Free Walrus Kayak Plans
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In 1921, Norman L. Skene surveyed the 1921 Peabody Museum’s Southwest Greenland kayak. Taken by the lines, he drew up plans for a westernized version, which he named Walrus. For the Walrus, he widened the boat to 22 inches, lowered the deadrise and designed a larger cockpit. Construction changed from bent ribs and animal skin to dimensional lumber, truss-like framing and canvas skin. He published the free plans in the June 1923 issue of The Rudder. By the time Skene published the article, many kayaks of his design had already been built. Builders noted that the design was seaworthy and easy to learn to paddle. Recently, George Putz covered building a Walrus is his book, Wood and Canvas Kayak Building.
For these free kayak plans, I decided to stick closely to the original. Despite my personal dislike of the cockpit, I kept it on the drawings. The original deck was relatively flat with two deck beams. I kept the height the same, but used a simple peaked deck. I suspect that with a proper sea kayak cockpit, this would make a nice boat for someone looking for a wide Greenland-like kayak. Personally, I find the 1921 Peabody Museum’s Southwest Greenland kayak more graceful and recommend that kayak over this one.
Specifications
Length: 17 feet
Beam: 22 inches
Kayak Building Books
Before building a kayak consider purchasing a kayak or canoe building book. These books explain what to do with drawings like those presented here. If you decide to buy one book, buy Nick Schade’s Building Strip-Planked Boats.
Free Kayak Plan Downloads and Package Downloads
The free linesplans are station and stem drawings overlaid on each other. They are drawn at full size. The drawing package includes linesplans and each station and stem drawn separately on a PDF that prints full sized on when printed on the right paper size, usually ARCH D. You can cut these out and glue them to plywood to cut full-sized forms.
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6 Comments
Thomas
Can someone instruct me on how exactly to print the stations to scale? I have access to a poster printer and everything I may need to build this boat, but I have no idea how to turn the PDF plans into individual parts to print.
Bryan Hansel
Hi, Thomas,
I’m not sure I understand what it is that you want to do. To print, you open the pdf in Adobe Reader. Go File -> Print. Select “None” in Page Scaling. Select “Center and Rotate.” Select “Paper size by PDF.” Then hit okay. It should print full-sized.
After that you need to transfer the patterns to the plywood. I use carbon paper behind the print and draw on the plans to transfer the carbon to the plywood. Then I flip the print and mirror it for the other side. You need to trace each station this way to get all the individual parts.
Does that answer the question?
Thomas
Okay, I got it printed. Now my question is this: which stations would you recommend for a sof?
Bryan Hansel
That’s a tough questions, because I’ve only built one Yost-style skin-on-frame. I’d probably use stations 7 & 10 (or 9 if you want a small cockpit) to form the cockpit area. I’m giving the stations numbers from the stern of the kayak, so 7 is closer to the stern than 10. For the stern, 3 & 5. For the bow, 12 & 14.
Thomas
I had about the same idea. I love the lines of this boat and the fact that I can fit in it. Thanks so much for your help. I will send pictures of the build soon.
Bryan Hansel
Can’t wait to see it!