Sam’s Swiftwater Kayak Build, Seattle, WA

I’m embarking on my fourth CFK skinboat build! I’ve done a full-size solo canoe, a pack canoe, a sea kayak (LPB), and now I’m going to go for the swiftwater touring kayak. It’s still mostly a concept boat- Brian’s put a lot of work into it, but hasn’t formalized the plans for it yet, and a lot of the aspects are not fully tested. But I’ve been getting more into whitewater kayaking lately, and I love class I+ and II rivers, of which there are many in the Pacific Northwest, and for which this boat is very specifically designed.

My goal is to do as much as I can with wood and supplies I have on hand from previous builds. I’m buying a few things from CFK, including the coaming, and I’ll get the skin and coating from Corey, as usual. I have some oak left over from an F1 build that my dad just finished, and I’m thinking that if I’m short on rib stock, I may try to steam bend some mahogany for a few of the ribs. I’ll probably have to pick up a little bit of cedar, though I do have some shorter pieces that I may try to scarf together. And the stringers and keel for this boat need to be stronger anyway, so my current plan is to use poplar. There’s a commercial moulding shop in Seattle that’s always giving away long cut-offs that I think will work.

Brian’s been nice enough to send me detailed notes and many pictures of the concept boats he’s built so far. It’s basically a heavily-modified F1, so I’ve covered my F1 plans in notes and changes. I’ve made some new jigs, and am able to reuse a couple that I had from my LPB build. I still need to make a new steambox. Anyway, I’m excited for this build. Wish me luck!

Wood

I’ve decided to use poplar for the gunwales and all of the stringers, rather than trying to cobble together enough length of cedar, or buying new. I’ve gotten several 16′ long pieces of clear, straight-grained poplar from the moulding place. This does mean that the boat will be heavier than my previous boats, but I like the idea of using wood that would otherwise be bound for the compost. Plus, cheap (free!) is good. If you’re in Seattle and like woodworking, check out the OB Williams Company, in SODO.

I have a 54″ long, 6″ wide piece of oak left over from my dad’s F1 build. I’ll see how many ribs I can get out of that. And I scrounged through my scrap pile and found 11 ribs that I’d cut and never used for a previous boat. They’re 1/16″ narrower than they should be, and they’ve been sitting in my garage for over a year, so I don’t know if they’ll work, but I’m going to try. I have them soaking in a kiddie-pool to get them rehydrated (hopefully). I am hopeful that, from this, I’ll be able to get 25 good ribs, plus a few extras for safety.

I made a new steambox today, out of tongue-and-groove planks that I had lying around.

Deck Building

I’ve made good progress over the last couple of weeks, working on the boat a little bit each day. I realized that I could not make all of my stringers out of poplar, because even though it’s a hardwood and spruce is not, spruce is still stronger. So, when Brian says use “spruce or stronger,” poplar gets nixed. I still used it for my gunwales and my primary stringers, but I got some fir for the other stringers and the keel. I was hoping for spruce, since it’s lighter, but I couldn’t find anyone who had it in 14′ lengths around me.

The fir I got was this gorgeous, perfectly straight-grained piece of wood, and I absolutely hate working with it. It splinters, no matter what I cut it with, and my slickplane gouges out wood regardless of the direction I go. I ended up just using a block plane to chamfer the edges of everything fir.

Everything is going smoothly. I installed the deck beams last night. I still have to do the diagonal pegs on them, but then I’ll move on to the stems. (edit- this boat doesn’t have stems! I confirmed this with Brian. The keel curves right up to the gunwales.)

Couldn’t do any of it without the moral support from my shop dog, Lucy!

I finished pegging the deck beams and installed the wood for the rear drain plug. I went with poplar again for that, since I’d gotten a nice (free!) piece that was the perfect size. I laid the uncut piece on top of the gunwales and marked it at the front and back, then used a sliding bevel gauge to mark the angle of the gunwales. I don’t own a compound miter saw, so I couldn’t cut the shape and the angles all at once. I used my radial arm saw to cut the shape, then used a block plane to get the angles so it would fit in between the gunwales.

I had a little trouble with that piece when I pounded the first peg in- it had a 1/16″ gap between it and the gunwale. I solved that by sticking a 1″ dowel into the drain plug hole and using an engagement clamp to snug everything up before I added the other pegs. The dowel kept the engagement clamp from sliding off the end.

Steaming

I got my steaming station set up last night and started steaming this morning. I started with rib #1 and it was then that I realized that the grain orientation on basically all of my shorter ribs (1-6 and 20-25) had pretty lousy grain. They’d been from the very end of the board and had veered off badly. I tried bending #1 anyway, but it cracked immediately. I didn’t even attempt the others. I started with #7 and went sternward from there. I figured that the wood was a little dryer than I’ve used in the past, so I gave the ribs 5 minutes in the box, rather than my normal 4 minutes.

