Why build a skin-on-frame kayak?

What’s so great about Seawolf’s kayaks?

Tell me more about skinboats in history and modern day

When you build a skin-on-frame kayak…

You are creating a modern, ultralight kayak with your own hands.

Ultralight. Once you build a skin-on-frame kayak, you will probably find that your 55 lb fiberglass and 65 lb plastic boats stay dry in the garage while you’re out having fun. A kayak that only weighs 28 lbs means that you will actually be out there for the experience.

Lessons from history. Building a skin-on-frame kayak means more than you first imagine. When you bring a boat to life in the traditional fashion, you create stories just as the first kayakers did and still do. You learn complex building techniques, but also how to understand wood, lashings and hand tools. In class we talk about kayak history, native history and paddling adventures.

Spending days constructing my boat, I learned that a beautiful, handmade kayak is more accessible than I ever imagined. Working with Kiliii was a charm. He quickly demonstrates his experience through passionately explaining each step of the way. I would say if you get a chance to create your own kayak, do it. -Noah, 2009

How does the class work?

Building Highlights

Advanced woodworking. Over eight days we cut and bend wood using nearly mostly hand tools. We use steam to bend amazing curves into wood, even the elliptical kayak coamings (cockpit rings). We learn to sight and see the hull shape as it forms. We lash the pieces together without any metal, then sew the skins on in the traditional Greenlandic style.

Traditional paddles. In our workshops, every builder carves out their own Greenland-type paddle. Other types are also available upon request, including a design from Norton Sound, AK, and Aleut paddle types.

I’ve built two skin-on-frame Kayaks with Kiliii and I’d do it again in a heart beat. -Sam, 2009

Register for a workshop / How does the class work?

Seawolf knows kayak design…

By starting with a good design and letting it evolve over many generations

There’s a lot to be said for understanding the design of small boats. By balancing out various factors and equations on paper and on a computer, a studious person can formulate a pretty decent kayak. Designing a kayak is much more complex than just the initial sketch phase, though– much like drawing up the blueprints to an airplane, you can’t be certain that it’ll perform the way you might imagine on paper.

Why? Because in the real world, water is complex, and paddlers adapt to the water in complex ways. The only way to take a decent boat design out of the realm of average into exceptional is to build and test, and build and test. We skin-on-frame kayak designers have an enormous advantage, because our boats are fast and easy to prototype, allowing us to make a dozen iterations in a year. In fact, findig the time and conditions to test properly each prototype is usually the limiting factor! Another good thing to remember that in order to design kayaks for advanced paddlers, you need advanced paddlers to test your kayaks.

How does Seawolf design a kayak?

Humpback, British Columbia, photographed by SOF kayak August 2008

1. Ask the most important question: What will the paddler be using their boat to do?
While this seems like a simple question, there’s a big group of paddlers out there with different aspirations and different abilities. Our sea kayaks are designed to be useable by beginning paddlers on water with light winds, and by experienced sea kayakers in heavy winds and big seas. This means that our sea kayaks are just stable enough for beginners, but are also highly efficient in the water and can handle being tossed around without capsizing. This also means they recover from a capsize (roll) well! Seawolf designs kayaks to help paddlers enjoy the sunny days, and survive the tough ones.

Estevan Point, British Columbia, photographed by SOF kayak August 2008

2. The next phase is the research phase– find other kayaks that roughly fit the description of the type of paddling we’re after, and study them. There are often many ways to solve the same problem, and in kayaks, it’s a delicate balance and blend of characteristics we’re after.

3. Finally we put the design onto paper and then begin building prototypes in three-dimensions, quickly.

4. We test our boats, often several generations at once for comparison, in the same waters we run our kayak trips in. Usually by the time our kayaks have advanced past a few prototypes they are good enough to be taken out on a trip by a guide. Testing also happens in the worst weather to make sure that the kayaks perform well when all hell breaks loose.

5. Much later, the design goes into the computer. By using computer programs to assist in kayak design, we can quickly figure out important numbers, such as how much cargo the boat can hold, and how efficient the kayak is at different speeds. Often putting a design into the computer happens after the kayak has been in the prototype stage for a long while, because the computer acts as more of a double-check, or research tool, than a place to create designs.

6. Then we continue to tweak and test some more, and the months fly by as we’re having fun… At some point, the kayak is complete enough that additional changes will hurt, rather than help it, and that’s when we finally call it quits in the evolution of a single model. In truth, though, as we come up with new ideas, they often get rolled into earlier models and the process begins again.

Register for a workshop / How does the class work?

Building a kayak in your 11/2008 Portland workshop was one of the best creative experiences of my life, so I encourage others to enroll. This is a project that could change your life. -Val, 2010