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Bloggers post some photos and comments about their progress each time they work on their boats, along with an initial paddling impression and another one 6 months later. In exchange, they receive a partial refund on their plans or building course.

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Some drone footage of Harvey Golden’s replica of

Some drone footage of Harvey Golden’s replica of the oldest surviving traditional Greenland kayak.
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The Lubeck kayak has a dark history that was recorded in surprising detail. On August 6th, 1606, at Ikertok (a fjord 20 km south of Sisimuit), Greenlanders in kayaks approached the Danish exploration ship Trost and some were kidnapped, as was common at the time. One kayaker jumped into the sea, another died upon arrival in Europe, and several others escaped in their kayaks, were overtaken by a storm, were found on the Swedish coastline and sent back to Copenhagen, and escaped a second time.
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This kayak is listed as being found adrift in 1607 by Lubeck barge masters so it is possible that the paddler perished in the North Sea trying to return home.
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Historían Finn Gad estimates that ships from Denmark and Norway and the Netherlands kidnapped about 30 Inuit between 1605 and 1660. Eventually the kidnapping of Greenlanders became illegal. A decree ordered by King Christian the VII of Denmark in 1776 included this provision: “furthermore it was forbidden either ashore or at sea, to steal from the Greenlanders to kidnap them or to use force against them”. The English and the Dutch made similar laws, which were not always adhered to. (Source Kayaks of Greenland, Golden 2006).
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The kayak itself is unusual although not unique showing shaping similarities to the much larger labrador kayaks. With it’s deep forefoot and shallow stern it turns effortlessly although it also weathercocks aggressively in the slightest wind. At 18 1/2 inches wide with a rounded bottom and a narrow chime breadth it’s not very stable but didn’t feel particularly tippy either.
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The older style paddle is quite short and feels a bit strange. Despite having larger blades it has less power then the narrower paddles developed later.
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One of the cool things about filming kayaks with the @skydiohq drone is being able to watch the wake of different kayaks which may eventually provide useful insights into performance.
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#greenlandkayaking #seakayaking #qajaq #skinonframekayak

For my historic kayak work I tend to focus on earl

For my historic kayak work I tend to focus on early 20th century west Greenland rifle hunting kayaks because they are the easiest for modern paddlers to use, but these are far from the only types that existed.
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These two kayaks are replicas of museum kayaks built by Harvey Golden. I really appreciate Harvey‘s replica work because it gives me an opportunity to experience some of the more extreme historic examples that I couldn’t justify the time to build myself. I also like how Harvey has a knack for making some thing that was built yesterday look like it’s 100 years old. I borrowed these two for an afternoon to grab some video footage for an upcoming project.
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Roughly 17 inches wide and 19 feet long, the more extreme of these two was collected in 1789. The exact function of the swoop in the tail is not known, but it disappeared as rifle hunting came into prominence. Harvey and I differ strongly in our opinions of how this kayak paddles, I find it to be a bit sluggish and stiff although I will admit that it edge turns surprisingly well considering it’s width and shaping.
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The simpler looking kayak is actually a copy of the oldest known Greenland kayak, collected in 1606. It’s a bit more user-friendly at 18 1/2 inches wide and 17 1/2 feet long but the bottom shape does not create much stability. Interestingly, this oldest example shows strong shaping similarities to the much larger labrador kayaks. With a prominent forefoot and no tail skeg to speak of, it spins on a dime, but also weathercocks aggressively in the slightest crosswind. It’s a lot of fun to paddle, if not an entirely practical kayak. Note the older Greenland paddle shape which contradicts the popular notion that Greenland paddles only look the way they do because wider wood was not available.
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I’ll try to post a couple video clips in the coming days. Note the interior shapes of both kayaks.
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#greenlandkayak #qajaq #skinonframekayak #traditionalboat

Great news: Kayaks of Greenland is back in print!

Great news: Kayaks of Greenland is back in print! If you’re not familiar with this amazing book you should be.
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Author (and friend) Harvey Golden spent 8 years surveying these kayaks and their associated artifacts in museums and private collections all over the world, ultimately compiling his efforts into this 585 page definitive work.
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In addition to making an excellent laptop computer stand and a formidable weapon to vanquish the largest of spiders, this insanely comprehensive tome contains: 104 surveys of historic Greenland Kayaks, 79 paddle surveys, over 400 historic photos and illustrations, and a bunch of words.
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Obviously this is invaluable reference material for anyone who is interested in skin on frame building, arctic history, or who just likes books with lots of pictures and drawings. You can buy these in our store or directly from Harvey at traditionalkayaks.com.
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#qajaq #greenlandkayaks #skinonframekayak #seakayak

