WING OF THE DAWN

One of the features of Pegasus Town (in North Canterbury, New Zealand) that drew me to it was it’s lake; nestled in beautifully landscaped grounds it provides a haven for waterfowl and sheltered waters absolutely ideal for pottering around on in a small boat. As an ex-boatbuilder, it proved an irresistable lure, so once I’d settled in to my new home, I absolutely had to have something to potter around in. I wanted something small, with classical features that would complement the environment and which would be easy enough to walk down to the water's edge on a lightweight launching dolly.Hence, WING OF THE DAWN.She’s a simple 3 chine canoe design with standard glass over 4mm meranti ply construction and a painted finish, but I used a mixture of modern and traditional techniques to create an easy to build hull that was very efficient in terms of material use. What made her special was that I used DelftShip to design the hull and produce the developed hull strakes. I exported these files into Fusion360 and converted them into .svg files, which I then downloaded onto my ShaperOrigin handheld CNC machine and cut out directly. Because of their shape, I needed no internal frames to form the hull, but simply used zip ties to hold the planks together for a traditional stitch and glue assembly. To create the traditional feel, I again used the ShaperOrigin to rout out the faux seams on the decks which were filled with an epoxy resin and filler putty, and then finished her off with classical rattan style woven seats (each of which took 12 hours to weave!). Materials included; 2 standard (2400mm x 1200mm/ 8′ x 4′) sheets of 4mm ply for the hull and watertight bulkheads, some offcuts of 9mm ply for the decks, and approx 12m/36′ of 40mm/ 1 ½″ square Honduras Mahogany for the gunwales, laminated breasthooks, and seat frames. The seat weaving took about a kilo/2.2lbs of rattan cane, and painting included 1 litre of highbuild undercoat, and another litre each for the interior and exteriors.