Wood Duck 12 finished and launched

24th October 2009, a try, but rather cold (max 7° C) , misty and partly foggy day, almost no wind, somewhat typical for the autumn in Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany. No other boat on the water, except 2 -3 hard-boiled anglers waiting for the great catch. This was THE day for my kayak Wood Duck 12:

FIRST TIME HIT THE WATER

The end of the sailing season on lake Hemmelsdorfer See. I took my Drascombe Lugger EMMA out for winter storage. After she was secured safely on the trailer, the kayak was launched. The first trial trip was carried out.

A picture story:


moving out of downstairsboatworks. Now I am already used to completely clear the corridor of the cellar from furniture, bits and pieces stored there. Otherwise the 'transaction' would not be possible.


safely secured for the 60km trip



Arrived at Hemmelsdorfer See .

I love this stern

Those who are looking at this picture very close , will detect the place on port side where the bottom panel was nearly to do the "big bang" , means to crack because of too much twist.

Water is near ! Wood Duck 12 , in full size and her latest finish.


Dear reader please apologize for some more proud, adoring glances !!!
















Wood Duck always on board



ready for launching, but nobody there for applause or christening ceremony . OK, it's just the trial run. The paddle is not yet the final one . It is 'borrowed' from the Sioux River Canoe.

First time hit the water :-)

Bow view

nice stern

stamped and approved by Wood Duck

Out on the lake:

autumn in northern Germany

max. temp. 7° C,

shivering grey heron in the weed.

on more near approach, he felt disturbed and

moved

Later on the trip around the lake i detected a buoy broken from the anchor and drifted into the weed. The chance for the first "rescue action" for my Wood Duck.
This action was successful accomplished ;-).
The buoy (an empty plastic barrel) was loaded on the aft deck and carried back to the pontoon.


First freight carried 'with grace' .












The hooks and the rubber line proofed to be usefull and resistant.

It's autumn. I hope there will be some more fine days or hours for further excursions this year.

Boatbuilding disease contracted !

Designing and building my canoe "Sioux River" was successful enough to contract the"disease": boatbuilding.

There are so many boats designs out which just wait to be built!

Besides paddling with 'Sioux River' and sailing my Drascombe Lugger EMMA the search , and design studies for the next boatbuilding project started again.
The great question: Which is the right type of boat and the according right design for the second boatbuilding project. The limitations of my downstairs boatworks are already known and have ultimately to be taken into account.
During my vacation at the Algarve, Portugal I came across the popular plastic Sit-on-Top-Kayaks. Despite their reduced lenght together with the lower length/breadth ratio compared with conventional kayaks these boats still have an attractive hull shape (as attractive a plastic boat can be). In addition the multichine design points to stitch & glue construction.
Further advantage: such a boat would fit in my downstairs boatworks !

First of all I had to raise fonds: One hobby for the other! I dissolved my collection of model railway N-gauge. In the course of the years I had amassed 52 engines, some 110 coaches and waggons and the adhering small parts and accessories.

A number of months followed in which the spare time was mostly filled with 'E-Baying'.
At the end this sometimes nerving fond raising was successful:
Good resources for improved and additional tools as well as for material were at hand.
It goes without saying that I continued to do design studies with my proven CARENE software and with FREESHIPS. This also helped to recreate from E-bay and to keep and feed my motivation . For the support of design ideas I also searched the internet for design examples and impulses on the homepages of small boat designers, kit suppliers, boatbuilder forum etc.
Kayaks from 11 - 15 length emerged from this investigation.

Decision: WOOD DUCK 12
At the end I purchased the plans for WOOD DUCK 12 from CLC-boats via their French representative Arwen Marine.
The shape of this kayak attracts me very much. Regarding its size this kayak is very suitable to my limited downstairs boatworks as well.

The sailing season with my Drascombe Lugger EMMA finished at about mid of October 2008.

She was taken out of the water and put to the winter storage.
From this date on the prelude for the building of WOOD DUCK 12 took place:
- Studying the plans
- purchase of material
- preparation of the boatworks

Cleaning up the downstairs boatworks proofed to be a dead boring and odd job. Where to leave all those bits and pieces which had gathered everywhere in this room ?
Therefore nobody will be very surprised that I could not await until the 100% cleaning up.

Downstairs Boatworks cleaned and cleared just as good as necessary.

Wood Duck plans are rolled out, ready for to "take off" the Wood Duck pattern.

Scarfing and glueing of the plywood plates followed


I prepared a copy of each single part from the original plans on special plotter paper, which does marginally( allmost not) shrink and warp. With these single patterns I could arrange the parts somewhat less material consuming as it is proposed on the CLC plans.


