bwhip

First Pygmy, and now Kudzu Craft. All the greats are leaving. Thanks for all the help, and the great boats.

If you're going to Ocean Shores or Westport, I'm a five minute detour off of Highway 12. Easy to get to.

Brad, I tried taking photos of my boat, but it's glossy black along the seam and doesn't really show much in the pictures. I'm assuming you're in the Pacific NW. If you're on the wet side, near Grays Harbor County, we can arrange a meet and you can take a look at my Ravenswood.

Jeff, I tried to order the low volume plans last night and the link doesn't work (http://www.kudzucraft.net/Boat-plans/Kayaks/Ravenswood-LOW-VOLUME-Full-size-plans.html).

This is the first time I've heard of a low volume Ravenswood. When was it added to the design catalog?

She's paddling a Ravenswood. I had posted photos earlier, but they were lost during the photobucket debacle.

I'm bumping this. This past weekend, my wife and I were paddling on South Puget Sound and she asked, "Can't you build a narrower boat for me?" She really has to concentrate to keep from hitting her knuckles while paddling.

Thanks Frank!

I just got an email from photobucket announcing that their terms of service have changed, and that I need to pony up $400/year to be able to share photos on forums and such. So all the photos I've posted are gone. Does this forum permit direct posting of photos, or do I need to find another photo hosting site?

Can you take some closeup photos of the damage? Is it just paint damage, or is there abrasion to the underlying fabric? Paint damage is easy to fix with a little touch up.

Well, now I know the difference between the prismatic coefficient and longitudinal center of balance, but I wouldn't know a reasonable value of either. I guess I'll have to wait for your sea trials. I expect you'll be posting photos soon?

Dang overachievers, you need to watch more t.v.! I think it took two months for me to oil my frame!

I like the color of your hull. I tried something like that at first, using spirit line's rare earth pigments, but I have no clue on how to mix colors. I ended up with a couple quarts of purplish, brownish unusable varnish taking up space. Regarding your perimeter lines, you'll find that as soon as your paracord gets wet, it will stretch like crazy. Nylon absorbs water and softens. I tried nylon paracord on my pygmy and was surprised at how much it sagged when I got it in the water. I switched to poly line and it holds up well. I used this one from Amazon, but you might not want the reflective yarn in it. https://www.amazon.com/Shine-Line-Reflective-Cord-16/dp/B00TIMTIFE/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

Here's a side by side comparison of my wife's old S&G kayak and the Ravenswood cockpits. The wood boat's cockpit is 16.5 X 27 whereas the Ravenswood's is 18.5 X 33.5.

I recently purchased this Wilkinson 8" drawknife from Ebay for $35 and no shipping. It took a while to massage the edge back into shape, but it was well worth it--beautiful old tool.

My wife and I were out on the lawn, taking turns sitting in the Ravenswood. One big difference we noticed was that I brace with my knees on the underside of the deck, between the coaming and the sheer. She braces on the inside bottom edge of the coaming (looks painful to me). The cockpit opening is just too big for her. The deck height could come down a little, but not more than an inch. Hope the feedback helps.

While practicing self rescues, my wife noticed that the Ravenswood's width, combined with the high coaming, made it a lot harder to do the ladder crawl re-entry. I suppose I could remove the coaming and shorten it, but the effort/benefit ratio may be pretty high.

Good read. Thanks for posting.

Nice. Should look awesome when it's oiled.

I like the summer camp option because, 1) it's way cheaper for the student, 2) it would be easier to extend the shop time into the evening, with everybody billeted on-site, 3) more time to get to know each other (that could be good or bad), and 4) I'll take a camp fire over hotel TV any day.

Here's the earlier post I referenced: http://messing-about.com/forums/topic/9739-which-design-for-a-small-woman/?hl=%2Bsmall+%2Bwoman

My current kayak is a Pygmy Pinguino 145, so I'm familiar with the issues of S&G boats. My wife had to talk me down from the ledge a couple of times when I was building it. The Osprey 13 is nice for smaller paddlers, but their new Selkie would be awesome. We're going up there for a test paddle in a few weeks. I'd much rather build something Selkie-like in a fuselage boat.

I was thinking about the Tadpole, but at 12' long, I was wondering if she'd have trouble keeping up with the rest of us. I'm not talking about racing, but recreational cruising.

Jeff, A year ago, there was a "which design for a small woman" post, and of all your kayaks, you recommended the Shad. I would have to buy a new garage to build something that long, but a 14' to 15' low volume kayak for smaller people--say a 5 foot nothing 100 pounder, would be perfect. Do you foresee designing something like this?

8/21/16 another trip, this time near Aberdeen, WA. A beautiful sunny day. Left to right: fiberglass, SOF, stitch & glue. Our photographer is in a rotomolded play boat.