Boat Building Forum

Find advice on all aspects of building your own kayak, canoe or any lightweight boats

My brother and I owned a heavy tandem kayak wich was build when I was 14 in 1960. It was build by the grandfather of my friend Bennie Huisman from marine plywood on heavy Amarican oak frames. The cockpit coaming was Djatti teak. So a very heavy kayak.
The builder ran out of marine ply so the last meter and a half on port where from triplex whick rotted away after 2 years. The kayak did only come out of the water in winter.
I replaced the rotten part with marine plywood. That was my first boat building experience.
One year later I built an R1S youth racing kayak from plywood on mahogany frames. It wa 5,2 meters long an 51 cm wide with a flat bottom, verry tippy at the start.
It was lost in a fire in 1970. From that time on until 1998 I only played with sailboats in the freetime.

In 1998 I bought a Gans Grandy expedition kayak (polyester) and a few month later a P&H baidarka explorer designed by Dereck Hutchkinson with an ocean cockpit. In 1999 I found Nicks website and downloaded the plans for the S&G Guillemot. I paddled 10 years in it and enjoyed it very much. I ordered the plans for the Expedition Single and the Night Heron years ago.
End september I started building and try to keep a building blog. See the link

The Night Heron was finished in 2010. Four years later I finished Rob Mack's design the Fire Star.