NSC - Building Sea Kayaks

The two kayaks hanging in the club lounge are custom cedar strip sea kayaks built to the "Cape Ann Storm" plan from One Ocean Kayaks. They were built over the past year (about Sept01 to June02) and what follows are a few notes on their construction. The construction has three major steps -- build hull and deck by gluing the wood strips together, cover with fiberglass and epoxy, then varnish and outfit. There are innumerable sub-steps, providing ample opportunity to pause, consume a glass or two, and contemplate how or whether, to continue.

Hull and Deck

The cedar strips are 1/4" thick and 1/2 to 3/4" wide. The edges are milled with a bead and cove, allowing for some curvature when glued together. The mix of western red and Alaska yellow cedar (about 1500 linear feet per kayak) was bought from Classic Boat Kits. We also had the form built by Classic as they were set up to do a better job then us on this critical piece.

The usual technique is to bend the strips to the form and staple in place while gluing, which leaves a lot of staple holes to be filled. The picture shows a few other techniques.

We went with what we knew, clamps, shock cords and duct tape to hold the strips together while the glue dried. And you can never have too many clamps. This was all done over the winter in Scott's basement.

 And we did pre-plan how to get them out, sort of. 

Hull and deck are built as separate units. The deck pattern is created by either mixing dark and light strips as they are assembled or, by cutting a hole in the assembled deck and fitting in a pattern.

Then comes the belt sander (really!) and the fairing boards. You sand, and sand, and sand.

Glassing

Once the hull and deck are fair, seams filled, etc., fiberglass and epoxy are applied to both sides. This sandwich construction provides the rigidity and strength. We used a mix of 4 and 6 oz. cloth and West System Epoxy with the 207 hardener. The light cloth with the pricey hardener is transparent so that you see only the underlying wood grain. The next picture shows a second layer abrasion patch being applied to the bottom.

 

The next main step is epoxy the hull and deck together, however there are a host of "small" but time-consuming tasks to do before taking that leap. The hatches must be cut out (take a jig saw to that gorgeous epoxy surface!!!) and the hatch support lip built, the cockpit combing built and applied, bow and stern strengthened, etc. While the outside looks good we don't much care what the inside looks like.

We chose a flush hatch design and designed a custom hold down mechanism (shock cords, of course). The combing was another deviation from the plan in that we used laminated walnut strips instead of the fiberglass combing specified. The results were worth the extra effort. 

Joining hull and deck is the last, and worst, exercise with the epoxy. An epoxy soaked glass tape must be rolled onto the inside seam right to the ends. You stick your head and shoulders through that little hatch at the front .....

 

After glassing comes another long session with the sander - a really dirty bit of work. The epoxy looks great, but is not very smooth so it must be re-faired. Basically sand off most of the stuff we spent so much effort putting on.

 

Varnish

The epoxy has no UV tolerance so would degrade quickly in sunlight. We used  Z Spar Flagship Varnish (5 coats, so far) to provide the UV protection. Most of our time was spent in creating a dust free environment.

 

 

Other Stuff

The rudders are also custom design as we were not enthused by the commercial products. They tend to be bulky looking with a mess of lines running across the deck. We built the rudder blades from cedar and walnut and the hardware is stainless (from Cohen's). There are no deck lines, only a single hidden pull-down line that releases if the rudder hits an obstruction.

The pedal hardware was commercial, from Yakima. The two bulkheads were glassed cedar strip -- these were the first things we assembled and glassed as we used them to practice our glassing and varnishing techniques. For seats we use 2 lb foam Lawn tractor replacement seats from Princess Auto ($5). Very comfy.

As for the deck design,  many glasses were consumed in the debates with our artistic director, who finally gave up on (one of) us after one particular discussion that ended with "no more 'bleeping' diamonds!". The end result is a personality thing .........

We did our first water trial near dark, just in case they didn't float upright.

 

A few weeks after launch we toured the French River area. No sand beaches to be found, so we're on the rocks.

 

The kayaks weigh about 47 pounds and their cruise speed is about 3 knots. They are amazingly stable and handle well in a chop, which is major bonus considering how difficult they are to get back into if you happened to capsize in the middle of the river. We did test our re-boarding skills, closer to shore.

If your asking whether it is worth the time and effort to build your own kayak, we would have to say yes. What other hobby can you think of where you can build a piece of fine furniture that does more than support your favorite glass of wine.it actually floats. With a bit of time and distance, and after the hands have healed, the perspective improves.

Scott Holloway

Phil Wilcox