Quarantine Kayak Build

What a stellar way to start a Tuesday morning. Fantastic read and truly incredible build. Thank you for documenting the progress! I agree with Pat, best post of 2020!

yakyakyak, It is not sustainable for me, lol. maybe for Lance Armstrong. I need to get out a pedal more often, too much time in the workshop sanding these last few months.

It looks like a nice very gentle cruise at 3.5knts, 4-5 for hammering out to the fishing spots. Hopefully this weekend the smoke and fires will magically disappear and we can get out and officially slime this thing in the ocean. (Fingers Crossed)

It is still pretty damn good!  Think of it this way, your kayak design vs professional team of a bunch of people, thumbs up for you!  I agree with others, I think this is Post Of The Year!

What a beautiful boat!

That is awesome!
I've been looking at the JEM plans and am considering that build, and or the Sabalo 12 (possibly stretched a foot longer an inch or 2 wider if I'm bold), with the tank well integrated into the cockpit as in the Bluefin. I currently fish an Adventure and would love to be able to shave 20 or 30 pounds off the weight but think I would do the first one as a paddle kayak.
Where did you find your marine ply?
Again --- Awesome build

m

stillgoin,
The best/only source i could find for marine ply was MacBeath Hardwoods, they had 4mm in stock in Berkeley and Stockton, i went to Stockton.

I have actually considered scaling up the Sabalo12 to ~13' x 32" to be closer to the dimensions of the new outback. I think that would be an awesome size. The cockpit on the blufin is super tight now that i am trying to rig it up, another 3" in width would help a lot.

If you ever want to check out my build in person let me know, i would certainly be willing to share all the tips and tricks i picked up.

On another note, it sounds like roads are open to the coast, i just talked to the store at Ocean Cove and they said it was all good there, so i am probably going to drag the kayak up there on Saturday morning to try to break it in for real.

Re: sourcing marine plywood-

If you are ever up in Humboldt, Almquist lumber keeps quite a bit of okume bs 1088 on hand in 3mm up to 18mm.  Fair warning though, the hardwood selection is incredible and it's really easy to go overboard on exotics.  I have developed a cocobolo fetish and at $45/bf it's more expensive than golf.  Or heroin.  Or whatever. 

Crash,

that is good to know. i was only able to find Meranti at MacBeath. I am still undecided on my next boat, it will either be a lightweight pack canoe (Okoume) or a small outboard skiff.

MacBeath is the same way with exotics, another cool spot is Exotic Hardwoods in Oakland, they mainly deal in veneer, and they have an awesome showroom with crazy cool veneer panel samples.

Crash,

that is good to know. i was only able to find Meranti at MacBeath. I am still undecided on my next boat, it will either be a lightweight pack canoe (Okoume) or a small outboard skiff.

MacBeath is the same way with exotics, another cool spot is Exotic Hardwoods in Oakland, they mainly deal in veneer, and they have an awesome showroom with crazy cool veneer panel samples.

Almquist is lacking in a lot of veneer, but a $1,000 slab of Hawaiian Koa or old growth reclaimed redwood from a 150 year old water tower  makes up for that.

I haven't seen much meranti there, and what is there is in the 4 to 6mm range.  Theres a small boat building clique up here that likes okume, redwood and P.O. cedar.

I've got a SUP huild in the works, I was going to blog it like you did but I can't follow that. 

  Jackal Enterprise in Watsonville also carries a really nice selection of woods.    Alaskan Yellow Cedar is a nice wood for bending...

Success! I met up with Lineside Bounty Hunter at SWN for a nice little morning on the water yesterday. Fishing wasn't on fire, but i did bust my ling slump with a fat little 25"er and a handful of rockfish. The kayak performed fantastic. Plenty stable, pretty quick, even surfed a couple of big following swells (not on purpose, but it handled it great). I get quite a bit of spray over the bow when headed into the wind, i may try to incorporate some sort of spray rail in the future.

The cheap plastic paddle holder did not work at all, luckily there was plenty of room to stuff the paddle on the inside under the gunwale. There is a reason the Vibe seat is 5x's less $$$$ than the hobie vantage seat. I will probably have to figure out some way to add some padding and removed the bar that was digging into my back. Much to my surprise the homemade steering worked really well.

An interesting thing that happened, when launching and landing with the mirage drive stowed the drive well was like a vacuum and hoovered water up into the boat. i don't recall this ever happening on the Hobie, I may think about bringing the plug for the drive well and stowing it in the front hatch if it will fit.

The inside of the kayak stayed pretty darn dry. If it wasn't for the drive well water suck i bet it would have been even drier.

Anyway, on to the pictures:









Next trip is to try and get some Chrome, we'll see how lucky this new boat is!

Very nice.

The water suck seems kind of odd. Any idea why that might be happening?

This is a mostly flat bottom kayak without the hobie  "runners" underneath along side the drive opening so more water will pass over the drive opening. Be interesting to know if the same is true for Hobie inflatables that use the plastic drive box.

I have a Hobie inflatable (i12s) and never noticed the water suck in my drive well during surf launches/landings...the bottom area around the drive well is mainly flat too. My only guess is that the inflatable is pretty buoyant and lifts most of the drive well above water.

Something is causing a difference in pressure and a Venturi effect.

I think there are a lot of factors to it, I set the drive well inside the bottom of the kayak, and the top sits above the deck so when water comes in it overflows and then has to find it's way out of the other scuppers just to the front of the drive well. On a hobie the whole front deck is tapered toward the drive well so if water does splash up in there it goes right back out where it came. I knew this was a compromise when I built it. Once the drive is plugged in all is well and the inside stays very dry and the scuppers work perfectly.

On the next one, I may build a 'pod/keel' of sorts on the bottom of the kayak to lower the drive well flush or slightly below the top deck. Or I may order up a bunch of plywood and start on a 17' skiff