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On Sale Now!
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One of a Kind
| Shearwater 17 Hybrid |
Bamboo is amazing stuff. Renewable in 5 years, it's used for everything from scaffolding to my granddaughter’s diapers. I built this Eric Schade designed Shearwater 17 Hybrid using the stitch-and-glue process for the hull, and strip-built the deck with 7/8" x 1/8" bamboo strips. I found the bamboo to be much stronger and only slightly harder to work wit h than western red cedar (which renews in about 25 years).
The finished boat is 17' x 22" and weighs 36 lbs.—and thanks to Eric's design, it paddles beautifully. I inlaid the foredeck with burled walnut, ash and bird’s-eye maple in a yin-yang design to speak to the connectedness of our lives to how we use the things in our environment. My kayak was awarded “Best Of Show” at last year's Chesapeake Light Craft Okoumefest, largely due to my choice of material. It is always the center of attention at put-ins. I first paddled my bamboo boat on Earth Day 2009. I urge everyone to incorporate the use of bamboo in their lives. Every little bit helps. |
Jack Jacoby, Miami, FL
JacknLin@aol.com |
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Petrel |
 Here’s my latest strip-built kayak, a Petrel designed by Nick Schade of Guillemot kayaks.
I have built a few of Nick’s designs and this is by far the best. The Petrel is described as a rough-water kayak, and I love rough-water kayaking. For surfing it’s outstanding, very easy to catch a wave, great handling and control while surfing and it punches through the swell and waves with ease. Everybody who tries this kayak is amazed at how good it feels.
If anyone wants to contact me, I’d be happy to talk to them.
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English |
Metric |
Length |
17.0 feet |
5.2 meters |
Beam |
20.0 inches |
50.8 cm |
Waterline Length |
15.0 feet |
4.6meters |
Waterline Beam |
19.9 inches |
50.5 cm |
Design Displacement |
245.0 lbs. |
111.1 kg |
Draft |
4.1 inches |
10.4 cm |
Wetted Area |
20.2 sq. ft |
1.9 sq. m |
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Modified Guillemot Double |
My wife and I have done a lot of canoeing over the years, and decided that we would like to try kayaking to do more lake travel in our area, which has over 50 lakes within a 60 kilometer radius from our home near Perth, Ontario, Canada. We wanted a double kayak that was as light as possible for loading on our car, yet strong and reasonably fast for easy paddling.
Procedures:
I took every possible means to lighten the kayak and so all the fastenings were fabricated out of carbon fiber. For strength, the section below the waterline has a layer of 5 ounce Kevlar over the 1/4 inch Core-cell core, and then a layer of 4 ounce fiberglass over that. The interior of that section below the waterline consists of 5 ounce carbon fiber laid on the Core-cell. So, the portion of the kayak below the waterline has a total of 14 ounces of cloth over the Core-cell. The upper hull also consists of a Core-cell core, but this is only covered with 4 ounce fiberglass inside and out, and only one coat of just enough epoxy to attach the cloth. The cockpit coaming is molded from carbon fiber, as is the rudder mechanism. There are three watertight compartments. A short section of the hull is expanded into a box-like configuration for the rear paddler’s feet, because I found the design did not provide enough space for the steering mechanism and my feet. This box-like extension also serves as a handy “table” for the rear paddler. A removable lid provides access to the steering mechanism that consists of a rotating Core-cell and carbon fiber foot brace that I designed because the commercially available steering mechanisms were too heavy.
The seats were formed by making a custom mold for each paddler, by sitting in the kayak on a heavy-duty garbage bag filled with fast hardening Plaster of Paris. Each Plaster of Paris mold was then trimmed and used to lay up a carbon fibre seat that fits the paddler exactly.
I had hoped that the weight would come out at the 39 pounds I had originally estimated, because that sounds a lot more dramatic than 40, but alas the final weight was almost exactly 40 pounds. My experience is that usually when one attempts new directions on a project like this, the result is somewhat less than perfect. However, this project worked out pretty much perfectly. The boat is strong where it needs to be, comfortable, stable, fast and light—if perhaps one pound heavier than I had hoped!
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Plans: Modified Guillemot double
Length: 25 ft. 6 in.
Width: 21 inches
Weight: 40 lbs.
Materials: 1/4” x 3/4” coved Core-cell strips cut from 4 x 8 ft. sheets.
Aircraft grade epoxy
Carbon fiber (approx. 5 oz.)
Kevlar (approx. 5 oz.)
Fiberglass cloth (4 oz.)
Construction: Winter of 2006
Photograph: 91 km trip along the north shore of Georgian Bay (Lake Huron) from Killarney to Britt, August 2007.
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| Baidarka |
My baidarka is a reproduction of one in the collection of Berkeley’s Hearst (formerly Lowie) Museum of Anthropology. The un-skinned frame had beautifully carved bow and stern pieces. David Zimmerly described the baidarka and its construction in a couple of issues of the long-defunct Small Boat Journal. I also used notes and drawings from John Heath to get the best representation of the original frame.
I used locally collected saplings for the ribs. Gathered in the summer and bent cold with the bark still on, they easily took the curves. After bending each sapling, I stripped the bark and spoke-shaved it to the proper diameter. The curved bow piece and deck beams are cut from yellow cedar crooks. The skin is nylon with a two-part urethane coating obtained from the Skin Boat School http://www.skinboats.org/skinboats/home.html.
The deck lines are latigo (leather) with antler fittings. It’s a tight squeeze getting into the cockpit, but on the water the baidarka is comfortable and fast—I can get close to 7 knots in a sprint. In a following sea the full stern seems to give me a boost to catch the waves. 17’ long, 21.5” wide, 40 pounds. |
Christopher Cunningham
chris@seakayakermag.com |
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