Thursday, November 25, 2010

25-11-10: Why not just buy a readymade glasfibre or plastic kayak?

Yes - why not? It's probably because it is the actual building process that appeal to me. 
Figuring it all out, fitting the strips, the tinkeringsanding, mingel .....

It started some years ago (2004), when a friend (Niels Jørn) and I wanted to build canoe. We wanted to build a fiberglass mold and in this casting the canoe. We made the mold and had made a canoe shell, but it was not optimal. It was hard to get the fiberglass into the narow ends, and we had not quite made ​​us clear how it would be completed. The result was not very impressive - the bottom was very thick and there were many faults in the cast.
Interest disappeared and we dropped the project.


Since then I read some books (Nick Shade: "The Strip-Built Sea Kayak" and Chris Kulczycki, "The new kayak shop among others) and of course a lot of interesting websites on the subject.
So the buttom line is that I of course have to build a kayak - A man's got to do What a man's got to do .....
I've spent some hours designing a sea kayak (Greenlandic inspired) in the design program "Kayak Foundry. " Fortunately, there have been some friendly people who know more about kayaking than me who have "proofread" on my design.
After the design version 7 the model was OK and I was ready.


The software for designing kayaks is made ​​by Ross Leidy and can be downloaded for free at:
http://www.blueheronkayaks.com/kayak/index.html


You can find the design process at the same place:
Select the "Forums"and "KayakFoundry" and search on the design "Black & Blue".



I have later decided to rename my kayak from the work-name "Black&Blue" to the more nordic "Havhingsten" ("The Sea Stallion")
If your are interested in the design it can be downloaded here:
http://www.egsgaard-thomsen.dk/kayak/Seastallion.yak