Cape Falcon F1 Kayak build blog
I had discovered Brian’s F1 kayak many years ago, and followed his progression and the kayak’s evolution as he iterated through different improvements. I had always wanted to build an F1, but was held back by my lack of time and the fact I had a fibreglas kayak sitting in my yard, largely unused.
Two things tipped me to get moving: one was my retirement so time was not so much an issue (I thought). The second was that I found the process of hauling and launching, then retrieving a 54 lb fibreglass kayak from the roof of a car was not easy. My wife and I each had a kayak and it took both of us to get the kayaks on and off the car and to the water. Where we live we have ample places to ocean paddle, but this means tides and often rocky shores. Lugging these boat AND all the gear needed for a day paddle was onerous. Going out for a short paddle in the evening by ones self was not going to happen. So the idea of a lightweight SOF became more appealing.
I decided to start small and learn a few things before taking on the F1 project. I wanted to understand the skinning process in particular. I wanted to learn, but not spend a lot of money to do it. There were some old videos on Youtube about skinning from Brian Schulz and Cory Freedman, but they made the process look quite intimidating. I wanted to do something cheap before spending more time and money building an F1.
So I hunted the internet and found the Tom Yost Kayak designs https://biber-boote.ch/yostwerks/index.html. There are a lot of Yost sizes and configurations. The plans are free, but you really only get a table of offsets. Other instructions are pretty minimal. These kayaks are SOF, but do not use steam bent ribs. Instead they are built using plywood frames.
I wanted one that was similar the F1 so I decided on the Seatour 15 https://biber-boote.ch/yostwerks/SeaTour15off.html.
It is a two chine design like the F1 but longer. I modified the dimension somewhat to give a higher foredeck and changed the angles of the bow and stern to be more plumb. It came in at 15’5”, and weighed 28lbs.
The time required to layout and cut the frames was not insignificant. Also, with a frame design like this, you lose a certain amount of interior volume–or at least clear access to it. It is probably a bit lighter than building with steamed ribs as there is less wood in the whole structure. Corey Freedman from the Spiritline Kayak Skinboat Store was very helpful when it came time to do the skinning and coating. It turned out to be a nice boat to paddle and was easy to get to and from the water. The Greenland paddle I made worked well with it too.
The biggest drawback was it was a bit big for where I had to store it indoors The SeaTour end up being suspended upside down from the rafters in my shop. That put it in the way, and it became a sawdust trap. I really wanted something a bit shorter as I have another indoor storage space, but it would need a boat under 15 feet to fit.
I had learned a lot about what was needed to do a SOF build from the SeaTour, so when I had the opportunity to sell it along with the paddle, I did. I immediately ordered plans from Cape Falcon for the F1. That was about a year ago (January 2024).
This blog is not going to repeat the steps and processes described so well by Brian in his videos, and repeated by others in their blogs. The progression I followed was much the same as everyone else. His videos are excellent and, combined with the written plans, are a sure-fire recipe for success. He has McDonaldized the process as much as possible. The Big Mac will always come out as a Big Mac if you use the same ingredients and follow the same recipe.
Brian has dumbed the process down enough that most anyone should be able to build a usable boat.
But he warns you:
Believe me when I say things.
If I’m emphasizing a step, there’s a reason!
And I found that to be absolutely true.
You also need to trust the process. Whenever I questioned it, and thought I could shortcut or do something different, I often ended up doing more remedial work than if I had just followed what Brian had said. It may not always be the most elegant way to do something, but it will work.
If you can obtain the same materials and follow the well-tried recipe, you will get a predictable result. Not everyone can do this (most of us) so we all do workarounds to accommodate different materials or tools or timeframes. So I will speak more about what I did differently than what I did the same.
The biggest difference is that I wanted to use yellow cedar instead of white oak for bending wood. I have a ready supply of yellow cedar, so wanted to utilize that wood. While the wood is a relatively small cost of the total boat, I felt that if I could use what is available locally and cheaply, I would build the kayak that way.
