Student Builds | Cape Falcon Kayak

Gus’s hoop house made from leftover kayak ribs

March 2020September 2022Leave a comment

In addition to boat building my other big passion is sustainable agriculture. Props to Gus here for combining the two and using the leftover wood from his kayak build as a frame to cover his seedlings in the early season. Much nicer than mine which I just made of hoops of bailing wire!...

Lisa’s East Greenland kayak build

March 2020September 2022Leave a comment

I love the elegance of this photo shared by Lisa, a student of mine who built an F1 in 2018 and is now working her way through ALL of the Cape Falcon designs. We offer a $75 discount on our plans/video package for anyone who is willing to post a blog of their build...

Guenter’s carbon fiber F1 kayak

January 2020September 2022Leave a comment

When Guenter, an engineer from Austria, proposed building a carbon fiber framed F1, I told him he was crazy. A few months later he sent me these pictures and a full PDF of how he built it. The finished kayak weighs 20 pounds, took 80 hours to build, and cost him $750 to make!...

A few more shots from the F1 Max and Kamilla built for the school in Tiilerilaaq

January 2020July 2023Leave a comment

A few more shots from the F1 Max and Kamilla built for the school in Tiilerilaaq, a small village in Tasiilaq East Greenland – more details in the last post. From Kamilla: “The whole idea was that the kayak belongs to the school and will be used by pupils to learn paddling. Max has...

Building an F1 kayak in East Greenland

January 2020July 2023Leave a comment

Here’s another build from 2019 that we were fortunate to be a part of. Max, the school headmaster in Tiilerilaaq, a small village in Tasiilaq East Greenland, reached out wanting to build F1 kayaks for the students at his school to use. Traditional kayaking has been extinct there for many years and they wanted...

One last post from the Paddlesports Design class

January 2020September 2022Leave a comment

One last post from the Paddlesports Design class at James Madison University. We had a few folks ask about the blue-teal-green gradient that student @zach.morrison_design was able to achieve. Zach was kind enough to let us share his time lapse of the dye process. The three different colors of acid dye were applied at...

More photos from the Paddlesports Design class

January 2020September 2022Leave a comment

More photos from the Paddlesports Design class at James Madison University — the students taking their boats out onto the water for a first paddle. One of things that is so cool about using skin on frame to teach industrial design is that it is that you’re literally skinning a frame, and with so...

Check out the boats built by JMU’s Paddlesports Design class

January 2020September 2022Leave a comment

Happy 2020 everyone! We took a bit of an instagram hiatus in 2019 to build the @actuallytiny house but are back in action here at Cape Falcon. So many amazing things happened in the Cape Falcon world last year so we want to share some of the highlights while we gear up to get...

Congratulations to Claire on finishing her 1200 mile 110 day source-to-sea journey in her F1 kayak

October 2019September 2022Leave a comment

Congratulations to Claire Dibble who just finished her 1200 mile 110 day source-to-sea journey down the Columbia River in a Cape Falcon F1 kayak that she built. Claire is an accomplished artist, photographer and adventurer. To see photographs, maps, and an explanation of the purpose and concept of the trip visit her website: watershedmoments.art...

Some of our favorite skin-on-frame photos: Tom’s F1 in Lake Powell

July 2019September 2022Leave a comment

We’re sharing some of our favorite skin-on-frame photos from the last 15 years while we build the tiny house. (Check out @actuallytiny). Tom paddles his F1 kayak through the sandstone moonscape of Lake Powell. Whether it’s days on the Green River through Canyonlands National Park or lower down on Lake Powell, paddling through slick...

Paddling the Columbia River from source to sea in an F1 kayak

July 2019September 2022Leave a comment

I am proud to share that artist and photographer Claire Dibble has begun her 1200 mile source-to-sea voyage on the Columbia River in a Cape Falcon F1 Kayak she built herself. Below I have copied text from her website explaining the details and the purpose of the journey in her own words. You can...

Seeing the first student-built canoes hit the water

June 2019July 2023Leave a comment

After spending all of 2018 designing a new type of skin-on-frame canoe building system, it’s very cool to see the first on the water photos showing up. My usual process for designing a class of boats is to work on it in my shop for about five years then release plans. It seems like...

Some of our favorite skin-on-frame photos: Ryc and Mona in their F1 kayaks

June 2019September 2022Leave a comment

We’re sharing some of our favorite skin-on-frame photos from the last 15 years while we build the tiny house. (Check out @actuallytiny). It’s strange to be old enough now to have a real sense of the passage of time. I took this picture of my friends Ryc and Mona Over 10 years ago in...

Nick’s dazzle-patterned F1 kayak

May 2019September 2022Leave a comment

Wanted to share some photos of this super cool F1 paint job done by wooden boat builder Nick Gates in the UK. The pattern was inspired by WWI “dazzle camouflage” which purportedly made it harder for submariners to target enemy ships. It’s not clear how long paint will stick to the polyurethane, so it...

Peter’s F2 kayak

April 2019September 2022Leave a comment

One of the most gratifying things about my job is watching the boats getting built all over the world. Peter in Southern Australia (in his 70’s) built himself an F1 last year and his wife loved it so much that he built her one as well. This year he built a tandem so they...