POWER OPTIONS FOR PUDDLEDUCK

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Be sure to set blades on the shaft so that both blades curve in the same direction! Now the back, business-face of your blade will bite in like a spoon on the power stroke, but the up-curved front will skip over the waves to help balance the boat without grabbing water.

If thin plywood blades flex enough that you fear they might break, epoxy lengths of fiberglass tape down the spine at the back of the blade and use more tape at the tips.

Sponsons

Old Town and a few other canoe manufacturers offer large "war canoes" intend ed for children's summer camps that are fitted with flotation chambers—sponsons—affixed unobtrusively to the boat's sides outboard of each gunwale or side-rail. The canoe loses none of its speed, maneuverability, flexibility, or tippiness...to a point. But when a gunwale threatens to dip beneath the surface, the flotation keeps it afloat.

Especially if your PuddleDuck will be carrying small kids, you should consider permanent or temporary sponsons for your boat.

Here is another place to use that infernal styrofoam packaging or laminate up two or three layers of leftover rigid house insulation. A standard household meat-cutting knife should do admirably for the job. No matter how little material you may be cutting, however, wear a protective mask. Chemically treated insulation is serious stuff. In fact, anything other than Styrofoam I would enclose in a sturdy plastic bag before installing on the boat.

Fashion 4" wide, 2" or 3" thick, halfround, split-sausage-shaped sponsons to fit under the rub rail along each gunwale. At this diameter, they should be about a yard long. Total volume/displacement of flotation is what matters, not size or shape. You can make yours from a 4"-square, 18"long block of packaging that will look less svelte but will work as well.

Attach to the hull and cover with epoxy (which bonds well to styrofoam, giving it a tough outer skin—but not to some kinds of "poly" packing). Be sure your foam is compatible with your resin before spending time shaping the foam. Better still, bind the sponsons inside lengthwise strips of fiberglass fabric or strips of tape and epoxy till smooth.

To attach the sponsons, you can imbed and epoxy or tape "C"-clamps into the foam to fit over the rub rail and gunwale for occasional use. But it is simpler to fasten them permanently to the canoe. Before taping/epoxying the outsides of the sponsons, cut holes into the inboard edges of the foam to accept a strip or blocks of soft wood every 6", and epoxy or tape them into the sponsons. Attach with rustproof screws and washers through holes in the hull and into the blocks.

Sculling

In dead-fiat water, you can scull PuddleDuck with a single long oar or make a push-pole for the fiats. Make a sculling oar like a flat-bladed paddle with a 9'-to-12' shaft and a "T" handle on the inboard end. Epoxy a pair of vertical "thole pins"—6" lengths of 1 "-thick hardwood dowel—into the rear deck of a transom—equipped model PuddleDuck. Set the pins at midtransom-vertical, parallel, and a 1/2" farther apart than the paddle shaft is thick. Now you can stand in the boat and propel it forward with graceful sideto-side movements of the sculling sweep. Or make a push-pole with a "duck bill"—two flanges hinged to the off end that open when you push so they sit on top of the bottom but close when you pull so you don't lose the pole in mud or a log. You can buy metal duckbills from fishing-gear and boating supply houses.

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