Shad

SHAD * 17.5′ by 23″ wide

I have always had a fascination of the Greenland styling. I found the lines to what was referred to as a Greenland Hunting boat and have looked at it many times thinking what a beautiful boat it was. While not practical I still love the looks of the long overhangs. It has taken me a long time and several versions to come up with a design I was happy with.

Shad went together easily with no surprises. Being a single chine boat there is not a lot of pieces so it is an easy and quick boat to build. The only fussy thing is just making sure the long bow and stern pieces stay aligned, other than that it a very straight forward boat to build.

Shad is a lower volume than most of my designs but I would not call this a low volume boat. It is not nearly as small as the traditional Greenland boats were. The deck is tall enough that at 5’8″ and 215 lbs that I enter the boat buy straddling it in water, sit down and pull in my legs. My shins will just touch the frame as I get in. If you are taller or have long legs you may have to sit on the back deck, slip in your feet and then slide into the seat.

One of my favorite parts of the boat is the sweeping sheer and how low it is to the water. No knuckle banging on this boat! I also noticed that I have to sit with my legs a littler flatter, with less bend in my knees than say a Long Shot. I am not sitting anywhere near flat legged though.

One thing you don’t have to worry about is the frame hitting you in the back of your calf muscle like most fuselage frame boats. I worked on a design to improve the comfort of these boats. I found a way to remove the frame member from under the calf muscle and still maintain the frame strength. It took me a while to come up with this, t now I have incorporate it into all my boats.

I have found Shad to be very good paddling boat. Tracking is excellent. Turning is a little slow but leaning the boat and a little paddle stroke and she comes right around. I’ve found that that most course correction could be made by simply leaning the boat a little. Once odd thing I discover is that this boat paddles as well backwards as forwards. Not sure what use that is but I could paddle long distances backwards and tracked just as well backwards as forwards. I guess you show off to you friends, that is what I do.