New Year's Eve 2008

Finished laying out the deck, removed most of the staples and completed an initial sanding.  It's a fairly rough job and I have a little filling to do, then some more sanding...but I'll be ready to begin glassing before long.

I'll have to decide whether to lay down a coat of epoxy before adding glass, or do it in one step, using a plastic squeegee to work the epoxy through the glass, as I did the Outer Island.  

Also have to decide on a lay-up, probably 6 oz. glass on the hull, doubled up under the keel and "football", and 4 oz. glass on the deck, doubled up behind the cockpit and where the hatches will be cut.  Progress.........Happy New Year!

Isfjord Deck

The Isfjord is waiting to be finished, so I've started up on the deck again.

Here's how it looked as I took up the work again in December 2008.

What is an Isfjord?

When it's done, it should look something like one of these...

haven't yet decided whether to stain it (dark blue) or paint it (abstract expressions like my cousin's paintings) or simply varnish it to a whitish pine like so many of the boats in the designer's Scandinavia.

Start of another stripper: Isfjord

I began construction of my second kayak during the winter of 2006/2007.  I wanted something different from the Outer Island, and decided on an Isfjord, a West Greenland design by Bjorn Thomassen.  The boat has more rocker and a hard chine, and with a little more volume would serve more readily for short camping trips.

Part of the plan was to use a store of white pine which Ray, a beloved cousin of mine, had cut twenty years earlier.  He passed away a few years ago and the pine had been milled into 3" X 8" planks, 12' to 18' long, drying in an outbuilding on his property.  Ray, a gifted artist, would have appreciated the kayak, and I was sure it would bring back many fond memories while creating a few new ones.

The picture above is of the stations on m y trusty strongback.  I spent a few months laying up the hull before suffering an unrelated back injury.  Surgery forced me to set aside my plans for over a year, but now, as I approach the winter of '08/'09, I've started up work on the deck in hopes of a springtime launch.

Maiden voyage: Tybee Island, GA

The boat was finished on the first day of spring 2006.  After a few trial runs, it was time for a maiden voyage in the Triangle at Tybee Island. 

She handled the surf beautifully, as did her sister ship.

Finished with a sister ship

After fiberglassing inside and out, there were several weeks spent cutting out the cockpit and hatch openings, then gluing up the coaming and hatch lips.  Finally it was time to join hull to deck.

I transported the unfinished kayak to a my friend TwoPaddles shop to be finished.  He had been finishing a modified Outer Island made not of wood strips but boat builder's foam, encased in kevlar and fiberglass, heavy and bombproof.  As his shop was relatively dustfree (compared to my basement), it offered a better environment for varnishing, all six coats, while the sister ship received several coats of two-part marine paint.

Sanding

Next came lots of sanding, and then some more, with hand block sander, homemade fairing board, and random orbital.

Laying out (& inlaying) the deck

The deck was trickier, 

a complex curve behind the cockpit, 

a plan to inlay sapele and ash strips within the red cedar, 

but the wood made clear its wishes and shapes began to form....

Stripping the hull

Next it was a matter of laying out the hull...

Stations

I had previously built a strongback, a 4" X 4" box beam of plywood, 17 feet long and dead straight.  

After securing the beam to a couple of sawhorses, I mounted each station, measuring up from the strongback to set the rocker, and aligning each station with the next.

Plans to forms...

Some careful work with a jigsaw left stacks of stations.....

Cutting up the stations

Jay Babina's plans came printed on a roll of paper approximately 4' X 6'. It was a simple matter to cut out the shape of each station and glue them to plywood.