Interesting…
Who has paddled one?
Interesting…
Who has paddled one?
seats
I wouldn’t settle for the seats in most production boats without some outfitting changes,you paddle the hull,not the seat. Wilderness Systems silly extendo back seat Systems3 seat on their sea kayaks is a clue how confused people are about what they’re paddling.
The first time I got into a rental Cape Lookout at a floating dock I put my hand behind the seat at the coaming in the centerline with fingers to the inside and palm on the coaming,sounds familiar right?,as I slide into the kayak with my weight in may hand and transfering to my butt I slide onto the seat back and it presses back crushing my fingers against screws and hard/sharp plastic in the seat back. This is with the seat back in the low position and set up for a comfortable upright paddling posture.
Think about it,crushed/scraped fingers when you place hour hand where it’s most stable for entry into a floating kayak from a stable platform. This was by design??
ask
www.kayakforum.com
Dave Murray is the only person who comes to mind.
He posted the review of Nicks s&g Night Heron on paddling.nets reviews.
here’s a guy who built one -
Jim Kozel documents the building of a hybrid (strip deck) Cirrus and Merganser 16. The Merganser is another well-liked boat, if it hasn’t already been mentioned.
Anyhow, here’s Jim’s website. He’s been helpful via e-mail as well.
http://www.kozelguitars.com/cirrus/
misc.
Ok,call me picky but here’s my beef with the LT17. It’s based on the standard Chesapeake that “turned out” to be just plain too big. Most designers start off with “just right” then go up or down in freeboard and calling it high/low volume. Production was committed to with the standard version with a “sporty LT version for day paddling/racing” introduced shortly thereafter because it was hard to get around comments like “damn this is a barge” with the Standard Chesapeake. So the LT version simply has less freeboard,it’s still a big boat shape in the water. Raising or lowering freeboard is a cheap way to not have to introduce another hull shape to change displacement or footroom. But it’s the same hull in the water for a 175lb person or a 250lb person. Changing freeboard is not the samething as getting a hull shape that you are big in or small in. How far you sink the kayak in the water and what that shape is in the water is most of what people feel when paddling,it’s not the color or curve of the deck or height the sheer is from the water.
Without going into handling attributes that are covered in the review I’ll go straight to the “cambered decks are better” marketing that CLC has stuck with. They’re not. Never have been and never could be for the weight of materials for similar strength,to say nothing of the ergonomic compromises. I won’t go into the details how CLC rationalized the feedback or discovered the need for improvement but simply get a 200lb person and have them press down on a bent panel of 4mm deck that is glassed on the exterior with 4oz glass. It’ll bend just a little. So what? That bending is what happens in a t-rescue when you drag another kayak across your lap and flip the boat over so the rescued boat has stress on it’s foredeck,ditto the rescuer who’s sloppy and the rescued boat gets knocked foreward onto the foredeck. Ditto the 200lb+paddler who scrambles across the aft deck in a learning situation or a panic situation. That bending opens up little cracks on the inside. It’s one step to introducing water staining “black ick” when standing water is allowed to pool there. In a big boat like the Ch17 or 18 where a 250lb person may toss themselves or the kayak it’s new territory,for the paddler and CLC.
Go to any paneled deck and press down,it’s like pressing down on the chine of a hull,nothing happens,there’s glass underneath and glass on top with a triangulated structure. From the standpoint of making a laminate putting 4oz glass on one side is primarily for durability/impact/scrapes while relying primarily on the wood for strength,once you put glass on both sides you’re getting something substantialy stronger,once you make an angled joint it’s like a truss compared to a rope. You can make rope strong but it’s going to bend.
So for folks in the heavier side of things looking at learning rescues or rough use you start considering 6oz deck glass, glassing the underside of the deck behind the coaming AND glassing the interior of the compartments. Oh damn forgot that one. The standard Chesapeake glassing on the interior only goes in the cockpit. It was discovered that unglassed bottom panels flexed enough to allow water staining through the seal coats. But the bottom panels of the Chesapeak are comparative wide/flat compared to the Arctic Tern and Merganser. Especially right behind the aft bulkhead. Turn a standard or LT Chesapeake over and press your hand down hard in the middle of the bottom panels BEHIND the aft bulkead. You’ll hear cracking. Ok,so let’s say you don’t press down hard,lets say you’re 60yrs old and transport your kayak on a cart and only paddle in flat water but the put in is 100yds away. If you put the kayak on a cart so the weight is centered on that area behind the bulkhead and not evenly and you’ve got another 20lbs of kayak stuff sitting in the aft compartment you’ll hear cracking if the cart support shifts and point press into that area.
