Skin on Frame Hatches

Here are some details of the hatch setup I put in my new kayak. Its my own design, and man was there a lot of futzing while I figured things out.

This first shot shows the frame assembly, its basically two glue-lam rings that nest. I just cut out a couple ovals out of MDF and wrapped it with 2mm spruce strips. The inner ring has a few extra strips added to make a large flange on top, as well as a thick center stringer on the off chance that my split deck stringers fail and the hatch gets subjected to compression force. Dimensions are 8x10" for the opening. I tapered the inner ring so it would locate easier into the outer. The extra line of holes was from an early plan to fully wrap the hatch with fabric, which would have messed with the clearance.

Sewing the hatch, the first attempt I wrapped the fabric over the ring, and down the hole, it resulted in some serious clearance issues, so here I am just saddle stitching it to the side of the ring. Later it will be trimmed, rolled over, and whip stitched.

I covered the hatch with the same skin as the hull, you get some wrinkles on the underside of the flange, but it doesn't matter as they will be hidden by the gasket.

I trimmed the fabric on the hatch flush with the inner corner. You have to watch out for any large ripples as they may affect the clearance with the inner ring. I ended up using a soldering iron to melt down a few lumps that got in the way.

This is the finished hatch in its open state. The gasket material is EPDM rubber weatherstripping(the same stuff as car door seals). I put one strip on the hatch, and a second on the rim just for extra water tightness. I first tried closed cell foam weatherstripping, but found it took too much force to compress and didn't give a satisfactory seal, it also made the hatch look like an inverse Oreo. You can also see that I put on a latigo idiot strap so I wont lose my hatch at the beach.

And the hatch closed and secured. I used two latigo strap loops, one on each side, each has a slider, and one has a toggle. Its set up so that you can just barely loop the strap over the toggle. If you make it too loose the hatch wont seal properly. If you make it tight, you can pick the boat up by the hatch and it wont move at all. If I was doing it again I would make the toggle overhang a little less.

Launch of the New kayak

Took the complete new kayak out for a quick spin in Lake Okanagan. I am pretty happy with the performance, nice and stable, tons of room inside. I notice it takes more effort to paddle than my 14' boat, probably just because of the increased hull friction, or I messed up the shape. Its not too bad though. I need to redo the hatches some, with the current system I am using a closed cell foam gasket and it takes too much force to cinch it tight.
The decklines are made of latigo, with walnut sliders, and mystery hardwood balls to keep the lines off the deck so I can grab them easier.

Completed Frame and Saran Test

Got the frame of my new Aleut Baidarka done, and I am pretty happy with it. Took it out for its maiden voyage on an seasonably chilly April day, though just with a cling wrap skin.

Dimensions are 16.5' long, 21" beam, 14.5" deep from bottom of keel stringer to top of cockpit at masik. Materials are:

• Lumberyard spruce for the gunwales, deck and keel stringers (I scored an awesome beat up 2x10x14' that was nasty in the middle but perfect on the edges)
  
• Willow and dogwood ribs
• Sitka spruce bow and stern assemblies
• Pine hull stringers (Thanks Don!)
• Red cedar floorboards
  
• Glue-lam deck beams, coaming, and hatches. (made of fir, spruce and pine. Stuck together with PL Premium
  

The deck beams are all mortise and tenon, I found it gives more lateral flex in the gunwales. The hatches are added in by cutting the deck stringer, putting in two bridge stringers to take the force and support the hatch, and adding a round coaming and a plug hatch.
Oh and the gap in the floorboards is so I can drop a bilge pump beside the keel stringer.

Bow Valley and Balance Stools.

How time flies in the mountains. Its a rough life, the shot to the right was taken on a little lump of rock on the shoulder of Sulphur Mountain, just a short walk from town. You can see the river where I spent my summer on the right side of the frame, the pond on the other side of the trees is the Sundance Canyon Marsh.

I have started work on my next kayak, its going to be another Aleutian Baidarka. Same basic design as my last one, but this version is going to have some improvements. I am lengthening it by about three feet, bringing it more in line with the originals. I am going to be adding hatches, full deck lines, and a lot more safety features than my last boat. Pictures of the progress to come soon.

I have also been working on a blog for my friend Don Gardner, got a bunch of pictures scanned and uploaded of his previous work; canoes, kayaks, bows, atlatls, even a birchbark mini skirt. Its still under construction, but have a look.


