Introduction to the Fiddlehead double paddle canoe

Video transcript:

"Walking you are bounded by every sea and river, and in a common sailing-boat you are bounded by every shallow and shore; whereas, I was in a canoe, which could be paddled or sailed, hauled, or carried over land or water to Rome, if I liked, or to Hong-Kong."
- John MacGregor

Sometimes people are a little bit puzzled when they first see the Fiddlehead canoe. It looks different and they're not sure if it's a canoe or a kayak. It has the hull shape of a canoe but the decks and the double paddle of a kayak.

This type of boat is called a double paddle canoe and it was made popular in the mid to late 1800s by the Scottish barrister John MacGregor. MacGregor had been to the arctic and to Canada, and after that, he developed a decked canoe inspired by the canoes and kayaks used by the natives of these areas.

MacGregor, who was also known as Rob Roy, cruised extensively in these canoes and wrote a series of very popular books about the adventures. The Fiddlehead is a descendant of the Rob Roy canoe with many of the same qualities but modified and improved in a number of ways.

This boat combines so many good things. Technically, it's a relatively easy build, which makes it a great first boat building project. It's also a very fun build. Actually, I think that this boat is the most fun build that I've done in my boatbuilding career so far.

It combines a lot of interesting techniques and there are none of the long monotonous periods of doing the same things over and over again that you often find in other builds. It's small and easy to handle, and you get to the actual building of your boat right from the start, because the boat is shaped over permanent frames and bulkheads instead of temporary molds.

I also like the fact that while you can build the boat out of plywood, Harry Bryan who designed the boat specifies real natural wood for the boat. Although plywood has advantages too, real wood is for me just more fun to work with. Harry specifies northern white cedar, pine and oak for the boat, but you can build the boat out of a number of other woods depending on what you have available in your area.

While the boat is built using traditional techniques in some key areas it also uses modern glues and sealants. This greatly increases the ease of build and the strength, functionality, and durability of the boat. For example, the joints between the planks are caulked with a flexible sealant which ensures that the boat remains watertight even if your plank joints are not 100% perfect, and even if the wood swells up when the boat is in the water and shrinks when it dries out in the sun. That said, glues and sealants are not all that fun to handle so I like the fact that they are kept at a minimum.

In many other boatbuilding techniques for beginners like stitch & glue or strip planking, gluing up is more or less all that you do. With the Fiddlehead canoe, building is a lot of fun, glues and sealants are used only sparingly and only where they add functionality or durability to the boat.

In terms of functionality, this boat is just a joy. It's so fun and it's so easy to use. When we launched the boat, my five-year-old daughter who had never paddled a boat before just couldn't get enough of sitting on my lap and paddling away. It's just so intuitive and fun that anyone who sits in a double paddle canoe for the first time can just go at it without any problems.

The boat is really easy to transport. The light weight and the flat bottom makes it easy to put on the roof rack of a car. The width at the mid-frame makes it very stable, while the smooth lines and the fine ends make it very easily driven. The watertight bulkheads provide good dry storage while also adding a lot of extra safety in the event of a capsize. The backrest pivots which makes it extremely comfortable as it conforms to your back even if you change seating positions or if you lean back to take a nap.

Francis Herreshoff, who's one of my favorite designers of all time, created boats ranging all the way up to luxury 100-foot ketches, but still, he has a deep affinity for these little boats. Here's what he says:

"It is my opinion that the double paddle canoe gives the most fun for the money of any type of boat a person can possess and I must say that is my favorite form of aquatic sport. The double paddle canoe is one of the most seaworthy boats of its size ever built and after you have paddled one on a trip of 20 or 30 miles you will not think them very sissy. Almost nothing will stop them, for they can go over very shallow water and between rocks across rough stretches which would swamp or capsize all other small craft. In fact, almost nothing but ice will stop them. A have paddled quite a little with a gentleman who is 84 years old. The only complaint he had about the sport was that I had not introduced him to it 60 years before, to which I had to reply that that would have been difficult for it would have been some 10 years before I was born."