West Greenland Replica Kayak | Cape Falcon Kayak

Video: Surveying our West Greenland kayak

June 2024July 2024Leave a comment

As long as I’ve got two brand new layout tables for the upcoming dinghy build, I thought I’d take advantage of them to survey the new West Greenland kayak that I designed a couple years ago. Unlike our previous boats, which were exact copies of museum specimens, for this boat I allowed myself to...

Luke’s West Greenland kayak

May 2024July 2024Leave a comment

Just wanted to share this lovely West Greenland kayak build from @_easternhorizon_ Luke built our 5% scale up version of this boat and then decided he wanted a little more volume so we drew up a custom 7% scale up for him. Lots of great photos of this and the previous build on his...

Video: Slow motion rolling in a Greenland kayak prototype

July 2023July 2023Leave a comment

While making an update video for our YouTube channel I came across this nice slow motion rolling clip from the Greenland kayak prototyping I was doing last year. I recently changed the way I do prototyping work from finishing kayaks and testing them to just building the frames and then shrink wrapping them for...

On YouTube: Our West Greenland kayak, in detail

July 2022September 2022Leave a comment

After four months of shooting and editing, we just launched the explainer video for the new West Greenland Kayak design on Cape Falcon Kayak YouTube channel. For those of you who didn’t follow the design progression of this kayak, basically I mixed and matched features from all the collected museum examples of early 20th...

Video: Some drone footage of the West Greenland kayak on flat water

May 2022September 2022Leave a comment

Pretty deep in the video editing right now so not a lot of time to work on social media stuff, but here’s a quick raw Skydio drone clip of the new West Greenland design on flat water. Swift, responsive, and comfortable, I am kind of addicted to paddling this thing right now. It’s totally...

Video: testing the West Greenland with a tie on skeg

May 2022July 2023Leave a comment

I’m not sure how much this actually interests anyone but I took the new Greenland design out in wind and waves with the tie on skeg (see post from a couple days ago for details) set in three different positions along the keel, and also just an oversized tall rub strip for comparison. Testing:...

Video: New West Greenland Kayak design on a wind wave

May 2022September 2022Leave a comment

This is our new West Greenland Kayak design on a wind wave. Being low-volume, fine in the bow, and forward weighted, Greenland kayaks are typically not great surfing boats, but this one is a little better than most. Still not great but entertaining on the right wave....

Experiments with tie on skegs

May 2022September 2022Leave a comment

There are tie on skegs associated with some of the historic Greenland kayaks in museums. These can help in challenging crosswind and down wind conditions although they do add noticeable drag. Years ago I experimented with this but found the drag of the strings around the kayak unacceptable. I created a keyhole shaped aluminum...

Building the frame of a west greenland skin kayak

On YouTube: Time lapse of building the West Greenland Kayak

April 2022September 2022Leave a comment

I just posted this seven minute time lapse of building this West Greenland kayak to my YouTube channel. Check it out and enjoy!...

Video: Just a couple easy Greenland rolls and a really bad hand roll

April 2022September 2022Leave a comment

Just a couple easy Greenland rolls and a really bad hand roll attempt from yesterdays filming session. (I’d been on the water for over an hour and was exhausted). This shows pretty clearly both the advantage of a full-size spare Greenland paddle on the front deck and the value of Greenland rolling in general....

Video: Sailing a traditional Greenland kayak

March 2022June 2023Leave a comment

The customer who purchased the recent Greenland kayak had a rather unusual request, he wanted me to make a decorative sail for it. This was oddly serendipitous because I originally modified this kayak for a sail (One of the reasons I added the drop skeg) before realizing that was a BAD IDEA and never...

On YouTube: Rolling a West Greenland kayak

March 2022September 2022Leave a comment

Here’s another chunk of yesterday‘s roll video. The whole thing is posted on our YouTube channel as well (below) which is kind of nice because you play it at it half speed there for a really good view of the different techniques. It also just looks a little better in wide screen. This is...

Video: Some rolls in the West Greenland

March 2022June 2023Leave a comment

Here’s the first part of a longer rolling video I just posted to the Cape Falcon Kayak YouTube channel. This is the same re-rigged West Greenland replica that I talked about yesterday. The combination of the heavy keel, the retrofitted secondary stringers, and the new fitting system, makes rolling this kayak almost like cheating....

Photos of the newly re-rigged CMC-IV-375 West Greenland hunting kayak replica

March 2022September 2022Leave a comment

Just a few more photos of the newly re-rigged CMC-IV-375 West Greenland hunting kayak replica. This early 20th century kayak was a steppingstone in the progression of my most recent West Greenland redesign project. By studying surveys and photographs of the original combined with my own experience of watching kayaks deteriorate for decades I...

Video: Taking the new West Greenland out in wind and waves

March 2022September 2022Leave a comment

One of the many frustrating things about living with a serious chronic illness is not being able to test my boats. Basically my body makes poison instead of energy, so anything beyond five minutes of super gentle paddling can make it impossible to function for weeks. As a former surf / whitewater / race...