Kayak Bytes

Hello Everyone,

 

My Name is Michael Sargent, a mad keen DIY enthusiast.

I have tried my hand at a few endeavors house renovations, Kart Racing, Custom Motorbikes, Stitch and Glue dinghy building, but now believe I am truly hooked on Kayak building.

 

I am lucky to have better than average drafting skills and some exposure to Marine building.  I hang around a group of guy’s, loosely referred to as a Boat Building Club.  Not a lot of building but plenty of stories.  A very practical group, who go out of their way to help anyone build any craft they choose.  

 

Although a few members are shocked at my decision to abandon 50 years of boat building evolution (their description of stitch and glue construction) to revert back to strip planking. I don’t think they understand or appreciate the beauty and craftsmanship involved. I don’t dislike stitch and glue, I still believe it is a good quick way to hit the water.  I am still concidering using vinyl sheets to take the shapes from my forms and quickly build a S&G proto-type to be sure the craft will be stable in the water.

 

After doing a lot of web based research on what to build stitch and glue, strip plank, get a kit or purchase plans? I have decided why purchase a pre cut kit when I can build my own designed strip plank Kayak from first principles.  Obviously I have drawn heavily from designs and looks I like, there are a few key elements that must be maintained to be a Kayak so all will have some features in common.  I will post a plan of my design, all are welcome, however I would suggest waiting until I get a bit further along to prove the design.  I am sure there will be many minor alterations along the way. I will document all of these as building notes that I will also make available.

 

People that know me understand I often aim quite high. So far I have progressed to a point of making stands, cutting out the ribs and dry assembling the Kayak form to get a feel for how it will look.

 

I am struggling to decide if I should use a local Laser cutting company to re-cut the forms or stay with what I have and sand away the imperfections. I printed he forms on to A3 paper and traced through the outline with a pin punch at 10mm steps.   I then cut them out with a hand held jigsaw.  Perhaps some one out there has been down this road, does a 1mm deflection show up in the finished build? Or perhaps I am being too much of a perfectionist?

 

BFN

 

 

MikeS

I heard from Mike Sargent, (from Oz) he has completed a very nice sailing dingy and is starting on a kayak. He can also motor the dingy with a small outboard he found on EBay. Here’s a picture of the boat and you can click on it for a gallery of how he did it. Also, in the gallery, is a good view of how the kayak is coming along. So far no strips, but the forms look like it will be pretty cool!

Tony

Well, the trip to Iowa is about over.  We are in St Louis right now and will be flying out in the morning at 9:30.  It will sure be good to get back home and mow the lawn…  yeah right..  Looking forward to kayaking with Kurt again and getting the boat wet.

I saw quite a few kayak racks on the trip.  My old home town of about 5,000 had quite a few cars and trucks with racks on them and I saw a few SOT’s on some of those racks.  I haven’t seen many racks or kayaks here in St. Louis though.

A little more on the Sea Ranger stripper:  When I glassed the hull, I didn’t do any fill coats.  One reason was that I wanted to save a bit of weight and the other is that I wanted to see if it would slide through the water a bit easier as in ’shark skin’ hulled boats.  Not having anything to compare to, can’t really tell if the departure from laminar flow is helping any, but suspect it is.  When I taped the shear, I used a scraper to even it out and applied a very thin coat to get back to transparency.

That’s about all the news that isn’t from here, catch y’all later..

Tony

John has posted a few nice pages with some great information. I especially love the way he’s got seven kayaks packed into a two stall garage and still has room to spare for his cars.

I may try to make a set of the J racks before my next trip to Gavleston.

Taking Lines From a Kayak
Roof Rack
Storing Kayaks

I’m sure that many of you have noticed the new look. Please drop a comment below to let us know what you think. If there are any other features or kayak related services you’d like to see please let us know.

Post Tags:
Directly under each title is the text “Tagged as:”. Clicking on the keywords will take you to a list of similar articles. For example, clicking on SeaRanger will give you a quick list of articles about Tony’s strip built Sea Ranger.
Photos:
Just under the banner above is a Photos link. For the time being it will show Tony’s photo sets with Kayak in the title. I will soon make it so that other author’s photos can appear in the mix. This way you can check out the pictures without leaving the comfort of KayakBytes.

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Changing Banner:
The graphic in the header will rotate through a series of pictures that Tony or I have taken. If you have an interesting kayak picture that you woulad like us to add to the rotation post a link to it in the comments below. Please make sure that it’s suitable for cropping and resizing to 800×200 pixels.

New Hat:
You should notice the new hat pictured above. Can you belive that Tony actually bought a new hat? Say good bye to those rusty rivets and that salt stained brim. I think maybe he took Kurt’s advice and bought a hat that floats now that he’s got some mad rolling skills.

Yeah, I know it’s about time I did it. Anyway, here’s what I have done so far:

1.) bungee on the front end with a bead to hold the paddle.

2.) 4 bungees just ahead of the cockpit to hold lord knows what

3.) hip and knee pads in the cockpit

Still to go is bungees behind the cockpit and one on the tail end with a bead… Actually a wooden ball. I knew a guy with a wooden leg once, but….. oh never mind..

Here’s a picture with more if ya want just by clicking on this one.

Later.. Tony Olsen

I finally got a chance to get together with Tony his wooden Sea Ranger, and what a day it was! Besides just a particularly pleasant day of paddling, I got to play with the hot new boat, and then see one of the most amazing and gratifying things I’ve ever witnessed.

We unloaded and made ready to hit the water. Tony said “wanna try ‘er out before we get going?” As if you have to ask me twice. Okay, where do we start? How ’bout here: I’m a devout Outer Island driver, totally in love with it, and well into my second season with that design, so that’s why there’s gonna be constant references to it.

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Hi all, I went out with Kurt today and got a bit of expert instruction on rolling. We paddled all over the canals at Jamaica Beach on Galveston Island TX. Weather was a bit hot but we had some water and could cool down a bit by dipping ourselves. After a couple hours of cruising around, we found a nice sand bar to play around on and get a stretch. I was flopping over in the shallows and then rolling back up ala Jay Babina’s video. That isolates the roll to the last parts, sweep, hip snap, and sit up. I was getting that pretty good and Kurt helped a lot on explaining what I screwed up when I missed. After watching for a while, he said “are you ready for a complete roll yet?” I said sure, and we headed for deeper water. I had him as my security blanket to give me a bow assist if needed. 1st roll, nailed it same for second and third. As for the 4th roll, lets just say we had an opportunity to do a T rescue and an assisted re-entry.
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Building the Greenland Kayak

I refered to this book a lot while building my Yost style non-folders and found it so well written and informative that I just have to give it a plug here.

Even if you aren’t building a traditional style Greenland kayak there are a lot of good general building tips, design criteria and history that make this book a must read for anyone building a skin on frame. Christopher includes a high level of detail in most areas and maintains a genuine helpful tone throughout. Many of the methods discussed within will usefull if you are using modern materials like the aluminum and plastic frames of a Yost style folder or carving and bending your ribs from driftwood.

The Amazon price is around $12 so it is easy to afford and worth the price soley for the entertainment value.

Here’s another picture of the boat, sitting alone in the water. Anton took the shot and I cropped the people out of it with The GIMP image editor. I think Kurt Maurer and I will be going out later this week and just may have to bring a photographer along for the occasion. Kurt will give the boat a better and (probably) more objective sea trial than I have. If he gets all phsyched to build one, I’ll let ya know.

Good paddling all,

Tony