Before I move on to new projects I want to take a couple minutes here to talk about the kayak that I built last week while I was talking about living with ME/CFS.
This design is called the LPB which stands for “long pointy boat,” and at 16’4” it is both longer and pointier than my F1 kayak design. The stupid name I gave to this boat reflects my personal bias towards shorter sea kayaks.
The reality is that unless you are talking about top sprint speeds, a well-designed shorter kayak is always going to be more efficient than a longer one because it has less wetted surface. They are also lighter, easier to build, more maneuverable, and fit better in your garage.
Having said all that, the LPB does have some really nice features as well. It is nearly as maneuverable as my F1, and has excellent secondary stability, but the big difference here is the truly excellent paddling ergonomics. Retaining about 75% of the rough water handling performance of my F1, the slightly higher knee position, shallower cockpit, and narrow width at the knees all combine to let you get the most out of every stroke in an aggressive fitness paddling posture. The long knifing bow eases the volume of the kayak into the water to reduce plowing effects.
Interestingly, the secondary stability on this kayak is equal to and possibly even better than my F1, despite being more than an inch narrower, and just like the F1 it carves a gorgeous edge turn.
One of the huge advantages of building in skin on frame is to be able to size the boat accurately to the user. My F1 kayak design comes in seven different sizes and I’m slowly expanding the LPB to a similar range. I’m especially excited to add the smallest size later this year which will be only 21 inches wide and 20 inches wide at the knees and good for someone from about 100 to 140 pounds. The size shown here is 22 inches wide at the hips and 21 inches wide at the knees and Liz is just a bit small for it at 135 lbs.
I don’t really need this boat personally so I rarely build it for myself, but I’m always surprised by how much I really like being in this kayak. I might actually keep this one for a while.
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