Kayak Skeleton

The skeleton of my new kayak is complete.  Actually, this is just the mold of the new kayak.  The forms will be removed after the deck and hull are formed.  I think everything is ready to start stripping the kayak.  I'm trying a new technique with stripping this kayak.  I've used a router to bead and cove the edges of the cedar strips, which should help them fit into place.  Previously, I've used a plane to fit the edges together.  The bead and cove should make the stripping part go much faster.

This is the first cedar strip kayak I've build so I want to take my time getting it set up.  I know the deck and hull are build separately, but I'm not sure how the deck and the hull will fit together.  I have the general idea, but I also know the devil is in the details.  I'm not sure how closely the deck and hull have to match or what some of the potential problems might be when trying to fit them together.  However, I've built enough different kinds of boats to feel confident that I will figure it out when the time comes. 

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.   

Catastrophic Failure

I forget to mention that just before taking my kayak off the wheels to load it on my truck, they failed catastrophically.  Since I would not have a reason to ever put them back on the kayak, I decided to see if I could figure out why they were so wobbly.  As I was moving them around to find the slack, a bolt broke and the entire system fell apart.  I had put very little pressure on the wheels.  They would never have made even one more portage before failing.  I am incredibly shocked to have the good fortune of having this failure 10 feet from my truck and not on a portage someplace.  Had this happened on a portage, I would have had great difficulty in getting back.  This reinforced my idea on having a kayak that is easier to portage on your shoulders. 

It also reinforced my instinct of leaving the NFCT until I have a better portage system.  My instinct told me that it was not safe doing a solo trip with a questionable portage system.  There are too many other potential problems that will require a functional portage system.  In the event of severe weather, injury, or illness, I would need to move quickly and with as little difficulty as possible.  I could not do this with my current portage system.

Portage system before failure

Portage system after Failure

Lessons Learned

I did my best to experiment with as many different portage systems before leaving as I could.  I'm not sure that I could have done anything differently in this regard.  This was always the one thing I had the least confidence in.  Maybe it was because this was the only major item I did not build myself.  I certainly live too far away from the NFCT to experiment directly on the trail with new gear.

My kayak weighs 66 pounds and all of my gear including food, water, life jacket, and kayak seat weigh 45 pounds.  When portaging, I put nearly all of my gear in a Duluth Pack usually leaving no more than about 15 pounds in the stern of my kayak.  The gear that I left was only the gear that would be balanced over the the portage wheels.  This apparently is too much weight for the portage system I was using.  What I don't understand is that other people seem to have been portaging similar weights without their portage system failing.

Kayak
I'll build a light weight cedar strip kayak that will give me the option of portaging it on wheels or on my shoulders when the portage trail is rough.  I did not have that option on this trip. Due to the length of the portages, my only option was to portage my kayak on wheels.  I'm going to build the kayak with a cockpit shaped and balanced to be used as a portage yoke. 

I believe kayaks are safer and faster on the water, but harder to portage.  They are less vulnerable to the wind and waves than solo canoes.  If I can get the cockpit shaped and balanced correctly, I might be able to design a kayak that is almost as easy to portage as a canoe. 

Cart
I'm likely going to build a cart with the following features:

• Fits under the middle of my kayak so that it takes less effort to hold up one end.
• Has a bracket that fits over the kayak which will help keep the kayak and cart in alignment.
• Has very large diameter wheels that can go over rocks and roots.
• Is sturdier than the commercially available carts.
• Can be folded and strapped to the back of my kayak.

I also want to experiment with pulling the cart rather than the kayak.  Maybe there is a reason the commercially available middle carts that I've seen seem to be designed to be pulled by the kayak rather than being pulled directly.  It seems like if the cart is pulled rather than the kayak, there is no way the wheels can become skewed when hitting a rock.  It also seems like it would be easier to get the cart and kayak over larger rocks and roots because you would be pulling up as well as forward.

Days 7 & 8 - Journey Home and Back Again

Since I have no car, I decided to take a bus home to get my truck instead of waiting until next weekend when Anne can pick me up.  The lady at the motel was nice enough to let me keep my kayak at her motel for the weekend.

