Lift off! The hull takes shape

So after a few years it's all action now. I've started stitching together the hull panels and it's taking shape surprisingly quickly.

Essentially, the process involves aligning the bow seam on the panels, and joining a few stitches to make sure the panels are in the right spot. After that, the holes are drilled and the panel loosely wired together in all the holes, every 6 inches.

After the first two left and right panels are wired together, it's essentially a rinse and repeat process, aligning the panels, wiring them loosely, and then tightening the wires on both sides at the time to firm up the rigidity of the hull lines. I'm halfway through the third panel at the moment, and it'd be fair to say the second wind of the construction process has arrived.

The panels within the hull are temporary support braces to make sure the profile of the hull is uniform and the chines don't bulge out or fall in. They're only wired at the keel at the moment, and are fairly annoying as they flop about and get in the way until they're wired to the rest of the hull. The wiring together doesn't happen until all 4 hull panels are in place, so until then they're just in the way.


I was going to make a comment about the bending over killing my back, but looks like I already covered that in an earlier post about Tip #5. Get a decent height workbench. In fact, as you can see from my pictures, 'workbench' is a bit of a stretch, and I'm still working on two fold out trellis tables.

Back... Again.

After my last post, there was a fair bit of no progress on the Coho. The partially completed boat was in mediocre storage in one of our sheds while we built a new shed, complete with a roof that didn't leak and a real concrete floor.

As of last week, the Coho is out of it's stale wrapping and back on the table. Unfortunately there is a some very slight water damage, and a family of mice had set up a nest in the wrapping, staining and eating into some of the timber. It' only superficial though and the boat is back into the fore of my mind.

Progress updates will continue as I get back into the build.

First of all is the bevelling of the shear edges where the deck and hull meet, and then the drilling of the holes for the wiring in the stitch and glue process.

I'm on a deadline now. We're in the last month of summer and the epoxy I ordered back in October 2010 is the slow cure type, designed for hot climates. It won't cure below 25 degrees celsius, and hence I need to get my act together while the weather is still hot enough to cure the epoxy.

In the beginning...

,After deciding a few weeks ago to buy a kit and build my own kayak, I found there were only a few online sites showing the whole process so now that I've decided to go ahead, I'll document it here with some juicy photos and a bit of a timeline.

As a background, I live in Canberra, Australia and have been kayaking on and off since I was at school 10 years ago. They had a pretty good outdoors program and I guess it stuck with me from there. Also, they compete in an annual event held outside Sydney called the Hawkesbury Canoe Classic - a 111km overnight marathon from Windsor to Brooklyn down the Hawkesbury river to raise funds for cancer research.

Last year in preparation for the race, I bought my first kayak at late notice and was quickly restricted by what I could get my hands on, a K1 flatwater kayak (Elliott Extreme) built by Elliott Kayaks north of Sydney. This was initially to do the race in but I quickly found myself in a boat too unstable to do the race and with a seat that sent my legs to sleep after 30 mins in the boat. It was ok to train in but I was able to get my hands on my Dad's Pygmy Coho to compete in.

Fast forward 12 months and I'm back in training for this year's race and the kayak bug has bitten again as the weather warms up. I'm doing the race this year in a double Mirage 730 sea kayak with my Dad but having to train again in the Elliott has made me yearn for a more comfortable boat more suited to open waters. And hence the search begins!

My initial criteria above (ie. comfortable and capable in choppy water) I found quickly limited by the price I could pay. Most fibreglass sea kayaks were in excess of AUD$2,500 and I couldn't justify spending this much coin on a new toy. My mind then quickly went back to the kayak my Dad built 3 years ago and a build-your-own kit quickly became an option for me. This, combined with an Australian Dollar/US Dollar exchange rate at all time highs and my project was beginning.