covered canoe. You should be able to make plywood frames that stay inside the finished boat and use 1/4 inch strips, or 3/8 strips, as the stringers or chines. Space them an inch apart and staple, glue or nail them to the frames. Use a 1x1 for the keel strip, notching the forms for that and the inner gunwale. The end forms can be plywood on the inside but you might want to add an external piece of hardwood as an external stem.

Hope this helps.

PGJ