On the bank of the Macatawa River

On the bank at Lake Powell

XCR owners, Kellan Hatch and Ben Algera have been putting their boats to good use over the last couple of weeks. If you have been following this site, then you have already been introduced to both of them through previously posted pieces.

Benjamin Algera ready to push-off

Ben has just completed a very fun paddling cruise with his Dad,  John Algera, on the waters of Lake Macatawa and the Macatawa/Black River in and around the city of Holland, Michigan. http://www.bensboats.blogspot.com/

John Algera about to face the unknown

The Hatch family explore the red rock canyons of Lake Powell

Kellan’s adventure was quite a bit different, as he went to Utah’s scenic Lake Powell with his family as a part of the annual Lake Powell Messabout. http://deviantwind.blogspot.com/ 

In the original article introducing the XCR sailing canoe, I suggested that the boat was incredibly versatile, allowing for a wide latitude of coastal adventure cruising. The modular componentry of the design gives the XCR owner enormous choices as to how to enjoy a boating experience. The boat can be configured as a sailing trimaran, complete with 2 hp outboard as seen in most of the pictures of Kellan’s weekend on Lake Powell.

Sunday morning sunrise at the Hite ramp, Lake Powell, Utah

The XCR can also be used in its base form, which is a fast, responsive and very stable decked tripping canoe, such as is shown in the photos of the Algera’s paddling outings.

The XCR canoe is right at home in confined thin water

The paddled canoe and fully expressed sailing trimaran applications are fairly obvious within the modular approach. What isn’t so obvious, is the boat’s ability to be used as an incredibly stable motor launch for leisurely powered outings.

Cruising the XCR as a quiet and quick motor launch

Lily Hatch relaxes while Kellan tops-up the Honda

Kellan and Lily Hatch glide past Mount Moran in their XCR

Kellan recently returned from a wonderful, but all too short, cruise on Jackson Lake in Wyoming’s Teton National Park. Imagine a lake that is beautifully positioned at the foot of the stunning Teton range. Imagine primitive camping sites on the non-inhabited side of the lake with wilderness all around you in virtually the same state as it was when the area was visited regularly by the fur trapping mountain men of the early 1800′s.

Kellan had those images and much more running through his head when he joined his wife, Lily with their XCR, along with good friend, Mike Jackson and his Hobie Adventure Island, for a long weekend adventure of sailing and camping.

Yukon Expedition kayak on beach Jackson Lake, WY

 Some years back, I also enjoyed a beautiful canoe and kayak trip along those same shores in early October, so seeing the photos from Kellan and Mike brought back a heady rush of clear crisp air, scenery that is some of the most dramatic in the US and the shrill whistling sounds of bull elk as they called out to the opposing males during the annual rut.

Kellan and Lily hangin' with the XCR and Hobie Adventure Island

The three sailors launched from Coulter Bay and then made a big looping tour of the southern end of the lake, staying overnight at different  camping sites on the western shore of the lake.

Lily tends to the boats on the beach

Kellan heads for the bear proof steel box at one of the campsites

Soft cruisin' at the foot of the Tetons

Mike Jackson Mirages across the water in calm conditions

Scenic camp cruising in the Wild West

 If you are interested in finding out more about Kellan’s boat, he has started a personal blog  http://deviantwind.blogspot.com/  specifically about the XCR, his adventures with family and friends and the remarkable improvements he has made to his boat along the way. In one of the articles, there’s a really tasty cockpit cover that was sewn by his wife. Really great stuff from a very talented family with very diverse interests.

A fabulous cockpit cover created by Lily Hatch

With the main hull now successfully launched and then paddled briefly with his wife and kids, Ben has taken the first important step towards the completion of his XCR.

Sailing and paddling trips await Ben with this boat as it can seemlessly morph from a straight-up decked tripping canoe to a very nice sailing trimaran in minutes.

There are all sorts of photos of Ben’s build progress at his Blog site.  http://www.bensboats.blogspot.com/ 

Take a few moments to scan through his entries and you can see for yourself how easy it is to build an XCR of your own.

