Kayak and Canoe Design Bulletin Board

Re: Eskimo rules for design.

Posted By: Nick Schade
Date: Wednesday, 19 May 1999, at 9:33 a.m.

In Response To: Eskimo rules for design. (Christer Samuelsson)

I think you may be mistaking "designing" for "building". Inuits used arm-spans and fist-widths when building their boats. This is not neccessarily the same thing as "designing". I could give you the dimensions of one of my boats in terms of body parts and with careful selection of the body parts I could give you dimensions that when you built the boat it might come out to be a "custom fit". But this is not really changing the design.

We really do not know what criteria the Inuits were seeking to optimize when they built their boats. There does not seem to be any evidence to suggest that they had universal rules for building their boats. Some builders may have used 3 arm-spans for length where others used 4. There are a few direct records of Inuit anthroprometric measurements, but these only apply to one design. We do not know the measurements used by all the builders, how they relate to each other, or even if others used body parts to measure their boats. We really know very little about what was going on in the minds of the original kayak builders, so any ideas about their reasoning is pretty much pure speculation.

If you want to learn more about traditional kayak construction, try to find a copy of "Contribuitions to Kayak Studies" edited by Eugene Arima. I hear that John Winters is out of "The Little Kayak Books", but if you can get a copy, they are very interesting.

> Hi, I remember hearing somwere that the eskimos got rules for desiging a
> kayak, based upon the kayakbuilders own personal messurements. The length
> for example should be 3 armspans long and so on. I should think, that the
> rules varies depending on were the particalar eskimo lives, west Greenland
> south Greenland etc. Someone out there must know a lot moore about this
> and I can imagine that a lot moore people want to know. Chris.

Messages In This Thread

Eskimo rules for design.
Christer Samuelsson -- Tuesday, 18 May 1999, at 11:54 a.m.

Re: Eskimo rules for design.
John Winters -- Tuesday, 18 May 1999, at 2:49 p.m.

Re: Eskimo rules for design.
Christer Samuelsson -- Tuesday, 18 May 1999, at 6:15 p.m.

??????
Mike Allen -- Tuesday, 18 May 1999, at 7:27 p.m.

Re: Eskimo rules for design.
John Winters -- Wednesday, 19 May 1999, at 9:00 a.m.

Re: Eskimo rules for design.
Shawn Baker -- Friday, 28 May 1999, at 5:45 p.m.

Re: Eskimo rules for design.
The Big Legume -- Wednesday, 19 May 1999, at 1:33 p.m.

Re: Eskimo rules for design.
John Winters -- Thursday, 20 May 1999, at 8:03 a.m.

Anthropomorphic measurement of drafts
Paul Jacobson -- Monday, 24 May 1999, at 12:32 a.m.

Re: Anthropomorphic measurement of drafts
John Winters -- Monday, 24 May 1999, at 9:07 a.m.

Re: Eskimo rules for design.
The Big Legume -- Wednesday, 19 May 1999, at 8:40 a.m.

Re: Eskimo rules for design.
Nick Schade -- Wednesday, 19 May 1999, at 9:33 a.m.

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