With all of my heart I want to thank everyone who

With all of my heart I want to thank everyone who contributed to our fundraiser to send the kids in the ultra-remote East Greenlandic village of Tiniteqilaaq to the Greenland national kayaking championships this year.
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We hit our $15,000 fundraising goal last night and transferred the first 10,000 to their kayak club to purchase plane tickets.
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As I said in previous posts we’ve been working with Max, the schoolmaster there for a few years to help revive the local kayak building tradition and last year they represented East Greenland for the first time ever in the Greenland national kayaking championships in Nuuk. This year Max will be bringing 5 kids and Lars, the oldest hunter in the village (who used to hunt from a sealskin kayak) to the competition in Ilulissat.
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Here is how Max describes their journey last year:
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“In our village just a few decades ago the Inuit kayak culture was still alive and high skilled hunters were able to do all kind of rolling and paddling in heavy sea. Little by little the knowledge around kayak disappeared. Still the sea is called: Tsaqqivik: the kayaking playground. Could this dream be possible: to revive some East Greenland Kayak techniques?.
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The oldest hunter of the village gave me his support and great encouragement to continue kayaking activities with children and my coworkers allowed me to use school to built kayak. Parents allowed their children to practice, and one day last summer…here we were: in Nuuk attending the Greenland National kayak championship. We received a very warm welcome.
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We brought back 7 medals, including two golds.
Proud and joy were in East Greenland people’s heart.
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This dream was only possible through supports from people here and connections beyond cultures among people who share the love.”
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As you can see, it’s almost impossible to overstate how valuable this experience is for them, so thank you for making it possible. If you still want to donate all proceeds will go directly to the their kayak club for supplies, tools, and paddling gear, (we are packing a box for them right now). Thank you. -Brian
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#skinonframe #qajaq #greenlandkayaking #kayaking #greenlandrolling #seakayaking

There was an unsettling amount of nutria (hundreds

There was an unsettling amount of nutria (hundreds, why??) at our local urban paddling swamp last night so I set my iPhone to full zoom and carefully balanced it on a selfie tripod on the front deck of my Greenland kayak, thinking maybe I could get 20 feet away from one. But this guy just didn’t give a F about me.
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#paddling #wildlifevideos #naturephotography #nutria

Pretty deep in the video editing right now so not

Pretty deep in the video editing right now so not a lot of time to work on social media stuff, but here’s a quick raw @skydiohq drone clip of the new West Greenland design on flat water.
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Swift, responsive, and comfortable, I am kind of addicted to paddling this thing right now. It’s totally different then my modern sea kayak designs but I like it just as much for different reasons.
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The approach I took with this kayak was completely different than anything I had done before. Rather than copying a specific museum example I looked at all the collected examples from that time period and location and used that like a pallet of colors to paint the design, and then just started rapidly iterating with the frame covered in plastic wrap. This approach gave me a little more freedom as a designer while still keeping things firmly historically grounded, and in some ways may have mimicked the natural evolution of these frames which were modified every year when they were recovered with sealskin.
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The result exceeds my performance expectations and also what I thought was even possible for this type of kayak. Even though I don’t have time for it personally it really makes me wonder what result taking the approach to other arctic types might yield.
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#greenlandkayaking #seakayaking #traditionalskills #paddling

We are down to the final week of fundraising for o

We are down to the final week of fundraising for our friends in East Greenland! For those of you who haven’t seen this before, I’ve been working with the school master in the tiny east Greenlandic village of Tiniteqilaaq to help them revive the local kayak building tradition.
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A settlement of just 96 people, Tiniteqilaaq is unique because they were hunting out of skin covered kayaks up into the 1990s! The hunter pictured in the photo is still alive in the village today.
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So far the kids there have built one of my modern designs and three traditional East Greenlandic kayaks. Last year they traveled to the kayak championships in West Greenland and represented East Greenland for the first time ever!!
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This year they are hoping to return to the Kayaking championships bringing all five children and the oldest kayak hunter in the village (The guy in the photo!), but travel costs from East to West Greenland are extremely high, so I started a fundraiser for them. We need to reach 15,000 to send all five kids and so far we’ve raised 7500. They’re buying their plane/helicopter tickets in a couple weeks so I thought I would post this again! If you’ve already given, thank you. If you haven’t, consider donating a few bucks.
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Living in such a remote place these kids have very little opportunity to interact with other children or to experience Greenlandic culture outside of their village so going to the kayaking championships is a super valuable experience for them.
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To find the fundraiser and to see more photos of the kids and their village, search GoFundMe for Send the Tiniteqilaaq Kids to the Kayak Championships. I’ll put a direct link in our stories as well. Thanks for helping!
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#greenlandkayak #greenlandkayaking #qajaq #kayakrolling #kayaking #paddling #seakayaking #traditionalskills #greenlandrolling