Solo Tripping in a very responsive package

Right up front, I’m going to give a full tip o’ the cap to John Winters, Canadian boat designer, for the inspiration to design this particular canoe. John’s Osprey II S&G design is a beautiful example of a designer bringing his enormous skills to the worktable. I wanted to draw a solo, tripping style canoe for 4mm marine plywood construction, so I took a long look at the Osprey to see if there was anything I could do differently with the form.

In Winters’ design, there is a very nice, tumblehome chine along the shear to give additional paddle stroke clearance. I have built boats before that used a similar tumblehome panel and it turns out that they can give the builder some interesting problems when it comes to constructing the hull.

This tumblehome chine is very slender in width, which requires the builder to have a reasonable set of skills to wire it in place prior to filleting or they will end-up with a potentially wavy hull section that just won’t go away short of doing it over. Since I was looking to draw the Bighorn for easier construction for the average guy, I decided to drop the tumblehome panel and instead raise the outer hull panel to maintain freeboard. The result is a six panel hull that is easy to build and nice looking.

Specifications
Length - 15′
Width - 30″
Draft @ 280 lbs. - 3.8″
Weight (estimated) - 42 lbs.
Rocker-bow - 2.3″
Rocker-stern - 1.8″

The hull shape is asymmetric in form with the widest point (and it’s center of buoyancy) just aft of the hulls’ midpoint. The hull also has decidedly enhanced rocker fore and aft when compared to traditional canoes of this size. These two design features give the boat very solid, straight-line tracking, as well as wonderful response to turning stroke input from the paddler.

At full, 350-lb. displacement load, the Bighorn has just less than 8” of freeboard amidships. I don’t see this kind of load in this boat unless the owner is going out for a very long solo trip and needs to carry a lot of gear. More likely, you’ll be seeing an all-up, ready for trouble, load of around 290-300 pounds, depending on the weight of the paddler. I figure this boat can be built at right around 42 pounds, providing the guy with the resin doesn’t get too generous with the glue.

The seat setup in the renderings illustrates my take on an integrated unit recognizing the typical canoeists needs when out paddling. There’s a comfortable, sculptural sitting area much like the tractor-style seats one sees on the Wenonah canoes. It is coupled with an integrated pocket on one side for camera/binocular/etc. and on the other side… a circular, net bottomed opening to hold the beverage of your choice. (Ever had a can of coke tip over in your canoe while paddling because there was nowhere secure to hold it? Makes for a fun clean-up session, doesn’t it?)

If you don’t care for the integrated seating system, you can always use the traditional, woven caned seat, a simple, stretched canvas platform or a woven-webbing seat. For that matter, you could always buy a tractor seat from Wenonah.

Outside the typical description of a solo canoe introduction, I decided to include a little extra teaser for those so inclined. I drew a set of outriggers specifically for this boat.

They aren’t fancy in appearance, but they are very simple to build, easy to use and they provide enormous stability to the boat if you’d like to fish, shoot pictures, take a nap, shoot birds, etc. If you were so inclined, they can also be used with a modest sail rig to allow the Bighorn to be sailed like a trimaran, though don’t be expecting these amas, or the suggested sail rig size of 30 sq. ft., to provide much more than a pleasant sailing experience. Still, it could be fun on the right body of water.

Plans for the seat system are available for $20 and plans for the amas and mounting points in the canoe are $50.

Chris Ostlind
Lunada Design
Chris@Wedgesail.com

I have a very serious passion for sailing canoes. Principally, I enjoy canoes that are designed as small, lightweight trimarans as I feel they present the greatest number of solutions for serious, expedition sailing with few of the compromise limitations the sailing canoe genre can represent.

I wanted to design a big boat; something out around 18’+ with a modest beam for the length in the 35″ neighborhood and the ability to carry a hefty expedition load without sinking the hull too much or hammering the freeboard. Canoes that long with beams of 35″, or so, have a real chance of being quite fast under paddle if the hull is shaped correctly.

There are some really fine boats out there that could, in the right hands, become very good cross-over sailing canoes when equipped with outrigger floats (amas) and a well thought-out rig setup.

