A SMALL PACK CANOE for EXPLORING BACKWATERS and FISHING HOLES

The Solo Packette is designed for those searching for pack canoe that they can carry to even through the most difficult approaches. Easy to carry over a shoulder and small enough to carry through tangled brush, you’ll find she’s just the ticket for exploring those previously unreachable ponds, lakes and marshes.

Paddlers who choose a double blade and lower seat will find that she’s plenty stable. And for the purists, she’s agile enough with a single blade to dance through the reeds and channels you never thought you’d reach with a larger boat.

Choose This Boat If …

The Solo Packette is small boat that prioritizes easy portaging and small bodies of water. This is the pack canoe that we recommend for those with limited storage space, and for those who have a penchant for exploring hard to get to ponds and protected lakes. If you paddle in larger water you may find that the Solo Day at 15′ is a more suitable hull.

Click Drawings to Expand …
 

 Before You Get Started

Plans from Ashes come complete with all the details necessary to build a canoe but they do not include building instructions. If you are novice builder you will save many hours and benefit immeasurably from purchasing either of the following books:

• For Stemless Construction, Building A Strip Canoe, by Gil Gilpatrick
• For Classic Cedar Strip Building,  Canoecraft, by Ted Moore

Materials

Traditional construction calls for 1/4 inch thick cedar strips. 3/4 of an inch is as good a width as any to start with and full length clear stock will make stripping your canoe a whole lot easier.

Ash or cherry is standard for gunnels where we live but builders have successfully used many different species on their boats.  If a builder wishes to reduce weight, laminated softwood strips (two outer and three inner) with an outer hardwood rail shaped to please the builder’s eye can be substituted for hardwoods. Best results will be obtained if the builder can curtail the urge to use fancy marquetry, or exotic woods. A materials list is included with your plans, as are scaled drawings of the strong-back, seat(s) and thwart.

Use Ashes’ Materials Calculator to help determine the number of strips, epoxy, and fiberglass cloth required to build your pack canoe.

Materials Calculator

 Building Light

A careful builder may wish to reduce the weight of their canoe by starting with 3/16 inch cedar strips. Remember that you’ll have less material to start with and without experience it’s easy to sand too far! Other options for builders hoping to keep her light are to laminate the gunnels directly to the hull and use mechanical fasteners only in the ends and at the thwart. Likewise, her seat can be attached to cleats glued and glassed to the inside of the hull, thus reducing the need for hangers and associated hardware.

For a precise estimate of your canoe’s final weight use Ashes’ Weight Calculator which provides results based on materials choices and building decisions.

Weight Calculator

Stations

Unless marked otherwise stations are laid out with the centre station placed in the middle of strongback, and each one thereafter is spaced at 12 inches on centre from the previous. At Ashes we cut our stations from 3/4 MDF. The bow and stern stations are trimmed for stemless construction, an easy and elegant construction method that contributes to her minimalist lines. Plans have the outer stem profiles marked for those wishing to use hardwood stems.

Fiberglass

The industry standard calls for 6 oz cloth. Builders wishing to match our advertised weights will start with 4 oz glass inside and out with a reinforcing layer laid inside and out in her middle third (on the bias). Likewise, her ends are reinforced both inside and out with two extra layers of 4 oz glass, 6 inches wide and also laid on the bias.

Printing Your Plans