As to be seen from the foto right my famous known telescopic building jig (see building of Sioux River Canoe below) came to honourable use again.






A toothed wheel from mother's little sewingbox proofed to be a fine tool for copying the patterns on the plywood.






By the way: the first substantial cut was done on 29th Dec. 2008. Seems as this date might become my traditional starting date for the built of new boats ?
You know that any important person shall have said once upon a time : "...doing anything a second time means to become used to. When you do it for the third time it became tradition..."

The work in downstairsboatworks commences almost only on single weekend days and at some occasion also for 1 - 2 hours in the evening during normal working weeks. Therefore it took some time until all parts were marked on the plysheets, cut out and finished for further manufacture.

At the end of January 2009 all parts were cut, the holes for the stitching wire were drilled and the bevels at the joints of the hull panels cut.

bottom panels , bow section

First stichting trial with the bottom panels ; the hullforms 2, 4, 8 and 10 are in place:

The right upper edge of form 2 points to my provisions of stitching wire on the desk behind:
a drum with more than 40m of blank electric copper wire 0,7 mm thickness.
I found out that this wire worked very well , strong and somewhat elastic if been doubled for each stitch.

At this stage I discovered that the scarf of the portside bottom blade was hollow for nearly half of its breadth !
There was obviously not enough pressure generated when glueing the scarf. I learned that it is not to be recommended to stack three scarfs over each other. Also there might have been not enough weight on them.
I cut off the 'airbubble' , filled the cut-out in the gap and glued additional layers of veneer on top.


this time heavy pressure ! the result is quite satisfying

looks a bit like patchwork.
Luck within the mishap: the repair is on the inside of the hull. It looks fine from outside and does not effect the bending and flexibility of the plywood very much.

The shape of the bow and the stern are one of the characteristic features fo the Wood Duck design. Without these the appearance the kayak would loose considerably. This good look causes some challenge to the plywood of the bottom panels. It has to be bent rather hard on a short length. CLC's building manual advices to wett the area at the bow and to do the bending step by step. In addition I knew examples from the master of home boatbuilders which I know (strathkancris) and even from a professional where the plywood had resisted this torment. The keyword is " Big Bang". My approach: wetted old towels moisten the ply as much as possible. Then take the heat gun and 'steam' the wood.

The bow section went rather easy into shape.
Here the run of the planks is somewhat longer -as naval architects say- than at the stern.

At the stern the panels need more effort to get persuaded. A wire across the hull which was tightened step by step supported the steaming.


It was kept inside the hull even during the stichting of the side panels.

The correct shape of the stern transom could be found after a little extensive investigation according to the commonly known "trial and error" method. This search contained also some correspondance with Emmanuel Conrath of Arwen Marine (he delivered the plan) and also with strathkanchris. Emmanuel even took the shape from the stern transom cut as originally delivered in a WoodDuck12 kit. Many thanks to both of the advisers / consultants! Your advices each were very helpfull and are highly apprecated!
At the end I had prepared 5 different transom pieces. The on which fitted best come rather near to the wrong shape given on the plan. :-?

By the way: In order to gain an improved landing of the side panels on the transom and a more rigid transom I used 8mm ply for the final transom piece.
Nevertheless a lot of water soaked old towels , wire, heat and clamps were necessary to avoid the 'Big Bang' of the bottom panels during the stiching of the stern transom.

End of dreaming : Do it now !

For long years I have dreamed of building a boat on my own. These dreams were permanently driven by reading the relevant magazines of the world, especially WATER CRAFT regularly.

Some months of investigation in literature, measuring the space in the future boatyard -my workshop down in the cellar of our house- and playing around with different designs followed the final decision to do it.
The overall usable space in my workshop measures around 4.5m length and 2.5m width (15' x 8'). This room is accessible through a door (0.95 x 2.0m) and a stairway of 0.9m breadth in a 2.0mx2.0m chamber.
Therewith the size of boat has to be limited if module building or cutting into pieces after finishing shall be avoided.

The first project should be a canoe . The design chosen was my own adaption of the northamerican pack canoe. Later I learned that other famous models such as WEE ROB had almost the same dimensions.
The lines were developed with the plywood Software CARENE. This program also delivered the basic hydrostats.
The finall dimensions of the canoe were estimated to 3,25m x 0,72m (10'8" x 2'5")

In autumn 2006 the preliminaries were finished. The final designs were built as paper model and as plywood model in 1:10 scale.The scale resulted from just printing out the developments by CARENE on my old printer in A2-format. The models encouraged me to proceed (as expected).


