Specs on our Finished Kayaks

Length (bow to stern): Appr. 17 ft
Beam (width from outside of gunwales): 21 in.
Depth: Bow - 10.5 in., Stern - 6.5in.
Rocker: 1-2 in.
Estimated Weight: 40 lbs
Hatches (our own modification): 2, bow & stern
Deck Material: Pine
Rib Material: Oak & Ash
Frame Sealant: Clear Marine Varnish
Skin Material: 8.9 oz Nylon
Skin Sealant: Urethane

We have built Kayaks!

June 21, 2010

With only 5 days until our scheduled departure for Superior Dream we tested our kayaks for the very first time in water.  With our editors working the cameras we were joined by some family, friends and a photographer from the White Bear Press as we christened them in White Bear Lake.

After almost 2 months of building our own Greenland Skin On Frame kayak, it is a success story!  They float!  And that in itself is pleasing and reassuring to us.  However, we also discovered that they have very low initial stability and that despite us having a confident roll we are unable to recover in a capsize.  

We'll paddle every day, and often, up until we leave in between finalizing lots of details.  Our hope is to become comfortable in them for when we get on Lake Superior.  It's a lot more serious than WB Lake, not to mention colder.  Hopefully by then we'll not only be able to roll them too, but roll them loaded down with all of our gear.

We'll go back and put the last few building updates on here also.  It's been a crazy couple of weeks.  

Kayak Building, Modifications

June 2, 2010

A few days ago when we had the kayaks out in the yard and were taking some measurements for placing our rudder tracks inside the cockpit I discovered an error in my kayak.  I can't figure out where exactly I went wrong but somehow my highest curved deck beam was situated directly over my knee caps instead of just behind them.  

This high beam serves as the knee bar for us to wedge our knees up against and leverage against.  Plus, besides losing that advantage, it meant my legs had to be stretched straight instead of slightly bent (which allows a paddler to spread their center of balance out to become more stable).  That, and the bar was right on top of my knee cap which isn't comfortable at all.

With the original deck beam (dark) still in place above look at how my legs can bend differently when removed below.

So after a bit of discouragement, I set out to fix the problem.  It meant I had to remove the original beam and replace it with a new one, positioned further back.  

It turned out to be not that daunting of a process at all.  I did this last night and installed it this morning.  I'm very happy to report it feels great!

I made it a bit higher than the previous one too which makes getting in/out of the kayak a bit easier too.  Now I just need to install new deck stringers to connect with the others and then varnish the new additions.

We've also been finishing up our other after market additions, mainly our hatches.  Mine our drying after a couple coats of varnish.  Later today I hope to have my foot tracks installed too.  Cross your fingers, it isn't looking like they want to fit very well based on the size and design of our kayaks.  I hope it can be a relatively smooth process.

Kayak Building, Day 11 & 12

May 28, 2010

To our surprise, designing our own hatches took a full day.  And we're still not done with them.  We do however know what we are going to do for them and just need to finish one each, the larger stern one. 

 

We are building slightly different styles but with the same two ideas in mind: strength and function.  We want them to keep water out and to be able to withstand the pressure of straps holding down the hatch covers. 

 

That was day 11, on day 12 we spent the whole day applying 3 coats of marine varnish to the entire frame.  After it has a full 24 hours to dry we'll lash our hatches into place and hope that our rudders have arrived to install the foot track on the inside of the cockpit.  After that, we can skin our kayaks whenever our nylon shows up.

To allow the boats to dry they will sit untouched today while we travel up to Duluth with one of our editors, Katie, to ride on and film the lift bridge over the canal.  This will give us a chance to introduce her to our friend Dave Costello who will be soundtracking our film with his music and to show Katie our departure day plans and locations.

We also installed the breasthooks on both ends to transition the two gunwales and the stems smoothly.

Time Spent Both Days: 14 hrs

Total Time Spent: 79 hrs

What's Next: letting the varnish dry and installing the hatches and foot tracks for the rudder

Day 10, The Frame Looks Done!

May 24, 2010

But it's not.  Close though.  Today we walked into the garage, our shop, feeling really good about these boats.  Our eyes were greeted with the sight of two hand crafted wooden framed kayaks. With the ribs in place and the center keelson lashed down, it'd be hard to mistaken them for anything else.  Except for maybe an elongated bird cage.