The bus ride was a fun and crazy experience.  You always meet interesting people on the bus.  One of the tricks of bus riding is to always look at who is sitting behind you.  I forgot this basic fact when selecting a seat from Albany.  I sat in front of a young woman with her three year old son because the seat next to me was open.  To her credit, she tried to control her son.  One of the techniques she used was to threaten to have to police put her son in jail when ever he did not listen.  She would pick up her cell phone, and pretend to talk to the police.  She would descibe her son's behavior, and tell the police to come and get him.  This was actually kind of effective especially when coupled with a few smacks.

She got off in Rochester, NY.  A schizophrenic man took the seat behind me around this time.  I heard him talking to the woman he was sitting next too.  He was living in Boston, I think.  He said he lost everything and was eating out of a garbage can.  He also said he was 58 years old and never married.  He was going back to live in his home state of Indiana.  The woman next to him moved or got off the bus, but he remained talking.  Actually, it was mostly muttering.  He was mutter something about "scumbags" and would often break into laughter.  At one point, he caughed on me, and I had to yell at hm to cover his mouth.  He was very appologetic about that incident.

I arrived back in Cleveland around 3:30 AM on Saturday morning.  My sister picked me up from the bus station, and took me home.  Speaking of bus stations, the one in Cleveland was awful.  It was very dirty.  After seeing the restroom, I decided it was best not to get anything to eat there.

I slept a few hours, woke, and was back on the road by about 9:15 AM.  I had to go back and pick up my kayak and gear in Saranac Lake.  That trip was mostly uneventful.  I was listening to "Journey to the Center of the Earth".  I need to look up when that book was writen.  It was fun listening to the description of geology.  I'm going to guess that based on the description of the geologic time periods and fossils, the book was written around the middle of the 1800s.

After that book ended, I started to listen to Jack Karroac's "On the Road".  It was interesting to hear about life in the late 1940s.

I finally got home the second time around 2:00 AM after nearly driving 1,000 miles.

Day 6 - Dilemma

My current portage system is bent and wobbly.  Is my kayak too heavy for it?  I do not know.  I thought that my kayak weighs about 55 pounds, but I think it might be heavier.  I can portage a 55 pound canoe very comfortably 200 rods (~3,300 feet).  I can not portage my kayak on my shoulders for more than about a quarter mile without strain and pain where the kayak rests on my shoulders.

I talked to the outfitter in town.  He has no suggestions.  If I understood him correctly, he helped design the portage system that I am currently using.  He sells the same brand of end cart along with some middle carts like the one that I already tried.

According to the map, I might have more portages along the next 63 miles than anywhere else on the NFCT.  Unless I can scout the rapids before running them, I intend to portage the 8 to 10 miles or so of Class 2 water.  While I should have no difficulty in running them, I tend to be a conservative paddler.  I do not take any unnecessary chances.  While portaging this section will be difficult, the consequenses of mis-reading a rapid can be catestrophic.  With a good portage system and a downward sloping dirt road, I would not have a problem with this portage.

OK, so here's my problem.  Do I buy something that already has proven not to work in the long run, buy something over the internet that I have yet to try, or re-think my entire system?

I am not going to buy something that already failed.  My best guess is that it was not a defective portage system, but that my kayak and gear are too heavy for it.

I am also not going to buy something online, and then take it on the next section without trying it.  What I would do is buy it, have it shipped to the motel, and try it out on the portages around Saranac Lake.  This will take several days, and would effectively end my chances of reaching the end of the NFCT in the time I have remaining.

I decided to end my trip here, build a new light weight kayak (and possibly even a portage system), and re-start my NFCT trip in a year or two.  I enjoy building boats as much as using them.  I wanted to build a light weight cedar strip kayak for this trip, but did not have time.  I think I could build a new kayak that weighs somewhere between 40 and 45 pounds, and I have some ideas to design it to be portagable on my shoulders.  I do not have that option with this kayak.

Day 5 - Raquette River Falls to Saranac Lake Town

I just experienced a new kind of hell today, but before i get into that, let me first describe the beauty of the day.

