Cottage Cruiser Canoe

Product Description

The Cottage Cruiser is a mid-sized traditional-looking touring canoe from Bear Mountain Boats. This boat is a strong choice for intermediate paddlers looking for good performance across a range of conditions. It offers less stability than the more beginner-friendly models but provides enhanced speed and agility.

The Canadian Canoe Company just north of Toronto spearheaded this project in 1997. They love traditional boats but wanted a midsize hull with a little more capacity than the 15 footers.

This design borrows some of its heritage from the Prospector series but is graced with a little more tumblehome in the hull sides and less curvature in the sheer. We think this makes it an even better looking boat and it has a respectable carrying capacity for its size.

Don't let the cottage reference fool you: this boat is happy playing near the beach, on portages or on a two week canoe trip. It planks up beautifully and will make you look like a professional.

Ted Moores of Bear Mountain Boats is the author of Canoecraft, the standard reference book for wood-strip canoe building. The book is recommended to accompany the kit or plans. It is packed with tips and techniques and has inspired countless first-time canoe builders around the world.

Length

4.74 m (15′ 6½″)

Maximum beam

890 mm (35″)

Beam waterline

805 mm (31¾″)

Bow height

510 mm (20″)

Centre depth

345 mm (13½″)

Displacement

153 kg (337 lb)

Optimum capacity

68-204 kg (150-450 lb)

Draught

102 mm (4″)

Wetted surface

2.12 m² (22.85 sq ft)

Weight to immerse

132 lb/in

Prismatic coefficient

0.525

Weight

20-25 kg (45-55 lb)

Watch us build a Bear Mountain canoe in this one-minute overview video:

Kit

We manufacture our kits to the highest standard using European-grown Paulownia for the planking strips. Uniquely, the strips in our Bear Mountain Boats kits have not only a bead-and-cove profile but also a pre-cut finger joint at each end, making the neat joining of strips even easier for builders at home.

The kit includes:

• Plans
• Instructions booklet
• CNC-cut building forms
• Paulownia strips with bead-and-cove edges and finger joints on both ends
• Ash blanks for decks
• Ash stem strips
• Ash gunwales (inwales and outwales) with scarf joints machined for joining
• Ash thwart
• Cane seats
• Waterproof glue for the strips
• Epoxy resin and activator
• Dispensing pumps
• Digital scales
• Epoxy fillers
• Woven glass fabric on a roll
• Free technical support from a competent builder

Please note that the kit does not include the box beam strongback for mounting the building forms on. You can either use a straight length of suitable timber or order the box-beam strongback we supply.

What else do I need?

Strongback

This strongback is made up of CNC-cut MDF panels that fit together to form a strong and stiff box beam measuring 200 mm × 200 mm and long enough to build the boat. You'll need a pair of trestles or sawhorses to raise it to a comfortable working height.

Plans and Instructions (not required by kit purchasers)

The plans contain sufficient information to make it possible to build the boat from scratch rather than a kit. The plans are printed in colour and include scale plans and full size drawings for all the forms.