Nemo!

Well since Dave is telling you all about his new boat (or at least new boat in process), I thought I should share a bit about mine. Last month I bought a Kayakpro Nemo. It is my ultimate open water racer. Designed to fit within the sea kayak catagory for racing, the boat is nonetheless a rocket on the water.

And she is a beauty! Rather than bore you with words, check out the video I made below. For those interested in all the boat's technical details, go read the review wrote which is posted on the CPA website.

The Greenland Bug Cont. (Pt. 2)

Seven days have passed and I have finished part 4 and 30 pages in the 500+ page instruction manual for this kayak. Although it does not yet look like a boat, at least it is looking like work has been done. I have glassed and gelled all the hull panels and all the deck panels on the insides only. The next step is to but-joint all the panels into 4 long hull panels and on two deck panels. Then I can start stitching into into the semblance of a boat.


During the past couple of days, I also mocked up a cockpit coaming using the actual coaming ring supplied by C.L.C. as well as some wood and a couple of rulers. I make the heights of the coaming 6 1/2" aft and 7 5/8" fore. These represent the mast completed height of the top coaming ring behind the cockpit and the minimal skin (bottom of the coaming) height before the cockpit. These figures are purely from my imagination. The test was to see if I would fit into a rigid hull boat with a 19" x 15" cockpit at these heights. And I fit, no problem.

I have come up with the figures to match these two heights by tweaking what I know of the Wilderness Systems Arctic Hawk in glass and the dimensions given by Mark Rogers for his kit via C.L.C. If I cut two inches off of the two long hull side panels all the way from bow to stern before I start stitching, these height dimensions will be 5 1/4" aft from 'skin to skin'(i.e. excluding the cockpit coaming) and 8 3/4" fore of the cockpit 'skin to skin'. This includes the cutting of the same dimension from the fore and aft bulkheads, and the 'deck stretcher' which holds the deck in position until dried just fore of the cockpit. At that point, I will toy with the idea of cutting the 'deck stretcher' another 1 1/8" down to bring the fore deck to my 7 5/8" desired height. And if I fit into that, why not? After all this boat will not be made for paddling.

While doing all this, I found a photo on Mark Rogers site of a wooden boat that looks very much like what I am trying to create. Check it out.

All of this thinking about tweaking a boat to get it into a different shape has got me thinking big-time about what properties of a kayak enhance or hinder different Greenland style tricks. I have come up with many theories of what height, width, volume, shape, etc. will do during differing actions in one's boat. I have no idea if my theories would pan out if really tested. Maybe this is a study that needs done and published; "Greenland Style Rolling Boat Designs and their Benefits."






I signed the interior of my boat. And I was caught in the act while trimming glass from the panels.

The Greenland Bug....

It all started last October at Delmarva Paddlers Retreat. There I think I was officially infected by the Greenland Bug. Even though I had sporadically paddled with my Greenland Paddle(which I had bought off of James S. over a year before) and had determined that this wooden stick was even better to roll with than a Euro-blade, I still did not really understand the concept.

At Delmarva, I met lots of serious paddlers. I mean to say that they are serious about Greenland Style Paddling. I also mean to say that I do not think they are serious about a single thing other than that. But it was still an eye opener. I watched people making boats; I made a paddle in a class; I watched some great paddlers do lots of fancy rolls; I tried out very cool home-made low volume qajaqs; and I even got a taste of Greenland Rope Exercises courtesy of Dubside.

Eight months have passed, and I now have a set of ropes in my backyard. I practice the elusive Qajaasaarneq almost every day (more on that some other time). I can do most of the normal set of Greenland Rolls in my Outer Island, after modifying it as much as possible. Yet, I still can not get those elusive few completed. At least I have reached a point that I have learned enough to know what I am not doing right. Persistence will get one far, but I still think that a cheater boat will get me the rest of the way. There just seems to be some things that I cannot yet (and may never) achieve in my Outer Island. And besides, history shows that some Greenland kayakers actually made special low volume boats just for rolling. I have a task!

Back in November, Len T. told me he had a C.L.C. Arctic Hawk in his garage that he did not think he would build any more. I bought it from him. Ever since then, I was asked by someone at least once a week; "Did you start your boat yet?" As of yesterday, the answer is Yes! Of course, if I actually get it done by next Delmarva (that is almost 4 month away), I will be impressed.

So what will this new boat be? Why, a Greenland-like rolling boat, of course. I have tried and measured many hard shelled and skin boats over the winter, and have a pretty good idea what I want the boat to end up like. I hope that it is reasonable. I intend to simply cut down the sheer edge on the six side hull panels and drop the boat's height as much as I can.

The plan is to have the following dimensions after the cut:

• Depth at fore of 20" cockpit/Height of Masik: 7 5/8" (Arctic Hawk original was 10 3/4")
• Depth at aft of cockpit/Depth to Sheer: 5 1/2" (Arctic Hawk original was 7 3/4")
• Depth of coaming at rear of cockpit: 6 1/2" (Arctic Hawk original was 8 3/4")
• Beam: 19 3/4" (Arctic Hawk original was 22")
• Beam at chine: 17 1/2" (Arctic Hawk original was 17 1/2")
• Depth to sheer at feet: 5 1/2" (Arctic Hawk original 7 1/2")

Although I have yet to make a mock-up of the cockpit with these depths to make sure that I will fit into it, I am pretty sure that I will. The only problem that I have with the new dimensions is the beam. I would like to make it a little narrower, but I am afraid of what will happen to the kit if I start messing with this dimension. I hope that cutting the kit at the sheer will reduce the beam enough to be a satisfying rolling boat.

