Duck boat canvas decks.

[Paul]

I have seen several very old wooden, double-ended duck hunting boats under 15' that have canvas laid over the wooden decks at both bow and stern. Does anyone know the purpose of this?

[auto5pilot]

It is either a spray dodger or a shield. The shield would allow the hunters to remain concealed when sneaking up on ducks. The spray dodger keeps cold water out - especially useful if a wave breaks over the bow.

[Paul]

Thanks for the reply. My computor has been down for a while so I haven't been able to reply myself. The canvas I'm talking about is tacked flat on both bow and stern decks rather than sticking up like a shield. Someone told me that it was a way to waterproof the decks.

[Dave Grason]

You're talking some pretty old decks then.

Many boats back in the day, used canvas as a way of waterproofing. They would lay the canvas down and actually paint it in place. The canvas gave the paint the strength to hold and the paint actually did the waterproofing. As a waterproofing system, it really SUCKED! But it was all they had back then. And this is one of those areas that gave wooden boats a really bad reputation.

[upspirate]

In some small lightweight boats,they used fabric only over the deck frames and then used paint or dope,like in small airplane construction.

I have some old race boat/hydro plans that have fabric decks.

someone in the customer pics,a Squirt I think,used fabric over his decks too.

If I'm not mistaken,some builders used fabric between layers od planks too

[kens]

upspirate:

you pretty well got it. the painted canvas was waterproofing and non-skid all in one.

I am trying the modernized version of this on my boat. I laid 6 oz cloth on the deck and epoxied it; however, I did not apply all the weave filler on it. i am going to paint it when the weather warms up, and hopefully, the painted weave will be my non-skid.

[upspirate]

The Squirt I mentioned with the canvas covered deck is in customer photos,Gary Baker's build.