I’m not sure how much this actually interests an

I’m not sure how much this actually interests anyone but I took the new Greenland design out in wind and waves with the tie on skeg (see post from a couple days ago for details) set in three different positions along the keel, and also just an oversized tall rub strip for comparison.
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Testing:.
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Even with the skeg tied in the farthest back position, maneuverability wasn’t horrible and edge turning didn’t suffer as badly as I would expect. It was calm across the wind, and easily edged onto a quartering wave course but got stuck at about 45° downwind requiring a rudder stroke to turn straight down wind. Once on a downwind course it was a little easier to keep on line but the skeg was still not a miracle cure for hunting. (Veering off when surfing)
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The next position forward was similar although I could get a little further around the compass before I had to rudder to turn straight down wind.
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The farthest forward position was a really nice sweet spot. Just as calm across the wind but more responsive to edge turns and I was able to edge it all the way around to straight down wind. Downwave performance didn’t seem to suffer or improve compared to farther back positions. Interestingly this was much better than my drop skeg on the last kayak, which was positioned even further forward.
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Impressions:.
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Skegs of all types and even oversized rub strips add noticeable, but not horrible, drag. I was fanatical about minimizing wetted surface when I redesigned to this kayak and the result is delightful glide. The skeg steals a little bit of that. I designed this kayak not to need a skeg, and I stand by that, but I do think it’s a useful tool in certain circumstances.
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What these tests clearly show is that taking the time to identify the exact right location is critical to getting the best results. This is another advantage of the tie on skeg, because you can drill a bunch of holes and then just identify the perfect position empirically.
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More prototyping and testing to come…
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#kayakdesign #greenlandkayaking #paddling #skinonframe

Well it looks like I found the wood for my next ca

Well it looks like I found the wood for my next canoe. I don’t usually spring for the fancy stuff but it’s pretty hard to pass up a board like this…
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#woodworking #wood #boatbuilding #canoebuilding

This is our new West Greenland Kayak design on a w

This is our new West Greenland Kayak design on a wind wave. Being low-volume, fine in the bow, and forward weighted, Greenland kayaks are typically not great surfing boats, but this one is a little better than most. Still not great but entertaining on the right wave. (FYI there’s no skeg here) This is another clip straight out of the @skydiohq drone with no color correction and no stabilization!
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#greenlandkayaking #skinonframekayak #droneporn #seakayaking

There are tie on skegs associated with some of the

There are tie on skegs associated with some of the historic Greenland kayaks in museums. These can help in challenging crosswind and down wind conditions although they do add noticeable drag. Years ago I experimented with this but found the drag of the strings around the kayak unacceptable. I created a keyhole shaped aluminum channel for a rapid detachable version but never pursued production because the Greenland Kayak that I ultimately decided to build with students is reasonably well behaved in rough water, and if I was heading out for longer in challenging conditions I was probably going to be paddling one of my modern designs.
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Recently however, I’ve been trying to push all of my work to the highest possible level so that has me looking at skegs again. (for the Greenland Kayaks only) In the recent Greenland redesign I started with a mechanical drop skeg and immediately decided that I couldn’t abide the weight, expense, complexity, and slot drag. But I’m still skeg-curious so I thought I would experiment with this single historic example of a skeg tied directly to a rub strip.
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Being removable it seems like this would let me get rid of the extra drag completely when I don’t need it, and costing just a few dollars and weighing just a few ounces seems pretty reasonable as well. I’m making my rub strip longer so I can experiment with a variety of locations on the bottom of the kayak.
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(illustrations from Kayaks of Greenland posted with permission from author)
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#skinonframekayak #kayakdesign #seakayak #traditionalkayak

This video is a perfect example of the negative ef

This video is a perfect example of the negative effect that an undersized kayak with too little bow rocker has on downwave performance.
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I’ve been expanding the size range on my LPB design and this is the prototype of the new 125 pound size. It has 1/2 inch less bow rocker than it should have had (and which I put into the plan version).
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Normally this kayak is ‘fast and floaty’ down wave and you can keep it on line with edge turns paddling normally and with edge turns combined with sweeps when surfing; but as you can see in this video it’s pretty sluggish getting onto a wave and immediately broaches, maneuvering like absolute crap.
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Like all of my modern skin on frame kayaks, it doesn’t weathercock even a tiny bit but this is still far from what I would consider acceptable kayak performance.
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Part of the problem here is that I’m just overloading it. It’s not designed for my weight and at 170 pounds it’s sitting low in the water and that combined the bow rocker, combined with being a pretty weak paddler (I have a chronic illness) makes it a pretty miserable ride.
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This is why with the exception of my traditional Greenland Kayaks I’m never going to be a fan of the “low volume” boat trend: anything a low volume kayak can do for you a properly sized sea kayak can do much better.
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My properly sized version is only a half inch wider with a little more bow rocker, but the difference in handling is like night and day. That kayak is out on loan right now but once it gets back here I’ll make a video to show you the difference.
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#kayakdesign #kayakperformance #seakayak #skinonframe

