Wooden Boat People

By McKenzieDriftBoat.com

Whitewater decking

I'm preparing for the decking for a Briggs style Grand Canyon Dory. Do all of the tops of the frames (vertical ribs) need to be cut so the decking sits on top of them? Or, do they poke through and continue to the sheer rail as on an un-decked boat? Thanks for any insight - Joe

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Permalink Reply by Brad Dimock on February 19, 2010 at 7:33am

Hmm. I dunno. The receipt says 1107-5 Neoprene 60 Duro 1/2". Does that help?

Permalink Reply by Kelly Neu on February 19, 2010 at 7:43am

Yeah, fantasic! Thanks Brad. "Duro" is the density. I needs to be at least as dense as my head.

Permalink Reply by Brad Dimock on February 15, 2010 at 11:03pm

Randy is right on in bringing up how appropriate a technology is in one place and how totally goofy that same idea might be in another. The stuff we've been coming up with in Grand Canyon is not really all that applicable to anywhere else in the galaxy. We're running fully decked boats, overloaded (4 passengers plus obscene amounts of cargo) in giant Class 3 water where we are often swamped and likely to hit rocks broadside at frightening velocity. (Why don't you guys use rafts? we are often asked.) (I have no logical answer.) So the strategies we come up with may be completely off the wall up north in lightly loaded open boats on much smaller class 2-3 water. And vice versa. What I enjoy is the thread of logic that got each of us to where we went. I feel lucky that I fell in with a bunch of nutballs running highly traditional Oregon drift boats in Grand Canyon in the 1970s, and have been able to participate in the evolution of that misguided art for all these years.

Oh--and by the way--what a joy it is to look around this site--and the river in general of late--and see this mega-resurgence of this magnificently impractical boat in Grand Canyon. Wood boats rule.

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Permalink Reply by Joe Dengler on February 16, 2010 at 7:31am

One latch or two per hatch? Sure am enjoying the ridiculosity and tangents...brings the whole thing into suspect perspective.

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Permalink Reply by Kelly Neu on February 16, 2010 at 7:35am

Brad, you need an 800 number! The boatman hotline for magnificently impractical boats and their nutballs builders.
-Kelly

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Permalink Reply by Jeremy Christensen on February 16, 2010 at 2:11pm

This is a brilliant thread.

Brad said it, no logical answer to many of those questions. The beauty and hilarity is the magnificently nutball ways in which we justify these things to ourselves, and attempt to justify to others, namely our passengers and non-wooden boat rowing trip members. "If we're barreling down the river rediculously overloaded, get swamped and smash into a big rock broadside, what will protect the boat better, rubber or UHMW plastic chine caps?" Isn't something inherently wrong about the premise of the question??? I love it. Wood boats totally rule.