Thread: Stitch and glue no 2

Hi folks.
I still havent got round to making some oars for my Oxford shell, so I thought I'd knock up a kayak to get me on the water while I wait for access to a lathe with an 8 foot bed. This is again pirated from Chris Kulczycki's book 'Stitch and Glue Boatbuilding'. I used the book to provide the offsets for the hull planks, then designed the rest myself (hardly rocket science). I did this partly because I wanted something a bit more rigid then the original, but also because there are a lot of things Kulczycki does that I dont really like - like making horizontal deckbeams from laminated plywood, or fixing deckbeams to the hull with long screws driven into endgrain. Oddest of all was the fact that he puts an inspection port in the forward bulkhead !!! (OK if you have 6 foot long arms).

Anyway, he does design good looking boats and I loved the lines of this 'North Bay' the moment I saw pictures. With wooden boats, practicality rides a far distant second to aesthetics for me - when I want practical I'll use my plastic canoe.

You might notice the cockpit looks oversize. It is. Thats because I knew TWO people at high school who drowned in canoes, including one who went over in a river and couldnt get out of the canoe. So I'm a bit wary of tight cockpits - illogical I know - I guess I'll get over it.

Construction details - hull from rubbish okume rubbish plywood, treated pine for all solid timber, hull glassed inside and out with 3 oz fibreglass, epoxy coated throughout. Botecoat epoxy. No hatches, though I will provide some shock cord holddowns in due course.

cheers
Arron