A New Siskiwit Bay SOF Hits the Water

A new Siskiwit Bay skin-on-frame kayak has hit the water. This one was built by Daryl W.. He built this sea kayak starting in December and had it on the water for saran wrap tests by the start of February. He used undyed white nylon to finish the kayak. For the challenging bottom chines, he used the wet towel, and hot iron method and he reported that it worked well.

He wrote me:

I used a white pigment from Corey’s, in their urethane on the ballistic nylon. Time will tell what the UV does to the white but New Zealand is the place to test it with our extreme UV. Frame is cedar, some new and some recycled weather boards! Frames are okuma. Fully lashed, no screws, a few dowels. Only used glue on the scarf joints. Not sure what it weighs but it’s easy to carry and load on and off the car.

My rocker profile came out a bit weird so I added a bit to the keel so it probably has less rocker than than the plans show. Seems ok, fine for the relatively calm flat water paddling I do – tracks nicely.

After a few days, he sent the following:

Well, today was a good test. 4 hours out in open water. Mostly nice and calm but a bit of a wind and choppy on the back. I have to say it’s a great kayak. I’m super impressed now. It’s almost effortless to paddle to sea kayak touring speeds, felt like I was doing nothing paddling with my colleagues. Behaved really well in the wind, didn’t feel like I was struggling to keep it going in a straight line. I have to admit it was good enough that maybe I don’t need to build another one for a while!

The thought did occur to me that I could do some overnight trips in this with careful packing.
Very happy with it :-)

I’m happy that he liked the design. If you’ve built one and want to be featured, send me your experience and photos. I’d love to post your story.

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