Kayak project - long

OBROFF: If you wanted to, you could fly fish from this boat. Pix on abpf.



Call it a confluence of simmering desire, availability of space, confidence
in the outcome, and serendipity. I'd always thought having a kayak would be
great. Sure, I've been paddling the family around for years in the large
barge of a canoe we own (Discovery 174); but a kayak - a sleek, sporty,
double bladed sexy kayak - *that* would be cool. Like so many of my
desires, however, the reality of the cost was a bucket of cold water.



I'd beaten that hurdle in my fly fishing acquisitions by building my own
rods. Lots of time, but less initial cost.



Like rod building, though, saving money was a relative concept. Just as I
could easily buy rods for less than it cost me to build one; the benefit was
that I could build a better rod on a better blank for not much more. So
went my theory on a self-built kayak. I simply didn't like what I could
afford, and couldn't afford what I liked. I don't remember how or when the
light bulb went on; but it dawned on me that I might be able to build the
kayak I wanted with the budget I had.



Somewhere along the way, I stumbled across the website of a stitch & glue
kit supplier, who, by coincidence, was not too far from my house. Their
website photos of finished boats were beautiful, and the real things in the
showroom were better. A little cajoling of SWMBO, and I decided to build
one for #1 son. Maybe I'd get to play with it too. To be honest, I'd hoped
to build two simultaneously, but clearly that was too big a bite for the
first time. Being the adventurous, handy, and cheapskate type, I opted to
build from plans and save a couple hundred off the kit price. I'm a smart
guy & can loft the pieces. I have more time than money. I don't need no
steenkin' kit.



A trip to Annapolis with the roof rack and the checkbook and we're soon on
our way home with several sheets of French-made Okouma plywood that cost
more than a case of champagne. The couple gallons of epoxy rival the
plywood. Still, for only about $500, I have most of the makings of a nice
17' touring kayak. Let the sawdust begin. We have 5 weeks until we leave
for Maine.



Remarkably, and to make a long story shorter, almost every facet of the
project went as planned, from lofting to cutting, stitching, epoxying,
glassing, and finishing. I almost never threw a tool. It was a lot of work
and a lot of time, but we worked at it steady, together, every evening, long
days on the weekends. We made a few minor first-timer goofs, but nothing
permanent and nothing catastrophic. In fact, the one issue where I thought
I was smarter than the plans, I was right. By taking a more
material-efficient approach to laying out the pieces, I had enough extra
plywood to recut a serious F-up later.



The hull took shape quickly; that was the easy part. It was all of the
small tedious stuff that seemed to take forever. And sanding. And more
sanding. And more.you get the picture. As the deadline approached, math
came into play. Needing X number of coats of epoxy, paint, & varnish and Y
days available for curing & drying, it was looking as though we would get
enough finish coats applied, albeit a few less than we wanted. Fine; we'll
do the rest when we get back. The hatches got one coat, the deck hardware
got screwed on, and she was beautiful.



She came out of the garage and went right on the roof rack for the trip
north; and her maiden voyage was on Brassua Lake, Maine. For the rest of
the week, he had an absolute blast tooling around Brassua, Moosehead, and
Prong Pond. On windier days, he surfed the swells on the lake then paddled
back upwind for more. On calm days, we explored quiet coves, trekked across
lakes, poked into marshes. Kayak is good.

Joe F.