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Permalink Reply by David Jensen on December 29, 2015 at 3:20pm

Where is Sunbeam?  I have boated the Middle Fork into the main, and also Whitebird to Asotin, Washington on the main, both in 16' Keith Steele wood boats.  The boat is perfect, but you do have to have good whitewater rowing skills.

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Permalink Reply by Tony Davidson on December 29, 2015 at 6:25pm

David, Thanks for the reply. Sunbeam is the location of the old dam on the main Salmon River where the Yankee Fork Creek dumps in. There is a class 4 rapid above the dam called shotgun. The river above the dam is quite bumpy, depending on flows. I guess the better question would have been, how to wooden drift boats compare to fiberglass when it comes to durability? If you have run the middle fork to the main in a wooden drift boat that answers my question, and you sir certainly have your oar skills mastered. That is a famous piece of river with some very technical water. Cudos!!! That had to be a blast.

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Permalink Reply by Rick Newman on December 30, 2015 at 9:43am

Tony, when I used to work in an outdoor store where we sold moderate to high performance canoes. One of the first questions asked was how does the durability of your canoe compare to an aluminum canoe. We would take them over to a section of a Wenonah hull made with S-Glass and invite them to take a hammer and hit as hard as they could. In three years I never witnessed any damage to the hull section. One we were able to get them past aluminum as a hull material we were able to talk to them about actually choosing a boat based on what it was capable of doing, how much lighter is was to load an their vehicle, and how much easier the boats paddled. We also steered them towards the Spokane Canoe and Kayak Club that provided inexpensive paddling lessons. These folks made rational, intelligent decisions and many became long term canoeists.

My point is apparent durability is a false selection criteria. A better choice is looking at what is going to be required to use the intended craft in the rivers you choose to use it in. Is it easy to maneuver? could it be customized to better fit your needs. Is it easy to load? What does it take to maintain it? Are there design characteristics you don't want, ie, a bottom that oil cans or flexes when ever you take a good pull on the oars. How easy is it to repair should you damage it? Can you repair it while on the river? Is the most commonly damaged part sacraficial so it can be simply replaced rather than taken to a repair facility to be fixed.

The most commonly damaged part of a drift boat is the chine area, the junction of the side of the boat and the bottom of the boat. This area receives more damage more often than any other part. With skill a boat can be maneuvered down a river and avoid hitting rocks or obstacles with the chine. Sometimes it just can't be avoided and you will take a hit. Wooden McKenzie River Drift boats have a chine cap that can be removed and replaced when needed. It is not commonly a river side repair but is easily done at home with minimal skills and tools.

When a common, commercially made fiberglass drift boat hits a rock in the chine area the damage can vary but if it is substantial it might leak. It can be repaired, on the streamside? Perhaps but it often requires a trip to a repair facility or at least more sophisticated tools and materials.

I find my Tatman designed drift boat to be very sports car like on the river. I can put it where I want when I want it and avoid most rocks or run the length of the boat over the rock hitting it head on. My boat will probably get a scratch in the bottom coating as it lifts over the rock and slides down the other side. If it is a big rock I don't or haven't yet had that problem. The hardest water to navigate is extremely low water with a river bed of football size rocks. If the gradient is steep enough you may have very little time to thread your way between rocks, that is when you will hit a few.

Boat construction details and materials can make a huge difference in what happens when you hit something. Prior to building my boat I analyzed where and how wooden drift boats were damaged. In truth many wooden drift boats appear to be only wood but are actually a true composite structure. When wood has fiberglass laminated to either side of it with epoxy it can gain an incredible amount of strength. If I laminated E-glass to a 1/4" piece of plywood I will get  "x" amount of strength. If I use the same materials but change the thickness of the plywood to 1/2" I will get four time the strength. How is this strength defined? It is the resistance to bending. Consider a steel I-beam with a four inch web or distance between the flat plates on either side, it will have "x" amount of resistance to bending. Contrast that with an 8 inch I-beam it will eight times more resistant to bending.

Do we need I-beams in our wooden boats? No but we can certainly strive for a reasonable amount of strength to resist impacts for a moderate cost. What we are trying to avoid is having the plywood in our boats bend and eventually fracture for a reasonable cost and effort. The interior of the wood and fiberglass sandwich is placed under tension when a rock or obstacle tries to penetrate it. Fortunately if we laminate fiberglass to the inside of the plywood we are putting it in tension where it is the strongest. Compressing fiberglass is subject to failer or breaking sooner than tensioning or stretching the fiberglass.

There are two major forms of fiberglass, E-Glass and S-Glass. S-Glass is 40% stronger in tension in a properly laid up laminate but not 40% greater in cost. So for not much more money I can gain a lot of strength. Not all epoxies have the same characteristics. A brittle epoxy will fracture sooner than one that will bend and then return to its original state. So choosing an epoxy such as Resin Research's that is designed thusly will also make a better composite a simple, not composite structure such as several layers of fiberglass mat or cloth will not have the same resistance to damage. Could you build a strong non-composite structure? I would have to assume so, but at what weight and cost? Could you commercially build such a boat and keep it price competitive? I don't know, I don't see any on the marketplace still in production.

