Many thanks, Willowleaf. If this Shrike is in the ballpark weight of the SOFs I think it would be pretty cool.
Rex, a standard full-size Shrike like my black painted one on the website weighs 32 pounds. You can change the scale of the plans as described in the Build Manual and the FAQs. One lady paddler of diminutive stature has a reduced scale Shrike with reduced height topsides for rolling, and built by my son, Christopher. It weighs 19 pounds. See it in our Gallery at http://cnckayaks.com/2016/05/18/christopher-crowhurst-from-usa/
From Nick Crowhurst, of www.cnckayaks.com
There was at least one Shrike at the Michigan Qajaq Training Camp – very impressive boat. Somewhat similar to my own West Greenland on dimensions and profile.
Another link – an archive of the QajaqUSA newsletter that has several articles on kayak building, both of skin on frames and a stitch and glue, which, like the Shrike, is based on a traditional West Greenland Disko Bay design.
My inflatable was light (16 pounds!), durable, and cheap.
Not very efficient in terms of paddling. Also, I could never dry it out. But it was light enough to throw on a shelf.
I could be on the road in minutes. I miss that.
My Hurricane Tampico 140S weighs 40 lbs. It’s not cheap, but it’s not carbon-fiber or kevlar priced, either. It’s got bulkheads and storage.
I’m not particularly strong, and I carried it up a hill (about 40 ft vertical) on Saturday. I was breathing like I’d just finished a 5K race when I finished, but I got it done.
My wife’s CD Vision 130 is a 40lb composite (fiberglass/aramid) transitional design that does just about everything very well. I’ve paddled it a few times and enjoyed its light weight and easy handling.
We got a 30% discount off msrp a few years ago as a year end close out.
Sterling has a carbon seamless boat, lightweight but big money. Just depends on what you want to pay.
@PianoAl said:
I could be on the road in minutes. I miss that.
Gosh, how long does it take you to load a hard-shell boat? I ask that because I’m typically “on the road in minutes” as well, maybe just a few more minutes than in your case, but what’s an extra 3 or 4 minutes (mostly due to using multiple tie-downs) if you aren’t delivering Domino’s Pizza or something?
@Guideboatguy said:
@PianoAl said:
I could be on the road in minutes. I miss that.
Gosh, how long does it take you to load a hard-shell boat? I ask that because I’m typically “on the road in minutes” as well, maybe just a few more minutes than in your case, but what’s an extra 3 or 4 minutes (mostly due to using multiple tie-downs) if you aren’t delivering Domino’s Pizza or something?
You’re quite right, it’s not that much more work to put my hard-shell boat in the truck.
I just liked the seconds it took to pull the 16-lb boat off the shelf compared with getting the straps in place, parking the truck just so, hoisting, etc.
But I definitely shouldn’t complain.
Yeah, really. I would kill for a nice garage like that. I have no garage or driveway (the geography of my steep hillside lot renders that impossible). I have to keep my boats in a walk-out basement, carry them out a 28" door, then do a back and forth square dance to pivot them 90 degrees through the brick pillars that support the second floor back porch, then haul them 80 feet up hill through the side and front yards, then up a flight of 6 steps to the street, cross the street and onto the car parked across from the house.
This is the reason I have gotten rid of any boat that weighs more than 45 pounds, in fact most of mine are 31 pounds or less.
Willowleaf…you just need to build a boat locker in the front yard.
I would love to but there is no room in the front yard --any part of the yard, for that matter. It is only about 8’ from the front porch to the steep flower beds that ramp up to the sidewalk. It’s a city lot, roughly 50’ across but all on a steep angle, running 180’ down to the alley below, where a 4’ retaining wall is above the 15’ deep parking area I had carved out of the bottom of the slope. There is barely any level area more than 10 square feet anywhere on the property. Imagine a ski run with a a 3 story house shoved into the slope about one third of the way down. The grade of the yard ranges from 15 to as much as 30 degrees. I have measured it. I would have to drive pilings of some kind to make a level platform long enough to store boats and it would effectively block access to the back yard from the front.