I got my red cedar and yellow cedar from BMHC Timber in Gibsons BC (near where I live). Brian (the owner) has been milling for over 25 years, and is supplying wood to numerous wooden boat builders and high-end home builders. He provided me with some beautiful, 16 ft, straight, clear, old growth red cedar. I also got clear yellow cedar rib stock from him. I highly recommend wood from BMHC. They may be contacted at 604-839-0804.
Several years ago I had asked Brian Schulz for advice on using yellow cedar for ribs, At that time he did not have any direct experience with it, but suggested I would need to make the ribs a bit wider and thicker than white oak. It turned out that Rory in Vancouver (his blogs are here somewhere) had built one of Brian’s nesting canoes and later an F1 using yellow cedar for ribs and coaming. It worked well for him, so I figured I could do the same using his scantlings. I went with 1 ¼” x 5/16” on most ribs. The first two and last two were ¼” thick.
I had a brain fart when cutting the ribs. It resulted in 100% failure rate when I tried bending. Instead of cutting the ribs as shown in the diagram, I cut with the grain running opposite. Duh! There is a picture for those of us who are apparently illiterate. You want the ribs to have a flat grain, not an edge grain orientation.
Once I got that sorted, I went back and redid the whole rib soaking a bending process. This involved soaking in the hot tub for about a week, then soaking for another few days in a plastic bag with ammonia. After that, they bent without issue.
My steamer was a bit of an challenge. It worked well, but only had a capacity of 1 litre of water. This meant it would only steam for about 20-25 minutes at a time. So refilling with kettles of boiling water and keeping the steambox hot was an added wrinkle to the project.
To thin the ends of the ribs to fit the ¼” mortises I used a router setup as shown. I would trim to a set depth quickly and evenly. The router bit I had was just barely long enough to do the cut.
I had built my previous coaming out of yellow cedar and fir and had laminated it. I had soaked 3/16” strips in my hot tub, then bent them around a plywood form with lots of clamps. I let the strips dry, then went back and glued them together afterwards.
I set out to use the same soaking then laminating method as previously, but with the added step of steaming the strips before bending around the form. I made the lip ¾”. Rather than using nails and Gorilla glue, I used PL construction adhesive. It is a polyurethane, the same as the skin coating, and is waterproof enough. The coaming gets coated with the 2 part skin coating later, so water intrusion should not be a problem.
I made the router jigs for plunge cutting the mortises. I have a Hitachi router ( now called Metabo) that required a bit of finessing to get the attachment screws onto the jig. It was a different arrangement than Brian describes in his video.
I had the upcut router bit start to walk out of the collet on a couple of cuts. Brian warns about this. The result was two mortises that end up being deeper than they should be. I compensated later by adding a bit of length to one end of each affected rib so it would go to the bottom of the mortise. It required a bit of extra fiddling and paying attention when doing the steaming and bending.
To get the keel centred, I used a laser level. I had it mounted on the wall at one end of the shop projecting along the length of the kayak. I then leveled the gunwales on top of the sawhorses in front of it. By running a string between the bow and stern centre points I could confirm symmetry of the keel and a plumb line to check rib alignment.
I made up these clamps to prevent mortise splitting while fitting the ribs. They worked well, but moving them along added another step to remember while trying to keep track of steaming times.
Once the frame was done, I had to take a FROG picture (someone calls it that)… Frame on Grass
Skinning and coating, went slowly, but came out well in the end. I used the 840 extra tuff and 2 part goop from the Skinboat Store, as Brian recommends. This is the same product I had used before.
I had moved the kayak out of my dusty shop to my office space for skinning and coating. It was cramped, but cleaner and I could control the temperature. I applied the coating at 65degF and 55% humidity.
I installed float bag retrieval lines fore and aft. I have some cheapo float bags from Seattle Sports that will probably go in and out without the lines, but I will leave the lines in place for the time being. I used a plastic curtain ring at each end as a low friction block.
I used a soldering iron with a rope cutting attachment to trim the fabric. This cost about $4 rather than the $200 or so for the dedicated tool. It worked very well to cut and cauterize the edges of the 840 fabric
.
I had zoned out while stitching part of the centre of the aft deck and left about 16 inches very loose and puffy. I contacted Brian and he assured me that ripping those stitches out and redoing them was totally fine. He was right and everything came out tight and quite straight.
