A while ago I purchased Nick Schade’s book The Strip-Built Sea Kayak. From it I built his Guillemont. I also liked the look of the Great Auk but liked the speed and ease of ply construction stitch and glue.I drew up the forms and used these to get the general shape. All went very well.
Doug Burns built this Shearwater 17 from a Chesapeake Light Craft kit. The honey colored hull is Okoume plywood, the dark red deck Sapele. She has an LOA of 17′ and a beam of 22″. Designed by Eric Shade, she weighs about 45lbs.
Jay Harman rescued and spent years painstakingly restoring this historic minesweeper, turning her into expedition yacht and marine research platform.
When Jim Underwood of Yorktown, Virginia, started working on the glued-lap York River 12 skiff WE THREE, she had been lying upside down on the ground for several years. Consequently, she had a lot of rot on the top of her transom and stem (see picture at bottom).
Don Don was designed and built by Van Dam Custom Boats, and launched in the summer of 2011. The boat is 28′-7″ long, and 8′ 6″ beam, and speed comes from a 375 h.p. engine. More information from Van Dam Custom Boats, 970 E. Division St., Boyne City, MI 49712. 231-582-2323.
Terry Matthews of Mt. Vernon, WA, built not one but two boats for his granddaughter, Etta Cameron, who was launched herself in April 2010.
Christoph Harlan of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, kept a blog of the six-month construction of his Night Heron kayak kit that he launched in April.
Despite working at times “at a glacial pace” for two years, Stirling Cummings of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, finshed and launched his 18′ Night Heron kayak on a cold windy day in February 2012 on Jordan Lake, near Chapel Hill.
Watch out for Greg Henzel and his two young daughters rowing around in A-K SUNSHINE on Puget Sound near their home in Gig Harbor, Washington.
SUSAN JOY is a Newt design by Warren Jordan of Jordan Wood Boats of South Beach, Oregon. Carl Frey of Stamford, Connecticut, modified the 11'-design from a kayak to a rowboat by installing removable outriggers. The outriggers extend the beam of the boat from 29" to 42".