The 16 feet long canoe is the best length for two people or even one person.
Below 16 feet long the directional stability and geometric centre of gravity
are greatly reduced. The weight of a 16 feet canoe is around 60-65 pounds.
Going down a river a 16 feet canoe will steer are react much faster. As for
the design I prefer the round bottom river canoe. Some people prefers the
flat bottom canoe (known as a lake canoe). The flat bottom canoe does not
steer well and is only good in small lake with minimal wind. While the
round bottom canoe has been used in white water river, choppy waves and
windy lake.
The cost and time of building a 16 or 12 feet canoe are about the same.
"dadiOH" wrote in message
news:g70bg.5179$_B5.1043@trnddc01...
wrote:
I'm an IT Consultant and am considering a new hobby to take up a
little bit of my time. I'm thinking about building a canoe. Am I
better to buy just the plans, or a whole kit with forms?
Just the plans would be more fun 
__________________
I have
about 5 hours a week that I could honestly put into the work but
would like to see some results within a few months. If possible I'd
like to have my 4 year old daughter help a bit too.
I just built an 8' stitch & glue sailing pram from really lousy plans,
took
me about four months including the spars. That probably equates to about
100 hours which is way longer than it should have been but I'm kinda
picky.
Spent lots of time trying to interpret the plans too...
_________________
How big should I
build to accommodate 2 adults and 1 child on an afternoon?
Rather depends on where and how you intend to use it. If you have to lug
it
around, small (10'-12') is good. A larger one isn't all that much more
work
to build. Here are some suggestions...
http://www.voyageurcanoe.com/choosing.htm
Some freebie plans...
http://www.bigdamfish.net/freeplans.html
The two easiest methods of building IMO are "STITCH & GLUE" and "STRIP".
Googling same will give you a ton of info but basically, "stitch & glue"
involves cutting panels from thin plywood, securing them together
temporarily with wire (14 gauge copper works well) and then securing them
permanently with epoxy fillets; "strip" is more complicated. Both rely on
epoxy a good source for which is http://www.uscomposites.com/
--
dadiOH
____________________________
dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
...a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico