• three kayaks sitting on a beach next to a tent
    Articles,  Build It Yourself,  Kayak Plans,  Kayaks

    A Special Siskiwit LV Built

    Back 2020, Jan picked up a Siskiwit LV Sea Kayak Drawing and decided to build a modified sea kayak from the drawings. He recently wrote about what he did and how it turned out: “At the beginning of the pandemic I bought the plan from you. Although you did not recommend modifying the sizes, I tried it anyway. Today I am very happy that I did. I shortened the kayak to 82% by reducing the distance between the stations and decreased the plan to 90%. This resulted in a kayak with 4.3 m (14 feet 1 inch) and 49 cm (19.3 inches) wide at about 16 kg (35 pounds). Usually,…

  • Articles,  Build It Yourself,  Kayak Plans,  Kayaks,  Tent Bound

    How the Siskiwit LV Happened

    Recently I was looking through old photos and came across a few of my old kayak building photos. I’ve pretty much given up building canoes and kayaks for the moment, but I do have a few that I would like to build in the future. It’s interesting looking back from a perspective of 18 years after I built my first kayak. The first kayak that I built was a SOF using Cunningham’s Building the Greenland Kayak book. I really liked the kayak, but it had way too much rocker to be practical at tripping, which is what I wanted it for. In retrospect, I should have just added an external…

  • Siskiwit Bay SOF Drawings shown
    Articles,  Kayak Plans

    Siskiwit Bay Skin-on-Frame Drawings Updated

    Recently, I got good feedback from a builder of the Siskiwit Bay SOF. I decided to dive into the kayak plans again and do a quick update. I don’t know how many of these have been built, but over 950 of the drawings have been downloaded. It’s mostly the free version that people grab, but the free kayak plans version doesn’t offer all the nice things that the drawing package offers. The drawing package now comes with three different placements for the station that goes behind the seat and two different placement for the station forward the paddler’s feet. This will allow builders to vary where the seat goes and…

  • Siskiwit SOF Hits Water
    Articles,  Build It Yourself,  Kayak Plans,  Kayaks,  Tent Bound

    New Siskiwit SOF Kayak Hits the Water

    Tibor Berki from Sweden, the person behind RUGD clothing, completed an unique build of a Siskiwit SOF kayak. He used fiberglass-reinforced foam for the frames, added sealed bulkheads, used an ocean cockpit instead of a whitewater-style cockpit, and he added hatches. His builder’s log is detailed and fun to read. His build ended up at 13kg (28.6 pounds) with all the extras. He is debating on adding a skeg. In his building log, he mentions that he had problems with the dye he used, but I think it looks fantastic! I don’t own a SOF kayak anymore, but now I want one again because his looks so good. Check out…

  • cockpit placement on the Siskiwit Bay
    Articles,  Build It Yourself,  Kayak Plans,  Kayaks

    Kayak Cockpit Placement Rule of Thumb

    If you’re working from a set of sea kayaking plans, figuring out the kayak cockpit placement is easy. You just consult the diagrams. But, if it’s a historic replica or one of your own designs or if the plans didn’t include drawings of the cockpit area, finding the best placement becomes a challenge. This is a hurdle I faced when building my Siskiwit Bay and Siskiwit LV designs. After a day or two a research, I ended up coming up with several rule of thumbs for sea kayak cockpit placements. Any homebuilder could use these and come up with a good cockpit placement. Sea Kayak Cockpit Placement Rule of Thumb…

  • Articles,  canoe plans,  Canoes,  Kayak Plans,  News

    Free Kayak Plans and Free Canoe Plans

    For years, PaddlingLight has been giving away the free drawings of historic and recent canoe and kayak, but I didn’t know how many plans people were downloading. In the last year I decided to start tracking just a few of the downloads to get a grasp on how many were actually being downloaded. I picked 5 of the 35 free drawings that I offer: a popular historic kayak design that has been built many times, a history canoe that has been built many times (most often in Italy), a canoe that looks interesting but hasn’t been built often (if at all), an original yost-style, skin-on-frame kayak and another historic kayak…

  • Belcher Island kayak plans
    Articles,  Free Kayak and Canoe Plans,  Free Kayak Plans,  Kayak Plans,  Kayaks

    Belcher Island Kayak Plans

    The Belcher Island Kayak was collected in 1958 from Great Whale River where it was built by “Adlaykok” or Allaiquq. It appears as figure 46 in E.Y. Arima’s Inuit Kayaks in Canada: A Review of Historical Records and Construction, Based Mainly on the Canadian Museum of Civilization’s Collection. Arima notes that it was likely built for demonstration, and that its 22-foot length and 29.5-inch beam would make for a good trade kayak between the Belcher Islands and mainland. He also notes that it’s likely as much as a single paddler could handle by himself. The condition of the kayak was rather poor when the lines were taken. The bottom was collapsed and…

  • free kayak plans
    Articles,  Free Kayak and Canoe Plans,  Free Kayak Plans,  Kayak Plans,  Kayaks

    Super Secret Kayak Design

    A couple of years ago, I designed this kayak for someone in China. He never got around to building it, or at least he never let me know if he built it. It’s been sitting on my harddrive since then. Recently, I pulled it up and refined it a bit to add extra stability. This kayak falls into the recreational touring class. It’s 15 feet long with a touch of rocker. It should cruise along nicely in the 3 to 4 knot range and feel really solid for beginners despite it’s slightly narrower width than plastic boats in this class. It could be built in cedar strip, plywood or possibly…

  • Sample 3d view of a canoe plan
    Build It Yourself,  canoe plans,  Canoes,  Free Kayak and Canoe Plans,  Kayak Plans

    Printed Canoe Plans and Kayak Plans Plus Electronic Nestings

    PaddlingLight offers a significant number of historic canoe and kayak plans and several original designs. In the past, those free kayak plans and free canoe plans came as a drawing on one sheet of paper. The plans showed the stations at 1-foot intervals with the stems drawn over the station. Only my commercial plans and a few were available with nestings. I’ve decided to start offering nestings for all the plans. I’m also offering a new service. I’m printing the nesting and stem and station plans on 24- by 36-inch paper. These two new services come with a fee. While I’ve made these plans available without expecting to make any…

  • Siskiwit LV sea kayak
    Articles,  Build It Yourself,  Kayak Plans

    FAQ: Siskiwit LV Sea Kayak

    The Siskiwit LV sea kayak is an all-around, mid-sized, British-style sea kayak designed to maintain the playfulness of a 16-foot kayak but yield the speed and tracking of an 18-foot sea kayak. The sea kayak plans are designed for wood strip or cedar strip construction. I’ll add questions as I’m asked. 1) Does the rear of the cockpit forms have a smooth transition so that the top of the entire coaming rim is essentially flat? I’m asking because the Siskiwit Bay built with a recess seems to have a sharp transition. I will probably build it without the recess to allow more room for my 5′ -8″ fiance (I am…

  • Siskiwit LV sea kayak wood strip plans
    Articles,  Kayak Plans

    Siskiwit LV Sea Kayak Plans

    The Siskiwit LV combines the quick maneuverability of a 16-foot day boat with the speed and tracking of a 18-foot touring kayak. This all-around, mid-sized British-style sea kayak suits a kayaker looking for a boat with good initial stability that is easy to edge and quick to turn. When the water gets rough, the Siskiwit LV feels more stable. It thrives in tidal flows, surf and waves. When packing like a backpacker, the Siskiwit LV provides enough room to mount a long tour. It will support you as you push your limits. The Siskiwit LV is the final refinement of a line of kayaks started from an anthropomorphically designed skin-on-frame…

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