Small Child's Kayak

**anewhouse** · 5th January 2013, 10:26 PM

After seeing small children frustrated by the difficulty they have controlling adult size kayaks and after seeing how easily small children with their low weight and low centre of gravity manage kayaks that adults find unstable, I decided to design and build a small child's kayak.

Early trials suggest that it is the right size for children between about 15 and 25 kg who want to paddle a kayak properly. The stability seems more than adequate and the tracking very good. Finished weight is 5.7kg. The hull and deck weigh just 4.7kg and the seat, bulkheads, hatches and footrest add another 1kg.

The smaller child in the kayak is a small 3 year old and the older child is a tall, slim 10 year old. They represent the lower and upper limit of the intended size of paddler.

The design was created with "Kayak Foundry", a program available free from Blue Heron Kayaks

The timber is mostly 4mm thick Paulownia strips with WRC accent strips with a few scraps of Australian Red Cedar used for the thigh braces and the cockpit recess.

**fxst** · 6th January 2013, 01:26 AM

Very nice almost makes me want to be young again

Pete

**whitewood** · 6th January 2013, 08:06 AM

Your output of kayaks and the finish you achieve is remarkable. Catering for the young ones is a great concept.

Whitewood

**sjm** · 6th January 2013, 11:22 AM

Lovely. Roughly how much time was spent on this?

**anewhouse** · 6th January 2013, 12:11 PM

When I built my first strip built kayak, I kept a record of the time. It took close to 200 hours, including the time to rip the strips, build the strongback, cut out the forms and align them on the strongback.

When I can reuse the strongback and recycle some of the forms, if I keep things simple, I generally take about 150 hours.

There were a few things about this one that added a bit of time, such as the wooden seat instead of the usual closed cell foam seat and the accent sheer strip. So it probably took close to 200 hours.

There are people who don't care about obvious glue lines, staple holes and other blemishes who can build one in about 100 hours. There are also people who are much more meticulous than I am who go to the trouble of book matching the strips. They take 300 to 350 hours.

**_fly_** · 6th January 2013, 12:49 PM

very nice,
So nice I've gone for that software you mentioned.
Think I will have to try one.

Thanks for the inspiration.....

**anewhouse** · 6th January 2013, 01:11 PM

if you come up with a design of your own, unless you are very confident that your design can't be improved, it is worthwhile posting the .yak file on the blueheronkayaks forum. There are people there who will willingly help you avoid possible problems that might make the design difficult to build or unpleasant to paddle.

The design for this one is on that forum. You are free to use it, or modify it to suit your needs. However you might feel that it is more satisfying to create your own design, then compare it with my version.

That software is quite easy to use, partly because instead of starting with a blank page, you start a new design with a kayak already there and all you need to do is modify it to get what you want.

**_fly_** · 6th January 2013, 02:08 PM

I won't be starting soon.
I'll need to read thru those forums first so I know what I'm doing/can do/shouldn't do.
Be nice to have another forum to read for a while.

I'll make one for my size 85kg.

Time to go reading
Peter

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