Just a quick update.
Howie E and his wife Braith are down from New Jersey to attend the Texas Kayak builders bash. Howie built a very nice double and has it on the top of his suburban. Today Kurt Maurer , Howie, Braith, my wife Elaine, and I went to the bay side of the state park for a bit of kayaking. Great time paddling and good company. Next, we all head for the builders bash.
OK folks, the next kayak has been decided upon, it’s going to be a Sea Ranger. You can check it out on Tom Yost’s site.
Here’s the plan:
After stripping the hull and deck, I plan to lay the glass on in the normal fashion, but not do any fill coats. My thinking here is to get a shear flow of the water on the hull instead of a laminar flow. Kind of a ’shark skin’ effect to possibly reduce friction at the water / hull boundary. The deck will be treated the same way. The join between the hull and deck may require a bit of care, but I think I can make it look half way acceptable when covering the joint with the 2″ strip of fiber glass.
The rear compartment will be stiffened a bit with an internal frame at about 11.5 feet or so and will not have a hatch on the rear deck but access through the back of the cockpit. Backrest and hatch cover will be one piece with a latching system to be conquered later..
Front compartment will have the normal hatch on the deck and the forward bulkhead will double as the foot rest with a bit of mini cell for the feet to contact. Another block of mini cell can be put in for shorter paddlers. I plan on making the cockpit rim the same size as my Guillemot and Great Auk, same spray skirt will fit all the boats that way and down here in Galveston, you like to be able to pull the spray skirt back every now and then for some cooling ventilation. That is the plan so far, with this, the boat should come in at under 30#. If I don’t like the textured surface, I can always come back and fill it as normal.
Any comments like “you nuts or something??” please feel free to comment on this post. Oh yeah, here’s a picture and, as usual, you can click on it for more..
Take care..
Tony Olsen
Hi every one,
Just thought I would remind you that the Texas Kayak Builders Bash is coming up on the 29th of April.
I have contributed a very limited edition T-shirt, (only 2 made.)Â As usual, you can click on the picture for a much larger look.
See ya there!!
Tony Olsen
Recent post on TKF prompted me to write this post:
Go to the Thule site,
Thule site
and select your car under the words ‘rack your car’. Mine is a 2003 Honda Element EX so don’t know if things have changed for later models, but I get:
430 Tracker II Foot Pack | LB50 Load Bars | TK9 Tracker Kit
The installation was easy and straight forward.
you install the foot packs first then the towers and cross bars. The above doesn’t include the saddles. Thules are OK, Stackers stick up too high for my garage door and I don’t want to pull them all the time, so, I got the Yakima land sharks.
According to the site, that much is 196$ and you can get the Yakima saddles for $75 per kayak from Connie Mack (where I got mine) So, about 350$ to get a real good system to carry 2 kayaks.
Tony Olsen
It’s my wife’s boat so she had the honors. I finally got her out of it and gave it a go. Great boat! Very little weather cocking, tracks great when flat and turns very nicely when edged. Edging is easy and the righting force builds as you lean it over. Very well behaved boat and best of all My wife likes it. In the picture, good buddy Kurt M is riding ‘chase plane’ for the first time on the water. Kurt finally had a go and rolled it many times. After getting home, found very little water in the hatches. It sure eases my mind a bit to know that there are no flaws in the build. Didn’t realize how apprehensive I was until later when I was paddling it.
Here’s a couple of pictures..
Click on the picture for more..