One of my favorite sources of inspiration was the John Winters designed, Cirrus.

http://www.greenval.com/cirrus.html

About six years ago, I had a conversation with John Winters in which he told me that there had been a decked Cirrus prototype built at one time by Swift Canoe. He indicated that the design had not been further explored in that manner and it’s sitting on a rack somewhere out behind the Swift Canoe shop. The idea of a hard decked canoe for adventure sailing was very appealing, so I stashed the concept while I worked on other design questions.

Like the decked Cirrus, I was looking to include an integrated hard deck on the XCR design to replace the soft, full coverage spray skirt setup typically seen on expedition boats of this type. The deck would also provide incredible strength to the hull and allow for a fairly aggressive sail rig as a result.

When I plugged the Cirrus numbers into my design software, along with a rough approximation of the hull shape, I found that I was going to be compromising a bit on the targeted design displacement of 800 lbs. So, I stretched the length out to 18’6″ to be able to handle the heavier loads.
The other standard for boats of this type is the highly respected, Kruger Cruiser

http://www.krugercanoes.com/prod03.htm

The Kruger boat is built like a tank with 11 layers of Kevlar along with a heavy gel coat. Because of the design requirements, there is a vast chasm of build level between the normal, recreational canoe and one that is ready for serious expeditions in remote locations. While I respect the boats, as well as the owners of the Kruger Company, I don’t think that most adventure canoeists will ever need to have a boat that is built to that level of expense. For the “way out there” expeditions in which your very survival is dependent on the ability of your boat to hold together in harsh conditions; Yes, the Kruger style of boat is appropriate. For everyone else, a much lesser degree of build technique is more than adequate.

With the XCR, once you meet the basic level of structural properties of the design, you get to make the laminate decision yourself. If you like, you can give the interior of the hull several layers of Kevlar set in epoxy, along with four layers of S-Glass on the high wear areas outside for an expedition layup. You will end-up with a structural toughness to match the Kruger boats. Or, you can go “expedition lite” on the layup, hold-off on some of the big dollar laminates and have much lighter, more easily portaged boat as a result.

Displacement vs Capacity Numbers

Perhaps I should provide a brief explanation of just what is going on in the canoe world with all the load numbers you see in brochures and various Internet sites.

Many designers put together a hull shape with a specific design displacement weight in mind. This is the total, all-up, weight to which the hull is designed for optimal performance. For one reason or another, many manufacturers like to give a number that indicates the hull capacity and it’s usually way up above the displacement number. While it is true that most canoes can safely carry the higher weight without too much of an issue, the boat will not perform anywhere close to the design displacement weight as indicated by the designer.

Sometime soon, I’ll write an article about canoe loading safety as there are many issues to discuss in that area and this article is not the place for the material right now.

Hull Design

The XCR is a decidedly asymmetric hull form. Unlike the more traditional styles, the widest part of the underwater shape is behind the center of the boat. This design style aids in the hull’s ability to track smoothly in a straight line among other benefits.Because a sailboat has to be responsive to helm input, the XCR has considerably more bow and stern rocker than a typical tripping canoe. Normally, added rocker makes for a boat that always wants to turn, but the asymmetrical hull counteracts that effect. The result is that the boat has many of the best characteristics for a tripping design. She wants to run straight when you have a big crossing to take on and she will turn on a dime with subtle steering input.

The XCR is designed to be built from marine plywood with 6oz. glass skins in epoxy on both the inside and out. The build techniques are straightforward and easily accomplished by the homebuilder. I estimate the building costs for this boat, complete with sail rig, amas, aka beams, foils and hardware to be right around $3000. When you compare this price to the cost of just the Kruger Cruiser at $4200 without the sail rig or outriggers, you can immediately see the value of building your own XCR exactly the way you would like.

The Rig Setup

For the rig, I wanted a setup that could be extremely adaptable to a wide range of wind and sea conditions as well as provide for some very nice performance potential. I chose to create a pair of traditionally boomed, Marconi rigged sails, each about 56 sq. ft. in area. As a rig platform, the XCR is quite versatile, as long as the intended rig does not interfere with the objective purpose of the primary mission of the boat.

The layout of the very large cockpit is such that the crew can have the following rig setups:

1. Both sails can be aloft at the same time.

2. They can be reefed equally or asymmetrically for rising conditions.

3. The aft rig can be doused completely and stored with the forward rig being moved to a central stepping location with the boat then sailed as a sloop.

