East Greenland kayak build, Day 1, prep work, setting up the deck.
Last week in the shop we built an East Greenland kayak to replace some of our older building course videos with newer, crispier ones. This is a never ending cycle because the kayaks and my teaching methods are always evolving.
This particular kayak is one of my favorites, although probably the least versatile in my lineup. A near replica of plate 89 in Harvey Golden‘s book Kayaks of Greenland, the original is stored in the Greenland National Museum in Nuuk.
This early 20th century hunting kayak is unique in being one of the deepest collected examples of this type, Although deep is a relative term here at 6 3/4 inches to sheer and 8 inches overall. (most modern kayaks have an overall depth of nearly twice that).
Overall dimensions are roughly 18 feet long, 18 1/2 inches wide, and the finished kayak will weigh about 27 pounds.
I’ll talk more about the paddling performance near the end of the series but the broad strokes are: fast, efficient, surprisingly stable for an 18 1/2 inch wide kayak, and a very wet ride in any kind of waves.
The first day of any kayak build for me starts with selecting, cutting and planing the longitudinal wood. Next I lay out the gunwales and use a plunge router to mortise for the deck beams and ribs. After that I bevel the ends of the stringers, and break the sharp edges with a tiny radius plane. There are also some simple forms and jigs to make, although I generally have these sitting around from past builds.
If I have a cockpit coaming sitting around I can usually start setting up the deck the first day, but if not I will usually take a second day to steam bend one, generally making a few at a time to save myself work on other builds.
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