“Carougie” – My First Boat Design
One of life’s greatest pleasures is building something with your own hands, and seeing a pile of wood and materials take shape into what ever your vision may be. Personally I enjoy making many things, including crates, chairs, book cases, coffee tables, small buildings etc. But there is just something about building or working on a boat that is special.
Recently I decided it would be nice to build a relatively small boat that would be able to be transported in a pickup truck, not require an engine, and could be built relatively quickly and inexpensively. I really liked elements of several different boats – Canoe, Pirogue and the Dory in particular. Not that I intended to incorporate the exact or specific design elements really, but more of an inspiration kind of thing.
So far the design has been worked out, pretty much anyway, and she is about 90% complete as of today. Carougie is designed to carry one person and to use a double paddle like a kayak or a single paddle like a canoe and she has ample space to carry fishing and or camping gear as well as two compartments to keep anything needing protection from the sun or other elements.
The Shenandoah river and access to the Chesapeake bay are not far from where I live and I intend to use her when she is finished to paddle and explore the river, and some of the creeks, rivers and shoreline of the bay.
