Ekapi

Looking very nice, Lisa. I like your coaming too!

For just going in and out through moderate surf, Jeff's boats should do fine. Skin on frame construction is quite strong, though for serious heavy seas work I would go with a traditionally built boat rather than a fuselage frame. Traditional boats have the loads distributed better IMO, keelson and stringer loads are spread over 20 to 30 ribs rather than 6-8 ply frames and your gunwales are generally beefier, at least for the Greenland type boats. Traditional boats are a bit heavier than fuseframe boats...in the real world, most 17-18 ft. Greenlands weight in at 35 to 40 lbs or a bit more. Still much lighter than glass, ply, or plastic boats. As designed, I wouldn't want to subject a fuselage frame boat to a serious washing machine event in heavy surf, but they are more than strong enough for the use that most people will ever subject them to. It would be a relatively simple matter to beef a boat up for regular service in heavy conditions with a very modest weight penalty. This is what *I* would do if I wanted to make a dedicated surf boat in fuselage frame style. First, I'd increase the scantling size of the gunwales....go to 2" wide and make them of doug fir or a good straight grained hard pine. Both are stiffer, and tougher than WRC and much less likely to break. I would also make my keelson and stringers and deck stringers from good straight vertical grain doug fir or similar wood for the same reason. Since doug fir is stiffer and stronger than WRC, you can reduce the scantling size to offset *some* of the weight penalty. Last, I'd peg and lash in a couple of light deck beams between frames both fore and aft. This is simple to do, won't alter the boat's lines or take up any more interior space and adds alot of support to the deck structure. You can make these from WRC or redwood to save weight. You might add 5 lbs or so to your build doing this. Whatever you do, if you are going in and out of surf, you MUST have good reserve flotation. A fully swamped kayak in surf can be LETHAL. If you are halfway in and halfway out in the middle of a wet exit, a wave can drive you and your semi attached boat right down to the bottom with enough force to kill you. Invest in good quality, properly fit flotation bags.

I like the fact that you start off with a bunch of good food Your crew turned out some nice boats too.

Nice

We paint to a wet edge, which is what you were trying to do. If it isn't working ( your *wet* edge is tacking) work with a smaller section at a time. As long as you can maintain the wet edge, your paint job will look good.

And lest I forget to note that Jeff did a dandy job drawing up a real useful handy little boat.

While I do like longer pointier swifter and rolly-er kayaks I don't overlook the usefulness of these types of 'yaks either. They are like dang near perfect camp boats...one you keep handy to actually DO stuff in, like fishing, hauling a pck-a-nick basket to the other side of the lake with yer sweetheart , hauling a bit of groceries back to camp or whatnot. When it is all said and done, a boat like this actually sees more use than other, lower volume performance sea kayaks. Lighter to load than most canoes, and while not an 18', 19" beam Greenland, they aren't exactly slow either What's not to like? A.T., you put that together smartly. Nice.

I dunno. Most white shark attacks on humans occur in water with poor visibility. They swim near the bottom, looking for prey on the surface. Often all that they can see is a dark silhouette, regardless of color. I sure as hell ain't gonna test it

Whites are the only ones to worry about in my area, and I dunno if it would stop one in full charge. As for orcas, there are no documented attacks upon humans by wild ones, and they just aren't something to worry about. If you see them up close in the wild, you've had a great day!

No, but you can catch 30 lb Chinook salmon and 10 lb steelhead here

Any progress to report, Lisa?

These two areas are within a 1/2 drive of me. I stay out of the water here from late July 'til about late November. There are numerous seals and sea lions in both places, and several white shark attacks have occurred, a couple of them fatal. I do paddle inside Tomales Bay year round though...whites generally don't enter estuarine waters.

I'm not worried about it at all, frankly. Although there are a couple of local places I will not swim or paddle at certain times of the year. These are spots that have had fairly regular attacks over the last couple of decades.

I don't know what's worse, an attack by a white shark, or an orca attempting to mate with my kayak.

In my neck of the woods the top predator are great white sharks. Water is relatively cold, so no sea snakes or poison dart frogs. Sharky wouldn't know what one was if he saw one . Interestingly, white sharks seem to have an attraction for yellow...so much so that divers and surfers refer to it as " yum yum yellow".

Looks quite nice Lisa!

I have used an inexpensive soldering iron with a chisel shaped tip to cut nylon for skin boats. I don't know if it would work differently with polyester but it worked perfectly on the nylon.

....well, sorta I joined this forum with the idea of building myself a lightweight canoe for fishing and short camping/ hunting trips. I've built several traditional style Greenland boats over the last 16 years or so. Great boats...they demand that you work on developing your paddling and rolling/recovery skills but are not real useful for more than an overnight trip with minimalist gear. However, the more I ponder the question the more I want to get back in a kayak. I am thinking of either the Long Shot or the Firefly, and leaning towards the Firefly just because of the extra Cool Factor of the "baidarka" styling. Either boat should carry enough gear for me to camp in reasonable comfort for 2 or 3 nights, and be relaxing enough to fish from. If I do want to boat in to some of the hunting spots I have in mind, I still have my 14' pirogue. I am heading to Idaho tomorrow, and will order up the plans and cloth when I return in a couple weeks.

Yeah, that would be a concern in an area with lots of crazies in their powerboats. I paddle Tomales Bay frequently and there aren't alot of jet skiers...water is just too damn cold. Mostly fisherman, other kayakers and sailboats.

Bob, well, there ya go. Good info and I'll save the EM9300 for my arrows.

Rich, I used burnt umber, red and yellow ochre. I put piles of each on a sheet of plywood, dipped my brush in the Helmsman, and then into the pigment and brushed it on.

At the time I was using ballistic nylon, and the upside is the the Helmsman has good adhesion to that material. I am going to be using polyester on the next boat however. Since I pigmented the varnish, the color wasn't an issue. I mean, it wasn't bad stuff,but it did wear and required regular touch up. Have you tried simply oiling your paddles? It provides a much better grip than a varnished surface, and if made from WRC, decay really isn't an issue. If they need a some touch up, a little dressing with sandpaper and a coat of oil and you are all set.

Could be, but this is what their advertisement says.... Yeah, it does have a heavy plastic look to it.. On my other boats I used Helmsman Spar Urethane. It worked pretty well, but it isn't that abrasion resistant, it'll scrape off pretty easily. It looks nice though, I colored it with raw earth pigments to make it look like a seal skin.

Even Corey's Goop wasn't developed for skin boats....it is a concrete coating. I used it on one boat....it is indeed a very tough and durable finish but it is a BEAR to apply without sags and runs.

You are correct, but this doesn't say anything, for or against EM9300. The bottom line is we just don't know. You can call or e-mail the manufacturer. You can do some kind of testing. Or you can just paint a kayak and hope it works. But as of right now you are just guessing it will work. Ummm...