4. The forward sail can be doused along with the deployment of a sea anchor and a reefed mizzen can be left up for control in very serious conditions.

Cockpit Layout

The cockpit is sized to allow for the breakdown and storage of the rigs within the hull. There is a large, cockpit rim around the opening to shed water and provide structural strength to the deck. The standard, fore/aft canoe paddling positions are left intact. There are two, glassed-in, thwart tubes at the aka beam  locations. These tube thwarts will replace the traditional, flat wooden or aluminum tubing thwarts of more familiar canoes. This approach is borrowed from the manufactured Kruger Canoes. Kruger uses these tubes for the function of joining two boats together in a catamaran style. I’m not especially fond of the catamaran mode for sailing canoes with this method. I feel that the weight of a fully loaded canoe has the potential to generate serious loadings on any potential, inter-hull connector in this manner in all the path axes. A boat designed from the beginning to be “catamaraned”,  would need to have substantially stronger, hull mounting points, as well as stronger connecting beams, resulting in weight that has to be carried even when the boat is being used for other pursuits.

The seats will be infinitely adjustable fore and aft, up and down and also in pitch, fore and aft. This means that the crew are able to set a seat height, get into a flow for an extended period of time and when their bodies start to feel the results of a fixed position, they can adjust it slightly to get into another comfort zone. The seats are also totally removable to allow for a huge range of use with the boat.Because of the rather long interior volume, one crew member can slip below to take a nap prior to their turn on watch while the boat can be sailed by the other crew member.

Foils

The two foils used on the XCR are optimized for the sailing range of the boat as well as for utility of the boat’s application. That means that the foil sections and planform are selected to operate within the sailing speeds that can be generated by the rig and the hull shape. I prefer higher aspect foils for a number of reasons; mostly because they work well when the boat is sailed quickly and there’s almost no penalty for the extra draft if they are of the kick-up variety.

The primary lateral resistance form is handled through a leeboard arrangement. The mount for the leeboard is removable from the cockpit coaming to allow the canoe to be paddled without the extra baggage of the mount. Both the rudder and the leeboard are the “kick-up” variety to keep the boat from being damaged by an underwater obstacle or when beached with the foils down. The leeboard simply rotates up through an aft arc and the rudder flips up in a similar fashion.

Aka/Ama System

The amas are designed to be crafted from marine plywood in a stitch and glue style of construction. They will be quite light and will mount to 6061T6 aluminum tube sections for aka beams. The prototype has been constructed with carbon aka tubes. Builders of the design will also have the option to construct their own, “gull wing” akas if they choose, but drawings for that adaptation are not included in the plans. Full length trampoline surfaces can be affixed between the fore and aft akas and between the vaka and ama hulls. Hard surfaced hiking platforms can be affixed to the aka tubes. The hiking platforms will allow the crew to sit out on the benches, providing additional righting moment for faster sailing potential.

The aka tubes are sectioned to allow easy take-down and setup of the outrigger assembly. They are held together with the same stainless snap buttons that you see on take-a-part paddles. There is a removable aka section on each side of the canoe hull for each aka tube. Once removed, the ama can be remounted to the hull for transport, OR, the ingenious owner can then use the canoe with the amas in place for a whole new set of possible water-borne adventures. How about duck hunting from your canoe with no danger of tipping over at all? How about taking the grandkids out for a day of fishing on the lake without having your daughter get on your case about being careful with the kids? The potential is quite wide open.

The images supplied show the finished boat, as well as photos from the first, on the water, paddling test of the hull without its deck installed. As a tripping canoe, the XCR paddled wonderfully in the test. It is fast, tracks well and responds to turning strokes like a much smaller boat. I expect this canoe to be ideal for sailing or paddled adventures. The XCR can easily take enough gear and supplies to last for a two week adventure on the water, so the horizon is really wide open as to where this boat could go.

The hull shape and construction will be seaworthy in anything from calm lakes to fairly heavy conditions. This boat can serve as a serious expedition machine and would be serious contender for a honed and fit two-man crew in such coastal adventure races as the Watertribe Everglades Challenge.

Chris Ostlind
Lunada Design
Chris@Wedgesail.com