Opus 4, Suijin
(pronounced 'swee-jean', meaning 'Water God')
Started 11/2004 , Maiden voyage 4/9/2005
A nice ~18' boat from
Chesapeake Light Craft, the kit for which costs $1200 but
includes full size plans and pre cut forms. I will be designing it out of the
book that they published,
The New Kayak Shop (on loan from John Singer) The wood will cost me about
~$75, the epoxy another $50, hardware $75, fiberglass another $25. Way less than $1200. :)
Here
are some
reviews of
the kit from other builders.
This bad boy (girl?) needs to be cut from 18' pieces, so that is the toughest task. I ended up making a scarf joint on one junction, and my fiberglass-tape-on-each-side glue job for another. We'll see how they turn out. Early indications seem to favor the more difficult scarf joint.
My garage is not very wide. Here are two pictures, one the 'left' side of my garage, the other on the 'right side. As you can see, I don't have a lot of room to play with.
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My sister and her family were here for a weekend and I used my brother-in-law John as cheap labor. His help was immeasurable!!
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Cutting the panels: |
The air was cold so we accelerated the epoxy
drying process with localized infrared radiation. Hurry up man!!! |
| We went through ~120 cable ties to stitch the boat together:  |
John and the finished stitching job: |
The outside of the hull ready for glassing:
That's a long boat! Nice curves, eh? |
The deck support which is four layers of wood glued together
at a 16" curvature.
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It is now mid-December and it is too cold to do the second coat in my unheated garage. My gracious neighbor let me borrow his basement for a couple of days.
With the outside glassed, its time to glass the inside with
3.25 oz. fiberglass cloth. |
So, its like 25 degrees out and my heat lamps are not really
up to the task here. I decided to invert the hull over a space heater. This
seems to work much better, and can handle a larger volume of space.
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I was sick of trying to spin the boat to get the right angle to work on, and it is a pain to get to the other side of the boat as I am working in the back of my garage, so I built a boat 'lathe' such that I could spin the entire boat to any angle I wanted and keep it there. Much thanks to my father George and Brother-in-law John for help in the design. |
Yet another paddle design: |
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The hatches:  |
Red Paddle: Close up of the coaming:  |
Leftover plastic containers were epoxy'd into the end for
flotation as well as keeping things from migrating to the ends and getting
stuck. The theory was good, but they loosened and fell off when I hammered
the deck on. Oh well...
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I have been thinking about my own personal 'stamp' to put on
my boats. Here is one idea, placed on a paddle I am working on: |
Get rid of the extra wood the fun way.... |
Launch Day April 9, 2005
Since I was out with my neighbor and his kayak, we took his truck. |
The owner doing a 'speed run' |
My neighbor Wendell, helping me break in the new boat. The lump in front of the cockpit is a water bottle.  |
First day notes... Instead of the maiden voyage in Cascade Falls Park, I went with my neighbor Wendell to Clark Lake. We circumnavigated the whole lake in 2 hours 15 min, but we were taking our time, enjoying the early summer day. She tracks amazingly straight, even with a 10 mph cross wind. Once I
got comfortable with her I could gently tilt the boat allowing me to
turn a little easier. I kept thinking of the film 'Hunt for Red October'
and the cool underwater sub scenes. As you can see with 205 pound Wendell, there is lots of room for gear in the boat. The hatches are not installed yet here, but will be soon,. This was the 'get the boat in the water and see if it floats' trip. It did :) |
More additions...
Salacia and builder showing off the completed (SJ is
sitting in the rear one) hatches in a 'dry' run: |
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Updates as they happen...
Last Update: 23 Apr 2005 17:19 Back to Doc Ott's Boatyard