Ok,big deal,lot of glass boats will crack right and left in regular rescue practice with big people. A lot of glass boats crack in the hulls when transported on roof racks.
But if the comparison is bent/cambered one piece deck and a paneled deck it’ll take more wood, more glass and more epoxy for the same level of durability as the paneled deck.
Most people don’t learn how to roll, most people don’t go in conditions where rescues are likely, most people don’t paddle where paddler and boat come to shore in/on/under a wave. Which is all perfectly fine,hell surf over 3’ scares the crap out of me,and my bones don’t heal as quickly as before. But if you are doing all that stuff,and you do start adding all that “extra” stuff, the fact that bulkheads and hatchs are included is old news,most folks include hatches and bulkheads anyway,ie. Newfound/Shearwater/WatersDancing etc.
Regarding differences between Shearwater/Pygmy the coaming recess with integrated thigh brace makes too much sense. I like the deck configuration better aesthecially and for toe room but thats minor compared to handling. Handling they’re different.
Aesthetics drive a lot of decisions so a few pounds here or there doesn’t matter, but if you’re on the big side there’s a little “extra” you gotta do with the Chesapeake still that you don’t have to do with the boats with paneled decks and given the shape of the bottom panels the need for glassing the interior of the bottom panels in the aft compartment is greater. Although I believe the Tern recommends glass on the interiro of the bottom panels.
ok,nuf obsession, I’m sure I’m the only one whose done it.
1 Like
c’mon!
Is that all you got?
Let it all out.
Tell us how you really feel.
;
ok
there’s a finite number of epoxy/glass kayaks that some people can build. It may be one, four or twenty kayaks before they get sensitized. For me I’m looking at a few more, maybe. That’s it. No more. Finito. The End. Imagine looking at a garage of epoxying with the door open and you’re looking at getting the flu feeling or getting poison oak like rash if you get any contact. Not everyone,not a majority,but enough that it affects the attractiveness of the product for a new consumer choosing between a $1000 Squamish or $1000 Carolina with rudder and a s&g kayak kit that will cost close to $1000 when all is done. Enough that for the person who finds out that the kayak they made really isn’t the kayak they thought it would be but they like building so much they want to do it again. But they can’t.
Then think about producing a kayak kit but never testing it with the intended “enthusiast” paddler and assuming that building is really all that matters. “It’s an all around kayak, theres’s no reason to get so specific” Then imagine telling the customer the reason they have a hard time controlling their severely weathercocking kayak (Northbays)is because it’s their lack of skill,or “a skeg will fix it”. But the ONE prototype was NEVER outfitted with thigh or hip braces so one could determine bracing/leaning handling in wind/waves before before being committed to production and for a year AFTER production.
Imagine introducing new “enthusiast” kayaks and still NEVER modifying the hull shape or going to the water with the intended customer and testing it. Ch14,WR18, Sport Tandem.
Imagine designing a racing kayak but never being in a race, having a racer in the design loop or modify the design from a racers feedback.Paxs18,20
Then imagine telling people dozens of prototypes are made when everyone in the shop is looking at one and the dozens are actually discount kits sold before the production run but the production run occured before there was any feedback on the discount kits in CUSTOMERS hands. Pax18,20.
so I got issues that probably only matter to 5% of the folks looking at getting a kit. Shoot me.
Good point
Many “low volume” boats are just low-deck and/or small-cockpit versions of existing hulls. If you try to make a true low-volume version of an existing boat, you get a different boat.
There’s nothing wrong with offering different deck heights on a good hull. It’d just be nice if they were described that way – “Tern High Deck” is clearer and more accurate than “Tern High Volume”
While you’re at it…
Lee - What’s your opinion on the CLC Arctic Hawk kit? I’ve seen a couple of the ones Mark Rogers(the designer) builds – they’re jaw-droppingly gorgeous, and he’s got a long waiting list for them. I was wondering how faithful the kit was to his design and build methods.
yep
I think Necky did that with the Tesla NM or somesuch,big foot/small foot just doesn’t sound as good as low/high volume.
The whole reason about noticing a particular displacement hull is that most folks have similar comfortable range for stability and responsiveness,sure there are folks at the edge of the bell curve by skill and anatomy but for the most part super tippy or super stable conflict with handling.
The issues most folks have with a too big of boat is that they aren’t IN the water deep enough to balance the wind effects. If you’ve got 4" draft at your weight then shifting the freeboard up/down really doesn’t change the connection to the water,I really don’t think 1/2" changes windage/water balance much. Folks come up against this issue all the time while catalog shopping.
