Dave's Boat Building page



My 9 foot Cajun Pirogue

I recently designed and built my own home-made boat.
It is a small flat-bottomed boat
officially listed with the State of Florida
as a canoe, but as anyone from Louisiana
would immemdiately recognize,
It is actually a small Cajun pirogue
(pronounced "pee' row").

I saw several websites about pirogue kits,
and I got the idea I might make one of my own design.
Then I saw a few other websites about making a boat
from a single sheet of plywood, with some people of the opinion
that you cannot make a serious boat, more like a toy,
from one sheet of plywood.

Being an engineer, I jumped on that challenge.
It took a bit of doing, but I finally came up with a design
that allowed me to make a 9 foot long boat
from one 8 foot sheet of ordinary, outdoor, Home Depot, 1/4" thick plywood.

My pirogue has a flat bottom, that is, the rocker has been removed
in order to have better tracking in a craft this small;
but I also removed a few square inches of material from the front
(under the waterline), and added it to the back,
in order to ensure that the boat would still turn easily.
The boat is 26 inches wide at the bottom chine,
and has a 32" beam at the centerline;
it is 9 feet 4 inches long counting the gunwales (for storage purposes)
it has a hul weight of 58 pounds
(hey, I'm an electrical engineer, not mechanical,
so I put in a bit more structure than necessary;
this thing is built like a small tank...but I still love it!)
and it has a total displacement of 1008 pounds.
Cool, huh? (*lol* :>)

My pirogue has been out on some pretty large lakes,
and it handles very well.
Recently, I even outfitted it to take a 2 hp motor,
and added it top for super hot sunny days.

I love my 9 foot pirogue!
OK, here are a couple of pics.


Here is the boat in my garage; you can see

where I made the joints to increase the length to 9 feet


And here is the boat on Turkey Creek in Palm Bay FL;

that's one happy Cajun-wannabe in his pirogue.


Questions? Comments?

Shoot me an e-mail at

dave.macfadyen@ngc.com

Have a nice day.

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