Thread: Eureka seat heights.

It depends the style of canoeing you want to do. If planning long trips then move them up a bit. Also look at the lightweight eureka page on my website for reference. They were very experienced paddlers.

Eureka Lightweight Plywood Canoes - more pictures and review - Michael Storer Boat Design

MIK

After looking at that I can see they are quite a bit higher. I would be guessing 4-5cm. As I have already made my frames I will have to glue ply strips to the hull to get the width. I'm wondering if lifting the seats too high would make the canoe a bit "tippy". I'll have to have a bit of a think about this.

Cheers, Kev.

I didn't want to start a new thread but I have a question about the thickness of the gunwales. In the materials Michael you have the gunwales as 25mm x 19mm but later on page 20 of the plans they are given at 20mm x15mm. The later would suit me better as it's quite difficult to bend the 19mm at the bow and stern. I had a look at some photo's of other builds and the gunwales seemed a lot lighter than 19mm.

I was just having a dig around and noticed the canoe build by the experienced paddlers has a very light inwale with short spacers but then it makes it hard to judge how thick the gunwale is.

Cheers Kev.

Either is fine Kev,

Did you have the gunwales clamped on temporarily while the internal fillets and glass hardened up?

The whole gunwale and inwale structure is so massive as one unit that with the decks and centrespreader bracing it there will be little movement at either dimension.

Best wishes
Michael

Thanks Michael.

Whenever I've worked on the canoe I've had the gunwales clamped on temporarily. Without them on it measures 4mm smaller at the spreader. I clamped one of the inwales on with the gunwale this morning to see how it looked. I think I'll take them down to 15mm wide. It looked too bulky so I think 15mm will give them a better balance.

Cheers, Kev.

I'll just about always follow the opinion of the eyes of the builder!

MIK

I've been doing some experiments with the seats and trying different ideas out. My wife and I have options here where we can go paddling for a day or overnight stop-overs so I'm going to lift the seats. Apparently this makes paddling easier. A question I have is about the stability. My wife and I are quite light, me 70kg and my wife 63kg. When I was reading through the article from the two experienced paddlers they mentioned the canoe sitting on the chine between the base and bilge panel. I was wondering if, with us being a bit on the light side, the canoe would be sitting higher out of the water and maybe leaning even more. Does the raising of the seats change the center of gravity at all? Or is this not something I should be worrying about.

Cheers, Kev.

A couple of pics of what I'm thinking of doing.

Attachment 215441 Attachment 215442

I set the top of my seats roughly 175mm above the bottom panel, with the underside of the supports just above the chines, and have found it fine.
The only time I've been nervous is paddling solo and sitting too far into one of the ends, where the immersed part of the canoe is narrow and pointy.
I find that balancing the eureka is still a partially dynamic process - you shift your weight to suit, like riding a bike, but its not in any way onerous ot uncomfortable.
Jack.

Thanks for that information Jack. That really helps me.

I've shifted the front seat back 7cm as my wife has quite long legs and I didn't want to risk her being cramped. We made a mock-up of the sitting positions in the lounge room to try it out. Worked for us. I moved the back seat 7cm towards the center.

Cheers, Kev.

Thanks Jack!

MIK