“Eclipse has a 350lb capacity”,Arctic Hawk has a 350lb capacity",WHAT??
Everyone can agree that a pound is the same everywhere,and could actually agree that a particular payload will sit the kayak at a specific draft/sinkage. But what that has to do with two different kayaks with the same overall dimensions tells nothing about how they handle with/without the weight.
Besides the volume changes that would affect handling with hi/lo freeboard would only be realized when most of the kayak is submerged,you don’t often get the opportunity to submerge the ENTIRE kayak. If that’s happening then a lot more things are important than x lbs of reserve buoyancy for a case of beer or size 15 feet.
same
I have never seen a Mark Rogers Arctic Hawk,really,but I’ve seen the manual and the first construction Jay made at CLC and it’s as close as your going to get to making exactly what the designer intends. It looks good,very good. I mean two pages on how to apply duct tape to a particular spot. I think if you like that hull and aren’t intimidated by being walked through EVERY step with pictures and instructions it’s unique. You’re really buying a building experience for a perfectly finished kayak. I think $1000 kits are a bit up there but if a $1000 Arctic Hawk is viable then Nick Schades s&g Night Heron from Newfound is as well.
you could also make a Merganser 17 from a partial kit with discount epoxy from previous constructions or RAKA epoxy and have the functional equivalent for almost half as much. And the Merganser goes together pretty fast as a kit.
Uh oh, that word "fast"
It’s not fast if you have no building experience (I mean anything, not just kayaks). I know there are people who say they have built these kits in 60 to 80 hrs or whatever but I also know there are others who have taken more than twice that amount and launch their kayaks half a year later. I am one of those.
Still, I’d rather take a long time to build something that fits me rather than go out and buy a boat that doesn’t, or build a kit boat that takes less time due to construction differences but doesn’t suit my needs.
Re: kit prices…by the time you throw in all the sandpaper that does NOT come with any kit and the tools if you do not already own them, the differences in kit prices are less important.
Then there’s the stuff like deciding to add a 2nd layer of glass on the exterior hull, but wanting 4 oz glass for that instead of the plentiful 6 oz. cloth that the kit includes. Or forgoing the kit’s very nice recessed deck fittings and buying supplies to make a different type of fitting. The other costs add up. In my case, if I include all the tools and supplies the cost is about the same as a plastic kayak but still considerably less than that of a glass kayak. If I had done the interior better (i.e., less epoxy), it would weigh what a Kevlar boat does.
Re:Sensitized
Saw it happen on a fellow builders first build. We had adjoing lofts for our boats. He had a terrible allergic reaction. Amazing part was; after getting the reaction the first time (his fault to a degree…)he couldn’t be in the room with the epoxy/fumes more than 5 min… .wound up selling the boat half finished. Uncomfortable as the entire suit was, I wouldn’t do a build without the gear (used by fibreglass body shop guys)I had on.
Interesting
There was a thread a while back on “extensive refinishing of Arctic Tern” on kayakforum.com.
The guy was interested in buying a used Tern for $900 that was horribly finished–so bad he would have to sand it off and start over again. He listed other things, too, like footbrace rail installed 5" in front of the other rail, 2" gap between the rear bulkhead and deck left open, etc.
But he said it tracked straight and paddled great. It made me wonder if one person had done the stitching and glueing, then sold the boat unfinished to someone who was very careless and just wanted to get a boat on the water cheaply. (The hull was reportedly scraped so badly it looked like the previous owner had “dragged it over oyster beds”.)
discoveries
in annapolis there was a Gardner school of boatbuilding where I saw a Cape Charles sitting in the rafters,covered in what looked like smoothed out cake frosting…I asked about it and a fellow said that the person working on it tried to use fumed silica (cabosil) thickened epoxy as a fairing compound,he might have been thinking it was microballoons,so the boat was covered in the equivalent of epoxy concrete,hard to sand.
By the way how’s your kayak getting along? Did you have any dificulty getting the deck panels to meet up at the bow/stern, where the four deck panels meet?
don’t stop now
those deck beams,the basic format of the Chesapeake construction is based on bending oversized deck plywood over an arcing deck beam and securing it to a thick piece of wood glued to the side panels. Once the deck is on and the coaming attached the deck beam is somewhat superfluous given adequate glassing and the wood stack the coaming is made out of, 28mm of laminated wood doesn’t bend very much.
