Cape Falcon Kayak

Test ribbing number one, with white oak and stringers

May 2018September 2022Leave a comment

Test ribbing number one, with white oak, and stringers clamped in place. This boat was disassembled and ribbed a second time with carbonized bamboo, and will ultimately be disassembled entirely to make some design changes to the gunwales. This is what’s so great about skin on frame – it allows for rapid prototyping when...

Bamboo vs Oak

May 2018September 2022Leave a comment

I get a lot of questions about ribbing with bamboo, and for years that’s what I used in my boats. But it was hard for students to get the steep bends needed for the F1, hence the switch to white oak. But this boat doesn’t need such dramatic bends, so we’re doing a trial...

Getting ready to rib this prototype canoe

May 2018September 2022Leave a comment

Getting ready to rib this prototype. My goal here is more than just shape, I’m also looking for an intuitive measurement system that will scale with paddler size, just like for the F1 kayak. ___ This post was originally featured on our Instagram feed. See the original post and discussion here. Follow Cape Falcon...

three skin on frame kayaks mounted on a fence

On YouTube: Our new Kayak Storage Fence

April 2018June 2023Leave a comment

Projects in the works mean these needed to move out of the shop. Enter the new integrated storage fence. Short video on the rack system we developed is up on our YouTube channel now. ___This post was originally featured on our Instagram feed.See the original post and discussion here. Follow Cape Falcon Kayak on...

Check out @shipshapeworks dual F1 build, up on the

April 2018June 2023Leave a comment

Check out Ant from Shipshape Boatworks’s dual F1 build, up on the student builds blog. Lots of photos in his instagram feed as well. As always, loving seeing student builds in progress, and reading about the modifications people choose to make on their boats, and the resources they share for finding materials. Check out...

Cape Falcon Kayak 2017 Late Summer Update: Stealing from God!

August 2017February 20237 Comments

Last update I was fresh off the heels of finishing the kayak building video course, looking forward to the new year. Videos were selling, I’d made a little sailboat, life was OK. Then winter came, and with it the full terrifying force of the chronic illness I’ve been fighting for the last few years....

skin on frame kayak building class in rome new york

Beating to Weather

November 2016June 20234 Comments

So let’s start this update off with the big news first. The Cape Falcon Kayak instructional video courses are now online at cape-falcon-kayak.thinkific.com. Years in the making, these courses include six hours of free videos and over ten hours of video instruction available for purchase. Complimenting these videos are seven, seventeen page downloadable PDF...

Same Thing We Do Every Day Pinky, Try to Take Over the World

July 2016June 202320 Comments

Picking up where we left off last update, my medical situation is still pretty dark. Neuropathy, heart pain, dysautonomia, and a whole host of awful unexplained symptoms. I’ve never been one of these anti-allopathic medicine people, but as a very sick person I’m continually shocked at just how badly the American medical system fails...

skin on frame adirondack guideboat on van

Cape Falcon Kayak 2016 Update

March 2016February 202320 Comments

For almost a year this little grey update box has sat empty while my email inbox has steadily filled with people wondering if I’ve dropped off the proverbial waterfall at the edge of the planet. The truth is, my health situation has been pretty rough lately and I’ve been quietly hoping things would improve...

Looking Forward

July 2015June 20238 Comments

With the help of some friends, over July 4th weekend I finished clearing out the last of the barn. Selling all my kayaks, moving all my tools to various locations. After 15 years of building a kayak business and an organic farm in this beautiful little town on the edge of the Pacific ocean, I’m sure...

Saying goodbye to the shop

April 2015June 202325 Comments

Well, fuck it. I suppose that’s not a very professional way to start a post, but by all measures 2013-2015 shall hereby be known as the years that stuffed my whole life into a food processor and hit: Puree. There’s no easy way to say this so I might as well have out with...

mini skin on frame adirondack guideboat on the water

Adirondack Guide Boat, mini

April 2015February 20238 Comments

Of all the things I build, the Adirondack Guide Boat is by far the most beautiful. Constructed in skin-on-frame that natural lines are even more mesmerizing. Far from the simple construction of a kayak, I like to joke that guide boats are “dangerously close to real boat building.” The work is precise and time consuming,...

Flowers in the Valley of Darkness

January 2015June 202313 Comments

For those of you who haven’t read my last blog entry, I recently went public about an undiagnosed illness that I’ve been battling from for the last 3 years. Finally admitting that my pain and disability levels were greater than I could continue to hide, and that I needed help both emotionally and financially...

The Hardest Update I’ve Ever Written

November 2014February 202342 Comments

Here on November 18th, 2014, just a little over a month shy of my 40th birthday, I want to be writing about how this has been an amazing year. I want to tell you about how the off-grid Airstream project is coming along beautifully, with plans to add a mobile version of the Japanese...

The Off-grid Airstream, the Adventure Begins

July 2014June 20235 Comments

The plan is to give this thing a floor to fuselage off-grid, green remodel and then tow it around the country teaching kayak building for a year and meeting and writing about people living similar small homestead and/or off-grid lifestyles. For those of you interested in hosting a class, all I need is 4-6 willing...