Kayak and Canoe Design Bulletin Board

Re: baidarka numbers

Posted By: Ian Johnston
Date: Sunday, 24 October 1999, at 7:06 p.m.

In Response To: Inuit design and lofting (Mike Scarborough)

> I though a bit last night about designing a baidarka-type boat and
> building it in wood strips. To build a wood strip version you will need to
> make forms spaced about every foot along the length of the boat. The best
> way to do that is to loft the boat, either the traditional way-full sized
> on the floor, or on a computer with a CAD program. I consulted Wolfgang
> Brink's book on baidarka construction to see what it would take to loft
> his design. The steps to form the gunnels and keel were straight foreward.
> I got stuck at the step of bending the ribs. It seems that at this point
> there is a bit of builder discretion involved. But if you bent a couple of
> sample ribs to go amidships and at either end it should be possible to use
> them to establish a couple of key station cross sections and fair in the
> rest of the station from them.

> The ribs of a baidarka are interesting because they are not necessarily
> fair in the fore and aft direction, but the stringers placed on them
> average out the differences to produce fair lines.

> One question that I would have is "Would you attempt to duplicate the
> multi-chine shape of the skin-on-frame boat or would you round off the
> cross section shape to be a smooth curve?"

I recently bought a set of books on several museum kayaks that were surveyed in the 60s and 70s by John Brand and others. In part one there is a baidarka in the British Museum. All the drawings and numbers are here! You could probably punch these into a CAD program and have the drawings come out the other end.

Not that easy probably but it would be a place to start. The other thing about this baidarka is the very interesting bow design. The only problem with the survey is the question of negative sheer that the boat has now. It is not know whether this was the original design or if it a result of hanging for so long.

Any way the books are called The Little Kayak Book I, II, III. Also have traditional paddle designs and equipment descriptions.

Ian

Messages In This Thread

More inuit rules.
Christer Samuelsson -- Saturday, 23 October 1999, at 5:53 p.m.

Re: More inuit rules.
Nick Schade -- Sunday, 24 October 1999, at 11:37 a.m.

Re: More inuit rules.
Hans Friedel -- Sunday, 24 October 1999, at 4:58 p.m.

Re: More inuit rules.
Nick Schade -- Monday, 25 October 1999, at 1:54 p.m.

Re: More inuit rules.
Hans Friedel -- Monday, 25 October 1999, at 5:45 p.m.

Inuit design and lofting
Mike Scarborough -- Sunday, 24 October 1999, at 12:16 p.m.

Re: baidarka numbers
Ian Johnston -- Sunday, 24 October 1999, at 7:06 p.m.

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