Nope, if I want accessible storage for boats, I would need to move. But with the folders and SOF, it’s not that huge of an issue to move them about as it would be with heavier kayaks. I do miss the two car garage I had at my last house – it was foolish to buy this one but it had other charms that outweighed the lack of driveway and garage. And when I bought it, I only had one kayak, and a folder at that.
I have a lot like that in the SC mountains on a small lake. I’ve had it for 45 years but the cost to build a cabin on it is as much as a 4 BR home.
Yes, here in hilly Pittsburgh doing site prep and grading of a homesite can often be as much as to build the house. The whole metro area is a massive stream-cut plateau, cut down over millennia by the 4 major rivers that feed the Mississippi drainage eventually, via the Ohio, and all of the side streams that feed those rivers. Lots of bridges and towering road cuts. If you look at shots of downtown, there is a hillside directly opposite the Point (where two rivers meet to form the Ohio) that is higher than the tops of the skyscrapers and from which you can look directly down on the city – getting up there requires driving up a severely switchbacked narrow road or riding one of two near vertical cable cars.
There is a corduroy landscape of steep hills and valleys throughout, which is the main reason why we have almost 50% tree cover in the Greater Pittsburgh area (making us the “greenest” major city in the US) and why we have to use managed herds of goats to keep precipitous public and private hillsides cleared of invasive plants and brush. There are neighborhoods where a five story house built into the side of a hill has grade access on the first floor through the front door and grade access 5 levels up at the back door. In others, the east and westbound lanes of a two-lane street are 5’ or more different in elevation with a retaining wall between.
My own little borough is appropriately named Forest Hills, and that is exactly what it consists of: hills and trees. The street up which I must drive from route 30 (the famous Lincoln Highway that is the spine of the borough) is so steep that there are times in the winter when many cars can’t get up it – my old rear-drive Volvo could not make it.
And when we have heavy rains in some areas the run-off can cause deadly deep floods within minutes. My street and those adjacent have had run-off and standing waves deep enough to kayak at times. I missed, by only minutes, getting trapped in a cloudburst caused flash flood 5 years ago on a major commuter route that killed 6 including a family trapped in their minivan when the water rose above its roof – rescue personnel could not even see the car until the flood began to subside half an hour later. Had I not chosen to sit out the storm in the parking lot of the grocery store I had just shopped in, I would have been right in the spot they were when the walls of water collided in that valley. Though I did have my kayak on the roof of the car that day and my PFD in the back seat. I’ve wondered since if I would have had the presence of mind to grab the PFD and paddle and climb out the window onto the car roof when I saw the water rising around me.
And it’s cold in the winter. No thanks.
Given the airport has deep gulley’s between the runway and taxiways I believe it.
Not always “cold in the winter.” The first year we lived here, when I was in high school, it was 65 degrees on Christmas Day. We have had winters with almost zero snow and even had weeks in February where it was in the 70’s for a days. We are wedged between cold dry Arctic air that comes down across the Canadian shield and the warm moist air that comes up from the Gulf of Mexico – blips in the jet stream can bring us weird weather patterns and quick flip flops, including 60 degree changes from one day to the next. About the only thing you can be sure of about weather here is that it will not snow in July or August. Yes, we have had snow in early June and in September. Also days in January when you could hang out in shorts.
As for hills, do a google image search on “photos Pittsburgh steep streets” to view examples. We apparently have the second steepest one in the USA, at 33 percent grade, second only to one in Hawaii> http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/pittsburgh-in-the-news/canton-st-2-with-cycling-video/
Just kayaked 14 miles on the Monongahela River near downtown Pittsburgh today – 87 degrees ambient (water was lukewarm) but blue sky and a beautiful cool breeze on the river and lots of wakes to surf from the power boaters who were out in force. Spotted kingfishers and blue herons, mallards and geese, but the recent rain left the river too murky to see anything below the water. My paddling partner reported seeing a huge alligator gar on the route earlier this year. Even near to downtown the shorelines are mostly greenery and you can paddle in shade.