Updated Nov/03
My choice of Stitch and Glue kayak kits. Based on my having built a Roy Folland Sea Wolf (read about below) and a Pygmy Coho, I highly recommend the Pygmy Coho kayak due to the volume of boats sold and for their simplified instruction book, which sparse with illustrations but their telephone support exceeds expectations--I also like the recessed back end of the cockpit for layback rolls and all the fiberglass that goes on the deck inside and out--with bulkheads and hatches it weighs 43 lb. problems with the Sea Wolf, include: not high enough in front for size 11.5 feet, its bow heavy trim (small waves swallow the bow), imperfect hatch cover fit (huge amounts of water leaking in during rolling practice), noisy footbraces, excessively high cockpit which makes you look like the nerd who wears their pants with the belt up at the chest, the cockpit size makes getting in butt first a chore, unlike the easy entry into the Dagger Baja, which I just sold--a great boat despite its 55 lbs). The Sea Wolf, when tilted on edge, turns on a dime, & now has a rudder fixed in straight position for tracking and following seas. My Chesapeake West River 180 still awaits assembly, but it will go faster than the Coho because of the single panel deck. Symposium pearls
Strip built kayak kits/plans: Stitch and Glue kayak kits and plans:
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| West Coast sources for marine plywood: Edensaw woods and Flounder Bay An economical source for epoxy, fiberglass, epoxy fillers (wood flour, silica, etc): Raka East Coast sources for raw materials: Noah's Marine or NewFound Woodworks |
| Building Skin on frame kayaks. Try a book such as Building the Greenland Kayak : A Manual for Its Contruction and Use by Chris Cunningham |
Tips for building a Pygmy Kayak. You'll get to steps entitled:
Kayak Racing
I began kayak racing for the first time ever in 2003, paddling with Marc Tomlinson his SEDA Tango double kayak (21' X 29"), owned by. Marc has raced with me twice. I need (want) to acquire a Chesapeake Sport Tandem for racing. We'd love more paddlers--see Sound rowers. More info on paddles/racing.
Movable Dashboard below:
A unique way of racing the Lake Samish race.
Review the forward stroke with this article from Sea Kayaker Magazine.
Kayak videos and Gear at trailstuff.com
Noah's Marine for paints, wood, epoxy other raw material
Build your own Kayak Cart:
Kayak Cart
Learn about kayaking
South Sound Traditional Inuit Kayak Symposium.
West Coast Sea Kayak Symposium.
performancevideo.com.
| Below, some emails that helped me decide which kayak to buy. Sadly, the only real way to know is to buy one of each and build. some thoughts on buying a kayak by mail order Jim, Decks: Pygmy uses 4 piece decks, i.e., you will count 4 panels from port to starboard; Roy F and Ches use 1 piece decks. I spoke to Roy and he says his decks are not "tortured", i.e., bent in more than one direction to form the deck. Ches does decks the same way. With all but the Pygmy you might expect to do quite a bit of woodworking. Hulls: Roy F uses hard chine hull design only, so if you look at the hull from the front of the boat you see the left hand diagram below.
Go to the Pygmy or CLC site to learn more about hull design. San J boats also have a fixed skeg and graphite mixed in with epoxy on the hull for dragging the boat up on rocks, sand, etc. All four kitmakers provide sheets of fiberglass for the outside of the hull and strips for the joints inside the hull. Pygmy gives you fiberglass sheets for inside the hull and the deck as well--the website tells of a customer's boats falling off a car at highway speed and surviving with only minor damage--a duct tape rescue story. Hulls II: Marine grade plywood comes as 4 mm thick 4x8 ft sheets--any boats worth paddling will eventually exceed that, so the kits come with hull pieces which you must join. Ches uses scarf joints wherein pieces overlap one another--for the joint to end up with the same thickness as the rest of the stock, the edge of the wood at the joint gets cut to eardrum thinness and tapers to 4mm. Pygmy uses butt joints, shoving and gluing the edge of one piece to the edge of the other, and using a piece of wood or fiberglass to reinforce. Roy F uses a finger joint to bring panels together and claims superior strength to any other method. Do these matter during construction? I might find either the butt joins or the finger joins the easier to put together. Do they matter when the boat hits the water? I don't think so. A very knowledgeable kayaker friend said he paddled a 14 foot pygmy and said it was fast! It oughta be at only 32 lb. Still, the extra length of a 17 footer might more than counterbalance the 7 extra lb. the $$ breakdown:
Chesapeake LT17--$699 from Maryland. Chesapeake annually
discounts their boats 10% every fall. |
| --- Jeffrey Wong wrote: Joe, I just ordered the Sea Wolf after having spoken to Dale Beatty, who bought a Thunderbird double from Roy. I made my choice due to the finger joints--probably a stronger joint than the butt joint and scarf joint offered in other kits, but more importantly, an easier and quicker joint if cut precisely. And, when I want a tippy boat, I'll get one from Pygmy. Have you completed construction on your boat? Have you completed painting/varnishing? Have you had your boat in the water, yet? If so, do you feel that the Roy Folland website made good paddle size recommendations (I ask because he > specs a 240 cm paddle for paddlers over 5'8" and my 5'10" paddler friend with his 22" wide boat likes his 214cm paddle) I only needed to know about any hints that I might find helpful, if the instruction book omitted anything. Anything else, I'll just email or phone Roy Folland. I got the impression that Roy would assist in the event that any confusion arose from his instructions. Does the instruction book offer suggestions on painting/varnishing? Jeff |
| From : Joe Mattinson
<joe_mattinson@yahoo.com> To : Jeffrey Wong Congratulations Jeffrey, you haven't gone wrong. The plans are extremely detailed and Roy Folland is very helpful if you ever have any questions. Plus, the boat paddles beautifully. The kayak is very strong; you're right about the interlocking joints. They are precision machined so that when you assemble them they will be perfect and are very strong. The hull and bottom sections are all precision machined as well for a perfect alignment. There are numerous ideas that Roy has incorporated in the kayak design that I was very impressed with.
