Classes | Cape Falcon Kayak

The last kayak class I taught in person

July 2021September 2022Leave a comment

Today we are celebrating the fifth anniversary of the last kayak building class that I taught in person, which was also the beginning of my video teaching career. For anyone unfamiliar with my story, my health basically collapsed in 2014 after a decades long fight with an undiagnosed illness. I flailed for a few...

Teaching at the NW Maritime Center

March 2014February 20232 Comments

For anyone with an interest in traditional wooden boat building, Port Townsend is one of the last places on the west coast where you can see traditional shipwrights plying their trade. Home to the Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building, The Boat Haven Shipyard, The Northwest Maritime Center, and the Annual Wooden Boat Festival,...

First Class of 2014: A Week at Westwind

February 2014June 2023Leave a comment

Living out here on the rugged Oregon Coast, there are few places that rival my home stretch of sand for sheer beauty, the mile long beach and estuary directly south of Cascade Head is one of them. I first saw this idyllic place when I made the mistake of landing a kayak on the...

building a skin on frame kayak step by step

Step by Step: Kayak Building Class Photo Documentary

August 2012June 2023One Comment

Over the years I’ve begun each class by telling myself, “This time I’ll photograph the whole process.” Usually I don’t make it past the first day before I get absorbed in the teaching and forget the camera. This week I kept my promise and got some good shots, perhaps not all the steps, but...

Building Kayaks at the Northwest Maritime Center: A few photos from the first class of 2012

January 2012June 2023Leave a comment

In the cold and rainy winter my unheated shop is often less than habitable. In these months I often travel to teach. Sometimes the venues are merely satisfactory so it’s a real treat to be able to teach at the Northwest Maritime Center in Port Townsend. Their workshop is beautiful, well equipped, and bustling...

Class paddling skin on frame kayaks off Orcas Island

Winter 2011: Teaching Kayak Building on Orcas Island

January 2011June 2023Leave a comment

During the dark months of each year I need to secure employment to get me through the lean times between December and April. With my unheatable shop hovering at an energy sapping 30 degrees, this usually means travel. This winter I landed a gig building with some friends up on Orcas Island. Here’s a...

Home Sweet Home: My First Class of the Year at the Shop

April 2010June 2023Leave a comment

Traveling affords me an amazing opportunity to see cool places but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that exporting my whole process to remote locations isn’t a heck of a lot of work. I don’t teach here in the winter because it’s yucky outside and cold in the barn. Once spring has sprung...

Tassie, week two

March 2009June 2023Leave a comment

With twenty consecutive work days finished, I took a much needed rest and spent a couple days just staring across the harbor from Tim’s deck… Being an organic farmer myself, I really enjoyed Tim’s backyard garden. Well cared for and not too big, it rewards him and Deirdre with plenty of fresh fruit and...

Kayak building class in Tasmania Australia

Teaching in Tassie: A Kayak Building Adventure on the Wrong Side of the Planet

March 2009June 2023Leave a comment

Before we speak of Tasmania and my misadventures even further down under, first I must confess the shameful tragedy of Sydney. Let me spell it out plainly. On the last day of my class in Sydney, I did a roll and my camera fell out of my sprayskirt tunnel and sank. This being the...

Kayak building in North Carolina

December 2008June 2023Leave a comment

It’s no big secret that I am travel averse. Exporting my class across the country is hard work, and invariably there is some sort of shipping catastrophe. So for the most part I stay at home and try to lure people to the rainforest paradise of the north Oregon Coast. Every year, however, in...

Building Kayaks at the 20th Annual Delmarva Paddlers Retreat

October 2008June 2023Leave a comment

This year I was invited to teach a kayak building workshop to correspond with the 20th anniversary of the Delmarva paddlers retreat at camp arrowhead in Lewes, Delaware. Owing to the stunning incompetence of UPS who lost a crucial box, and then lost the overnight box I shipped to replace it, we had a...

Building Kayaks in Sitka, Alaska

August 2007June 2023Leave a comment

In late July I traveled to Sitka, Alaska to teach kayak building. Jackie and I stayed with Kitty who lives on a nearby island. The daily skiff ride was fun. A half mile walk on a trail led us to the house. Chicken of the woods mushrooms along the trail. and false solomon seal....

Building Kayaks on the East Coast

July 2007June 2023Leave a comment

in June I flew to Maine to teach kayak building there were lots of big, weird moths and we built some kayaks Standard outfitting for the post modern adventurer, ready for a gasoline shortage, or a flood Building kayaks and playing with kayaks Then south to New York for a quick paddle in the...

Building SC-1’s in San Francisco

May 2007June 2023Leave a comment

The Bay Area could be considered the unofficial home of the Mariner Coaster. For chasing short chop in the bay or getting wild with the tide rips underneath the golden gate the Coaster has long been considered the weapon of choice. Original Coasters are lusted after with a fervor that has broken friendships when...

Kayak Class at Valley Forge

January 2007June 2023Leave a comment

….deep into the Pennsylvania winter I was called to action. Kayak students desperately needed someone to lead them after a summer of relentless assault by the British Canoe Union. Privately I feared we could not build an army of Greenland paddlers during the cold and miserable tri-state winter, and when I arrived the cavernous and...