I just posted a seven minute time lapse of buildin

The @skydiohq drone finally works really well! . I

The @skydiohq drone finally works really well!
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I’ve had the Skydio for a little over a year now and I have to be honest that at first it was really frustrating. It froze in the sky often, the camera bobbed wildly up and down, the footage always pushed you into a corner and partially outside the frame, their super cool Beacon controller lacked return to home functionality, and it was prone to all sorts of random autonomous behavior. When it worked it worked amazing but it only worked like that a small percentage of the time… until now.
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The most recent software update addressed every major issue I had with the skydio and I’m blown away by the difference in performance. Have any other Skydio fliers noticed this?
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The following footage is straight out of the camera with no color correction or retouching, and it was this stable for THE ENTIRE 15 MINUTE FLIGHT in moderately high winds. It never lost tracking from the beginning to the end of the flight and I think the camera only bobbed twice.
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I’ll put up more edited footage later but I wanted to post this minute long uncorrected clip to show how it’s performing. This is shot at 2 PM on a sunny day which is just about the worst case lighting scenario for this type of filming, and yet the auto exposure and the color on the Skydio never misses a beat.
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I set it to 4K 30fps with a shutter speed of 60, put a N16 neutral density filter on, launched it with the new beacon controller (I killed my old one) and then just set it to a slow 1 m/s orbit the entire time and it’s slowly revolved around me catching a wide variety of great shots.
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This is just one flight, but if this performance holds up it’s gonna be a total game changer for what we can capture and share on the water. As a designer it’s also just hugely helpful for me to see the boats from a different angle.
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I want to personally thank whoever at Skydio put the entire range of return to home functionality on the beacon. That alone changes everything for my particular use.
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#dronestagram #kayakvideo #skydio2 #drone

Taking a test drive in a pretty new flat deck F1 w

Taking a test drive in a pretty new flat deck F1 we just finished for a Bay Area customer. This is actually the third time we’ve rebuilt this kayak.
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On the first one due to communication issues it had a quarter inch too little rocker in the back and it just didn’t carve an edge turn quite as tightly as I like. I had also just invented the liquid keel strip and I wanted him to have that extra durability.
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On the second one I used a plank of oak for the ribs that seemed just a little weaker than it should be. It probably wasn’t a big deal but it was the kind of thing where I felt like seven or eight years down the road I’d be seeing a bit more rib collapse than I want.
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On this third one we have a heavy skin and a heavily reinforced frame with lots of extras for rock garden activities. It weighs a horrifying 38 pounds and I can definitely feel that when I’m paddling. Still good just not quite as lively the same kayaks 31 pounds.
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I do have some concerns that the extra weight of the skin and the coating is pulling the bow down just a little bit. Seems like it’s sitting about 1/8”-3/16” of an inch deeper in the water at the bow than I like which has the potential to steal some of the F1‘s legendary surf magic. Hard to say without testing it. On the other hand it would probably be a bit faster which is never a bad thing. Dude has been waiting quite a while so I figure I’ll just send it down and if he doesn’t like it I’ll build it again.
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#seakayak #skinonframekayak #kayak #builtbyhand

Just a couple easy Greenland rolls and a really ba

Just a couple easy Greenland rolls and a really bad hand roll attempt from yesterdays filming session. (I’d been on the water for over an hour and was exhausted).
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This shows pretty clearly both the advantage of a full-size spare Greenland paddle on the front deck and the value of Greenland rolling in general. Spending all that time playing around trying to learn different rolls your standard roll just becomes an afterthought. This opens up a whole world of boat performance and places you can paddle.
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I feel like a solid roll is the third most valuable kayaking skill. The first being judgment (knowing when and where to paddle and when not to), and the second a reflexive low brace.
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#kayaking #greenlandpaddling #greenlandrolling #kayakroll

Deep in the video editing today working on a coupl

Deep in the video editing today working on a couple projects and I found this nice clip, enjoy.
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#skinonframe #naturegram #getoutside

Just a few clips of Canoe Catamaran sailing the ne

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Brian Schulz
brian@capefalconkayaks.com
Call or text: 503 354 4939

4935 NE 11th Avenue
Portland, Oregon 97211
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