I was up early, and on the water by a little after 7:00 AM this morning. It was a beautiful morning. Most of my stuff dried over night. The Raquette River is spectacularly beautiful. It was a quit mostly bug free morning. The bug was more interested in mating than in eating me. I could see thousands if not millions of bugs hovering over the stream. A few had mates. Most were still looking for a mate I suppose.

The current was going in my direction, which made paddling a leisurely experience.

My concern was missing Stony Creek.  Stony Creek enters Raquette River. The map says that it enters just after log cribbing. I could not keep track of my position along the stream. I had a sense of my speed and distance to Stony Creek so all I knew was an approximate time that I should be there. The map scale was too large to keep track of my position along the stream. I found Stony Creek just after the log cribbing were the map said it would be.

Stony Creek was amazing! It was a maze of stream channels. I watched for the stream flow to pick out the main channel from all of the dead ends. Following the strongest current was the only way to find the right channel. The dead ends mostly looked just like the main channel.

Stony Creek meandered wildly back and forth. With each bend, I had to completely stop and turn. I lost momentum and had to spend extra energy starting forward motion again. The beauty of this section was worth the effort.

I arrived at Indian Carry portage just before 10:00 AM. This is a 1.1 mile portage with 0.4 miles on a rough trail. The remainder follows a dirt road to the put-in. The map says this is doable with a cart, which is mostly correct. Except it was not what I was able to do. This is where the hell really began.

The wheels on my cart are loose and floppy.  I have no tools.  The cart frame is bent and maybe something with the wheel axis also bent. The wheels either point down and in toward the center of the kayak effectively reducing the distance between the wheels or they point up and inward causing the wheels to rub on the kayak sides. They also seem to become skewed in another way causing them to drag.

I met a woman on the portage with an extremely light canoe and gear. She said that the outfitter by the tennis courts in Saranac Lake are very experienced, and should be familiar with the problems people are having by this time on the NFCT.

It took nearly two hours to do this relatively easy portage. I was so exhausted when I finally reached the end that I had to rest at lease another 30 minutes before moving. What happened is that when the wheels turned inward, any bump on the trail caused my kayak to flip over. I was having this problem on the Raquette River portage too. My kayak might turn over every 5 feet or it might take 50 feet. It never took more than 50 feet even when taking it very very slow unless I put the bow under my arm and physically wrestled the kayak upright when it wanted to flop over. This was exhausting! `

I had taken my pack and all of my gear to the gravel road on the second half of the portage. I expected most of the hard part to be over once I reached this point. Instead, it became even harder. Now the wheels flopped inward rubbing against the kayak. I tried several times to get them straight, but to no avail. I ended up mostly dragging the kayak to the put-in having to take several breaks during the portage.

I don't know which direction the wheels flopped was more difficult. I also did seem to be able to control their direction of flopping..

I made it to the put-in utterly and completely exhausted. I could barely move at this point. I filtered some water, hydrated, ate some lunch, and rested for the paddle ahead. I finally moved on when some teenagers came by with big dry packs. It looked like they were out on an over night canoe trip, but I did not see their canoes.  I wanted to get out of their way.  I supposed that others were portaging them or they intended to go back for their canoes..

It was a fairly short paddle to the Bartlett Carry portage. A map with more detail would have helped with navigating this section, but it wasn't that hard to find either. With larger scale maps, many more than 14 maps would be needed to navigate the NFCT.

The Bartlett Carry portage should have been super easy. It was not. I had to drag my kayak uphill about 0.2 of a mile, and then down a portage path with it constantly wanting to either tip or lock up. Once again, I was exhausted by this portage.

The paddle after this portage was again spectacularly beautiful. It was also very fun kayaking through the locks.   I arrived in the Town of Saranac Lake around 7:00 PM.  The outfitter is closed so I got a motel room a short distance away.  The lady who ran the motel was nice enough to let me park my kayak on her lawn.  I will talk to the outfitter in the morning.

I think I paddled about 26 miles today in spite of the difficult portages.

http://www.findmespot.com/mylocation/?id=8459M/44.31553N/74.12051W
Saranac Lake