The new canoe that I am building is the 13' Esprit Freestyle canoe. There is not a huge demand for 13'Freestyle canoes in Manitoba, so I have only built the one canoe off of the mold so far, and there were a few things that I wanted to change based upon my experience with the first.

Primarily, I wanted to change the stem profile and how it flows into the main body of the canoe. I also wanted to use 5/16" ribs stock instead of the 1/4" ribs stock used previously. The thicker ribs will hold the desired bottom shape better, the thinner ones rounded out too much.

This is the mold before the modifications.

The new stem profile laid over a piece of plywood to establish the mold shape for the stem.

The plywood piece added onto the mold with epoxy. Now I need to adjust the shape of the mold for the last rib positions.

So I remove the ribbands and add on some Pine strips.

And rough shape them prior to final shaping.