by Weston Farmer
She’s a combination boat with two sheer heights. You’ll use her as a one- or two-man canoe, a one-man rowboat, or even as a large kayak.
LOA 15 ft., BEAM 42 IN., DRAFT 41/2 IN.
An ardent canoeist and black fly devotee dropped into my Powder Island boat shop up on Nipigon Bay, Canada, last summer. “I gotta have a boat that doesn’t exist,” sez he. “It’s got to be as good as a canoe, but lighter. I may want to paddle her as a kayak, the better for shooting come fall. If I’m alone and toting a good camp load, rowing will cover more miles in a day than paddling. She’ll have to be light because I may want to strap her to the pontoons of my Beaver and fly inland. I’ll want her to be stiff, too.” He allowed as how he was going to hang around my boat and stoke at my galley stove until I designed him a special sort of craft for cartop and camp use. So it didn’t take me long to galvanize the idea of Rob Roy. She is named for the famed Scottish canoe of several generations ago in which Robert Louis Stevenson crossed Europe on its canals and lakes, and about which he wrote so charmingly in The Adventures of Rob Roy*. This Rob Roy in no way resembles Stevenson's boat, except that she is small, slim, and light. Our current Rob Roy fills my friend’s variety of needs to a T, and is built of plywood which Stevenson never heard of. Her main function will be as a canoe; she’ll serve as a kayak; she’ll row easier than a St. Lawrence skiff, though she is really none of these. You will note from the arrangement plan that Rob Roy is a double-ender. And, if you want to use her as a canoe as most people will, she is fitted with cane canoe seats. Placed as shown, these seats will properly balance two persons for team paddling on long treks. Between paddiers you can accommodate a goodly load—up to 400 pounds of tent, gun, food and gear. She’ll be tender when light, of course—all light craft with dead rise are—but load her down, and she stiffens surprisingly and is much stiffer than a canoe. Yet she moves easily under paddle. Her steeved-up bow will not dump seas inboard as a canoe’s bow does. When camping alone you sit on the bow thwart or seat, the narrow end of the craft is astern, and your load forward. Balanced thus, normal oneman canoe action prevails. But I like my friend’s idea of rowing when single-handing it. It’s less tiring faster going safer So I have shown permanent rowlocks. Seven-foot silver spruce oars in loose, leathered oarlocks - (the only safe oarlock) will complement your equipment. Kayak cranks will not fare badly on a seat placed as shown, using a double-bladed paddle and facing forward. Fine for marsh crawling, casting and camera work.
*The correct title for Stevenson's fine book is "An Inland Voyage", and it is availble in reprint in The Shellback's Library from The Press at Toad Hall. Click here for a description.
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