The Greenland Bug Cont. (Pt. 8)

Well, this time it has been two months since the last update on the new kayak, and lots has happened in that time.

I believe I left off last time at the end of October as I had just glassed the cockpit coaming on. As I recall the weather was just starting to swing over to the colder temperatures about that time. I spent quite some time doing my final sanding all over the exterior of the boat. To say this 'took quite some time' is an understatment. I was as thorough as I could tolerate being. The boat has many spots where the previous gel coats were uneven or wavy, and I sanded and sanded these areas to get them as smooth as possible. I did sand so much as to go into the glass in a couple of spots. But I figured that I was not building this boat for strength, nor for sheer beauty. I want a Greenland Rolling boat.

As the sanding went on, I also cut the hole for the day hatch. The day hatch will be placed to the left rear of the cockpit. It will be pretty close to flush to the deck. The hatch is an Ocean Kayak sit-upon style after-market hatch. About six inches across, having a screw off black plastic access lid with a sack of about a gallon in size underneath. It will make for access into the rear of the boat when necessary as well as storage for the few things I will take while in the boat.

The day hatch hole (although after a varnish layer).

The deck lines will be a 1/4 in static line from REI which is red with black threads through it. I will make a loop though the bow tube, which is about two feet from the bow point and an inch below the sheer. The loop will hold a wooden cedar marble on top of the deck (already completed from a scrap piece of cedar, formerly a picnic table) and will hold the paddle onto the deck when not in use. I drilled two sets of three holes to accept the same line through the front deck just fore of the cockpit. The holes are one inch from the sheer edges and four inches apart each. They start about four inches in front of the cockpit coaming. I am finishing a 1x1/2x4 inch cedar block drilled through with three holes that will be placed amongst the three parallel lines on the fore deck, with each line passing through a separate hole in the block. This will allow a tightening of the deck lines and will hold the near end of the paddle to the deck when not in use, as well as the norsaq or throwing stick (aka. rolling stick).

The bow deck-line hole.

Three fore deck holes and unfinished spacer block (also after a varnish layer).

Having finished sanding the complete boat inside and out, and having finished all alterations to the deck with the holes, I started to put on the final layer of gel. By this time, it was into November and I was having to wait for decent weather predictions to avoid both rain and nights that got below fifty degrees. The final coat of gel went on in two sections, the deck and the hull. If I remember correctly, while waiting for the weather to provide a good window of opportunity, I got fed up and moved the boat into the back room of the house for a week to do the final coat. I recall being impatient, turning the boat over after the hull had dried sufficiently and instead of simply going straight to painting the deck, I took a piece of sandpaper to the very edges of the sheer. I recall that I was trying to taper and smooth the edges of the final layer as it encroached around the sheer edges. Since the gel was still a little soft, the sanding was a disaster. The gel just balled up on the sand paper and turned white. I did my best to finish what I had started and get rid of the white edges, but if you look closely now, they are still there. But that is what makes a home-made boat interesting. I will smile the first time that someone asks me if I made any mistakes while working on the boat, and I will point out these minor blemishes as my scars of many hours of labor.

Anyway, after the final gel coat dried, I took the boat back outside and started sanding again. This took weeks. I remember people asking me where I was on the boat, and I would keep repeating that I was still sanding. Again I sanded and sanded to get the gel smooth and free of the pits that form from an average coat of gel. Eventually I was satisfied with my sanding. I went out to buy varnish. I ended up buying a quart of West Marine basic varnish. It seemed to have just as much UV protection as the rest and offered drying times down to fifty degrees. I knew that even if I varnished inside, I would be facing below sixty temperatures overnight as the winter came on.

Meanwhile. I ordered some more neoprene. I ordered a sheet of 3mm red double sided (N2S) from Aleeda Wetsuits. This will become my tuilik. I also ordered black N1S which I will use for the edging which makes contct with the coaming as well as the edges of the tuilik hood where it makes contact with skin. Then I went to Sweets Composites in Brookmont and got some Neoprene cement, 5/16 inch bungee cord, steel bungee clips, and Melco seam tape. While I was thinking about how I would do the varnishing of the boat, I cut up the original sheet of neoprene from Nelson and created a Greenland Style skirt. I say it is Greenland Style, since the base of the skirt is essentially like the base of a tuilik . There is no tunnel and deck, it is all one piece. A big floppy skirt. I cut the pattern which I talked about earlier (the one derived from Peterson) and glued a strip of N1S onto the bottom edge of the one large piece of skirt neoprene. Then I started blind stitching the seam of the skirt that would bring the one piece together into a tube-like shape. After blind stitching, I cemented this edge. Next I flipped up the N1S into a tube for the bungee, with the rubber side of the neoprene outward. After threading the bungee, I tried it on the cockpit. It fit like a charm, so I clipped the bungee together permanently, sealed up the final edge of the bungee tube and welded in a red pull loop with neoprene cement. As a final measure, I applied Melco seam tape to the outside of the blind stitched seam and around the top of the tunnel. No extra stitching seems to be necessary to hold the tape in place, only ironing. Now the skirt looks very professional. If it had an iron on logo, you would swear I bought it somewhere.

The Finished Greenland-Style Skirt.

Skirt pull loop.

Blind-Stitching.

Melco Tape on seam and top of tunnel.

Finally I was ready to try my hand at varnishing. This was less than two weeks ago. I brought the boat back inside, made sure that everything was covered, the room was as sealed off as possible from the rest of the house, and really clean. I cleaned the hull of the boat many times over with rubbing alcohol and paper towels, bought disposable foam two inch brushes and got everything else I could imagine ready. Eventually I started the hull. To my surprise, the varnish went on really easy and really fast. I did a very thin layer using only the foam brush. I was satisfied with the way the foam brush worked and never used a bristle brush to finish it. I completed the hull, then the inside of the cockpit, then the deck and the coaming. After it was all done, I could tell that where I was not really careful in my inspection of the progress, there were light spots where the varnish was too thin. I hope that as I work towards my three coats of varnish I will get better at spotting the light spots before completing the coat.

Starting the varnish.

After the varnish had dried for a few days, I started sanding again. This time it was quicker, although the varnish goes through lots of sand paper. I used only 220 grip paper. On the second coat I think I will try using green scotch brite pads before the sand paper to start roughing it up ahead of time. A light sanding smooth and back for another layer of varnish. To keep the varnish in the original can contaminate free, I had poured some into a jar to work from. While waiting out the first coat to dry and to be sanded, the stuff in the jar started coagulating. Before I gave up and threw it away, I had started painting with it and it left a few lumpyspots on the second coat on the hull. Hopefully these will sand out before the last coat, where I will have to be extra-super careful.

This is where I am now. Halfway through coat two of three varnish coats. One skirt completed, one tuilik to go. Some of the internal fit kit started out of closed cell foam, and most of the deck fitting completed too. Pool sessions start in five days. Perhaps the boat will be completed in two or three weeks and then the fun will start!