We just got back from SSTIKS 2009 last night, and both Alice and I slept late today. It was a great weekend, made even more amazing by the fact that for the first time in a couple of years, it did not rain! It was mostly sunny and warm, and the water was warmer than I remember it ever being at SSTIKS. Warm water, though, means happy algae and we had to contend with some really yucky masses of smelly, orange algae blooms, especially when the tide got low.


John Pederson

The big highlight for SSTIKS this year was the presence of John Pederson and his son Lars, from Ilulissat, Greenland. John actually hunts seals from a kayak, which is what they were intended for in the first place, and anyone who got to take one of his strokes classes got to practice silent paddling and sneaking up on seals, which showed up as if on cue. His son Lars joined the kids’ games, and was an aggressive dead fish polo player.


Alice and her new kayak

Alice finally got to paddle her new kayak for the first time, too. It looks nice! Only a few people were able to fit in it though, and I will be loosening up the fit a little to make it more comfortable. It is a pretty snug fit, even on Alice.


kid's games

As usual, I spent a good deal if time with the kids’ sessions, playing games and getting all wet. Also, as usual, my drysuit started its annual summer leakage this weekend as well, but this time, I am going to try to repair it myself, rather than send it in. Wish me luck!


kid's games

We held an informal rolling competition, too, and although I’ve been feeling sore and inflexible and out of practice lately, I was talked into competing by Mckinley and Dubside. I missed several that I normally hit every time, but I was surprised to find myself not at the bottom of the points spread after all. I really need to do more yoga, and spend more time in tight fitting kayaks, though. Sadly, none of the pictures I took of the rolling came out very well; the lens was covered with water on almost every one.


kid's games

A couple of kayaks that Maligiaq Padilla built were there for a little while on Saturday, and I got a chance to scope out some construction details on those.


kayaks


qajaq frame detail

And Brian from Cape Falcon brought a beautiful East Greenland replica frame to donate to the fundraising auction. A lengthy bidding war ensued….


Evan trying on the East Greenland frame


auctioning the kayak frame

The salmon for the Saturday night dinner came fresh from the Copper River this year, and was delicious.


salmon!

Unfortunately for me, I came to SSTIKS without any spare camera batteries and my Pentax battery was almost dead when I got there, so I did not get nearly as many pictures as I would have hoped for, but there are more on my Flickr page here.

Every year I am reminded again how lucky I am to live near this event; I can hardly wait until next year!


Michael in Alice's kayak

After a few trials and a tribulation or two, Alice’s kayak is finally finished.


finished qajaq

When I last posted, I had a finished and oiled frame. I still had a piece of fabric left from when I ordered materials for my last kayak a couple of years ago. I dug out the fabric, bought a couple of rolls of dental floss and set up the kayak frame at the paddle center one night, and proceeded to sew the skin on.


interior view

The zig zag stitch on the inside of the skin tightens the skin considerably and I went through this stitch several times, taking out more slack each time. Finally, I decided, wrongly as it turned out, that the skin was fully tightened and I stitched up the center seam. After such adventures with the woodworking part, it was sad to see the frame get all covered up in bright white fabric…

A couple of days later, I mixed up some acid based dye powder in some vinegar and water, and dyed the fabric what I was thinking would be a grayish brown. And the skin suddenly sagged and loosened…. a LOT. I went to the paddle center to get the iron, but when I got back the sun and the wind had dried the fabric somewhat and it tightened up again. I used the heat gun on some of the worst of the wrinkles left behind, and went to bed, planning to take it to Brian’s shop the next day to put the polyurethane on.

In the morning, it had loosened again, even worse than the first time, but I thought it still might be salvageable if I could shrink it back up again. So I loaded it up and headed down to Brian’s to put the coating on, a part that I didn’t enjoy much the last time I built a kayak. I also didn’t remember the details very well either, and wanted to put it on where Brian was handy to yell at me if I did something boneheaded.

I coated the skin, but it was so loose by now as to make it impossible to get a decent finish on, or to get the excess off. By now, I knew I was going to be reskinning this boat at some point. I thought about it overnight, and the next morning went back to Brian’s, begged a new and different fabric off of him and came home to cut off the newly installed skin.


sewing up skin

Eight hours later, I had the new skin sewed on, with the coaming installed and fabric dyed and drying. This fabric was much nicer to work with; I was able to keep the skin almost perfectly wrinkle free, and it stayed that way.


ready to coat

It took a couple of hours to put the coating on the bottom of the hull. The next morning, I found that the edge had dripped a little in spite of having masked it off with tape, and there was a little haze in the coating, telling me that I left it on a little thick. I shaved off the worst bubbles with a razor and then coated the deck. I did this out in the sun and wind, and it dried pretty quickly, although I did catch a number of mosquitoes and other bugs.


finished qajaq

As soon as it was dry enough to handle, I put the deck lines and fittings on. The toggle and beads are caribou antler, that I purchased in the silent auction at SSTIKS a few years ago.