First we shaped our hull stringers, one on each side of the keelson running the length of the hull from bow to stern.  After shaping and clamping them into place we again took to the mason's line and lashed them to every rib.  Finally, we lashed the two stringers together to pinch in the ends onto the bow and stern stems.

Hmm.  Now they really look like sturdy kayaks.  We brought them out into the yard for their first glimpse of sun and saddled up.  We wanted to feel the size and shape of the cockpit.  We also wanted to pretend we were already paddling them across the short expanse of grass, wavy green blades and all.

Out in the sun we fitted, cut and doweled our deck stringers.  Two just behind the cockpit for sitting on and two running down the bow directly in front of the cockpit.  One of our longest days of work so far - and it felt like it - partly because of the 90 degree temps and humidity.  As our last effort of the night, we weighed them.  

Greg's boat: 29 lbs.  Luke's boat: 30 lbs.

Time Spent Today: 10.5 hrs

Total Time Spent: 65 hrs

What's Next: Install the breasthooks on the bow and stern, build the hatches.

Day 9, Bending and Lashing

May 23, 2010

The ribs are done!  Steaming and bending them has been the most challenging part of building these kayaks up until now.  The steam box worked well, just finding the right wood, or rather getting the wood to work with us instead of against.  Finally though, we put the last (with the tightest bends) of our ribs in place.  With all of them fit into their respective mortises we only needed to put a few shims in so that the keelson is supported by each rib.

After that, we made sure our keelson was centered and then used our mason's line to lash it to the ribs the entire length of the kayak.  

Time Spent Today: 6 hrs

Total Time Spent: 54.5 hrs

What's Next: Cutting, carving and lashing the two hull stringers on either side of the keelson

Day 8, Steaming & Bending Ribs

May 22, 2010

After a delayed start and along with the help of Ron and Chuck (our dads), we were able to rip down the trunk of an Ash tree (thanks Tom and Sandie Fish!) that Greg felled the previous day.  The original Oak ribs we had been soaking and tried steaming on two previous occasions only yielded 8 ribs and so after nearly a week and a half of our kayaks going untouched we decided to try our luck with totally "green" wood.

After ripping them to size, they went into a hot water bath for the time being.  From there we plucked one at a time, measured it to fit a given set of mortises and placed it into the steam box.

One at a time they came out and got bent into place, clamped, and started to dry.

After setting for a bit, we marked our cuts on each one to fit exactly, quickly removed and made the cuts, then shaved of the ends slightly and put them back into place.  

We still had broken ones, especially as you work down towards the bow and stern where the bends get a lot tighter.  None the less, we were impressed with the capability of our Ash to actually make those bends.  

Time Spent Today: 8 hrs

Total Time Spent: 48.5 hrs

What's Next: Finish the ribs, then lash them to the keelson.

Day 7 of Kayak Building

May 3, 2010

Today we cut and shaped both our 16 foot keelson and stems.  The keelson runs the entire length of the bottom of the boat (similar to a keel which is on the outside, our keelson will be on the inside of the skin) and will give the kayak 1-2 inches of rocker (how much it will rock back and forth from bow to stern if placed on flat ground).  The stems are added on each end of the kayak, adding length to the gunwales and giving our kayak it's full length (which we actually haven't measured yet!).

To place the keelson we had to add temporary spacers on deck beam numbers 1, 7, and 11.  The bow of these kayaks have much more volume than the stern, 10 inches from the top of the gunwale to the keelson in the bow slinking down to roughly only 6 inches in the stern.  This has us think about storage space...

Once we finished this we got all of our oak ribs ripped and soaking in water, where they will remain for 3 days.  In the mean time we're taking a few days off to work on some other SD related stuff, which at the moment there is a lot.

Time Spent Today: 5 hrs

Total Time Spent: 40.5 hrs

What's Next:  Once the ribs have soaked for 3 days we'll start steaming and bending them into place.

Day 6 of Kayak Building

May 2, 2010

With everything doweled, planed and lashed the deck is almost done. All that was still needed was a couple coats of varnish to seal and protect it so that we can paddle these kayaks long after our circumnavigation ends.  We ended up doing 2 coats of clear marine varnish yesterday which darkened the wood slightly and makes it look awfully attractive.

