Smooth-Sailing, Successful Surface Modeling – PD & D.

stretch mark removal

What California commuter hasn’t ever had the urge to just walk away from traffic entirely? Well, George Calvarescu found a way to kayak away from it all.

watch battle: los angeles movie on computer

Yostwerks Kayak Building Manuals

Tom now has a few more designs and quite a bit of detail on building an inflatable kayak.  The new Expedition looks pretty cool and a bit more stable.  I’ll have to hunt around and see if anyone has built one yet.

2007 Texas Kayak Builders Bash

Both Kurt and John had new original designs there in addition to Steve’s saran wrap kayak and Tony’s strip built Sea Ranger. I don’t have an official count, but I think there were at least 40 boats. Tony should post something soon with more official numbers.

Made a trip up to AustinKayaks in San Marcos this morning for some foam blocks to mount the yaks on my car. I’m still saving up for a Yakima or Thule (whatever I find cheapest on craigslist). They foam works well in this manner and will fit on the bars of the rack when I get it.

We’re leaving about 3:30 today and look forward to seeing some of you there tomorrow!

Scubascapie’s Kayak project, :: wood carvings, Native American Flutes and other stuff.

Very cool looking sled with a strip built seat.  Hopefully we won’t need anything like this down here in Texas.

Cockpit

– If I build another Sea Tour I’ll be sure to move the 3rd frame forward a couple inches and move the 4th frame (masik) back behind my knees. I went with Tom’s frame placement and need to mix it up a little to compensate for my long legs. To fix it in this version I’m going to strip the skin from the cockpit and peg a curved masik behind my knees.  This will make it a little more difficult to enter the boat but should keep me from falling out.

Coaming – I tried something new, using LDPE tubing to make a free standing coaming, similar to Tom’s aluminum version. Over all it works well but it’s too wide and keeps trying to return to an oval (wider) shape. I’m experimenting with the same tubing now and lots more heat. It melts nicely and doesn’t burn readily so a torch isn’t out of the question. I was using an open flame on my camp stove to heat it up. The extra heat seems to set a permanent bend in it. I’ll stress the bends later to see if they lost any flexibility or strength.

Rocker – In my opinion this boat is very hard to turn. I ended up with a litle less rocker than Tom’s offsets called for. I’ll take a plane to the keel to add a little rocker and then use some heat to coax some more shape into the keel. I suspect if I’d used WRC instead of Yellow Pine for the keel it’d flex more.

Back Deck – I love the low back deck, but I’ve already cracked one of the stringers (I used 3) just behind the cockpit.  When I rework the cockpit I’ll see if I can’t reach it to make some sort of repair.  On the next boat I might put some thin ply or an extra deck beam to support the stringer.
That’s about it for now.  I’m sure I’ll ramble on more as I get more experience paddling.

We hit the lake early yesterday morning to beat the rush (which never really happened).  A few friends from church joined us and we swam and paddled our way through a restful day.

Bill and two of his sons took the kayaks out and had a fun time.  I think he might have been bitten by the bug and may soon experience the challenges of building a kayak and keeping the wife happy.

Bill did very well paddling my kayak and didn’t dump it once.  His son, Hayden, took to it like most kids and was quickly pushing his mother’s comfort zone.  He dumped Hannah’s kayak a few times but managed to self rescue and paddle back to shore.  He also took mine out and while he liked the stability, he thought it was too hard to turn.

I practiced carving a turn for a while and managed to sit on an edge long enough to bring the bow around a little.  I’m getting a much better feel for the edge of stabilty and only pushed it too far once.  I also practiced self rescue using the paddle as an outrigger.  I managed to wet exit and get back in the boat in water over my head.  By the time the spray skirt was back in place there was about 3-4″ of water in the boat and it was a real challenge to remain upright.  A bilge pump would have been handy and the paddle should provide enough stability to use it.

Aside from my legs falling asleep Saturday everything went well and we had a good time. Hopefully Kurt will post a short review of my Sea Tour . Many thanks to Kurt for the tips on bracing and preparing to roll.

I managed to get a few good pictures through the vinyl of a dry bag.

I learned a couple more things about my boat. The most important item to tackle now is a narrower coaming. It’s too easy to get unseated and pop the skirt off with the current setup. Second and nearly as important are some improvements to the seat to reduce the pressure points and keep my legs from falling asleep.

I’m stopping by Home Depot tonight for another LDPE tube and will get a bit more serious about using heat to make it hold it’s shape. I’m shooting for 18×28 inches this time.