I have a set of brand new float bags for it, and a Snapdragon spray skirt to fit as well. It’s finished!


qajaq


finished qajaq


frame

I have been making noises for a while now about building a Greenland style qajaq to fit my daughter Alice. She has paddled my Romany, but that is a big clunky boat on her. SSTIKS is coming up soon, and one of the best ways I have to motivate myself to finish projects like this is to have a deadline. With that in mind, and a chance to put the final coat of polyurethane goop on the skin at Brian’s shop on Friday, under his expert gaze, I set aside this week to devote it almost entirely to building Alice’s qajaq. As of tonight, I have about 50 hours into this project, with another day and a half or so to skin and coat it, and it will be done in plenty of time to go to SSTIKS.


frame

I kept thinking I would break this process apart into several blog entries, but each night, when I stumbled into the house at 10:30 or later, ready for a beer and bed, blogging was never what was on my mind at that point. Now, I have the frame finished, and the time set aside to finish the rest, so I can take a little break and post some photos and comments.


frame

I did not set out in this case to replicate any particular qajaq. What I wanted was to build a qajaq that would end up about 15 feet long, 18 or 19 inches wide, and snug enough to be a good fit, Greenland style, on a 15 year old girl. I had a stack of books that helped me through this process; I mainly use Robert Morris and HC Peterson’s books for construction technique, and Harvey Golden’s masterpiece, “Kayaks of Greenland” as my guide to design and details.

I wanted to make a qajaq that fell generally within “Type V” or “Type VI” parameters, as described by Harvey. I ended up deciding to follow the Type VI description more specifically.

What I ended up with, for you qajaq nerds out there, is 14′ 9″ LOA, 19 1/4″ wide at the masik, and 5 3/4″ deep from the top of the keel to the underside of the masik. It should be a good fit on Alice, and might even turn out to be a decent “cheater” rolling boat for someone a little larger.


shaping the frame

I learned a few important lessons this week, as I always do with projects like this. One thing I did not realize when I started this project is that I had sold off all of my perfectly clear, matched sets of gunwale quality lumber. I did a lot of scrounging through the woodshed trying to find a pair of good sticks for the gunwales, and in the end, I came up with one pretty bendy quartersawn piece, and a much stiffer flatsawn piece. I knew that this would be challenging to make a good frame out of, but I didn’t quite realize just how challenging it would be. The first night after I got the lumber picked out and sawn to size, I even left a heavy brake drum hanging off of the stiff piece suspended between two sawhorses, hoping that would help. It didn’t do much, and it ended up taking a lot of careful lashing, shims and clamp ties to wrestle these two divergent pieces of wood into a mostly symmetrical frame. I ended up having troubles with my homemade mortising jig for the router, too, and buggered up a couple of my mortises, which also gave me headaches later.


shaping the frame

I eventually prevailed, though, and after I got the gunwales and deck beams bent and pinned into their basic shape, it was time to set up the masik, which is the piece that supports the front end of the coaming. In addition to the masik, I added another deck beam, the seeqqortarfiupo. This one supports the aft ends of the forward deck stringers, and provides a snugger fit on the thighs, which seems to make for easier rolling. I used clamps and battens, and a few hours of fiddling around to set up these important deck beams. I hope I got them right!


masik and coaming

One of the other problems I had was also related to the wood I had on hand, ironically, since I own a sawmill, and have no excuse… but the white oak I had to make bending stock for ribs out of was a little too dry, and had a lot of grain runout that did not make things too easy when it came to bending ribs. My first run at steam bending the ribs resulted in a pile of broken and almost broken pieces. I patched up the better ones with lashings, but the next morning I came out and tried again. The steamer seemed to get hotter that time, and I had much better luck.


broken ribs

When the qajaq gets exceptionally shallow, it helps the ribs fit easier, with less breakage, if you notch out the inboard side of the mortise. I wish I had done this sooner, and on more of the mortises, but better late than never.


rib joint

I fussed around with the chines quite a bit, too. If I put them too far apart, the boat would have tons of primary stability, but no secondary stability, and would be harder to balance brace and roll. But if I put them too close together, the boat could turn out to be uncomfortably tippy. I also used a string across the chines and keel to make sure that the skin wouldn’t touch any ribs, something I wish I had done on my last kayak project.


sheer line

One of things I love about building kayaks is that you don’t need a ton of space, or a lot of expensive tools. And you don’t need to be talented at furniture grade joinery either. This stuff, plus a drill, router and a couple of small shop power saws and a planer were all that I used. There is no metal in this craft either; the frame is held together with joinery, lashing with artificial sinew and seine twine, and pegs.


tools


lashed joinery

I finally got the frame nearly finished late last night. I was working away and caught myself brushing mosquitos off my arms with a sharp chisel in the brushing hand, and I realized it was time to quit. When I got in the house, I realized it was a quarter to midnight, and I had been at it since 1 PM. Once I got the frame mostly completed, I oiled it.

Nothing brings me the same kind of sensory joy that heating up a nice fragrant batch of “boat sauce” does. This is made from linseed oil, pine tar (you probably won’t find that at Home Depot!), turpentine and Japan dryer. I warm it up in a can on the propane burner in the shop and brush it on hot. Hours later I will come back and rub the frame down with a rag, and today I got to set it up in the sun and wind to finish drying.