I could add more to the design and materials discussion but I hope you get the picture. The best thing to do is to learn how to read water, how to maneuver your boat, learn to run rivers to avoid problems. That takes time, money (for fuel, classes, etc) and effort. I almost died the first time I rafted. I was fortunate to attend a university that offered whitewater rafting as a class. I learned a great deal about how water flows in a river and how to navigate rivers successfully. I graduated and had the opportunity to start my own rafting program for a community college. I paid a lot of dues, floated a lot of miles, patched our cheap rafts and learned how to boat safely. I have several thousand miles of whitewater under my belt. I transferred my skills, to canoes, kayaks, fiberglass and aluminum drift boats and finally made my own drift bot. I have hit a few rocks in really shallow water but I missed many, many more! When I rowed the Grand canyon a couple of years ago in low water I did stick a very heavy raft on two rocks, however I am not nearly as young as when I started almost 40 years ago! The rapids were pretty straightforward, lineup and go. It would have been nice to have been in better shape and younger. However the skills I have developed allowed me to use knowledge rather than muscles to gracefully descent the rapids.

Wooden dories, or should I better say composite dories with wood in them successfully descent the Colorado each year. Some have been doing it for decades, they do get damaged but they also get repaired and keep on going. My bottom line is material choices in your watercraft can make a lot of difference in how they operate and how they can be maintained. River skills will reduce the damage they undergo and the repair and maintenance costs. I hope this helps.

Rick Newman.

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Permalink Reply by David Jensen on December 30, 2015 at 8:04am

Tony, I think wood boats are very durable.  I have two, a 1987 Keith Steele, and a 1999 Keith Steele.  I have refinished the old boat twice, and the new boat once.  The old boat had some repair work once, where Stan Steele repaired some rot by a chine.  Not a big deal.  I did two repairs on the new boat.  The first was to patch a fracture of the bottom caused by the anchor when dumping the boat over a log when I was putting in at a remote spot with no landing.  The other was to patch a fractured in the bottom caused by my hitting a rock in a low water year.  They both look great and get compliments every time on the river.  I think the key to low maintenance is to keep them covered so not only does the boat get protection from rain, but also from the sun which rarely appears in Oregon.  Welcome to the site and the Woodie Fraternity.

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Permalink Reply by Tony Davidson on December 30, 2015 at 11:54am

Thanks for the information!!! What would recommend for size. I am thinking 17' or 18'X52". Do you think that would be a good size for that water? That upper part of the main Salmon might be a little tighter than the middle fork of the salmon, but not by much. Hate to go too big but would really like the room and stability. We have been fishing that water from rafts, which presents problems for fishing but great for the rapids. I haven't spent any time on the oars of a drift boat so I don't know how the two would compare.

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Permalink Reply by Rick Newman on December 30, 2015 at 6:14pm

Two school of thought on your project. A smaller boat is lighter and commonly more maneuverable. However a boat with a wider bottom will float higher than one of the same length that is narrower. How many people are you planning on carrying in your McKenzie style boat? A consideration to keep in mind is that the Mckenzie style boats were designed to carry two anglers in the front of the boat with the oarsperson slowly letting the boat down the river so the lures they are fishing with will be placed in the faces of the fish. They weren't designed for an angler in the front and the back. It can be done but the handling suffers greatly. A boat such as Sandy Pittendrigh's Beavertail (Montana-riverboats.com) is designed specifically for fly fishing with an angler in both bow and stern.

If I was going to float that section of the Salmon with a light load and have an angler in the front I would not hesitate to use my 14' Tatman. I love the manueverability of it. A larger boat would in my mind be less desireable if that were the only place I would be boating.

Think a driftboat as a Corvette and a raft like a 1970 Suburban with worn out shocks and bias ply tires!

Rick N

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Permalink Reply by Tony Davidson on December 30, 2015 at 8:30pm

Thank you so much for the information!!! One or two fisherman in the front works great for me. Sounds like I should downsize my thinking a bit and go for a 16' design so it will be more nimble on the water. I have pretty much decided that I want to build a boat with a frame, like the McKenzie style. I like the look of the double ender with transom.

I will continue to research before I get started gathering materials. Considering the amount of time and money invested I would really like to get this right on the first try.

Thanks again for all of the advise and information!!!

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Permalink Reply by David Jensen on December 31, 2015 at 11:36am

Tony,

Length and width are variables which depend not only on the water and use, but also the boatman.  I have always rowed a 16' woodie, but my neighbor guides on the Middle Fork and Lower Main in a 17.5'.  He is bigger, stronger, younger than me (he is also a better oarsman).  In looking at my 1993 Middle Fork notes, I see we camped 5 nights, so there is a lot of stuff to transport from the put in to the take out.  On most multi-day trips I have been on, we also had a baggage raft to transport big coolers, cooking equipment, beer, wine, and other necessities.  The Middle Fork has at least 4 Class Four rapids, and I would have felt less secure rowing a big boat.  I have had to run Tappen Falls when we went extreme right bank, the norm, but also extreme left bank.  I would still be stuck on the left 22 years later.

By the way, you will find extraordinary flyfishing for cutthroat on the MF, and excellent big rainbows on the Main.

Finally, I really recommend you drive over to the McKenzie River in mid-April for the McKenzie Wooden Boat Show.  You will see dozens of woodies of varying designs and sizes, meet many builders, and guides. Great beer and food on the river. On the way West, you will cross many Oregon rivers which you will want to return to and boat and fish.

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