I also made up a quick and simple Greenland Balance stool, so I can keep my core in quasi okay shape until the rivers thaw. Basic idea is to take a couple 12" long 2x6s cut a rocker in the bottom with about 1.5" of rise, slap a 2x4 on top to join the two, and rig up a seat and a foot rest. I felt fancy so I cut a slot for the 2x4 so it sat flush with the top. Only downside to that was that it dropped the seat by an inch and a half, so its a little on the easy side right now. I plan to plane the rockers down some to increase the degree of difficulty.

Lantern Boat

After looking at how well the sun shone through the skin of my kayak, I got to figuring that the same thing would work in reverse at night. So I placed a couple LED lanterns inside the boat, fore and aft of the cockpit, then took it out on the Bow River after sunset. The effect was quite interesting, a nice soft glow that didn't cast any glare, so I could still see the stars above. Also it fortunately didn't seem to attract as many insects as I would have thought. I think for next time I need more lights, and also need to place them further down the hull.

More Kayak Photos

Thought I should post some more shots of my finished kayak.

This is the view from the inside looking forward, those of you who have done too much study on kayaks may notice that the ribs have a slightly different profile than standard, I flattened and widened the bottom section, and made the curve up more abrupt. This was to increase the stability of the boat, and give me more cargo space inside.

And the view to the stern. One thing I have been noticing that I thought was interesting, is that despite the increase stability I can still lean the boat easily to one side or the other with my hips, and essentially park it over with the cockpit almost in the water, yet it stays comfortably there.

Shot of the cockpit, and rear deck line. I decided to just install the aft deck line at first, use it for a while, and figure out what works best before installing the fore-deck line. I am using carved yellow cedar for my toggles. I have to say that wow is it a great system, simply slide the toggles to the centre to slacken the lines, slide them to the gunwales to tighten them up. They hold well enough to attach a paddle as an outrigger, and thus avoid some drenchings whilst getting in and out of the boat. Which I suppose is another plus for having a flat rear deck.

Shot of the boat in sun. One thing thats important to note for anyone building one of these with similar materials, every hole, or mark, or dowel thats in the gunwale shows up through the finished skin. Had I realized this I might have tried to make more aesthetic decisions on where to place certain things

Launch

Just put the boat on the water for its first paddle. I decided that it needed somewhere scenic, and somewhere with water that was somewhat shallow just in case. The place chosen was the second Vermilion Lake in Banff, which clocks in on the depth-o-meter at about 1-2ft.

I rounded up about 10 people from the Centre, and my Father and Girlfriend from Calgary, and headed down in the evening. I named the boat Carina in a small ceremony, toasted it with ginger ale, and hopped in.

The initial impressions on the boat are great, plenty of secondary stability, and just enough primary stability to avoid feeling alarming. Seems to handle well, enough rocker so you can spin it within its own length, and yet still tracks well and glides beautifully.
Once thing I have noticed is that the weight balance seems to be a bit aft, so the bow section tends to rise up out of the water, especially when I paddle it hard. I think I am going to just get in the habit of shoving gear in the front to balance it out.

Final weight on the boat came it at a hair over 35 pounds, with the balance point sitting right under the front cockpit deck beam. You can pick the boat up like a briefcase with one hand and it stays level. I don't think I could do that again deliberately, but if one could its a really nice feature.

After paddling around by myself for a bit I let a few of the spectators take the boat out for a spin, everyone seemed to really enjoy it, and it was a good test on how stable the boat was, especially with people who haven't kayaked very much in the past. No one got wet, so I guess the boat passed the test.

Oh, and the ever important shot of yes it sits and stays on the car, which is actually kind of a hard thing when the rear deck is lower than the front, and the front is heavily peaked. I stick it with the roof rack right on the forward deck beam, and right under the cockpit rim bracing.

Thanks to my Father, Bruce, for taking all the photos.

Skinning the boat

Got the skin on and finalized. Found out it sews pretty easily, I used the skinboats.org method, where I sewed a bit of the bow on, took it off and sewed the stern about 4 inches too short, and stood on the boat to pull it on. It seemed to tension the hull nicely and made it pretty easy to do the sewing down the deck.
The method for the deck was to do a running stitch first, putting the needle in about half inch from where they come together when tight, then using that inch to let you draw up that last bit of slack.I found that starting from the centre and working towards the ends is a great concept, as by the time you get to the tips the fabric is pretty much on its bias so it stretches easily.

One important note, the stern is harder than the bow, which seems counter intuitive but those last two darts to pull the fabric in were painful.

Once I had the running stitch down the hull I then trimmed the fabric with a hot knife to 3/4", and rolled the ends under, holding them in with a final X stitch down all seams. A curved upholstery needle makes this process much less painful.

