An introduction

Astute readers will notice that the kayak in the background picture is not a home made kayak, it's a borrowed Old Town Nantucket.

Back in January, my wife Donna and I had our first taste of kayaking when we did our first tour with Tony and Katrina from Redlands Kayak Tours in a double kayak we were thinking of buying off them. We bought the kayak that day.

There are times during the week, when Donna's at work, that I'd love to go out for a paddle by myself, but our double, a Q-Kayaks Sprite II, is a bit to heavy and cumbersome to load and unload by myself, so Tony offered the Nantucket to me on loan until I can get a decent kayak of my own. I should mention here that Katrina is our niece, it's a case of family helping each other out.

Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that I can save up my money and get a half decent, second-hand sea kayak, that might or might not suit me, or I can build a skin-on-frame kayak myself for a fraction of the price, knowing it will be custom made to fit me. Easy decision really.

So that's what this blog is all about. Sure there are heaps of other blogs out there about building kayaks. Some of them are written by people that have been doing it for years, some like me are doing it for the first time. Some of the kayaks are real works of art, some, well lets just say I hope mine turns out somewhere in the middle. One thing is for sure, all of the kayak building blogs I've read have been well worth reading, because everyone of them has taught me something about building a skin-on-frame kayak.

I'm hoping this blog will help someone too. If not, at least it'll be a good diary of my progress.