Design

I want a canoe. I love kayaks and the Nymph canoe is great fun, but there are time when my wife Robin and I want to hop into a boat after dinner and go for a relaxing paddle. And for a simple no-nonsense paddle there is really nothing like a canoe. A canoe lets you slide the boat in, pull on a life jacket and get going. A kayak or double paddle canoe will usually involve a certain expectation of getting wet, if only from the paddle dripping on your lap so it usually involves a little more pre and fuss.

Something Awfully Familiar

A few months back I saw an image on Facebook that looked familiar. It was an early rendering of the Tahe/Zegul Marine "Baidarka":

I'll be making a presentation at the Connyak April meeting. I've been asked to talk about kayak design. The goal is to help people who want to design their own boat as well as give guidance to people who are buying boats and want to have some tools for evaluating designs

I recently took on the task of designing and building a skin-on-frame kayak in the Greenland Inuit style. "Designing" a SOF kayak before building isn't really the traditional way. Typically they are built to traditional measurements based on an anthropometric measuring system i.e. using hands, hips, arm spans etc. as measurement units. These basic measurements may be tweaked based on the builders experience, making a wider/narrower or longer/shorter as needed by the user.

I was talking to John Harris at Chesapeake Light Craft last fall. As the conversation wandered around various boats and projects we were working on, it became apparent that we each had some issues that we might be able help each other with. I had some designs that I had not had the time to develop usable plans and instructions for, and he had a demand for some boats that he didn't have time to develop designs for.

Don't let the "sea" in "sea kayak" intimidate you. Kayaks designed to work on saltwater will work just fine on fresh water. If you are paddling on a large body of water where the wind can get strong and you get waves, a sea kayak is probably exactly what you want. If you are paddling on a small pond or very sheltered water, take a look at recreational kayaks. A sea kayak will be more efficient for covering long distances, a recreational kayak will be more maneuverable for exploring in small areas.

These plans are product of Nick's years of boating experience and extensive research into what makes boats work. Each design starts out as an idea spawned on the water. Time out in boats will suggest how a boat could be tailored to perform better in specific conditions. The idea may be for something that works better poking into a salt marsh or for dropping down the wave face of hurricane surf. Inspirations for solutions come from traditional Inuit and Aleut kayaks as well as more contemporary powerboats and sailboats.

First time builders with no woodworking experience have built just about all of the designs you will find here. But some designs are easier than others. What makes a strip-built design easy to build will be smooth, gentle curves, and a sectional shape with the smallest hollow or concave regions.

The Great Auk family of designs has simple curves and a straight forward shape which minimizes the complication of building.

Within this group of designs you will find a variety of kayaks suitable for different paddling desires. If you want a small recreation kayak or a longer sea kayak, this family probably has something to fit your needs.