Product Description
The Noank Pulling Boat is an efficient sliding-seat sculling boat suitable for open water expeditions. It is secure in rough water, glides well and is a joy to row.
It was designed by Nick Schade of Guillemot Kayaks and uses the wood-strip construction his boats are famous for. Strip planking is a great way to make a lightweight wooden hull with an efficient shape in the water.
The boat has a large buoyancy tank at each end, providing plenty of reserve buoyancy and the capacity to carry a lot of gear for camping expeditions. At 18 feet long, this boat is relatively compact compared to a traditional rowing shell, but has enough waterline length to give it a good turn of speed and a shallow skeg provides ample tracking.
Noank is a village on the coast of Fishers Island Sound in Connecticut with a long tradition of boat building. I first visited Noank as a young child to go sailing on my uncle's hand built wooden sloop. At that time there were still hulks of wooden schooners moldering into the shore front. Now Noank is best known as the location of a restaurant offering a fantastic hot lobster roll, just hot lobster, melted butter and a toasted bun. What better way to earn those calories than to row up to the restaurant dock in a beautiful wooden pulling boat.
The Noank Pulling Boat grew out of my desire for a fast, efficient rowing boat that could handle the chop of Fishers Island Sound. I wanted something elegant and easily driven.
Nick Schade, Noank designer
The boat is designed for use with a drop-in rowing frame, which provides a well-engineered, reliable sliding-seat sculling system that would be difficult for DIY builders to achieve by hand.
Kit
The forms and strongback are pre-cut to the correct size to support the hull. Included with the kit is a mixture of light and dark wooden strips. The strips are milled with a ‘bead and cove’ joint so that one slides into the next for a perfect fit. While we offer suggested patterns, each builder can develop their own unique strip design as they assemble their kit.
The kit includes:
- Pre-cut forms and strongback
- A mixture of red cedar strips and paulownia strips with bead-and-cove joints
- Waterproof glue for the wooden strips
- Epoxy resin and activator
- Epoxy fillers
- Woven glass fabric
- Ash gunwales
- Hatch assemblies
- Seat support assembly
- Plans
- Detailed construction manual
- Free technical support from a competent builder
We supply roughly one-third red cedar strips and two-thirds Paulownia strips as standard but if you have a particular pattern in mind, we can provide a different ratio if you contact us before ordering. We can also supply yellow cedar strips.
This boat is designed for use with a rowing frame, which is not included in the kit.
Plans and Manual (not required by kit purchasers)
The plans contain sufficient information to make it possible to build the boat from scratch rather than a kit. They include full size drawings for all the forms. These plans include a detailed 100+ page building manual with over 300 photographs and illustrations.
Forms and Strongback
For those wanting to obtain the other materials needed to build the boat from other sources, this option contains the pre-cut forms and strongback and the necessary plans to build the boat. The wooden strips are not included (see below).
The forms are also available without the strongback. The necessary plans to build the boat are included.
Wooden Strips
As well as the plans, forms and strongback, 365 m of bead-and-cove cedar strips and/or paulownia strips will be needed to build the Noank pulling boat.