Screenshot of lines plan out of Freeship

Characteristic of the final design:
- bottom (6mm ply) with 6 degree deadrise
- 4 side planks (4mm pl)
The development of the planks was transferred from CARENE to ACAD in order to arrange them effectively on the plywood sheets.

After purchase of the plywood, some epoxy and other materials and equipment I could not wait until more detailed plans were prepared . So I scarfed and glued the ply to the final length. Of course the planks were soon marked out.

Huurray !!! On 29th December 2006 the first cut was made !!!

Cutting out was soon finished, such that the real building process started .

For the cutting and building I had invented a very genius 'telescopic building jig' :
The side bars (scandinavian pine, abt 2,05m length) from the dismounted former bed of my daughter were arranged over three wooden saw horses. The third one was kept moveable such that the jig could be extracted for work and pushed together when work was stopped.















Hull panels stitched but not glued. Note the genius "telescopic building jig" underneath.

The picture clearly shows also a crack in the 2nd plank somewhat aft of the scarf. This crack was due to the very cheap meranti-plywood which I had purchased. The decision for cheap material resulted from my remaining doubts regarding the final success of this project.

At this stage i realized that 2 - 3 frames as well as stems would add to rigidity of the canoe.
The frames were made of 6mm plywood. The stems are arranged as 'false stems'. This means they are two pieces each: the inner part is made of 12mm ply (2x6mm) and the outer part is laminated wood strips from a broken down wooden sun blind.
By the way: Only the plywood was purchased for the canoe. I have made all other wooden parts from my stock of timber collected from former beds of our children and remains from furniture building projects or similar origin.
17th March 2007:
The stage of bare shell construction was reached. This was the first time this baby saw daylight ! It was the final proof whether this boat can really be managed through the rather limited entrances out of the cellar. Before there were only theoretical investigations.

First time out in the daylight ! doesn't she look quite fine ?

View from the stern: Three supporting frames and the false stems can be seen. The middle frame bears a temporary beam. The final removeable carrying yoke was not yet ready.
The inner and outer bottom is already glassed.

Almost all of the sanding was done outside in the garden. This saves a lot of dust and noise in the house.



Downstairs again in the boatworks:
The rubbing strake and the inner gunwale were constructed and glued in.
Rubbing strake being glued

Detail of the bow

19th. May 2007:
Launching Day !!

Sea trials - or should i say lake trials ?



Please do not be too critical with the faults of a first time boatbuilder !
Scarfs are far away from perfect and some oher mistakes can not be overseen.




But she floats well









By the way: I named my canoe "Sioux River" . This is a reminiscence to the place where my son spent his one-year highschool exchange : Bridgewater , South Dakota, USA. The Sioux River is the biggest river in this state



Modifications:

A number of paddling afternoons followed the launching of "Sioux River".
The canoe behaved very well and I felt safe onboard and very satisfied.


Hamburg, river Alster; July 2007



Hemmelsdorfer See near Lübeck, Oct. 2007

As results from my experiences from different trips on the lake "Hemmelsdorfer See " near Lübeck as well as on the river Alster in Hamburg I tried different hights of the seat. This seemed to be necessary due to the relativ high freeboard of Sioux River.
Furthermore I became convinced that my canoe might easily carry up to 150 - 170 kg. This means two persons, not too heavy ones. However the fixed cross beams did not leave enough space for a second person.
Therefore following modifications were applied during the winter break 2007/08:
- removing the cross beams
- instead installing breast hooks and decks fore and aft.
The deck in the stern is larger than that in the bow. Both give shelter for floating bags or for some picnic gear.
In addition to these structural modifications the paintwork was finished as it had been planned from the beginning. Now a blue band on both sides hide my not so perfect scarf joints of the planks. Blue color inside the boat also mask the seams and glue optically.

2008-look ; with prijon kayak seat


bow section


middle with removable portage joke;
backrest of the kayak seat will be fixed to the guardrail by straps


stern section

The absolute heyday of the 2008 season was ...
a Capsize on the river Alster in max. 50cm (20") waterdepth when starting again after towing the canoe upstream through a small "shoot" (white water would be too exaggerated and honourable for this place); better to say shallow.
It must have been very entertaining for the spectators on the footpath nearby !
The result: complete equipment flooded. also digicam completely swamped.
The reason: total silliness.
Lesson learned: never behave on a canoe as if standing on a stable daysailor !


River Alster, August 2008 ; before capsize


Last picture before swamped digicam gave up service

By the way: the digicamera recovered fully. I packed it together with a number of those air drying pillows (out of any imported electronic gear) in a dry camerabag for abt 3 weeks.

Surprise, surprise !!

The camera works as if it had never come in touch with any little drop of water !