Kayak Build, Day 15

Bit of a varied day today, so I thought I'd show you something different to the usual kayak building photos. We have a passion-fruit vine growing around our vegetable garden. The local Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos usually eat seeds, but they're pretty partial to passion-fruit, so they have a habit of stealing ours.

The bush behind with the pink flowers is a Grevillea. The lorikeets we look after love them, and apparently they're rather nice dunked in a cup of tea too, but I haven't tried it yet.



Anyway, back to the job at hand. I got up early today and visited Bunnings after dropping Donna off at work. I bought a 1200mm x 600mm piece of 12mm plywood to make a coaming. The coaming is basically two rings glued together, one bigger than the other, to attach a skirt. It wouldn't have hurt to add a third ring for more depth, and I'll probably do that for the coaming on Donna's kayak, but it'll do. The only problem I found was that there wasn't enough clearance between the coaming and the deck stringers, so I'll need to add a couple of, for want of a better word, bits of wood, to raise the coaming up. It fits perfectly between the stringers, but that will cause problems when it comes time to skin the boat, if I don't add the bits of wood.

I glued the two pieces of coaming together just before heading off to work this afternoon. It's only sitting in place for the benefit of the camera, and my step-daughter and her hubby who came over for dinner tonight. I know it's not traditional, but jigsawing plywood is so much easier than bending oak. Another layer of ply would have been good, but I'm a cheapskate, so an inch thick coaming will do the job. When it comes right down to it, it's only there to hold a skirt.



Yes, the coaming looks wonky in the next picture, but that's not how it'll be fitted eventually. It's pretty much sitting there for somewhere to dry.



I did a bit more lashing tonight, six more ribs to lash and another breast hook to fit. then the frame will be right to skin. The coaming needs sealing with some marine type varnish, then drilling for when the skin is fitted. I'll oil the frame as well.

The leather turned up today for the deck lines. The only thing I'm waiting for now is the nylon for the skin, which is coming from the states.

I reckon I only spent about 2 hours on the job today, I had so many interruptions, it's hard to say for sure, but 2 hours takes the total to 55 1/2.