I decided to go fancy and actually wrap the fabric along the side of the cockpit, over the top and down the inside, as opposed to the Greenland style floating cockpit. I liked the solidity of the rigidly braced cockpit rim for car topping and entrys off the rear deck. It turns out to not be as scary a process as I thought, just drill the holes in the rim and use a thick thread to pull the skin in tight to it. The nylon stretches enough that it pulls through without a wrinkle, the only hard part was pulling the inside cut edge up and over to form my rolled seam, I ended up having to use a few clamps to hold it up as I sewed it. Oh, and of course the fun part was trying to remember where all the holes were drilled and find then with the needle. Flashlights help.

After that it was drum tight, but to get rid of some awkward wrinkles on the bow, stern, and cockpit I simply wet the skin and cooked the water off with a heat gun. So if you are building your own, don't panic about the large overlapping wrinkle that doesn't go away how much you pull it tighter, it will all work out. Oh, and about the warnings you read about the drips of water staining your hull, they aren't kidding. It doesn't show up until the polyurethane. If I was doing it again and I had drips I would probably try to wet the whole hull evenly.

Talisman

Every boat needs a talisman, heres the little blind helmsman I installed just in front of the stern fin. He is carved out of yellow cedar, and then coated with a mixture of linseed oil, beeswax and red iron oxide. The oxide is a bit of a homage to the traditional Aleut kayaks, which had their whole frames painted with it.

Saran Wrap and Weigh In

Took the boat out for a preliminary spin in the river tonight before I started putting on the final skin. To test it I wrapped the whole thing with plastic wrap about 4 layers thick, and then cut a hole through the cockpit so I could sit in it. The people at the pool didn't want me testing it there so I took it out to the Bow River, where I had a small audience of people by the canoe docks.
After popping it in the water, and struggling into the cockpit (note to self for the future, my legs are long). I discovered that the boat handles great, tons of stability and I can still lean it all the way over so the cockpit is just about in the water and it stays nice and stable, seems pretty fast too, even with the saran wrap scooping up water as I went. I had about 3 or four minutes before it started to fill up alarmingly with water.
Found out on the exit that the cockpit is way tighter than my last boat, couldn't get my leg out and ended up rolling it over right next to the shore, I got wet, people clapped, then I had to cut a large slit in the bow to let all the water out. I think once I get my deck lines on I can rig up a paddle brace for getting in and out since I have to sit on the back deck to make it happen.
Also managed to weigh the frame, it came it at right around 30lbs, so I am pretty happy.

Aleut Kayak - Frame

So I got the frame finalized for my new Kayak. This project was started last year, though all I got done was drilling the gunwales for the ribs. Now that I am at the Banff Centre I realized that I now have access to a full woodshop, which is a nice improvement over hand tools and a drill press.

I got the idea to build the Kayak from my friend Don Garder, he was looking at my Porcupine sculpture and commenting on how much it was built like a Kayak. I started doing a bunch of research, reading books at the Glenbow, and looking through a lot of websites, a bunch of which I am including at the bottom of this post. The plans I got from Wolfgang Brinck's page, where he has some loose drawings of a 14' baidarka that intrigued me.

The materials used are regular mystery spruce for the gunwales (pulled out of a lumberyard as a 16 foot 2x4 after 3 hours of searching) and deck beams. Willow for the ribs (gathered from a swamp, I am making a note to wear rubber boots next time). Fir for the keel stringer and hull stringers. And a really nice hunk of sitka spruce for the bow and stern blocks that was probably originally destined for a life as a guitar. The whole thing is lashed together with 90# polyester sail-makers twine, which I was able to order from a nice local yacht shop. The cockpit rim was laminated from strips of fir using an obscene amount of pl premium construction adhesive.

The whole thing went together fairly smoothly, that is once I finally understood that I was building my first boat, and that I was going to make a lot of mistakes, but that those mistakes were okay. Its a bit of a letting go process for someone trained as a Jeweller, where you meticulously plan everything before starting.

Useful sites:
Kayak Building Bulletin Board - Tons of posts and a huge archive of almost every problem that comes up.
Greenland Kayaking Forum - The name says it all
Baidarka Mailing List - Now defunct, the traffic has gone to the kayak building board, but still maintained as an archive.
Artic Kayaks - David Zimmerly's page, has some great historical photographs and lines of museum kayaks.
Traditional Kayaks - Harvey Golden's page, has a large selection of photographs of various replicas he has built.
Yostworks - Information on various folding kayak designs
Skinboats - The company where I ordered my skin and urethane from, has tons of helpful video tutorials on sewing and coating.