Just a couple things . . .
I built a couple of Pygmy Arctic Tern 14s and my wife and I are very happy with them. When I was making a choice of boats, I got - and relied heavily on - a lot of excellent advice by LeeG.
His feedback was very valuable, but I didn’t take his advice on cutting back the bow and stern, preferring to maintain the design features of the original boat. Also, I am glad that I rounded the inside edge of the coaming - a great but minor modification for comfort. I found the building instructions by Pygmy to be straight and to the point, while thorough. And, if you have questions (you will), a call to their number will result in excellent support.
Finally, the sense of accomplishment that comes with building your own custom boat cannot be adequately put into words.
tennis ball?
I know, I’ve my my issues. But if you’re ever up for something different during rescue practice get a tennis ball and cut a small triangular hole in it with two tiny punch holes for an 1/8" line to tie the ball on the bow. It makes for an easy grab in rescues and you can put on different colored balls depending on the season.
I like my Pygmy’s
I’ve build a couple of Pygmy’s and very much like them – they’re awesome boats that handle well, and look great.
You can view build journals of Pygmy’s (and a couple of other stitch and glue kits) on my website at:
http://www.westcoastpaddler.com/building/
There are also many discussions about various kayak kits in our forums:
http://www.westcoastpaddler.com/community/viewforum.php?f=7
Building your own kayak is a great experience and well worth the effort. Whatever you decide to build, have fun with it and paddle safely.
Dan
http://www.westcoastpaddler.com
KBBS Password
:That is Nick Schades Guillemot forum. For some reason I
:haven’t figured out the new password process and haven’t
:been able to post recently.
FWIW, the password system is the same as it has always been, it is strictly optional. If you have trouble posting, choose a different name. You can then choose to use a password if you are worried someone may post under your name.
Thanks Lee, I’ll have blue balls
for most of the year and get red balls to celebrate the holidays.
More good advice and a safety feature not just for rescue practice. I admit, one time we were paddling down the Ichetucknee river, passing tubers, when some smart a$$ budding sociopath jumped right into the path of my boat! For a moment, I thought he would spear himself on my bow, but fortunately his timing was off and he slid harmlessly under the keel, while the other kids called him a dope.
eek, kids
I remember teaching a rolling class and one of the exercises was developing hip range of motion (hip snap)by doing eskimo rescues off a partners bow. For some reason one fellow would snap/throw himself upright then let go of his friends bow. I kept telling him to not let go of the bow. So he comes up, has a bit of vertigo and insufficient hip snap and falls back down hitting the side of his head right on the bow of assisting kayak. Grazed right across his temple/forhead. Glad he wasn’t facing down and the kayak was a round bowed plastic boat.
Another time we were trying to roll a big Chesapeake double with unglassed deck and one of the helping kayaks was a Chesapeake with pointy bow. When the big double went over the assisting boat didn’t back way quick enough and the wide deck whacked the bow on the way down punching a 1" hole in the deck.
During a game of kayak football one kid is paddling in a big Ch18 that is hard to turn, t-boned another paddler in the ribs. Pfd took the point but still left a bruise.
wow, good resource
Look at a skin on frame
Lots of resources here and online. A friend builds a skin on frame first and then builds a hull as strip built if she likes it a lot. Skin on frames are inexpensive to build and faster to build than many kits. Plus there is no epoxy to make you allergic.
my personal choices
would be the CLC Arctic Hawk and the Pygmy Arctic Tern (full size). I like the sharper-chined Greenland style hulls.
The Arctic Tern would be the higher volume boat and I think it would fit you well. The Hawk would have a bit less volume. Both would be relatively fast, certainly much faster than you are used to.
I have built S&G kits from both Pygmy and CLC. There are things that I liked and disliked about both.
I haven’t had a problem with the bows of the boats being too sharp. I didn’t miter the hull panels to a 45 degree scarf. I just radiused the edges and put three layers of glass over the cutwater. The bows on my S&G boats are no sharper than that on my production fiberglass Wilderness Systems Arctic Hawk (I just checked to confirm this). Of course, if you wanted the stems blunter you could do as LeeG suggests.
thx, I’ll try that
I couldn’t figure out why it worked one week and not another.
Merganser 16 is a good size
I’m guessing the 23" wide Shearwater makes for a more marketable design for non-rollers but it kinda blows out the whole idea of a low displacement kayak for light people who can paddle at a brisk pace and want a 16’ kayak.
answers
Thanks LeeG. What do you think of about a CLC Arctic Hawk or Pygmy Arctic Tern?. One fellow told me “Why build a bus when you can build a porshe.” Would these boats be too advanced for us…or grow as our skills grew?
t
kit boats
Thanks to all for your wisdom. I’m leaning towards a CLC Shearwater 17. The Arctic Hawk might be a bit overwheming tomy skill level. I welcome all ideas.
Arctic Hawk and skill level
If your current skill level is what you’re worried about with regards to the AH, you should stop worrying about it. Just a few days ago, I put my brother (a very occasional, and very inexperienced paddler) in the CLC Arctic Hawk I built, and he did just fine (didn’t handle it like a pro, but didn’t capsize, either). Even in some tugboat/barge wakes and moderate swell…at night! Until then, he had only paddled some Necky Looksha IVs (rentals) a couple of times, and my CD Caribou a few times.
If you think you might like the AH “if you had the skills for it”, build one, then grow into it with regards to your skills. It’s a great boat, and a great kit. You can see some pictures of my AH just after I finished it by following the link in my p.net profile.
Whatever you end up building, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the process, and I hope you’ll enjoy paddling your new boat even more!