I like doing ribs in small chunks, rather than one after another for the whole boat, like Brian does. I do 3 or 4 at a time, putting them in at 1-minute intervals. It makes the whole process feel far less rushed to me. I quickly prepped the old ribs that I had soaked, in order to replace all of my end ribs. All of the remaining ribs steamed and bent just beautifully.

I clamped on the keel and one set of stringers to hold the shape of the ribs overnight.

After sending pics and chatting with Brian, I ended up pulling out the two ribs at each end and trimming them quite a bit, so they’d be rounder and smaller, giving me a better shape at the ends for the keel to meet the gunwales. The fir keel did not want to bend enough at the very ends to mate with the gunwales, so I ended up making a couple of small poplar wedges and gluing them in, then lashed the keel on.

After lashing the keel, Brian pointed out that a couple of my aft ribs had big shoulders- it was something he’d seen on his concept boats, too, due to using a base measurement for the ribs, with no adjustments. So, I snipped the lashings on those ribs, pulled them, trimmed them, and re-steamed them. They went back in easily and with a much rounder bend, which helped the stringers lie flat against them and lost a little volume from the stern.

Stringers

I got the primary and small stringers lashed on and then the secondary stringers glued on.

Finishing the Deck

I installed the nubs to hold the back rest, the mounts for the back deck bungees, a camera mount, and the foredeck stringer.

Oiling the Frame

I cleaned up the frame this morning and then put on a coast of Penofin Marine Oil. That’s what Brian recommended as better protection for the poplar, since it lacks the natural weather resistance that red cedar has. I’ll let that dry for a few days while I wait for my skin and coating to get here from Anacortes.

Skinning

I got the 840 Xtra Tuff skin and 1 1/2 orders of the 2-part urethane from Corey at the Skin Boat School.

The skinning process was trickier than my previous boats. This boat doesn’t have stems, to give it more rocker, and that makes it impossible to keep the skin square as it’s draped over the boat. I don’t know if a solution would be to cut it and sew it up the keel as if that’s a stem, but that’s not what Brian did on the boat he sent me pictures of, and I’m pretty sure that would affect the handling.

Because the skin wasn’t square, it curved around the hull, leaving too much material in the middle of the boat. This is what I think is happening:

You can see here all of that extra fabric. I sent pics to Brian and he suggested I sew a dart up the back side of the deck beam at the front of the cockpit, to pull in the extra material. So, I removed the coaming and did that. It’s a little weird looking, but not that bad, and it (mostly) looks intentional. 🙂

I then replaced the coaming and stitched it up. This is always the hardest part of the build for my hands. Having to keep the tension on the thread while pushing the needle through the next spot and pulling as hard as I can on the fabric, really hurts. To help with that, I used a spring clamp to hold the tension on the thread while I did the rest, then released it to pull the thread tight again.

Coating

I soaked the skin and let it dry for a day, then brought the boat down into my basement, to keep it warmer and try to keep sawdust and bugs out of the urethane as it cured. I had gotten blue rare earth pigment from Brian. I decided that I didn’t want to put screws in the hull, so I did the coating on two consecutive days, letting the bottom dry before flipping it to do the deck.

I love how it came out. The blue is gorgeous, but it still shows off the weave of the fabric. The Penofin marine oil, even though it had about a week to dry, still leached into the fabric a bit, but I actually don’t mind that you can see the deck beams and gunwales a bit more. I’m really pleased with how it looks.

Finishing the Boat

I tried several times to get the leather strap threaded through for the bow and stern handles, but it just kept on breaking. I don’t know if I didn’t drill a big enough hole, or what, but eventually I decided to just go another route. I bought ($16 on Amazon) a couple of paracord kayak handles, and threaded a blue line through the frame, then tied that to the end of the handles.

I decided to forgo other deck lines, since I don’t intend to put a spare paddle on the deck, like I do with my LPB. I’ll be using Euro-blade paddles for whitewater, and I’ll probably keep a two-piece spare paddle inside the boat. I did install bungees on the back deck and a perimeter line for self-rescuing.

I’m also experimenting with easier ways to clip the toe box of my sea sock into the boat. It’s important to clip it to something, so it doesn’t get twisted around your legs when you’re trying to reenter, but it’s really hard to get it attached to something far enough forward. I am going to see if clipping it to the foot pegs will work- that way, I can bring the pegs all the way back to attach the sea sock, and then move them forward when I get in.

Maiden Voyage

I took her out for a short paddle on Green Lake in Seattle this evening. I love the blue in the sunlight! And check out all of that rocker. She turns on a dime, but feels very stable. I’m really pleased.