DURRETTD

I used a chine stringer that bent in all three dimensions, but once it was fastened in place it took the designed curve and behaved itself nicely. If you're concerned about the boat changing shape after you remove it from the strongback, leave it on the stongback for a while. If it still changes shape after you release it, put it back on the strongback and let it sit for a while.

The Yost double looks pretty good. It's much narrower than most of the tubby doubles offered by commercial builders - and lighter. It's slim enough that it could be paddled single if you load a couple of weeks worth of supplies in the front cockpit - if you'er not in a hurry.

Could you lash a scarf joint? I would think you would have to drill a hole into the stringer or maybe cut a notch for the sinew to bite into. Any advice on how to do that? I'm guessing there would be a need for many wraps around the scarf. Although I trust the opinions of this esteemed panel I like experimenting with new (or in this case old) techniques. I really wanted to be able to boil my boat but don't want to use Resorcinol. (lol) For what it's worth, boiling a boat does not make it taste any better or make it tender. I've made a nice stew from a bare frame, but be sure to remove the skin first and use lots of onions. The hardest part is finding a large enough pot.

The boats look great! I believe you'll be in line for the Nobel Prize for Domestic Achievement if you can explain to the rest of us how you convinced your wife to let you store those boats in the house.

I used Rustolium gloss oil paint on my boat and it has been very durable. I had a problem with the paint sticking to the rack if it had only cured for a couple of days. The solution was to finish all three coats on the bottom and letting it sit in the sun for a week to cure before turning it over again. The high humidity in Northwest Florida may have been part of the problem. Does anyone have any insight on curing paint faster?

A friend barely escaped serious injury when he applied air pressure to a section of PVC pipe. I'd be concerned that the high temperature could weaken the PVC and lead to failure far below the pressure the pipe is rated for. Be very careful to keep the pressure very low!

Jeff, Please pin this post to the top of the forum and label it, "Required Reading!" Dan

We're so accustomed to responding to pictures that we tend to ignore words. Maybe you need a picture of a kayak store - whatever that looks like - in addition to your "Online Store" button. Consider making the graphic at the top of the page a link to your store.

I've seen most scarf joints defined as a ratio of the thickness of the material to the length of the cut. As I recall from reading boat building books the recommended ratio varies widely. I've used a ratio of 10:1. According to my geometry a 10:1 joint means an angle of 5.71059313749964 degrees. and a 5:1 joint means an angle of 11.3099324740202. I'm not sure I can measure quite that many significant digits on my miter saw, so I'll settle for about six degrees, or I'll measure and mark ten times the thickness along the length of the wood and adjust my miter saw as necessary to get close enough.

Bcone, A few months ago we had an extended discussion on whether SOF boats were "experimental". The message I took away was that the technology is mature, but the boats lend themselves to experimentation. I love to swim against the current: I staple the skin; I've used partial wooden decks; I use epoxy and screws to assemble the frames; etc. In short, you make an excellent point about the benefits of experimentation. I hope you have better luck with the hatches than I did. There is a price to be paid for doing things differently: you're required to post photos and let us know how it works.

The best kayak hatches I've found are the ones that are made to be kayak hatches. They have mounting flanges, the covers fit well, and Jeff sells them at a very reasonable price. Jeff has an excellent description of hatch installation either on this forum or in his first book - sorry, couldn't find it with a quick search but I'm sure he can refer us to the source. I've cobbled together cheap hatches, and they were marginally successful. I've also used real hatches and they are easy to install, water-tight, nice looking, and well worth the price. I enjoy the challenge of engineering something inexpensive and elegant, but hatches have been too much of a challenge (to me).

They're especially helpful if the boat gets dropped. I destroyed an almost-new air conditioner when a SOF fell off the top tier of my rack. No damage to the boat. Let's not go into what caused the boat to fall. Gotta get more kayak storage space! I need a 15 footer! Can't get by with just a 9-foot, a 12-foot, a 14-foot, a 17-foot, and a 17.5-foot boat. Stop smiling, Jeff! It's your fault!