I've actually built two now, one that I've been paddling
for over a year. I have added a rudder since I first
built it though. I find a rudder is an advantage when the
wind and waves gets heavier. |
Gripes:
Kudos:
Roy expects to have made some design changes by the end of this month.
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23 Nov 2002 Roy, I took my sea wolf for a small lake float today. It still paddles well. I capsized the boat, but for some reason, could not Eskimo roll it--I attributed that to having my skirt up too high and tight making it difficult for me to breathe, bend sideways and flick my hip. After re-entering, the left foot brace fell off the rail--I didn't recall pulling back on the retaining strap, so that baffled me as I slid the brace back on. I put my foot back on the brace and it immediately fell off again. I had either a broken rail or broken brace. Inspecting the brace I found that the plastic had a long crack and had separated from the wood. Not good. Fortunately, I hadn't gone far and could paddle back to shore easily. I might possibly repair this piece with some hardware, epoxy and fiberglass, but stay tuned! I advise mightily beefing up the braces or upgrading the kit's footbrace to either Keepers or Yakima braces. *******************My forward hatch leaked water while I made my Eskimo roll attempts--I had suspected it would because of a mismatch in the curvature of the hatch cover and the foredeck. I relocated my hatch bending jigs & found they matched my hatch covers nicely, but their radius undercut the radius of the hatch opening quite significantly. Quite possibly, no one else has had this problem or no one has ever reported it to you. Regardless, perhaps the instructions might take into account such occurrences as my own. Solutions include:
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| 25 Nov 2002 Jeff. We have had a problem in the area you mentioned with the foot braces. We will send a new set of foot braces that have been cemented properly along with several other changes. Please let me know whether or not there is any damage to the wooden tracks. We'll also send the hatch cover and doubler. Fortunately they have not been much of a problem. However they haven't been perfect. Several builders have solved the problem by using a thicker gasket. We supply 1/4" thick gasket that can be replaced with a 3/8" thick gasket. The material we use is closed cell neoprene weather stripping. The 3/8" thick material will allow for more misfit. We'll see if we can't find some of the 3/8" thick gasket and send it on to you. You should be aware that many hatch covers leak somewhat. If you are storing something that must not get wet,it should be in a dry bag. There is a molded flexible plastic hatch cover available that is supposed to be watertight. It requires a frame to be built to accept it, and they are very expensive. The come from Europe. They are about the only ones that I know of that you can count on not to leak at all. Thanks for the commentsLet me know about the tracks. Roy Folland |
Roy What happens to the hatch opening cutouts? Do they "springback"? I don't know as I tossed out the front cutout and used the back cutout for knee braces. The back cutout was still curved, but I didn't inspect it for springback. What do you think of this suggestion: sanding the curvature of the hatch bending jigs to match the hatch openings and then simply gluing the hatches the doublers AND the jigs together--perhaps then we can eliminate second guessing springback. |
Jeff. Roy, Roy |
26 Nov 2002 10:32:08 -0500
Q1. Spring back usually occurs because of the natural tension in the wood
that is being laminated, and is not affected by how long the epoxy has
cured, as long as it is cured. I'm glad to learn that there really was
no spring back with your covers. It is also affected by the amount of
curve being created and the number of layers being laminated. The
flatter the curve the less chance there is of spring back.
I have tried putting a small block of wood under the straps & over the center of my small radius hatch cover to effect a seal with little success--this hatch cover is really stiff and really likes the radius given it by the jig! Hey, Roy, I have an idea that probably won't work, because you've probably already tried it. Forget the doublers, glue the hatch covers to the jigs, does that work? Yet other ways to put in hatches: Jeff |
Aug 18, 2003 Roy, A paddling friend watched as I paddled my Sea Wolf and commented, "The boat seems pretty fast, but what's the creaking noise? And your bow seems to ride low. The builder should move the cockpit back 3 inches." I thought, "Sure, doing that might also reduce weathercocking." I plan to replace the footbraces with Keepers plastic footbraces. I have had enough of the noise, so much so that I won't paddle it until I have that completed. Sea water did leak into the front hatch, just from the water washing over the bow. We had less than 1 foot chop. Analyze that. I plan to sell the boat at the West Coast Sea Kayaking Symposium--The boat looks beautiful and should sell quickly. Cheers Jeff
Pygmy and Ches also let you choose multi chine hulls--See right. 