The Shape of the Canoe

Designing Canoes and Kayaks, 3rd Edition

by John Winters
Liverpool, NS


This electronic format (Adobe PDF) edition of The Shape of the Canoe on CD-R contains new material on small boat history, kayaks, paddles, safety, and consumer relations as well as improved graphics. As a further bonus the electronic format version contains my performance prediction program, KAPER, used by Sea Kayaker Magazine in their boat reviews; CANTRAC, my experimental directional stability program; and BEARBOAT, an easy to use design program. While BEARBOAT is not a sophisticated professional design program you can use it to experiment with hull shapes as well as output files for full size printing of stations should you decide to build a boat. KAPER and CANTRAC run on Microsoft Excel. Bearboat comes in several versions for both PCs and Macs.

The electronic format is an excellent one for this type of book. You can easily search topics and references in the text without having to flip back and forth through pages of index and appendices. You can easily access graphics through links that allow viewing in large-scale format and can keep them handy in a window or print them out for reference while you read.

The Shape of the Canoe is the first and only book dedicated to the design of small paddle powered boats and contains chapters on:



Small Boat History
Types and Variety of Boats
Hull Geometry
Hull Resistance
Hull and Water Motions
Stability
Seaworthiness
The Look of the Boat
Design Methodology
Performance Prediction
Creating a Design
Boat Testing
Paddles
Special Notes on Sea Kayaks
The Buyer's Perspective

Add to this the inclusion of performance evaluation programs and a design program and you have a unique book KAPER and CANTRAC run on Microsoft Excel. BEARBOAT comes in several versions for both PCs and Macs, and is valuable to people seeking a better understanding of small boat design.

The Shape of the Canoe, KAPER, CANTRAC, and BEARBOAT are shipped to you on one CD-R, for both Macs and PC's. We recommend that you use Adobe Reader 7, which is available as a free download from www.adobe.com.




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