I've seen a lot of references to the need for rub strips to protect the bow when beaching. It's looking like a lot of people - maybe most people - are resting the bow on the beach or boat ramp as they launch or land their boats. I prefer a different approach. Paddle the boat into shallow water parallel to the beach, hold your paddle perpendicular to the boat immediately behind the cockpit, and exit into shallow water. When the bow is supported on the beach the center of buoyancy shifts aft - away from the widest part of the boat; it becomes less stable. With the boat fully afloat, parallel to the beach you still have the normal stability, you can be closer to the beach than if you beached the bow, and you don't scrape the bow. If there are any significant waves, get out of the boat on the side away from the beach; high waves can push the boat into you and knock you down - learned that one the hard way! There are lots of good reasons for bow and stern rub strips, but I think you'll find that beaching the bow to enter and exit is not one of them.

I'm an old guy with a history of back problems dating from about 1980. I've tried a wide variety of back bands, foam pads, inflatable pads, and most everything else I could think of short of bricks. I've not taken very good care of my back, and it often hurts, but kayaking no longer causes problems. In normal conditions I position my foot rests to allow me to bend my knees and press them lightly under the edge of the cockpit with my feet flexed so the ball of my foot presses on the foot rest while my heels rest on the bottom of the boat. As conditions get rougher, I press harder with my feet on the foot rests and my knees under the deck. The knee/foot pressure also pushes me against the back rest firmly. My feet sometimes get a bit tired, but my back feels fine. I use a 12-inch high backrest made of moderately stiff plastic covered with a 1-inch minicell pad. It's attached to the boat (about 7 inches from the bottom) with a 3/16 nylon line. The line has some stretch and the plastic/minicell flexes adequately to allow me to lay back for rolls while still providing good support for my lower back. It feels a lot like my car seat with a good lumbar support. It doubt my system will work for every paddler, but it's great for my beaten-up back.

Mike, I noticed that you said you added padding. If the padding was under your butt, that would have raised your center of gravity and decreased the stability. You may be able to get the bow down by adding ballast in the bow. My first thought is to use beer, but it doesn't go (safely) with being out on the water. A few water jugs may be a safer solution. If all else fails, you may want to consider a sit-on-top kayak. They're easier to get in and out of. Unfortunately, although they're wider, they are no more stable because you sit higher to give a self-draining cockpit. Jeff doesn't have a sit-on-top design - yet. And, the plastic ones are HEAVY! So, Jeff: how about a sit-on-top design. The cockpit would probably have to be plywood with a fabric-covered hull and a short fabric fore deck. Sounds like a lot of work to design, prototype, and perfect, but there may be a market for it. Dan

Have a look at http://www.paddling.net/index.html?refer=DOTCOM I was also a single-blader until I injured a tendon in my elbow doing a j-stroke (improperly). It turns out a double-blade works great in a canoe. From there it was a short hop to add kayaks. Now I decide to go paddle, step outside and spend a couple of minutes wondering whether it's a kayak day or a canoe day. SOF's complicate that decision because they allow you to have a large inventory of boats to choose from.

It sounds like falconsails is using his paddle as a leeboard, moving it fore and aft to change the center of lateral resistance and steer the boat. I've done this in a long, skinny canoe. It may not be a high-performance sailboat but it's seriously fun! You're so close to the water that it feels like you're going outrageously fast. You won't sail like a laser or a HUmongus 50, but if you like a little experimentation and don't mind getting a bit damp, it's a blast!

If I had a nickel for every time I heard, "When are we ever going to use this stuff?" during my 15 years teaching (algebra, general science, and Cisco Networking) I'd be rich! It's too bad scaling doesn't work better; that's a great exercise in algebra, spreadsheets, and science. Enjoy the day! And thanks for showing students the real world!