Wetting the skin then shrinking the skin with an iron went well. The only thing I found was the filler (or flour as Brian calls it) that comes out of the fabric collects in the steam holes of the iron, and piles up along the skin. I took care to clean this up before coating.
I used the rare earth pigment for colouring, so mixed this into the Part B the day before coating. I stirred again each time I measured out each batch.
To measure the goop I used two measuring cups (provided by Skinboat store) and a couple of disposable syringes from Amazon. I found pouring slowly and exactly from the part A and part B containers is hard to do (also wasteful). So I would pour most of the way to the desired line directly, then top up with squirts from the syringes to the exact measure. It is important to not mix syringes.
Once measured, I used silicone spatulas ($Store) to scrape the two parts into a larger container for mixing. This requires 2 spatulas–dont mix them up and don’t dip in the wrong place.
I used a drill mixer to blend, then the blended mix went into the roller tray. A third spatula was used to do this transfer–don’t mix it with the others.
I found that by the time I was on the third coat on the hull, the roller was getting very sticky. I had rolled it out on a scrap of fabric, but you never get everything out. When I started to apply the third coat the roller picked up coating from the skin and stuck to the skin. It started to make a mess. I changed roller at this point and continued. In retrospect, instead of changing, what I probably should have done, was make sure the entire roller was coated with new product before starting to spread it on the skin. Next time.
I used the 3 point screws in the chines to flip the kayak in order to coat the deck. I was reluctant to do this, but I wanted to get it entirely coated and set, so it could go back upside down in time to put on a keel strip. The drywall screws seemed to make a bit of a mess of the fabric, so I was not in love with this method.
I had just barely enough goop left for the keel strip. I had started with 1½ orders of coating, and all of the Part A was gone in the end. I had a bit of Part B left. Like Brian explains in the video, timing on this is critical. I think I left it for a few minutes too long before applying and had to work the last bit to get it on. It settled out OK, but could have been better.
Threading the latigo was as hard as Brian describes. I found that on the decklines it was helpful to leave the long wire “needle” attached for the entire process. This gave you something to grab on to. It also helped to have a friend there to hold the kayak steady while I pulled and grunted.
I went back later with Aquaseal to fill needle pulls in the fabric on the deck. My skin is quite tight so there are a lot of pulls. I had tried to fill these as I was coating, but did not get them all, so the Aquaseal was needed.
I found it difficult to source the type of Thermarest Brian uses. I found one in the end, but it may be Thermarest are not making that type any more. They seem to be focusing on the ones that fold accordion style rather than the rolled type.
I made a hammock seat the way Brian shows. It seems quite comfortable but will likely stretch once wet. Adjustment is always possible.
I have not installed knee braces yet. I will paddle a few times before doing so. I may put some temporary braces in made from some of the white packing foam (not styrofoam). I will try attaching them with hot glue to masking tape (or maybe gaffer tape) stuck to the underside of the deck. They should be removable this way. I have not tried this yet, so do not know how successful it will be.
So the final result is a 30 lb kayak, 14ft 3in long. It is not perfect–but not bad. The skin is smooth and tight, the stitches run almost straight down the middle of the deck. I learned a lot from building my first kayak and more from this one. Corey from Spirit Line (the skin and coating supplier) told me it took him something like 13 before he got it right. So I have a long way to go.
I have not paddled the F1 yet as I am a fair weather paddler. I am making another Greenland paddle right now so look forward to a spring day when I can do the launch.
I worked on this project intermittently over about 10 months. I did some steps several times. Next time will be easier. Also, I have all the jigs made already. Machining the wood and preparing the coaming were time consuming and I only did it a bit at a time–with several weeks between. When Brian builds the F1 in 5 days, that is just for the assembly of the parts. To do it efficiently you need to have everything ready and prepared. That was not me. Having said all this, I found the entire process very enjoyable and ultimately rewarding. You finish up with a nice piece of kit.
The course materials are well done and very detailed. Brian was very responsive on the two occasions I contacted him on WhatsAp. He got back to me right away. Anyone should be able to build one of these with a bit of patience and time. I will probably do another one with my grandson one day.
I enjoyed the build and look forward to using the kayak.
