For years I’ve heard vague references to J. Macgregor and his ‘Rob Roy’ canoe, and was always under the impression that it was a great heavy wooden barge that he travelled around in by dint of great perseverance. Having now been lent a copy of one of his books nothing seems further from the truth, and if such a craft could be built economically today it would still be used by many. It appears there was more than one ‘Rob Roy’, and I have reprinted below the appendix to “Rob Roy on the Jordan”, concerning the canoe.
Laurie Ford

APPENDIX The Canoe
In “The Rob Roy in the Baltic” a full description is given with woodcuts of the form of canoe and its fitting which succeeded so well on this cruise. Of course, more improvements were made before the Eastern voyage but in designing the last Rob Roy a new and difficult problem had to be solved, because this was to be a boat in which one could not only travel but sleep comfortably.
Much consideration was given for months before the design was determined, and we shall now explain minutely the construction of what is in fact a little yacht, in which you can cruise over sea and land for a week without getting supplies. (Although some hundred canoes have been built within the last three years, I do not know one builder who will build a canoe reasonably complete, without constant personal supervision)

It is always best that for sleeping the boat should be drawn up on shore, and in lawless countries an island or some solitary place should be selected, as you have no guard. It is a question still whether on the whole a light tent is not better than the boat to sleep in. However, we resolved to make the boat itself our comfortable bed, and for this it is absolutely necessary – (1) to have a clear space of 6 feet 6 inches in length: (2) to remove enough of the deck to give ample room for the knees in “turning” at night: (3) to place the timbers of the boat so that they do not gall the shoulders, elbows, hips, knees, or heels: (4) to have enough width at the end of your bed for the feet inclined sideways with both heels on the floor.

This Rob Roy was therefore built round me lying down, as the others had been built about me sitting. Her length on deck is 14 feet. Her floor is made longer by lessening the rake of stem and stern, which are more upright than in the drawing. Her greatest beam, 26 inches, is not on the deck, but 3 inches below, so that her upper streak “topples in” amidships, but flanges out fore and aft. “Everybody” said this would look ugly, but “nobody” now could find out the difference, unless by measurement. The lines thus altered made the canoe stow more, sail better, and rise to her seas more lively. On the other hand, she is much harder to work in rapids and crooked water, and to drag and to beach on shore. Her garboard streaks incline downwards, so that on a flat shore their seams are nearly as low as the keel, which projects less than an inch outside.

The burdens or floor boards are in four places, so made as to form a floor of 6 feet long, and thus the whole body of the sleeper. They may also be placed above the well, as a round arched cover, exactly filling it up when the canoe has to be carried far. The dotted lines in the woodcut at p.131 show the well thus enclosed. The weight of the Rob Roy with paddle, masts and sails is 72 lbs.
To form an open space for sleeping in, I arranged the well so that the beam should be where my body needed most width, and the well is therefore 6 inches longer than is required for sitting in. The fore part of it is half of a hexagon, each side of which is one foot long.

The “apron” is of course the most difficult of all canoe matters to settle satisfactorily.
I tried every feasible plan suggested by others or by myself (a wooden hatch, after a month’s trial in 1867, had been discarded. Certainly, for the Eastern trip, it would have been useless, though for common work it has many recommendations), and finally resolved upon the plan which has borne without injury the wear and tear of a whole year’s work.
The apron of the Rob Roy is of light white waterproof, a present from a “clerical canoeist” who has been paddling with a monkey on board, until jacko went up the mast and upset the canoe and drowned himself. (Of the human members of our Canoe Club, more than 200 in number, not one has been drowned in the many long voyages over Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Australia). The apron is fixed on the hexagonal front of the well by a simple and clever device of the builder, and it is kept up by a bit of cane arched over the knees. When this is removed (in two seconds) the apron lies flat – there is no coaming whatever on the sides.

The edges of the apron are fastened at each side by a single button-hole to a round stud 3 inches below the deck outside the gunwale. This has never cut nor worn out, but it would instantly burst if an upset required all hands to debark.

The after edge of the apron is threaded on an elastic band devised by the Rev. J. Macdonna, of the C.C., and an excellent plan, and thus lies close to one’s chest, and is yet easy and slack, being supported on a breast button of my coat. The painter is fast at each end to the cleat on the deck near each knee, and is rove through the stern post – not the stem. In heavy weather, by putting the painter under the apron stud, and over the edge of the apron, but lower down the beading of the upper streak, the apron is bound close to the gunwale, and no water can come in. This plan, invented in the Red Sea, worked admirably ever since. The sails and mast are sufficiently described in our first chapter. (The sail is the same in size and shape as in the Baltic Rob Roy. In our last Club sailing match, a simple lug-sail won the prize from all fancy rigs. The boom hooks on a long brass hook at the foot of the mast, so that the sail can be entirely detached and stowed away without leaving your seat in the well). The stretcher is upon a new plan, very simple and successful. Instead of a board across, supported at each side, there are two thin boards, one for each foot which abut on the garboard streak below, and against a carline of the deck above. Thus they have strong support, but are themselves very light and there is a clear space between them which can be increased in a moment by moving one of them, when a large bag can be passed in forwards, and its neck can always be reached while sitting in the boat. My heels rest on the bare garboard streaks, thus gaining at least an inch more of inclination for the shin bones, which adds much to comfort when you sit for eight hours at a time.]

