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Permalink Reply by Rick Newman on March 6, 2014 at 12:47pm

It really depends on several items. A. How often will there be a rear passenger? B. What weight will the rear passenger be? C. How technical is the water, ie how much maneuvering will you be doing? D. What are rowing skills like?

The issue is the boat was designed to carry most of the weight in the front and the hull design is asymmetrical. If you haven't yet designed or cut out the floor panel yet it would be possible to build some models and determine how to make a symmetrical floor with equal surface area both in front of the rower and behind the rower. A certain amount of rocker is required to keep the stern of the boat from digging in or having the stern dig in when you row upstream to fish from one spot or go back up an eddy. Over on montana-riverboats.com Sandy Pittendrigh has designed the Beavertail which is meant to and does work well with a husky rear passenger.

Tim, at what point in your build are you? Post some pics if you have them.

Rick N

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Permalink Reply by Eric Loudenslager on March 6, 2014 at 5:16pm

You don't mention what boat you are building.

One McKenzie style boat 16 ft, designed for a rear passenger, is the Montana River Boats Beavertail.

If you are not set on a model you should check it out. It is stitch-and-glue composite construction.

I personally think a 16 ft boat is a bit small for three in line. I have fished a 16 1/2 with two in front.....fly fishing on the Rogue.

Most of the in-line models from Hyde, Clacka, Rio are longer and wider than the 16 ft traditional McKenzie.

I built a 16 ft (15' 10" side panel), and only provided for a single fisherman fore of the rower. It works well, and runs class IV.

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Permalink Reply by Tim on March 6, 2014 at 7:45pm

I bought a female mold for this so I'm kind of tied to that now - especially if you ask my wife! It was built for a polyester resin spray up but I changed gears and decided to go with epoxy, Plascore, and fiberglass hand layup. So far I've just made the inner dry storage boxes and front dry storage/casting horn. The horn was made with layers of end grain balsa glued together then glassed and filleted with epoxy & cabosil. The boxes are 1/2" Plascore. My plan is to lay up the hull, then glass the inner components in and finish those off with sapelle or okoume. This won't be a true wood boat but rather a hybrid that looks and feels like a wood boat but hopefully less overall maintenance. 

I'd prefer to just float with two but if a third comes hopefully he's a granola eater. I'd just like to have the option to float three. I'm in Michigan and would be using it on relatively calm water like the Pere Marquette, Muskegon, Big Manistee, etc. No whitewater to be found.  

Attachments:

• photo.JPG, 2.1 MB
• photo-1.JPG, 2.2 MB

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Permalink Reply by Eric Loudenslager on March 8, 2014 at 1:39pm

Check out the threads on Montana River Boats. Some of the contributors have built plascore/glass/epoxy boats.

If you are making a hand layup it may be easier to use the mold as a male plug.

Take a look at the boats with in-line seating to get an idea of where to place seats and thwarts. The further aft the transom seat is, the more tender (tippy) the boat will be. If you can, make the rowers seat adjustable fore and aft so you can adjust the boats trim. More forward when a caster is aft, more back when passengers are in the stem.

If possible try to test seating locations with a roughed-n hull.

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Permalink Reply by Tim on March 8, 2014 at 7:57pm

I've spent a lot of time on that site as well, these are both excellent resources. lhedrick has been a huge help as well. I like the idea of flipping the mold over to use it as a male plug but I already cut the panels for the floor and side walls. Shouldn't be a problem though. 

I want to build a box seat for the rower so I can slide a cooler underneath and have a walk-thru hull. I'm not sure if I can make the seat adjustable for and aft with design so I like your idea of floating it with a roughed in hull to dial that position in. 

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