This is my first attempt at building a surf kayak: The X-1 (experiment #1) is based in part on the orignal UFO by Leo Lekas - still one of the best big wave boats out there and also one of the most comfortable. In fact the UFO was my starting point - I wanted something a little shorter, a little wider, with a bit more volume in the tail.. and just as comfortable. This first boat is really an experiment - I've never worked with fiberglass before, never designed a kayak, don't know anything about surf kayak design. There's only one way to learn. Thanks to everybody that inspired and helped. Desmond Harrington.
The
Specs: (based on 8' x 4' x 2" EPS sheets cut and stacked)
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The starting point: The drawing.
2" EPS from Lowes, cut and stacked with a few drops of glue to hold together. Tip: I cut out sections of the middle layers as I stacked them - this proved very useful when it came time to hollow out.
Outline drawn and ready to cut.
Outline cut and sanded.
The bow roughed out.
At this stage it looks more like a model for a cruise ship than a surf kayak.
Deck starting to come together. Note: tape to protect the rails.
Getting closer.
Rails roughed out.
A veiw of the stern showing the V. Not sure what this will do, but since this is experiment # 1 why not throw in a little V.
Almost ready for glassing.
Post glassing. I went with 4 layers of 6oz S glass on the hull and 4 layers of 6oz E glass on the deck. The goal was to leave as much foam inside as possible and use that to stiffen the kayak.
Starting to remove foam form the sides for my knees. An old fashioned paint scraper works great.
Next: Finish removing foam for my feet and coat the inside with resin, micro ballons and Cab-o-sil. Probably put a layer of core mat under my feet, seat and on the deck - where my knees will go.
Fin boxes laid out and ready to cut. I decided to go with a 10.5 inch center and 8.5 inch sides - probably over kill but it will allow for a greater range of adjustment - since this is a prototype. The toe-in on the side is a little less than 5 deg.
Fin boxes routed out. It's a little scary taking a router and putting 3 big holes in the bottom of your creation.
Fin boxes installed.
Fin boxes cleaned up and covered with 2 layers of glass.
Fins installed - finally starting to look like a surf kayak
Since this whole project is an experiment, I decided to try very little cant on the side fins.
Time for paint and some outfitting.
Painted with a 2 part epozy primer. Good enough for now - no point spending too much time making it look if it's not going to work.
Finally got to surf the boat. It actually floats and surfs... and is very comfortable :)
First impressions:
Surfs much more off the tail than I'm used to.
A bit stiff in 3' waves with 3 fins.
Much better with just a small center fin.
Extra volume makes it float high and nearly impossible to back ender paddling out. (I tried)
Does get pushed around by the foam a bit more - due to the volume.
I need to surf it in some bigger waves before I do any more experiments, afterall the whole point of this boat is to do experiments and learn as much as I can.
The list of planned experiments are:
Chopping about 4" off the tail - next
Move side fins forward - probably
Try quad fins - probably
Put a slight "V" down the whole lenght of the hull - maybe
Build another boat - definitely :)
After another weekend in the boat and on some fun steep waves and several ass kicking, it became very obvious that I had too much volume in the tail. So, I had two choices, just shorten the tail, or keep the lenght and reduce the hump. Well, I did a little of both: I cut about 2" off the tail and reduced the hump. This picture shows the chopped tail and the glass removed, ready for shaping.
A before and after shot showing the shorter, lower volume tail. How much smaller is enough?? I guess there is only one way to find out - reglass and put it back in the water.
Tried an experiment with tinted resin. Didn't work that great, too hard to get consistant color, so I went back to a rattle can..
I'll get it back out in the water this weekend and see how it works, or not ;-)
Works much better now, but still a little stiff going from rail to rail. My guess it's the very wide tail and the fact that there is no rocker through the middle of the hull.
Chopped the tail some more and narrowed it quite a bit. Added around 1/2 inch rocker in the hull and put a fish tail just because.
The result: works pretty good, a little slow but surfs off the tail great.
The last experiment with this version: hollowing out the foam. I did this to help decide which way I was going to build the next version. I decided to go with the method used by Byron and Preston as soon here: http://www.ptone.com/boatbuilding2002/
now on to..... the X-2.