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Kanuyak Canoe and Kayak Decal Review
One of the problems with mass produced canoes and kayaks is the lack of personality. Your boat looks just like another one off the same shelf. You can try to personalize things by changing the color of deck line, or you could paint something on the side. Or you could add a little pizazz to your boat with a sticker. Kanuyak makes easy-to-apply canoe and kayak decals. I spent this spring reviewing two versions, a 5-inch sticker and a 8-inch sticker. The stickers I tested come as a set of two, mirror images cut from commercial-grade decal vinyl with the color going all the way through. You apply one sticker…
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Solo Canoe Yoke Plans for Portaging
Because the seat in a solo canoe is centered in the boat, you can’t permanently mount a yoke there. I’ve seen all sorts of solutions to the problem, such as removable clamp-on yokes, magnet holding yokes, yokes held on with bungee cords, special clamping systems for yokes and many more. It seems like everyone’s inner engineer emerges to fix this problem. In the past, I’ve used an ash clamp-on solo yoke made by Bell with Chosen Valley Canoe pads. It works very well, but it does scratch up my aluminum gunwales, and it’s a pain to clamp down. I decides to make a solo yoke that attaches to the seat…
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Lightweight Sub-5 Ounce Cook Kit
My friend Jeff Scott, who is an ultralight backpacker, sent me his most recent sub-5 ounce cook kit list. It weighs in at an astonishing 4.62 oz., and it features everything you’d need without skimping on anything. He uses it for on solo backpacking trips, but there’s no reason why this wouldn’t work on a paddling trip. The stove burns alcohol, so you need a supply of denatured alcohol or you can use HEET in the yellow bottle, which you can purchase from almost any gas station. Sub-5 Ounce Cook Kit List T’s B Side Burner Stove – 0.33 Spark Lite Fire Starter – 0.17 Snowpeak 600 Mug – 2.8…
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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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How to Adjust a Sea Kayak
Adjusting a sea kayak or touring boat to fit not only makes the boat more comfortable but also makes it easier to control. With the proper fit, edging, which helps you maneuver, feels easier, rolling becomes easier, and torso rotation, which propels a kayak forward, becomes unimpeded. For all-day touring, I feel that you need a snug fit that’s loose in all the right areas. That might sound like a slight contradiction, but let me explain. How to Size a Kayak There are a lot of factors in picking the right size kayak, such as what you’re going to do with it, what you weigh, how much gear you’re going…
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Sea Kayak Cockpit Plans
Only a few of the kayak plans on PaddlingLight include specific cockpit designs, which leaves it open to you to decide which cockpit to use. I like a cockpit that runs around 32 inches by 17 inches. The plans for this cockpit run just slightly over 32 and just under 17. I find this length and width makes it easier for people over 5’10” to get in the kayak vs. 30-inch versions. The Iggy plans include a smaller cockpit The plans come as a pdf that you can print off at a office supply store, such as Officemax or Staples, or any printing store that can print up to 36…
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Head North to Old Woman: A Lake Superior Kayaking Adventure
This is a guest post from sea kayaker Tim Gallway. It was a cold August morning, and I was heading for Wawa, Ontario to teach at the Greenland Symposium put on by Naturally Superior Adventures (NSA). Or at least I would have if the event hadn’t been cancelled. Due to many last minute cancellations instructors would outnumber students, so the plug was pulled. But I was still going. I was planning on spending the long weekend sleeping on beaches, playing in the surf and rock gardens around Superior Provincial Park with the other instructors that were going to do the same thing I was. One way or another I was…
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Bushbuddy Ultra Wood-burning Stove Review
A guest post by Rick Beaty of a Crooked Blue Line. I’ve always relied on canister fuel. I’ve always been a pocket-rocket-style-stove-type guy. Usually, my kit is made up of only what I can buy from REI or other large outdoor retailers. I never considered cottage industry equipment. The Bushbuddy Ultra wood-burning stove, manufactured in the cottage industry, was the first piece of kit that made me rethink every other piece of gear I hauled in boat and on portage. Other than over coals from campfire, I have never cooked in the backcountry without my “technology”. The Bushbuddy Ultra changed that. Its simple beginnings, in the tradition of homemade Hobo…