All that remains now is to put the skin on and rig up the deck lines, and it will be ready to paddle. More later, when that part is done! For more photos of the construction process, you can check out my flickr set here.


masik

Yet another kayaking symposium!

In early October, I traveled south to Mendocino, CA to attend the Traditional Arctic Kayaking Symposium. I had never been to this one, since it is usually held much further south, in San Simeon. Initially, I was not planning on attending this one either; it has been a busy year of travelling around and attending kayaking symposiums, and I was thinking I would just stay closer to home that weekend. But when I realized that Maligiaq Padilla, seven time Greenland national champion would be there, along with Cheri Perry and her partner Turner Wilson, I decided that if there was any year to travel south to this event, this would be the year. Once I had promised to transport Cheri and Turner’s qajaqs from Ginni’s farm where they had been left in August, after the LoCo Roundup, then I was committed.


Norsaq and deck lines

I got down to Van Damme State Park Friday around noon and checked in to my campsite, but due to some unforseen circumstances, there were a number of venue glitches. There was a abalone divers’ convention at Van Damme park where TAKS was supposed to be held, so most of the TAKS folks ended up camping at another campsite down the road. It took a while to find everyone, and I finally ran across them at Big River, which turned out to be a great site for almost everything.


Beach at Big River


Rainy potluck dinner

A potluck dinner was planned for that evening at the new campsite. A drysuit would have been the perfect attire, since it literally poured down rain for most of the evening.


Cheri and storm roll technique

The next day was rolling instruction, strokes instruction and a coastal paddle trip. I would have liked to go along on the coastal trip, but what I really wanted was to get some rolling coaching. Usually I am teaching at symposiums, and never have a chance to actually get any coaching for myself. I spent the morning in Turner’s qajaq, working on norsaq and hand rolls with Helen and Maligiaq. I had developed some bad habits that I wanted to get rid of. In the afternoon I got back in Turner’s qajaq again and worked with Cheri on improving my storm roll.

Rolling in a tight fitting Greenland style qajaq is pretty different from rolling a conventional manufactured kayak. I realized how inflexible I really am!


Dubside and Cheri, rolling

One big treat on Saturday was watching Maligiaq go through the rolling list in Cheri’s “cheater” rolling qajaq. He makes it look so easy! And not only that, but he brought a real sealskin tuiliq with him from Greenland. It is a thing of beauty, and smells wonderful, at least to my nose. I’m sure others might disagree.


Maligiaq and the sealskin tuiliq

Helen got to try on the tuiliq with the cheater qajaq for awhile as well.


Helen and sealskin

Here’s a couple of video clips of Maligiaq rolling.





Here’s one of Helen rolling Cheri’s qajaq and wearing the sealskin tuiliq.



Turner and Cheri’s qajaqs attracted a lot of attention. Cheri’s qajaq was built as a close copy of a competition rolling qajaq that Maligiaq had built years before. There are a lot of details about this qajaq that are interesting to builders and competition rolling afficionados. The “isserfik”, or the deck beam that supports the rear of the cockpit coaming, is fastened to the gunwales at the bottom, rather than the top, and the coaming “floats” with the skin, so that when you lean back, the coaming has some give to it, and gives you a little extra layback. The ribs from the seat area down past where your feet go were only partial ribs, not going all the way across the bottom of the qajaq, making it much easier to slide your feet into. This would not be a strong enough construction technique for a general purpose qajaq, though.


Turner's qajaq


Isserfik


Cheri's qajaq, masik

No Greenland qajaq symposium would be complete without a ropes setup for qajaasaarneq moves. Dubside did a ropes demo in the parking lot at Big River, and then the kids climbed on to play, too.


Dubside

Here’s one who was watching Dubside carefully…


Watching Dubside

Saturday night we all went into Fort Bragg for a nice dinner, and while we were waiting for them to be ready for our huge group, the qajaasaarneq ropes got setup again next to the restaurant and Dubside and some kids were at it again.


Qajaasaarneq

Sunday morning there weren’t very many people willing to get wet, I guess, and there were only a few of us on the water. Cheri, Turner, Dubside and Maligiaq were out goofing around and helping a few of us work on rolls. While Helen was getting world class coaching for the under-the-hull sculling roll, Cheri was helping me work out the front deck sculling roll, which I had never gotten before. I did manage to hit it once with Cheri’s coaching.

Maligiaq showed us the new rolls that will be added to the list next year, and I was glad to see that I already knew how to do one of them and quickly figured out one of the others.

We also dragged out the harpoon to play with, and I asked Maligiaq to look at my harpoon setup and critique it. Much to my surprise, a few of the key measurements were actually right where they were supposed to be.


Turner throwing the harpoon


Turner throwing the harpoon

I don’t know if I will make it all the way down to San Simeon next fall for TAKS, but if it ever comes back up north again, I will be there for sure.


Maligiaq goofing around