Large waterproof pockets are on each side near the knees. The luggage consists of one cylindrical “post office bag” 2 feet long, one foot in diameter, very light, with an interior “flap mouth” and so made that, when closed, it may be pitched over board, and nothing will get damp inside. The bag acts also as buoyant cargo. The other rectangular bag, 12 inches on each side, and 5 inches broad, holds provisions and things less injured by water, and this is stowed just aft of the sitter so that it can be readily reached. On either side of the well are stowed pistol and ammunition, brandy bottle and books, large waterproof sheet and coat, the Inverness cape (weighing 5 ½ lbs), a water bottle of macintosh, carrying 51/2 lbs, spare shoes, cork seat, topmast (part of fishing rod), topsail, sponge in tin bailer, mosquito curtain, towel, fishing-net, hooks and lines, sounding cord, small stores, matches, etc, and the apparatus for the cabin which we shall next describe.

To open a light boat of this sort for 6 feet 6 inches of its length, and at the part where there is most strain, was a novel proposal and the builder doubted much, as I did myself, whether she could possibly bear such a mutilation without getting “hogged” or “screwed”, or something worse. Careful management, however, overcame the difficulty entirely, and by the following means.

Three feet of the deck aft of the back board is in a separate piece from the rest, and movable. The fore end of this has on it a strong, curved carline, to receive the whole strain of the back board, and two other lighter carlines support the rest, and are screwed to this shifting deck, but all those carlines are quite separate from the gunwale.

The fore carline of this movable deck has at its ends strong flat hooks of iron, which go outside the gunwales, and so brace the boat together when the deck is in its place. The surface of the deck is flush with the gunwales, so its edge being inside keep them in firm. (That this deck should have kept perfectly sound, unwarped, and unbroken, through so many trials, is wonderful, but the piece of cedar was well chosen for its duties, and well seasoned). At each side of the well, flat moveable boards (forming the bit of deck left there, and about three inches wide) take at each end into recesses in the after deck and against a strong knee near the fore part of the well, flaps of waterproof at each side (made fast outside under a half inch beading one inch below the lever of the gunwales) fold inwards and cover the joints.
Now to rig our cabin for the night, we haul the Rob Roy on shore, and work her backwards and forwards in the ground until she is firmly bedded, and this is most important for a good night’s rest. Next we remove the two flat pieces last described and set them upright near the fore part of the well, as shown at a b in the drawing, which is on the scale of a quarter of an inch to the foot.

A light bamboo cane is tied across these near the top. On this we lay the paddle, and its other blade rests on the solid piece of deck astern and so forms our roof tree. Next, the movable deck is placed on the paddle, so that its wider end projects forward to cover the sleeper’s head. Over all, the waterproof sheet is thrown (shown in dotted lines), and tucked in between the canoe and the ground, or is weighted with stones, or tied down on the windward side if the night is not calm.

Aft of the backboard and above the movable deck, when afloat, there is a loose sheet of waterproof made fast along its edges by the beading below the gunwale outside, and which generally lies folded on the deck and covers it neatly, being kept in shape by the top joint of the fishing rod that lies along one of its folds. For the night the paddle, being inside of the macintosh covering, supports it with an inclined roof on each side, represented by dotted lines, while the edges are perfectly secure. (This plan may be improved upon. It creates trouble in removing and replacing the deck, and I think that one waterproof sheet would do for the whole roof, while the deck aft might have a projecting ledge above the gunwale, to cover the joint, which, at worst, would let in only a little water. The paddle has been used often in two pieces, with a ferrule to unite them. This is convenient, especially for sailing, but I grudge the additional weight even of an ounce. Letters and “patents” about paddle – blades set at right angles have often come to me during the past five years).

The mosquito net has now to be inserted, and then we light the little reading lamp – which bijou it would take too long to describe accurately – and fasten it on the starboard upright, so as to be 6 inches from my left ear when reclining, and thus to throw a good light in front for reading.

The pillow is of course our clothes bag, and for a bed there is an air cushion, shown in our sketch, 3 foot long and 14 inches broad, with ribs across it so that it will not collapse. This bed is particularly comfortable, and we have explained in our log that it answers also for several other purposes. Its distinctive size has been ridiculed, but if you try, you will find that, when the shoulders and hips are supported, the rest of the body needs no bed at all, except the head, which has a pillow, and the heels which can rest on a roll of the topsail.

Several canoeists have used wheels with much satisfaction where the canoe has to be frequently taken across some beaten path – as when it is kept in a house near a river or lake, and the wheels can be left at an assigned place.

But in my journeys I had found that out of each thousand miles not one mile would have been helped by wheels. However, as the use of them was strongly urged, and possibly it might help on this tour, I made a number of experiments and finally reduced the size and weight so as to be very small, as represented in the sketch alongside. These wheels are conical, made of wood, hollowed at the centres, and with light brass tyres, and fixed on a steel axle, which turns in a strong brass piece. Above this is a grooved piece of wood, into which the keel will fit, and without any type of fastening. The diameter of the wheel is 4 ½ inches, and they weigh 2 lbs. The plan answered well on trial, and I carried the wheels all the way round, and never had one single occasion for using them. The fact is, in real canoeing, that is, in wild and unknown lands, you find no smooth roads to wheel a boat upon or if there are roads, you can always get a man to help in carrying the boat; while on rocks, shingle, and jungle, no wheels would help you and on grass, or earth, or sand, the boat can be dragged along.