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Navigation: Dead Reckoning
In navigation, dead reckoning is determining your current position based on your last known location. Because canoes and kayaks seldom leave sight of shore, you mainly use it during crossings, along featureless shorelines, in foggy conditions or to give you an estimated location between fixes. You can use the same technique to estimate your future position. To do dead reckoning, start with a known location, such as a navigation fix, marked on your chart or map. From that point, advance a line along your known course a distance based on your speed and the time traveled using the formula shown below. Current or wind can affect your DR; during critical…
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North Water Sea Tec and QR Tow Line Review
North Water Rescue & Paddling Equipment makes some of the best paddling gear. Everything that I’ve tried or owned from them feels high quality and seems well thought out. I may not like all their gear, but some I’ve found that I just can’t live without, such as the Under Deck Bag. North Water likes to give paddlers lots of options, and, boy, do they give a sea kayaker options in tow lines. As of 2011, they offered seven different styles of tow lines in their sea kayak line, plus several lines in their whitewater section that might interest sea kayakers. I’ve used both the Quick Release Rescue Tow Line…
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Free Canoe Plans and Free Kayak Plans Project Summary
In September 2010, I decided to draw and release a free canoe plan or a free kayak plan each week for the entire winter. I planned the project to end on April 1st, 2011. My goal was to produce between 24 and 26 total plans based on historic designs found in Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America. A few of the models came from other sources. In all, I drew and released 25 plans. Things I Learned On a project of this magnitude, about 100+ hours of computer time, I’m bound to learn something, and I did. Basically, I learned to quickly model boats using DELFTship Pro, and…
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Free Canoe Plans: Beothuk Canoe
The Beothuk Canoe appears as Figure 87 in the Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America. It differs from every other canoe in that book, and no actual physical model existed when Adney surveyed the canoes. He based the drawing on historic and sometime conflicting descriptions, and a birch-bark canoe toy found in the grave of a Beothuk boy. Chapelle notes that when turned upside down the canoe makes a shelter with a 3-foot head clearance. The canoe can also heel over on the water further than other canoes. Chapelle speculates that the canoes were designed for open-water navigation. Although it may seem like an April Fools’ Day joke,…
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Terra Nova Bothy Bag Review
Over the last couple of years, I tested and used Terra Nova’s bothy bags, which Terra Nova bills as “Lightweight, compact and inexpensive shelters for emergencies or lunch stops.” Basically, bothy bags are giant stuff sacks designed to hold humans. You get out of your kayak or canoe, pull the bothy out of the stuff sack and pull it over top of you. The bags are just large enough to accommodate you and your friends, but nothing else. The fabric blocks the outside weather and warms up quickly. I own both the Superlite 2 and the Bothy 4, and I’ve used both in a variety of weather and situations. I’ll…
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Spring, Cabin Fever and Wanderlust
Spring is almost here in the northland and on the shore of Lake Superior. Robins flew back into town the other day. I saw a raven carrying sticks for nests. The gulls are back and loud and dive-bombingly protective of the shoreline and their islands. Tons of eagles soar along the shore. And the deer, both dead and living, line the highways where the melting snow exposes grass. The wolves have followed the deer. These signs signal spring. Lake Superior never really froze over this winter, so I’ve been paddling all winter long, but the weather is heating up and the days reach temperatures above freezing, the days are longer…
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Free Plans – Coast Salish Style Canoe
The Coast Salish Style Canoe appears on page eight of Leslie Lincoln’s Coast Salish Canoes. Lincoln writes that it’s the classic style and is housed at the Vancouver Centennial Museum, Vancouver, B.C. The boat measures over 27 feet making it as long as most voyager canoes. Lincoln also notes that the Coast Salish style canoes evolved for use in inland seas. This canoe features an interesting flare along the sheerline. The design works to keep the craft from shipping waves while maintaining a narrow hull for speed. It’s reflected in the bow; where, as Lincoln notes, the upper edge flares to keep out waves, but the lower, narrower section cuts…