Today we are granting it a full 24 hour drying period by taking the day off.  We picked up wood for our stems on either end of the kayak and our keelson and will wait until the morning to take on a new week of kayak building.  Fresh and ready to move onto Part 4 of 7.  

Time Spent Today: 2 hrs

Total Time Spent: 35.5 hrs

What's Next: Stripping our 16 ft keelson and cutting our stems that attach to the risers on each end of the kayak.  This will give the boats their full length and bottom.

Kayak Building, Day 4

April 29, 2010

We returned from Duluth this afternoon after seeing our friends from Full Circle Superior off on their hike around Lake Superior.  This meant a half day of work on our boats and a portion of that was spent replacing two broken arched deck beams.  The inward pressure of the windlasses snapped Greg's high arch deck beam and when we were hammering the first dowel into mine it also snapped, both of them in the same place.

I'm not happy with my broken deck beam...

We finally got most of these gaps closed.

We managed to pull the angle of the gunwales into place and closed the gap on most of the deck beams and then started doweling our deck beams into place.  

Greg hammering in dowels to his deck beams.

Time Spent Today: 3.5 hrs

Total Time Spent: 27.5 hrs

What's Next: Finish doweling, then planing the upper edges of the gunwales and lashing the deck beams and gunwales.

Deck Beams on Day 3

April 27, 2010

We tacked in all of the deck beams to our gunwales today.  9 straight ones and 2 curved ones over the front of the cockpit.  The straight ones went fairly quickly and the 2 curved ones just needed some extra measuring and design to get right.

After tacking them into place with penny nails, we then attached 6 windlasses around the gunwales from bow to stern and tightened each one, one turn at a time, hoping to pull the gunwales into a 25 degree angle to meet the ends of each deck beam flush.  

Doing so is more difficult than it looks and we're hoping if we add a few more windlasses we can pull the entire length of the gunwale into position.  As of right now the extreme ends won't turn for us.  If we can get them to, then we'll remove the nails and dowel each deck beam in.

Time Spent Today: 9 hrs

Total Time Spent: 24 hrs

What's Next: Dowel in the beams and stain the entire deck.

Kayak Construction Day 2

April 26, 2010

Our second full day of building our skin on frame kayaks went fairly smoothly.  A few steps took unexpectedly longer and in the end we didn't finish putting all the deck beams in like we had planned. Instead, we spent some more time on a few details.  

Our favorite moment so far was when we removed the nails holding the two gunwales together and spread them into the shape of a kayak deck.  We got a good look at the typical quick tapering of the bow and the gentler tapering stern which will have much more storage room. We will be putting hatches and bulkheads into our boats and it will be interesting to see how much room each compartment ends up with.

A run down of the days progress: this morning we started by drilling all our mortises where the bottom ribs will go.  Next we looped the bow and stern together and inserted three temporary spreaders, one at center and one each on the ends.  Then we lined up the bow and stern and took a hand saw through the seam to smooth where they meet.  Finally, we drilled and hammered in dowels to attach the bow and stern of the gunwale together.  

Total time spent today: 8 hrs

Total time spent overall: 15 hrs

What's next: we are ready to put on the deck beams now.

Kayak Construction Has Begun

April 25, 2010

The gunwales have been shaped!  We started this morning by making our first run to the lumber yard.  From there we arranged the garage with our laptops, music and tools and started building our kayaks.  

We spent a lot of time measuring ourselves and transferring those numbers onto the gunwales, marking our deck beam and rib placements, where we intend to put our hatches, and installing the risers on both the bow and the stern.  We fixed them in place with dowels and shaped them together.  It was pleasing to both of our eyes to see the subtle shape of a kayak hull being revealed just by adding the slight curves on each end.  

We are both feeling really good about tackling this component of Superior Dream by this method.  As we feel with all things related to the expedition, by being flexible and open to something going other than how we originally planned, our potential becomes even higher.  

Good feelings about these boats and the fantastic workspace we have to get them built.

Total hours spent: 7 hrs

What's Next: deck beams, among other things...