Sectional Canoe?

[gulkana99701]

hi,

so, i have this really dumb idea. i do a number of fly-in trips each year. there being few planes large enough to haul an intact 15' hardshell i've used pakboats and their ilk in the past, but at best they only approximate a true canoe, defined herein as a hardshell boat.

thus, i've been rumminating on creating a sectional hardshell. i've seens various attempts at this over the years with fiberglass and even wood/canvass. but never with a plastic boat.

i imagine taking a 15' royalex-type boat and sectioning it into 4 pieces. something short enough to fit into a 206 or helio. using the circular saw to create those pieces would be the easy, albeit painfull, part. putting them back together....well that's another story.

one would need to fashion some sort of flange that would meet with an adjoining flange. ideally if those flanges could be "welded" to the boat one could eliminate the need for bolts to penetrate the hull.

so....does anyone know of any way to "weld" royalex? or some kind of glue that would hold tight?

(the things we think of when there isn't soft water to float boats in....)

thanks.

-g

 

[Sid]

did you ever look at an inflateable they are real rugged an durable an will take a small motor an store down to a small shape the ones I have seen are quite long, I know Garey King on this web site has a long one 18 + ft I think, an the sportman show is on this weekend here in Anchorage an I think he will be there he might even have a web site [I don't know]

 

[mainer_in_ak]

It'd be pointless with the products already avail. The ally canoes are about as good as it gets, and inflatables may be even better. I just had my hands on a Sotar inflatable sport boat that is skinny like a pro pioneer. It was the toughest inflatable "canoe" style boat I've ever laid eyes on. Go check it out at the sportsman show, it's a beaut.a The motor mount is a work of art, and I actually hooked my Copperhead motor up to it just for reference (haven't tested it yet though) The word "canoe" is definitely used loosely here. It certainly won't paddle like a canoe, but talk about versatile.........
My prediction is that it will be one of the most hard core and versatile "skinny" inflatables to ever hit the water.

 

[Rick]

I recall reading an account of an early exploration up the Congo River that took along a 40' boat that broke down into sections for portaging around falls and other obstacles. The ends of each section had a bulkhead several inches wide that would bolt to the corresponding bulkhead on the adjoining sections. In the mid 19th century, that was a trick solution. Mainer is right, though. Pack canoes or inflatable boats/canoes are the best choice for the 21st century.

 

[fishfood]

To answer your original question, no you cannot weld or glue royalex, polyethylene, or any other plastic canoes are made out of in a manner that is practical whatsoever. These materials need very specialized equipment to process in the first place. I've been in polymer research for 17 years BTW.