Strip Sea Kayak

Ruth has written a few times about Aubrey and my project to build a sea Kayak.   Here is the earliest post that I could find with a mention of the Kayak in it. from the first days we starting planning it back in May, 2012.   Then there was the skeleton that everything is built on and finally one from 10 months ago

First, one has to get a picture of the odds of building a double sea kayak from scratch.   We started by reading a great book about the subject.   Then we modified a plan for a single kayak and made it a double kayak.   Ours is 20 feet 4 inches long and will have plenty of space for a dry hatch or two and some room for two passengers.   We will have a rudder in the rear and we will design our own paddles.   But that’s not all.   You can’t just run to Home Depot or Lowes and buy the pre-finished wood from off the shelf.   You have to go the the saw mill and pick through piles of wood to make sure that your pieces are somewhat the right grain and the right weight and the fewest knot holes and the straightest.   Then you have to take it home and let it dry because it’s usually freshly cut.   So after 4 to 6 weeks of drying its good enough to finally run through a thickness planner a few times to knock off the high points of the board that has been cut by a rough saw.   Then you cut the board into tiny strips about 1/2 thick to begin with.   Then you run those through the thickness planner again until they are about 3/8ths or less in thickness.   Then we chose to put a cove and bead edge on the small side of the 2 cm wide strips of wood.   All of that was proceeded by about 25 hours of drawing, cutting and shaping forms for putting those strips on.   Before we put the first strip on the Kayak we had nearly 45 hours into the project.  

Keep in mind that I travel about 100 days+ per year and I only work on Sunday’s and for an hour or two during the weeks that I’m not traveling and when Aubrey is not overwhelmed with homework at Hillcrest International school.   So I’m not feeling to bad when the 80 pieces of wood that have been glued and stapled or nailed onto the frame have taken us more than a year to get to the half way point.   But from others experience the first half takes more than the second half to strip because you’ve learned a lot by that point.   The average strip built single Kayak takes 300+ hours for a first timer like us and about 150+ hours for the second time around.   Is it a wonder that I’ve heard them being sold for as high as $11,000 for one in Europe? 

 

The first half completed.   After the second half is completed with the cockpits we will take the boat off the skeleton and sand and plan and fill any small holes then fiberglass it.

The Bottom side currently before a good sanding.