Melissa
6’1" 200lbs & CLC Shearwater 17
you better learn how to roll because you will not be as stable in that as you would be in the Coho. It's a good boat and with your weight will be great in high winds ONCE you get basic handling/bracing skills down but if your background is paddling in rec. boats I can gurantee you will need to learn how to roll. I'd strongly suggest getting in these boats or comparing opinions of people with your skill level who have paddled them. My $.02 is that for your size it's a day paddling boat with rolling a prerequisite skill if you plan on paddling in 1' waves.
The AH doesn't require more skill, just more steps because the designer REALLY goes into detail. Pretty sure the CLC Shearwater 17 has less displacement and stability than an AH and Caribou.
It's kind of funny looking at the recommended paddler size and payload for the Shearwater 17 and Arctic Hawk. Somehow the 18'x22 AH has a 160-210 paddler weight with 350 total payload and the 17'x22" Shearwater is 150-220 with 275 total weight.
The 275 figure is realistic, the 350 number isn't.
I'd say 150-200 is more realistic for the 17 and 160-220 for the AH. If you're considering an unruddered four panel hull that will provide a more forgiving learning curve the Pygmy Arctic Tern is a good choice. It'll have more freeboard than the Shearwater 17 which will give you more more control near the angle of capsize.
Honestly the Shearwater17 is a perfect match for your wife. With her size and being a woman she's already more stable in it and won't need to learn rolling right off the bat as you would. She won't be too light in it but will still be perfectly comfortable with 50lbs of stuff in it.
answers
Can’t say what the fellow is refering to. Maybe he’s saying why build a BMW station wagon when you could build a Saab convertible?
First you match the size of kayak to the size of paddler and their intended load. Then get into parameters of handling. It sounds like you’re pretty much starting from zero where stability dictates minimal bracing or rolling skills. You are the big tippy guy and some kayaks you’ll have to learn how to roll for cold water paddling and some you won’t. Your wife won’t have that issue to the same degree.
If you have never paddled a long sea kayak without a rudder you are fast forwarding to learning basic skills, some designs lend themselves to learning progression more than others. I don’t think there’s anything special about the Arctic Hawk over the Shearwater/Merganser or Arctic Tern. They’re simply different.
To my taste the Artic Hawk weathercocks a bit too much and it’s a wet ride. The Arctic Tern17 is a big boat but more controllable regarding weathercocking. If you wanted a faster low windage kayak than the Arctic Tern I’d suggest looking at a www.shearwater-boats.com and the Merganser 18.
The reason I go back to the Coho has to do with stability, cockpit size for long legs and ease of installing a rudder if you so chose.
A AT17 for you and a CLC/Shearwater 17 for her makes sense. You in a Sheawater17 is tippy. You in a AT17 is initially tippy with more room for screwing up. Imagine if you had two bikes to ride and you weren’t going faster than 15mph. One on 25mm tires and one on 32mm tires both inflated to the appropriate pressure. For those speeds there’s no advantage to the 25mm tires and the bigger ones give you more comfort room when hitting bumps and ruts. In other words with the AT17 you’ll have more time to play with bracing while near the angle of capsize but with the Shearwater you’re either falling over and rolling up or trying to stay from that angle.
Your wife and you are different in size and I don’t get the sense from your choices that you’re considering that.
Rounded Ends
Lee - can you link us to some photos of your end treatment? I’m finishing up an AT17 and have to do something with the sharp ends. It’s already glassed, but I may be able to do something as a retrofit.
thanks, Alan
Another thought, before you buy . . .
I have heard that some people living on/near the east coast hesitate to buy a kit from the west coast (Pygmy Boats is in Washington) for some reason, factoring an east coast kit manufacturer heavily into their decision.
My advice is: Don’t let that even be a part of your consideration. I live in North Carolina, ordered two kits from Pygmy Boats and everything arrived fine, on time, without complications due to distance. Support was immediately available by phone and any extra parts I wanted also came quickly and without complications.
don’t have photos
it’s a simple thing but you have to get over the idea that a sharp point is the natural shape for the ends of a kayak just because it’s made of ply where three panels coming together form a point. Aesthetically it does violate the idea of lines meeting at a point.
Assuming you’ve got some kind of end pour in there simply cut an inch off the ends, grind/sand it however you like then lay out a small pile of 1" square patches of 4oz glass(or narrow strips) and epoxy them over it so there’s at least four or five layers over the end of the ply. It’ll look like a heinous mess until you sand it out then it’ll look like a smooth heinous mess where the wood color and end pour is barely visible and there’s a few bubbles inside. Once it’s varnished or trim tape is applied around it it’ll just be another rounded corner like the inside of the coaming is rounded. All the layers will only be visible for the last 1/2" or so.
I was at a friends shop and he was doing a variety of repairs on a wood kayak, one of which was repairing a chipped bow at the deck where it came to a point.
I figure if you pick up a wood kayak and swing it around and it accidentally hits something hard like the ground or a concrete wall that shouldn’t be an immediate call for cosmetic repair. It takes more than 6oz over soft ply to prevent an impact from denting or chipping it when the impact is about as hard as a strike from a hammer, which is about how hard the bow is hit when 200lbs of person is carrying 50lbs of kayak and walks into a wall or swings a 50lb kayak down from a shoulder carry and the tip hits a rock or something on the way down before getting caught at the coaming.
I figure if I can man handle a plastic or fiberglass kayak and bump the ends without requiring repairs the same should be for a wood boat. The thick mess of glass is only covering about 2"sq. Most folks have way too much thickened epoxy in the end pours, why not put 1/2 oz of it on the outside at the ends where it’ll actually do something in case of the most common impacts that come from carrying long pointy boats?
pygmy Borealis
I just built a Borealis, am 5’10", 190 lbs. and find this boat to be great. It is roomy alright, but still paddles great and I have no problem keeping up with my friend in his Coho!