King island kayak project

August last year, I was asked by a customer from London to build a King Island style kayak for him. I have already built him a Greenland style kayak and an Aleut style Ixyaq. I rarely build King Island kayaks, but through the years, I have built around 10 of them in slightly different styles. 

It's a challenge to get this scaled right, since the kayaks are short, wide and  has quite a (more or less extreme) V-shaped hull. After a little triel and error, I got a frame put together that looked good, and that I hoped would suit the owner.

Since it's hard to scale it right, I wanted to know for sure before I started working on the cover. So I plastic wrapped the unfinished frame. The hull was finished, I still had lots of work to do on the deck. I loaded it with some extra weight to match the owner and his luggage and tested it on the river.

All worked out pretty good. It was perfect. Keeping the length in mind, it tracked very well. With a slight edging of the hull it would turn 360 degrees with a few paddle strokes. The speed seemed OK too for a kayak this short.

So this week I worked on the cover. The owner's forst choice was heavy canvas. I also made this awesome sea sock that will keep the kayak clean and the kayaker safe.