The Arctic Hawk and Betsy Bay kayaks have a foredeck that is a bent piece of ply and they don’t have deck beams that intrude down into the front of the cockpit. It may seem like a little thing but if you’re looking for only an inch more room for toes or ease of butt first entry then one inch can make a huge difference. Especially if the choice to adequate footroom is determined by side panel height. If you increase the freeboard to get foot/knee room the entire hull volume is increased substantially,if freeboard is reduced to reduce unnecessary volume then it impacts entry comfort. Eliminate the deck beam and the rest of the hull doesn’t have to be affected. Since plywood boats are a monocoque structure you don’t have to rely on frame like intrusions as is necessary for a skin boat.
A good example of the difference in ergonomics between the Northbay I made 5yrs ago and a Merganser two yrs ago can be explained here. The actual coaming height of the Northbay from bottom of the cockpit to the top of the coaming where the skirt goes over is almost the same as the 16’Merganser. Except the footroom in the Merganser is about an inch higher and the shin clearance right at the front of the coaming is an inch greater. At the centerline of the deck where you need to move your feet sometimes I could have my size 11 foot almost vertical in the center of the cockpit which is almost an inch and a half higher than the Northbay. On top of that the 21" wide Merganser actually had better deck clearance for blade whacking than the 20" wide Northbay.
This isn’t to say that you can’t make a nice kayak with the bent deck method,the Caribou was originally a plywood kayak with a bent deck like the CHesapeake and the Arctic Hawk and Betsy bay have bent decks that flatten to the front bulkhead.
With four panel designs and a one piece deck if you change the deck height to accomodate a particular coaming/footroom height for a particular range of paddler it affects the volume of the kayak and shape of the sheer,with a paneled deck where the coaming is on a recess (Merganser has a full recess, Pygmy Tern/Coho has half recess) you can seperate the hull and deck functions more readily. In the case of the Merganser with a complete recess the front of the coaming is less exposed to damage when rolled
To launch soon!
– Last Updated: Mar-19-04 1:21 PM EST –
What's left to do:
* Finish the finish (entire exterior got its 6 oz. glass back in December; now the deck has its fill coats and I just put a 2nd layer of glass, 4 oz, on the hull and will sand/fillcoat it in the next few days)
* Install deck rigging
* Carve thigh brace pads and another seat.
I did carve a seat already but it turned out a bit big (removed too much foam). Then I bought three pieces of 8" x 12" foam from NRS and am carving another one to fit me better. I like your suggestion to glue two pieces together to match the hull's V-shape and THEN carve.
Still toying with deck rigging options. I bought some pre-cut thin (about 3 or 4mm) wood pieces from a crafts store. The pieces are shaped like oak and maple leaves and cost 25 cents each. After I put on the hull's first two fill coats I'll let those cure before further sanding and the 3rd fill coat; during that time I will try slotting the middle of the leaves to accommodate nylon webbing. Hopefully, they won't split from making the slots, and I can stain them and use them as "patches" over the nylon webbing ends.
I did have trouble matching up the panels you mentioned. It seemed like there was no way they'd fit together well, so I ended up trimming off a little bit. Turned out to be just a tad too much trimmed off, so I ended up with a small gap that I filled with dookie schmutz. You can see it because the DS is darker than the plain epoxied wood.
I also had a gap between the deck and hull at the stern end. No matter how hard I pulled the pieces together, they would not mate tightly. I gave up and taped over the outside and let the slanted end pours seal the gap. I think the kit could use at least one temporary bulkhead (better yet, two) so that both the bow and stern ends are shaped and fitted more easily.
Holding my breath that the thing paddles well...
Idea
Maybe epoxy a piece of light cloth on the back of the leaves before you cut the slot? Might help prevent splitting.
confused Lee…
– Last Updated: Mar-19-04 4:04 PM EST –
You stated: With four panel designs and a one piece deck if you change the deck height to accomodate a particular coaming/footroom height for a particular range of paddler it affects the volume of the kayak and shape of the sheer,,,
How did you experience re-shaping the sheer? I altered the radius of my CH17 deck beams to accomodate more foot room and all that did was dictate that I use a slightly wider piece of ply for the deck. Something already over-sized to be trimmed after nailing anyways. The deck beams still meet the chine logs as they would have before. I did not have to spread the hull to force my deck beams into place... The sheer is already stipulated in the four panel boat sitting there waiting for it's deck.
I built mine from scratch by using Chris' book. I've never done anything from a kit yet.
Thanks in advance.
Thanks also for your other posts. Great to get your perspective via the building (and then paddling) experiences you've had with that variety.
Also, finally got around to posting some pics. Here is an album (sorry for quality) of my CH17:
http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/hd.haddock@sbcglobal.net/my_photos
You will have to copy and paste the link to get it to work apparently.