So it starts, and this is to log my progress and my goal of having a great rolling boat by the end of the season:

The Date on the carton (i.e. when the kit was packaged, and how old the resin is too!)

All the parts laid out on the back porch. June 16th.

After the bow & stern side hull panels and the two bulkheads have had their insides glassed and gelled. June 17th.
I will try to keep postings on my progress. If not for the adventurous that want to see my completed boat, as incentive for me to keep going!

Finally an update ...

Wow am I ever behind on updating this blog. Contrary to what you may think, we have been busy lately. Since I last posted, there was a ski trip to West Virginia in February, an extraordinary race clinic in April followed by SK 102, camping in Jamestown in May, a new boat, the start of the race season, and another camping trip over Memorial Day weekend. Rather than try to catch you up on all of that I’ll just start with our Memorial Day Trip.

First, why can’t every weekend have three days in it? It sure is nice. Saturday morning Brian B. and I held the first of CPA’s three races. Held at Jack’s Boathouse 12 of us raced up past Three Sisters, turned by the old incline, raced down around Roosevelt Island and back to the docks. Click here to go to CPA’s site for all the details.

From there I raced home, switched out the race boat for the tempest, loaded Dave’s boat and the camping gear and headed to Annapolis to pick him up from work. Our goal was get down to Pocomoke River State Park where we had reservations for the rest of the weekend.

Nelson and Caroline arrived the day before us and had dinner simmering as we pulled in. We set up camp and then Dave and Nelson hit the ropes for awhile. Dave is really getting into this whole Greenland thing. I’m sure the rest of the campground thought we were a little nuts but what else is new.

We got up early on Sunday and headed to Ocean City, MD in search of surf. But before we went out to the playground, the offshore break outside of the Ocean City Inlet, Nelson and I had one piece of business let over from our last visit there. When we were there in the fall we watched Chris launch his kayak off, what then was a six foot, tie up pier in the marina. It looked like such fun. Unfortunately when Nelson and I were ready for our turn the Harbor Patrol came motoring past so we thought better of it.

This time there was no stopping us. The tide was a little higher than the last time so resulting in only a 4 – 5 foot drop but it still looked fun. Dave and Caroline put in to be the photographers. Nelson went first. Down went his bow. His stern hung up a little on the pier but with the execution of perfect high brace all was well. I went next and went off clean. I pushed hard to keep the stern from hitting, the bow dove and then just bounced back up. A couple of power boaters went by asking if we did that every day.

Out the inlet and in the playground we found 3 foot easy surf. They were fun but not terribly predictable. They always seemed to be breaking next to you somewhere. Nonetheless, we got some great rides and as usual I spent half my time trying to find the biggest waves I could to just punch through. That is almost as much fun as surfing.

This was Caroline’s first trip out to the break and after initially sitting back and watching us throw ourselves at it and survive she worked up the nerve to try it also. She did great. Surfed like a champ and even got her first combat roll. I think we have another convert.

When we had thoroughly worn ourselves out, we decided to paddle up past the tourist beaches and the carnival. That involved crossing the channel. Normally the channel is busy but not terrible. But this was the Sunday of Memorial Day and it was like I-495 at rush hour. When we spotted an opening we went for it. In the middle of that channel the waves were probably somewhere between 4-5 feet with the occasional 6 footer. And I’m not exaggerating – I couldn’t see Dave or Nelson or Caroline when I was in the trough. The waves were well over our heads. We just kept paddling and stayed as close together as we could.

On the other side of the channel we relaxed, drifted with the current and watched all the crazy tourists on the beach. Finally ready for lunch we turned around to navigate the channel back in. As we neared the channel we saw a lone kayaker on the other side. It was our friend Chris Beckman. We hailed him on our VHF and then he did his best impression of the “squirrel crossing the freeway”. More than once we thought he was going to get run down by a boat. All together we headed in the channel. We surfed some more waves as we ferried over to the beach for a little well deserved R&R. After lunch we took out and headed back to the campsite.

Tonight dinner was on Dave and me. To be different we grilled up portabella mushrooms, onions, peppers and squash and had these with spinach in wraps. They were awesome! I think we found a new camping food favorite. Nelson and Caroline headed home after dinner but Dave and I stayed on another day to paddle.

On Monday we went for a short paddle directly from the campground at Shad Landing. We padded up the Pocomoke and made a left into Nassawango Creek. That is a lovely creek. Like much of the Pocomoke there are bald cypress trees in the middle of the river and the water has that tannin-y brown color. It probably was clean but too give you an idea of how it looked, let’s just say that Dave wasn’t too motivated to work on his rolling.

After a leisurely paddle we returned to camp, packed up the tent and braved route 50 with the rest of the beach goer traffic. It was a long, long drive home but well worth it.