I stapled the skin on all (one) of my SOFs primarilly because I dislike sewing and also because thought I could get the skin tighter than I could by sewing. I probably had some pulling from the staples, but the paint and the polypropylene tape I used for the rub rail apparently covered it. The staples have held perfectly, partially because the hull fabric was wrapped over two edges of the gunwale and stapled inside the gunwale; the deck was wrapped over one edge and stapled on the outside of the gunwale - the staples don't take the full tension on the fabric - and partially because I used two coats of thinned paint that penetrates the fabric and acts as glue to hold the fabric to the gunwale. As some folks discussed in a thread a few weeks ago, SOF is not an experimental concept, but there's plenty of room for experimentation within the well-established SOF process. Stapling is obviously not historically accurate, but it worked well for my one build. I painted the entire boat with two coats of thinned white paint then painted the topsides with two coats of un-thinned white before I worried about taping for my yellow deck and bottom, so the cheap Lowes masking tape held well with no noticeable bleeding. I doubt anyone would mistake my boat for a work of art, but it works great!

When I build one of these - which means as soon as Jeff puts the design in the store - I'll probably fit a fixed skeg about a foot long just forward of the aft waterline. The skeg will mostly clear the water when the boat is leaned aggressively, so it shouldn't interfere with intentional turns. I'll bed it with marine caulk and attach it with screws through the keel after attaching the hull skin. For those who don't staple the hull and deck skin separately, you could install a small deck hatch over the installation area. Jeff, are the plans ready yet? Jeff, are the plans ready yet? Jeff, are the plans ready yet?

I use a rudder on an old Hydra Solo (17' x 22" poly kayak) not as a rudder, but as an adjustable skeg. I disconnected the foot control lines, attached an extended arm across the rudder head, and ran lines to small jam cleats on each side just forward of the cockpit. It's ugly, but it lets me adjust and hold the rudder/skeg angle for cross winds, currents, and poor paddling technique. Obviously, a boat designed to go straight shouldn't need either a skeg or a rudder - a little lean and a little shifting of the stroke will turn most anything - but for a boat that's designed to be "maneuverable" or is poorly designed it can make straight-line cruising pleasant. It should be possible to attach a rudder to a SOF with less chance of leaks than a skeg. You just have to close your eyes if you're paddling facing the back of the boat. Come to think about it, the Iggy is such a beautiful boat, it might be sinful to put a rudder on it.

It should be easier to attach a skeg as a fixed rudder on the stern rather than in an internal box. It would not be as attractive as an internally mounted skeg, but it could be retractable or it could be built shallow enough that it clears the water when the boat is leaned.

That's a beautiful boat! It appears to have a little more freeboard and higher ends than Shad. Would it get blown around more than Shad or is it deeper in the water to resist that? I prefer a low bow and stern, counting on the foredeck to shed waves before they reach the cockpit. I also like low freeboard, and less length - around 15 feet - but that's just too pretty to resist! Please keep us informed as you play with this design.

I stapled the skin (Jeff's original polyester) on my first - and only - build. I stretched the hull skin as tight as I could, working from the center toward each end, alternating ends and sides, wrapping the skin around the gunwale and stapling on the inside about every three inches. After the initial stapling I went back, rolled the excess into a sorta' neat roll and stapled every inch. The deck was also stretched as tight as possible and stapled on the outside using the same system. There were very few, very small wrinkles left to iron and they have not re-appeared with use. I've not tried sewing a boat so I can't compare sewing to stapling, but I can strongly endorse stapling. The process used over a thousand stainless staples and took a couple of hours. My electric stapler didn't always seat the staples fully, but a hammer fixed that problem. I covered the ugly line of rolled and stapled deck fabric with a polyester webbing. The webbing looks good (to me) and protects the gunwale from scrapes against docks and storage racks. My hands were a bit sore from pulling the fabric tight, so there's not much advantage in effort, based on comments I've read about sewing. Stapling certainly falls into the experimental category, but my single data point indicates it's worth considering.

Rumor has it that Lake Superior is COLD. If you capsize or ship water over the gunwale, you'll need to get the water back where it belongs before you are incapacitated by hypothermia. Float bags are necessary! Please, buy or build float bags before you put you boat in the water again!