New Kayak

I am at last free from my burden of building a new patio, and ready to start a new kayak.  A friend gave me some old street paving bricks that his grandfather collected after the Cleveland World Fair in the 1930s.  I could not pass up such a find!  This was a very time consuming project that I've been working on since mid summer.  At last I am free!

I bought the plans for the Gullimot L, which is an 18 foot long cedar strip kayak.  I am tall, and this model seems to have more leg room than most of the other kayaks plans I've seen.  It should also weight about 41 pounds when done.  I plan to start cutting out the forms this weekend.

My plan is to position the cockpit so that the kayak will be balanced on my shoulders, and I can portage the kayak on my shoulders when necessary.  I have a solo 45 pound canoe that I can comfortably portage on my shoulders for a half a mile, and uncomfortably up to about a mile or more.  The kayak I brought on this years trip weighed about 66 or 67 pounds.  It was just too heavy to portage very far.  It was also too heavy for my portage wheels, which bent and finally broke.

I'm going to try to finish the kayak by May 2013 so that I can do a test run in the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota at that time.  This year's NFCT trip taught me that portaging a kayak can be fairly easy if you have all of your gear in small dry bags that can be easily transferred into a large Duluth pack for transport.  I have some ideas for making portage wheels for my next NFCT through paddle.