17 Jan 22:
ATTU is a double paddle canoe that I spotted at the Herreshoff Marine Museum back in 2019, her simple design and utility has been rattling around in my brain for a couple of years now. She is a built from a ASDeWH design. As you may have figured out, we are fascinated with small boats and the care of those craft, and I chuckled that she sits mostly unnoticed under the hull of a large keelboat.. ATTU looks like she is ready to go, 1 or 2 folks could carry her over to Bristol Harbor and go for a nice paddle to check out all the other nautical marvels. Or she'd ride nice on a C-Tug canoe cart. Well, maybe not in January...although checking weather in Bristol, RI today it is 48F, with light winds and light rain, warmer than Hampton Roads.
ATTU has an adjustable back rest that uses a simple peg adjustment, the starboard side of the cockpit coaming has 3-4 fixed holes and the port side has corresponding notched holes that the back rest support peg can be dropped into. The two backrests are articulated in the middle on small metal? straps, so that the back rests pivot vertically and independently as the paddler's shoulders and upper back shifts from side to side. There is a small wooden seat inside with appropriate contours for an mid 1900s sized butt, and adjustable foot rests. The side coamings are convenient and comfortable spots to brace knees against. L. Francis Herreshoff writes that the cockpit was also wide enough so that a paddler could sit Indian style for a bit if so chosen. The high splashguard also helps keep the cockpit dry.
The double paddle is intriguing, and the motivation for our current double paddle build. The Herreshoff paddle has the blades set perpendicular to each other, and that "feathering" has benefits that I don't quite understand yet, related to wrist angle during the power stroke and possible aerodynamic drag reduction from the dry blade. More questions and research on that to follow.
Seems all one needs now is a suit and jaunty cap, and away we go!
(Image Credit: Herreshoff Marine Museum/Off Center Harbor)
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